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67-year-old burlesque dancer

http://www.cleveland.com/dining/index.ss…

The burlesque revival has unleashed a new generation of jiggling vamps -- you know, strutting the stage with puckered red lips, feathers, fishnets and high heels.

Well, step aside young'uns. It's time to let the Mother of Burlesque show you how it's done.

Summon Satan's Angel.

At 8 p.m. Friday, the legendary burlesque performer will hit the Slovenian Workmen's Home, 15335 Waterloo Road, in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood.

She will headline a show that features performers from the Detroit Dizzy Dames and Le Femme Mystique Burlesque troupes. Tickets are $15 and $20. Call 216-383-1124.

Born Angel Cecelia Helene Walker, the "Devil's Own Mistress" has been lighting up the stage since the early 1960s -- thanks to a signature act that keeps her hot at 67.

Satan's Angel, you see, is a master at twirling five tassels -- all at once and all on fire.

"Every burlesque needs a gimmick," she says, via phone from her home in California. "Yeah, I got my bazooms, but I am ALSO the 'Queen of the Fire Tassels.' "

She earned the title by chance at 19, when she landed a gig in San Francisco's infamous Moulin Rouge club.

"I walk into the dressing room, and this old stripper sitting there chain-smoking and drinking whiskey gives me that look and says, 'Oh, God, not another newbie," she says. "When I tell her I'm a tassel twirler, she laughs and says, 'That's nothing.'"

"Well, what do you want me to do, light 'em on fire?" the newbie asked the veteran.

A light went off in Angel's head, followed soon thereafter by a hellish fireball on stage.

The flaming tassel trick made her a star on the burlesque circuit. It also led to countless trips to Cleveland, where she performed at the old Roxy Theater.

"Ohio was wide open in terms of what you could do," says Angel. "Man, me and my flaming puppies worked Cleveland to death."

Satan's Angel, like other performers of the time, even had her "puppies" insured -- for notoriety as much as for safety.

"I got insurance from Lloyd's of London for 500 million bucks," she says. "We all did that back then -- except I also had to worry about burning down the club."

She never experienced any hassles with the tassels.

The name was another story.

"You know how many times marquees would say, 'Satin's Angel?' " she says. "They were afraid of the name. Not me. I'm a feisty, wild woman straight out of the mouth of hell, and I can't be tamed."

"The Devil's Own Mistress" did find herself defeated, though -- in the mid-'80s, during a final tour in which she realized that the curtain was closing on a titillating art form that found itself drowning in seediness.

"These strippers on the bill would just drop all their clothes and do all these nasty, tasteless things," she says. "I felt that time had passed me by."

She remained retired until 2002, just in time for the burlesque revival. It resurrected her career -- as a performer and a teacher.

"These days, people come out in tattoos and piercings doing freaky stuff," she says. "Fine, but you better learn about the history of the G-string and pasties -- and better put on one helluva sexy show."

Even at 67?

"I might look like a toothpick that's been stuck into an olive, with this belly of mine," she says. "But I'm sexy for my age, and I can still twirl, even if my puppies are getting up there."

But how long is she going to keep those tassels twirling?

"I'm more worried about my lipstick and makeup getting into my wrinkles," she says. "All I know is you ain't gonna see me on stage when I'm old. Nobody wants to see a 75-year-old stripper."