A colorful life exposed

Tuesday, June 12, 2007 | 7 a.m.

What: "In Bed With Liz Renay"

Where: Atomic Todd, 1541 S. Commerce St.

When: Noon-5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, through July 14

Information: 386-8633 or www.atomictodd.com

Liz Renay was many things - a burlesque performer, model, actress, mother, camp legend and convict imprisoned for perjury in the money laundering trial of her boyfriend, mobster Mickey Cohen.

Renay, who died at 80 in January in Las Vegas, also wrote three books and was a prolific oil painter.

"In Bed With Liz Renay," an exhibit on display at Atomic Todd gallery, captures all of this.

Call it a memorial to a controversial life fully lived.

Gallery owner Todd VonBastiaans, known for his themed exhibits, included photos, news clippings, dozens of eyelashes, Renay's writing desk and copies of her book, "How to Attract Men."

Her paintings - mostly nudes - are colorful, light, airy and innocent. Faces are perfectly detailed with impeccable composition. The rest of the detail disappears in soft swirling backgrounds.

Clothed portraits are regal, feminine, part Victorian, part Southern belle. The nudes, including a painting of her late daughter Brenda, are as harmless and poetic as they are erotic. Elements of folk art are seen in arrangements of daisy and lilac blossoms around a damsel seated in a forested meadow drenched in pastels .

"People can comment all they want on whether she was a skilled painter," VonBastiaans said. "She's quite possibly a perfect example of a ' 60s outside artist. She is the outsider artist of the '60s."

Four paintings on display were completed at Terminal Island Women's Prison in California, where Renay taught painting to inmates while serving time. The paintings belonged to Renay and were hanging in her home when she died.

After its showing here the exhibit heads to New York City.

VonBastiaans said the artifacts, taken from her 1960s ranch home near Valley View Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, belong to the Burlesque Hall of Fame, which is seeking a home in Las Vegas.

Renay didn't have her own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame so she created one on her patio.

A concrete slab with stars, handprints and the name "Liz Renay" was chiseled from her property and brought to the gallery.

Her painter's palette, box of art materials and four of her wigs, including two from the 1977 John Waters film "Desperate Living," are on display. Even the headboard from her bed is included, along with a costume used when Renay and her daughter performed a mother/daughter strip tease.

What's missing is the 9-by-9-foot mirror above her bed that she'd use to take photos of herself and guests.

"I wanted the right balance of her and her art," VonBastiaans said. "If you don't know who she is, it's right here."

Walking into the gallery last weekend, New York burlesque performer World Famous *BOB* started to cry. Renay was a huge inspiration for her and "a lot of girls," she said.

The dancer was accompanied by retired burlesque performer Dixie Evans. Both were in town for the Burlesque Hall of Fame's Exotic World Weekend .

*BOB* first learned of Renay as a teenager when she saw Renay in "Desperate Living." She's read all her books, including "My First 2,000 Men" - a list that Renay claimed included Glenn Ford, Jerry Lewis and Burt Lancaster - has admired her for more than half her life and has a toy poodle dyed pink and named Movie Star, after one of Renay's dogs.

"I didn't think I'd get to see her this year. But I think I have now," *BOB* said while looking around the gallery. "The paintings really represent her as a person. She had a lust for life, a passion for life , and sought out the beauty in the world.

"If life was a piece of fruit, she squeezed it nice and slow, but all the way."