With a name like Tempest Storm, you expect fireworks — and that’s exactly what she delivered.
Fiery red hair, unapologetic confidence, and a career that stretched across eight decades made her more than just a burlesque performer. She became a legend.
But behind the rhinestones and glamour was a woman who rose from hardship in the segregated South to reign as the undisputed Queen of Burlesque.
From Annie to Tempest
Tempest Storm ruled the stage for more than 60 years — a remarkable journey that began far from glamour, as her childhood was anything but dazzling.
She was born Annie Blanche Banks on February 29, 1928, in Eastman, Georgia, and grew up in a small farming community.
Poverty and abuse defined her early years, and by 14, she had run away from home to escape. She got a job as a waitress in Columbus, Georgia and married a U.S. Marine to legally free herself from her parents. However, the union was annulled only 24 hours later. A year later, at 15, she wed a local shoe salesman whose sister worked alongside her at a hosiery mill.
Reflecting on that second marriage years later in a 1968 interview with Roger Ebert, Storm admitted, “I just left one day. I still had it in my mind to go to Hollywood. I couldn’t get it out of my system.”
By her late teens, she landed in Los Angeles. A casting agent suggested a name that would change her life: Tempest Storm.
”I asked her if she had any suggestions. She said, what about Tempest Storm? I asked her if she had any other suggestions. Well, she said, what about Sunny Day? Well, I said, I guess it might as well be Tempest Storm,” she said.
That name change marked a turning point in her life, setting her on the road to stardom. While working as a cocktail waitress, a customer recognized her charisma and asked if she could perform a striptease.
“I said, ‘What is that?’” Ms. Storm recalled in a 2013 interview with The Quad-City Times. “I was from a small town, I didn’t know. He said it was just dancing, but you take your clothes off. I said: ‘Oh, no, not me. My mother would disown me.’”
A star is born
Storm made her burlesque debut in the late 1940s, and it didn’t take long before audiences were hooked. Her routines weren’t cheap strip acts — they were carefully choreographed performances dripping with glamour. Dressed in rhinestone-studded gowns, she teased with elegance, not just shock.
”I was more respectable then”, she remembered in an interview in 1973.
”You had to wear net panties and a net bra plus jeweled pasties – you couldn’t wear a G-string”.
By the mid-1950s, Tempest was reportedly making $100,000 a year — nearly $950,000 in today’s money. Her famous curves were so legendary that Lloyd’s of London allegedly insured her breasts for $1 million. The headlines had a field day, dubbing her “Tempest in a D-Cup” and “The Girl Who Goes 3-D Two Better.”
She shared stages with icons like Blaze Starr and Lili St. Cyr and appeared in burlesque films such as Teaserama (1955) and Buxom Beautease (1956) alongside Bettie Page. These films, daring for their era, blurred the lines of comedy, sexuality, and censorship.
Rushed her like a herd of cattle
Tempest Storm wasn’t just a performer. She was a pioneer, pushing boundaries for what women could express on stage. Her natural curves and signature red hair became her trademarks.
But unlike many of her peers, she refused plastic surgery, saying her real beauty was enough. She didn’t smoke and avoided anything stronger than orange juice or 7-Up.
At home, she would start her mornings with a crunchy granola breakfast and spend her afternoons enjoying massages, sauna sessions, and time in the whirlpool.
Just how popular was she? A striking example comes from 1955, when she visited the University of Colorado. A crowd of 1,500 students nearly rioted, leaving damage in their wake.
“They must have been shut up for months without women, they rushed me like a herd of cattle,” Storm recalled.
Interracial marriage
Offstage, Storm’s personal life was as dramatic as her performances.
She was romantically linked to Elvis Presley, Mickey Rooney, and gangster Mickey Cohen. But it was her 1959 marriage to jazz star Herb Jeffries, the first Black singing cowboy in Hollywood, that truly made headlines.
The couple had a daughter, Patricia Ann Jeffries.
According to The New York Times, her marriage to Jeffries “broke midcentury racial taboos, costing her work.” Interracial marriage was still illegal in much of the U.S. Suddenly, public interest in Storm began to fade.
Media attention dropped, and she was almost frozen out, far fewer photographers and reporters came to her hometown to cover her story.
The marriage didn’t last, but Storm never backed down from controversy and she and Jeffries remained ”closer than ever” after the breakup.
Still shining in her 80s
Most stars fade with age. Tempest Storm didn’t.
She kept performing into her 60s and made her final stage appearance in her 80s. Even in her later years, she insisted she felt most alive under the spotlight.
In 1999, Storm returned to the stage at San Francisco’s O’Farrell Theatre to celebrate the club’s 30th anniversary, prompting Mayor Willie Brown to declare a “Tempest Storm Day” in her honor. She continued performing at the annual Burlesque Hall of Fame Pageant events at least through 2010.
Her story was also captured in documentaries, including Tempest Storm (2016), which celebrated her enduring legacy.
A lasting legacy
In the later years of her life, Tempest Storm lived in Las Vegas, Nevada.
When she passed away in 2021 at 93, she left behind more than just memories of glittering costumes and glamorous shows.
She left behind a cultural revolution.
She proved sensuality doesn’t expire with age. She fought stereotypes about beauty and womanhood long before “feminist empowerment” was a mainstream phrase. And she paved the way for modern burlesque stars like Dita Von Teese, who proudly credit Storm as their inspiration.
Tempest Storm lived up to her name. She was unstoppable. She was unforgettable. She was a force of nature.
