Thanks once again (and thanks daily) to Eve Golden, Cup Bearer to Thanatos, for the sad yet timely knowledge that Spanish burlesque legend Sticky Vicky, a.k.a. Vicky Leyton, a.k.a. Victoria María Aragüés Gadea (1943-2023) has exited the stage, leaving a pile of pungent props behind her.
Vicky was from a musical family: grandmother an opera singer, mother a musical theatre performer, father a musician in military bands (which were surely well employed in Franco's Spain). She herself studied ballet for 15 years. She toured for several years in a dance act with her sister Chantal, who later became a contortionist.
As fans of Saturday Night Live know, Dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975. The fall of his brand of Fascist rule meant new freedom for Spanish entertainers. Suddenly the pressure was on for performers to be as outre as humanly possible. To get bookings, Vicky had to tack with the times. She became an adult dancer and moved to the seaside resort town of Benidorm. It was there that she became famous for a gimmick that had been suggested to her by a magician -- she pulled things out of her hoo-hah. Oh, first easy things like handkerchiefs and sausages, then harder things like eggs and ping pong balls, all the way up to more obviously dangerous items like machetes, razor blades and an illuminated light bulb. For the big finish she opened a beer bottle with her lips (not the ones on her face). Why, it was just like The Vagina Monologues -- without the monologues! British tourists were especially fond of the act, hence her Anglicized stage name.
Vickie performed this routine as late as 2015, when she was 72. Her daughter, María Gadea Aragüés, has carried on with her mother's stage act under the same professional name since then. Thus, as with Marie Laveau, did the magic survive the fall of the priestess. If I ever find myself in the Spanish Mediterranean, I know just what I want to see first.
For a terrific article about both generations of Sticky Vicky, go here and scroll down.
For more on show business history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.
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