The Other Hollywood (50 page)

JIM SOUTH
:
They found a law called “strict liability,” which says, if you get a minor work, it does not matter what kind of ID she has, or if both her parents confirm the age—you’re guilty.

You cannot even introduce IDs as a defense. My attorney said, “It’s unconstitutional, absolutely. But do you want to spend a hundred thousand dollars proving it?”

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, MARCH 11, 1987: ARRESTS HINDER THE PRODUCTION OF SEXUALLY EXPLICIT FILMS, POLICE SAY
:
“Police say they have temporarily blocked the hiring of hundreds of performers for sexually explicit films with arrests at two San Fernando modeling agencies in the past two weeks.

“James Marvin Souter (Jim South) of World Modeling was arrested for pandering on March 4 after sheriff’s deputies raided the business and his Thousand Island home.

“In a separate case, he was indicted under federal child pornography statutes last Thursday for representing porn superstar Traci Lords when she was 16.”

JIM SOUTH
:
They came after us like the Gestapo. It was unbelievable. They were really on a witch hunt. They were really looking hard.

LOS ANGELES TIMES
, APRIL 1, 1987: MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN TRACI LORDS CASE
:
“James Marvin Souter (Jim South), the man who allegedly lured the teenage Traci Lords into performing sex acts on film, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court to procuring the future porn queen for one of her first blue movies when she was only 16.”

JIM SOUTH
:
Tommy Byron, Boy Wonder, was dating her. I don’t know for how long. But even
he
did not know she was underage, I guarantee it.

TOM BYRON
:
I don’t know if people were mad at me after her real age came out; they probably were. I mean, a lot of people went out of business.

HUMPHRY KNIPE
:
Was she paying her mother off? Well, that wouldn’t surprise me. I never met her mom. I don’t know who turned her in—or whether she turned herself in.

TOM BYRON
:
I think Traci turned herself in because of something she said to me one day on the set of
Talk Dirty to Me III
. She said, “You know, I don’t really worry about any of this shit because one day none of this is going to matter—I’m gonna be working for Paramount.”

RUBY GOTTESMAN
:
What I think is, Traci told Stewart Dell she was underage. And when she reached eighteen, he made
Traci, I Love You
with her in France. She got a hundred thousand dollars for it. It was a setup.

JIM SOUTH
:
I really believe with all of my heart that Traci and Stewart were responsible for dropping the dime on Traci, to make her name absolutely huge. She hustled us.

TOM BYRON
:
Traci saying that she doesn’t remember any of it, that she was on drugs—that’s her PR people telling her to say that. She’d have to say that for her legitimate career. The world at that time was not ready to accept an unrepentant porn star.

I don’t fault her for that, okay? I mean, she had to do what she had to do to get over—to get into the legitimate film business, which was really her ultimate dream to begin with. I think she had something to do with it. I think it was her plan from day one to turn herself in.

AL GOLDSTEIN
:
Traci Lords really deceived the industry. But because she denounced the business, Hollywood felt she was a victim, and she now does regular movies, like
Cry-Baby
.

But it’s a shame. She blames pornography, but it was pornography that was the victim because she lied.

1985
–
1991

U.S.A.
1985–1987

GINGER LYNN
:
When I was making films with Traci, there were a lot of issues with the government and the Meese Commission. I know that the government and the IRS are in a position to do whatever they want, to whoever they want. And when I saw the photos of Traci that came out during that trial—the behind-the-scenes photos, taken during many, many, many films—I don’t know how this possibly could have happened the way everyone claims it did.

TRACI LORDS [FROM
UNDERNEATH IT ALL
, 2003]
:
“The federal building in downtown Los Angeles wasn’t as glamorous as I’d seen in the movies. 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.

“The fat-faced man stepped forward and introduced himself as Detective Rooker. He told me I was part of a sting operation that had something to do with a man named Meese and that they’d been gathering information on me for a while.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘YOU PEOPLE KNEW THE WHOLE TIME?’ I went berserk.

“‘Hey,’ Rooker said, trying to calm me down. ‘What are you crying for? Tomorrow we’re all going to be famous. Isn’t that what you want?’

“I just looked at him, not understanding. ‘Famous for what?’”

GINGER LYNN
:
How did the government have photos from Traci’s first movie? And if they knew, why didn’t they stop it from the beginning? How did Traci get into this and have all the correct forms of ID if she was sixteen years old? I had a fake ID when I was sixteen. I cut the little piece
out with a knife and then I put another number in, but anybody with half a brain can see that. But Traci’s was a
real
ID—and everything was filled out the way it was supposed to be.

BILL KELLY
:
The Meese Commission was a follow-up to the original Attorney General’s Commission of 1967–70, which was put together at the request of President Johnson. The original commission consisted of eighteen people, many of whom—especially the leadership—were members of the American Civil Liberties Union, which as you might imagine is not my favorite organization.

TRACI LORDS [FROM
UNDERNEATH IT ALL
, 2003]
:
“The FBI was relentless in its disruption of my life. After giving the initial statement at the federal building downtown and never being booked or read my rights, I had good reason to question authority.

“I couldn’t walk outside my apartment without being stopped and served a subpoena to appear for prosecutions around the country, and I saw these prosecutors all over the news talking about the ‘Traci Lords’ case.

“There was no longer any doubt in my mind about why they wanted me to appear. It wasn’t only because I was the most readily identifiable child in porn but also because wherever I went, the media followed.”

GINGER LYNN
:
Not long after it all came out about Traci’s age, there was a knock on my door, and two people read me my rights; one was a district attorney. I was asked to testify against adult film producers on Traci Lords’s behalf. I refused.

BILL KELLY
:
That first commission handed in its two-million-dollar report to President Nixon in 1970, and they recommended that all obscenity laws in the United States—unless they involve children—be abrogated, wiped out. They said that pornography was not a large industry, had no real adverse consequences on people, and didn’t even make a whole lot of money.

RICHARD NIXON (PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES)
:
So long as I am in the White House, there will be no relaxation of the national effort to control and eliminate smut from our national life—I totally reject this report.

BILL KELLY
:
President Nixon read that report, and do you know what he did with it? Put it straight in the circular file. In 1970, the porn business was making about four billion dollars. The report went through a vote in the Senate; only sixty-five senators voted—and sixty of them agreed with Nixon that it ought to be canned.

GINGER LYNN
:
The U.S. Attorney came in and said to me, “If you don’t testify on Traci’s behalf against”—there were sixty-some-odd film producers—“we will make your life difficult.”

JIM SOUTH
:
Tommy Byron got a call from Channel Five News asking for an interview. I said, “Tommy, just listen to me. Don’t do it. You’re calling attention to yourself.”

He went down to the Lamplighter restaurant to do the interview in the parking lot. I was there, and the guy turned the camera toward me, and I said, “Get the camera off of me!”

Well, a year later, Tommy was indicted for income tax evasion.

TOM BYRON
:
I went on television and shot my mouth off about the Meese Commission and the Los Angeles Vice Department. Which probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but that’s the kind of guy I am. I don’t like to hold anything back. I don’t like to bullshit anybody.

BILL KELLY
:
The Meese Commission was formed in 1985 and, in my opinion, they had a budget that was designed to fail. I don’t think the Justice Department wanted a successful, or a comprehensive, report on pornography at that time because they only gave the Meese Commission four hundred thousand dollars.

GINGER LYNN
:
They showed me photographs from almost every single film Traci made. Photos taken from behind the bushes, taken from a car, taken from day one of her filming. Photos taken from the parking lot where I met her. These surveillance photos were going on from day fucking one. This was not an accident—I still don’t believe she was underage.

So when I went before the grand jury, I got amnesia and I couldn’t remember anything. They were pissed.

BILL KELLY
:
The Meese Commission didn’t have any investigators to speak of. So about thirty of us—postal inspectors, FBI agents, me, and one or two other retired guys—volunteered to work for the commission for one year, free of charge. Which we did.

TOM BYRON
:
You gotta understand the political climate at the time. I mean, President Reagan was bowing down to every whim of the religious right. It was ridiculous. It spawned out of a bunch of holier-than-thou, do-gooder jerk-offs who thought they knew what was good for America. They wanted to deny Americans what they wanted—which was to take a video home and masturbate.

RONALD REAGAN (PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, ADDRESSING THE DALLAS MORAL MAJORITY RALLY, OCTOBER 1980)
:
I know this is a nonpartisan gathering—
and so I know you can’t endorse me—but I only brought that up
because I want you to know I endorse you and what you’re doing!

LARRY FLYNT
:
Pornography has been a pet peeve of the religious right going all the way back to Anthony Comstock, who was the nation’s first censor. And it’s continued to remain as much in the Republican Party as the “right to life” has.

BILL KELLY
:
That’s why the Meese Commission was so comprehensive—because of these volunteer federal officers, and I think several local guys in the LAPD, which has by far the best local investigative agency for obscenity in the United States. In fact, it’s one of the only ones.

GINGER LYNN
:
Not long after I appeared before the grand jury, I got a knock on my door, and I was indicted. They were charging me with tax evasion.

TOM BYRON
:
The IRS basically did a six-year investigation of me; I guess they wanted to infiltrate the porno industry. My case boiled down to the fact that I had filed one return late and didn’t file an extension.

So they charged me with tax fraud and tax evasion. It was a three-count indictment: two felony, one misdemeanor. I was facing twelve years in federal prison.

GINGER LYNN
:
When I went to fucking trial, and I saw the documents, it was the whole Traci Lords thing that did us in—Tom Byron, Harry Reems, and me. And we were three people who had helped her.

LARRY FLYNT
:
You must understand that the Meese Commission was the complete opposite of the Presidential Commission on Obscenity. The Meese Commission traveled the country basically interviewing victims. They were not using any scientific approach in their efforts to try to understand pornography or its effect on society.

JOHN WATERS
:
I love feminists like Ti-Grace Atkinson and Valerie Solanis; I was all for that. My favorite was Jenny Fope, remember her? The one that was named the head of NOW and then they found out she was wanted for murder? I’m a lesbian hag. I have no problem with any of that.

But when Andrea Dworkin and “Women Against Porn” came out—that’s not my idea of a feminist; that’s my idea of a right-wing censor. I hated all of them.

ANDREA DWORKIN [FROM “FINAL REPORT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S COMMISSION ON PORNOGRAPHY”]
:
“My name is Andrea Dworkin. I am a citizen of the United States, and in this country where I live, every year pictures are being made of women with our legs spread. We are called beaver, we are
called pussy, our genitals are tied up, they are pasted, makeup is put on them to make them pop out of a page at a male viewer.”

GINGER LYNN
:
I don’t think that anybody ever intended—nor did they wish for—the adult industry to stop. They just wanted to make it
look
like they were stopping it. They make too much fucking money to stop it.

BILL MARGOLD
:
The Meese Commission and radical feminism were forced into an unhappy state of affairs. Both of them would go where anybody listened so they became this unholy alliance, dedicated to wiping out pornography. Obviously it failed.

I told them, “All you’re doing is calling more attention to us,” and it did, quite honestly. But the Meese Commission
wanted
to call attention to us—and by doing so they warned another generation not to watch us. And when you tell society they shouldn’t watch us, they can’t wait to go out and get us.

ANDREA DWORKIN
:
“Millions and millions of pictures are made of us in postures of submission and sexual access so that our vaginas are exposed for penetration, our anuses are exposed for penetration, and our throats are used as if they are genitals for penetration. In this country where I live as a citizen, real rapes are on film and being sold in the marketplace. And the major motif of pornography as a form of entertainment is that women are raped and violated and humiliated until we discover that we like it and at that point we ask for more.”

GLORIA LEONARD
:
Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon were the Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein of the so-called Feminist Movement. So radical, so over-the-top, you know? I mean, Dworkin considered penetration to be rape! I just laughed at them.

CATHERINE MACKINNON
:
If pornography is a part of your sexuality, then you have no right to your sexuality.

GLORIA LEONARD
:
No matter what you said, porn was
bad
. And of course the irony was, nine-tenths of those who radically pooh-poohed it had never even seen a goddamn porno movie!

I mean, nobody is drugged or dragged off the street to do this. In all my years in this business, I have never seen coercion.
Ever, ever, ever
. You always had the right to say, “No, I don’t want to do this.”

Including Linda Lovelace.

LINDA LOVELACE [FROM FINAL REPORT ON THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S COMMISSION ON PORNOGRAPHY]
:
“During the filming of
Deep Throat,
actually the
first day, I suffered a brutal beating in my room for smiling on the set. It was a hotel room and the whole crew was in one room, there was at least twenty people partying, music going, laughing, and having a good time. Mr. Traynor…started bouncing me off the walls.”

BILL KELLY
:
In the book she allegedly wrote,
Inside Linda Lovelace
, Linda talked about how I used to harass her and threaten to yank her outta bed and put her on an airplane and put her before the grand jury in New York and all that. None of that is true. I never even saw the woman until we testified back to back before the Meese Commission in January 1986.

LINDA LOVELACE
:
“I figured out of twenty people, there might be one human being that would do something to help me. I was screaming for help, and I was being beaten. And all of a sudden the room next door became very quiet. Nobody, not one person, came to help me.”