YouSaid · the spoken record

Dita Von Teese

lines on the record
82
first
2019-07-29
most recent
2019-07-29
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “And I wrote it for you. And I thought, okay, and just the whole process of going into a studio and being around all these sound technicians and this artist that I admire so much and like learning and going to that place of feeling like Heather Sweet from Michigan again, I enjoy it and I come out of it. And it's one of the things I think my fans and people that know me like about me is that I'm not trying to like look to me, I'm so glamorous and I have confidence in everything I do. Like I don't talk like that. I don't act like that. You know, I know how to bring it on stage, but I also know that the little things that are the real me are what make it an interesting thing to watch.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “I feel like it's definitely about maturity too, right? Like when you're in high school, you're a certain maturity level. It's just when you think about the science of it too. And I just kind of thought eventually I learned that if I make mistakes in front of people, there are people that are all saying, I'm like that too. And it's endearing. So when I was a spokesperson for the MAC AIDS Fund for the Mac Viva Glam thing and I had to give speeches all over the world and I was so scared, but then I realized that once I got up there and I'd have a triumph, it made me have more confidence. And so I love to challenge myself in doing things that terrify me. You know, I have never been a singer. I cannot sing, but I got asked to make an album by one of the greatest French musicians. And I thought, okay, you know, I said to him, you know, I can't sing right. And he said, this album wouldn't work with a singer.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Like wearing Wearing my makeup a certain way and wearing my clothes that change my posture and make me want to walk proud or people wondering who I am, who's that girl, you know? It slowly but surely helped me gain confidence. And of course there are”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Learning how to find confidence in how I present myself and listen, it's like drag the way we dress ourselves, the way we wear our hair, the makeup we wear, I feel more confident than when I'm with the character I created, which is not a character, but it's not. It's like an aesthetic character, but I'm not, I still. Find the importance in being still that Heather Sweet from Michigan and the vulnerability coming across not just with the appearance I've created, but on stage with how I perform”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Yeah, I mean, I grew up really shy. Like, I remember being in grade school and being sent, but I was sort of always confused by this. But they sent me to like a speech class or something like this because I was so soft spoken, but mostly I was just terrified for them to ask me anything or call on me. And I felt that way through high school and everything. I could have never, you know, I used to duck out of speech class or, you know, in high school when you'd have to give speeches. Oh, I would never, you know, I never went to theater. I didn't want to be an actress. Nothing like that. But I liked, you know, I liked ballet. I liked performing, but that was different. And I feel like... First, it's one of the things I talk about with my book.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Pack in his suitcases, unpacking his suitcases, acting like personal assistant half the time, but also had the freedom to start building, you know, put big props up in our backyard and rehearse on them and make bigger, better shows. So that was kind of a moment where I could focus more on that.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “I think I ended up quitting those jobs around 2000 maybe, like right before Playboy, and that's when I was really touring and shooting pictures. And I also met my ex-husband, Marilyn Manson. A lot of people know me because of him. He's always been a cheerleader for what I do and still is in a lot of ways. So I think that that was a moment too where I felt like I could focus completely on showbiz instead of my paycheck because I was also like, let's be real. I was basically his cook. I'm a good cook. I was sort of like the housewife and took care of him while he was making records. He made a record called The Golden Age of Grotesque, which was sort of a tribute to my world. And around that time, I was sort of moved in with him. We got engaged and I was.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Make it up, and you can decide you're going to do all those things. But I think ultimately, you know, I'm not like super spiritual, like the universe is watching, but I just feel like my whole career path is just a matter of doing something that I loved, that I believed in, but without the desire or want to be famous, I want it to be acknowledged, certainly, but I didn't expect it.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Women there. It was like a sea of girls with red lipstick on, and I suddenly went, oh, I didn't know that I'm standing for something now. And I realized that by just telling my story about feeling like I wasn't, you know, wasn't very beautiful, wasn't very talented, all these things, it kind of, you know, resonated with other people. It said, I felt that way too. And I kind of just felt like I had a mission and something to stand up for and realize that all has to just come from speaking my truth and being authentic and not like calculating because, you know, talking about what we're saying earlier, there's so many people that want to be the new me and they're going to be more Dita Vantis than Dita Vantes was and they're going to make their career and they're going to be more famous than me and do better than me. I hear it all the time, but it's like, you can't really, you know, you can try to.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “I was in Vanity Fair and they wrote this article about what I did, and I felt like I better live up to some of this. And that kind of made me take myself more a little bit more seriously. And then I came out with a book where I told my story, not in an autobiographical way, but a photobook with Judith Regan. And she kind of let me go wild with this book. And it was the first time that Harper Collins and Regan books had done a book like this where it was sort of autobiographical, but mostly a photo book. And on one side, it's called Burlesque and the Art of the Teas and Fetish and the Art of the Teas. And it was a book where you could flip it over and read the other side. The light side and the dark side. And I found, I did this big book signing in London at Harrods and the night before I went on the Jonathan Ross show. And when I showed up, they had blocked off the streets and there were thousands of...”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “So, I kind of always kept my other job. And so it was never like, if I don't make it, what am I going to do? I just thought like, this is fun. So I think not having like that pressure. But there's certainly. Couple turning points in my career where I mostly felt I had to live up to accolades I was getting suddenly. Like when I was on the cover of Playboy in 2002 for the Christmas edition, it was still a time when everybody knew who was on the cover of Playboy and people cared. It was kind of before it was all reality stars and it was when you had like actresses wanting to be on the cover. So that was a pivotal moment in my career.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Yeah. I feel like the first thing I think about is that all along I was just having fun and enjoying what I was doing, having the time of my life. So it was never high stakes, like, am I going to make it or break it? I didn't really care. I always kept my normal job, you know, while I was going to strip club. First, I worked in lingerie and then I worked in makeup and beauty behind the makeup counter at Robinson's May.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “So my first stages for that were strip club, regular strip club. And then as I became more famous, like with Playboy and everything, I would headline the big strip clubs all over the United States. And I'd get, then suddenly I was the most famous fetish model in the early 90s too. So I was performing at this torture garden in London and the fetish ball here in LA and kind of doing all these fetish parties.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “No idea existed, and I was shown this picture of Betty Page, and I thought, why isn't anyone doing this now? And I decided I was going to be that. And so in the progress, you know, the process of me making all these pin-up pictures and even bondage movies and all these things that were from that, you know, in a 50s theme, I would be looking at these vintage magazines and a lot of the models that pose for these vintage magazines or these fetish magazines that would say they were a burlesque dancer too. I was like burlesque dancer. So a lot of these women that posed for pinups back then in men's magazines in the 30s and 40s, they were also dancers. And I thought like, oh, what a great way to use my failed ballet career. You know, I could, you know, perform on stage and perform in these vintage. Outfits”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “I worked in a lingerie store. I've been obsessed with lingerie since I was a little girl. I have really distinct memories of being curious about what these weird things that women wore under their clothes were, like bras. I used to sneak into my mom's bra drawer and I used to steal things. And to me, it was like symbolic of womanhood and femininity. And I was like, I want to be part of this world. So I was always obsessed with lingerie. Anyway. I became obsessed with like things like garter belts, stockings when I was a teenager. I worked in a lingerie store. I asked someone for, I had been looking for like a Victorian corset and someone gave me this address when I was like 18 and I walked into the store where I supposedly could get something like that. And it was a fetish store. And it kind of opened my mind, this whole other world that I had.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “While I had this idea around 1991 that I wanted to be the new Betty Page, I wanted to create pinup pictures with the emphasis on bondage and fetishism because I kind of got introduced to that world in a roundabout way through my job working in a lingerie store.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “That's right, yes. Okay, I was born in Rochester, but I grew up in a place called West Branch, Michigan, which is near Traverse City.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Compare me to or compare my career to. She was the subject of the musical and film Gypsy starring Natalie Wood, which came out in the 60s. So burlesque was kind of very niche entertainment. I think, I don't think it's ever, of course it went away. The burlesque theaters got shut down in the 50s and then burlesque answers like Lily St. Cyr were performing in supper clubs and whatnot. But Burlesque was kind of dead by the 50s in a lot of ways.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “Kind of just a variety show, but the stars of the burlesche show kind of became the strippers and it was kind of by an accident. You know, they say there was like a dancing girl. There's a few different, there's different folklore for how it actually started, how burlesque in America really started. That idea of stripptees to music with a band on stage. There was one story about a girl who was trying to do a quick change and she started like pulling off her outfit before she was concealed from the audience and they went crazy and so you know in those days it was like well you know what can you do to make a name for yourself so obviously that turned into like a striptise act but yeah it was kind of like the strip club of that time but you know there was a live orchestra band and you had comedy and dancing girls but you know you had great stars that came out of burlesque like gypsy rosely who a lot of people”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “What is burlesque? Yeah, okay. So I wanted to be a ballerina my whole childhood. But I was just not really that good at it. I just loved it. And still to this day, it's like I like to take a ballet class, but I'm the ballerina in the back and I have to follow everyone. And I just never had that naturally meant to do that, you know? But I loved it. So burlesque was a type of show that was sort of a spin-off of a vaudeville show back in the 1930s and 40s. So vaudeville was kind of like where a lot of amazing comedians and singers kind of made their mark in America in the 1920s and 30s and pretty much it was dead by the 40s. So burlesque was kind of the naughtier cousin of vaudeville. It was a little bit more about sex. It was like working man's entertainment, cheaper ticket. You could go and see, well, actually originally it meant it was”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Yeah, but I was just, you know, I was just like working in a strip club posing for these Playboy magazines. And it was something I thought I would just, you know,”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “And now I wouldn't think anything like, oh, this is cool. It's like striptease, Dita von Tougm. And so I call them and said it was supposed to be Dita von Trees. And they said, yeah, yeah, we'll correct it next month. So, you know, the magazine came out again and it said Dita Vanties. So it just kind of left it. And I didn't think ever for one minute that I was going to be famous with that name or I was going to be trademarking it internationally. I would have probably done it differently if I had known that it was going to turn into what it has.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “Said no, why Madonna share Dita? What? And they said, no, you have to have a second name. So I opened up the phone book because we used to have yellow pages back then or white pages. And I was like, people with Avon are cool in their name. So I looked under the Vons and I found this name Von Trist, T-R-E-S-E. And I called Playboy and I said, I'm going to be Dita Von Tries. And they're like, okay. And then I remember the magazine came out and I went to the liquor store and I grabbed my issue and I opened it up and said Dita von T's. They forgot the R.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “It's funny that one time I remember a few years back someone was talking a journalist at how cliche my name was, how calculated and cliche it was, but it wasn't at all. So I was working in a strip club in the early 90s in Orange County, and I had picked the name Dita because I had just seen a movie with an actress called Dita Parlow. And then there was also the Madonna character in the sex book. And I kind of was, you know, into this 20s look at the time. I kind of went through different eras that I loved and emulated that. I picked the name Dita. And then a few years later, I was asked to be in these Playboy newsstand specials. I don't know if some people remember this, but they used to have always these special magazines called the Book of Lingerie or whatever. So I was in those in like the mid-90s, and they told me I had to have a second name.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “It's kind of a life lesson, right? Like if you do things with authenticity, like that's what I've always retained from, it's a common thing of all of my life lessons is like things that are authentic. If you do it in an authentic way, you know, like I never said I'm going to be the world's most famous burlesque star. I'm going to be a stripper in the modern times. I just did it accidentally. And it's the same thing with collecting, you know, with the cars and the vintage clothes. It was sort of like, I just loved it. And then I'm lucky that it all worked out.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “No, I mean, I pretty much collect dead people's things of all kinds. My house is like a museum. I am a maximalist. I love recyclables too. I like vintage clothing because it's another thing that retains its value. I started wearing vintage when I was just out of high school. I graduated from high school in 1990. And I bought vintage clothes because I couldn't afford anything else and I kind of wanted to get the designer look. You know, I could emulate designers like Vivian Westwood or Jean-Paul Gautier by buying vintage bullet bras when you could buy them for nothing. And so I started like that because I couldn't afford the designer jeans my friends in Orange County had or the cool sneakers. So I kind of like went to flea markets and went to vintage stores and then lo and behold all these years later it's super collectible.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “I think it's a little bit of both. I feel like vintage cars are one of those things if you can keep them for a long time. They will always retain their value. It's just you have to not be desperate to sell it. And you can always turn a profit. But yeah, like having the pictures or video or me getting photographed with it, that's, you know, but I don't just buy them and take pictures of it and then sell it. I really use them. I really love them, you know.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Leave me on the side of the road or not, and so I've kind of just right now I have three cars. I have a 1953 Cadillac that I've had for a long time, a Fleetwood. I've had that one for a while and I love that one. And I have a 1940 LaSalle, which is a Cadillac. It's a convertible, like a big black gangster car. Really beautiful, but I don't drive it that much. And then I just bought a car. It's called a Woodill Wildfire. And it's a convertible. It looks like the Disney Car's car. So I bought that one actually to flip it because it's super, super rare. And it's not really the kind of car that I can cruise around LA in because it'll be like a really, you know, it'll go to Pebble Beach for sure next year. So I'll drive it for like a year. I'm having it all done up, and then I'll take pictures and it drive it, enjoy it, and then flip that one.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “One moment in particular that I remember was I was pulling up to the Playboy mansion and you know this is like in the 90s when it was like these amazing parties happening and I remember going up the hill and knowing the brakes were starting to fail and just leaning out the window to all the valets brakes don't work and they all ran and you know I was going up the hill quite slowly at that point but all these like valet guys running in their red coats to stop the car so and then I just got out went to the party and you know had the car”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “Cars. I like cars from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. But with vintage cars, there's kind of, it's like a relationship. I've had cars that I had a bad relationship with, like the brakes going out and there's a, I had the 65 Jaguar-S type for a while that I loved. It was so beautiful. I actually bought it on eBay while I was drinking red wine and taking Ambien, which was probably not the best idea. So I picked up this car and it was so beautiful. I picked it up when I was sober. It was still beautiful. I was glad I bought it, but it was not a good fit for me because the brakes kept going out on this car. And you could imagine that's really terrifying.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Well, it first started in the early 90s. I was big into the swing dancing and pinup, you know, a pin-up model. I had a boyfriend that drove a 1930s car, and I sort of thought I should have a 1930s car. So I got my first car in 1939 Chrysler New Yorker when I was in my early 20s. And I love that car and I used to drive it all around Orange County where I lived. And I didn't, I sold that car not that long ago, maybe like 10 years ago. And I bought it for like $8,000 in the 90s and sold it to someone in Germany for like $30,000. So I thought, this is kind of, I should do this more. So I started buying more cars. I met a really great guy that helps. And so he goes to all the auctions and finds things that a good price. And then we fix it up. I drive it for a while because also for me with vintage.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “Well, I mean, it's like a term that's used very loosely these days. Everyone wants to call something hot cout couture if it's like extra special, but it really means high sewing, like a high level of sewing. And so when you talk about a haute couture designer, it's, you know, there's like a ministry of haucouture in France where you kind of get the stamp and you can call your clothing haute couture. So it's kind of loosely used. You'll find like haute couture doughnuts and things like that, you know, but it's really not accurate. So I always say that I do strip. So it's like a high level of strip. But, you know, wearing haute couture costumes, which means they're, you know, made with extravagance and excellence that is not, you know, something you can buy in a store.”

    2019-07-29 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #379: Dita Von Teese — The Queen of Burlesque · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT