BEEN RICH ALL MY LIFE

BEEN RICH ALL MY LIFE, the new film by Sundance Award-winning director Heather Lyn MacDonald, follows the most unlikely troupe of tap dancers you’re likely to meet, the Silver Belles, five former showgirls who danced at the Apollo and other legendary Harlem venues in the 1930s-40s. Now aged 84 to 96, they have been performing together to standing ovations at places like Carnegie Hall for the past 20 years, as sassy as they ever were.

In 1934, the 125th Street Apollo Theater opened, presenting shows featuring the great band leaders and a chorus line of 16 of the most beautiful dancers in New York. While the headliners came and went, the chorus dancers rehearsed a new show each week, working 15-hour days. It is little remembered that these young women led the historic first strike by African American performers. They walked out of the Apollo one Saturday night in a successful bid for higher wages and established the American Guild of Variety Artists, for black and white performers nationwide.

Been Rich All My Life offers the rare opportunity to see history through the eyes of these last surviving chorus dancers of that important era. The Silver Belles have rich stories to tell about the history they made dancing at Harlem’s legendary venues – the Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, Small’s Paradise. They toured the world, were honored abroad, and danced on the first black USO tour (when they stole the “for colored only” signs off the trains they rode in America’s Jim Crow south). When the big band era ended, and with it the need for show dancers, they went into other work, until they put their shoes back on in 1985, and kept on dancing. These remarkable women will disrupt any notions you have of old age.

‘“THRILLING! The Silver Belles are bold, brash, and gorgeous!”
- Village Voice

“NEVER MIND THE ROCKETTES! See this beautiful movie.”
– Savion Glover

“Providing an inspiration for active retirement, the ex-Harlem Renaissance Chorus girls… are still shaking booty while most of their contemporaries can only shuffle their walkers.”
–Dennis Harvey-VARIETY

"I laughed and cried .... It’s priceless!"
-Sue Simmons, co-anchor of "News Channel 4

BEEN RICH ALL MY LIFE, 2006, 81 min.  Produced and directed by Heather Lyn MacDonald, featuring Bertye Lou Wood, Cleo Hayes, Marion Coles, Elaine Ellis, Fay Ray and Geri Kennedy. Edited by BB Jorissen and Heather Lyn MacDonald; Cinematography by Heather Lyn MacDonald and Jon Miller; Sound/Additional photography by Orlando Richards; Associate Producer, Margaret Whitton; Music Score by Pete Whitman.  A Toots Crackin Production. A First Run Features release.a