Kiki Starr

Kiki Starr came out of the go-go clubs on the Sunset Strip and debuted with the Pacific Coast office in 1968. She worked a mixed team with Peaceful Pete Donovan, billed as Donovan & Starr, from 1970 to 1974, held the GWA Women's Championship from 1975 into 1976, and in 1977 played the older woman to Barrett Mason on Wrestling Junction.

AT A GLANCE

• Nickname: Go-Go
• Born: Kathleen Ann Starkey, 1947, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles
• Billed from: Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles
• Height: 5'5"
• Weight: 125 lbs
• Active: 1968 to 1978
• Territories: Pacific Coast, Frontier, Great Plains
• Championships: GWA Women's Championship

EARLY LIFE

She grew up in the San Fernando Valley. Her mother put her in dance lessons and took her to casting calls from the time she could walk. She left home as soon as she could and did not talk about it afterward. By eighteen she was dancing in the go-go clubs on the Sunset Strip.

CAREER

Pacific Coast (1968 to 1975)

She debuted with the Pacific Coast office in Los Angeles in 1968, billed as Kiki Starr. Crowds took her as sweet or as a fool depending on the night, and she let them choose. She took up whatever cause held the room, and by the early 1970s that was women's liberation. She used its language to get a cheer or a boo, whichever the night called for.

From 1970 she worked a mixed team with Peaceful Pete Donovan, billed as Donovan & Starr, on and off through 1974. Donovan loved her. She kept him close, flaunted other men in front of him and never gave him an answer. The team ended on Wrestling Junction #44 on 4 November 1974. Hank Roberts taunted Donovan about Starr and the Laurel Canyon scene, and Donovan beat him bloody with Starr in his corner. The match was ruled a no contest. Starr went singles, and she and Donovan did not cross again.

On 8 March 1975 she beat Wild Rose Mary Sullivan for the GWA Women's Championship.

Frontier (1976)

She lost the Women's Championship to Lisa "Action" Jackson on 29 May 1976. She spent the rest of the year in the Frontier territory, a stop away from Los Angeles that came close to an exile.

Great Plains (1977 to 1978)

In 1977 she moved to the Great Plains. A nine-year veteran and a former Women's Champion, she played the older woman to Barrett Mason, the first-year Intellectual Bruiser in cap and gown. She laid it on thick in a Wrestling Junction interview segment late in the year, and Mason stood there flustered and could not get a word out. The segment became one of the show's most talked-about moments. Her last appearances came early in 1978.

CHAMPIONSHIPS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• GWA Women's Championship (1975 to 1976)

IN THE RING

In her first years she wore a white long-sleeved mock-neck leotard with orange and hot pink circles, sheer tights and white vinyl go-go boots, with platinum blonde hair cropped and flipped at the jaw, heavy false lashes and pale frosted pink lips. She was small, with a dancer's build.

By 1977 the hair had grown long past the shoulders and feathered, honey-platinum with a center part, over a deep California tan and sun-weathered skin. She wore a charcoal grey wrap-front leotard with leopard-print sleeves, suntan tights and black lace-up boots.

Her line was "Sock it to me."

LEGACY

For ten years crowds could not agree on whether she was naive or knew what she was doing, and she never settled it for them. Her Wrestling Junction segment with Barrett Mason stayed one of the show's most talked-about moments.

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