Dita Von Teese (born Heather Renée Sweet) is an American burlesque model, artist and actress.
Dita was born in Rochester, Michigan. Her mother was a manicurist and her father was a machinist. It was Dita’s mother who first inspired her daughter’s love of classic retro style and 1940’s cinema; she often let Dita dress up in her collection of clothes and she soon became fascinated with them.
Dita began training as a ballet dancer from a very early age, but by 15 she had decided that she was never going to be a professional and stopped taking classes. She would later go on to incorporate some of her ballet styles into her burlesque routines.
When she was 12 Dita moved from Michigan to Orange County, California where she attended ‘University High School’ in Irvine.
When she moved on to college Dita decided to study historic costuming and is now a trained costume designer.
When she was 19 Von Teese went to work in a strip bar, this was to be the beginning of and the inspiration for her current career. She saw the other girl’s costumes and wanted to make her own act look and seem different from everyone else so she donned a beehive style hairdo and elbow length gloves and began to create her own routines, she was soon a stand out act confusing yet enticing the customers.
Whilst working at the club she also took on some modelling work and began to feature as a fetish model in magazines, she became well known for her ‘Bettie Page’ look and this soon set her above any of the other models.
Dita has been featured in Playboy Magazine in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Until then she had been using the name ‘Dita’ but playboy requested she have a second name, after picking Von Treese out of the phonebook it was misspelled and put on the cover as ‘Von Teese’ which Dita actually preferred and decided to keep. She later came up with the headline ‘Putting the Tease back into striptease’.
She has appeared in several fetish related movies including Romancing Sara and Matter of Trust. She has also appeared in several music videos most notably for Green Day and Marilyn Manson.
Dita Von Teese and Marilyn Manson became a couple in 2001 and he later proposed to her on March 22nd 2004 with an amazing 1930s, 7-carat, European round-cut diamond engagement ring. They were married on December 3rd 2005 however their marriage didn’t last long, Dita Von Teese filed for divorce from Marilyn Manson on December 29th 2006 citing ‘Irreconcilable Differences’ she later told ‘The Daily Telegraph’ she wasn’t supportive of his constant partying or his relationship with another girl.
Dita is currently still performing her routines around the world and leads a busy and fulfilling life.