In his usual dour way, F. Scott Fitzgerald whined, "There are no second acts in American lives." But Fitzgerald didn't know Liz Renay.

Too bad. He could have learned something from her.

My favorite Vegas bombshell was all about comebacks, second acts and thirds. She was unsinkable, indefatigable, incorrigible, irresistible.

Liz was larger than life and had the bust line to prove it. Even as she approached her 80th birthday last spring with her bum hip and other age-related maladies, she still led with her best assets.

In the right light, she could still turn heads and charm the chips from casino players' pockets.

It's hard to believe she's gone.

Liz Renay, who in her R-rated lifetime was an actress, author, artist, stripper and convicted felon, died Monday night at Valley Hospital of complications after a lengthy recovery from a fall. The Clark County coroner's office attributed the official cause of death to cardio-pulmonary arrest and gastro-intestinal bleeding. She was 80 going on 25 and left a few family members, a cult following from her role in John Waters' "Desperate Living" and enough ex-husbands to fill a Greyhound bus.

No second acts?

Liz was born Pearl Elizabeth Dobbins in Mesa, Ariz., on April 14, 1926. Her mother was a dirt-poor religious zealot who wouldn't let her children watch movies and tried to steer young Pearl toward a righteous path.

But Pearl dreamed of bigger things: Hollywood or bust.

She ended up with a little of both. Liz won a Marilyn Monroe look-alike contest and emerged as eye-popping arm candy for a number of big-screen stars and big-time gangsters.

She was like Marilyn without all the talent and lush-life sentimentality.

Liz fittingly made her first movie appearance as a mobster's moll in a '59 movie called "Date With Death." She knew plenty about the role. When she was with Mickey Cohen, she gained national notoriety after being convicted of perjury. She refused to cooperate with an IRS investigation.

She served 27 months at Terminal Island, emerging in 1963 with her dreams of stardom seemingly dashed.

The fates and Fitzgerald might have written her out of the picture, but our girl Liz would not be denied. She took up painting and writing in prison and emerged with exotic canvases and the rough draft of a memoir that would become the best-seller "My Face For the World to See."

She landed small film roles and scored her first major credit in the gruesome 1964 splatter flick "The Thrill Killers." She added a few husband notches to her garter belt and appeared in a series of drive-in movies, spicing up the tabloids by streaking at Hollywood and Vine.

Her appearance in Waters' "Desperate Living" in 1977 made her a darling in the gay community and gave her legendary cult status that eventually would see her invited to everything from conventions to pride parades. For her 80th birthday, at a time she was ailing, her friends trotted her on stage at the Celebrity nightclub aboard a raft befitting her status. While most suitors had found her elusive, the truth was Liz Renay was easy to love.

She was a little naughty and occasionally bawdy, but the sum total of her exotic dancing career wouldn't even raise an eyebrow on prime-time cable television today.

But she seized on that sex kitten image and wrote a second memoir titled, "My first 2,000 Men." (Although she recalled partying intimately with everyone from Joe DiMaggio and Cary Grant to Regis Philbin and Burt Lancaster, the number was a slight exaggeration.)

Liz wrote beauty books and cookbooks and was working on other manuscripts at the time of her death. She also had a pointed opinion about the difference between her kind of cavorting and the sort of prostitution practiced by some Southern Nevada politicians in the Galardi public corruption case.

"Politicians do the dirtiest act," Liz said. "Their act is way beyond what any dancer could do if they were trying to do dirty dancing. Martha Stewart got a slap on the wrist for lying, and her lie could have hurt people.

"But those politicians in this case, they wiggle out of things more than the strippers wiggle on stage."

Liz Renay was a class act on every stage and a stand-up girl to the end.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.