Blaze is a 1989 film written and directed by Ron Shelton. Based on the 1974 memoir Blaze Starr: My Life as Told to Huey Perry by Blaze Starr and Huey Perry, the film stars Paul Newman as Earl Long and Lolita Davidovich as Blaze Starr, with Starr herself appearing in a cameo. The movie tells the highly-fictionalized story of the latter years of Earl Long, a flamboyant Governor of Louisiana, brother of assassinated governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long and uncle of longtime U.S. Senator Russell Long. According to the novel and film, Earl Long allegedly fell in love with a young stripper named Blaze Starr.