Mama Spiegleman, Waxmate of the month

Mama Spiegleman

Jewish mother of eight and topless performer, she recorded just one single for Accent Records in 1965 with Bob Mullan and Gene Tam (Bob and Gene) : Mama Wants To Be A Go Go Girl / When You Gotta Go You Gotta Go Go. 

If anyone has the record, feel free to post the tracks on YouTube or send it to me.

Mama Spiegleman lone record

Accent REcords publicity shot

Gaye Marcia Spiegelman was born in 1932 daughter of Jack Seigel and Sylvia Siegel.  At 18, she married Aaron "Jack" Spiegelman, a businessman.  She wanted to give birth to as many children possible. But after the sixth child was born, Mr.. Spiegelman didn't want no more children and had a vasectomy, then Gaye adopted twins without his consent. 

Gaye came in one day to announce to her husband that she had had it with the world of housewifery and decided to go dancing topless in clubs.  (One of her uncles was a burlesque drummer and another a character actor. A cousin was a belly dancer)

Every mother has to get out of the house a little bit and I don't play cards or anything.

I had done some Polynesian dancing in the local clubs in our home town, Santa Rosa.  But when I decided to go topless, I asked Jack if it was okay.  And he said, no.  But, after a while, he get used to it.

After I had the silicone treatments, I used a phony name, Miss Exodus, and I could only move my hips for six months because of thre surgery.  But when the word went out that I had eight children, the crowds came in just to watch my hips.

For several months she appeared as the mysterious "Miss Exodus" at a place called El Rancho Rafaele in Encino, California. One day the celebrated San Francisco columnist Herb Caen came in to watch her and discovered her real identity.  From that moment on Gaye Spiegelman was in demand as a topless dancer. Eventually she replaced the equally celebrated Carol Doda at El Cid, one of the major landmarks of San Francisco's North Beach amusement area, variously billed as "Mama Spiegelman" and "The Topless Mother of Eight".

In her contract with the club management was a rather' unique clause in show business circles where "the show must go on" is the unwritten law.   ' If :any of the Spieglman "children.are sick or other domestic needs arise, Gaye may be excused from work. until the matter is settled.. '

'My .home and children come first and my career ls.second.  I love my children and I love to cook and sew for them: Otherwise,  I have - no time for any sort of social life  

In 1967, Gaye Spiegelman filed for divorce, charging her husband with extreme cruelty and "wrongfully inflicted grievous mental suffering."  He didn't deny.

In 1968, no longer topless, she was still performing, singing and doing a comedy routine, "something in the nature or a shapely Phyllis Diller. "

Tragically, she died in November 1968 in a car accident while en route to a nightclub engagement in southern California.  She was beheaded, three of her children were killed and the other four injured.  For the media, “Mama” Spiegelman’s death somewhat mirrored the 1967 accident that killed Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield while en route from Biloxi, Mississippi, to New Orleans. 

Mrs. Gaye was killed Friday in an auto accident with three of her children. The 36-year-old topless dancer and seven of her children were passengers in a station wagon that overturned after hitting a center divider on interstate 15 two miles north of Victorviile [Calif.]. During the accident the Los Angeles-bound station wagon was hit by a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction. Mrs. Spiegelman was en route from her home in Las Vegas, Nev., to a nightclub engagement in southern California. The accident took the lives of Mrs. Spiegelman's sons Mark, 15, and Davjd, 5, and a five- year-old adopted daughter, Sylvia.  Four other children escaped serious injury and were taken to the Victor Valley Hospital, Among them was Sylvia's twin sister, Nancy. The driver of the station wagon, Marvin P. Brody, of Hollywood, was not seriously injured.    Clovis News-Journal, December 1, 1968

But that's not the end of her story.  According to Hans Holzer, an expert in psychic phenomena,  the most striking case of possession was how Gaye Spiegelman, our topless mother of eight, took control of her babysitter after dying in the auto crash.  Spiegelman's intention was wholly benevolent. She wanted to guide the babysitter to another job, [See The Two Lives of Gaye Spiegelman, Topless Mother of Eight, chapter from Holzer's book "Star Ghosts "