..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

It’s probably foolhardy to apply Jungian theory -- or the lyrics to a song by Police, for that matter -- to the less-than-cerebral realms of professional wrestling, magazine publishing and movie marketing. Besides synchronicity, however, what else explains the coincidental appearances this month of Ruth Leitman’s documentary on women’s wrestling, Lipstick and Dynamite; World Wrestling Entertainment’s new DVD, Viva Las Divas; and the WWE’s newest superstar, Christy Hemme, on the cover of Playboy?

Leitman, a photographer, filmmaker and teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, probably wouldn’t feel entirely comfortable in the company of Vince McMahon and Hugh Hefner, plotting mutually beneficial public-relations strategies. Nevertheless, when it comes to selling tickets to Lipstick and Dynamite, though, she’ll take whatever help comes her way.

To that end, the Philadelphia native was in Los Angeles last week with two of the central figures in her film, the Hall of Fame wrestlers Fabulous Moolah (a.k.a., Lillian Ellison) and the Great Mae Young (a.k.a., Johnnie Mae, Queen Mae Young). Although both women are in their ’80s, Moolah and Mae revealed few outward signs of slowing down. Indeed, they appeared ready to take on all comers in a tag-team battle.

In addition to their commitment to the press junket for Lipstick and Dynamite (subtitled, “Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling”), the ladies had two days earlier flexed their muscles for fans gathered at the Staples Center for WrestleMania 21. They later posed for countless photographs, attended premiere screenings of the documentary and were interviewed on various TV and radio shows. They followed a similar schedule a week earlier in New York, and would soon be on their way to Las Vegas and San Francisco.

More than 60 years ago, Mae taught Moolah how to ’rassle. Today, they are constant companions. Together, they’ve trained several generations of wrestlers at their school in South Carolina, and anticipate staging a bout when Mae turns 100. Also sharing their Columbia home is another famous ex-wrestler, “Diamond Lil,” whose miniature frame demanded she fight in the “midget” category.

Lipstick and Dynamite follows “lady wrestling” from the halcyon days of the ’40s and ’50s -- as it made the transition from radio to television, carny caravans to big-city arenas -- through the doldrums of the ’60s and ’70s (when Moolah was midway through her 28-year reign as WWF women’s champ) and on to the present, when the female stars often are required to fight in bikinis, lingerie and spike heels. Today’s Divas are to the women of Mae and Moolah’s generation what the Victoria’s Secret catalogue is to the Sears “wishbook“ of yesteryear.

Indeed, among the activities included as extras on the Viva Las Divas DVD -- an excuse to stuff the ladies into swimsuits, while on location in Mexico -- are “lingerie pillow fights,” a bikini contest and the shotgun wedding of Lita and Kane. Most of this bonus silliness, which takes place in mid-ring, couldn’t possibly be more politically incorrect or popular with the fans. Fortunately, the Divas are well-compensated for their willingness to serve as objects of desire for the thousands of teenage boys who routinely attend the matches and watch WWE videos at home with their pot-bellied dads.

Playboy cover-girl Christy Hemme is one of the women who participated in the pillow fights, which were filmed on Taboo Tuesday. Although not an athlete, the ravishingly beautiful 5-foot-5 redhead recently won the $250,000 RAW Diva Search, which means that she’ll represent the WWE in events far beyond the “squared circle.”

Mae and Moolah may not have made $250,000, combined, during entire decades of their careers. If they had, at least half of their purse money likely would have gone to unscrupulous promoters, who controlled every aspect of the lives of the lady wrestlers. While this included mandating their wardrobes, ring personae, personal lives and ability to pursue a career, it didn’t necessarily mean a promoter would also cover travel expenses or health insurance.

Indeed, the toll exacted on the women we meet in the film was fierce.

“It’s a little tragic, actually,” said Leitman, who was able to attend a reunion of onetime stars. “These were women who had beautiful bodies and were athletic, and they used their physical strength in a powerful way. But, after years of enduring that, their bodies were broken.

“Like other athletes, they all need knee replacements, hip replacements and other surgeries, But, there never was any insurance. They got beaten up and there were no reparations for it.”

Today, at least, savvy women wrestlers can parlay their pugilistic skills and cover girl looks into investment opportunities their predecessors couldn’t have imagined. According to Gary Davis, vice president of corporate communications for the WWE, this primarily can be credited to the vast national and international reach of content providers, as well as the huge demand by magazine editors, video producers and program directors for attractive women in bikinis.

When presented with the idea of participating in a lingerie pillow fight -- even in their prime -- both Mae and Moolah let out with a sarcastic laugh. The concept wouldn’t have squared with the image they were trying to project outside the ring.

“In those days, the promoters wanted the people to know that we were ladies,” said Moolah, who easily could pass for the beloved grandmother on any network sitcom. “Ladies were supposed to be at home and having kids. But, here we were, wrestling in the ring, like the men.”

Mae concurred, “From the beginning we dressed like ladies and acted like ladies. But, when we got into the ring, all hell would break loose.”

Mae, a ruffian of the first order, might have been remembering a slightly edited version of herself, however.

As Penny “The St. Louis Woman” Banner recalled of her first meeting with a crew-cut Johnnie Mae Young, in 1954: “She had on men’s shoes, men’s pants, she was smoking a cigar. She looked at me and said, ‘What you looking at, f**kface!’ You didn’t do things like that, then!”

Today, she may look like the archetypal Aunt Mildred of countless Hollywood movies, but Mae remains one formidable broad.

“I started out in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma puts out some fine wrestlers,” she recalled. “I learned to wrestle while I was in school, and competed against the boys. I lettered for three years.”

How good was she? On April 28, she’s going to be inducted into the Sand Springs High School Hall of Fame, for her accomplishments as a wrestler and baseball player.

“When (world champion) Mildred Burke came to Tulsa, I went over to challenge her … and I was still in high school,” Mae boasts. “Billy Wolfe, her manager and husband, brought two women to Sand Springs to wrestle me, instead … Gladys “Killem” Gillem and Elvira Snodgrass, “the wrestling hillbilly.” I beat Gladys within seconds, and, then, Billy shoved Elvira at me, and I did the same thing to her.

“Billy said, ‘Well, we might make a girl wrestler out of you.’ I never got a chance to wrestle Mildred Burke, because he was afraid I might beat her.”

The teenage Moolah would never have been confused with a debutante, either.

“I came from a family of 13 children … I had 12 brothers, all older than me … I came out wrestling,” she said. “Me and one of my younger brothers would team up against the older brothers … like a tag team. My mom passed away when I was 8, and my dad was a big wrestling fan who’d go to the matches every month.

“He took me to one, because he knew I was depressed about my mom. The next year, the girl wrestlers came through town, and Mae was one of ’em.

“I said, ‘Dad, that’s what I want to be.’ He said, ‘Yeah, and you wanted be an aviator, too.’”

Mae would take Moolah under her wing, and go on to win the world championship in 1956. She successfully defended her crown for the next 30 years.

Unlike today’s wrestlers, whose ring personae often border on the cartoonish, the legends tended to adapt to their roles naturally.

“We took up our own characters,” Mae recalled. “I wrestled dirty and everyone I taught wrestled dirty. Everybody loved to hate us.

“Our personalities would change depending on how you slept the night before. If you didn’t get any sleep, you might want to go out and kill everybody.”

Moolah agreed, “If you woke up in the morning feeling great, you wanted to be great … and you could be sweet that day in the ring. But, if you woke up feeling like a bitch … wow … that’s what you were going to be.

“I could be a dirty son-of-a-gun.”

The marketing of wrestling, either as a legitimate sport or pure entertainment, really didn’t kick into high gear until television came into the picture.

“We made the radio programs, a lot … we were interviewed all the time, when we went through a town,” Mae said. “Our first television appearance was in Dayton, for Red Top Ale. That was the first women’s wrestling on television.

“I came out to California in the early ’70s. Of course, I’d been wrestling in California since 1941, when they didn’t permit girl wrestling. We’d come into towns for two weeks, before they caught us, and they’d close the town on us.

“In ’72 or ’73, we’d wrestle at the Olympic Auditorium, and the matches would be televised on Wednesday nights.”

Both women have been inducted into the Professional Wrestlers Hall of Fame, in Schenectady, N.Y., and have the bling to show for it. Their rings are big enough to be used as weapons in close quarters, while other trinkets include a Great Mae Young wristwatch and diamond-laden necklaces and rings in the shape of dollar signs, a.k.a. moolah.

If they’re jealous of today’s generation hottie wrestlers, they don’t show it. They’re especially pleased to be recognized by the Divas.

“They show us a great deal of respect,” said Moolah. “They know we paved the way for them, and appreciate it.”

At the New York premiere of Lipstick and Dynamite, Mae added, “three of the girls from the WWE -- Molly Holly, Ivory and Victoria -- came up to us, along with Vince and a camera crew. They love us to death, and they can wrestle, too.”

During a break in the interview sessions, Mae surprised Ruth with a similarly personalized wristwatch. Both she and Moolah had nothing but praise for the director and her film.

Leitman reiterated her subjects’ contention that the women introduced in her film were ladies first and wrestlers second.

“They’re shocked to see people wearing jeans and T-shirts in an airplane,” she said, with a warm laugh. “For all of our press, I come to their room to pick out their clothes and help them decide what to wear for each event. It’s important to them.

“They definitely come from a generation where there’s a way to do things and a way not to do things.”

One thing they wouldn’t do, on film or during the interview, was tell stories out of school. The question of staged bouts wasn’t given the dignity of a response, and, when asked if the dress code was instituted to deflect rumors of lesbianism in the sport, both Mae and Moolah were emphatic in their denials.

“They couldn’t go there,” Leitman allowed. “They’re very selective about the things they’ll talk about. Even while I was making the film, I started to be able to tell who was gay in that circle, and how they would find each other in that world.

“That was interesting to me. But, by being ladies of that generation, whether you were gay or straight, you still wanted people to think you were straight or a lady. Anything you did was in the closet, and not out there.

“It was in the script, but it wasn’t something I could deal with in the film. There were a lot of things that happened behind the closed doors … but they so didn’t want to go there.”

And, while Mae and Moolah appeared not to be envious of the opportunities provided today’s Divas, others clearly were. At the reunion Leitman captured in her film, it was obvious that many of the women could use a little TLC.

“In Mae and Moolah, you’re seeing the two women who succeeded the most from this, financially,” Leitman emphasized. “They were able to move through the years and change with wrestling as wrestling changed. They buy into what wrestling is today, because it worked for them.

“The others would love to have made even a fraction of what the women make today. In a sense, they’re bitter that they weren’t able to parlay it into something for themselves today.”

But, like the times, the game has changed. If a potential Diva wasn’t born with the agility, muscles and discipline necessary to compete at the highest level of the sport, they now are other ways in which to serve the McMahon empire.

According to Davis, Hemme was chosen to join the Divas more for her sexiness and stage presence than for her ability to take down an opponent with a “reverse twist of fate,” which she probably couldn’t imagine herself doing a year ago. Other Divas, though, are picked specifically for their in-ring skills, and are given makeovers to get them through the sexier elements of the shows.

Either way, Playboy tends to find room for one or two of the Divas on an almost annual basis, now.

“The magazine has featured female wrestlers, all with the WWE, a total of seven
times,” said Gary Cole, the magazine’s director of photography. “The first was Sable in April 1999, then, again, in September of 1999. Chyna came in November 2000 and
January 2002. In May 2003, we published Torrie Wilson, and then did Torrie
and Sable together in March 2004.

“They have always been newsstand successes for the magazine. The first appearance by Chyna sold nearly three times as many newsstand copies as the surrounding issues of the magazine.

“The cross-promotion and marketing has been an essential part of the success of
these issues. In each case, the WWE made Playboy a part of the storyline, and its built-in following helped boost the sale of each of the respective issues.”

Playboy also has put a woman boxer on its cover, along with a pictorial inside the magazine.

“It did OK, even better than OK,” Cole added. “But it did not come close to the sales appeal of female wrestlers ... in part because there was not the same opportunity for marketing and promotion.”

Not to be outdone by the Divas and their DVDs, Fabulous Moolah this month is the subject of a special video-on-demand presentation, “WWE 24/7’s Hall of Fame.” The 12-hour retrospective includes 12 hours worth of career highlights, and interviews with other women stars.

“In the ’40s, ’50s and even the ’60s, there was no comparable information infrastructure,” Davis said. “Christie’s only been in this business a short time, and she’s already a star. It took Mae and Moolah a long time to become known outside the territories.

“But, they set the bar for everyone else who would follow.”

- by Gary Dretzka

April 13, 2005