Meet Miss Virginia Kinn, PM Daily, Photo by Bernie Aumuller, April 13, 1947

Virginia Kinn is a 23-year-old burlesque stripteaser. When she’s in the metropolitan area, she has to play across the river at the Hudson Theater, Union City, or the Empire Theater in Newark because of the local license regulations. “Being in burlesque is like just like any other job,” she said. “As far as own time, we live like anybody else lives – we eat and we sleep. A lot of people have the wrong impression. They think we’re freaks or something…


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 11, 1947


Mike Wallace Asks, Simon and Schuster, 1958
A transcript of the “real” interview indicates that perhaps Weegee and Wallace didn’t have a great rapport; didn’t really like each other very much… This printed version is much edited, and is the only interview of about 50, where Wallace asks one question, and the interviewee rambles on for the entire chapter…
Although it’s only a page long, it’s a great page (a few excerpts: edited edits):

WALLACE: Weegee, you used to be the top murder photographer in the country. Why did you quit?

WEEGEE: Murder, Incorporated went out of business. I used to be the official photographer for Murder, Incorporated. I used to have one a night… I advised the boys on taste…
Murder’s not anything anymore. In the old days Murder, Incorporated, had a garage in Brooklyn… they’d teach them the trade, teach them how to shoot and so on. Train ’em like feudal craftsmen. They made a fine art of it. Each murder was better than the one previous.
But murder has gone out of style. It’s a different trend. Everything is organized these days. Instead of fighting with each other, they call a meeting They’re executives. You know what a an executive is? A guy that doesn’t eat in cafeterias. Today, it’s all organization and efficiency. They don’t need an artist like me anymore…. I’ve changed too. I used to go to Sammy’s on the Bowery. I had my own table… The younger generation is making a mockery of the fine art of murder.

Perhaps the Lili St. Cyr interview is a little more typical…


PM Daily, (Photo by Bernie Aumuller), April 10, 1947
Here’s Myra Keck, otherwise Miss Pin-up of 1947, in a pose comparable to that of Bellini’s long-lost painting Venus and the Cherub (that’s in the background). The painting, not Miss Keck, will be shown at the antique Fair. It’s on display now at the Rothschild studio, 119 W. 57th St.