Her mother had been a model and showgirl, and her father was the entertainment director at the Dunes and Tropicana Hotels.

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It's that of a gutsy, up-by-her-bootstraps heroine--daughter of a Las Vegas showgirl and a show-promoter father who died when Dunn was 12.

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Ms. Dunn spent her childhood in Las Vegas, where her father was a casino entertainment director and her mother was a retired showgirl.

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And Maddalena Corvaglia, a former showgirl on ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's network, Mediaset, was dismissive about Mrs Tarantola's ambitions for women on RAI.

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On Friday, she appeared as a witness at the trial of TV presenter Emilio Fede, celebrity agent Lele Mora and Nicole Minetti, a local councillor and former showgirl.

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Her character, Billie Dawn, the ditzy showgirl mistress of a corrupt businessman, who gets an education in the course of the play, was first defined by Judy Holliday, onstage in 1946 and then in an Oscar-winning film performance in 1950.

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Political sex shenanigans as tabloid fodder date back to at least 1963, when Britain's Secretary of State for War John Profumo attempted to cover up his affair with a showgirl, who had also been cavorting with a Soviet intelligence officer.

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