Earlier this week, Female Muscle ran a feature on the female wrestling feature film, Lipstick and Dynamite. One of the female wrestlers featured in Lipstick and Dynamite is Mary Lillian Ellison, also known as the Fabulous Moolah.
In 2007, the Fabulous Moolah passed away at the age of 84. From the NY Times:
When she started in pro wrestling in the early 1950s, the promoter Jack Pfeffer decided a name change was in order. As she told it in “The Fabulous Moolah: First Goddess of the Squared Circle” (Regan Books, 2002), written with Larry Platt, Pfeffer told her “the name Lillian Ellison wouldn’t do. Not flashy enough.”
He asked her why she was wrestling, and, as she recalled: “Annoyed, I blurted out: ‘For the money. I want to wrestle for the moolah.’”
For more on the Fabulous Moolah, check out the Fabulous Moolah gallery on Lori Braun’s blog.