As ‘Burlesque’ release approaches, Tempest Storm seeks answers

By John Katsilometes

Monday, Oct. 25, 2010 | 10:28 p.m.

It would seem impossible to make a movie hooked to the history of burlesque without invoking the name or even image of Tempest Storm, but Sony Pictures seems to have done just that.

An upcoming feature film centering on characters who inhabit the world of burlesque, fittingly titled “Burlesque,” stars Cher and Christina Aguilera. The film is due for wide release Nov. 24, and the trailers are playing in Las Vegas theaters now.

In a plot that Storm finds innately familiar, Aguilera plays a gal named Ali Rose, who sheds her meager underpinnings to follow her dreams of stardom and zeros in on Los Angeles. Cher, our headliner at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace, portrays Tess, the kindly proprietor of a dance joint called the Burlesque Lounge, a rickety theater that hosts a rollicking music revue, sort of like when “Showgirls of Magic” was in full frolic at Las Vegas Club.

Ali lands a job as a cocktail waitress, Cher exposes the ingénue to a host of wild costumes and choreography, Ali befriends a gal named Georgia (played by former “Dancing With the Stars” cast member and Las Vegas Academy grad Julianne Hough), and it seems Aguilera’s character has lucked into the perfect showgirl storm.

If not the perfect Storm.

As the real-life burlesque legend who performed onstage from the early 1950s up until she fell and broke her hip in June during a performance at the Burlesque Hall of Fame at the Plaza, Storm knows the “Burlesque” story well. She says it’s hers, plucked without consent. She’s not amused, of course, and compounding her frustration is that she and her representatives have tried to reach Aguilera and Cher to say, hey, what gives with this déjà vu effect in “Burlesque”?

“Three years ago, this went all over the Internet, that they were going to make a movie that was my life story,” Storm said during a phone conversation Monday from her home in Las Vegas, where she is still working out three times a week as part of her rehab from having a plate and two pins inserted in her left hip.

Storm is referring to the initial descriptions of the film by celebrity Web sites, which were picked up by Las Vegas media.

“I never heard anything about it,” she continued. “(Aguilera) is playing the part of a young woman trying to make it in the big time in Hollywood. That’s part of my life,” Storm said. “I’ve tried to get a hold of representatives with Cher, and Christina, and had no luck. I’ve left messages, saying 'I’m desperately trying to contact you,’ but have not been able to get through.”

As Storm’s friend, manager and biographer, Harvey Robbins, says, “Both artists were shielded, and we never got a call back from the management of either one.”

Robbins says making a movie about burlesque without addressing the influence of Tempest Storm “would be like making a movie about the history of baseball with no Babe Ruth.”

To help sort out her options, the 82-year-old adult entertainment icon has retained the services of Henderson attorney Marc Risman to pursue possible legal action -- but only after actually watching the film in full.

“First, we have to see what the contents of the film are,” Risman said Monday afternoon. “If Tempest and Harvey believe it heavily takes incidents from her life that can be clearly identified with her as the person portrayed, then we look into seeing if there is anything defamatory, if there is a right-of-privacy issue involved … but first we need to look at the factual issues.”

One of those factual issues is already apparent: Ali Rose is blond. Storm, of course, is famously redheaded.

Robbins has looked into the details of the film and says, “What I have been able to find, so far, is Christina Aguilera is playing a young girl who comes from a terrible childhood, wants to escape to become a star, goes to L.A., and meets a retired dancer who has a studio and who teaches her the craft.”

Close enough, says Storm, though the Aguilera character, originally reported to be from Georgia (Storm’s home state) is now a native of Ohio.

“I’ll make my case, I’ll tell you that,” Storm says. “Georgia clay makes you strong.”

Coincidentally (or not), Hough’s character is actually named for Tempest’s home state, and Cher’s “Tess” sounds enough like “Tempest” to raise an eyebrow. Some friends even call Storm “Tess.”

As she waits for the film’s release, Storm plans to keep busy. On Nov. 6, she makes her first public appearance since her tumble at the Plaza when she hosts “Tempest Storm’s Las Vegas Burlesque Revue” at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine. On Nov. 14, she takes the show to the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Mass., marking her first appearances in the Boston area in 50 years.

Set to perform are former Burlesque Hall of Fame Miss Exotic World Pageant winners Kitten DeVille and Angie Pontani.

“It’ll be a great reunion, but I won’t be dancing,” Storm says. “I haven’t gotten permission from the doctors to walk on my spiked heels yet, and I’m not walking onstage without my spiked heels.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats.