The American nudist organization was sedate group until it took in stripper Evelyn West as a member. Then a big hullabaloo exploded over whether Miss Treasure Chest was doing right by nudism.

"Treasure Chest" West and the Nudists

by Lou Felice

from

Sir! A Magazine for Males

Vol. 13 No. 3, February 1956

    The American Sunbathing Association is an organization of nudists who take themselves seriously, and the quickest way to get stripped of your membership is to act as though you think nakedness is one huge joke. When strip teaser Evelyn West served as bridesmaid at a nudist wedding in Denver and wore a sign reading--"Park your fig leaves upstairs"--petitions were passed around to have her banished from organized nudism.
    Chesty Miss West, whose bosom tapes at 39 1/2 Inches, regarded the whole uproar as a frame-up to embarrass her frame. "How can they bar me from nudism?" "she 'asked' one official. "They can't pin a thing on me."
    Evelyn took time out from her work at a Buffalo burlesque theatre to make a few barbed remarks about June Lange, the Los Angeles nudist leader who sponsored the petitions. "This is a battle of the bosoms," Evelyn declared.
    "June Lange is a pretty girl with a good bust who poses for nudist magazines. Her husband Ed Lange, is a photographer. Until I came along she was the big cheese--or cheesecake--of the nudist movement."
    While serving as bridesmaid at the wedding, Miss West says she wore nothing but her false eyelids and toenail polish. "As for the sign," she explained, "It was handed to me by somebody at the camp. I held it over my head because I considered that nudists should be really nude."
    The wedding hullabaloo isn't the first time Evelyn wiggled herself into the news. Ever since the day Lloyd's of London Insured her bountiful charms for $50,000 she has bounced in and out of the headlines with regularity.
    Under her legal name, "Evelyn $50,000 Treasure Chest West," she has performed a sizzling striptease act in many of the nation's largest cities--and on several occasions her act has had a courtroom finale.
    In Oklahoma City, for instance, Evelyn was hauled into court and charged with "indecent exposure and exhibition" after giving an overflow night club audience a provocative demonstration. She was on the witness stand for almost an hour, protesting that only an evil-minded person could find fault with her dance.
    Two women, who testified against Evelyn, charged that her movements, lack of clothes, bumping and bouncing, excited men to "lewd and vicious" thoughts. More over, the complainants alleged that Miss West's dance with a dummy was just too "sexy" for words.
    Evelyn replied that she had performed in 30 other cities without getting arrested, and insisted her dummy dance was merely a comedy ballet, portraying an elderly gentleman making ardent love to a young lady.
    The judge finally decided in favor of Evelyn on the grounds that he wasn't prepared to "draw the line between artistry and lewdness."
    As the first professional strip teaser to join a nudist camp, Evelyn became a popular attraction at naturist gatherings by giving lectures on the joys of going naked. One of her appearances, near Battle Creek, Michigan, nearly caused a riot.
    It all began when Dr. Braxton B. Sawyer, who delivers sermons over 27 radio stations in a four-state area of the middle west, appeared fully clothed at the Sunshine Gardens resort for the American Sunbathing Association's national convention. He brought along a camera to take pictures but ran into trouble when an attendant saw him "overly dressed."
    "You can't come here like that," snapped the attendant, who wore nothing but a frown.
    Dr. Sawyer was eventually chased into a nearby field while some body else called the police. After a lengthy argument with the good preacher, a compromise was reached permitting him to take pictures within a limited area.
    "Then, all of a sudden," the minister later told friends, "a big station wagon rolled into camp and
they forgot about me for a while. They were all looking at Evelyn Chest--or West--that show person who calls herself the Treasure Chest Girl
    "Well, I took pictures of her for about five minutes. Then I looked up and saw at least 12 men coming towards me. I told them I'd let them have the camera right in the face. They jumped on me and dragged me into the dust, pushing my face into the dirt, and taking the film away from me."
    Wearing nothing but spike-heeled shoes, Miss West was keynote speaker at the convention and her lecture acclaimed nudism as the "answer for complete happiness and health."
    Before she entered burlesque, Evelyn's real name was Patricia McQulllan. Her bosom, by far the outstanding thing about her figure, soon made the name "West" a featured attraction in the striptease circuit.
    When she applied to Lloyd's of London for insurance, Evelyn wrote a letter on pink notepaper, each sheet printed across the top with a silhouette showing her body reclining at ease during a telephone conversation. Publicity men, after hearing about the insurance policy, began booming Evelyn as the "Hubba Hubba Girl" with the $50,000 bosom.
    Shortly after her fame as a strip teaser reached its peak, the Post Office Department banned her pin-up pictures from the mails. Postal examiners ruled that 22 of her photos, which were advertised for sale at one dollar, had a "lewd" aspect. They also charged that other pictures of Miss West were being offered at rates that went, up as the exposure increased. This is probably the first time a dancer has been accused of performing a striptease by mail.
    Despite her ups and downs, however, Evelyn has emerged as a real authority on the female bosom. She has even accused several of Hollywood's most famous beauties of taking their figures. Writing in a recent magazine article, Evelyn declared:
    "And what would you say if I told you, strictly on the Q.T., that Jane Russell's figure ain't what it used to be and that Marilyn Monroe's much-vaunted shape is as phony as her yearning for the Karamazov brothers?
    "As far as Jane is concerned, she is way down from her erstwhile 38 bosom...and Marilyn is about four inches removed from the 36 they claim for her."
    Evelyn is the girl generally credited with making burlesque bust-conscious. Before, she entered the strip picture, burlesque movements emphasized a sexy walk with the bumps and grinds. Relatively little importance had been attached to an eye-stopping bosom.
    At least one set of 1956 calendars will bear a nude likeness of Evelyn. The pictures were made by Tom Kelly, the same photographer who skyrocketed to fame with his nude calendar art of Marilyn Monroe.
    Evelyn has had other troubles in addition to running afoul of local courts and the Post Office Department. Back In 1952, she filed suit to recover $5,000 she lent her inventor-boy friend, Steven Vitko, who, allegedly needed the money to secure a government contract to build an experimental flying saucer plane. Evelyn charged the money was not used to build a flying saucer or any other type of plane.
    Miss West's interest in nudism begins the very moment she gets out of bed each morning. "I get up and the first thing I do is get undressed," she explains. "I don't sleep in the nude. I sleep in a bra. Most girls today find that very uplifting."

 
 

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