Australian burlesque legend, Velvet Amour, tittilated and teased her fans on the stage for more than 26 years.
It’s a life the 69-year-old said she couldn’t have imagined as a young girl growing up in Western Australia.
The eloquent Miss Amour told FEMAIL that before she was discovered at 21, she’d been working as a motel chef after a car accident changed everything.
Velvet Amour (pictured) began dancing as a 21-year-old after a car accident radically altered her life
She shared her incredible story with FEMAIL, including how she came to dancing
Recalling the event, the Queensland-based Miss Amour said she had been ‘flying’ up Mt Clarence when her car shot over the guardrail.
The accident wrote off her car, and left the top of her thumb sliced off, and though she was treated at the local hospital, gangrene later set.
‘I needed an operation to scrape the bone. Doctors said that if the gangrene had got too deep, I might have to lose my hand,’ she continued.
Mis Amour’s first costume was made from lime green chiffon curtains she had hanging in her caravan
She said how she had been spotted by a woman she knew when she was bored and dancing by herself at a pub
The operation was a success and her hand was saved. No longer able to work, Miss Amour, bored and recovering from surgery, said she would take herself down to the local pub to dance – alone.
She said a woman she knew approached her and commented how beautifully she danced, before asking her to be her opening act at her club.
Miss Amour said burlesque wasn’t something she knew anything about; she’d grown up on a remote farm and her parents were both religious.
Miss Amour didn’t really know anything about the world of burlesque having grown up on a farm in remote Western Australia
‘After I was approached I just raced home. I didn’t have any money but I did have beautiful lime green chiffon curtains in my caravan,’ she explained.
‘So I ripped them all down an made them into seven veils and prettied up underwear to make it all shiny and gorgeous.
‘It turned out to be such a beautiful costume,’ she added.
Miss Amour said she was terrified and ‘shaking in my boots’ the first time she stepped on to the stage, but she received an incredible reaction from her audience.
She said though she’d had a difficult childhood, performing helped her to feel more empowered
‘You could hear a pin drop when I performed. And at the end the applause was phenomenal. People just loved me.’
‘The confidence came very quickly for me because I was very good at what I did. I was a beautiful performer.
‘I was meant to be on the stage.’
Regaling tales of her colourful past, Miss Amour told FEMAIL about the first time she was asked to perform topless.
Her career as a dancer took her all over Australia and to other parts of the world
‘A club owner called Big Daddy Don Martin wanted me to perform at his club in Perth,’ she said.
‘But first I had to prove myself by performing for him and a business partner.’
‘When I finished he said to me “That was beautiful. We love it but you have to take your bra off”.’ And I said “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that!”.’
Miss Amour shared how she had pinned her hopes on the potential break, driving to Perth with her four-year-old in tow, for the audition.
The glamorous Miss Amour revealed attitudes towards burlesque have changed since its revival
‘We’d slept in the car, we had no money and nowhere to go, and when he [Don Martin] said that I thought about it for about five minutes I said “okay”.’
Although the dancer has performed all over Australia, and in some parts of the world, her life wasn’t without its struggles.
Miss Amour touched on how a difficult childhood had affected her but said performing helped her to get past this.
‘Burlesque was my revenge. It was what made me an incredible performer.
The performer hung up her pasties and feather boas at 48-years-old
‘Being up on stage and being beautiful and being adored by fans gave me power.’
Although Miss Amour hung up her pasties and feather boas when she was 48, she still pulls a crowd with her comedy act.
Additionally, with the revival of burlesque in the last 10 years, she’s been sought out as a teacher by women who want to learn the art.
While Miss Amour said she was happy to teach, she did admit today’s approach toward the performance style was markedly different.
‘Burlesque has changed a lot. The [burlesque] girls of today have a tendency to take the attitude that it doesn’t matter what size you are or what you look like.’
At the height of her fame, Miss Amour was considered Australia’s Queen of burlesque
‘In our day if you weren’t perfect, or absolutely drop-dead gorgeous or had a great act, you couldn’t get work.’
Recently Miss Amour has added author to her many achievements with her new book My Bare Lady set for release.
Miss Amour has written a book detailing her colourful life (pictured)
The memoir, which chronicles her colourful life, took the grandmother-of-two seven years to write.
‘I had to learn to write, I went to many writers conventions. And now I can call myself a writer because I know how to write,’ she said.
After finishing the book, she ‘sat on it’ for another three years before finding the courage to get it published.
‘I thought for $29.99 everyone would know everything about me, and I was a very, very private woman,’ she said.
‘It took me all that time to process it and think who cares what anybody reads or thinks of me.’
‘In the end, I thought “to hell with it”. I don’t care anymore,’ she concluded.
Miss Amour’s book My Bare Lady is available for pre-order via her website comedygrams.com.au