Local history: Akron burlesque star Kiki Arnold was the ‘stripper’s stripper’

Performing a striptease act can get a little monotonous. It’s always the same old grind.

Akron burlesque star Kiki Arnold tried to mix things up onstage, alternating between the shimmy strip, the can-can strip, the rumba strip, the parade strip and the character strip.

“I can isolate any muscle in my body, and twitch it,” she once explained. “They call me the stripper’s stripper because the other girls come to see me work.”

But even she had to blush after performing her routine before a judge. She realized in the middle of a shimmy that the act was too much … or too little.

It started out innocently enough.

The Akron native was born Dorothy Streicher, the daughter of Victor and Dorothy Streicher, in 1918, 1919 or possibly 1920. She always was a little coy about her birthdate.

Her father was a machinist and her mother was a homemaker. Tension filled the family’s home on West Thornton Street.

In 1923, Mama sued Papa for neglect, saying he spent most of his time in a public swimming pool with other girls while she stayed home with their two small children.

“He may straighten up and be a good man, but it will be for some other woman, perhaps, but not me,” she told Judge H.C. Spicer.

Mama kissed Papa goodbye after Spicer sentenced the fellow to a year in the city workhouse. The judge told her that she should have just clubbed her husband with a hickory stick.

After Papa served his time, the couple reconciled and the family moved to Ira Avenue, but there was no fairy-tale ending. The Streichers eventually divorced. No swimming pools were mentioned.

Kiki Arnold takes the stage

Little Dorothy quit high school at age 13 to join a dancing school in Akron, and she proved to be quite a hoofer.

“I went professional when I was 15 because my friends said I ought to,” she recalled.

She adopted the stage name Kiki Arnold. One of her early gigs was performing a hula dance in an all-girl revue in 1937 at Moonlight Gardens in Massillon. Later, she switched to a veil dance. Later still, a fan dance.

The nearly 6-foot redhead was crowned the B.F. Goodrich queen during a United Rubber Workers of America picnic at Geauga Lake Park in 1939.

“Hail to the new queen of beauty,” the Beacon Journal reported.

During World War II, the dancer worked at Firestone and lifted weights to keep fit.

“I lifted 2,000 35-pound tire rims a night,” she recalled. “Even the men couldn’t do that.”

After a short-lived marriage to a future Akron cop, Kiki Arnold’s burlesque career really took off.

Famous clubs welcome star

She headlined shows at the Cinderella Club in New York, the 2 O’Clock Club in Baltimore and Club Boulevard in St. Louis. In an act that she described as “interpretative choreography,” she wore flashy costumes, danced to live music, belted out torch songs and gradually disrobed, disappearing behind a curtain before revealing too much charm.

Nightclub owners billed her as “The Nation’s Sensation,” “The Gorgeous Giantess,” “Broadway’s Ball of Fire” and “A Pip of a Peeler.”

Arnold made national headlines in 1946 at the Cat & Fiddle in Cincinnati when she criticized the reigning Mr. America for complaining that U.S. girls were too thin.

Chicago bodybuilder Alan Stephan reportedly had told an interviewer: “It’s no fun making love to a bundle of bones.”

An incensed Arnold replied to him through the media:

“In reference to your disparaging remarks about American womanhood, I take it upon myself to challenge you in their defense to a wrestling match.

“I am not scrawny, my posture is of the finest and there is nothing wrong with my complexion.

“This match can be arranged if you will come to Cincinnati.”

Mr. America wisely chose not to show up at the Cat & Fiddle.

Shimmying around Akron

Home in Summit County, Arnold headlined the Canteen Nite Club in Barberton, the Musical Bar in Akron and the Elias Nite Club in Manchester. Performing two or three shows a night, she entertained a lot of newly returned veterans.

In fact, she wed a former U.S. Army sergeant, although the marriage didn’t last long.

In 1948, she enjoyed a 35-week run at the Musical Bar.

“The management had given Kiki Arnold two weeks’ vacation but Akron wouldn’t stand for it, so Kiki will reopen tonight,” the South Main Street club advertised.

Cleveland nightclub owner Norman Khoury lost his liquor license in 1948 after state agents charged him with operating indecent shows. Arnold was among 10 dancers accused of stripping down to brassieres and pantels (described as pieces of cloth covering a performer’s hips) while undercover officers were in the audience.

What was the crime?

“They threw the middle and upper portions of their bodies back and forth in a manner commonly known as the bumps,” Detective John Lyons testified.

Oh, no. Not the bumps!

Exotic dance before a judge

Arnold’s next run-in with the law made news again.

After being charged with public indecency in 1952 at the Swing Club in Rochester, New York, the showgirl pleaded innocent and volunteered to perform her routine for a judge to prove that she had done nothing wrong.

Rochester Municipal Judge James F. Sheehan sat stone-faced at a green-draped table while Arnold took the stage before a small audience of club workers, court personnel, police officers and newspaper reporters.

“The show began with the bouncy, well-amplified ricky-tick of Frankie Nan’s swing trio, and presently the redheaded, statuesque defendant, dressed in something black, rhinestone-studded and low-slung, stepped into the spotlight from a door marked by a two-foot star,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reporter Steve Hammer wrote. “Carried away by the spectacle, her friends out front gave her a brief ovation, then apparently remembered His Honor’s presence and remained silent for the rest of the show.”

While singing “I’ve Got What It Takes,” Arnold took off a fringe skirt, large hat, gloves, bodice and halter to reveal a star-spangled bra, briefs and net tights. At the end of the act, she sheepishly wiggled offstage.

A stripper repents

Arnold returned 15 minutes later in a modest blue suit and acknowledged that she was a little embarrassed.

“I was so nervous I forgot to take off my bra, which I usually do in the act,” she told the judge.

That made her think that maybe the police had it right. The act was indecent, she said, and she needed to modify it.

“I’d like to change my plea to guilty,” Arnold said.

The judge fined her $50 and noted that he hadn’t seen anything wrong with the act that she had presented.

Arnold retired from burlesque that year. She gave up shimmying and took a correspondence course to finish her high school education. She married the vending machine king of Rochester, settled down in New York and welcomed a son.

Once known as “The Nation’s Sensation” and “The Gorgeous Giantess,” she happily faded into obscurity.

Kiki Arnold is no longer with us. She passed away in 2014 at age 93, 94 or possibly 95. She always was a little coy about her birthdate.

Akron’s burlesque star took her final bow and left the spotlight forever.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron burlesque star Arnold blushed while doing routine for judge