David Arquette Celebrates Late Mother's Burlesque Past at His New Nightspot

A version of this story originally appeared in the Rambling Reporter column of the July 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter.

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Who puts shots of their mother in her birthday suit on the walls of their new nightclub? David Arquette hasn’t only named his new Rat Pack-esque throwback venue Bootsy Bellows after the pinup handle of his mother, Mardi, a former burlesque dancer who died in 1997 of breast cancer. He also has decorated the Sunset Strip hotspot -- which has already drawn everyone from Katy Perry and Lindsay Lohan to Robert Pattinson -- with a mamm-orial of seriously racy (as in, topless and bondage) vintage photos of her, too.

“We scoured the Internet -- eBay, collectors -- and found them,” Arquette tells The Hollywood Reporter. “People are like, ‘Dude, your mom is naked all over your club!’ But it’s actually an embracing of it. It was the ’60s and New York, and later she went on to become a marriage and family counselor. This is a way of honoring her youth.”

Arquette, whose late father, Lewis, was a puppeteer and whose great-grandparents were a famed vaudeville duo known as The Funny Hebrew and The Singing Soubrette, is proud of the design touch but foresees complications: “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I walk my daughter [Coco, 8] through there; I’ll have to cover it up,” he says. “But for a grown-up club, it’s a fun way of exploring naughtiness.”

Keeping things all in the family, Arquette plans to occasionally entertain patrons with his own puppet-based performances on a stage at the club, employing heirloom marionettes originally owned by his grandfather Cliff, best known for his fictional comedic character Charley Weaver from Jack Paar’s era hosting The Tonight Show.