Sticky Vicky

Early life

Born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 15 April 1943, Leyton moved to Barcelona with her mother when her father left the family. She studied classical ballet for 15 years, later working as a dancer. With her sister, a contortionist, she performed in a musical dance show. A businessman gave her the stage name of Vicky Leyton, by which she was known for the rest of her life. Leyton later managed El Molino, a theatre on the Avinguda del Paral·lel in Barcelona.

Magic show

After the death of Francisco Franco and the easing of sexual censorship, Leyton experienced difficulties; the public wanted more sexually-explicit shows, and employers began to hire foreigners willing to perform nude. A magician suggested that she perform a magic act by removing unusual objects from her vagina. After practising with simple objects (such as handkerchiefs), Vicky premiered her show in Barcelona cabarets. The show was successful, and she performed in northern Spanish cities in Spain and many variety theatres abroad.

At the beginning of the 1980s, following her sister's advice, Leyton moved to Benidorm on the Mediterranean coast. Although she intended to take a break after her career declined, her sister convinced her to perform at a hotel. Leyton's show was successful and she decided to stay in Benidorm, partially due to its influx of tourists.

Sticky Vicky's show began with her undressing slowly to background music. She later pulled several objects from her vagina, including ping-pong balls, eggs, handkerchiefs, sausages, and razor blades. The lights dimmed, and Vicky pulled out a lit lightbulb. She concluded her act by opening a bottle of beer with her vagina, pouring it on the stage. Leyton did not characterise herself or the show as pornographic: "To do what I do you must have a lot of delicacy. It is necessary to give it a touch of elegance".

Vicky generally appeared six times a night, six nights a week. Her show lasted about a half-hour, although she could perform fifteen times a night by shortening it to ten minutes.

In 2001 Vicky sued a fellow performer, María Rosa Pereira (known as "Sexy Bárbara") for using the stage name Sticky Vicky. María Rosa, who performed a similar show, had registered the name that Vicky had used for many years. Although Vicky won in the Benidorm court, the ruling was overturned on appeal by the Audiencia Provincial of Alicante, which, however, ruled that the name could eventually be protected as a choreographic work. In 2009, the Audiencia Provincial of Valencia determined that María Rosa had acted in bad faith and generated confusion by registering the name, and awarded Vicky the legal trademark for her stage name.

Never married, she had one son (Eduardo Romero Aragüés) and one daughter (María Gadea Aragüés). María, who saw the show for the first time at age 13, later decided to follow in her mother's footsteps.

Vicky performed her last show in fall 2015, several days before a hip operation. In February 2016 she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and announced her retirement in a Facebook post shortly before her 73rd birthday. Her daughter María, who performed as Demaria Leyton, also decided to pursue other interests. The news of Vicky's retirement attracted expressions of affection and disappointment from her admirers.

Legacy

Due to her age and the tenure of her show, Vicky has been regarded as a living Benidorm legend, particularly by British tourists. Leyton, surprised by her success, wrote on her webpage: "I never thought I could be on a stage at my age, and it is all thanks to the English public".

She was a supporting character in the first and sixth episodes of the third season of the British TV sitcom Benidorm. Vicky was brought in as a guest of honour to open up Mel's Mobility Shop in the first episode of season three and during the show's sixth season, one of the characters, Jacqueline (played by Janine Duvitski), has to pass as Sticky Vicky (who is on holiday). In "Jack The Lad", Irish poet Robert Fallon described Vicky's show.