It's probable that no one had ever heard the word "ecdysiast" until Gypsy Rose Lee looked it up. To the world at large, self-proclaimed ecdysiast Lee was a striptease artist -- indeed, the most celebrated of that sorority. Lee's early life (fancifully recounted in her autobiography, which served as the source of the play and film Gypsy) consisted of touring the provinces in a vaudeville act managed...
See Full Gypsy Rose Lee Biography