GOLDEN GODDESSES: 25 LEGENDARY WOMEN OF CLASSIC EROTIC CINEMA, 1968-1985

by Nelson, Jill C.

  Tragically, Linda Boreman died on April 22, 2002 at age fifty-three after her involvement in a serious automobile accident just three months before Traynor’s death. Ironically, April 22 also happens to be Marilyn Chambers’ birthday. In a thoughtful and caring gesture, Marilyn donated money toward a liver transplant for Lovelace prior to her removal from life support while still in hospital.

  Throughout the years while she was married to Traynor, and after their divorce in 1985, Chambers did not speak in a disparaging way about Chuck or make public claims of physical or sexual abuse during their involvement. Privately however, Marilyn discussed the true nature of the relationship with few trusted friends. Co-workers and business affiliates who crossed paths with the couple recalled Traynor as controlling and territorial. It is believed Traynor wrote portions of Marilyn’s (now out of print) autobiography Marilyn Chambers: My Story. When we spoke in 2007, Marilyn outlined how Traynor had uniquely managed her career.

  Chuck and I didn’t socialize with people that I did films with — instead he kind of tried to make me be above that — whether that was good or not. Obviously, it was good, because he always wanted to create a fantasy where I was kind of untouchable to the people that I was around, but on the screen, very touchable. When I would meet my fans, I was very touchable. The people that we worked with, we didn’t really socialize too much with them because then they would know too much about me and find out I was a real normal person. Any star, like Scarlett Johanson, you don’t know anything about her. She is a mystery and a fantasy. That’s why guys want her because they don’t know that she farts and that she is a regular person. She is a complete fantasy and that’s what a movie star should always be. Chuck told me, “Always give people what they don’t expect.” That was his best advice to me.

  That movie Boogie Nights (1997), I absolutely don’t get it. It wasn’t anything that I knew. I couldn’t really deal with it at all. Maybe that was what the porn business was, but I was with Chuck Traynor.

  During the early years of their relationship, Marilyn and Traynor associated with major Hollywood personalities and retained close ties with “A” list entertainers such as Sammy Davis Jr., among others. While she and Traynor were an item Chambers embraced opportunities to dance and perform as a singer in Las Vegas nightclubs, in addition to headlining at the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco. She even cut a single, “Benihana,” a pop/disco tune. The number, produced by Roulette Records, didn’t achieve the kind of success on the pop charts Marilyn hoped, but the song eventually paved the way for her to showcase her better-than-average vocals in films. All the while, Chambers continued to read for mainstream movie roles.

  I did many different auditions for Hollywood and it became a case of “Yeah, we really want you, but the producer’s wife —” There were about three films where I was just about ready to sign the contract and they even had the money up front. Once they even had an announcement in Variety, it was a film with Rip Torn when he was young and still good-looking. Variety printed “Congratulations to Marilyn Chambers for doing City Blues.” Rip Torn was co-starring and Norman Mailer had written the [1976] script. We were even in rehearsals. Nicolas Ray was the director. He had done Rebel without a Cause [1955]. We met at my apartment with Nicolas Ray, Rip Torn, me, Norm Mailer and we did the whole thing. We were rehearsing and then Nicolas Ray went off the deep-end on cocaine [in 1976], and he died in 1979 and that was the end. That’s the story of my life! I’m never going to win the lottery. That kind of shit kept happening to me throughout my life. It’s bad luck, I guess.

  Rabid

  In 1976, Marilyn’s luck changed when she was hired to star in the Hollywood film Rabid (1977) directed by David Cronenberg. The Canadian director scheduled the shoot for Montreal where Marilyn arrived on location with Chuck Traynor in tow. In the 1992 book, Cronenberg on Cronenberg, David Cronenberg recalled Marilyn fondly and relayed the process of having worked with the star and her husband.

  “[Producer] Ivan [Reitman] just said, “It would be really great for us if you like Marilyn Chambers for this movie, because her name means something, we can afford her and she wants to do a straight movie. But if you think she’s bad, we’ll forget it.” I think what she had to sell was the girl next door, who fucks eight guys at once. She’s the cheerleader; she’s the one everybody wanted to fuck at high school. She does it, right there on screen. I’ve never to this day seen one of her hardcore movies, but I saw a softcore movie she did and she was incredibly sweet and unspoiled.

  When I met her, she was a lot harder than I had hoped. She had plucked eyebrows and her hair was very pre-Farrah Fawcett. She had been doing Las Vegas. Chuck Traynor, her husband/manager, was not my favorite kind of guy — very tough. They were both into trading gold-plated revolvers with Sammy Davis Jr., that kind of thing. It’s a world totally foreign to me; not one I’ll ever get to know too well. Chuck was very protective of Marilyn, and very supportive of the movie. Marilyn herself was very shrewd and sharp, and worked hard. She’d obviously had some rough times since that first little movie that I saw of hers. She was a real trouper, and invented her own version of Method acting. When she had to cry it wasn’t a problem, because Chuck would say, ‘Remember when Fluffy died?’ — Fluffy was her cat — and then she’d cry.

  I thought she had real talent, and expected her to go on and do other straight movies. She went back. I don’t know if it was Chuck, or that the industry still wouldn’t accept her.”

  Cronenberg is known for trippy, fascinating Sci-Fi films, often containing strong sexual overtones including Videodrome (1983), The Fly (1986), Naked Lunch (1991), and Crash (1996). The director apparently hired Marilyn as his leading lady in his second feature after his first choice, Sissy Spacek, was scratched because of her strong Southern accent. Rabid featured Marilyn as Rose, a tortured young woman injured in a serious motorcycle accident. Upon receiving skin grafting, Rose is transformed into a blood thirsting vampire. An organ resembling a phallic symbol is tucked beneath her armpit and utilized as a kind of syringe enabling her to extract blood from her victims. The wounded morph into zombies and converge on the city creating mass hysteria.

  Marilyn clearly demonstrated pure acting moments on screen in a career best performance, pleasantly surprising movie audiences familiar and unfamiliar with her previous film work. The cult production succeeded in creating a new fan base for Chambers in the Horror genre. Still photographer Joel Sussman was hired for the filming of Rabid and recalled Chuck Traynor made his presence known on set by behaving in a domineering manner. During filming, it was suggested Marilyn pose nude in order to help promote the picture, but Traynor argued because Rabid wasn’t a sex film, nude photos would not be permitted. Sussman took Marilyn aside reminding her that generally studios hired their own publicity teams to determine decisions regarding the promotion of a movie rather than managers. Sussman remembered Marilyn as a delightful person to work with and contended she was very affable on a personal level. Chambers wrote the personal inscription (pictured above) on a t-shirt Sussman has kept as a fond memento of his interaction with the gregarious superstar.

  Insatiable

  In 1979, two years after the release of Rabid, and while Chambers’ star still shone brightly, Marilyn made two more short adult movies for Artie and Jim Mitchell: Never a Tender Moment and Beyond de Sade. Both films contained all-girl erotic scenes and showcased new starlet, Erica Boyer, in a supporting role.

  Comparatively speaking, Chambers acted in very few pornographic films during the 1970s decade, yet her legendary status and carefully crafted career path made her an elite celebrity and one who was also known to folks unfamiliar with sex films — a genuine litmus test of stardom.

  Valerie Gobos explained the reasons for Marilyn’s staying power.

  It’s interesting because Marilyn really was a good actress, singer, dancer, and model. I don’t believe any of the other performers were as multi-talented. She was a great athlete, so you have someone with star qualities.
Seka, I think she’s wonderful. Seka is exceptionally good at what she does and what she has done with her career. I love her and I love the way she’s been able to hold her head high and remain strong and out there in a classy, sophisticated way. I don’t think she really has the Hollywood star quality that Marilyn had. The difference is that Marilyn is a Hollywood star, not just a porn star. She was a star in the entertainment industry. Thousands of others make adult movies, but Marilyn is someone that had star quality, just like any other star. When you look at anyone who is a star and you try to analyze what makes a star a star, you can’t really define it, either a person has star quality or they don’t. I think she’d like that, too. I really do believe that Marilyn was a star. I think that even if people in the public did not approve of pornography, they still thought of Marilyn Chambers as a star. So many people would gasp and say, “Oh, Marilyn Chambers! She was the Ivory Soap girl!” If I look at many of the adult performers that I’m familiar with now, I see Marilyn as a star. I see her and I see John Holmes. I don’t see anyone else that achieved that level of star quality.

  In 1980, the two larger than life legendaries in the adult sphere, Marilyn Chambers and John Holmes, combined their talents and marquee drawing power in Insatiable, a big budget feature that Marilyn, along with producers and many fans, believed was her most successful and sensually provocative blue screen effort. Saving the “pièce de resistance” for optimal effect, Holmes does not appear on screen with Marilyn until the final scene. The Bogey and Bacall of their profession and generation, Chambers and Holmes appeared together in three major releases between 1980 and 1983. Marilyn described her first meeting with Holmes, and recollected what it was like to have vaginal, oral, and anal sex for the first time with her well-endowed male counterpart.

  Let me say that back when I was doing what I was doing, the biggest deal was having John Holmes. I had seen him and I’d seen films with him, but I thought, “Oh god”. I didn’t find him attractive, but his big dick was fascinating. I mean, I like big dicks, but that’s ridiculous. That’s an oddity. That’s Ripley’s Believe it or Not. The biggest thing was taking that up your ass. That was like a gangbang with about fifty-thousand guys. You can’t do it, you can’t deep throat him; you can’t take it up your ass.

  In the old days, you’d go to the movie theatre and John Holmes’ dick took up the whole screen! People don’t go to movie theaters any more so it’s totally obsolete even talking about that. You know, the porn business has done a great disservice to the men of the world, making them feel inadequate. It’s a disservice because guys think, “Oh, my god, I have to have a twelve inch dick to satisfy my woman.” Not true. Obviously, the male participation is a dominant force in the adult film industry. They’re the long lasting, no pun intended, persons, and they’ve stuck around. It is not about their face — their schlong is what’s important. Nowadays, where do you go? There is nothing that hasn’t been done before; now it’s becoming a circus act where this is not real life. This is just ridiculous.

  In Insatiable, I did the last scene in the movie with John, and I remember Stu Segall, the director — well, he called himself Godfrey Daniels at the time — we were shooting this film in San Francisco or something. It’s funny, because my mind starts to get a little foggy here like, “Was it Insatiable 1 or was it Insatiable II?”

  Stu says, “We’re going to go pick John up at the airport in San Francisco.”

  I said, “Okay great.” I’m not sure if another person was there, but we got into the car and we drove to the airport, and we picked up John Holmes. I was so totally nervous. I’d heard so much about him. I was not afraid, but just totally shy like, “Oh my god.” He and I were sitting in the back seat and we were talking, and I was just kind of looking at him in awe, going, “God, this guy is really smart.” He really is reasonably articulate. I don’t know now if he told me he was married, but I know he told me that he had a sheep farm. In any other context, it would be like, “Oh yeah! That makes sense.” He said that he was just kind of a country boy, and he was doing all of this so that he could live a normal life. He was so not the John Holmes that I thought he was going to be. He didn’t come marching up going, “Hey! Move over bitch!” He was a meek, kind of gentle man. I thought, “Oh, okay, is he going to be able to take control here in the scene?”

  He was like, “Don’t worry about it.” He said, “You’ll never be able to deep throat me or take it up your ass.”

  I said, “Oh really?” We had a bet going. Let me tell you, it was difficult because at that time John was doing a lot of cocaine, although he wasn’t flipping out or anything in the car. I mean, we all were. What can I say? I never did it when I actually had to do a scene in a movie or be on stage. I saved it for later because I always wanted to be the real me. I might have had a couple of drinks occasionally, to loosen up. It wasn’t as if I was out of my mind, which really kind of blew my mind. Later on, people were shooting heroin, which I couldn’t believe. That’s so unsexy. That never appealed to me, ever.

  When John and I actually were getting ready to do the scene, it took forever. He was in the bathroom. He was doing coke, like a gram up each nostril. I remember he had a straw, and it was like, “Come on, John, let’s go.” I remember it was hot. It was a black room where we had to have this black stuff all around and all the other guys were ready. John came out and he couldn’t get it up. It was like a big floppy old worm. What he would do is hold it at the base and try to squeeze some of the blood into the head. We really had a difficult time with that. He never really got totally hard, but I think we faked it enough to make it look real. It was real; it just took forever. We were exhausted. Of course, he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He just wanted to get it done and move onto the next snort, or whatever. At that point, in John’s life he was sick of movies, and women, and having to do this for a living. Obviously, he was escaping into drugs for that reason.

  I was never worried about him. The professional mode kicked in. When they say, “action,” that’s when your mind control kicks in and you are in a different dimension. You are involved in something where you know millions and millions of people are going to be seeing this, and it’s just a weird feeling. You need to make this so sexy because you’re not going to have another chance. People are [also] going to be seeing this, many, many years from now and thinking, “That was hot!” The film is very erotic. I think that we did what we were supposed to do and I think, as professionals, we accomplished our job. I think we did a good job. Apparently, people liked it because they bought the movie. You’re going to fuel interest, and gossip and controversy with someone like John Holmes and me as to what kind of persons we really were.

  In Insatiable, Chambers portrayed the beautiful, sexy Sandra Chase, a wealthy model/actress whose parents are killed in an automobile accident. During a trip to London, Sandra vows she’ll live life to the fullest and decides to explore her sexual desires which are plentiful. The first of these is a hot Jacuzzi encounter with the pretty and uninhibited Renee (Serena). The two women are sweet and evocative in their lovemaking, reminding fans of vintage material there truly were beautiful women during the golden era, equipped with full bush, and natural breasts (and in Serena’s case, unshaved underarms). In the following segment, Sandra flashes back to a memory involving the family gardener Nick (David Morris) who took her virginity on the pool table (considered by some viewers to be rape, although Chambers’ character is more than willing) in an extremely erotic scene that almost steals the show. (Chambers had since stated that the scene with Morris is one of her most sensual and authentic performances.) Sandra’s next encounter is with Richard Pacheco portraying an actor. He assists her on a deserted highway after her car breaks down, and is delighted to receive much more than he bargained for in the way of a blowjob for his Good Samaritan efforts. In the subsequent scene, John Leslie makes an endearing appearance as Roger Adams slated to be Sandra’s co-star in her upcoming film venture. Adams is invited to dine with Sandra
and her assistant, Flo, played by popular 1970s star Jesie St. James. As Sandra overhears Flo’s cries of passion while she and Adams engage in coitus on the patio (conveniently located just outside of Sandra’s bedroom window) she masturbates gleefully on her bed while conjuring up an impressive list of fantasy lovers in her mind’s eye for inspiration. Moments later, a familiar, elongated member emerges from the shadows, as a surprisingly sexy John Holmes arrives in time to bring the film to a fitting crescendo. John caresses Chambers gently while planting tender kisses on her face and mouth. Taking command of the fantasy, he moves her into position and buries his face between her thighs before penetrating each of her chambers. When Holmes finally climaxes upon her tummy, Sandra faces the camera and pleads almost in anguish, “More…I want more.”