Behind the Burly Q is a film documentary looking back at the golden age of Burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

 - one of America's most popular forms of live entertainment in the first half of the 20th century.

This documentary film reveals the story of burlesque by telling the intimate and surprising stories from its golden age through the women (and men) who lived it. The film features dozens of interviews with performers, musicians and authors including:

• actor Alan Alda
  Alan Alda
  Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H...
  
  , whose father Robert Alda was a handsome “tit singer” and a straight man
• Nat Bodian, journalist who wrote and saw burlesque at the Empire in Newark in the 1930s
• Lorraine Lee, who used to dance for Bonnie and Clyde
  Bonnie and Clyde
  Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934...
  
   and Pretty Boy Floyd
  Pretty Boy Floyd
  Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd was an American bank robber. He operated in the West South Central States, and his criminal exploits gained heavy press coverage in the 1930s. Like most other prominent outlaws of that era, he was killed by law enforcement officers...
  
   and “earned a quarter”
• April March, First Lady of Burlesque
  April March (dancer)
  Velma Fern Worden , better known by the stage name April March, is an exotic dancer and prominent star of American Burlesque. Billed as April March, The First Lady of Burlesque, she was a headline act in burlesque from 1952 to 1978...
  
  , who started as a cigarette girl in Oklahoma and became a headliner at clubs and theaters worldwide and a burlesque legend
• Tempest Storm
  Tempest Storm
  Tempest Storm is the stage name of an American stripper, burlesque star, and motion picture actress. Along with Lili St. Cyr and Blaze Starr, she was one of the best known burlesque performers of the 1950s and 1960s. She is regarded as having one of the longest careers as a burlesque performer,...
  
  , who still performs today and claims to have been lovers with Elvis and JFK
• the notorious Blaze Starr
  Blaze Starr
  Blaze Starr is an American former stripper and American burlesque star. Her vivacious presence and inventive use of stage props earned her the nickname "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque"...
  
  , who escaped a life of poverty to rise to the heights of fame, and became involved with Governor Long
• Kitty West, aka Evangelina the Oyster Girl, the Bourbon Street star, who entertained busloads of tourists as she “came out of her oyster”
• Taffy O’Neill, who performed at night, and spent the days taking her young son, stricken with polio, to treatment
• Mike Iannucci, star stripper Ann Corio’s husband and producer of “This Was Burlesque”
• Rachel Schteir who wrote the book Striptease, a comprehensive history of the art of stripteasing
• and Janet Davis, author of the extensively researched book on Tiny Kline
  Tiny Kline
  Tiny Kline was an Hungarian-born circus performer. She performed for Barnum & Bailey and Disneyland.-Life and career:...
  
  , who Walt Disney discovered and made her the first Tinker Bell when she was in her 60s

Background

Filmmaker Leslie Zemeckis is a veteran of stage and film. She is the creator of the one-woman burlesque-inspired show, Staar: She's Back and Mistresser Than Ever! that has been performed at various clubs throughout Los Angeles. Zemeckis recently produced the feature Staar starring Carrie Fisher and Jeffrey Tambor and also produced the short film Enfants Terribles, which she stars in opposite Peter Facineli and Christopher Lloyd and which was an official selection of the Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and Chicago Film Festivals in 2005–2006. Her acting credits include Deterrence for director Rod Lurie, Sacrifice with Michael Madsen, Blowback with Mario Van Peebles, and Polar Express opposite Tom Hanks. She co-starred in Beowulf, directed by her husband Robert Zemeckis

Robert Zemeckis

Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...

, starring Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie.

External links

• Official webiste

Reviews

• Sunday Independent Newspaper in Ireland 3-7-2010