Rasa von Werder | |
|---|---|
 Photo from 1981 | |
| Born | Rasa Sofija Marija Jakstaite July 16, 1945 Calw, Germany |
| Other names | Kellie Everts |
| Occupation(s) | Bodybuilder, stripper, religious leader, guru, author |
Rasa Von Werder (also known as Kellie Everts; born Rasa Sofija Jakstaite, July 16, 1945) is a German-born author, former stripper, female bodybuilder, photographer, and leader of her own Church/Religion.
Kellie Everts, née Rasa Sofija Jakstaite, was born on July 16, 1945, in Calw, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Her Lithuanian parents, Stasys and Regina Jakstas, had fled from Lithuania (then part of the Soviet Union) under Stalin. The family ended up in a displaced persons camp, and in 1949, boarded the naval ship USS Heintzelman bound for the US.
Rasa's parents were sponsored to stay in an ethnic community in Newark, New Jersey while her Grandmother, Aunt and Uncle moved to an estate in Waccabuc, New York, presiding over housekeeping, child care & grounds with horses. Her father, Professor Jakstas, assembled a Lithuanian school in the Annunciation Church auditorium, having previously founded the first State Teacher's College in Kaunas, Lithuania.
When her parents separated, she moved with her father to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A month after finishing high school, she departed (with one of Marilyn Monroe's photographers) to Hollywood, CA, where she began a career in show business. She lived in Santa Monica across from the pier, where she married Stanley Everts in 1963 and had a daughter named Kellie. She later lived in the Pacific Palisades, then Beverly Hills, and finally Hollywood. Stanley Everts died in 1966.
After ten years of living in California, she returned to Williamsburg, where she spent 17 years. She started a successful business and acquired $200,000 in savings, which she used to buy a house in Upstate New York, where she has lived ever since. [1] [2] [3]
She married Richard Allan Von Werder in 2000 after being engaged since 1986, and they remained married until he died in 2002. During her engagement and marriage, Rasa/Kellie maintained her celibacy, as their relationship was platonic, which Richard Von Werder understood was for the sake of God. [4]
 | This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view .(July 2025) |
Everts was effectively the founder of female bodybuilding; before her promotion female body building was merely a cult (i.e. visible to body building fans, not universal). She brought it into a national/international spectrum. She began competing in beauty/fitness contests in New York City in 1972. [2] Due to her work, which included a 6-page layout in Esquire magazine in July 1975, television appearances on To Tell the Truth , The Mike Douglas Show and The Stanley Siegel Show, and inaugurating female bodybuilding in Playboy magazine May 1977, serious female fitness and bodybuilding contests got started - the first of which occurred six months after her Playboy spread, "Humping Iron." {She had apparently presented the article to Playboy many months before they used it - they were uncertain if the idea of female body building was acceptable - but when the movie "Pumping Iron" came out they jumped at the chance to parody it.} Kellie asked Jean-Paul Goude to produce it & present it to Playboy - as he had done with his successful "Muscle and Grit - Religion and Tit - That's What Kellie Everts is Made of" article in Esquire - the first such appearance world wide. To them it was a lark, tongue in cheek, but the public was apparently mesmerized and great attention was given it - many interviews and TV shows thus followed including a tour in Washington, D.C. When the furor had died down by 1976, Kellie then suggested to Mr. Goude that they should do the same subject for Playboy. He said no, Playboy won't take it as it's too strange - let's do it for Oui. But Kellie said no, it's got to be Playboy. Playboy wasn't sure and said produce it, we'll pay you half - if we use it, we'll pay the other half. And there it was in May 1977. Six months later, Nov 1977, the first muscle contest for women was held. Henry McGhee of the Canton, Ohio YMCA could have seen the Playboy article stating "To the Barbells, Girls!" and held a serious muscle contest for women. Then they began; female body building shows here and there - some not so big, got bigger when the IFBB associates staged them. There was the IFBB Miss Fitness 1979, IFBB Ms. Olympia 1980. More shows followed & they were promoted in the Joe Weider publications, and hundreds, later thousands, of women began to train and compete. Kellie Everts explains it all in one of her many books, The Origin & Decline of Female Body Building (2011), and also in a 2019 interview with David Robson. [2]
Kellie Everts had also apparently modeled for famed photographers Irving Penn and Helmut Newton. The first for Vogue Magazine, 1980, featured her arm flexing a bicep pose, which was used in Vogue and the New York Times Newspaper advertising the article. Helmut Newton photographed her in a marvelous layout for Oui Magazine, doing exercises in a white bikini and a white mink coat, but the article was not used because a male model in the spread - Jimmy the Greek - threatened to sue. He apparently said 'the guys won't like it - you don't know these guys' and he threatened to punch Helmut Newton out. [2]
Despite having been the catalyst for female bodybuilding and training hard for the event, she was barred from entering the 1981 Caesar's Palace Boardwalk Regency IFBB in Atlantic City, apparently due to her controversial "Stripping for God" around that time. [5] She had called the lady who was put in charge by phone to ask admittance to the contest, but the latter apparently rambled about other women and did not invite her, no reason given (likely instructions from the IFBB). [2] However, by then, Everts had already accomplished her goal, which was changing the Overton Window for female body building. No other woman had done that - claims to the contrary - if they say they were the original look at the dates. Encyclopedia Britannica names Abye "Pudgy" Stockton of the 1940s-1950s as the first female body builder - but she did not change the Overton Window - she did not appear in national/ international venues for the sport - she remained in the 'underground'. Universal female muscle shows did not follow her lead. And Lisa Lyon, the next candidate for 'launching' female body building - followed Kellie Everts after her Esquire and Playboy articles as well as her national TV appearances for females lifting weights! The rest have no claims to being the first because look at the dates. If they did female body building work it was on the local, provincial level - not national or universal. Because of Kellie Everts promotion the image of women's bodies in our culture was changed. There were many pioneers, but only one Progenitor. No established body building organization except the WBBG has awarded any female body builder the title of 'first' except that bestowed on Kellie Everts.
Kellie won the titles of Miss Nude Universe in July 1967, totally nude in front of a nude audience, Miss Americana 2nd place and Best Body in 1972 (on the same stage as Arnold Schwarzenegger), Miss Body Beautiful 2nd place in 1973, first place Miss Body Beautiful U.S.A. in 1974, and Miss Americana 2nd place & Best Body 1974 (the same stage as Arnold Schwarzenegger again) At the end of this show all the male winners posed on an elevated platform - Kellie had two trophies - Second place Miss Americana and Miss Americana Best Body so she felt she deserved to be there. She hopped onto the platform and posed with Arnold, but he maneuvered & moved closer and closer to her until she had to hop off the stage.
She had made nine appearances in Playboy , and was the first female bodybuilder to do so, in the "Humping Iron" edition, May 1977 (predating Lisa Lyon's appearance by three years). [6] Later, she appeared in a three-page spread titled "Stripping for God". Previous to these, she had a six page spread for the 'Miss Nude Universe Contest' as the winner, in Febriary 1968. She also predated body builder Laura Combes, 1979, when she lifted weights on the national "Real People". Maria Shriver produced the documentary on Kellie Everts in 1979 where she Stripped for God {preached and danced} at Harlow's Club in NYC and lifted weights at the Mid City Gym. Important local TV shows where she presented female body building were AM New York, AM Washington and the Stanley Seigel Show - prior to all other female body builders, the dates were 1975 to 1980. [2]
In 1979 Maria Shriver, the future wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, produced a nine minute documentary on Kellie Everts, which featured her praying in a Church, training in a gym, and preaching/strip teasing at a Club. It was the most popular presentation of that month at the station in Baltimore, Maryland. [7]
Of Kellie’s many books, there are three (all noted in the Bibliography section, and available on LULU and Amazon) that cover her body building days. They are:
1) “The Man Whisperer” (2024 page 110 with rare photos) – which gives a Time Table of all she did in the sport:
2) “I Strip for God” part 9 – The Life in my Men (2022 page 124)
Documents the relationships of Kellie Everts which were Mr Universe, Mr Americas: Mickey Hargitay, Vern Weaver, Harold Poole, Franco Columbu, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dennis Tinerino, Boyer Coe, Chris Dickerson and Reg Lewis.
3) The Origin and Decline of Female Body Building (2009)
Explains how the genre of female bodybuilding, at that time did not exist, how it got started, flourished, and began to decline after the year 2000, when men got frightened by Kim Chizevsky and changed the rules. Then when Weider sold out to AMI in 2003 it was relegated down to a subculture. [8]
Kellie's dancing career went Coast to Coast from March 1966 to August 1987 & included numerous shows in Canada. She quit to focus on producing dancing and female domination videos. She made enough money to purchase a 50 acre property in Upstate New York - a sumptuous watery wilderness with a wide expanse of riverfront and a five acre island with thirty trees she named "The Island of Mirth".
On February 2, 2007, the World Bodybuilding Guild (WBBG) named her "Progenitor" of Female Bodybuilding - "the Woman responsible for Modern Competitive Female Body Building" and, in August 2007, inducted her into their Hall of Fame. [6]
Dan Lurie and Kellie Everts – the Beginning
(From Dan Lurie’s Book “Heart of Steel” Dan Lurie with Dave Robson, Author House 2009 – Page 313)
Dan Lurie wrote: Kellie Everts A young lady with a great physique, Kellie was as motivated to compete as any male bodybuilder I had worked with. I would promote her to the world and in doing this become the first publisher to profile a female bodybuilder.
In 1974, I received a call from Esquire magazine photographer Jean-Paul Goude, asking me who I would recommend as a subject for an ‘Amazonian’ spread he was planning. I instantly told him, “Kellie Everts is your lady.” In my mind she was the only female bodybuilder around at the time. In fact she was the first real female bodybuilder ever, a fact not lost on me when I put her in my December 1974 MTI. That was the very first article any muscle magazine had done on a female bodybuilding up until then.
To my mind, one thing is for sure: she was the first female to break through to make women’s bodybuilding widely known to mainstream audiences. [9]
In September 1973, Everts gave her first religious talk after dancing at the Melody Theater in Times Square. This combination act of stripping and preaching led the press to dub her the "Stripper for God". [10] [11] [1]
Everts traveled in the United States and Canada, giving over 1,000 sermons in burlesque theaters and nightclubs. [12] [13] [14] [15] "Stripping for God" created public debate about the coexistence of sexuality and spirituality, and conflicted with prevailing social norms and constructs at the time. The assertion of being an ordained minister while openly working in the adult entertainment industry was controversial. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]
In 1988 she appeared on The Morton Downey Jr. Show on an episode about strippers [25] She filed a lawsuit against host Morton Downey Jr. and the television network WWOR-TV alleging libel. [26] [27] [28]
Everts later changed the emphasis of her mission to the return of matriarchy and the feminine divine. On June 16, 1978, she preached a message about Our Lady of Fátima in front of the White House, intending to bring about the conversion of Russia and, by extension, preventing a potential nuclear World War III. The gist of the message was, "Pray the Rosary for the conversion of Russia, or nations will be annihilated." [12]
She expanded her focus, founding "The University of Mother God Church", which became a distinct religion for women.
Rasa Von Werder has apparently been a minister to Purgatory for many years as well. She says that Jesus Christ appeared to her in the form of a Priest {his Spirit possessed the priest} in a Church, where He called her behind the altar – {there were no other people present} thereby ordaining her. This has enabled Rasa to say the Holy Mass, which she celebrates daily for the Poor Souls, and this is the main way she helps them. Her experiences are outlined in three books so far: “Theater of Justice - Celebrity Souls Appear” “God Waits for Them” and Royals Ascend into Heaven” as listed in the bibliography section. [29]
Everts has done much unrelated activism, humanitarian, and community work, primarily in Brooklyn, New York. [30]
On May 24, 2004, Everts, under her present name Rasa Von Werder or Guru Rasa of the Church of Mother God, started the Woman Thou Art God Website. [31] She has since continued publishing online on her religious beliefs. She has thirty-eight (and counting) books published on female empowerment, her biography, matriarchy spirituality, and various other subjects. Since 2014, Rasa has also had another main website as well, Embodiment of God, that further builds upon the first one. [32]
She has also collaborated with other authors as well in writing books and online articles, most notably including William Bond, who is also featured on that site. [33]
In her later years, after 30 years of celibacy for spiritual purposes, beginning at age 63 in 2008 (according to her, God told her to stop suffering, quit celibacy and have fun – thus it was "the Will of God"), Rasa became a "cougar" and photographer of males, mainly in the college town of Binghamton, New York, to further the cause of female empowerment. At Binghamton University, she was popular overall and featured several times on the front page of their student newspaper. [3] She has written about this experience in several books (see Bibliography section).
Rasa has also expanded upon her new matriarchal religion for women, writing the book Woman, Thou Art God: The New Religion for Women in 2019–2020. She has published several other books since then and is also currently working on several other books from 2024–2025. These include further volumes in her autobiographical I Strip For God book series and books containing all the guidelines, directions, doctrine, and suggestions for her Sisterhood and "New Religion for Women" that she founded. [32] [34]
As a result of her influence, Werder has made appearances in numerous forms of magazine prints, [13] including The New York Post (1974), [13] D-Cup (1989), [43] The Examiner, [44] The Sun (1998) [45] and has frequently been portrayed on Playboy. [46]
"Hot-Gospel Stripper Finds It Cool In Britain": cover image from Titbits magazine, 2–8 January 1975