Shortly after 7 p.m. one recent weekday night, Rose Marie Black strolled into the White Castle at 79th Street and Stony Island Avenue in a hip-hugging black Ultrasuede skirt with tassels, knee-high black boots, an extra wide brim hat covered with black and white cowhide and a matching blouse, cracked enough to reveal her brassiere made with real bullets.
Children snickered, believing her to be crazy.
Women whispered, wondering if she was a prostitute.
Men gawked, wondering if their eyes were deceiving them as they scanned her 44-28-38 figure.
Black ignored the stares and reactions and headed directly to her favorite seat in the restaurant.
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Rose Marie Black made her name and made her living disrobing, but it has been clothing that has made her happy.
As a girl growing up in the Mississippi Delta, she learned how to sew to keep from having to wear hand-me-down outfits.
As a stripper, she never takes it all off, because the most important part of her act is to seduce her audience slowly as she discards part of her clothing.
And now that she’s in semi-retirement, her wild clothes are her signature.
Black is one of the city’s most colorful characters.
Because she now performs infrequently, she is known as the lady in the big hats who wears the tight-fitting, eccentric costumes of the old burlesque era everywhere she goes.
“I’m weird; I like weird things,” said Black, a 62-year-old great-grandmother who has been married for 29 years. “There is one thing the good Lord does for all of us: He gives us a talent whether we like it or not.”
Late in life, she is a local legend. When many women her age shun wearing bathing suits, she still strips. There is a further irony here: Her fame is coming not from what she does inside clubs like the New Dating Game Lounge on the city’s South Side–she performs only a few times a year now–but for what she does outside of them.
After seeing her for the first time in her outfits, observers often ask: Who is she? What does she do for a living? The answers are not always kind.
Her critics, she said, do not faze her.
“I consider it a compliment, because it means I am not following the crowd,” Black said. “I don’t care what people think of me; it is what I think of myself.”
Most evenings, she can be found at White Castle. There, she orders a cup of coffee, reads her newspapers and gathers with friends, who talk about old times and current events and listen to “dusties” on the radio.
She is also a regular at the Sportsman’s Park and Hawthorne Race Course, where patrons have dubbed her “Racetrack Rosie.” Awed by her dazzling attire and bubbly personality, some horse owners invite her to join them in the winner’s circle.
Black loves the spotlight, which included a moment on “Oprah” on July 12, 1988, when she wore a purple polka dot petticoat dress with matching hat, shoes and umbrella, and a brief mention in Michael Jackson’s 1988 book, “Moonwalk,” in which Jackson recalled his childhood days performing in Chicago clubs that featured strippers.
Her career was launched in 1953 when Sally Rand reigned as the queen of strippers. But Black’s rise to stardom was limited in part because, as an African-American, she was barred from performing in most big-time clubs.
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One recent night at White Castle, she engaged two young women in conversation.
“What’s the greatest thing in life?” Black asked one. Brenda Clay responded, “Good health.” Black shook her head in disagreement and said, “Peace of mind. When you’ve got peace of mind, you are able to take the bitter with the sweet.”
Minutes later, Clay and her friend, Cynthia Harris, were sitting next to the gregarious and loquacious Black. First, they inquired about Black’s wardrobe. Later, they listened attentively, absorbing her wisdom.
“She is different than what I thought she was,” said Clay who first noticed Black in her big hats five years ago on Stony Island Avenue.
In fact, Clay acknowledged there are things she admires about Black.
“I like the way you walk, like, `I know I’m bad,’ ” Clay said.
Old-timers like Harold Harris, a retired school teacher and former candy store owner who is a regular at the White Castle, remember Black when she was a teenager and later when she regularly danced on the South Side. Black was a knockout then and remains a knockout today, Harris said.
“A lot of people are shocked because she dresses so different; a lot of young ladies laugh at her,” said Harris, 67. “But they are not used to seeing people dress, as a rule. They are used to wearing jeans. She comes in with a dress on, all different kinds, all different colors, polka dots, ruffles.”
Black has been fond of clothes since she was a child growing up in Summit, Miss. She lived next door to a seamstress, who used to design pretty clothes for her.
Dressing up in lavish costumes became Black’s way to escape the poverty and her troubled and unstable childhood. Her mother died when Black was 8. In 1946, at the age of 12, she moved to Chicago to live with older brothers. Unfortunately they were unable to provide adequate care for her, so she ended up in the state’s foster care system, living briefly with a family in Winnetka who enrolled her temporarily in New Trier High School.
By the time she turned 16, she could sew anything she wanted without a pattern. Three years later, she was designing revealing costumes for her stage acts.
Black always wanted to be an entertainer. She hung around nightclubs to be close to stars.
At Club Delisa, at 55th and State streets, she met a tall, glamorous dancer named Venus LaDoll. After studying LaDoll’s routine a few times, Black was convinced that she had just as much talent. LaDoll taught her some sexy moves. That was all Black needed to win a dance contest at the Club Evergreen at North Avenue and Clybourn Street. Over the years, she added different gimmicks to her act.
Although she was denied a place on the stage with greats like Rand, Black became a star on the black circuit, performing across the United States with entertainers such as Nipsey Russell, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and B.B. King.
But her dreams of making it big came to an end in the late 1970s.
“She was her own agent; that could have possibly been her downfall,” said Black’s oldest daughter, Linda Doss, a gym teacher in a Chicago school who briefly followed in her mother’s footsteps as an exotic dancer. (Black was outspoken and possibly talked herself out of contracts). “But as strong-willed as she is, I don’t know of an agent who would have put up with her very long.”
Black cited other reasons her career hit a roadblock: She refused to mix business with pleasure–no dating agents or club owners–and she demanded to be paid in salary not tips.
“The newer dancers, they would work cheaper, and they would strip,” said Black, who says she refused to dance nude or allow men to touch her.
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Today, Black is lucky to dance two times a year. Retirement, however, is out of the question. This career not only helped her support a husband and three daughters, but it gives her a zest for life. Meanwhile, she maintains a strict diet, remains active and she still sews, so should the opportunity arrive, she can show off her wardrobe, which includes dozens of outfits, shoes, hats and umbrellas stored neatly in several rooms of her South Shore home.
One of those costumes was on display at the New Dating Game Lounge one recent Sunday night.
To the tune of James Brown’s soul hit, “I Feel Good,” Black steps onto the dimly lit stage near the four-piece jazz band and starts peeling layers of the sensuous red clothing from her full-figured body.
She shakes her hips and jiggles her chest, causing the long silver-blue tassels attached to her bra to twirl like a fan. She slides onto a chair, lifts a red lace negligee just above her waist and places a light bulb between her thighs. The bulb lights up.
Laughter erupts from the audience of mostly middle-age couples gathered for a birthday party.
Among those who caught her act were several old-timers. They said she might not be as nimble when she steps on bar counters, or kicks a leg in the air, but she looks good for her age.
“Rose Marie is a fabulous dancer; she is like a classic in Chicago,” said Steven Carter, the publisher of Night Circles magazine, which chronicles entertainment in Chicago’s black clubs. “She is the only dancer that the racetrack had a day for. And she has been fabulously dressed for the 40 years I have known her.”
