Liz Goldwyn will never be the voice of a generation. She’s too singular for that—too busy getting lost in what's overlooked, falling down obscure rabbit holes, stitching together the forgotten, the glamorous, and the subversive. She’s traced the secret economies of burlesque in Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens, mapped the codes of 19th-century brothels in Sporting Guide: Los Angeles, 1987, and explored the intersection of sexuality and self-discovery in Sex, Health, and Consciousness: How to Reclaim Your Pleasure Potential and the Sex Ed, an editioral platform that reframes conversations around sex, wellness, and intimacy.
On her must-subscribe substack STARF*CKER, she time-hops between old-Hollywood lore, her black-sheep, golden-spoon Beverly Hills upbringing, her '90s skatergrrl-at-Sotheby’s stint in NYC, and more, dropping the most delicious details along the way. And her beauty secrets? Unmatched! For example: “If you have a night out where you smoke a lot of cigarettes, you need to eat a ton of watercress.” On exercise: “Choose an exercise role model who is 20-40 years older than you, ideally." And on beauty sleep: “A family friend in her 80s who was bffs with Tennessee Williams & the inspiration for Maggie the cat in cat on a hot tin roof (famously played by great beauty Elizabeth Taylor) used to tell me that to keep your beauty you had to take a nap every day and it didn’t count unless you got completely naked and got under the covers.”
Because I love the way Goldwyn looks at the world, there could be no one better suited for CULTURED’s first installment of "Muse Report," our new column where creatives share the objects and encounters that help them tap into the sublime.
THE PAINTING
"An artwork I love to (re)discover every time I see it is Reclining Nude, circa 1713-17, by French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau. Held in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Los Angeles, the oil painting is so small, (5 1/2 by 6 3/4 inches) that most visitors might miss it as they round a corner of the galleries. To me she has a quiet beauty, unpretentious and breathtaking."
THE LIP COLOR
"I’ve been wearing red lipstick since I was a teenager and usually have several colors in my bag at all times. But the best of the best is a Shiseido Beni Classic Geisha Red Lip Color, first given to me by a geisha friend, Mame Chizu, in Kyoto. Although I worked for Shiseido from 2000 to 2002 as a global consultant and spent many years working in Japan, I never test drove this formula until a late night drinking session at Mame Chizu’s private bar in Kyoto. Urged by our mutual friends, actor Jundai Yamada and kabuki star Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII (he is literally the Brad Pitt of Japan, where kabuki is a national treasure), we compared our lipsticks on performance, color and application.
When you have a kabuki actor on hand whose pre-show makeup ritual rivals that of a Kardashian glam squad, the judging is serious. While everyone loved my combination of Giorgio Armani’s Lip Maestro shade 401 and MAC Cosmetics Lady Danger, we all agreed that Mame Chizu’s Shiseido stick, which she kept in a gold case and applied with a brush, was the most beautiful."
THE POEM
"A favorite reminder to stay present in the midst of chaos, and/or when I want to get to the finish line, is the last few lines of the poem 'Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)' by the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks. As she put it, 'Live not for Battles Won. Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along.' I was quoted her lines after a meditation session with my friend and mentor, Bob Roth, director of the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, in fall 2020, as I was begining to write my third book Sex, Health & Consciousness. It became a mantra as I dove into the (solitary) process of writing and coming up against my shadows—prompting me to stay in the moment instead of focusing on turning in a final draft or picturing my book tour. The journey is the reward."
THE SCULPTURE
"In 2008, I was invited to present work as part of the inaugural New Orleans art biennial, Prospect.1 New Orleans, which was conceived to revitalize the city post-Hurricane Katrina. The group show I was in, curated by Glynnis McDaris, was held in a mansion belonging to actress Jennifer Coolidge. I was in the early stages of a divorce and reeling from the breakup of my 13-year relationship. The piece I created, Spinal Cord Necklace, is made from ostrich shells from Kenya (collected on our last trip together); seashells from La Jolla, California that I had collected for my wedding dress (made by Nicolas Ghesquière when he was at Balenciaga); and gold thread from France from the 1950s."
"My emotional state was raw—I felt as if my skin was flayed and you could see the bones of my spine. I showed the piece on a live nude model, my friend, New Orleans burlesque queen Trixie Minx, the lower half of her body draped in sheets to resemble a classic Greek statue. She stood facing the corner of the room, her back to the viewer, as if she was a piece of furniture, the necklace hanging down her back to her coccyx. I was so distraught that I left before the opening because I couldn’t handle talking about what the work was about. I think this might be one of my favorite pieces I’ve made, capturing a vulnerability that was hard to put into words back then."
THE FILM
"Ball of Fire is a 1941 film produced by my grandfather, Sam Goldwyn, that holds a special place in my heart. Directed by Howard Hawks from a script by Billy Wilder, it stars Gary Cooper as an absentminded professor and Barbara Stanwyck as a nightclub singer with a knack for streetwise vernacular. Initially, however, it was intended that Stanwyck’s character be a burlesque stripteaser. The Hays commission (known then as the Production Code Administration, or PCA) nixed Wilder’s plan and Stanwyck’s character became gentrified in the process. It was deemed inconceivable that an audience could relate to a woman who took her clothes off for a living. I’d never heard of the film growing up, until I was writing my first book, Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens, (Harper Collins, 2006) and making an accompanying documentary Pretty Things (HBO, 2005). One of my burlesque queen stars, Betty Rowland, was the original 'ball of fire.'"
"The first time we met in person, she told me about how her moniker and costume were used as inspiration for the movie. Stanwyck wears a particularly fetching costume to perform her 'Drum Boogie' number, designed by notorious copycat costume designer Edith Head. After the film came out, Betty publicly brought a lawsuit against my grandad, but, as she admitted to me, it was part of a publicity stunt—there were no real grounds (at least back then) for the case. Eventually, Betty’s lawsuit was dropped for lack of evidence. In my book, I published background materials which show that Betty’s burlesque queen persona was, in fact, inspiration [for the film]. Here, you can see a double page spread from the book, featuring Betty’s original costume and the 'Hollywood-ized' version as worn in the film. It’s these kinds of forgotten backstories that interest me—who gets immortalized and who is lost to time."
THE SCENT
"Lately, I am layering 'protection oil' I get from a witchy shop in San Diego with this beautiful smelling oil Songsaa that my friend makes in Hawaii. I have loads of fancy perfume bottles in my collection, and Tom Ford’s Amber Absolute and Plum Japonais are favorites in that category."
