Lili St. Cyr

You could argue Lili St. Cyr was the Lady Gaga of her time—that’s a compliment, by the way. Though she wasn’t a musician, St. Cyr was brash and confident, elevating her raw, untamed sexuality into a kind of burlesque-inspired artform. Like Gaga, she also changed her name after high school (from Willis Marie Van Schaack) and unapologetically sought fame and fortune. “What’s the use of being beautiful,” she once said, “if you can’t profit from it?” And profit she did: At the peak of her career in the forties and fifties, St. Cyr earned nearly $7,000 a week, and even (allegedly) inspired Marilyn Monroe. Her most famous performance involved taking a bubble bath on stage, earning an indecent exposure charge in 1951. Scandal, as always, only helped fuel the hype, and St. Cyr quickly became one of America’s most famous (and infamous) showgirls, even enjoying a brief fling with director Orson Wells. She proved too much for Citizen Kane, however, and many other men, too, marrying six times before her death in 1999.