Tina Kakadelis
Queen of the Deuce is not your average Holocaust story. In fact, it’s not an average story in any regard. It’s the sort of mind-boggling series of events that, had it been written as a book or a movie, would’ve been called too outrageous to believe. Yet the story of Chelly Wilson is true. She was a Greek-born Jewish woman who celebrated Christmas, married men but was openly gay, escaped the Holocaust, and built a porn theater empire in New York City in the 1970s. Each one of those statements could be the singular defining attribute of a person, but those are just puzzle pieces in the larger picture of Chelly Wilson. Queen of the Deuce is a celebration of Chelly and the life she created for her family in the United States.
Born on Christmas Day in 1908, Chelly grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece. Her original name was Rachel Serrero. She and her family were members of the local Sephardic Jewish community. Chelly was forced to marry a man named Moise against her will and they had two children together. In 1939, Chelly boarded the last ship to leave Athens for the United States before World War II broke out, but she had to leave her two children behind. Once in the United States, she started a small business selling hot dogs and sodas on Dyckman Pier. After earning some money, she created a film called Greece on the March, which was made from newsreel footage that chronicled the Greek resistance against the Nazis. While this was Chelly’s first foray into the world of filmmaking, it was certainly not her last.
Chelly may be most remembered for the porn theater empire she built, her first theatrical presentations were actually foreign films from Greece. Fairly quickly, Chelly’s theater became a beacon for Greek culture in New York. Even when her focus shifted to pornography, Chelly was still the lifeline of culture for fellow Greek immigrants. Her apartment above the Eros theater was always filled with immigrants fresh off the boat, and Chelly spent time and money helping them assimilate to the new city. First and foremost, Chelly believed in the American Dream. Queen of the Deuce plainly lays out her ambitious nature and her newfound pride in the opportunities this country afforded her.
Queen of the Deuce takes a larger-than-life showwoman and offers a glimpse into what made her the person she was. This woman was forced to leave behind her two children, the country she knew, and her entire way of life because of the threat of the German invasion. Only five percent of the Jewish population of her hometown of Thessaloniki survived. For all the incredible things Chelly achieved, there’s a deep, profound loss that exists within her and weighs heavily on her soul. As she grew older, she would say that she missed her sister, whose fate she never learned. Because of this loss, she relied heavily on the new family she was building in the United States. Not just her own genetic family (although the daughter she had to leave behind in Greece did come to America), but the new family that was created from people who also came to the United States for a chance at something better. Chelly’s kids talk about her apartment and how it was always filled to bursting with people from all walks of life. There were lesbians, gay men, members of the Mafia, and children all around. Chelly seemed to take pride in creating this place for gathering.
As a documentary, Queen of the Deuce is fairly by-the-book. There are talking-head interviews from living family members and people who were involved in some capacity in Chelly’s porn theater empire. Everyone lights up when they talk about her, and it’s easy to see how so many people flocked to her. Archival footage of New York City in the 1970s and some glimpses of Chelly herself go along with the interviews. We also see some of the fare Chelly used to screen in her theaters. To complement the voice-overs is some lovely animation that allows Chelly to come to life once again.
Even with the story that has been told here, there are still things to learn in Queen of the Deuce. Chelly is all of her extraordinary accomplishments and more. The documentary does an excellent job of showing how much of a force she was, but also of giving the viewer an understanding of Chelly in her quieter moments. Queen of the Deuce is a testament to our ancestors and how they plant seeds in the garden for the next generations to grow.
