Crazy Horse relatives mad with strip club
Descendants of the American Indian warrior Crazy Horse want a legendary Paris strip club to stop using his name, saying it’s disrespectful to him and his offspring.
The nightclub, Crazy Horse Paris, was established in 1951 and is well-known for adult entertainment.
Crazy Horse was an Oglala Sioux warrior known for fighting the US cavalry in the 1800s. One of his descendants and an executor of his estate, Harvey White Woman, has written to the French club owners, asking that they change the name.
He said the request was prompted by a TV programme that featured the club and its dancers wearing what looked to be feathered head-dresses, a revered native symbol.
“I saw the name and I said, ‘That’s not right.’ When you say the name Crazy Horse, you don’t conjure up nightclubs. You conjure up the warrior,” he said at his home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Dakota.
White Woman said he decided to write to the club before taking legal action, something Crazy Horse’s descendants have done in the past.
In 1992, the family sued a New York brewery that was selling The Original Crazy Horse Malt Liquor.
The company agreed to stop using the name and pay family members compensation, White Woman said. Another case involves designer Liz Claiborne’s Crazy Horse line of clothing.
White Woman said the family is less likely to succeed in stopping the use of that brand because it’s not directly tied to native culture, as was the case with the beer – and apparently the nightclub.
Crazy Horse Paris opened more than 50 years ago.
