Rusty Warren (March 20, 1930 – May 25, 2021) was an American comedian and singer, specializing in sex-related themes and such songs as "Bounce Your Boobies" and "Knockers Up!"
In a time when comedy was considered to be a “boys club”, Warren was one of the few female comedians of that era that embraced it head on. And while she never reached the acclaim that others at the time got, she managed to still break down barriers nonetheless. And given the frank and bawdy routines that she would perform onstage back when it was still considered taboo to not be “ladylike.”
Warren was born in New York City in 1930 and adopted six months later by Helen and Herbert Goldman, a couple from Milton, Massachusetts, who named her Ilene Goldman. She graduated from Milton High School around 1948, studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music, graduating around 1954. She spent her first free summer entertaining in small lounges. A rare exception was her participation in a salient twenty-one piano tribute to Chopin directed by Arthur Fiedler.
Plunking ivories at hotel barrooms, she bantered with her audience between renderings of Cocktails For Two and other standards. “Mostly I’d play the piano and I sang a little,” she said. “But every so often I would get a heckler, and I’d talk back to him, and people would start to laugh. And of course I liked that laughter much better than I did some of that applause, so I started to talk more, and to sing and to play less.”
She was in Missouri working the Midwest lounge circuit when someone recommended she get a manager. With help from Stan Zucker she sent a tape of her live shows to Jerry Blaine who signed her for his label Jubilee Records, she then signed for GNP Crescendo Records which reissued some of her earlier Jubilee albums. Known as the "Knockers Up Gal", she has frequently been called the "mother of the sexual revolution". Her career began in the early 1950s in Phoenix, Arizona. Later she moved her act to Las Vegas, Nevada. Her comedy routines exposed the subject of sex from a female perspective.
Rusty was lodged in both multifarious mob-controlled venues and in the hearts of America as the country's most popular female comedian. Naturally, that combination could only lead to one thing: Las Vegas. She was never a member of the Rat Pack crowd, but Rusty had her own set of Vegas Strip chums that made up an equally legendary assortment. If you spotted Rusty's towering red beehive relaxing in a Vegas bar, you'd probably find her sharing drinks with Belle Barth, Totie Fields, Eydie Gorme and Pearl Bailey; all great friends - a free spirited group of nineteen sixties Las Vegas legends. At the height of her fame in the 1960s, she was making $30,000 a week in Las Vegas.
From 1959 until 1977, Warren released 15 albums. Given their explicit nature, they were often labeled as “party albums,” not unlike those of Redd Foxx. Her biggest hit, though, was her 1960 album Knocker’s Up. Despite the album’s dealing with sexual topics, it managed to remain on the Billboard 200 for over three years. Her record label was embroiled in the Alan Freed payola scandals. Johnny Carson hated her. Jackie Mason held a grudge. At a given performance she would shatter attendance records, be confronted by outraged churchgoers and maybe even witness an attempted murder. Soon she became the highest selling performer in the history of comedy records.
Other albums Warren released included Rusty Warren Bounces Back, Rusty Warren in Orbit, Rusty Rides Again, More Knockers Up!, Bottoms Up, and Sexplosion. Despite never becoming a bigger household name – and her act being too risqué for 1960’s television -, she managed to work steadily on the nightclub circuit before retiring at the age of 60.
Label GNP Crescendo produced a DVD that chronicles her life in show business. The DVD, Rusty Warren: Knockers Up! The Lady Behind the Laughs, was released by GNP Crescendo in 2008. Her life partner was Elizabeth Rizzo from 1984 to 2019 and they resided in Hawaii after moving from Paradise Valley, Arizona. Rizzo wrote Rusty's biography, Rusty Warren - The Knockers Up Gal, available on Amazon.
It contains excerpts from news articles and magazine articles in chronological order to tell the story of Rusty's career and those who worked with her. Rusty and her entourage saved every news article, photograph, slides, reels of video footage from her Las Vegas shows, magazines, promotional material, letters, performance contracts, handwritten notes—everything pertaining to her career as a comedian spanning from 1955 through the late 1980s.
Rusty Warren who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments. died in her sleep at a caregiver’s home in Orange County, California, on May 25, 2021, at the age of 91. (Edited from Wikipedia, The Laugh Button, Blog wfmu, The New York Times & IMDb)