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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  Every single month a nun would come around until I was about nine years old. You never knew when she was going to come, day or night. If they did not sufficiently believe a child was being cared for properly, they would take you back and reboot you out to somebody else.

  Prior to the development of oral contraceptives in 1960, during the 1950s through to the early 1970s, unmarried, pregnant Caucasian American girls and women were encouraged and often pressured to place their babies up for adoption rather than choosing abortion or keeping the infant after giving birth. According to historian Rickie Sollinger, author of Wake up Little Suzie (and at least one other scholarly book centering on the era of “baby scooping”), unwed mothers were generally considered undesirable as parents because of supposed “lack of self-control.” Therefore, many unwed females felt they had to capitulate to societal expectations and the belief that married women were better equipped to raise children. Sharon Mitchell has never felt compelled to seek out her birth parents, but she has often wondered about her family genealogy and medical history.

  Just recently, there has been a health issue come up, and in that issue, I’ve found that I’m very rare — less than four percent of the population type of gene. I’m a very rare type. I was going over the results and the research you know how you do. I thought, “Wow, if I’m less than four percent of the population and there’s something like eight billion people, back when there were only three billion people there must have been less than one percent of this type.” My [birth] parents might be dead now. I’m almost fifty-three years old, but it would be interesting to know now where they came from for that reason.

  When my adoptive parents divorced, I was between the ages of five and seven and we had to move around a lot because of our financial situation and financial issues. After my mom had to go to work, her mother started living with us and looked after me and quite often our other cousin, the only other kid in the family at that time who was adopted. He was adopted from the same place I was so we kind of fit in pretty well, the two of us. We were like brother and sister. Then we kind of got pulled away by the red neck side of the family.

  My grandmother was very wise in a lot of old world ways because she came from Hungary and she had a tremendous amount of knowledge of herbs and sex and everything from stockings to having babies. She was just a world of knowledge and she was always perfectly okay with who I was and perfectly okay with telling me who she was. She was wonderful.

  There was always something about me that people didn’t really like — I’m not exaggerating. There was something about me that made everyone uneasy and people were not very nice to me. They would break my toys. Our family business was a roadside grocery stand because we were part of a large farming community and I’d often work in the fields. When I became ten or eleven, I started working at the stand. I remember someone kicked me for putting their bags in their trunk or something or my cousins would accuse me of stealing. There was always something.

  I used to idolize my dad but my dad was away a lot. He had remarried. He was very handsome. He had advanced quite a bit in the community. He was the president of this and president of that. He was an alcoholic and travelled a lot, and just seemed to have it all going for him. I kind of idolized him and when I would go out with him, he would drink so I started drinking at a very young age. About ten years old.

  My mother was extremely possessive and overbearing so all I wanted to do was get the heck away from her. I just had to get out of there; I had to go. I don’t know where I had to go, but I had to go. She had obsessive overbearing control issues. She over-disciplined and things like that so that feeling of having to get out, I feel had me really rush through my childhood. There’s not a whole hell of a lot that I remember of it.

  When I was very, very young I wanted to be a fireman, and I wanted to be a bride, just because of the dress. I never had any ideals of being a bride; I just liked the dress. My aunt had made me a wedding dress to play with when I was young.

  A couple of teachers were somewhat influential along the way. I think a science and a math teacher. Oddly enough, I wasn’t very good at either subject. Well, I was reasonably good at science and I wasn’t very good at math, but I excelled in everything else. For some odd reason my mind had difficulty grasping certain mathematics. When I got older, I really had a hard time with mathematics and I have no idea why. I also had liked the Beatles you know, but I really didn’t have any mentors. I had a lot of friends. I always had a lot of friends, but again, when I went through adolescence I just didn’t feel I fit in anywhere. I wanted to fit in so I was on the basketball team and I was on the cheerleading squad. I was smoking pot behind the school so I was doing a little bit of everything. I was always looking for something to sort of fill those dead spots. I liked attention a lot. I relied upon my sense of humor quite a bit until I found sex. I was having sex at twelve or thirteen years old. It was with my girlfriend, a neighbor down the street, and then, eventually, with one of her brothers. It was kind of a small town.

  Walking on the Wild Side

  Sharon’s exposure to alcohol before she was thirteen through her father’s introduction led to self-medicating, and eventually she experimented with various pills, pot, and several other mild-altering substances. As Mitchell moved from her teens into adulthood there wasn’t anything she wasn’t willing to try at least once — including marriage. Unafraid to diversify and assert her independence eventually expanded to include Sharon’s immersion into sex films.

  As a teenager, I got into my mother’s painkillers for her back. I was taking them all through high school: Darvon and Darvocet, things like that, along with alcohol and marijuana, and the occasional acid trip. Heroin was a prevalent drug in the city when I was growing up, but out where we were, I think it was a little hard to find. You’d have to go into a real shitty neighborhood in one of the coastal towns like Asbury Park or something. To find heroin you’d have to really go out of your way. If it had been around, I’d have been happy to participate in whatever.

  I got married at seventeen [to Larry Kipp] to get out of the house. He was a local guy who was a couple of years older than I was. We were married for six months and then I left. I got the marriage annulled. However, I was legally emancipated. I could do whatever I wanted to do and went to New York on my own. I started working with Dorothy Palmer Agency, and Dorothy Palmer would book me on soap operas. Over the next seven years, I did a tremendous amount of bit parts in movies; talking parts in television and commercials. I did a lot of that while I was doing the adult entertainment. I was also a back-up singer, primarily in a band. I did a little bit of singing and a little bit of percussion. I did some back up for The New York Dolls and The Heartbreakers — a lot of famous punk rock bands. Actually, we used to go to The Factory with Andy Warhol — I used to work in a lot of Andy’s movies as well as porn. I’ve known Legs McNeil [author of The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, 2005] since I was seventeen years old and we’re old friends. We used to be in a rock band together. When he came out to California, he really needed some help and I helped him hook into the porn business. I think his book came out pretty good. The mobster aspect of it was accurate. Anyway, I was also working on a number of different things in New York City. I had quite a bit of formal training in New York and at the School of Visual Arts. Then, at age eighteen years old, I went to the Drama School of London for six months. I kind of didn’t settle in with porn full time until around 1978.

  The Internet Adult Film database (Iafd) lists Sharon’s very first hardcore on camera appearance in a 1975 film titled Lisa Meets Mr. Big with Marlene Willoughby and other lesser known actors.

  I think my first adult movie was a low budget one before I did a film called Joy (released in 1977). I also did That Lady from Rio (1976). Of course, it was starring Vanessa del Rio. That’s when there was a lot of money around and the budgets were very high. It paid extremely well and they had lots of special effects and costumes
and all kinds of things that they don’t have in adult entertainment these days. I really liked Vanessa and I really liked the ladies that were in the industry. I seemed to really fit in with them. They were kind to me. They were nice to me; they were funny. I really feel like I fit in there.

  I did one of my first scenes with Jamie [Gillis], and another young man [Russ Carlson] in Vanessa del Rio’s film That Lady from Rio. The director was trying to talk me into a double penetration or something and I had never even fucking heard of it you know. Jamie was like, “This girl just walked on the set. She has no idea.” I remember him arguing with the guy about that and he just kept saying, “You know what? Just listen to me. I’ll take care of you for a couple of months.” He could see that someone could have taken advantage of me. From that day forward, I worked with him in tons of films. He always watched out for me and he was always a sweetheart and never judged me. We lived together from time to time and with other folks and we shared apartments.

  One of my favorite actors was a guy named Bobby Astyr. He was an incredibly funny, funny man. He was a very, very talented trumpet player and drummer. He was a character actor because of his height; he was very short. He passed away from cancer about twenty years ago, I think. I did my first scene with him [in That Lady from Rio] and I remember the director was Shaun Costello. I was sitting on Bobby, and Shaun said, “Say something dirty.” I didn’t know how to say something dirty; I’m a fucking Catholic girl from New Jersey, so I go, “Ohh…ahhh…ahhh…”

  He said, “No, no, you have to say something dirty, you know.” I was sitting on Bobby in kind of reverse cowgirl position and I said to Bobby, “Oh, baby, come in my hand.” I jumped off his cock and put my hand out behind me and he actually jacked off in my hand. I quickly learned how to talk dirty. It’s usually about the action where it feels good or where you want it to go. I didn’t really know how. There is a little park at the end of my street in Manhattan, where one of the actors wrote: “The cum in my hand” park.”

  That Lady from Rio (1976) is an action film where Sharon (with striking white streaks in her brunette hair) acts as one of Vanessa del Rio’s trusted associates of a slave trading operation that selects and supplies girls for bordellos worldwide. Sharon certainly had her hand full in more ways than one in her rousing athletic scene with Bobby Astyr that almost pales in comparison to her double penetration scene with Jamie Gillis and Russ Carlson. In this case, two penises are inserted into the vagina with Mitchell positioned on top of Russ Carlson and in front of Gillis while assuming a doggie style pose.

  I loved Jamie [Gillis]. Jamie was like the perverted father I always wanted to have. Again, he was someone who looked out for me a lot the first couple of years. Jamie represented nothing but pure love for me: absolute, unequivocal, pure love.

  Violation of Claudia with Jamie might have come out in 1977, but it was made in 1975.

  Skin Flicks

  If it is true that Sharon Mitchell’s actual date of birth is 1958 as opposed to her official birth date of 1956, she would have been seventeen years old during the production of Violation of Claudia. In the 1977 release, Mitchell fills out the starring role as Claudia, a young neglected wife of a business executive living in New York. Disregarding age of consent for a moment, Sharon confidently brought a moderate level of maturity, poise, and conviction to the part while giving one the impression of a woman nurtured to become a refined sophisticate. Married to an older man Jason (Don Peterson) who doesn’t appear to notice his charming young wife, Claudia fills the void in her life busying herself with private lessons and the trivial affairs partaken by the upper crust. One morning during her tennis lesson, she and her instructor Kip (Jamie Gillis) meet one another’s gaze while in the midst of Kip’s follow-through demonstration. They have lunch and Kips senses sadness conveyed in Claudia’s large brown eyes. When asked what is troubling her, Claudia confides with some trepidation that her husband doesn’t have time for her and she feels alone. Realizing he might snag another vulnerable victim for personal purposes, Kip suggests he could offer Claudia employment to join his concubine of women. In other words, Kip is a pimp and would like Claudia to hook for him. Shocked and insulted, Claudia politely thanks Kip, but is clearly not interested in prostituting herself. After making a quick exit, Claudia keeps her appointment with her masseuse who allows Kip to step in for him without Claudia’s knowledge as she lies face down on her tummy. She protests the slight of hands, but Kip begins to touch Claudia in places that haven’t been caressed or stirred in a long while. She no longer resists his invasion, rather, Claudia responds eagerly, and eventually opens her mouth welcoming his climax upon her face. A few days later, Jason leaves town for a business trip. Claudia gives the housekeeper a few days off and picks up a young athletic male (Victor Hines) hitching a ride. She brings him back to her abode for sex and siesta. At sixteen, the boy is not about to turn down a romantic overture from an attractive and determined woman ten years his senior. Their sex is delicate and slow in the modestly lit space, properly underscored by the crackling logs on the fireplace in behind. Primed by the adulterous act, in the following scene Claudia reconsiders Kip’s initial invitation. Her first client is a prominent Senator (Waldo Short) with a propensity to dress his naked dates in whipped cream, cherries and chocolate sauce. Claudia isn’t sure about the Senator’s partiality at first, but lets her guard down and actually enjoys her participation in his food fetish. After finishing him off with a chocolate dipped blowjob, Claudia is soon en route to meet another customer. The next gentleman, dressed rather flamboyantly, comes equipped with a plastic sheet. When Claudia inquires what he plans to do with it, the flowery fellow quips, “I’m going to sprinkle you with my fairy dust.” Not wanting any part in being urinated upon, Claudia rushes home and suddenly senses someone is in the house. Apprehensively, she climbs the stairs toward the master bedroom. Upon opening the bedroom door, Claudia is astonished to find her husband providing anal pleasure to a male friend (two guesses as to who the strange bedfellow might be) as the camera freeze frames her startled face at close range.

  The Violation of Claudia directed by William Lustig (as Billy Bagg) also boasts the talents of the delightful Jean Silver (as Long Jeanie Silver) in a dream sequence, and Crystal Sync as one of Kip’s other escorts. The show is owned, however, by Sharon Mitchell’s galvanizing execution of the dejected young New Yorker in a loveless marriage.

  There was another movie [Waterpower, 1976] where Jamie played a shell-shocked veteran from Vietnam. He was stalking me and there was this big, big stunt. I had never done a stunt before where I had to get shot. I had to sort of unhook myself from these electrical things and fall into the pool at the same time. I look back at that and think, “Oh, my god”.

  Waterpower (1976) is a relatively dark and ominous film set in New York directed by Shaun Costello (although there has been some discussion about who actually assumed directorial duties). Jamie Gillis stars as Burt, a Vietnam vet and deeply disturbed man who becomes obsessed with cleansing women of their dirty minds and sexual ambitions by breaking into their homes, raping them, and administering enemas by force. Mitchell appears early on as Eve, an employee of the “House of Eden” managed by the “Madam” of the brothel (played by Gloria Leonard). Burt pays ten dollars for Eve’s generous services and gets off quickly, but becomes inquisitive about other “specialty” selections on the menu of the house, and witnesses an enema procedure through an observatory window. (Eric Edwards and Marlene Willoughby act as the physician and nurse orchestrating the technique to “Pamela” played by Long Jean Silver.) Burt becomes excited and consumed by what he witnesses, thus leading him on a perverse rampage throughout Manhattan.

  The storyline is loosely based upon the story of Michael H. Kenyon, the Illinois “enema bandit,” who terrorized students during the 1960s and seventies by employing the exact same tactics demonstrated in the film. Costello has admitted Waterpower was his version of Taxi Driver (1976) in tone and psychotic obsession with Gill
is adeptly mimicking Robert De Niro’s brilliant portrayal of Travis Bickle.

  Gerard Damiano is listed in the credits as the director, producer, and presenter, although it is believed at the time of the film’s release, Damiano’s name was attached in an effort to boost sales. Reportedly, Waterpower was financed by the Gambino crime family. There exists a cut and an uncut version of the film containing additional explicit footage. Sharon Mitchell does not perform a stunt in the VOD version of this film as she had stated, so it is possible the scene was a part of the cut footage.

  As far as acting goes, I’d say anything I did with Gerard Damiano I am proud of because he was a perfectionist and he would rehearse us. These were deep, deep plots. Even the Dracula movies were deep plots and someone would always commit suicide at the end which I just loved — yeah, anything by Gerard Damiano. The only actress I know of who was involved with him off screen was Paula Morton. Paula was in the movies and those two fell in love immediately.

  Mitchell granted tremendous justice to a generous role in a fascinating Damiano tableau exploring the business side of the 1970s porn industry. As the porno superstar Susan in Skin Flicks (1978), Sharon beautifully communicates the dichotomy between the sex performer — completely unrestrained on screen, and the human being behind-the-scenes — yearning for real love in a sound relationship. Susan falls for her director Harry (Tony Hudson), a talented artist and caretaker of the girls on his watch. Harry impels a mobster financier Al (a tremendous cameo by Damiano) for time and budget extensions so that he can produce a quality film. Al isn’t interested in anything but “fucking and sucking” Angrily, he threatens the film “better get finished on time” — or else. Things become increasingly complicated when Norman (Jamie Gillis) enters the picture and is enamored of Susan. When she snubs him at a party, he decides he’ll “fix the bitch’s wagon,” and plots revenge on her. Meanwhile, Harry is working fastidiously at finishing his picture and the heat is on, only he can’t come up with a suitable ending.