Uncategorized – Page 18

One afternoon, I was asked to read a monologue from a play, set in the 1950s, about a girl who refuses to join her schoolmates in a bomb shelter.

The girl runs across the playground convinced that the world is about to end. Pleading to the sky, she asks God why she can’t live longer. She confides in him that she wants to make love at least once before she dies.

She continues on, talking about how she needs to know what it’s like to have her legs parted and a man enter her. I finished the reading to stunned silence and then applause. Afterward, I was congratulated by my classmates who, one after another, commented on how brave my performance was. My teacher had pushed me toward the subject I most feared: sex.

We worked like dogs throughout the picture, filming twelve to fourteen hours a day and completing the whole project in just ten days, which I was told was unheard of in legitimate films. Then the Roger Corman machine went to work quickly editing and completing the film. They wanted to get it out as soon as possible to benefit from the ongoing publicity around the Traci Lords scandal.

Not of This Earth opened in a theater in Westwood only four months later, and people said Corman and Wynorski had done the impossible, putting an ex-porn star in theaters across mainstream America. The Hollywood Reporter’s review read, “The answer is yes. She can act.” I was ecstatic and thought I was finally on my way to leaving the past behind for good

Fueled with a newfound confidence, I agreed to promote the film. Corman and Company jumped at the opportunity, setting up several interviews in the days to come and taking full advantage of the press’s desire to speak to me. Having no experience with the press or doing interviews, I trusted all the wrong people, agreeing to speak to Hard Copy and A Current Affair about my past as long as they focused on my present life and the new movie. I spoke candidly about my struggles with drugs, pornography, and the pain of recovery-really deep issues that I had never shared before. And I got knocked flat on my butt.

Both programs broadcast footage from the illegal porn films, showing clip alter clip of explicit photos with the smallest blockers allowed on prime-time television to cover my private parts. They referred to me as “the porn princess” and claimed I’d starred in more than a hundred porn movies, as if twenty weren’t enough. They even interviewed people from the porn world who either didn’t know me or barely knew me, and they all swore I was some kind of child genius who’d deliberately plotted to destroy them.

How could I have been so stupid? God, it hurt. And the worst part was my mother knew about the new movie and the TV interviews, and I was sure she’d seen it all. Once again I’d screwed up, shaming myself and my family in the process.

I was a wreck, and it nearly drove me back to drugs and out of the film business for good.

For the next few months I existed in a transitional prison. Tabloid photographers were still staking out my apartment, so I closed every blind, locked every window, and was glad I lived on the second floor.

Peering through cracks in the blind one day, I searched the trees closest to my balcony for men with cameras. I had a full day’s schedule and couldn’t wait any longer, so I made a mad dash to my Camaro in the garage.

Reaching the car door, I was almost home free when they appeared out of nowhere.

“Come on, guys,” I pleaded, “give me a break.” I struggled with my keys, modeling portfolio, and the morning’s coffee, my patience wearing thin.

“The movie closed ages ago!” I yelled. “I’m old news.”

Ignoring my misery, they snapped away. There must have been four or five of them pushing at one another to get to me. In addition to the tabloid guys there were the autograph hunters. Those vultures were the worst. Pissed that I refused to sign nude photos, they thrust explicit penetration shots in my face in retaliation. “How about this one,” one said, presenting a photo of my young face with a penis stuck in my mouth. The guy just laughed.

I wanted to rip his eyes out.

I roared away in my car, cursing at people as I made my way through traffic. Was this shit ever going to end?

nothing. It had been his idea. People magazine ran the photo with the caption “Guns and Poses” that implied Slash and I were an item. I was amused, Although Slash wasn’t my new boyfriend, I did secretly like him.

He was a rock star and I was intrigued. It was exciting playing a part in the early days of Guns n’ Roses, even if I was only there as a press stunt. It was the kind of energy that sucked me in, and I couldn’t resist saying yes when Slash asked me out and scribbled his address on the back of an empty cigarette pack.

The following afternoon at five, I arrived at Slash’s rundown apartment above Sunset Boulevard. Evidently rock stars don’t get paid much, I thought as I stepped over the smoldering cigarette butts embedded in the carpet outside his door. Knocking softly, I wondered what I was doing there.

Could this go anywhere or did he just want sex? It had been a year since my fling in Canada and I wasn’t interested in a one-night stand. This bizarre guitar slinger was kind of sexy. Perhaps this could be something more?

He answered the door looking like he’d just woken up and smelling faintly of last night’s booze. He had company, another one of the guys from the band. He apologized for running late and invited me to have a seat while he and his friend went into the back room to finish up their business. I was settling into the sofa, feeling uncomfortable at being alone in Slash’s living room, when something cool slid across my back. I turned around and there, slithering across the back of the couch, was the biggest snake I’d ever seen in my life.

Freaking out, I jumped up and ran out of the apartment as fast as I could.

I hate snakes!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the time I got home my fascination with Slash was a thing of the past.

My brief glimpse into his world was enough to make me realize he wasn’t for me. It was a little too fast, what with the snake, cigarettes, and rock and roll. I wanted a simpler life. He left a message on my answering machine saying he was sorry he had kept me waiting, thinking that was why I had left, and asked me to come back over. I didn’t return the call, and I never told him about my encounter with his slithery friend. Instead, I chose to simply remain a fan of one of the greatest guitar players of our time.

There in the middle of the field was what looked like a large, circular clothesline attached to a six-foot metal pole stuck in t ground. Hanging down from four equally spaced positions on

the line were black leather leashes, and attached to those leashes were women. Three spots were taken and only one was unoccupied. That’s my spot! I realized with horror.

I stood gaping at these “pony women” trotting around in circles. It was a bizarre spectacle. They wore tall black leather boots, black studded leather G-strings, and black bras with the nipple area cut out. One had a horse gag in her mouth. A hooded man, well over six feet tall, stood in the center of the ring, whipping their muscular asses and ordering them to “mush, mush” as they trotted by.

I was paralyzed with a mixture of fascination and disbelief. It momentarily struck me as funny, but my amusement quickly vanished as a tall Japanese man, who I later realized was the director, noticed my presence. Rushing to my side, he started rattling on in a language I didn’t understand. Then an unbelievably tiny Japanese lady, maybe four feet five inches, started circling me and tugging at my clothes as if I weren’t in them. I felt like I was on another planet. I couldn’t understand what these people were talking about, and although this tiny grandma of a woman wielded a rather ominous-looking riding crop, she struck me as harmless. Politely bowing, she offered me a leather straitjacket, which seemed to me appropriate, since I’d been feeling suicidal for months.

111 of 256 or five…..

The federal building in downtown Los Angeles wasn’t as glamorous as I’d seen in the movies. They took me in the back way and led me toward an elevator. By now I was certain I was in serious trouble. They must have found my drugs, I thought. Would Scott rat me out? Was he here too?

Staring down at my chipped red toenail polish in the filthy freight elevator, I wondered what would happen next.

A ding of the elevator signaled our arrival. The monstrous army of blue men walked me out and into a cramped white room with a VCR, stacks of videos, and a lady with a tiny typewriter. A fat-faced man told me to sit in a yellow plastic chair in the center of the room and I did, crossing my legs extra tight. They were all gawking at me and I glared at every one of them, memorizing their faces: one… two … three … seven-seven of them in one room with me.

The fat-faced man stepped forward and introduced himself as Detective Rooker. Then he said the words I’d been longing to hear for the past three years: “We know who you are, Nora. We’re here to help you; but first, you’re going to have to help us.” And then the bottom fell out of my world.

My stomach dropped and I wanted to scream, both in outraged grief and in relief I cannot explain. Someone had finally stopped me. It was over. But it wasn’t the rescue I’d dreamed of. I was in a room full of leering men who seemed to be getting off on my hysteria. If they were trying to help me, why were they doing this? I looked Rooker dead in the eyes, trying to see if he was a good guy or a bad guy, but before I could even make up my mind he sealed his own fate by popping a triple-X video of me having sex into the VCR. Someone in the back of the room whistled and Rooker scolded them.

I exploded, remembering how my mother had gently scolded Roger years ago for look at my “poached eggs.”

“Fuck you people!” I spat. “You’re not here to help me! You just want your piece.” I was livid-all the pain and rage I’d felt for years shot out of my mouth in the shape of four-letter words. The lady with the tin typewriter pecked nervously in the background. I felt like a caged animal ready to attack, but as we watched film after film of me having sex with strangers, my fury gave way to numbness.

“What took you so long?” I asked the fat-faced man.

He told me I was part of a sting operation that had some thing to do with lan named Meese and that they’d been gathering information on me for a while.

Running on Empty

As unexpectedly as I’d been ripped from my bed in the wee hours that morning, I was returned home later that afternoon. The police dropped me off unceremoniously on the sidewalk in front of my apartment and sped

I forced myself forward toward the apartment, ignoring the curious stares of my neighbors. The front door was hanging on its hinges, and as I walked through it, I cautiously listened for voices.

Rounding the corner into the living room, I was confronted by Scott Bell.

He demanded to “hear it all come out of my mouth.” I broke down and collapsed in a sobbing heap in the corner of my living room, the fight totally beaten out of me.

I had no idea how to begin to explain myself, but I had nothing left to hide.

“Look,” I started, “I never meant for any of this to happen.” Scott rolled his eyes and that set me off. “I WAS TIRED OF BEING RAPED IN MY FUCKING SLEEP, OKAY! CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?” I screamed. I went nuts, punching walls, sobbing. I curled up in a sad little ball and looked him right in the eye. “I was out of porn when I met you,” I whimpered, watching him turn white. He softened, moved closer. He was scared. “We have a lot of people to answer to,” he said, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too tired. I just needed the world to stop for a minute… to rest.

Elegant, shiny black shoes walked right up to my head, and I stared eyes-to-laces as I awoke from my momentary slumber. As I started to get up, a shoe tepped on my hair and held me to the ground. It belonged to one of tw orn producers I’d seen in Scott’s office days before, and one of them gor right in Scott’s face, telling him he better make sure his little girl kept her mouth shut.

“Please let me go,” I pleaded from the ground. “I don’t know anything.”

What did everyone think I was going to say?

“Listen, Kristie,” the one accosting Scott said, “you better just keep as quiet as a fucking church mouse or that pretty little face of yours won’t be pretty for long.” With that he kicked me in the mouth and left me bleeding all over the beige carpet.

Later on I learned that the porn industry thought I had turned myself in.

They believed I could identify certain individuals by their real names (apparently I wasn’t the only one with an alias), but in truth I had told the FBI nothing. I knew nothing.

I didn’t know who had produced which film. I had to rely on the porn box covers for answers. I didn’t understand why, but the cops were really annoyed that I didn’t have personal relationships with these people and didn’t even know who they were. Why was I even being asked these questions? None of it made sense at the time.

Once I was alone, I packed my remaining personal possessions into big brown boxes. The feds had confiscated every photograph I had of my family, and I felt even more alone without my mother’s picture to talk to. I had to speak to her. But how? Was she still close by? Did she hate me? It didn’t matter. I was no longer safe living in her backyard. King Harbor had become the dead zone. I’d have to leave first and find her later.

I found a new apartment the next day. It was in a large complex by the sea in Marina Del Rey, the kind of sprawling building I could get lost in—and that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I was hiding out and licking my wounds.

Fighting to survive. I had no credit, a couple thousand dollars in cash, and no ID, since the feds had confiscated the Kristie one. Nora was gone in my heart and I couldn’t be Kristie anymore, so only Traci remained. But was that who I was? Was I Traci Lords? But I just made her up. How could she be real?

Scott was civil toward me as the days passed. He cosigned for the apartment in the Marina. I was surprised that he stuck around after all that had gone down. For a while I entertained the idea that he really must love me, but I soon realized his motives were more complex than that. There was the very important matter of the only legal X-rated film I ever made, the one in Paris. In the middle of all this chaos it hadn’t occurred to me that the countless news reports about me and the sex scandal would give it added value. The fact that I owned it (it was a Traci Lords Company production) only helped to solidify my reputation as a brilliant Machiavellian businesswoman.

The following weeks were torturous.

I woke up and took long walks along the ocean, the wind stripping some of the haze of my life away. But every day was a new challenge. It was hard to stay sober at a time when everything hurt so much. The massive amount of media attention I got needled me on a daily basis and I was so vulnerable to the cruel titles with which seemingly intelligent reporters crowned me. I was called a porn queen, a naughty Lolita, the princess of pornography.

Hypocrisy runs deep in our society, so it’s no surprise that the same news channels that reported on the teenage runaway victim Traci Lords now followed that story with nearly nude images from my porn films. The media frenzy drove the price of the now illegal tapes up, and while those in the porn industry complained bitterly that I had cost them a fortune, in reality they became richer than ever. Thanks to the news coverage they were given a free advertising campaign and I was further exploited, left to gather the broken pieces of my life. It was hard not to be bitter.

I’d made about thirty-five thousand dollars during my three years in the porn business, and all that money was now gone— spent on rent and drugs.

And despite what the media reported, I had never looked for porn stardom.

My life had simply led me there, and my emotional hunger had made me a prime target for that kind of exploitation.

I went into therapy the summer of 1986 and began the long, painful process of unraveling the web of my life. There I learned, much to my surprise, that it isn’t uncommon for children of sexual abuse to act out in many of the ways that I had. I was told I wasn’t a sex-crazed freak but an abused child, and that was very hard for me to accept. I didn’t want that title. Those words were painful to hear and they stabbed at me. I knew my therapist was onto something, but it would take me years before I could allow myself to be that vulnerable in therapy, where I could actually let those words in and see the truth for what it was.

I had to strip away all the masks I’d been wearing for years to protect myself, and it was heartbreaking to confront my demons. I was angry about Ricky, my father, the abortion, dirty Roger, my mother’s blindness, and the ugliness and poverty I grew up in. But most of all I was angry with myself.

I felt that I should have found another way. I should have been stronger. At eighteen, I blamed myself for everything, and I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I condemned myself, and it took me years in therapy before I finally began to see that I wasn’t the only one who was guilty of abusing me.

On one sunny afternoon toward the end of the summer of 1986, Scott visited my Marina Del Rey apartment. Months had passed since the FBI bust, and the paperwork for the distribution deal for the final porn movie I owned was ready to be signed. I had serious issues about signing over the rights, but my world had closed in on me and once again it was about survival. I was being bombarded by subpoenas from the federal government, which wanted to use me as the poster child for the Reagan administration’s task force on child pornography. Apparently, in the countless cases of child pornography across the United States most of the young victims were unknown and I was the only one who was readily identifiable. And although I didn’t want another soul on this planet to go through what I had, I was a shattered mess myself. I was so fragile at that time I just couldn’t imagine surviving the ordeal of looking at images of myself and other children engaging in sexual acts. It was just too much. I was broken, raw, bleeding from my own battles with drug withdrawal and the undeniable shame I was wallowing in. And I was unnerved by the unpredictability of the subpoenas. It seemed every kiddie porn case in America had suddenly requested me as a witness. No matter what the intentions of the prosecutors were, I felt like I was being thrown to the wolves.

I was a drug addict, only months clean, and battling to remain drug free at a time when the last thing I wanted to do was stay conscious. And the subpoenas just kept coming. I knew the prosecutors of these child pornography cases had a job to protect other children from being abused. I was all for that. But I had someone to protect too: me. Struggling to regain my own sanity, I was hit from every angle. With the federal government, the still-circulating death threats from the porn industry, the IRS, and the local media who hid out in my bushes and stalked me daily, I was going down fast. I don’t know exactly where I found the strength to stay off drugs, but somehow I did. Looking back, I think there was something about the feds’ constant presence at my doorstep that served as a powerful drug deterrent.

I had two very clear choices: get on with living or die. I chose to live. I don’t know exactly how or when, but sometime over those next few weeks I started fighting back—not lashing out but fighting for my life. I was so far down I could only go up, so I started climbing out of the hell I’d been sentenced to years before at the hands of perverts and pedophiles. Yes, my life was a mess. But I was still standing. I was not another statistic. I was the one who got away and I was going to fucking make it all count. So I did what I thought best. I sold that fucking movie for a period of ten years and with it bought myself some shelter from the storm. It was an agonizing decision, and one that made me a harder person, but it had to be done. I hated the fact that it had made it possible for someone to go into a video store and rent it. But selling that film gave me some control over my life. I made two other life-changing decisions that afternoon: I doubled my therapy sessions, and I hired a high-powered lawyer named Leslie Abramson.

Category: Uncategorized

traci lords: underneath it all – 3

traci lords: underneath it all – 2