In New York (United States) there is a section in the Square – between the seventh and eighth doors – which is known as the Deuce, and Chelly Wilson the Greek was the queen of that section. Deuce is also the name of a 2017 series that addresses how the porn industry in the United States has been consolidated in this small area of the country and is now part of a documentary titled ‘Queen of Deuce’ translated into Spanish. La reina del porno’, which this time tells the true story of the pioneers of cinema on the other side of the pond: Chelly Wilson.
On May 25, the streaming platform Filmin presented this documentary directed by Valerie Kontakos, in which, through animations and testimonies of relatives and friends, the transgressive story of Chelly Wilson, a Jew who left Greece with almost no money but eager to increase his fortune. Although perhaps the least expected, it came from a porn movie.
Marriage and flight arranged by 2GM
Chelly Wilson was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1908 under the name Rachel Serrero. His family, Sephardic Jews, had lived in Spain in the fifteenth century until they were expelled. Then they settled in Greece.
While Chelly’s childhood wasn’t much of a problem, it made a difference even then. With a passion for classical music and dressing more like a boy than a boy, when the Frenchman Moise Bourla met her, he did not hesitate to ask his father for Chelly’s hand in marriage. However, she accepted all Chelly’s denials, and at the age of 21 she was married to the man she hated in an arranged marriage.
From this union were born two children, Daniel and Paulette. Ten years later, in 1939, at the beginning of the World War, Chelly Wilson was already separated. He ran to Athens and lived with his daughter; the son remained with his father after the separation. But when the Nazi threat loomed over the Jews of Greece, Chelly decided to flee the country in search of a new opportunity. The place he chose was the United States, because of which he had to leave his business in Greece and his daughter. This was done by a woman who brought her up in Catholicism.
One of the animations from the panels “La reina del porno”.
Chelly arrived in the United States with $5 in his pocket. And despite a small amount to rebuild his life, he showed that he is a born businessman when he opened a hot dog and soft drink stand that was a success.
Chelly Wilson, Greek films … and porn films
Chelly invested in Greek movies with the money he earned from dog-sitting. His first film was made by himself: ‘Greece on the Move’. The film he made by purchasing archive images and covering the film.
Chelly saw in the cinema a medium where he could grow more and continued to show films in various theaters, but this time the Greek tapes that he had bought in the country could be distributed in the United States of America. From there he earned a name in the Greek community, as well as in his contacts. But it also enabled the film to go much further.
During this time, Chelly married, this time with Projection English King Wilson, with whom she had a daughter Bondi and from whom she took her last name. Meanwhile, extramarital affairs with various women were known.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Chelly was cast in porn movies. a film that, although far different from today, was then transcended. Judaea, seeing that this was more profitable to her than the exhibition of Greek films, made use of it.
They released explicit scenes and even porn for the LGTBI+ community that earned them a place in the collective. Although she is described as a “feminist”, the documents question whether this is because of the derogatory image that porn tends to present. But for Chelly, moral conventions were a subject somewhat overshadowed by how much money could take.
The rise and fall of Chelly Wilson
As the record says, his room, as it was above one of the theaters where he shot these films, was like entering another dimension, where you would find bags full of money that he earned from his businesses.
One of the movies that Chelly Wilson was showing.
The decline of Times Square, government time restrictions and the rise of the home theater meant that Chelly’s business began to suffer in the 1970s, until it completely disappeared in the 1990s.
The director of the documentary “La reina del porno” worked precisely in one of Chelly Wilson’s films in his most splendid stage. As he commented in an interview with cineeuropa, his mother Chelly knew that his uncle “was a producer in Greece and used to shoot Greek films in the 60s which he showed in New York”. “When I was about 16 years old, I wanted to work part time, so my mother talked to him. That’s how I started selling tickets at the Tibure Theater on Sundays when it showed Greek films. The rest of the week was all porn,” Valerie Kontakos reported.
The director had testimonies mainly from his family, but he acknowledged in the aforementioned interview that for many “he was not very honest”, which is why many who belonged to his circle did not want to participate in the documentary even for years. after his death Chelly Wilson died in 1994 after suffering a heart attack over five miles. And he left behind for posterity, the memory of a Jewish woman who became a successful businesswoman in the most unexpected way.
