THE DIVAS OF THE RING

INTERVIEW WITH CYNDI LAUPER

Photo: Kimberley, a professional tough wrestler. Believe it !

EG: And was your family very into music also?

CL: Yeah. My mom listened to a lot of Pucini and Satchmo. Being Italian-American, a lot of the Pucini operas and the way my family acted was the same(laughs)! I went to see a great tragedy and I thought-that's not so strange. I've seen that before! I'm only kidding. It's a little joke.

ML: You're not involving your family or your mother any more in your videos?

ML: Oh yeah. My mom is still involved. She's kind of shy. I discovered I was like a stage daughter. I kept prodding her to do this and that and now one day she was really shy. And she say's to me "I'm really shy. I don't want to do this." And she told me it was because she was only working (in my videos) so we could spend time together. I said, "Look, ma. I'll just make time in the schedule; you don't have to do this." She does other things behind the scenes with me. ML: Was Time After Time the last video she was in?

CL: Oh no. She was in a video called Take Hold Of My Heart, that was the last video she did. But SheBop, had my Aunts Gracie and Helen, and my two Aunt Maes were in it.

EG: How did you like working with Lou Albano?

CL: He's a very funny, funny guy still. He was very much into the M.S. charities and I still do as much as I can, but not as much as him. Women's rights, AIDS projects and all. A very good guy.

Photo: Georgous George. Another tough-sweet wrestler and ass kicker!

ML: Do you feel your association with pro wrestling negatively affected your career at the time, or did you take some positives from it?

CL: No, it was positive. Me with Hulk at the Grammies just got more attention from different areas than from people watching MTV. My ex, Dave Wolf, was always into the wrestling. He loved it. I remember watching Bruno and my Ma loved wrestling. Dave just thought we could reach out to a bigger and different audience by getting involved with the wrestling. He did everything, and set it all up. He still loves it, but I don't follow it as much. It's not like it used to be. Poor management and my pr guys not doing their job was what hurt me, I think. Not the wrestling. I enjoyed my time with it. If it was up to Dave, I'd still be involved with the wrestling. He and I are still friends, and talk. Who said it was a negative? P.R. is P.R. and I will always look at it as a positive. Dave just wanted more p.r., but we were doing pretty good airtime on MTV then. I learned a lot about hype and production from the wrestling, I have to say.

ML: Have you seen some of these Japanese lady wrestlers with the makeup? You started all this. How about the wrestlers on a personal level?

CL: They were really nice to me. They're all characters-forget about it. You think the people in music are "different"...I tried to make my music like wrestling-an event. And that's how I want to get back to it now-my music. Music is my great joy. It's a very freeing experience for me, despite the movies, and TV and everything else. The music is the most important to me. I just heard Burning Spear and that band really inspired me.

ML: You looked like you had a lot of fun with the creative Lost Boys video that had Lou, Moolah, Blassie, Sheik and Volkoff, Wendy Richter... etc… You got the idea!

THE METAPHORIC, PSYCHO-ALLEGORIC  AND PARALLEL WORLD OF THE QUEENS OF WRESTLING IN AMERICA

Why do they do it? Why do they wrestle?

 Is it a social protest? A personality signature? A personality conflict? Need for money? Fun? Love for Sport? Love for public attention? Action? Showbiz? We have some clues but, not all the answers. Millions of fans around the globe watch them. They spent $50 on a ticket just to see them wrestle, kick asses, punch the referee, perform daring acrobatic routines, fly in the air, show off their beauty and hope to get a personal autograph. Would you do that? Would a highly educated man go to see women wrestling matches? Would an educated women consider wrestling as a career? Do college female students practice and or respect wrestling?