Jacob Kepler/VIEWCopies made from newspaper articles and publicity materials line a wall of the In Bed With Liz Renay exhibit at the Atomic Todd gallery.
Jacob Kepler/VIEWAtomic Todd gallery owner Todd Von Bastiaans sits in front of Liz Renay?s headboard and one of her paintings. In Bed With Liz Renay is scheduled for display at least through July 14.
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Liz Renay may be most famous for streaking down Hollywood Boulevard in 1974, on a dare, but the stripper, actress and author was a renaissance woman -- as that sampling of her resume shows.
She founded the first mother-daughter burlesque act on her release from the 27 month prison sentence she served for refusing to rat on her then-boyfriend, mobster Mickey Cohen. The burlesque act toured until her daughter Brenda committed suicide in 1982 at the 49th birthday party Renay threw for her. She made two album recordings of her poetry -- and she picked up a love for painting in prison.
Her film career spans half a century, starting in 1950 with an extra role in "The Sound of Fury" and stretches on up to 2002's "Mark of the Astro-Zombies."
She built a career playing roles like "Minnie the Madam" in films with names "Hot Rods to Hell." But she got to play herself in "Year of the Woman" and won hep-cat notoriety in John Water's 1977 "Desperate Living" as the murderess Muffy St. Jacques.
At 80 years old she died Jan. 22 at Valley Hospital. Now, in a show titled In Bed With Liz Renay she is being remembered for her paintings, which are on display at Atomic Todd gallery in downtown Las Vegas.
During her life, she sometimes sold her paintings for $5,000, according to an obituary in The Independent. Today, many of her paintings, none of which have titles, are in the homes of private collectors.
According to gallery owner Todd Von Bastiaans, none of Renay's paintings were technically self-portraits. But Renay the painter did seems to fixate on images of beautiful women with curves, flowing blond hair and soft features like her own. Whether her subjects were dolled-up as a country shepherdess or Marie Antoinette they embodied completely a certain unmistakable ideal of femininity.
"If you look at the faces, they're all her," Von Bastiaans said.
"She was very much about what a woman should be," he said of Renay whose book, "How to Attract Men" is in a glass case as part of the show. She also published a memoir started in prison called, "My Face for the World to See" and another, "My First 2,000 Men." For the record, she was married just seven times.
Some of Renay's works are among the 150 she completed in prison while teaching oil painting there -- such as the one showing her two children alone and asleep in the woods while a benevolent fairy dressed in green peers down at them. The artist is survived by her son.
Another striking piece is the life-size nude of her daughter as an adult.
The paintings are intensely reflective of the late '60s and '70s Von Bastiaans said pointing to "the make-up, the color, the innocent nakedness of the women."
Friend and admirer Bruce Merrin, president of Celebrity Speakers Entertainment, said Renay's son offered him some of her paintings when he was taking care of her estate but Merrin said he couldn't take them.
"They were too special. It would be too sad for me," said Merrin, who recalls Renay's work as it hung in her home.
"I was knocked out and dazzled by the way she was able to interpret her feelings and her emotions in her artwork," he said.
There's much more in the show than just her paintings -- a screen of photocopied Renay-related newspaper clippings and film advertisements veils the show and leads you into the gallery. An autographed cement square from her patio is the second thing visitors see.
"She never got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so she made her own," Von Bastiaans said.
Inside the exhibit, Renay's dulcet voice coos her own sentimental verse from her record "Moods" on an automatic turntable. Then, there are her costumes, the wigs she wore in "Desperate Living" warming the mannequin heads she meticulously painted to look made-up, the 8x10s she used for signing autographs, her collection of mink false eyelashes. Even her kitchen door, every inch of it decoupaged with pictures of food, is on display.
The look of the show is a bit macabre -- the space is accented with dead flowers and ferns -- but Von Bastiaans said Renay's close friends, who helped him set up the show, are very happy with it.
Renay's daughter had decorated the house and, after her daughter's death, Renay kept nearly everything just as it was, Von Bastiaans said. This is why so many items were available for inclusion in this show meant to reflect the woman and her life. The serene blonde nude that hung above her bed hangs above a daybed appointed with hot pink linens -- very like ones she might have chosen -- and her actual headboard.
There is a spot on the headboard where the gold paint is worn away. Von Bastiaans said Renay used to sit there to read and her hair spray eventually melted the paint.
The intimate retrospective got its name from the way Renay insisted all visitors to her home have a seat on her bed.
Because of the public's interest in the exhibit, "In Bed With Liz Renay" will be extended at least few weeks beyond the planned July 14 close date. When it does close, the paintings will move on to a gallery in New York.
For more information on Atomic Todd, at 1541 S. Commerce St., Suite 100, call 386-8633.
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