by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Lili St. Cyr, the American stripper who spent much of the '50s blowing minds in our fair burg, was the quintessential Montreal sexpot, the predecessor, the template for every sizzlin' Montreal mama since - no small feat in a city that boasts the most luscious women on Earth.

I recently unpried the lips of an old-time insider to get him to fess up on the secrets he promised to take to his grave, mainly about who was knockin' boots with the fleshy legend.

But first some historical context: in that era the city was run by wiseguys and was a lot more navigable if you knew who's who, the networks and hierarchies of gangsters and showbiz types. Below are some of the era's key players, although none exactly played Lili.

There's Rocky Pearson, the ingenious head of a bank robbing crew that'd hide in banks all weekend and drill through walls. One day he went missing. His mom, a gentlehearted schoolteacher, knocked on doors around Mont-Royal and Parc looking for him. Alas, his own crew had him killed.

The tougher breed included the Matticks boys, who once, according to legend, robbed a truck by pulling in front of it with another truck loaded with heavy artillery. They flipped the doors open and unveiled weaponry directed at the driver, who wisely walked away.

There's Johnny McGuire, a Hollywood-handsome rising independent criminal, one of eight brothers from Goose Village, the since-demolished gangster-incubator in the Pointe. McGuire wed the stepdaughter of mobster-on-the-skids Harry Ship, in a sort of royal union of crime families. Divorce quickly ensued and McGuire became a dope fiend small-fry moocher and died of cancer, aged 55, in 1984.

At the top sat Vic Cotroni. Unlike recently deceased little brother jailbird Frank, Vic rarely went to prison. He had the aura, too. My dad once had a blue raincoat that he says Cotroni left in his office. Just wearing it makes you feel important. When the first remote car starters came out they seemed to be marketed to gangsters who worried of car bombs. One of the first was marketed by Victronics, assumed to be named for Vic Cotroni. In fact Victronics is Chilean.

Irving Ellis owned the buildings that housed gambling joints and he served as go-between for Duplessis and the mob. He also hooked up a lot of local Jewish gangsters whose descendants are now among the city's most respectable citizens.

Good-looking strongarm Jimmy Orlando played defence for the Detroit Red Wings and would think nothing of playing with blood flowing from head gashes. He was linked with St. Cyr but was actually just a beard. A beard is a guy you hire to masquerade as your mistress's boyfriend.

While watching a playoff game at the Forum, Orlando witnessed the seminal event of the Rocket Richard riots, in which a fan slapped NHL Commissioner Clarence Campbell. Orlando, sitting nearby, rushed to the Commissioner's defence by extracting many of the assailant's teeth with his fists. Orlando later married wrestling promoter Eddie Quinn's daughter and fathered a pair of children, one of whom runs a motorcycle racing school in Colorado.

Al Palmer, city columnist and nightclub frequenter, was also intimate with St. Cyr. So much so that when local reporter Alan Hustak got St. Cyr on the buzzer just prior to her death in '99, she imagined it to be the long deceased Palmer. Nope. "Too bad," said St. Cyr. "Palmer was the best fuck I ever had." Palmer was also in love with St. Cyr.

Alas, St. Cyr's attentions belonged to Quinn, a devout Catholic and family man who'd sneak into her chambers after wifey was asleep. Quinn was instrumental in bringing the zany characters to wrestling, which he did from '39 until his death in '65. He was a homelier version of Carl Malden. St. Cyr and Quinn, a beauty-and-the-beast scenario to give hope to ugly guys all over.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca