‘Tempest Storm’ at Hot Docs profiles 88-year-old burlesque star

By Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – At 88, burlesque star Tempest Storm is still a hurricane of energy.

Billed as the world’s oldest exotic dancer, she’s still proud of what she looks like and her ability to perform — over 60 years after starting her career.

The Georgia native with flaming orange hair is the subject “Tempest Storm,” which makes its world premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Saturday.

The Canadian Press spoke with Toronto director Nimisha Mukerji about the dancer, who was born Annie Banks and says she dated Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy.

CP: What has Tempest’s life been like?

Mukerji: Tempest came out of the Depression. There were very few options for women at that time, especially uneducated women. She came from the Deep South and survived sexual abuse, she survived poverty.

For her, becoming an exotic dancer was really about being able to take ownership and control over her life and being able to earn a living and provide for herself. And that is ultimately what she’s been able to do and she is at the top of her game still, even today.

CP: Did she have spouses, and how did they feel about her career?

Mukerji: Tempest, during the ’50s, fell in love with an African-American jazz singer named Herb Jeffries. He performed with Duke Ellington’s band and because of that marriage, she was sort of blacklisted from Hollywood. MGM dropped her contract and she basically had to reinvent herself after that.

That marriage really changed her life and really affected her life. She really believed that people are people and the colour of your skin shouldn’t determine who you love.

CP: Did she have children?

Mukerji: She had one daughter named Patricia with Herb Jeffries and the film talks about when her daughter was 10, she left her family, she walked away.

So the film examines her as she tries to reconnect with all these family members from her past who she has unfinished business with.

CP: She walked away from her daughter as well?

Mukerji: She did, she walked away from her family and one of the central questions of the film is why did she do that? I think to fully understand that, you need to go back into her history and understand who she was and the life that she had.

— This interview has been edited and condensed.

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