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Grandma Chelly was always,
to us, larger than life.

- What happened?
- Yes, we do.

What happened? What happened?

And she was also
unusual and eccentric.

What are you doing?

She was completely the most

un-grandma person that,
you know, anyone could have.

In fact, when I used to meet
people for the first time

and they would ask about me
and stuff like that,

and then I would mention
something about my grandmother,

"She owns most of the porno
theaters in New York,"

and then, of course,
I would get that classic pause,

which I think I actually
enjoyed, which was,

"Yeah, right. No. What does your
grandmother really do?"

And I was, like, "No.
That's the truth, actually."

Except for the fact
that she was...

Jewish who celebrated
Christmas in a porn theater,

it doesn't get
any weirder than that.

Going into her apartment

was always
an interesting experience.

Because we were little,
we didn't really understand

that she was living
over an all-male

gay pornographic movie theater.

So, here we were dressed
in our little, you know,

Lord and Taylor coats and our
shopping bags from Westchester.

And my mother would
knock on the box office.

There was usually
somebody there that she knew,

and they would buzz us in

and we'd just be
in the lobby for a little bit,

and make a right and go up
a very steep group of stairs

into her apartment.

And then, we were
in her apartment,

and then you were
in a different world.

Everything looked very golden.

It was sort of like a kitsch
version of a '70s Trump,

sort of mixed in with a Greek
Corinthian column mixed in.

It was all just
a mélange of strangeness.

It was quite a scene.

The cast of characters
that she had around her

were just like
caricatures of caricatures.

You never quite knew who
was a lover, who was a friend,

who was an ex,
who was a future thing.

There was this cabal
of Greek witches.

You know, very heavyset,

dark dressed women with deep
voices, full of cigarettes.

And then, she would
usually be sitting on the couch,

center stage.

She was holding court.

Like a mafia queen.

She had a very funny way
of speaking.

She had this very sort of strong

kind of voice, like this,
and she used to curse a lot.

It was always entertaining.
It was just a show.

I mean, it was always just
like a crazy family circus.

And I always got this feeling
there were secrets going on,

that I had no idea
what was going on.

Behind the Christmas tree,

there were all the monitors
of all the porn theaters

in black and white, showing
all these surveillance cameras

and things like that.

So, even that was
a whole level of craziness.

We would love
to watch the videos,

so we could see who was
coming into the theater

and count how many men
with raincoats and umbrellas.

That's how we
entertained ourselves.

But you didn't understand it.

I mean, nobody, not one person,

ever explained it to us.

Nobody ever sat down and said,

"This might make you feel
uncomfortable," or nothing.

It was just like, "Here you go."

Oh, my God. What we got now?

I was very prideful about her

because she was
so completely unusual.

Everything you said about her

just sounded like
it was made up.

QUEEN OF THE DEUCE

New York, in the 1970s,

was in a state of crisis pretty
much for the whole decade.

Businesses were moving out
of the city, into the suburbs.

People were leaving the city
to move to the suburbs.

Although it was an incredibly
dire economic situation,

it was an incredibly
creative period,

marked by this incredible sense
of innovation and exploration.

GAY PRIDE

NY IST RUN ADULTS
FREESTYLE LOVE THE CONTEST

New York City

was very different in the 1970s.

Everything that I remember

was X-rated theaters everywhere.

You know, my mother's theaters
up and down the street.

Chelly Wilson was one of
the most successful Greek women

in America back then,

and this was porno movies
24 hours, I would say.

It never closed.

People just walk in
one after another.

Very smart and
very successful woman.

She knew what she was doing.

Chelly Wilson was a known person

on 42nd Street,
also known as the Deuce.

I worked for Show World Center,

which was a sort of
a landmark staple at that time.

It was actually a...

a sex emporium

that had videos

and live entertainment,

and what we call booth babies,

where there were girls
inside a booth.

You couldn't touch them

because there was a piece of
glass between you and them.

Chelly obviously knew
about us and we knew about her.

And then, when I got to meet
her, we just happened to click.

We took a liking to each other.

I admired her so much,
and I think, perhaps,

that's why
she took a liking to me,

because she saw
the admiration I had on my face

when I would speak to her.

Well, she had the nerve to do
and the foresight to do things

that I never would've
thought of doing

or would've had the nerve to do.

I'm not saying that she had great,

high ideals,

but she was a force of nature,

and that was
what I found fascinating.

And really,
you know, as a young kid,

to see people
that can be that forcible

is really inspiring because you
realize, "I can do it, too."

I started out my photo career

working on hardcore porn films,

and I got the job because
my ex-husband was a producer.

Herb Nitke. He made a movie
called The Devil in Miss Jones.

The Devil in Miss Jones
was an enormous hit.

And Herb did business with her.

I remember meeting her
and just thinking

she was just larger than life.

She was powerful-looking.

She was like a ball of fire

and just incredibly engaging,
like you could not not like her.

It was just something about her
that was... that drew you in.

To tell you the honest truth,

I think I fell
in love with Chelly,

in a way, before I ever
met her daughter Bondi.

I always basically wanted
to be in the theater

and that's why
I came to New York.

But that's a very tough
business to get into,

especially when you're
trying to be a performer.

And so, I wasn't having too much
luck with finding acting jobs.

So, I took a job cutting film.

A friend of mine
named Sandy Johnson

had been working for Chelly.

So, he said,
"I want you to meet her."

We go to the Eros,
and we go up through the lobby,

and up the stairs
into an apartment,

a very nice apartment.

And in the living room,
holding court,

was this woman in a muumuu,
half-reclined on the sofa.

And there were five or six
people all talking to her,

and in front of her was
a long glass coffee table

supported by
two white elephants.

That was where all her papers
were. That was her desk.

I said, "Who is this?"
"That's Chelly Wilson.

"She makes a lot of films

and she has a lot of theaters."

I noticed some shopping bags
all around the desk,

and I looked down
and they were filled with cash.

And I nudged Sandy
and I said, "What...

What is this?"

"That's from the theaters."

"Sandy, come over here.

Give me a kiss."

So, he did,
and then, he introduced me.

"Don.
Oh, Don, do you make movies?

You want to make movies for me?
We can do business."

Of course, she was
tremendous at business.

She just did amazing things.

I think Chelly was one of
the first, if not the first,

to import homosexual films
to New York City.

The Adonis...

that was a nice theater.

The Adonis Theater
was one of the, sort of, premier

gay porn theaters.

It was so famous,

it became, then,
a topic of a porn movie itself.

And one of the things I like
about the porn movie,

it's called A Night at the Adonis,

is that it portrays the Adonis
as a kind of community center.

What about that guy there?
The one with all the keys.

We call him the Jingler.
He's an artist at giving head.

Going to the Adonis
was a time in my life

when I was trying to
explore my sexuality.

I would go to have gay sex,
and it was a lot of fun.

It was all about finding a place

where you can
express your feelings,

express your sexuality.

I love this place.

Now, I don't think there's
a room in this building

I haven't fucked in.

She named it the Adonis

after she acquired it.

Before the Adonis,
it was the Tivoli.

She bought the Tivoli
property from Gulf and Western.

That was really
a premier theater.

I think it opened in the '20s.

She acquired the property
on a very good deal

because it was a porn theater.

She was a great wheeler-dealer.

She had a lot of chutzpah.

Actually,
I think she loved the deal

and making the deal

more than she ever loved
what the deal finally led to.

It was fun,

but she certainly
didn't care about

gathering lots of money
to show off.

She was not into luxury.

She's living over
a porn theater.

She could have afforded
a very nice apartment,

any place in the city, but no,

didn't matter; this was home.

That was it, which is
the movie theater. Yeah.

Now, they changed the inside.

They did a restaurant.

But the structure,
it's the same.

She really started at the Cameo.

Then, she picked up the Tivoli,
which became the Adonis.

Then, she got the Eros
and the Venus.

Then, there was the Lido West,

and then there was a Lido East.

So, that's how many theaters?
It's a lot of theaters.

This is the famous
Cameo Theater.

That would play
the X-rated movies,

for 24 hours, I don't know
for how many years.

People just come in and out,
in and out, in and out.

But this was the main
attraction, all these lights;

this would light up the
entire 44th and Eighth Avenue.

And this is where
I used to work.

It was very convenient to go
from one place to another.

She would call me, say,
"Do this, do that."

And I would leave my job

with my boss's permission,
because they were good friends.

You could never
say no to Chelly;

whatever she wanted
to do had to be done.

That means, "Shut up. I will
pay you," and she always did.

She will call me
and she will say,

"Bring me four or five
cartons of cigarettes."

Means, "Has to be done now."

"Tóra." And you know,
we would do what she wanted.

My sister
and I always used to say,

"Mother, leave us
all your boyfriends."

Because she had all these people
that would do things for her,

tremendous connections
in all different areas.

So, she would use them
if she needed to.

She would call me
just to go upstairs

and just listen to her.

"Sit down."

Okay. I'll sit down, you know?

And she would curse people

that I had no idea
who she was talking about.

Not long.
20 minutes, half an hour.

Then, she open up the closet,
give me a $100 bill.

"Get out of here now.
Now, get the hell out."

As a matter of fact...

"Go to hell."

That was her...

She didn't mean that.
I know what she meant.

Like, "It's enough."
You know, I know that.

A lot of times,
she was very angry.

She would try to tell you,

"You stupid idiot. You didn't
do what I told you to do."

Well, she was very emotional,
because she's Greek.

And so, her temper would
overflow a lot

and she enjoyed that.

She really enjoyed getting
into emotional explosions.

But it was a great relationship
between all these people here.

We were all like brothers.

We're like family.

The Eighth Avenue
was to accept the person.

If they're gay,
if they're Black, white.

There was no racism
at all back then.

I rather would never came back
and see it like this.

Right now, I don't see any life.

I see people walking around,

but if they call this life? No.

Here she's in
her glories right now.

She'd say, "I accomplished
what I wanted to do."

That's exactly
how she was most of the time.

Most of the time, wearing black

and holding
a cigarette or a cigar.

She would rarely smile
that I remember.

Even here, she's not smiling.

She never spoke
about the past. No.

Her sister and her brother

were killed in the Holocaust.

In a lot of families,
people never talk about it.

That's not unusual that they
don't talk about the Holocaust.

It wasn't something

that, you know,

we were educated about
or told about.

I didn't grow up
with my mother telling me,

"You had an uncle. You had
an aunt. You had grandparents."

I didn't even know
I had a sister

until she came from Greece.

I had no idea that I was Jewish.

Everything was on
a need-to-know basis, I guess.

That is what
I do regret because,

had I really realized that
and appreciated that,

I might have asked my mother
many, many more questions

that I didn't ask. And I
might have gotten answers,

and I might have even
been very surprised

by what the answers were,

and I do regret that.

In 1983, I got Bondi
to sit down with Chelly

and do an interview, because I
began to feel that the memories

that she had were going to fade,

or we were going to lose them
if anything happened to her,

and it was amazing.

Three. One, two, three.

Testing. One, two, three.

Tell me about the family.

The great grandfather comes
from Spain.

My father, Davico Serero,
went to Salonika.

SALONIKA, GREECE

Salonika, known as Thessaloniki,

had a very large
Jewish population.

The language they spoke was
Ladino, which is Judeo-Spanish.

That was her first language.

She learned Greek in the streets

and she learned French
in school.

She was a Sephardic Jew, and
they were extremely religious.

Society in Thessaloniki
was very strict,

and it was very difficult
for her to deal with that.

She was more expansive
than that.

And she, apparently,

was a whirlwind even then,
in her early days.

They called me Solomon Serero

because I was like a tomboy.

And I loved to go to the theatre.

I became president
of the theatre club.

I was studying,
I wanted to be a doctor.

I used to play violin, you know,

and I went to a concert.

When I took the tram

somebody entered and
stepped on my foot.

He opens his mouth and says
"Pardon, mademoiselle."

This son of a bitch, Moise Bourla,
comes after me,

comes after me, comes after me.

And he says to my father,

"I have the honour to ask you
for the hand of your daughter."

And when my father
saw that he spoke French,

my father gave in to him.

He comes home and says,

"I found the man for you,
you're getting married."

I said, "Papa, are you crazy?
I don't know the guy!"

"We'll introduce you to the guy."

When introduced to the guy,
I wanted to vomit.

He was short, he was a mess,
he didn't know how to speak Greek.

So then they got me engaged.

He wanted to kiss me and I said,
"You son of a bitch,

don't you put your hands on me!

I'll kill you!"

And I put my hands with my nails

and I scratched him all over.

He was so repulsive to me,
the son of a bitch!

My mother always said
that she got married

because her father
wanted her to get married.

And she respected her father
very much, but she said,

"When you die,
I'm going to get divorced."

What she resented most
was the fact that

it was an arranged marriage.
It was not her choice.

And that's it, I got married.

And Dino was born.

And then I left him.

And you went to France?

I went to France, he took Dino.

He kidnapped Dino.

I went to France, to my aunt's.

She was not meant to be
a housewife.

Let's put it that way.

She was not noikokyrá,
I don't think.

My father wrote me a letter,

"Please come back, I don't feel
good, I'm going to die,"

and so forth.

I said "OK".

So I came back.

In the meantime,

my husband made me go with him
in order to bring Dino.

He blackmailed me.

"You are not going to
see Dino if you don't stay with me."

And he took me
to a hotel to go with him.

I was like a mummy, you know,
he was kissing me all over.

And I wanted to kill him! Repulsive!

Every kiss he put on my body, I
wanted to kill him. It was torture!

And then, you got pregnant
and you had Paulette?

- Yeah.
- Did you stay with him?

No, after Paulette, I just left him.
I threw him out.

She got a
Jewish divorce, called a "get,"

so that Moise could remarry.

Oh, this is me and my brother.

I remember.

You know what I remember
about this picture?

Holding his hand,

or he's holding my hand.

I was born in Athens.

And so, the divorce was,

she would take the daughter
and he will take my brother,

Daniel, and this is how we were.

My mother had a business.

I had my own store.

"ARKTOS" Rachel Serero, R. S.

I was making frigidaires,
I was making stoves and everything.

I was making a lot of money.

And she complained
to her secretary.

Her name was Ellie.

"What am I going to
do with Paulette?"

Ellie said to her,

"Don't worry about it.
We'll take Paulette.

"We'll bring you to Mama Yulia
and she'll take care of her.

So, you don't have
to worry about it."

I think she knew her
limitations.

I think she knew, "I'm not
a mother."

You know, "I can be something,
but not a mother."

And then, the story goes,

or the myth goes, that a man
came in the middle of the night

and scooped her up
and brought her to this family.

Julia, who we used to call Yaya.

This is the way I went
to Yaya's house from here.

Who is it? I don't know.

All I know, he took...
They took me.

They were taking me to Yaya's.

They're in a taverna,
having a good time,

and they're taking
a picture of me sleeping.

I look horrible.
I look like an orphan.

Look at my shoes.
I have dirty feet.

Obviously, my mother
told them to do it,

and whatever Chelly says,
everybody does.

There was one thing
my mother said to Ellie.

"Make sure that
she doesn't speak Spanish

"when you take her home.

I want her to speak only Greek."

And the reason for that,
I found out later,

it was because
the Greek Jews had an accent.

Poland, September, 1939.

The German foe begins
its ruthless march of conquest

and sets the stage
for World War II.

And then the war started.

I went to see all of them

and I said, "Now look, because
I know they're going to kill

all the Jews, I can get passports
for you to go to America."

Because my friend was
the mayor of Athens, Kotzias.

I said, "Let's go."

"What!?"

Are you crazy, Solomon Serero?

We've got so much gold here.
We've got so much property.

We've got everything. We're going
to leave everything and go?

"We do business with the Germans!"

So I didn't trust anybody!

I went to Mama Yulia, I said,
"I'm leaving you a letter."

You're going to keep Paulette here.

Under no circumstance will you
deliver Paulette to my family.

No mother, no father,
no sister, to nobody!

"She stays with you until I say so."

And I left Paulette there.
Four years old.

She gave me a kiss.

She says, "I'm going away.
I'll be back to get you."

She took her pinky ring out
and gave me her pinky ring,

and that was it, and she left.

My mother left Greece in 1939

on the Nea Hell as,
the last boat that left Athens

for America
before the war broke out.

It's hard to think about.

How do you leave your child...

and go to a country that you
don't know anything about?

I came to the United States
with five dollars in my pocket.

So I didn't know about America.

I didn't know how very difficult
it was.

I don't know about that.
You know?

And I met some people,
Kay and Chrissy, on the boat.

So when I came out, I said
"Where are we going to go?"

"We're going to go to
the Rex Hotel with five dollars."

I said, "Kay, one day,
you're going to be my helper."

"Are you crazy?" she says to me.
I say, "I'm not crazy."

I said, "I bet you any money you're
going to be my employee one day."

Mr. Yiannopoulos owns
a lot of stands, you know,

with hot dogs and everything.

And the next day, he says to me,
"You know something,

I want to do business with you."
I said, "Okay."

So he took me with a car to
Dyckman Street.

He says, "We're going to
put the stand there.

It's going to cost maybe $6,000,
plus merchandise.

So you give me $50 a month."

She sold hot dogs
and soda, and she used to go,

"Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, 7 Up."

And I took Kay as my employee.

I said, "See? We should've
made a bet.

I took you as an employee."

My job, when I was very little,

was to fill up
these bags with peanuts.

I was supposed to put
13 peanuts in the bag.

She sold them for 15 cents.

And I said to my mother,

"You're cheating the people.
You're charging too much."

And my mother said,
"Don't be a stupid.

You have to make a profit."

My first business lesson.

Salonika is in German hands.

This was the headquarters
of the Allies.

Now, this important port has been
conquered by our troops

after four and a half days.

During the war,

my uncle came to Athens

to take me to Thessaloniki

so we can all be together,
all the family.

Yaya, Mama Yulia, said,
"No, you can't take her."

He said, "Yes. I'm her brother."

But she told him,

"Your sister told me not to give
Paulette to anyone.

"Even if my mother
comes out of the grave,

you don't give her to her."

As most Sephardic Jews
did in Salonika,

they wanted the families
to stay together.

But it saved Paulette's life
that they weren't together.

The Germans were rounding up

all the Jews in Salonika

and sending them off
to Auschwitz.

They took them all.

My aunts, my uncles,
these friends of my mother.

I know that, in Athens,

the way that the Jewish people
were treated

was a lot different
than it was in Salonika,

because the clergy of
the Greek Orthodox Church

was very into trying
to help the Jews

and trying to keep them
away from the Germans.

My Greek mother told me,
she said to me,

"You're a very lucky person.

"You have two mothers,

one who's away and she's going
to come and get you, and me."

You know, if Chelly hadn't

picked that family
in particular,

you know, who knows what
would have happened?

I'm sure there
are many other good,

righteous Gentiles in Greece,

of course,
but they risked their lives.

They were a wonderful family,
obviously,

who made very great sacrifices

and put their own lives in danger

to have Paulette living there
as an openly hidden child.

Everybody
knew that I was Jewish.

That I was Jewish,

everyone knew it.

They also loved
this family very much

because she was
a wonderful lady,

and I guess they protected her.

And we were scared, because

if the Germans came,

they were not going to take me;

they were going to
take everybody.

You had to protect yourself
and everybody else,

because you say
one wrong word...

And everybody
was paranoid, you know?

"Where did you find the meat?
Where'd you find the olive oil?"

There was no food.

I mean, it wasn't only the Jews
that suffered during the war.

There was starvation in Athens.
It was incredible.

It was terrible. It was awful.

Chelly was very worried about

everything
that was going on in Greece.

She was making money

at the refreshment stand
and sending the money to Greece,

to buy pieces of newsreel
footage and cultural footage

to put together
a film about Greece

in order to raise money,

to help the Greek War effort
against the Germans.

So, that was
Greece on the March.

She went to play her film

at the Cameo Theater,
which was called the Squire.

So, she needed somebody
with the projector.

Rex was a film projectionist

who came from a big
theatrical family in England.

And they were also Jewish,

but they never told anyone

because there was
very little work for Jews.

So, they changed
their name to Wilson

and got work theatrically.

He was very clever, technically.

He knew cameras.
He knew projectors.

And he was fascinated by her.

I don't know why, but he was.

This Rex Wilson was in love with me,
we got married.

The guy was coming every night
and lighting my cigarettes.

He gave me cigarettes.

So I married him.

It was nice, he was providing
me with cigarettes.

My father was very romantic.

Love at first sight.
He loved her right away.

My mother
didn't speak English then,

and my dad never spoke
any other language,

except for English.

They did not communicate.

Their relationship
was very tumultuous.

There were tremendous fights.

My mother threw
the mattress out of the window.

The neighbors
would call the police

because she threw every dish
in the house and glass at him.

She went to work for
the Hudson Shipping Company,

and she was the liaison

for the war effort in Greece.

And I sent $100,000 in
merchandise.

Rice, sugar,
flour and everything else.

She was very nervous about
the children, their safety.

And she was trying to get
information from the Red Cross,

which she got some little bits
and pieces of information

about how they were doing.

Daniel,
he was stuck in Solanika.

Somebody helped him and hid him.

The war ended. The British came.

Everybody was happy.

And then, finally, we got
a letter from my mother.

I found out that
she was in America

and that
she was coming to take me.

She was going to go and get
my brother first in Palestine.

My grandmother was
going to Israel to get Daniel,

who had left Greece
after the war

and had joined forces in Israel.

He was in a kibbutz.

And then,
he went to the Haganah.

He went to the army.

Of course,
he didn't like it there.

He was miserable, miserable.

My grandmother went to
Israel, again bribed someone.

There was always a bribe
involved to bring him back,

because once you join the army,
you couldn't just leave.

So, she had to do
some negotiations.

So, she got
on a boat and she got him in,

and she said to him,

"Now, we're going to Athens.

"You're going to stay
in your cabin.

You don't come out from
the cabin."

I had Dino stolen from Israel.

So I said to Dino,
"Stay in the cabin."

So I got out of the boat.

I went to Mama Yulia.
Paulette was there.

And the poor kids, I kissed them.

And I say, "You want some money
for a taxi to go home?"

Because I have a big trunk...

With two feet.

With legs.

"Let me get it out and
I'll come home."

And where is Dino?

He's telling the man
who's watching on the boat,

"My mother brought me from Israel,
and is going to take me to America."

"You were on the boat?" "Yeah."

They grabbed him
to take him to Immigration!

I go to Immigration and I say,

"You come with me,
we'll go to the mayor of Athens."

So I took the two people there
by car.

My car with a chauffeur
was waiting.

And I go to Kotzias.

"Oh, Chelly!"

So I tell the story of
what happened to Dino

and the officers were crying.
Everybody was crying.

And that's it! Finished!

In the meantime,
Dino is already on the boat.

I let him go!

Goodbye, Dino!

A friend of mine had a ship.

It cost me $1,000
to put him downstairs.

This is the day before
I left to come to America.

- This one?
- Yes.

- You see this dress?
- Yeah.

This dress was
made out of a parachute.

Wow.

I was getting ready
to go to America,

and that was a big thing.

And all my friends were,
"Oh, my God.

You're going to go to America?
What are you going to do?"

I used to say to them,
"I'm going to be a movie star."

My mother came, so she can
arrange about the papers,

the passports,
when I'm going to leave,

what ship am I going to be in.

I was 12-and-a-half years old.
I didn't speak English.

But when I came
to the United States,

she didn't come with me;
I came by myself.

When I came on the ship,
everybody, you know,

we got up to see
the Statue of Liberty.

And I looked down and
I see all these yellow cars,

and I said, "Oh, in America,
they have yellow cars."

It was the taxis.

Nobody explained
anything to you.

And poor Bondi was...
They were telling her,

"Paulette is coming.
Paulette is coming."

What did she know
who Paulette was?

And she was waiting
for me to come.

She was very young.
Beautiful, beautiful child.

The best day of my life
was when Paulette came.

I was only four,

but I just loved her right away.

I tried to teach Bondi
to speak Greek.

Paulette would
teach me some Greek

and I would teach
her some English.

We used to go... Eye,

nose,

mouth,

hair.

And I would say
the English word.

She would say the Greek word.

She would talk to me constantly.

I didn't know
what she was saying.

She was the most adorable child.

But it was
very difficult for me.

I didn't want to be here.

I never unpacked
my bag for months.

My mother, she understood
where I came from

and she wanted me

to be here, to become

American.

She took two chairs,

and she says to me, "This is..."

"This is Greece and this is America."

If you want to be in Greece,
sit in this chair.

If you want to be in America,
sit in this one.

"You can't sit in both chairs."

"If you can make it five years,
you'll never want to go back."

- I love this picture.
- Oh, this is the best.

That picture is so wonderful.

This is the best.
This is classic.

Her bathing suit didn't
close up. She didn't care.

Oh, my God.

I don't think my mother

ever went back
to Thessaloniki, never.

It only held
bad memories for her,

very bad memories,

nothing but loss.

Only 5%

of the Jewish population
survived.

To this day, I don't know what
happened to my mother's mother.

One of the last times
I saw my mother at home,

she looked very
desolate, you know?

And I said to her,
"Mother, what's wrong?"

She wouldn't tell me.

I said, "Tell me.
Maybe I can help you."

Because she would
always say she could help me

or anybody with whatever
problems that they would have.

And, um...

And she said...

"I want to see my sister."

This was so many years later.

And I said, "No, you're right.
I can't help you."

So, then she said, she went,

"Hmm. Can you bring me
a Nazi, so I can shoot him?"

My sister has said
that there was a time

when you could get reparations,
but my mother didn't want it

because she said
it was blood money.

She didn't want it
because she had paid too dear

for that money,
and she wouldn't take it.

I think my mother did have

survivor's guilt.

This picture, I have to
know who these people are.

I'm never going
to find out, am I?

I have no idea, Bondi.

I wonder if I showed pictures
to everybody in Salonika,

if somebody might
remember somebody.

They're all dead, Bondi.

I know.

My mother's aunt Allegra

left Salonika in 1932
to go to France.

At the end of the war,

my mother heard from Allegra
that she had survived.

And the letter that
my mother responded with

was found in Allegra's papers.

It is written in Ladino.
Judeo-Spanish.

"My dearest Allegra.

"Oh, Allegra, just seeing
your name on the envelope

"made my heart skip a beat.

"Adding one more person
to the list of survivors

"fills my heart with joy.

"I can't even begin to describe
the anguish I suffered

"thinking of each
and every one of you.

"I spent entire nights
without sleeping

"and days without eating.

"I can assure you that
if it wasn't for my husband,

whom I love dearly, I would've
ended up in an insane asylum."

My mother always used the
expression "God bless America."

She truly felt it.

She really did
love this country,

and she loved, I guess,
the freedom that she had here.

And there were always
strangers living with us

that she would pick up from
I don't know where.

But I remember waking up

and walking over people
sleeping in the dining room

and under the table, over,
on top of the table,

that she would just pick up
that jumped boat

and wanted to stay here,

and she was going to
help them get their papers,

and she did.

Her main thing was
to support the Greek people.

She played Greek films
on weekends.

She had all the people
in Astoria and Queens,

they would come in and see
the films booked into the Cameo.

They also played at the Tivoli.

For us, back then,
to work on Sunday was a sin.

Like, you know, we just
had the Greek mentality.

You never work on Sunday.

And we used to go to the movies,

but she would bring
all these nice films.

She certainly knew
who was doing what

and who had the assets,
and all of

the big Greek producers
and distributors knew her

and they would ship films
to her.

All the good names,
she was on it.

And always a comedy and a sad.

It wasn't making
a whole lot of money.

A few people had suggested,
"Chelly, why don't you try

these other films?"

So, she got a few films and,
all of a sudden,

the money came rolling in.
"This is good!"

A lot of theaters were driven
into having a product

that they could buy
reasonably, if not cheap,

and get people to see, which was
a very good audience.

You didn't need
a lot of matrons.

They didn't go to eat candy
and popcorn and stuff.

So, you had a very good audience

who paid a higher price than
the general ticket admission.

She was very good
at recognizing opportunities

and taking advantage of them.

Oh!

Chelly was the first person
we ever sold a movie to.

It was the summer of 1965.

I was selling a movie
that I had invested in.

The title was Flesh and Lace,

which, in those days,
was an adult film,

which today could play
regular TV in the afternoon.

Who is she?

Beverly Hill, my roommate.

It had one flash
scene of a naked woman

on a bed on her stomach,

and another scene of a
nightclub with a girl dancing.

It was just a nice story.

Get out of here.

Joanie, please.

I said, get out of my sight!

We needed to play it in New York
and Chelly had a theater.

We made an
arrangement with Chelly,

where the first $4,500
of receipts would go to Chelly,

and then, there was $600
advertising expense,

and that would be taken off
the top before the $4,500.

And then, we were to get 90%
of everything above that

and she would
get 10% above that.

Well, about two weeks before
the play date, she said,

"We need to raise the
advertising $400 more."

And then, we got another call
a week before to raise it.

It wound up being $6,000
before we got any money.

What we didn't know because we
didn't have her experience was,

we were not just allowing her
to take the first $4,500

or the first $6,000;
we were guaranteeing it.

And then, we found out
before the movie opened

that the theater
never did $6,000,

which would be a very typical
Chelly kind of deal.

But as luck would have it,

in the first week,
the film did $10,000,

which was
quite an accomplishment.

We broke the
theater house record,

and people were coming over
and patting us on the back.

It was good for her, too,

because it established
a new paradigm for her theater.

That was indecent.

Honey, that's what I am.
Indecent.

And that's what
I've always been.

You have to understand, in 1965,

the mores
of America were changing.

Obviously, there was a demand,

because if there
wasn't a demand,

it would not
have been successful,

and it was extremely
successful, so...

It was a forbidden
fruit for many years,

and now it was available,
and people wanted to see it.

She made a lot of money,

and she had very many
people working for her

who stayed in the apartment
and they took care of her.

Plus they were cooks.

You know, they would clean
the apartment, all women.

One of them,
as I recall, was Machi,

and she would come up with
shopping bags full of cash.

Shopping bags.

As the future came upon us,
Chelly purchased theaters.

I know one of them,
on Eighth Avenue,

was the Eros,
and then the Venus.

She named her theaters
after Greek gods, okay?

It was about making money, honey.
Making money.

She used to have Friday night
poker games at her apartment.

So, you go into this, like,

seedy theater lobby
on Eighth Avenue,

and you go in, very steep
stairway that you had to go up.

And the place is
locked like a fortress,

like a steel door
with a thousand locks on it.

And then, we get in and
it's, like, this hugely ornate,

amazing apartment.

There was a round table

and there would be
little tables,

so you could put your drink,
your coffee, your ashtray.

Back then,
everybody would smoke.

And she had the whole,

like, little crew
of all the cool people.

Jamie Gillis was there,

Mickey Zaffarano,

and Herb Nitke,

and they would literally
play poker all night long.

There would be money
all over the place.

20s, 50s, 100s.

Those games would...
You know, very high stakes

and they would go on
sometimes for days.

I'm sure a lot of
business went down.

And, yeah, if Mickey was there,
he would pop in, I'm sure,

to do a little business.

Some of the stories I've heard,
she was involved with the Mafia.

I think you had to be to be part
of the pornography industry

in the '60s and '70s.

Yeah.

Yes.

They protected us.

At the poker games, she was
almost always the only woman,

and she sat at the
head of the table, always.

The fact that Chelly
was able to hold her own

in that world of all those guys

who are all sharks
in one way or another,

is beyond commendable.

I mean, what a woman.

It was all about
the fun of the deal.

It was all about the fun
of gambling.

The one thing
I learned about gamblers,

having spent a lot
of time with them,

they don't actually care
about winning.

I mean, they care about
winning in the moment,

but they mostly just
want to keep gambling.

She loved people who knew how to
talk, and get things done,

and sneak behind things,
and go around things,

and she just adored
people like that.

And unfortunately, she got
involved with a few of them

and got taken a bit
from time to time,

because they were good at it.

It was a lot of
bar booth places.

"Bar booth" means
the place to play dice.

She would start going
over there very often,

and she lost a lot of money,
I believe.

I heard from my boss,
Petrópolis...

"They fleeced her yesterday."

"We took a couple hundred
thousand dollars

or maybe more, maybe more."

But she wouldn't give up because
whatever she lost, in one week,

she would get it back.

Not from the gambling,
but from the business she had.

No matter how much she lose,
everything would come back.

The porn industry
focused on 42nd Street

because that's where
the theaters were.

These big theaters,
huge theaters,

many of them
not having enough business.

And so, they would
eventually move to porn,

which was the most lucrative.

In the early days,

because there was no real
porn industry producing films

on a regular basis, the theaters
ended up producing porn as well.

My mother and her partner
then, who was Lee Pomeranz,

formed Chellee Films.

She probably thought about,
well, I'll make films.

I have a theater to play them.
And that, you know,

she thought this would be
a good business venture.

This is the story
of a silk-stocking industry.

An industry of perversion.

Scarf of Mist,

Thigh of Satin is different.

And then, ultimately,
she distributed them as well.

So, it was, you know,
like they did in Hollywood,

before it was broken up,
where you own the theater,

you produced the film,
and you distributed the film.

We made a few films

for them when I wasn't
married to Bondi.

The way I got into the business

was a film called
Scare Their Pants Off.

On weekends,

for three weekends,
we made Scare Their Pants Off.

A film with a little nudity,
but some horror also.

It was a lot like
off-off-Broadway theater.

Please don't hurt me.
I keep telling you.

I know what you
keep telling you me!

You keep telling me
we got the wrong girl

and that damn silly nonsense!

Everybody sort of
hoop-skipping along

and having a good time
and making these films.

They didn't pay an awful lot.

But if you made enough of them,
you made a living,

and there were
some good people in it.

Are we all set up
for that party?

Party? Since when did
you all get so civilized?

You mean orgy.

You had to have actors,
so you couldn't show sex.

So, you had to have people
who could act like

the sex was
taking place and real.

And so, it meant acting.

It was fairly easy to cast.

What usually happened is

there were people
who were around as models.

Musicians,

actors, various kinds
of entertainers

who were not doing well,

and so, they would do porn
for a little extra money.

What I want now is
some of your ass, all right?

You're always after my ass.

I want to fill up 40
feet of screen with your ass.

In the early days,

the nudity wasn't really
highly important,

and it was just basically
topless if it was.

But later on, it changed a lot.

It's an industry
that grew hair by hair,

one pubic hair at a time.

The public wanted
as much as they could see.

Every film had a little more
than the last film.

Baby...

You don't give yourself credit.

Baby, you're going overboard.

What do you think
I want you to do?

Sleep with the guy?

Oh, wow.

Honey, you're crazy.

Softcore porn evolved.

So at first, you had
what they called beaver,

which was just a female crotch.

And then, they moved
to pickle and beaver,

which was a penis
and female crotch.

And so, eventually,
hardcore emerged.

And so, you had penetration.

The industry exploded until
there was nothing left to see.

Hardcore pornography
really emerged in 1969,

almost, like, on the dot.

I've never seen
a film like this before.

Oh, it's different, all right.

Chellee was soft core.
Then after that,

it led to Variety Films,

and Variety Films
was Chelly and Bondi.

I didn't have
much to do with the productions.

I just did the distribution.

Variety was mostly hardcore.

You know, as I got older
and was a teenager,

I knew what pornography was.
It was conflicting.

Pornography
is a lie about women!

Why?

Pornography lies about women!

I thought of
Grandma Chelly as a feminist

earlier in her life.

The pictures and the information

that I knew about
her living in Greece,

owning a business,

smoking cigarettes,
wearing pants,

having short hair,

lent itself to the sort
of Simone de Beauvoir,

you know, idea of a feminist.

Then, when I went
to college, you know,

and I'm studying feminism,

and pornography is
the antithesis of feminism.

So, I thought of her
as perpetuating

a very destructive view
of men and women's bodies.

She never had any
compunctions about any of that.

Couldn't care less
about the content.

My mother would never apologize

for who she was or what she did

ever, ever, ever,

even though
she grew up in a culture

where everything
that she was about was wrong.

Do you have a lot of friends?

No, I-I hate men.

What?

I can't stand
when a man touch me.

I knew she was gay.
Nobody ever said to me,

"Your grandmother's gay."

Or, "If she's gay, why is
she married to Rex Wilson?"

I mean, it was just assumed
that this was her lifestyle,

this is who she was.

Happy Pride Day, y'all!

Today, you would say
she was completely out,

proud of who she is.

She'd never pretended
to be anybody other.

But when we were growing up,

you didn't talk as openly about
who's gay, who's not gay.

You know, she had many
gay male friends.

The first time

that anybody ever said
anything to me,

it was at a funeral.

A friend of mine was next
to me and she looks over

and she says to me, "I didn't
know your mother was gay."

And I said, "Hmm."

I guess I didn't know either,

or I didn't know that everybody
knew and I didn't know.

But I wasn't
even really aware of it

or I just didn't
want to see it, because

in those years that I grew up,

it was not something
that you accepted so easily.

Hi, ma!

Today, it's like, whatever.

The sky is blue. You're gay.

It's, like, no big deal.

Noni and Eva did live with us.

This was her other family.

Eva was the
opera singer from Greece.

Machi and Angela were friends

who came to live
with her at various times.

They were all gay.

They would clean,
they would cook,

and they were always there.

- Hi, Angela.
- Hi, honey.

Rexy, she definitely
had a very interesting

and loving relationship
with for a very long time.

Even when she started
living with Eva and Noni,

Rexy was still there and he was
still a part of the family,

as long as he wanted to be.

Eventually, he felt dispossessed

and moved himself
to Puerto Rico.

But when he came back,
he was always welcomed.

He was always taken care of.

He was going blind,
and she took care of him.

Her first husband Moise
became a friend of hers,

and they would write letters
back and forth in French.

I think she lived for
the family,

and that included
the extended family.

At the time...

It was late '60s,
I believe. Yes, late '60s.

And Chelly Wilson decided
to open up a Greek restaurant.

She opened up
the place called Mykonos,

and she had the right person
to run the place,

Noni Kanjaraki.

She would have her lover,
Noni, singing there,

who was a sort of opera singer.

Gravelly, six packs of
cigarettes a day kind of singer.

Very nice voice.

So, it was strange going
to the house and seeing Noni

in a sort of, like, nightgown,

walking around with
her cigarettes and so forth.

And then, like, at that night,
she would be in this restaurant,

singing and be all glamored up

in this sort of kitsch
sequin thing.

The Mykonos opened

basically for Noni
to have a place to sing,

and for them to have
a place of their own.

It was going to be, like, a
little boîte in the beginning,

and then, it ended up being
a full-blown restaurant.

THEW GREEKS HAVE A WORD FOR FUN-DINING

It was very lively.

My sister worked there
as a hostess.

That was the place to be

and the place to stay
till 4:00 in the morning.

STANDING ROOM ONLY RESTAURANT

MYKONOS (N.Y.) IS GREECE
TRANSPLANTED TO NEW WORLD

ACCORDING TO MRS. CHELLY WILSON,
NOBODY EVER WANTS TO LEAVE MYKONOS!

The food was fabulous.

Vassilis Photopoulos did
the design of the restaurant.

Beautiful murals.

Vassilis had won the Academy
Award for Zorba the Greek

for the Art Direction.

Handsome, handsome guy.

Bondi used to be...
Oh, she loved him.

I met a lot of Greek stars
and American stars.

Yul Brynner.

Jackie with Onassis came.

Shirley MacLaine.

Bobby Kennedy.

Rod Steiger.

Everybody went to Mykonos.

She did the smartest thing.
She brought in a pelican.

Yes, she did.

She brought the mayor,
with the pelican

from the island of Mykonos.

PETER PELICAN'S BEAK IS FULL OF GOOD WILL

Over there,
the pelican is considered to be

a bird of peace.

And he is here as a peace... As
a symbol of peace to the world.

And everybody came
to see the pelican.

It was lined out the
door to come have dinner,

and this was constant for about
a year or two, like, nonstop.

You would see only limousines
outside just to see

the pelican.

It was a very fun place to go.

And then,
we had Bondi's wedding there,

which was beautiful.

The place was full of flowers.

My mother had built a floral...

It was almost like a huppah

that a Jewish couple
would get married under.

PRESENTING DON WALTERS AND BONDI WILSON

STRICTLY X RATED PREFORMANCE

We were opening
a new film at the time

that I was getting married
and I was very, very busy.

So, I didn't really
have that much to do

with what happened
at my wedding.

My mother wasn't that
interested in business

because Mykonos was going on.

So, she was more
interested in the restaurant

than she was in the films.

So, I was doing all of the work.

In the early '70s,

it was a very exciting
but fraught time.

There were all kinds
of legal implications.

Hardcore never became legal.

A community could ban,

in its local area,
certain kinds of porn,

if it didn't satisfy what
they call community standards.

The federal government
was prosecuting people

and a lot of people
were getting busted.

DA MOVES TO SEIZE "MISS JONES"

HERBERT NITKE CHARGED WITH OBSCENITY

Herb, my ex-husband,
was charged with obscenity

three different times;
major cases,

like serious,
you will go to jail,

felony kind of cases.

Bondi was not real keen
about the possibilities

of getting harassed or arrested
running a distribution company.

She was good at running
a distribution company,

but she didn't like the fact

that the FBI might
wander in and harass her.

It wasn't until the business

got a little more dangerous
that it got more difficult.

And for me,
it got most difficult

when I got arrested

for distributing a film,
Illusions of a Lady.

Yes. You really
are quite lovely.

The indictment
was on interstate shipment

of obscene material

and conspiracy against
the United States.

So, I felt very threatened

and I felt she didn't
really understand it.

"Everything's going
to be okay, darling.

Everything's going to be okay."

In the meantime,
it was a felony charge.

It was...
I was arrested by the FBI.

I mean, it was not
everything is okay.

I had to go to trial
in New Orleans.

And I had been told, too, that
I could plead nolo contendere,

and I wouldn't have to worry
about a trial or anything else.

And I said, "No.
I didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm going to fight this
all the way down.

I'm not copping any plea."

I apparently have
a tic I wasn't aware of,

which is I giggle.

So, every time they would
ask me a question, I giggled.

My husband believes that's
why I didn't get convicted...

because I was too stupid.

So, we all got off,
which was wonderful.

Of course,
they asked the jury why,

and the jury,
which was mostly women,

they said because
the Obscenity Law said

"current community standards,"

and they said, "They make these
films down here in the Quarter."

So, that was it.

Current community standards,
it wasn't violating anything.

So, that was the end of that.

Basically, things are changing
and I think Hair, Oh! Calcutta!,

when you have a Paramount movie

such as Tropic of Cancer
using words like "fuck"

and showing a bush,
it would indicate

that the American public
is maturing.

I lived on 45th Street,

right across from the theater.
It was wonderful,

but the building was
full of prostitutes.

The porn industry
was very closely associated

with other kinds of sex work,

prostitution,

striptease,

and in New York City that was
centered at Times Square.

I mean, try to understand,
42nd Street,

you had a lot of blood banks.

It was a tough, tough area.

It was also a very violent
period, lots of drug use.

No!

You would see people,

I mean, ripping chains
off people's necks.

It was terrible.

It was scary.

Nowhere, for $1,
nowhere, change, waters.

I take change, credit cards,
phone numbers and everything.

Check out,
check it out, check it out.

I was in Vietnam.

I was more afraid of walking
down 42nd Street at that time

than I was in Vietnam.

It seemed dark.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET OUT!"

Quiet on the set, please.
Please, quiet.

We're going to go for
a sound take.

Chelly! Chelly, darling!

You want for posterity,
that means the future,

to have your photo up?

We'll play it at The Adonis
before every show.

We stopped making films
sometime in the '80s,

and then the theaters
ultimately closed

in the '90s, with Giuliani.

Giuliani was our nemesis.

He came after us
with a vengeance.

A huge urban renewal project

has closed many
porno-related businesses,

and big business,

like Disney and Sony,
have invested millions.

Most of the people
in New York city

would like to ban
sex shops, porn shops,

do away with them completely.

Nowadays,

I think there are two porn
theaters left in New York City.

One is out in Queens.

Yeah, we're constantly looking
for, like, the last,

the last porn theater.

WHAT A GREAT 35 YEARS
GOOD BYE FRIENDS

Once Giuliani came
and closed all of the theaters,

Grandma Chelly had to
make an adjustment.

She had investments
in real estate.

I know that a lot of people

were going to her for money,

and I always felt
that I didn't want to go

and hang out with her because
sometimes she would say,

"Are you okay with money?
Do you need some money?"

And she would shove, you know,

hundreds or whatever
it is, in my pocket,

and it made me feel weird.

And I was, like,
"I don't want to visit her

if I'm going to get money,
you know, each time,"

because I got kind of
freaked out by it.

I know it sounds strange, but it
just made me too weirded out.

You know?

It's like I didn't want to have
that relationship with her.

And I think there was a time
she tried to give me a building,

but my father
talked her out of it.

Thank God. What would I do with
a brownstone in New York?

Anyway...

- Sorry.
- Yeah.

But she was very happy
that I was in film.

She did finance my first real
attempt at being a filmmaker,

which was sort of like this
supernatural vampire thriller,

which took place in
the theater that she owned

or the abandoned theater
that she owned, the Adonis.

I said to myself,
"This is a haunted mansion."

For me, it was like

the porn version
of the Chronicles of Narnia.

It's just...
Just everything was weird.

So, I said, "Okay, well, what do
you do with a place like this?

You make a vampire movie."

Sweetie, you don't know

the first thing about
being a detective.

So, I wrote a movie
called Gargoyle and Goblin.

Turn him to stone.

And I had free run of the place,
and we shot in 16 millimeter,

and I showed her
all the footage.

She had a pretty good laugh
at it.

To Chelly.

Chelly!

To Nikki.

Honestly,
I think she was probably

the only member of my family
that I really admired,

mostly because
I knew where she came from

and how she built this empire
essentially on just being gutsy.

She was a businesswoman

and she was very good
at what she did,

from selling chestnuts

to buying, you know,
property in New York

that was worth a fortune.

She did very well.

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

Because there was always a plan.

You might not have known what
it was, but she had a plan.

As I started to get older
and know more about the story

of my mother
and how she survived

and what my grandmother
did on behest of her family,

I started to see her picture
in a larger way.

There's something

that I feel that I owe to her,

my grandmother.

She might not have thought

that what she was doing
was an act of resistance,

by coming to United States and
leaving my mother, but it was.

I think she had an invincibility
sort of idea about herself.

And then, as she got older,

I think she realized that, you
know, she has limitations, too.

What is it?

Oh!

Later in her life,
she started to get sicker.

You know,
she had many heart attacks.

She was a chain-smoker
for many years.

She quit smoking, but, you know,

I think she survived five heart
attacks, if not more.

And I think she then
became scared.

I hope
it's going to fit you, Ma.

You know,
she loved life so much.

Because if it doesn't fit...

It fits.

How was your birthday?

Good. Very good, very good.

- Good.
- The best.

Terrific.

When Grandma Chelly was dying,

she had the forethought
to write this letter.

She made the shopping list
for what she wanted Bondi

and my mother
to buy to eat at her funeral,

and we had to follow it
to the T.

Spinach pie,

pickles, whitefish,

Nova Scotia, mustard, everything.

Olives, baklava.

Huevos haminados,
those eggs they made in Salonika.

She said, "I want you
to eat this food."

"I want you to enjoy it.
I want you to toast me.

"And I want you to know

that I am with God
and I have no regrets."

That was a very nice gift

that she gave to all of us,
to say that.

We used to joke that
she died on Thanksgiving,

so that she would see us
with all the food.

And so, when we had Thanksgiving
just two days ago,

even my mother and Bondi
were, like, "Yes, mother.

Here, we're taking
pictures of the food."

Those things in life
were important to her.

Food, survival.

You claim your space.
You are who you are.

While you're here now,
you're going to enjoy yourself

and make the best
out of everything.

NEW JERSEY

Why am I building this?

I feel like I'm possessed.

I have wanted to build this
since I was 16 years old.

So, at a certain point, I said,

"Okay, I'll build
this whole thing

and the story will come to me."

Sort of like Game of Thrones
meets Private Ryan, in space.

I'm going to roll this puppy

into a studio and shoot a movie.

Also, I'm very kind of proud of
the fact that, somehow,

this lineage of film making
has continued throughout.

I can't imagine Chelly
divorced from movies at all.

So, for me, it just kept
in line with the family.

Oh, she would love to see this.

I think she would get
a real kick out of it.

I think that definitely
being raised in that family,

the weirdness of it

made me numb to
everybody else's reality.

It was always like
being in another world.

So, with that kind
of a life upbringing,

I don't think I had any choice.

When I see what people do with
their lives as a daily grind,

you know, you wake up, you have
your, whatever breakfast,

you go nine hours a day,
whatever,

I look at that
like science fiction;

I don't know
how anyone does that.

And that might sound
incredibly spoiled

or entitled or whatever it is.

But I mean, if you're
not here to create something,

or to give someone else
escapism, or have a message,

or do something,
then what are you doing?

QUEEN OF THE DEUCE