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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  I continue to move back and forth between the two worlds. I’ve got a lot of eggs in my basket right now. I’ve got my own production company that is getting ready to launch. My book is coming along well. I need ten more of me, I really do. It’s difficult a lot of days to balance porn, motherhood, business- woman, athlete, sister, friend, and girl that dates. Last weekend, I just hung three paintings that I did. I do acrylic on canvas. I design and sell my jewelry. I love to cook. My grandfather taught me how to cook. My days begin and they’re over way too soon. I just don’t have enough time, but it’s all good. There really isn’t anything negative in my life. My girlfriend says I juggle a lot of glass balls so I have to be careful because when I drop one it’s going to break. I’m well organized and I work out of my home. I try my best to never do housework in the day when I’m home so I do prioritize.

  Legacy of Passion and Innocence

  Many porn purists believe the legalization and regulation of sex films in the state of California in 1988 resulting from the Freeman decision is a double-edged sword. The ruling vindicated the industry, but it also quieted the rebel rousing and free spirited energy that propelled the pioneers who reigned throughout the golden period of adult entertainment — leaving the current erotic movie industry suspended and in somewhat of a pillaged state. With the advent of internet and webcam voyeurism gaining in popularity in the post-video era, the production value by studios is almost negligible and the genre itself seems frigid and indifferent. Not surprisingly, there is revived interest in the classics and vintage actors. According to former and contemporary performers, the existing movement in adult films is all about acrobatics and “extreme” sex leaving a veneer of a storyline and honest sensuality in the dust. After all, there are only so many ways to skin a cat.

  It’s different today than it was back in the sixties where it was all about wild and free sex. They were free and easy and out there and everybody was doing it — those are the people of the seventies who were in porn, but the women of the eighties were the women that changed the face of porn when it was dirty, and naughty, and taboo, and unacceptable. I think that those of us who came after, and the people who grew up watching our films — I believe we will leave them with a sense of passion and innocence in sex. Today, there is no passion, there is no innocence, and it’s not just in the adult film industry, it’s the entire medium — listen to the radio, read the magazines.

  There are those of us from those Golden years that will leave an impact on the future and on people to come in the entertainment industry as well as the film industry. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the person, I also believe that many of us will not leave anything. You know, there are people who don’t even know who “Aunt Peg” is. Juliet Anderson just died a couple of weeks ago [January 2010]. She was the original, the first Cougar — the first MILF. We spoke about her when I was at the show in Vegas recently. I had a long line of people coming up and a couple of girls who were standing nearby were saying, “Who is that? Who is that?”

  To have a long shelf life or a legacy in the world is rare. Personally, I was able to break out of the adult industry and into mainstream because my face, my image, and my persona have been in many different areas. You hear my name — you know it. Whereas, if you were just a porn star, not that there is “just a porn star,” but if you didn’t grow above or outside of that box people will not know who you are in two years, much less twenty. We’re kind of a dying breed.

  I don’t know if this is a compliment or an insult, but a guy recently came up to me at a show who was twenty-something and he said to me, “My grandma told me that the very first porn I had to watch was you. I love your movies!” His grandmother raised him and when he became sexual, she said, “This is how you do it.” So maybe there is somewhat of a legacy. Maybe people will know there is passion in sex!

  In the summer of 2010, I met with Ginger at the Exxxstacy Show in Rosemount, a suburb of Chicago. Lynn was at a booth signing autographs and as good fortune would have it, she took a moment for a break. We walked outside of the Hall and stepped onto the long escalator down to locate a place to talk in quiet. We found a spot along the steps, just inside the shadowy bowels of the convention centre. After making ourselves comfortable, I was immediately at ease. Ginger has a remarkable way of giving one the sense they’ve known her for years and during our brief time together that afternoon, I felt as comfortable as I would chatting away with an old girlfriend. When we returned to the center, Lynn’s father was waiting for her at her booth and we were introduced. Ginger bore a definite resemblance to her dad, and it was obvious the two had an intrinsic and tough bond. In a heartbreaking twist of fate, only a little over a year after our meeting, Ginger’s father was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident and passed away in October 2011.

  I’m the exception to the rule in the adult film industry. I’m not the norm and not by any means would I recommend any woman to get into this industry or any man for that matter. Unless you are strong, extremely strong and you can deal with the judgments and the accusations and all of the bullshit that goes along with it, it’s not for you. Now, there are many more things that are wonderful if you know how to deal with it and if you have the right mind set. Most people don’t.

  I would definitely have to say that the choices that I’ve made and my history in the adult industry have had a positive impact on my life. I wouldn’t be the woman that I am today. I wouldn’t be as open-minded. I wouldn’t be as dignified. I wouldn’t have as much courage. I wouldn’t have the balls to stand up for myself. When I got into the industry, I was barely turning twenty-one. I was from Illinois and I was shy about life. I didn’t really know how to have relationships, how to talk to people or how to stand up for myself. I did grow up quicker because of my work, but I became more of a woman because of it. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

  I wish I would have been a little wiser with my money or had someone that guided me. I’ve been extremely fortunate though and have done very well in the industry, better than ninety-nine percent of the women and I have things to show for it, but there’s still that retirement fund I’m working on. On the plus side, I’m able to ask for what I want. Not just in the bedroom, but in life, in general. It has given me a sense of security and not because of the sexual aspect, but a sense of security as “I’m a woman,” and I made these choices and I will stand up for myself. I do stand up for myself because I’ve had to fight to a certain extent, the public perception and negativity, at times. I’ve learned how to hold my head high so it has definitely been positive. My personal motto is this: If it feels good do it, but don’t hurt anybody in the process, especially yourself.

  COURTESY OF GINGER LYNN

  COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS

  COURTESY OF GINGER LYNN

  PHOTO COURTESY OF SUZE RANDALL, WWW.SUZE.NET

  Ginger Lynn and Ron Jeremy.

  PHOTOGRAPHY BY KENJI

  Ginger Lynn and John Holmes at the premiere for Girls on Fire.

  Ginger Lynn with her dad at the Exxxstacy Show, Chicago, 2010. PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT CHURCH

  Ginger Lynn and Charlie Sheen.

  Scene from Metallica video “Turn the Page”.

  COURTESY OF GINGER LYNN

  PHOTO COURTESY OF SUZE RANDALL, WWW.SUZE.NET

  22.

  Amber Lynn

  The Blonde Panther

  “I wanted this bright, shiny persona. That’s what the industry gave me the ability to do. I was able to recreate something new and exciting that didn’t have all of this heartbreak and tragedy. That’s why I got into the industry and just took off.”

  — Amber Lynn

  Orange County, California generally conjures images prevalent in the popular TV show by the same name depicting affluent white privilege, texting teens languishing on perfectly groomed beaches ambivalent to the sun’s harmful rays while surfer boys gauge the wave action in anticipation of their next big adventure. Growing up in the OC for Lau
ra Lynn Allen however, was anything but idyllic or opulent. After her parents’ complicated break-up at age three, Lynn was placed in foster care for a period of four years at which time her mother convalesced in a hospital following a mental breakdown. Tragically, at age seven and shortly after Lynn finally left her foster home, her mother was killed in an automobile accident leaving Laura to be placed under adoptive guardianship.

  As she grew into an attractive young woman, Lynn took advantage of the omnipresent sunshine and mild temperatures offered by the allure of the Orange County coastline. With her ultra tanned skin, precocious sex appeal, and bleach blonde hair, Amber set her sights on a modeling contract while destiny seemed to be in her corner in 1983 when she crossed paths with Althea Flynt, wife of the magazine mogul, Larry Flynt, at one of West Hollywood’s prestigious nightclubs.

  After modeling for Hustler and Penthouse, the natural next step was a meeting with the successful west coast director, Bobby Hollander. Hollander cast Lynn in her first film Personal Touch III (1983) with Bunny Bleu and Lisa DeLeeuw. Lynn’s second film role introduced her to the enigmatic veteran of the blue screen, the dangerously hypnotic Jamie Gillis who became a long time lover and sage in her life as he took on the task of masterfully guiding her career. Lynn, along with another burgeoning nymphet sharing the same middle and surnames, Ginger Lynn Allen, ascended the rungs of stardom quickly in the San Fernando Valley while enjoying the friendly camaraderie and competition that bonded and branded the two young starlets. Headlining in clubs and excessive drug use soon overshadowed Lynn’s adult career, and eventually Amber’s reckless lifestyle caught up with her as she began to lose the people and things she loved and had worked hard to sustain. Lynn has been clean and sober for more than a decade.

  Throughout the rough patches in her life, Amber’s altruistic nature has prevailed as has been demonstrated through her nurturing support of The Youth AIDS Foundation of Los Angeles, and more recently, We Are the World XXX, a filmed fundraiser for the late director Henri Pachard (Ron Sullivan) who passed away from cancer in 2008. After remaining silent throughout the debacle of the Sullivan project, Amber hoped to set the record straight by agreeing to be featured in this book.

  I spoke with Amber Lynn in December 2010 and January 2011, shortly after veteran John Leslie passed away.

  Orange County Kid

  I was a kid from Orange County and I came from a severely broken home, a traumatic childhood and upbringing. My birthday is in September and I’m actually born in 1964. I know that IMDb.com and Wikipedia state my birth year as 1963, but it’s not true. I don’t even know how they got that date. I’ve tried to go in and correct all of the misinformation about me on Wikipedia because there were many misleading statements and in the press, opposite of what the truth is.

  I was taken away from my mother when I was three years old. I was placed in a foster home because my mother and father had a very traumatic break-up and divorce. My father had cheated on my mother and had other children with another woman. In a nutshell, my parents had a daughter before me along with a son that was my older brother who became [porn star] Buck Adams. The little girl was born with holes in her heart and she died when she was two years old. My mother was going through the process of hospitalization and surgeries trying to save my sister’s life during my parents’ marriage. She became obsessed with having another girl and it ended up destroying her relationship with my father who then became involved in another relationship. I guess he didn’t break off his relationship with my mother and his children though. It exploded, and we all wound up going into foster care when I was three years old. My mother was then institutionalized with a nervous breakdown. Back then, they didn’t have rehab. They just thought you were crazy and especially if you were a woman. They’d just lock you up in the nuthouse. Today, if you have a drug or alcohol problem there’s help out there. I was in a foster home when I was a kid and there was a lot of abuse. It wasn’t sexual, but it was physical. It was a frightening thing that I went through.

  When I got out of the home and went back to my mother, within that year of returning home, my mother was killed in a car accident in front of me. My life was spared because I was thrown from the car. I was seconds and inches from dying and I witnessed my mother’s death. I was almost decapitated in the car. This all happened by the time I was seven and a half years old. I suffer from PTSD and there was a kind of a huge splitting in my childhood. That’s what children do when they suffer from traumatic events because they are too young to interpret. They split so that they don’t go into shock. I didn’t find this out until years later in therapy and I was able to leave myself to create a character and be someone completely different. Now in my mid-forties when I look back at it squarely, even with all of the recovery, it’s still huge. In my memory, I had a short relationship with my mother, but a few things my mother had said to me always stuck. Her words formed me on the very little information that mattered. My mother was a Lithuanian Jew. She had wanted me to marry once and she wanted me to be a wife before I was a mother. On these little things, I rely.

  When I came into the industry, I was a kid. I was escaping from all of that past. I was so ready by the time I got on the road to come to L.A. and be an actor to get the hell out of what had happened to me as anyone could imagine. I was going into modeling and got into the industry by accident. I had come to Los Angeles from Orange County where I had been modeling to get into the magazine side of modeling. I wound up getting involved with Hustler and Club and Penthouse Magazines. There was a photographer named Jay Stephen Hicks who shot me for Penthouse and that was my focus. These people separated the model from the porn actress. At that time, it was very important that you were separated. Girls who modeled for Men’s magazines didn’t necessarily do porn and now they are kind of required to do so much more than what we did.

  Anyway, I’d met Althea Flynt before I did films with Clive McLean who shot me for Hustler. That was, I guess, how they had noticed me. I’d gone to the Rainbow with some of my girlfriends. We would go up to the Starwood and we used to see bands play. On one of the nights we went to see this band called Y & T [originally known as Yesterday and Today] which was a really big deal, and we ended up over at the Rainbow. A guy pulled up in a red `64 Corvette; I’ll never forget it because the license was the year of my birthday. A black limousine pulled up right behind it and it had a naked lady on it and out of it came Althea Flynt. At the time, I didn’t know who it was. I thought it was someone like Joan Jett — she had this shocking, cropped, black hair and black leather pants on. She came in and they invited me to their table, and we started drinking. They said, “I want to shoot you”. I was already interviewing with Stephen Hicks, and had done some shooting here and there and they shot me right away for Hustler. Clive McLean and I became very close and we actually dated and had a relationship. We stayed best friends for my entire career. We were dear, dear friends and I spoke at his wake when he passed away years ago. It broke my heart. That was how I got into the industry through Clive and Althea.

  Althea Flynt was born Althea Leasure in Marietta, Ohio and experienced a shattered childhood mirroring Amber Lynn’s. Orphaned at eight years old after her mother and grandfather were fatally shot by her father who then turned the gun on himself, Althea resided in the care of nuns for the duration of her childhood and teen years. At seventeen, she met her soon-to-be husband, Larry Flynt, while stripping at his club in Columbus, Ohio and became Hustler magazine’s first centerfold. Eventually, she was promoted to co-publisher. With full-blown AIDS, Althea drowned in a swimming pool in 1987 at the Bel Air home she shared with Flynt, just a few years after taking Amber Lynn under her wing. She was thirty-three years old.

  I got into the limo with Althea that night and she took us down to a restaurant down the street. She had a magazine she was doing about rock stars and we were up there trying to meet rock musicians. She was interviewing The Police and Sting and we went over there. She was just this great woman. We had a kind of
weird connection. She thought I was some kid who was partying and they wanted me for Hustler. That’s how we rolled back then. One thing led to another.

  Rolling

  John Leslie’s death changed my idea about doing this interview because his passing triggered many memories and it triggered the first time I met John. I was going to do a film for the late Bobby Hollander who was actually the man who discovered me and got me into the industry. I went over to meet Bobby Hollander for a go see, to talk about a part in a film where it was planned for me to do a single, pretty girl scene. It was not sex and it was not supposed to be hardcore or so it was promoted to me. I was just a magazine model, but I guess he had seen me in a magazine so I went there and he pulled out a pipe and I got loaded with him. It was the first time I had ever experienced smoking cocaine. The next day I was on a [porn] set and I made my first movie.

  There were drugs involved and they were definitely used as a ploy. The first time I smoked cocaine I had no idea what I was doing. I thought that I was smoking grass. I had done grass in bongs but I had never done freebase. I didn’t even know it existed. Now, you can’t rape the willing. Let’s just be honest. You can’t rape the willing and I was willing. You make the decision. The decision is laid out right in front of you no matter how the manipulation occurs. You have a free choice to walk across that line or not. You have to take responsibility and accountability. That’s the deal. Were there manipulations? Of course there were. That’s business, in all business. The bottom line though good or bad, is that’s how I got in.