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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  You could work on one film and have a good feeling that it was really going to be worthwhile. There were films that were hard conditions with schlocky guys. One of whom had a penchant for jumping into a sex scene when a guy was losing his hard-on. They would just shoot the penetration part and you’d always recognize him because he had a freckle on the side of his dick. It was Leonard Kirtman. I don’t know if that was his nom de porn, but I think so; there was an individual who used the name “Carter Stevens” who was another schlocky guy. He’s probably living off the blood of young girls.

  I liked working with John Leslie, Tom Byron, Rob Everett [Eric Edwards], Richard Bolla [Robert Kerman], and Paul Thomas. One of the other guys whom I liked working with and he’s passed on, is Bobby Astyr, an anagram for “Satyr”. He was very short, and for comedic value often times directors would pair me up with him because he was short and I was so tall. My favorite joke then was, “He’s so short that I’m the kind of girl he has to go up on.” He was very sweet, and it was very sad when he died.

  French Kissing

  From 1975 and into the years that followed, Leonard continued to solidify her omnipresent position in the erotic motion picture business. In 1978, she co-directed her first solo effort along with director Joe Sarno who generally gave recognition to the star of the picture. All About Gloria Leonard showcased the stunning brunette as a sex columnist about to launch her own magazine while reminiscing about past sexual highlights with several lovers. With a Mary Tyler Moore inspired theme song, the storyline purports to be based upon Leonard’s own memoirs and personal experiences in bed. At the outset, All About Gloria Leonard establishes Gloria as one busy lady. Appearing in seven of nine sequences, her sexual activities range from seducing the office boy Horace (nicknamed, “Horse” for good reason) to pretending to be a call girl so she can find out what it’s like to be paid for sexual favors. An inventive ménage a trios/sausage fest sequence is also incorporated into the story: Gloria surprises three gangsters (featuring R. Bolla) playing craps in the alley and supplies the men with royal oral treatment. The final scene of the film contains porn impresarios Jamie Gillis and Marc Stevens uniquely portraying themselves as porn stars. First, Leonard interviews the two men for her magazine. After making an inquiry as to who is the superior stud, Gloria finds out for herself and participates in a double penetration scenario (generally, in the 1970s “double penetration” implied vaginal and anal penetration simultaneously with two male partners, while the modern definition of the term describes two penises in one orifice) in her only anal scene. Leonard’s eventual second husband, Bobby Hollander, is also in one of the montages making love to a young redhead with a well formed behind while Gloria gets turned on as a voyeur. Leggy Leonard easily carries All About Gloria Leonard with style, smarts, and charisma in this special screening experience.

  In the fall of 1978, after being temporarily laid up with minor surgery, Leonard was hired to co-star with John Holmes in a trio of pictures directed by Carlos DeSantos scheduled to be filmed in France. Up until that point, very few adult movies were equipped with production budgets bulky enough to shoot internationally. The two leading stars, Leonard and Holmes, had not crossed paths prior to the France shoot because of their living on opposite coasts. The first two features Extreme Close-Up (1979) and the 1981 release Johnny Does Paris were filmed in Paris during the beginning of their sojourn, prior to traveling to an extravagant Chateau situated on the coast of Brittany where the cast and crew wrapped up with La Belle et le Bête (unreleased).

  The first time that John Holmes and I actually met was when we got to France in the late 1970s to shoot three films. We shot the first week to ten days in Paris, and then we moved to this fabulous 16th Century Chateau on the North West coast of France in Brittany, in a little town called Quimper which is spelled Q-u-i-m-p-e-r. Of course, John being the hillbilly that he was pronounced it “Kwimper.” He would have his diva moments and I told him that the set wasn’t big enough for two prima donnas. You know, for the most part, once you got to know him he was gentle and he was sweet, but he also could be very isolated and kind of sketchy. He drank quite a bit when we were on location. Scotch, I think, was his beverage of choice.

  We got out to this beautiful 16th Century Chateau and we were not only shooting there but we were also staying there. I think it also did double duty as a hotel at some point. It was magnificent and everything was winding and stone stairwells and very impressive. The film was partially financed by the French government. There was some kind of a system back in those days that you could make a film in France, and if you utilized at least half of the cast and crew who were native French people, the government would underwrite a portion of the effort. We got out to the Chateau and about the second or third day of shooting one of the French girls came down with the clap. The producer sat down and tried to figure out all of the possible cross-contamination of crew sleeping with actresses and so on. It turned out that about twenty of us were possibly at risk. They found an old country doctor, and so as not to cause too much of a scene, we went in discreet little clusters of threes and fours to the doctor. In France, they don’t inject you with anything, but they give you the medicine and the hypodermic needle, and you’re left to your own devices through a pharmacy or a nurse to actually inject it. John, being the fabulous bullshit artist that he was told us that he had at one time worked as an attendant on an ambulance. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

  Holmes had actually worked as an ambulance driver as a young newlywed in the mid-1960s while posing for nude photo layouts and participating in related adult work.

  John volunteered to do the injections so there I am in this grandiose bedroom with a fireplace. I’m on the bed, and I’m lying there with my ass in the air and he’s about to inject me. I’m thinking to myself, “this could be the only case in history where the man who possibly infected me with the disease is also injecting me with the cure.” It was funny. You know, I have a box here of cards and letters that he had written to me over the years. He also sent me a gorgeous, fluted, silver drinking straw that is stamped Tiffany and Co. which of course, related to the use of cocaine back in those days. He sent me all of the pictures he had taken of both of us. Later, he wound up robbing my house. He didn’t leave anything worth more than two dollars. He even took the toaster! I never saw him again and shortly after that was the Wonderland murders.

  A couple of years after France, Gloria married late adult film director Bobby Hollander and re-located to Southern California. She and John rekindled their friendship at a time when Holmes had become heavily involved in crack cocaine. One day after John generously shared some freebase with Gloria, Hollander, and a female friend in Gloria and Hollander’s Los Angeles home, an eyewitness claimed that someone fitting Holmes’s description was allegedly seen driving a van away from the residence after it had been burglarized.

  When I was with High Society Magazine, John had agreed to do a pictorial layout with just the two of us because we had never done anything like that. We were at the photographer’s studio and he would hide in the dressing room. We couldn’t get him the fuck out of there. He’d be in there for an hour or two at a time, and when he did come out, all of his cuticles were bleeding from probably chewing them or cutting them. He was so wired, you know.

  High Society Feminism

  According to Leonard’s filmography, it would appear she made over forty films not including non-sex roles. Due to the profusion of films and loops turned out during Gloria’s years in the business not to mention the fact that the content was illegal, at a certain point, it would be difficult to track the number of scenes, films, and titles. Therefore, it is understandable many former performers wouldn’t have an accurate recollection of their own data.

  I was in the business from 1975-76 until the early 1980s. I really only made about thirty films, but because they sliced and diced so much, there are many compilations out there. I don’t know how many there are, and then, there
were quite a few I did that were non-sex roles. They needed somebody who could actually act. Back in the day acting was actually a certain criteria. You know, it’s funny, some girls like me at the time, loved the dialogue. You can give me somebody else’s also; I didn’t care. Whereas, somebody like Annie [Sprinkle] was terrified of speaking. Give her all the sex in the world to do and she was fine, but if she had to speak a line, she was just frozen.

  I never ever perceived my work as being exploited. Nobody ever held a gun to my head to do these movies. This was all a matter of our own free will and choice. Contrary to the stereotypical perceptions out there, nobody was ever drugged and dragged off of the streets. The only person whom I ever hated was Linda Lovelace because even in her book (Ordeal, 1980), and when she spoke publicly, she would always bring up the fact that a gun was held to her head when they were making Deep Throat (1972). What she would neglect to include was that the gun was not held by anybody involved with the actual production, rather than by her boyfriend [Chuck Traynor], a lousy choice in men that she made. That always pissed me off that she wasn’t totally forthcoming about the circumstances. Marilyn Chambers was a very honest gal, whereas Linda adopted this kind of “I’m a victim,” and “poor me,” and wound up having all of these hardcore, humorless feminists supporting her.

  Marked with potent intellect and a natural predilection for politics, Leonard discovered she was in her element as an educator staunchly opposed to censorship. Gloria firmly believed in defending an individual’s right to decide what is best for her or his own body.

  I earned quite a good living by the way specifically in the eighties, literally speaking at dozens of colleges and universities very often debating the so-called, “feminists”. My thinking was if the bottom line of the feminist movement is for women to be able to choose whatever they want to do without any repercussions, well, shit, that’s what I’m doing. You should be cheering me on, not wagging your fingers at me.

  Leonard’s speaking engagements were not limited to the college and university circuit. On several occasions, she was a special guest on trendy television talk shows of the 1980s with illustrious hosts: Larry King, Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera, and Maury Povich. Not to be outdone by his competition, Gloria was invited to spar with the popular self-proclaimed “King of all media,” shock jock radio host, Howard Stern. No matter where or what the venue, Leonard was prepared to present her case astutely and articulately, often leaving her adversaries in the dust. Most significantly, Gloria Leonard was instrumental in fostering change and encouraging naysayers to think outside of the box.

  Sometimes it would start out where the female contingent would be opposed to me, but in the long run, at the end I always garnered more positive feedback than negative. People would come over and talk to me, and say, “You know you really changed the way I think.” I would always inject a little levity. I was a very good speaker and could string more than two sentences together. Then, of course, at some point, lesbians started producing very hardcore pornography, at which time, feminists would have no basis for their argument any longer because they were turning out stuff equally the same in content that the men were doing. I’m a chartered member of a group called Feminists for Free Expression and I’ve been acknowledged by the American Film Institute at an event called Women in Film.

  The mandate for Feminists for Free Expression (FFE) an organization founded in 1992, is to ensure individuals have a right to view, hear, and produce material of their choosing freely and without censorship or interference from the state “for her own protection.” Presently, Candida Royalle and retired porn actor Veronica Vera are on the Board of Directors of FFE. Before the birth of the 1980s “sex-positive” feminist movement, early pioneers such as American sex educator, artist, and author of Sex For One, Betty Dobson, referred to the sexual enlightenment of both genders as the “pro-sex” feminist movement and has been an inspirational influence and role model for women and like-minded thinkers. Dobson embraces sexuality in its most basic form and views the politicization of sex as negative, sexless, and a restriction of the act itself.

  As a member of FFE, Leonard’s speaking appointments often overlapped with her primary function as publisher of High Society magazine.

  I was with High Society for fourteen years. I was the publisher of High Society. I didn’t really transition into the position, the transition came along when I was still doing films and I continued doing films while I was at High Society. Not many, but a few. I wasn’t just a figurehead. I would go out on the road and meet with wholesale agencies to try to get better placement on the racks. I oversaw almost all of the centerfold shoots and I wrote the lion’s share of copy and a column. I was really a working publisher. They got far more for their money than I’m sure they anticipated. That’s another situation where I got dumped with no severance, no bonus — because I was a schmuck who didn’t have anything in writing to cover my ass. It was all on a hand shake, and after fourteen years, they felt that they needed somebody younger. Carl Ruderman, the guy who owned the magazine, was a major prick.

  While on Leonard’s watch as its publisher, High Society was one of the preeminent selling magazines in the adult emporium and is reputed for publishing naked photos of “A” ranked Hollywood celebrities such as Barbara Streisand, Ann Margaret, and Margot Kidder — all of whom attempted to sue the magazine. Never one to refrain from turning it up a notch, in 1983, Gloria created the concept of telephone sex lines and in joining forces with High Society, won a controversial case pertaining to the sex lines before the Supreme Court.

  Leonard ended her career as a performer in 1984, but continued on a remarkable pace in her professional life. She and Bobby Hollander divorced, and not surprisingly, Gloria found the time to host two television programs: The Leonard Report: For Adults Only, and Gloria Leonard’s Hot Shopper Hour. Leonard effectively fulfilled every conceivable capacity one could achieve as a woman and an individualist. Gloria was the female personification of the Free Speech Movement and First Amendment Rights. If that wasn’t enough, Leonard decidedly took on another major position with the Adult Film Association of America (AFAA).

  I have been the head of three different organizations whose incarnations changed as the sex industry changed. My appointment as Administrative Director of the Adult Film Association came later [from 1989-1992]. I was President of the Adult Film Association of America which then morphed into the Adult Film and Video Association of America, which subsequently was supplanted by Adult Video Association. Then, and finally, the association transformed into the Free Speech Coalition of which I served two terms as President. I gave it up in the early part of the nineties.

  Bill Margold, a long time friend of Leonard’s and former director of the volatile Free Speech Coalition has often debated with the organization over various contentious issues. Margold is a firm proponent of increasing the current legal working age for a sex performer from eighteen to twenty-one. One of his signature quotes precisely addressed the hypocrisy surrounding censorship (or “common-sense-or-ship” as Margold referred to it) that is typical of the Ratings Board: “If you cut a tit off, you’ll get an ‘R’ Rating. If you kiss it, you’ll get an ‘X’.” To this day Leonard continues to reap respect and adulation from industry friends such as Margold.

  I hear from Bill Margold occasionally. We e-mail each other every so often. He calls me “Mommy”. He’s a bear. I saved his can a couple of times, too. The Free Speech Coalition wanted to dump him and I wouldn’t hear of it.

  Smoke and Mirrors

  “The difference between erotica and pornography is the lighting.”

  — GLORIA LEONARD

  After exhibiting proficiency in all opportunities presented in the erotic-oriented business and reaching beyond the borders of the industry as an advisor rethinking the women’s movement in innovative and unrestricted ways, Gloria has earned the right to observe and analyze the meaning and implications of the legacy she and her relatively small group of fellow renegad
es left behind.

  We were lucky in our generation. The downside of that however, was back in the day when you made a film, it showed for a week or two at some theater and then, boom, it was gone and the next one came in. No one anticipated the advent of VCRs and DVDs and the internet. We really got fucked all the way around literally, and figuratively, in terms of finance. We had no coverage, no medical and no union. In fact, for a brief period there was some kind of attempt by some of the performers to try to organize a union. It was very quickly shutdown by the powers that be. As far as careers go and travel, I’ve been somewhat adventurous and was willing to try lots of different things. I’ve lived in a number of places, having been born and raised in New York City. I’ve lived in Hawaii, I’ve lived in California, I’ve lived in Puerto Rico; I’m now living in Florida.

  Working in the adult industry has given me an opportunity to meet people that I would otherwise never have met. It’s given me an opportunity to travel to places that otherwise I might never have had the opportunity to visit. It has given me a platform from which to espouse my political views. Bearing in mind that here I was raising a child single-handedly without benefit of child support or anything else — working my tail off to put a roof over our heads and food on the table — this was before the term “Women’s Lib” ever existed, I was doing this.