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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  Wrangler (John Stillman), who was openly gay, married popular 1940s singer Margaret Whiting twenty years Wrangler’s senior. Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon (2008) is a recommended documentary about Wrangler’s life and career. He died in 2009.

  For starters, it worked because [Wrangler] had already done two successful films for straight people and the whole AIDS thing hadn’t blown up in our faces yet. We were still coming off of the seventies a little bit and everything was still cool. I just said, “Okay, Jack. What do you need me to do?”

  He said, “Oh, honey, put your head down there and I’ll do all the work.” He did. I just bobbed my head a few times, and he made “Oooweeee…” sounds and it was just the sweetest thing. We remained friends for quite a while. He was a good friend. I find it very humorous that the very first person I had sex with on my first film was gay.

  In another Chuck Vincent treasure, Games Women Play (1980), Nichols, Veronica Hart, Samantha Fox, Lesllie Bovee, and Merle Michaels shared center stage as five models making men and breaking into the New York fashion scene. Ron Jeremy, Jack Wrangler, and Roger Caine fill the bill in the stud department.

  I was actually working in a very interesting time in adult where all we were doing was creative positioning. There was no anal when I started. We started doing anal around 1984, but I wasn’t in any of the anal movies. I accidentally had anal happen to me one time on a movie where somebody actually backed into the wrong place. It was funny and we all kind of just laughed at it. We didn’t do complicated positions, or double penetrations, or ass to mouth or any of that stuff. It was just finding cool positions and utilizing them. If you go back and look at the old films, you’ll see that the scenes don’t last for longer than a few minutes, but we would shoot for an hour and a half. I wonder where all of that footage went for the movies! They just edited it down to here and the rest was dialogue. As long as I had dialogue to do, that was great.

  In the premature years of the illegal pornographic film business very few sex acts seemed to fall under the restricted category as anal and double penetration scenes were often performed in loops, feature films, and Swedish Erotica montages. Risky maneuvers in sex pictures however, were designed to guaranty a bust creating mega publicity for films and stars resulting in raids of several adult theatres.

  Probably primarily anal scenes were done in the sixties and seventies, but not as much then as later on. I noticed that when we were pulling away from doing it, there were a lot of amateur companies happening in the eighties before all of the Europeans started buying up all of our stuff. We were literally being overrun by amateurs with video cameras and the Europeans expected a little bit more for their money. When anal started being introduced as kind of a regular diet, I think the Americans started to buy it a little more and it became more accepted. When I was doing films, it didn’t seem to add to anything, and I certainly wasn’t called upon to do it. It never occurred to me to offer my butt up either! There’s a big difference between what the Pussycat Theatre allowed on its screen, and what the smaller theatres showed in their back rooms.

  Nichols’ statements regarding the menu pertaining to her film work are worth noting: Kelly performed an anal sex scene with Harry Reems in Society Affairs/Jet-Set Orgies (1982), and agreed to do a double penetration scene with Billy Dee and Rocky Balboa which can be seen in Alex de Renzy’s Dirty Girls (1984). With the interpretation of the term “double penetration” (or “DP”) evolving over the years to indicate the act of inserting two penises into one orifice, it is possible Kelly is accurate in stating she didn’t participate, but had instead been involved in a “sandwich” scene. “Sandwich” is the correct slang terminology for the insertion of one penis into the vagina and another penis into the anus simultaneously.

  I’ll tell you one thing, we didn’t have a “no” list. The girls nowadays have a “no” list. I was called to work with any of the guys and I worked with them because I knew them all, there were like ten of us. There weren’t that many of us and it was just not a big thing. I pretty much knew they all had my back and I had their back. We all were very at ease with each other.

  In Love with Kelly Nichols

  One of the reasons we worked in porn is because there was kind of a rebellion about it — there’s still a little bit of that bohemian — fist to the man, kind thing that was in all of us. We just didn’t play well with others. We did play well with ourselves, but not with others and it kind of kept us from circulating. I think when the adult stars starting getting more video, the Hollywood stars realized they had more opportunities to meet the porn stars who were interesting. Especially when you could start bringing video home, the stars really got interested in the porn stars because they didn’t have to sneak into a theatre to see it, they could rent them. You certainly saw the girls partying more with the stars — the Charlie Sheens, and so on. Not so much when I was in it, we were really our own kind of dark little thespian group.

  For many years, porn stars and Hollywood celebrities have gravitated toward one another, but no other “A” list actor has attracted media attention for his admiration of sex performers in quite the way that Charlie Sheen has. Tabloid TV reporters sensationalized Sheen’s unique living arrangement in the winter of 2011 when cameras were invited inside of his “Sober Valley Lodge” to film Sheen and his two “Goddesses” (one of the girls was former porn star, Bree Olson, aka Rachel Marie Oberlin) at play. As the saying goes, nothing compares to the good old “golden” days.

  I loved Samantha Fox. Veronica Hart and I are still very good friends. Sharon Mitchell, even though we never worked together, we’re really good friends. We know one another well. Ginger Lynn is a sweetheart. I like Ginger. She knew the game really well. Those are really the Golden Girls.

  By the early eighties, Kelly Nichols was no longer one of the new girls when extenuating circumstances caused her personal life to unravel. During the disintegration of her first marriage (Nichols was married to writer Tim Connelly, aka former performer Dick Howard with whom she made appearances in several of the same early eighties movies, but apparently not together), Kelly used drugs heavily and began to show signs of bulimia, she started to binge and purge. Nichols also was the victim of an attack on her home. At the time, Kelly’s parents were not around and the events of her life culminated in a feeling of loneliness and loss of self-control. Nichols decided to join the Marines; she was accepted after passing the physical and underwent stringent training. Meanwhile, Kelly was offered one of the leads in Roommates (1981) with a cast that included Jamie Gillis, Jerry Butler, Jack Wrangler, Veronica Hart, and Samantha Fox. Kelly put the brakes on her plans to become a Marine. Nichols is outstanding in the Video-X-Pix feature Roommates in which she shares the limelight with Veronica Hart and Samantha Fox as one of three friends rooming together in New York City trying to build a new future while hoping to put old habits behind them. In a show-stopping performance as Sherry, Kelly plays a coke-addled aspiring commercial actor whose penchant for a fix lands her in some dangerous and desperate scenarios. Manipulated by men (mainly Jamie Gillis in a particularly creepy and menacing turn) who use and abuse her, every single scene in which Nichols appears is marked by deep and intensely raw emotion. Additionally, Fox and Hart are both sterling in this irregular piece.

  I worked with Jamie Gillis for one film (Roommates) and I think he was nominated for Best Actor, but I’d seen him around before that. We’d sit there and nod to each other. We had a place that was called Bernard’s that was open until four am and any time of the day you could see three or four porn stars hang out with our peers. In Europe, we had a kind of community and there was a little community like that in San Francisco.

  In a tongue-in-cheek nod to Kelly’s brief brush with the Marines, Chuck Vincent directed Nichols in the campy Puss ‘N Boots (1982) where she played Private Priscilla “Puss” Mason. “Puss” joins the army and instigates a series of mishaps between the female privates, soldiers, and civilians.

  The early to mid-1
980s were good years for Nichols in front of the camera as one feature film followed another. Adult fans were treated to Kelly in Roberta Findlay’s Glitter (1983) with Shauna Grant, Rhonda Jo Petty, and Marlene Willoughby. Several other releases in which Nichols enjoyed prominent billing are Pleasure Island (1984) and Dixie Ray, Hollywood Star, an exceptional 1983 release directed by Anthony Spinelli. The incomparable Lisa DeLeeuw played Hollywood legend Dixie Ray on the downside of her career. Blackmailed by her ex for some compromising photos of herself, Ray hires a PI (John Leslie) to track him down. Nichols and Leslie’s characters eventually find themselves together in a hotel room where they get nasty after some wickedly sexy foreplay. Kelly doesn’t bother to remove her panties while riding the veteran actor cowgirl-style leaving Leslie drenched in sweat at the conclusion of the money shot.

  John Leslie was funny because he reminded me of a soap actor. He was very witty but very on point. I’d say that the one thing that the boys in the business shared is narcissism. I think you’d have to be kind of narcissistic to be a porn star.

  In 1983, Nichols commanded the lead in The Mistress as Karen, a young, single woman employed by an architectural firm. A consummate professional in most aspects of her life Karen’s Achilles heel is her tendency to date married men. When her boyfriend/boss Carl (Eric Edwards) offers her a plum promotion and she accepts, Karen realizes there are certain strings attached. She is expected to sleep with potential clients (married and single) the firm is courting, or she must look for other work. When Carl stands Karen up at Easter to spend the day with his family rather than with her as he’d promised, a epiphany arises for Karen as she flashes back to an identical scenario with a previous lover (Randy West). Realizing she needs to change her pattern, Karen walks.

  Nichols does a fine job communicating her character’s hope and disappointment in this taut nugget of a film. She is easily the object of desire with her large, dramatic eyes and mouth, coupled with her quiet, gentle demeanor. Directed by Jack Remy, The Mistress co-stars Juliet Anderson and Richard Pacheco, both fulfilling non-sex supporting roles.

  I loved Ritchie [Pacheco]. We had the hots for each other but we didn’t know it when we first met. He thought I was being cool and he thought I was into girls. I thought he was too cool for school, so I just sort of ignored him but I thought he was very cute. We came together later on, many years later when we did a shoot together. We ended up spending all night together because we had so much fun and we were like, “Wow, we should have known this about each other.” He was just a good buddy and a good actor to work with. Richard Bolla (Robert Kerman) was also a good actor to work with.

  The film that I won Best Actress for at the AFAA [Adult Film Association of America], which would be equivalent to the Erotic Awards, is what I would consider my best work and is a film I did after Roommates. Jane Hamilton won Best Actress for Roommates. I won Best Actress for In Love which I did the following year. In Love is what I consider my most significant role because I did carry the whole film. Chuck cast me as the lead and I was pretty much doing lead stuff. I was almost never cast as a best friend or anything I was always a lead. I didn’t realize what a gift it was until later on. That afforded you the most man attention, the most amount of money, and the most amount of dialogue.

  In Love (1983) is the fifth film Nichols appeared in for director Chuck Vincent. It became the most significant picture of Kelly’s body of work because of her pure and unfiltered embodiment of a woman in love. Jerry Butler is exceptional as Kelly’s leading man, and once again, Jack Wrangler is part of the cast while Henri Pachard (Ron Sullivan) is credited as writer. The four-hanky picture is a classic.

  One of the directors I loved was Henri Pachard. He had so much energy. He’d come on the set and he had a little glass of water and everybody knew it was mostly vodka. He’d be all fired up and he’d say, “Let’s get this show on the road!” He’d be, “Let’s get this party going!” He had more energy than the youngest of us on the set. He made it fun and it was just so great. Chuck Vincent was not as good a director, but he could cast people really well together. He would cast people who could work off of each other. Typically, he wouldn’t have to direct, the people would direct themselves. He was very good at that. After video, it got sad because all of sudden they cut all of the dialogue out. That was one of the reasons I quit too because there was nothing in it for me after that because the dialogue was at least holding my interest.

  I think that pornography is the microcosm of Hollywood in a lot of ways. It was interesting because the time that I was doing it, they were getting more dialogue — this was before Beta and VHS, and before you could rent the films and take them home. We were still competing with Hollywood films. In Love and Roommates were playing at straight theatres during the same time they were playing in porn theatres. In fact, they both got write-ups with [American film critic/columnist] Judith Crist. That was kind of interesting so Hollywood was getting nastier and we were getting closer to mainstream. We were getting closer and closer to the punch and then Home Video happened.

  Big Bang Theories

  Women such as Serena and Juliet Anderson were adamant their orgasms on set were legitimate while others such as Rhonda Jo Petty claimed responses to pseudo lovemaking are usually feigned. Nichols dished that it’s a gift when a woman experiences a real orgasm in a sex film even though most of the moves and intimate overtures are carefully orchestrated.

  I wanted to come across a certain way. I wanted to build the scene just as I would build my acting, so in my mind I wanted to be in control of it. When you really are having an orgasm, you are in anything but control. Lips are flailing; your eyes are rolling back in your head, so I tried to pretty much control and give the viewer what he really wanted. There were different times on screen where I actually came because it was just hitting all of the right spots. I had about an eighty-five percent rate of controlling it and fifteen percent not controlling it. Now, the girls are funny. They’re pissed off if they don’t get an orgasm. The younger ones especially, but it’s a job! You’re laying on your back and getting paid for it, but it’s quite physical. When you’re getting into different positions and someone is pounding you and the size of the package delivering is bigger than the average guy because that’s what you need to see on camera — that continual pummeling can be like a work-out. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re wetting up for it. You’re taking one for the team and you just go on and close your eyes, and grab the pillow and murmur and act as if it’s good. You’ve got to make sure that the guy feels it. In this day and age, they just take some kind of pill to stay hard, but back then, they didn’t have any pills or anything like that.

  While some of the actresses either faked or didn’t fake their orgasms, the male performers had a lot more at stake in achieving an erection on cue, and afterwards, climaxing while a community of their peers and crew patiently (and sometimes impatiently) looked on waiting for fireworks.

  The men who worked during the golden era period really had to earn their money. It was amazing to find one who could do it twice in one day — that was crazy. It’s not just that they had to get hard for the girls — they had to get a hard-on in front of a multitude of guys. There are guys on the set, so you’ve got other guys looking at your junk. It’s not always nice. The stagehands could be so sabotaging. They could say and murmur the nastiest shit and the guy would hear it. Some of them would do it just because they weren’t porn stars and they weren’t making the money and they would do it to deliberately sabotage the scene. Usually the environment was good, but you would have disgruntled people and guys who had been up too late or taking too much crank or whatever. It could be kind of nasty. If anything, I would be able to identify with the disgruntled make-up artist because I’m with him, I’m the first one to get there and the last to leave and I don’t get paid that much.

  The outside world has somewhat of an interesting view of porn sets and that the girls are being mishandled, but they’re actually no
t. Unlike what Linda Lovelace was saying, we do control a lot as far as the actual work environment. We don’t have a gun to our heads. If there was ever a set I was on as a make-up artist and there was mishandling of the girls, I would totally speak up and call someone immediately. Some of the little girls who have gotten into it, they went through grade school and high school knowing that once they got out of high school they wanted to do porn because that way they could meet musicians and some of the stars. You know, it’s a real rock and roll career to a lot of people. It’s the money and the rock and roll appeal. Guys will like them and they’ll get to be in music videos and stuff. I would say that the worst thing is that they take them at eighteen years old before the girls really have a chance to know what they’re capable of or what a good decision is. I really didn’t get into it until my mid-twenties. I kind of wish they would do that with the girls now, but it will never happen because the age of consent is eighteen and the guys want to have their fantasies.

  There are some girls where their mothers actually got them into the business and there are some girls where it’s fine with their families, and some of them come to their awards shows. Sunny Lane would be a great girl to talk with. She’s got a real open family and they’ve got a crazy relationship. She’s had longevity; she’s still in it. She’s [porn director/adult actor] Tommy Byron’s girlfriend. It’s cute because when she goes to the awards shows she always takes her mother and her dad with her.