Director Noel Greaves-Lord and Factual Creative have announced the release of—Queen of Bohemia, The Legacy of Aimée Crocker—a scintillating snapshot of the remarkable life of the tattooed heiress. Stories of Crocker’s body art made headlines across America and around the world, electrifying and shocking Victorian society. It was Aimée who started the conversations that has inspired many strong and independent women of today to explore body art. Nearly 125 years after Crocker’s tattoo story broke, Western society has started to accept heavily tattooed women.
The film interviews several women who elaborate on the motivations, inspirations and challenges to getting inked. Common themes running throughout the film include female empowerment and defying the patriarchy.
Interwoven with these dynamic female voices from the UK are extracts from Aimée’s 1936 memoirs And I’d Do It Again (published in London as Without Regrets) performed by American actress Mary Lynn Blanks, who brings a beautifully nostalgic and emotional dimension to the film.
We hear Aimée tell the story of her enchantment with Hori Chiyo, a Japanese master artist renowned for inking kings and czars. The film also recreates the night the millionheiress spent with a seven foot boa constrictor…
Actress Mary Lynn Blanks voices the character of Crocker in the film
Queen of Bohemia herald’s Aimée Crocker’s life and adventures. The heiress boldly transcended class, culture and gender roles and made headlines from the 1880s to the 1940s. While the public was mesmerized by her (the Philadelphia Inquirer named her “The Most Fascinating Woman of Her Age”) the ruling class, including members of her family, chastised and ridiculed her, and after getting her tattoos, ostracized her. Crocker was unfazed. She wrote in her memoirs, “I have none of the good, honest, Anglo-Saxon feeling of duty towards society. I care very little indeed about society and I find myself under no sort of obligation to that imaginary force.”
Crocker mixed with royalty and rabble. Though she had connections to the highest levels of society, Crocker’s true milieu was to be found in her network of similarly free agents from all walks of life.
The film is available here on the Vimeo platform.