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How a punk rock singer became one of the Gorgeous Ladies of wrestling
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by brad bynum bradb@newsreview.com
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owadays, Lily Crabtree is the Guaranteed Services manager of the Patagonia warehouse here in Reno, but nearly 30 years ago, she was Corporal Kelly, barking orders and mugging for the camera as she got into the ring to wrestle. She was a cast member of GLOW: Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a popular syndicated TV show that ran for four seasons in the ’80s. A grainy video recording of her final bout can be found on YouTube: A lively crowd surrounds a ring that could be the venue of a boxing match, except the ropes are the color of cotton candy. Corporal Kelly, “the mean Marine,” is introduced first. She runs out, decked in what looks like Vietnam-era fatigues, not comfortable athletic wear, and heads toward the ring as the audience raises a mix of cheers and the jeers a good heel deserves. In the clip, there’s then a cheesy video swipe that might have been state-of-the-art in 1989 but looks as outdated as a horse and buggy today, and then there’s Corporal Kelly bobbing to a basic beat, flanked by henchwomen, and then, yep, she starts rapping. She’s right on the beat, in a gruff voice that approximates no-nonsense, but is actually all-nonsense: “Stand at attention when I speak/I’m Corporal Kelly; I despise the meek/I spot their weakness, and I move in/With strategy behind me, I’m gunning to win.”
Photo/Eric Marks
Her opponent is Sunny, the California Girl, a bouncing blonde who approaches the ring with a surfboard in hand, like she literally just ran over from the beach and didn’t have time to stash her stick. Instead of rapping, she attempts to tell a “knock, knock” joke, but the audience doesn’t really bite, so she just stutters awkwardly for a second, until the ring announcer looks at her, shrugs, and says, “don’t you …” and then she shouts “Tanks!” This is apparently the midway response of the joke, but she doesn’t wait for a “Tanks who?” before launching into a rendition of “Tanks for the Memories.” (The 1980s were a different time. It’s hard to picture the stereotype of the dumb blonde being presented so blatantly, and with such condescending affection, anywhere on TV today—except maybe at a Trump rally. And even then they’d probably
call her Hillary and ruin the whole terrible, tacky simplicity of the thing.) The match begins moments later. Kelly shoves Sunny into a corner and starts pummeling her, she grabs her hair and tosses her against the ropes, picks her up and slams her over a knee. Sunny gets the upper hand a moment later, and the two wrestlers alternate taking the lead in a half-choreographed, half-improvised dance around the ring. The bout ends with Kelly climbing to the top turnbuckle and diving off with a “bombs away!” body slam. But after pinning Sunny, Kelly seems to have trouble getting to her feet, and although she raises her arms above her in a gesture that seems like a victory celebration, the howl she lets out seems pitched between triumph and agony, and she seems strangely immobile as the ring announcer declares her the winner.
LADY OF T HE RI NG continued on page 12
It was a moment of triumph for Corporal Kelly but a moment of agony for Lily Crabtree. “I heard my knee pop,” said Crabtree recently. One leg had landed on a soft spot on the mat. The leg twisted, and her ACL was obliterated. She gritted her teeth, pinned her opponent, stayed in character long enough for the crew to finish filming the scene, but then she had to be helped out of the ring. “They tried to send me back out there,” said Crabtree. “I don’t know if you can tell in the match, but I only had one good leg.”
BROOm wITH A vIEw Crabtree was born in Cincinnati and grew up just across the Ohio River in suburban Kentucky. She moved out at age 16 when her parents threatened to put her in an all-girls Catholic school because they found out she was sexually active. Not long afterward, in the early ’80s, she started hanging out with musicians in Cincinnati’s music scene, especially a band called the Ravens. “I basically roadied for them, moving equipment in and out,” she said. “I was always a tough girl.”
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