Words by Roxy Bourdillon
In this week’s Trailblazers Of Tease, writer, showgirl historian and managing editor of DIVA magazine, Roxy Bourdillon, shares the incredible story of game-changing burlesque superstar, Fannie Annie.
A vision in royal blue sequins, Big Fannie Annie is six foot two, six seven if you count the heels and bouffant.
She’s fabulous, filthy and, as her tagline declares, “450 pounds of pure sizzling sex”.
This burlesque queen mixes bump and grind with risqué banter. She struts, twirls her big, fuck-off feather boa, and, when the mood strikes, grabs a guy’s face and buries it in her cleavage. She lets him up for air, yanks both tatas out of her gown and twitches them in turn like she’s flexing her biceps. And then, jugs still on display, she purrs into the phallic microphone: “What did the hurricane say to the coconut tree?” A perfectly timed pause. “Hold on to your nuts, big boy. This ain’t gonna be no ordinary blow job.” The finale to her extraordinary act? She summons a delighted fan onstage, pushes him onto the floor, lifts her dress and slowly lowers herself down towards his face.
As you can probably tell by now, Fannie Annie was a force of nature.
With her comedic talents, dance prowess and irresistible sex appeal, she was the living, gyrating, potty-mouthed proof that erotic entertainers come in all shapes and sizes.
In an interview on the Burlesque On Air radio show she recalls, “A lot of the girls didn’t understand my popularity, but see, when I started I was the first original. I was the first person to ever be obese and dance. In my day if you were five pounds overweight they’d say, ‘You can’t work here’. So when I came along I opened the door for all girls, all body shapes.”
For her whole life, Fannie Annie was either basking in a spotlight or hanging out very near one. Born Christie Wilson on 3rd May 1952, she grew up in a small town near Seattle and began working at a family friend’s carnival aged 12. Initially she sold tickets and served snacks, but then she was given an exciting new responsibility: guarding a tent to stop chancers sneaking in without paying. Inside that tent was the legendary Sally Rand. Marvelling as she twirled her feather fans oh-so-seductively, young Christie longed to be a glamorous burlesque star some day too.
In just a few years, her wish would come true. By the time she was 18, she was performing in a girlie show as Fannie Annie. She adored the extravagant costumes and the fact that although she was ridiculed for her size in public, as an erotic dancer the crowd didn’t just accept her, they embraced her.
Far from letting societal prejudices hold her back, she made her bountiful figure her unique selling point.
In interviews “the world’s fattest stripper” liked to casually mention that she was “12.5 on the Richter scale” and had “to go through revolving doors twice to clear them”.
An expert at audience interaction, Fannie Annie had an extensive repertoire of tricks from perching on people’s laps to asking their favourite sexual position. Her cheeky shenanigans and abundant curves won her hordes of “goo-goo eyed” admirers, who queued up to meet her and showered her with gifts and love letters.
Making the most of the attention, Fannie Annie found innovative ways to earn extra cash. For $10 she let fans take photos holding her knockers. She sold branded T-shirts and comedy albums. And if you had a spare $1000, you could purchase a pair of her panties. As her fame and fanbase grew, she started acting, racking up credits including TV classic Miami Vice and the 1981 film Porkys.
Now a stripteasing superstar, her one-woman show played at Miami’s Follies International Showroom for over a decade. She continued performing well into her sixties and was even honoured at the Burlesque Hall Of Fame in Las Vegas.
Fannie Annie’s dazzling charms helped her find love too. The story of how she met her Chippendale husband Tony is like a fairytale, if fairytales were X-rated raunchfests. “When he came in, he wasn’t that interested. He thought I was a bit naughty… By the end of the night, I had him eating out of my hand. I said, ‘Well, you can screw me tonight, but you’ve gotta leave in the morning, honey. I got a photoshoot’. But he never left.”
In a newspaper interview she reveals the secret to her success: “I’ve always said, ‘To hell with the world, I’ll do what pleases me’… I wanted to be a dancer and I didn’t let any obstacles get in my way.”
In true Fannie Annie style, let’s make the finale of this article spectacularly rude. So here’s a joke right out of her act. Look away now if you’re easily offended. Still with me? Good.