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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  I had gotten a job with an American family as a maid. I had met a boy of course and he had taken me back to his family. They were so sweet to me and kind of set me on my feet. I helped them out domestically for about nine months and then I said, “That’s it. I didn’t come here to be a maid. I’ll get a job as an au pair.”

  I ended up living in Germany for two and a half years. I worked and learned the language which had been a dream. I did have an aspiration of learning to speak another language. Within four months or so, I was fluent. I got a job with an amazing family in Munich and learned how to speak German from the kids. They had three children and my job was to simply help with the kids, do a little cooking and a little ironing, and that was it. I got to live-in, in their beautiful home and I loved them dearly. It was just so blissful for me. The family was involved in the world of theatre and opera. My employer was a wonderful, wonderful woman who had been an opera singer and had dropped out to raise her family. She was very funny and very entertaining, and incredibly generous. I will forever be grateful to her — she was a beautiful woman. She was a Cancerian. I have a lot of Cancerian women in my life, including my sister.

  It is perhaps not surprising Kay is drawn to individuals born under the Cancer sign given her own nurturing and strong loving nature. For those who put stock in astrological charts, it is interesting to make comparisons. Common personality traits associated with Cancerians are typically caretaking characteristics, particularly when it involves familial ties. Known as the sign of the crab, Cancers also possess an external “face” and often present an air of over confidence sometimes bordering on conceit when in truth they are masking feelings of inferiority. Those born under the Cancer sign are known to retreat when challenged, yet their emotional well-being depends upon a connection and camaraderie as a social animal.

  That was the second year I was in Germany, and then my father became ill. I went back to England for a couple of months and stayed to help because he was so incapacitated, and they had just moved into a new home. My brother and I actually did a lot of work in the garden and around the house. Then there was a point when there was a tremendous scene where my father attacked my mother and I knew it was because of me — there was something about me that often seemed to arouse anger in my father. I came to understand through my relatives that he was just simply jealous of me. He loved me — at his funeral, one of my dear aunts said to me, “Your father was so proud of you.” Of course, I bawled like a baby because he never said it to me. I finally got to understand that and see why he was so enraged, but so much of it had to do with the war as far as I’m concerned. Certainly, before that, he was mad at his dad. A lot of the work I do today is helping people to understand what we take on from our families and the family tree and all that we inherit when we come in. There is a reason for that in terms of our soul overlay. Its purpose is to give us our human experiences, but after a while, we need to say, “Okay, thank you very much!”

  Post-traumatic stress disorder is the contemporary term to describe the presence of extreme anxiety due to an experience of severe trauma. It can include anything from personal threat of death, to sexual, psychological, and physical abuse. People categorized with PTSD often endure flashbacks or dreams that replay the stimulus causing chronic symptoms of panic, fear, and an overall inability to function in a methodical and controlled manner. Anger, paranoia, irrational thought patterns and episodes of violence which Kay described in association with her father as a survivor of WWII are consistent with the condition that afflicts many Vietnam War veterans and survivors of abuse.

  The day after my twenty-first birthday, I left again and went back to Germany. I didn’t really know where else to go. It was one of those very dramatic turns of events. I had to leave and I just got on a train and went back to Germany to the people that I knew there. I started to work at a German department store because my German was good enough. After about three months, my American friends, the family that I had worked for originally said, “How would you like to go to the States?” They could tell that I was kind of in limbo and I said, “Well, I don’t know. I suppose.”

  I didn’t really have any dreams of doing that. Anyway, within a matter of weeks, I had a green card and I came over at the end of 1965. I ended up traveling with a family to New Mexico. They call it the “Land of Enchantment,” and it is. It is so unlike any other state in the United States. It’s like a country unto itself. It’s beautiful and there is a lot of American Indian culture there.

  “California, I’m coming home. Oh, will you take me as I am?”

  — JONI MITCHELL

  It’s always so interesting to me where destiny takes you. There’s definitely a path laid out. The second day I was there I got a job working for a French woman who had a boutique in the middle of the courtyard of the La Fonda hotel, in Santa Fe. The La Fonda is perhaps the oldest hotel in Santa Fe. It was right in the middle of the town in the plaza. It was interesting. I think the woman hired me on the spot actually; it was called Suzette International. What I came to discover about this location is that it was just an amazing little place. It wasn’t just a little boutique. It had a back room with racks and racks of clothing. A client would come in and sit down and be served demitasse which was coffee in a little cup. They would tell you what they were looking for, in clothing. Then you would go into a back room and bring out these items.

  At that time, Suzette had a daughter who was my age in boarding school in Europe, so I kind of became somewhat of a surrogate daughter to her. I stayed in her house sometimes to take care of her dogs when she was away in Paris working on her lines. She carried different lines like The Villager line, and I would model the clothing for her clients. I’d just stand there, not actually walking. It was an amazing experience because she catered to a lot of famous people who came through Santa Fe or who lived in New Mexico. She designed clothing for them. I met Greer Garson and there were members of the original King family who were oil millionaires. They had discovered oil, and the TV series, The Beverly Hillbillies, was based loosely on their experiences. There were a couple of sisters and one of them used to come in with the most amazing cowboy boots. I couldn’t believe the colorfulness of these characters so it was an incredible experience.

  I was only there a year because at that time, there weren’t many young people in Santa Fe. There was a lot of old money there in the hills. The kids used to go to school in Colorado; the Colorado University, in Boulder. After a year, I decided that I would sort of follow the boys back to school and see what would happen, just to move on. I went to Boulder and found out later that it was a very mystical place. Boulder has a lot of spiritual energy. There are certain centers around the country that people tend to vacillate. I found out later on when I arrived in L.A. that many people I knew had been in Boulder around that time including a man [Aaron] who has probably had the most influence on my life. He was my teacher and friend and we were involved in spiritual work together. He was there at that time also, but we didn’t know each other.

  Parker’s dearly loved friend Aaron passed away in November of 2010.

  I stayed in Boulder for about a year and then I got pregnant. I was just so, so naïve and so wet-behind-the-ears, as it were. I couldn’t keep it so with the help of a friend, I was able to get an abortion and then it was time for me to move on again. I got on a Greyhound bus and headed for San Francisco. This was the flower-child era. I didn’t know that, but I found out when I got there. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I was right in the middle of it. It was great. I was in San Francisco from about 1968-1978.

  I had so many diverse experiences in San Francisco. The first job I got was working for Wells Fargo Bank, and then a year later, I found myself working for a company called India Imports. I’ve always been attracted to all things Indian and Japanese, actually. I started to be aware of past lives and why the connections. The job of working in a store led me to managing stores by the way, and I was with them for a few years and did a lot of work
for them. It was really quite amazing because it put me in touch with the Indian Culture. At the same time, we were all smoking dope and I was involved in all these diverse experiences. It was also about that time I started to understand more about myself and who I was, and to recognize some of my talents. People started to call me, “Momma Kay” because I had a nurturing personality. They always knew that mine was a shoulder that they could count on.

  Talking Dirty

  I met John Leslie. How we met is a secret and we decided a long time ago that we would not divulge that, so I honor that. It was just one of those fluky things. We met and we started talking and we agreed that we were both actors. I had no idea what he acted in, but I would soon find out! Most of my friends at that time were in the music business because I was living in Marin County, which was north of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really at the center of rock music in those days. My boyfriend was a musician and I managed a little rock and roll band. My whole life was music. I had always been attracted to the opera and theater of course because of my experiences in Santa Fe, so I always went after ushering jobs so that I could see productions.

  I started to make friends with some individuals with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. This was while I was still working at the bank. There were a couple of people whom I grew very close to. Because of them, and later, because of my musician boyfriend who had a friend who was an acting coach, I was invited to join the group of acting students. This friend of his was going to be teaching an improvisational acting group. I think my boyfriend actually even said to me “Shit, or get off the pot.” I said, “Okay, fine — point taken!” I joined the group and it was a year of wonder because I had never explored that side of myself. I was always the wallflower sitting on the sidelines and watching everybody else. By the way, I always tell people that the best therapy in the world is acting classes or just to take an acting class. At that time, I was shy in every way even though I was running stores which gave me a chance to open up and be the mistress of my domain. Acting was a whole different thing.

  My life changed because of the acting. I wasn’t so available to other people because I was now focusing on myself, so it was around that time that I met John. Shortly after we met, and had had all of these conversations about acting, he said, “Well, how would you like the opportunity to get in front of the camera?” It was at that moment when he said that, I said, “Why are you asking me this question and what do you have to do with it?”

  It was at that point that I realized he was talking about an X-rated film and I said, “No way.”

  He said, “You know, this is a straight role. You don’t even have to take your clothes off. Haven’t you wanted this?” I thought, “Yeah, you have, kiddo.” I accepted the offer and I went and met a gentleman by the name of Robert McCallum, but his real name was Gary Graver. He made some very fine little adult films. He was the cameraman and the director which is a hard job. He had worked very closely with Orson Welles. He was not what I would have expected. He was just a young, good looking, California guy with a wife and a small child. I went, “Whoa, this is interesting.” I took the role and recently had a chance to watch it again, but I was so embarrassed because I was so bad in this role. What the heck, it was my first time. It was intriguing and I loved the art of filmmaking right away. It was called V: the Hot One (1978). The storyline was much the same as Belle Du Jour (1967), the Catherine Deneuve film. After that came SexWorld (1978), that was the next one.

  In McCallum’s story of obsession and sexual deviance (in which Parker made her screen debut in a non-sex role) V: The Hot One prominently featured Annette Haven, John Leslie, and Paul Thomas. Haven heads up the all-star cast in the title role as Valerie, the high society wife of an esteemed attorney that secretly lusts after other men and women.

  The late John Leslie, a gifted actor who often performed under McCallum’s direction, is known for assuming some of the meaty and seedier roles in adult films before directing many of his own pictures and movies. In January 2011, Kay attended Leslie’s memorial service in Los Angeles. She had known about his culinary skills, but was surprised to learn of his other talents. John Leslie was a brilliant painter, professional singer, and blues musician in Marin County. Leslie often played harmonica in a band when he wasn’t directing.

  Word kind of spread fast in those days — once you had appeared in one film people started talking about you, and I guess, because I was older than most of the girls at that time there was a call for older characters. I started to get calls right away. Sexworld (1977) came close after V: The Hot One. It was never about money. If it had been about money, it would have been an entirely different thing. It was about something else that I came to realize later on, what was guiding me to go down this path.

  Again, John called and said, “There’s a director in town and he’s one of the best directors in the [adult] business. There’s a great role for you in this movie called SexWorld.” It was another take-off, this time on the movie Westworld (1973). It was a story about places people go to fulfill their fantasies and this was the X-rated version. It was a very big budget film and I think it took almost two weeks to shoot it. That was a long time for that genre. I don’t know what drove me to even say, “Okay, I’ll go meet with the director,” who was a guy by the name of Anthony Spinelli; that’s the name he went by. It was Sam Weston [Sam Weinstein].

  A lot of people don’t know this about Sam or Antony Spinelli, but he had actually been a mainstream director who had made a film called One Potato, Two Potato (1964). I guess it was in the early 1960s, but it was the story of an interracial relationship and it wasn’t time yet. It had no trouble getting distribution in Europe. It actually won an award at the Cannes Film Festival, but he couldn’t get distribution in the United States. Anyway, it kind of devastated him and I’m not even sure what happened after that, but one thing lead to another and he started directing adult films.

  Many years later, I was having lunch with Sam and his wife Roz, who was just the sweetest angel, and we were talking about those days and she said, “You know, he had a huge crush on you.” I said, “Nooo…” and she said, “It’s true, he always had a big crush on you!” It was very sweet. The whole family was there and that was the last time I saw Sam. Actually, he died of Alzheimer’s disease. Sam was great.

  Anyway, Sam was very talented and very gifted as a director. We sat and we talked. He was very straight with me and said, “Honey, we’d really like you for this movie. Will you dye your hair red for me?”

  I said, “I’ll do it but I won’t perform sex.”

  He said, “Well, this is a sex role, it just is.”

  It was and it is, and the rest is history. I’ve been a redhead ever since.

  SexWorld

  Semantics

  You say my sons are drifting

  Here lies the difference; ergo

  Fearful you see them drift

  Joyful I watch them flow

  — MAUDE MEEHAN

  It was a defining moment in my life. Once you’ve done film, you’ve done film. There’s no going back, and I went ahead and I did it. I don’t know if “terrified” is the right word, but I felt like a fish out of water. Because I was older, I could only take my lead from the young women that I was watching so I tried to get tips from them. “How am I supposed to do this?” That was the director’s job, essentially. In the art of filmmaking, things are shot incrementally so you can shoot one part of the scene and still you haven’t done anything sexual. Then you shoot another part, and now you’ve done something sexual but you haven’t gone all the way. The next part is penetration and once you’ve done that, there is no turning back. That’s kind of when the panic struck me! Then, once it was over, it was over. It was just loaded — it was such a profound moment.

  The make-up man on that movie was a guy who had made up some of the most famous women in the world. I don’t remember his name, but he was an older guy at that time. He’d done up Elizabeth Taylor
and he’d done everybody for one reason or another. I was sitting there and he was telling me stories, and then, here I am. It was just amazing.

  In SexWorld, I play a frustrated housewife and my fantasy is this blonde guy played by Joey Silvera. He was playing a robot, essentially. The character’s husband is a wimpy guy so she wants a real man. I used to do college presentations where I would show clips from the movies in order so I would show the progression. I wanted to make it interesting and entertaining, and I’d talk about myself and explain what I was doing, and my reaction to what was going on.

  They loved it. It was very successful. I had many friends who were teachers in several colleges. One of the scenes I would show is where Joey Silvera slaps me back and forth in SexWorld. In that particular scene, we had obviously rehearsed it and had it synchronized, but when it came down to shooting it, something happened and we were out of sync with each other. He actually slapped me and he chipped my front tooth. My father’s front tooth was chipped in exactly the same place. When he chipped my tooth, the adrenalin was pumping. We were in the middle of the scene and we continued until Sam yelled, “cut” and I wasn’t sure if I was bleeding or not. I mean, the slap was pretty hard. It didn’t really hurt but it stung me a little bit. I ran to the make-up room just to see and I was fine, but my tooth was chipped. I looked in the mirror and I saw my father looking back at me. It was interesting because I hadn’t even thought about my parents at the time that this whole thing was happening. It was one of those moments where I thought, “Okay, now we have to reckon with this. What about mom and dad? Am I going to tell them?” I never did tell them and both of them are gone. They were so removed, certainly from my life. I found out years later that my niece’s husband actually found out about me, but they love it! They love it and are just so intrigued by it. I’m their exotic Auntie Kay. They would call me something; I’m not quite sure what! SexWorld is the first time that I performed in a sex scene and it was pretty dramatic.