Minsky, a name synonymous with Burlesque worldwide, had its origins in the National Winter Garden Theatre in New York City in 1917. Four Minsky brothers, Abraham, Billy, Herbert, and Morton began producing risque variety shows that featured comedy, variety acts, and scantily clothed young women. A logical outgrowth of a dying vaudeville, the shows met with fierce resistance in the 1920s and 1930s. Concerned citizens picketed burlesque theatres, religious leaders of various types appealed to their congregations to boycott the performances, and police conducted raids on a regular basis. Chorus girls were arrested and the brothers’ licenses were constantly challenged. By 1937, Minsky’s Burlesque shows were banned in New York and the word “burlesque” could not be used in any production.

Not long afterward a young Harold Minsky, son of Abraham, began producing shows he called “follies” in New York at the Gaiety Theater, a show that the New York Times criticized as being dirtier than the burlesque. By 1942, Mayor La Guardia ordered all such theatres closed in New York. Harold Minsky, through his attorney Morris Ernst, demanded a just cause hearing to reopen his Gaiety Theater. Through months of litigation the ban was upheld by the Supreme Court, and Minsky was forced to declare bankruptcy. Undaunted by this, Minsky moved his shows to such places as Chicago, Hollywood, Miami, Newark, and Cincinatti. He introduced the “family style” burlesque as “a type of show that wouldn’t offend anybody.” Minsky also introduced ladies day to entice women to attend.

Just as the New Jersey lawmakers were applying the legislative axe to burlesque in Newark, Harold Minsky was inking a deal with Major Riddle to bring his famed show to the Aladdin Room of the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the first show of its kind in Las Vegas and started a new trend in strip entertainment- the topless showgirl revue. After first introducing burlesque to Las Vegas in 1954, Minsky produced shows at the Thunderbird, Aladdin, Silver Slipper, Fremont and Frontier Hotels. A book published in 1960 based on the stage productions, titled The Night They Raided Minsky’s, was followed in 1967 by a motion picture of the same name.

Immensely successful in the 1950s and 1960s, the popularity of burlesque declined in the 1970s. Harold Minsky died on December 25th, 1977, shortly after his last show at the Fremont Hotel in Las Vegas had closed. His wife, Patricia, managed to keep burlesque alive in other U.S. cities until 1978, when the last Minsky burlesque was seen by the public.