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Three years after
being released from prison following a bribery conviction,
former Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini is headed back to
the stage on Thursday to raise funds for the Kennedy Dancers, a
non-profit dance company, which announced the event on its
website.
Now a grandmother, Beldini intends to dazzle crowds when she
revives her burlesque persona Hope Diamond at the Jersey City
dance company's 40th anniversary gala.
But she will not be stripping.
"It's a little late for that, I'm afraid," Beldini, 82, said on
Friday.
"I'm going to wear a lovely gown and a feather boa. I'm sure
it's going to be interesting."
Company artistic director Diane Dragone said male dancers would
escort Beldini on stage.
"She'll kind of strut her stuff. She was hot stuff in the '50s,"
Dragone said.
Still recovering from a recent knee replacement surgery, Beldini
was known in the 1950s as "the gem of the exotics."
One of her last performances as Hope Diamond was in New York's
suburbs in 1970s, when she was described by the Long Island
Press as "one of the premiere ecdysiasts," or striptease
performers.
Beldini, who also was treasurer of Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah
Healy's re-election campaign in 2009, was convicted in February
2010 of accepting illegal campaign contributions in exchange for
helping a corrupt developer win city approvals. She was
sentenced to three years in prison and was released in 2014.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Scott Malone and
Cynthia Osterman)
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