The Other Hollywood (49 page)

FRED LINCOLN
:
It was bullshit. People get seven years for murder and they’re givin’ us twenty years for pandering! If they did that to pimps, nobody would be a fuckin’ pimp. Who’s gonna be a pimp if you’re gonna go away for twenty years?! Jesus!

Hal Freeman was the only one who fought this pandering thing.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, MAY
23, 1985:
“‘I will appeal and appeal and appeal until we get to the Supreme Court,’ Freeman said.

“Freeman, 49, was arrested in October 1983, and charged with five counts of violating the state’s 1982 ‘anti-pimp’ law, under which anyone who procures another person to engage in sex is guilty of pandering.

“Freeman estimated that he has produced more than 100 full-length sex films since 1968.”

SHARON MITCHELL
:
In court they wanted the director’s real name, but they really wanted Zane’s real family name. Their real family name was very long, and it ended with a vowel. I know from growing up in New York that you don’t tell names like that.

TRICIA DEVERAUX (FORMER PORN STAR)
:
Were the Zanes the same as the Zacari Family? Yeah.

FRED LINCOLN
:
Hal Freeman just pled not guilty, that was it. And he just kept appealing and appealing and appealing. Nobody supported anybody then.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JULY 16, 1985: JUDGE GIVES LIGHT PENALTY TO PORNO FILM PRODUCER
:
“A judge Monday refused to impose a minimum three-year prison sentence on Harold Freeman, a producer of hard-core sex films who was convicted in May of pandering, and instead ordered the Encino man to spend 90 days in jail and pay $10,000.”

PAUL FISHBEIN
:
I know people gave Hal money. Russ Hampshire gave him a bunch of money, but he didn’t want anyone to know. It’s not that Russ was afraid; he just didn’t want people to think he was doing it for any
other reason than to help Hal. Russ is one of those guys that came to everybody’s aid. He wasn’t looking for the kudos.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JULY 16, 1985: JUDGE GIVES LIGHT PENALTY TO PORNO FILM PRODUCER
:
“Calling the minimum prison term required by law ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James Albracht also postponed imposition of the jail term and fine for Harold Freeman, pending appeal of the conviction.

“‘This is a victory for me and other adult filmmakers,’ a jubilant Freeman said as he left court.”

FRED LINCOLN
:
Everybody was so afraid of this pimping and pandering law. I mean, it was one frightened industry.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JUNE 29, 1985: POLICE RAID DISTRIBUTORS OF SEXUALLY EXPLICIT FILMS
:
“‘Los Angeles police have conducted a series of raids this week at distributors of sexually explicit films,’ said police and film company executives.

“Captain James Doherty, commander of the police department’s administrative vice division, said the raids were part of an investigation that would start over the weekend. He would not say how many businesses would be searched. He said the results of the raids will be announced next week by Chief Daryl F. Gates.”

LOS ANGELES
1986–1987

TIM CONNELLY
:
On New Year’s Eve 1985, Traci Lords was launching her own company, TLC [Traci Lords Company]. So I ended up in the women’s bathroom of some shithole club on Cahuenga with Traci and some other porn stars—and we were all doing cocaine. I can’t remember the details of the conversation—but basically Traci really wanted to be in the
Directory of Adult Films
.

JIM SOUTH
:
Traci had started dating Stewart Dell, who’d been in the business, sort of as a producer, maybe a small-time director. He had more stories than Scheherazade.

TIM CONNELLY
:
Stewart and Traci had a lot of stuff in the works. They were about to go to France to shoot
Traci, I Love You
. Stewart was really smooth: about six feet, very thin, long hair, very Hollywood good-looking. He could have been a rock manager. He hitched his wagon to Traci Lords.

Stewart came from outside the business, and, he was going to take her beyond porn. He was into PR—the ultimate fast-talking huckster. And Traci was just this coked-up seventeen-or eighteen-year-old—who now decides she’s gonna do Vivid Video one better.

TRACI LORDS
:
I’ve been thinking about going into makeup. And maybe producing my own films. A little of both. I want to do that in time—produce and direct my own movies.

I get a lot of jerks as directors. You get on set. They tell you how to fuck. They tell you when to scream. And I don’t think that’s right. I think
for the best results, you should just be able to go with what you feel and act how you want to act.

What do I like most about the business? Getting paid for things I enjoy doing.

TIM CONNELLY
:
All of a sudden, Traci Lords went from being this petulant child/drug addict/porn star into someone who wants to take control of her own destiny. It seemed like a half-ditch attempt to mirror what Ginger Lynn was doing, except that—as Traci would be the first to point out to you—she was going to do it
BETTER!

GINGER LYNN
:
I was talking to a friend I know. She liked Traci, but I kept telling her, “There’s something I don’t trust about her. Be careful.”

TIM CONNELLY
:
Traci was going to be the contract star of her own company. Not only that—she was going to be the company president. Her grand scheme was to have the biggest, best porno company—all based on
her
. It was as if someone had told her,
If you make your own Barbie doll, you’ll become a millionaire
, you know?

TOM BYRON
:
Traci told me, “I’m gonna be a legitimate Hollywood actress, and none of this porno shit’s ever gonna matter.” I was like, “Oh, sure, whatever, just let me rub your ass….”

Then, literally days after her eighteenth birthday, the story broke.

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
I came across Traci’s story in the
Los Angeles Times
. There it was: She was underage. The breakfast I had, I threw up.

I’ve never felt so sick in my life because I knew what they could do to me. We were expecting the Feds to knock on the door any minute.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JULY 18, 1986: SEX FILMS PULLED, STAR ALLEGEDLY TOO YOUNG.
“Video shops and adult movie stores and theaters nationwide were pulling products featuring sex film star Traci Lords from their shelves Thursday because of an investigation by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office into allegations that she was underage when she made most of her movies.

“Los Angeles police say that Lords, considered one of the top adult film actresses in the country, made 75 sexually explicit movies and videos before she turned 18 last May, and adult film industry officials are being advised to stop selling and showing her movies to avoid criminal prosecution.”

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
The story Traci told us was that she was in bed with her boyfriend when the Feds burst through the door and beat him up—whatever, roughed him up—and then dragged them both to jail. She said she had no idea who dropped the dime.

TRACI LORDS [FROM
UNDERNEATH IT ALL
, 2003]
:
“I tried to focus my eyes. The dim light from the aquarium cast a blue glow over the surreal creatures, lighting up the yellow FBI letters across their backs.

“‘FBI!’ I gasped, wondering if it was a hallucination. Had I died and gone to hell? I spoke to the blue men and demanded to know if this was a dream. Scott was dragged roughly to the floor and slammed facedown into the carpet when reality finally hit me.

“‘Stop it!’ I screamed as the armed men surrounded me and aimed their guns in my direction. I closed my eyes and waited for bullets to tear into my flesh. I felt sweat roll down my body.

“‘GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED NOW!’ I was ordered. My legs trembled as I tried to obey. My eyes darted around the room and took in their smirking faces as I was tightly handcuffed and led down the hallway and out the front door.”

TOM BYRON
:
Once the news came out, it was the top story on every channel. I got twenty or thirty calls: “Oh, Tom, you must have known. I mean, you were
boyfriend and girlfriend. You must have known.
”

LOS ANGELES TIMES,
JULY 18, 1986: SEX FILMS PULLED; STAR MAY HAVE BEEN A MINOR
: “‘She’s the hottest thing in the industry right now,’ Los Angeles Vice Captain Jim Doherty said Thursday. ‘She’s a really big star, and everything she’s done is against the law.’

“‘Some people say, conceivably if the authorities wanted to push it through enough, they could make real inroads in closing the industry down,’ one source told the newspaper.”

TOM BYRON
:
When we first started going out, Traci had said, “Look, if someone calls me Nora, that’s just a nickname. It’s like a pet name—an inside kind of joke. Don’t pay any attention to it.” I said okay.

So when people called that day, I said, “Guys, I knew her as Kristie Nussman! I didn’t know any Nora Kuzma!”

LOS ANGELES TIMES,
JULY 18, 1986: SEX FILMS PULLED; STAR ALLEGEDLY TOO YOUNG
:
“District attorney’s investigators last Friday searched Lords’ Los Angeles area home, the Sun Valley offices of Vantage International Productions, a major producer of adult films—and the Sherman Oaks offices of modeling agent Jim South, who is credited with discovering the actress in 1984.”

JIM SOUTH
:
The cops walked in and said, “She’s underage.” I laughed and said, “Yeah, sure.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JULY 18, 1986: SEX FILMS PULLED; STAR ALLEGEDLY TOO YOUNG
:
“South said that Lords, on seeking employment, provided a Cali
fornia driver’s license, a U.S. passport and a birth certificate, which stated her name was Kristie Nussman and gave her birth date as Nov. 17, 1962.”

GLORIA LEONARD
:
Somehow Traci must have gotten a birth certificate, and parlayed that into a driver’s license and ultimately a passport. And she certainly looked eighteen—honey, let me tell ya.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JULY 19, 1986: SEX FILM STAR NOT FACING CHARGES, REINER SAYS
:
“Los Angeles County District Attorney Ira Reiner said Friday that his office is not planning to file criminal charges against sex film star Traci Lords.”

CHRISTY CANYON
:
I never would have guessed that Traci was underage, but I did know she was a compulsive liar. One day she would say she was born in New York, the next week she was born in Las Vegas.

NEW YORK
DAILY NEWS, JULY 19, 1986:
PORN STARLET OFF HOOK
:
“‘She may be a professional now, but she was a 15-year-old runaway when the pornographic film industry got ahold of her,’ said District Attorney Ira Reiner. ‘She was, I’m sure, grist for the mill as far as they were concerned.’”

GINGER LYNN
:
When I heard Traci was saying she was forced into the world of porn, I think I peed my pants, I laughed so hard.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JULY 19, 1986: SEX FILM STAR NOT FACING CHARGES, REINER SAYS
:
“Reiner, however, says he would press charges against the pornographic filmmakers who employed Lords, if he could prove that they knew she was not yet 18.”

BILL MARGOLD
:
There are an awful lot of Traci Lords titles out there. So when all hell broke loose, the industry immediately rushed to get rid of those tapes. Except that certain people thought they could make more money if they kept the tapes and sold them. And those people got busted.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, AUGUST 15, 1986: DISTRIBUTOR INDICTED OVER SEX VIDEOTAPE
:
“‘A North Carolina video and magazine distributor has been indicted on a charge of the sexual exploitation of a minor for selling and distributing a videocassette that shows porn star Traci Lords engaging in sexual activity,’ authorities said.”

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
The laws regarding child pornography are Draconian. So after we found out Traci was underage, everyone was going around in the middle of the night and dumping all the film into the deepest Dumpsters they could find—getting rid of whatever pictures we had of her. Pictures, porn, whatever it was, just destroy it. Because what was so terrifying was that even having a tape in your house was a felony.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, AUGUST 22, 1986: THE REGION
:
“Federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation of hard-core pornography films and videotapes starring Traci Lords. A spokesman for Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner said the case was referred to the U.S. attorney because it transcends state lines and because under federal law, it only has to be proved that she was underage when the films were made.

“‘Under state law,’ he said, ‘prosecutors would have to prove that those who hired her knew she was under 18.’”

TOM BYRON
:
Everyone was losing their minds. Bookstores had to pull all the Traci Lords titles and destroy them. Video companies had to take the Traci Lords masters they had and destroy them because they were now child pornography according to U.S. law. It was a completely devastating mess for the industry.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, OCTOBER 4, 1986: INVESTIGATION OF TRACI LORDS PORNOGRAPHY CASE EXPANDED
:
“Federal authorities are expanding the case of X-rated film star Traci Lords, to determine whether three other popular actresses were underage when they starred in sexually explicit movies, it was reported Friday.

“Federal subpoenas were issued Tuesday to five distributors, VCA, CBI, Caballero, Western Visuals and Paradise, seeking records relating to Traci Lords and [three other] actresses.”

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
We were all terrified. Greg Dark rang me every day, whispering, “Have you heard anything else?”

BILL MARGOLD
:
The cost of destroying those tapes? Multiple millions of dollars. It crippled people—temporarily.

GLORIA LEONARD
:
The case was made that she cost this industry millions of dollars because all the films had to be physically destroyed. If anything, she owed this industry. I mean,
she took the money
. Hello!?

She didn’t repay anybody for the days she worked, you know? Not that that would’ve put a dent into what was ultimately lost, economically.

JIM SOUTH
:
First they indicted me for child pornography. The state law says that they have to prove you knew she was underage—which they absolutely could not do because nobody is stupid enough to give a girl that young work in pornography.

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
Suze produced a Polaroid of Traci holding her ID. We Xeroxed it and sent it to everybody. It was because of that Polaroid that they decided there were not strong enough grounds to prosecute.

JIM SOUTH
:
We had a meeting in the judge’s chamber after I was indicted.
They actually admitted that they believed I did not know. The charges were dismissed, and I breathed a sigh of relief, even though all the postponements had made the whole thing very expensive.

Then the federal government came along and reindicted me.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, MARCH 6, 1987: THREE IN TRACI LORDS SEX FILM CASE INDICTED
:
“Sex film star Traci Lords’ agent and two producers who allegedly propelled her to blue movie fame at the age of 16 were indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on Thursday in the first prosecution against commercial film producers under federal child pornography laws.

“James Marvin Souter Jr. (Jim South), 47, the man who allegedly hired Lords through his World Modeling Agency in 1984 for the film ‘Those Young Girls’ is charged with producers Ronald Rene Kantor, 40, and Rupert Sebastian Macnee, 39, with violating the federal law prohibiting the use of minors in sexually explicit films.

“The three men face a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine if convicted.”

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
You have no idea what teeth these child pornography laws have—they can put you in jail for ten years for each offense and you’ll bloody rot. One roll of film—thirty-six pictures—can put you in jail for 360 years. Absolutely horrendous; no one would dream of doing it.