Pussycat Dolls

The lights are low, the joint is buzzing, and sultry jazz vamps circle your head like smoke rings from a French cigarette. Through the bottom of your martini glass, you see them up there on the stage like a vision from the past. Here come the dancing girls: There are eight—yes, eight—leggy dames in corsets and panties, stockings and garters, straddling café chairs and giving you come-hither winks. Slick back your hair, gentlemen, and prepare to adjust your trousers. You have been granted an audience with Robin Antin's Pussycat Dolls.

"In this era of strip clubs and lap dancers, the Pussycat Dolls are the complete opposite," says Antin, the shapely founder, choreographer and visual perfectionist of the group. "We never go all the way. The men are looking at us and thinking, Whoa, hot chicks, but are they ever going to take it all off?"

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Robin Antin is a tease. And proud of it. Four years ago she turned her love for calendar pin-ups, burlesque queens, old-time strippers and showgirls into a sugar-and-spice, naughty-and-nice nightclub revue. The members, who have been stretching at the ballet barre since they were little girls, combine provocative dance moves with flirty sensuality in a 30-minute show that features ten songs—from the bump and grind of Breakfast at Tiffany's "Hubcaps and Taillights" to a Roaring Twenties–styled number by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. "It's hot," says Antin, "but never raunchy."

Before they even had a name, Antin and her dancers were given their own night at the Viper Room by the cat who owned it, Johnny Depp. They came to Depp's attention through Christina Applegate (see this month's 20 Questions), an honorary Pussycat who has, on occasion, tap-danced with the troupe. (Another TV star to emerge from the Dolls is Carmen Electra.) As swing swung into the American consciousness, the Pussycats' legend grew. Onetime Stray Cats member Brian Setzer used the girls to stroke his audiences when he played LA dates for his first solo album. Courtney Love hired them to dance for her then-boyfriend, actor Edward Norton. Nic Cage caught their show in San Francisco. Elton John got them to shimmy for his guests at this year's Academy Awards party. Antin even cast the Dolls in videos she choreographed for pop-punk outfits Smashmouth and the Offspring.

Known as "the head honcho" by her dancers, Antin intimates that it takes a special kind of woman to be a Pussycat Doll. "You have to tweak your body a little. What we do is slithery, slinky and sharp. It's not just a dance show. All the girls play characters, and they need to get wild and crazy. During the show we strip down from a sailor's outfit to a corset, then another corset. By the end we're in Fifties-looking white bras and girdle panties. We have to be in touch with our femininity and sexuality."

And one more thing, says Antin: "You have to be able to kick your legs up past your ears."

Five-foot-four blonde blue-eyed Lindsley Allen is the littlest Doll. At the age of three, she started taking dance classes, "because I was terribly shy. But my mother says that one day when I was five, I came out of her room with a big feather boa on, and they knew I was headed for something." She moved from pretzel town Hanover, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles in 1989 and has done all kinds of dancing, including an experimental piece in which "they splattered silver paint on my naked body; it was very liberating" and a year on tour with Prince's New Power Generation. She is bilingual—"English and Southern," she giggles—and currently shares quarters with two kittens. You may soon see her acting in the independent film Cessna.

If you caught Motley Crue on tour in 1998, you probably noticed San Francisco homegirl Leila Lee, who hosed down the audience with water guns and fire extinguishers. "I don't know how we got away with that," she says. For Lee, who also danced for the Jane's Addiction reunion, rock and roll pays the bills, but learning is her passion. "I like to read Thoreau or Emerson as I'm watching the Discovery Channel while wrapped in feather boas."

Vancouver native Kasey Campbell is a five-foot-seven blonde bombshell with icy-blue eyes and the baby-doll voice of Marilyn Monroe. The good news is that her old man doesn't mind; the bad news is she's married. "My husband is a dancer, so he has seen it all," she says about her work. And she wasn't at all nervous about the prospect of appearing in Playboy. "It was so much fun," she recalls. "Everyone was complimentary and encouraging. And very generous with the champagne."

The other Dolls call raven-haired San Jose native Staci Flood "the Beauty." She's the only Pussycat without a tattoo. As a musician and singer, she has performed in hip-hop videos, but she's proudest of her Doll parts. "What we do is a Vargas-girl cabaret burlesque thing, but it's tasteful." Although she enjoys travel, she describes herself as a homebody whose number one fan is "my boyfriend." Rats.

"In high school in Santa Monica I tried so hard to be the tan Gidget," Kiva Dawson recalls. "But I was a total goth chick, all angst-ridden and dramatic." Today the pale brunette stunner loves cutting loose as a Pussycat Doll. "I'll be chewing gum, thinking I'm Betty Boop. People will say, 'You're a goofball,' and I'll say, 'Yes, I am!'"

Carmit Bachar, a Sephardic Jewish cross between Tyra Banks and Marlene Dietrich, was a member of a national rhythmic gymnastics team before becoming a Pussycat Doll. She is frequently cast in rock videos (she mouths "give it to me baby" in the video for the Offspring's Pretty Fly) and enjoys yoga, spirituality, going out dancing and walking on the beach in Santa Monica with her dog.

"I am the towering Amazon of the Dolls," says five-foot-nine Angeleno Erica Gudes. And underneath that Louise Brooks wig is a bleached-blonde Afro. "I'm the alternative Pussycat, with a pierced nipple, tongue and belly button. But my best asset is my butt." Since she admits that men can be intimidated by Pussycatitude, she's happy to reveal what turns her on. "Laughter is number one. I also like to philosophize and have great conversations, so I need a guy who can stimulate my mind."

So what's new, Pussycats? Robin Antin has plans. She has cast most of the Dolls as the Bombshells, Ann-Margret-meets-Barbarella confections, for a USA Network variety show Happy Hour.

There is a website (pussycatdolls.com) and a proposed line of lingerie. There is even a script in development. "We'd like it to be a black-and-white documentary," says Lindsley Allen. "Or a sitcom on NBC," Kiva offers. "As long as we get the old Seinfeld spot," Kasey insists.

Me-yow!