My fascination with IRIS CHACON - el culo de America - probably began in utero but all I can remember is watching el chou de Iris Chacon as a child. EVERYONE watched this show, entire families sat tranfixed as Iris did modified stripper meets Vegas showgirl moves barely clad, her Puerto Rican Venus of Willendorf physique on show. Iris was escorted by her bevy of polyester clad salsa-dancing Chacon Dancers and she normally rocked a sequined numbers featuring a bra top and g-string, Iris worked her voluptous boricua body. A great book about the phenomenon is "Una Noche con Iris Chacon" and of course thanks to the magic of You Tube (if blogger ever fixes the glitch I can attach video evidence) you can witness her spectacular choreography. I finally saw her - twice - here in NYC at Escuelita, a Latino trannie bar whose performers all quite zaftig and fabulous with names like Natacha all resemble Iris.
Iris is now apparently a vegetarian, and doctor of natural medicine. As my brilliant boricua friend and fellow Chacon devotee asked rhetorically, "I suppose she ate many alcapurrias and piononos made with faux soy meat" - adding " it seems she found the way to reconcile eco/animal-friendliness with the booty-enhancing effects of trans fats! that's what I call cultural negotiation."
On top of this Iris is now apparently Born-Again, which she finds a way to reconcile with her vedette moves onstage and the ever-present g-string. Fabulous!
(here is a link to a bio: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0149415/bio - I should add that there are errors such as the name of her daughter, which is actually KATIRIA, a name surely NOT on the dictator Chavez's list of Approved Bolivarian Revolutionary Names)
Then there's her Nemesis, Olga Breeskin, whom I took to be Argentine and had fantasized that she must now be living in semi-retirement in Buenos Aires, hanging up her g-string to pursue Lacanian psychoanalisis full time. But alas, all I was able to find out is that she is actually Mexican, and that she and Iris co-starred mano a mano in "Eva, que hace ese hombre en la cama" a cheesy 1970s Mexican-Spanish production, a star vehicle for Manolo Escobar (camp crooner beloved during the waning years of Franco's dictatorships, generations of tourists have sung along to his sinister nationalistic ditty "Que Viva Espan~a").
Now that thanks to a(n other Boricua) friend (the cultural Puerto Rican mafia at work) I was able to see "Superstar, the Karen Carpenter Story," (more on that later) this Eva film is now my Holy Grail of Cinematography.
As the photos I found which you see here attest, Almodovar didn't invent anything!!!! Iris is the sultry "redhead" and Olga the one with the black Priscilla Presley bouffant.
