An Iron Girl in a Velvet Glove: The Life of Joan Rhodes

The first-ever biography of a trailblazing star of yesteryear. With her svelte hourglass figure and Marilyn Monroe looks, Joan Rhodes would leave audiences speechless as she bent steel bars with her teeth, ripped large phone books into quarters, and lifted two men at a time, one in each hand. But what she did was real. Joan had a super-strength. Born into poverty in 1920s London and abandoned by her parents, Joan endured spells in the workhouse and earned scraps busking on the streets. Despite the worst possible start, she made it to the top of her profession to rub sequined shoulders with the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and Sammy Davis Jnr. Her crowning glory was to perform for the Queen and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle. Joan saw herself as a freak, but in truth she was a champion for the so-called ‘fairer sex’. At a time when women were still groomed for marriage and motherhood, An Iron Girl in a Velvet Glove tells the fascinating and tumultuous story of a woman who forged her own unique path. AUTHOR: Triona Holden is an author, artist and journalist with over twenty years’ experience as one of the BBC’s top correspondents and presenters. Her books include Queen Coal on the women of the 1980s miner’s strike. She lives in Whitstable.