Lydia the Tattooed Lady Stock Exchange by commandeering a microphone and singing the song before telling jokes for 15 minutes, during which time traders suspended their work to watch him perform. Lydia the Tattooed Lady "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" is a 1939 song written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen. It first appeared in the Marx Brothers movie "At the Circus" (1939) and became one of Groucho Marx's signature tunes. The complex lyrics by Harburg – with clever rhymes such as "Lydia/encyclopedia" and "Amazon/pajamas on" – were inspired by W. S. Gilbert. Harburg made many contemporary references to topical personalities such as Grover Whalen,
Tattooed Lady this time, continued to perform where an audience gathered. One of the last to perform, Artoria Gibbons performed well into her eighties during the 1980s not necessarily for money, but for the love of performance art. Though not as visible or discussed as often, tattooed ladies moonlighted as artists during their off seasons alongside their husbands. Many of these tattooed ladies learned the craft of professional tattooing from their significant others and paved the way for a new generation of women to secure their livings by creating feminine styles of flash in their own shops. The end of sideshows changed