All the characters named in the song were real people who frequented Andy Warhol's studio in the late 60s. Trans-sexual Holly, and Jackie and Candy, who were transvestites, starred alongside street hustler Joe Dallesandro, in the low-budget films Warhol was making at the time. Lou Reed was another regular visitor to the artist's studio and Walk on the Wild Side is a description of the bizarre and sometimes sordid world inhabited by Warhol's "superstars". Of those named in the song, only "Holly" Woodlawn and "Little Joe" Dallesandro have survived to tell the tale and both are interviewed in the film. An examination of a significant chapter in New York's underground culture, it also includes unseen archive footage of Max's Kansas City, the notorious club made popular by Warhol in the late 60s.