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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  A Different Drummer

  My mom seemed very satisfied in her life. When I think about the list of accomplishments she’s had in her life, serving on the board of the Malibu Artist’s Association and all of these things that she has done, it’s a huge list.

  There is one thing we found after she died. She used to hide Christmas presents all over the house and every year she’d forget some and come out in July and say, “Oh, I found another Christmas gift!” It was my job to look all over the house after she died and find them. We found that she bought herself a drum. She had been talking about wanting to learn to drum bongo drums. One of her best friends plays the drum and she was really into the drum circle, so she bought herself a drum and had been planning on learning it. We all got drums for Christmas because of it.

  One of the things she asked me when she came into my room the night before she went into the hospital — I had played the guitar for her and she’d never heard me before, and she came into my room and was giving me a back rub. We were talking, and she asked me if I thought I would ever have children. I said, “You know, Mom, I’m not going to have kids. I don’t really want children.” I’ve been through a couple of big break-ups this past year, and she asked me if I thought I’d start dating again, and wondered about the direction my life was going to be taking. She already has one grandchild. I wish I would have told her that I was going to have kids because she would have maybe stayed longer or something. I think she knew. I’ve been telling her for the last ten years that I didn’t want to have kids, but sometimes I change my mind when I meet a nice guy. My mother always told me how gratifying having children is and talked about carrying on the maternal line, mother to mother. She wore a wedding ring that was from her great-great grandmother from the 1800s, and when she died, it was going to be my ring, from mother to mother, to mother, to mother, or from mother to daughter. She was interested in keeping that line alive so I feel bad that I didn’t tell her I wanted children.

  It’s funny. I ran across a picture yesterday. She was sitting in a sports car with her hair curled like Goldilocks with a racecar driver. She’s sitting there topless in the racecar. She looks so sweet and innocent with her autograph.

  I think of my mother as everything. She’ll never be just one thing. She’s a mother, a daughter, an artist, a creator. My dad calls her a “savior for the lost and stranded”. There is no way I can pinpoint her life or soul; she’s everything. It’s the nature of people; none of us can be boxed in. We may choose to show a different side, or different mood, and people know us in different ways, but you can’t discount one thing for the other. We had a very close relationship. My family was close, and everybody I’ve talked to are amazed because a lot of families don’t get along. We’re family, but we’re also friends.

  The day before they left for Thailand, my mom and dad were sitting in the backyard in the matching white wicker chairs, and my friend was over and she was playing the guitar for them. My mom had this smile of bliss; this real inner calm and peacefulness, and then I looked over at my dad and he looked all sad and pouty. His head was down and he had a tear in his eye, but she was so ready to go and then they danced. They danced together, and it was just so beautiful. I can’t tell you how many times I had to tell them to go get a room. They were always so lovey-dovey. I don’t know how people do that. We’re all very lucky.

  She had wanted to go to Thailand for so long, and she practically had to force my dad to go, but she created her happy place and that’s her legacy really. She retired three months before they left so that’s two years ago. She always sounded so happy and calm when I talked to her on the phone.

  When I arrived there before Christmas, my brother had picked me up from the airport, and when I got back to the house, I was excited to see my parents because it had seemed like such a long time. I really missed them and I wanted a hug. I got inside and my dad ran up the stairs and gave me a big hug, and I saw my mom on the patio downstairs. She was just smiling and I walked down there. It was so funny because she said, “Oh Carly, I was just so happy to see you that I didn’t feel the need to run over there. I didn’t feel anything urgent about it. I am calm because we’re all here together.”

  Final Thoughts

  It’s so weird to talk about her in the past tense. I still try to say, “My mom says,” instead of, “My mom said.” On her birthday, her sister and I are going to go on a boat to actually sprinkle the ashes. Her sister is in Ventura. I am especially close with her after my parents moved. We spend holidays together and she comes over often. I’ve always considered Lisa like my sister. She’s more of a sister to me than an aunt. My mom pretty much raised her. She was actually in one of the films as background, or an extra with my mother when she was around fifteen.

  I haven’t seen any of my mother’s films. I’d like to see Panama Red especially because it sounds like it was kind of cheeky and funny. My brother was born in August of 1972, so if my mom’s about eight months pregnant in it, it would have been filmed that summer. A friend of my mom’s called us one night to tell us that Chain Gang Women was on TV so I have an idea about that one. There is this whole resurgence of the Cult-Drive Inn classics which is kind of fascinating. It really made her world to know that her films had affected people, because as I’d said, she’d been ashamed of it in the past, and she became comfortable with it and embraced it. It was a part of her that she could finally feel whole about again, and not keep parts of herself away.

  Looking back on it, there were so many prophetic moments. Looking at it unconsciously, she was completely fulfilled and maybe that’s why she didn’t need to live any longer. It feels that way to me in so many ways. They say “Only the good die young.” She was loved and she was happy.

  Barbara and Frank Mills. COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  Carly Mills and Barbara Mills at an art opening. COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  Nigel, Frank, Barbara and Nigel’s family and friends in Samui. COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS.

  COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS.

  COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  Barbara with Carly and Nigel in the 1970s. COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS.

  COURTESY OF CARLY MILLS

  3.

  Georgina Spelvin

  The Angel in Miss Spelvin

  COURTESY OF GEORGINA SPELVIN

  “I was actually thrilled to do an entire role and build a character and everything which is what I had set out in life to do. When it turned out to be a hardcore film, in the midst of shooting, I was not about to walk off the set. I just went right ahead and did the scene as it seemed to me it should be done.”

  — Georgina Spelvin

  Georgina Spelvin has accepted that her stage name derived from “George Spelvin,” the pseudonym used in American theatre by an actor seeking anonymity, will always be synonymous with her blue screen alter ego Justine Jones, the lead character in director Gerard Damiano’s unforgettable adult classic The Devil in Miss Jones (1973). As the eloquent and introspective matriarch of the adult golden era of superstars, Spelvin continues to create enchanting moments through her verbal dexterity, her intellect, her indelible humor and wisdom. Today, she makes it all seem relatively easy, but her life has been anything but simple.

  Born Shelley Graham, the daughter of a geologist who also served as Captain in the army, the Texas native moved frequently as a young girl forever adapting to new environments. While struggling to establish a place amid her peers, Spelvin found she was out of step with the latest fashion trends and often felt an outsider. As a result, she followed her own set of rules as a transient student. While residing in Tyler, Texas, Georgina joined a summer ballet camp and discovered her raison d’être; she grew enamored of the graceful theatrical expression and responded to the required discipline of dance. With her high school diploma in hand, Spelvin was lured by the bright lights of New York City along with the ambition o
f a career on Broadway. For more than a decade, Georgina danced in chorus lines and was involved in reputable theatrical productions. Eventually, as the eldest member of a commune of starving artists, Spelvin actively sought employment for the group which coincidentally landed her a role in a hardcore film production. It became a seminal point in her life. Similar parts followed, and Spelvin was suddenly in great demand for mature roles requiring sensuality and a keen ability to personify dramatic characters with flair, depth, and experience, as the scope of her filmography and awards for her work reveals. As Georgina’s star continued to ascend, so did her penchant for alcohol. Inevitably, the bottom fell out of her world, but she has been effectively rebuilding ever since.

  After leaving the acting profession behind, for several years Georgina was employed as a desktop publisher for the L.A. County Medical Association’s bi-weekly magazine. In 2005, Spelvin was interviewed for the documentary Inside Deep Throat and had an anticipated cameo role in the remake of The Devil in Miss Jones (2005) with Savannah Samson reprising the Justine Jones character. More recently, Georgina’s priorities have shifted to writing. Her first book, The Devil Made Me Do it, was published in 2008 to very favorable notices. Plans for a second book are in the works as is the audio version for “Devil” which Georgina painstakingly recorded herself. Today, at seventy-five years old, Spelvin is happily married to her true love, and recently celebrated more than thirty years of sobriety — an achievement she considers monumental.

  I interviewed Georgina Spelvin in the fall of 2009 by e-mail, and over the telephone in November 2010.

  Doodlebug Daughter

  I was christened “Shelley”. It was my mother’s name and her mother before her, so I just wanted my own name. People think my name is short for Michelle, but the name “Chele” was made up when I was a pretentious teenager.

  My early years were spent in the back of a Ford coup for the most part. I was always the new kid on the block. It isn’t uncommon these days, but rare in the thirties. Dad was a graduate of Texas A & M College, so when the war broke out he went into the army as a First Lieutenant. He was soon promoted to Captain — then to Major, when he was assigned to be the Provost Marshall at Fort Howze, in Gainesville, Texas. This is sort of like a Chief of Police. It meant he welcomed all the celebrities that came to the base to entertain the troops. Mom and I would be introduced, and I had been kissed by Bob Hope, Gene Autry, and numerous other lesser names before I was seven.

  Daddy was a Doodle bugger, a geologist that went around drilling holes in the ground in order to set off charges of dynamite in them which made little wiggly lines on a seismograph printout much the way a small earthquake would. These told the Humble Oil Company — later Esso, later Exxon — all the spawn of Standard Oil of New Jersey where to drill for oil. There’s a small bug called a “doodle bug,” common to that part of the world—East Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma that backs itself into the sandy dirt to escape predators. When they do that, they kick up little puffs of dirt, rather like the cloud over a drill that’s pulling one of those cores, hence “Doodle bugger”. The crew doing this work would be moved to a new location frequently.

  Whenever we landed in a new town, mother would locate a good market, the library and nearby church. Any denomination would do — it was just needed to get me out of the house on Sunday mornings. Her parents had both been English teachers. Their home was in the quaint Gulf Coast town of Victoria. I was left to spend many pleasant days with my grandparents while my parents settled into the new apartment, trailer, or once even a tent. Grandmother’s house was filled with books. I don’t remember learning to read. I was amazed when I got into public school and found that not everyone could. Bored to tears through most of my early school days, I escaped by getting a lot of colds, bronchitis, tonsillitis, and so on. I was allowed to stay home in bed and read. Mother never allowed school to interrupt my education. I was treated to my first sight of a ballet dancer at about the age of three and determined that I would become one. Twenty-three years later, I finally admitted that I simply had not been issued the needed equipment for such an ambition. By then, I was flying high on Broadway so it didn’t matter so much anymore. Nothing grabs my gonads quite like a perfect pas de deux. Sigh.

  I have a younger brother, ten years younger. My mother and father fought like cats and dogs, but they stayed together to the end. When my mother died, it just took the absolute inside out of my dad’s heart. He hung on for another two and a half years, but that was it — growing up, I thought, “Oh my goodness, these two people hate each other.” There was one time when they even discussed possibly getting a divorce, and I thought it would have been so glamorous. I would have loved it if they’d gotten a divorce, and then mother would take me to New York where I want to go anyway to be a ballet dancer. Of course, that didn’t happen.

  As a kid, we were moved into many neighborhoods which presented a new dynamic. I was always the outsider. If everyone in school was wearing ballerina skirts and little ballet shoes, I would talk my mother into buying me those, and then we would move, and everyone would be wearing skinny pencils skirts and loafers. We didn’t have a lot of money so buying new clothes every two weeks was out of the question.

  When I was living in a little town called Tyler, there was a teacher in Dallas a hundred miles to the west who had actually been in a ballet company — his name was Nikita Talin [Talin had danced with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo]. We were all in utter complete worshipful awe of this man, and he was an incredible character. He would drive over to Tyler on Saturdays to hold what were called Master Classes. The senior students from all of the various schools in town — there were about three in all — would gather and take these Master Classes and he would hold a summer camp situation in Dallas, two or three classes a day. It was very concentrated work. This was the first true ballet I had encountered. Up until that point, I had done “point step, turn around with your hands in the air” ballet that had been taught to me at the local schools. I even had one teacher who had taught shuffle step in ballet class. For those who have ever taken dancing lessons, you’ll know what I’m referring to.

  This was outside of school. I was very lucky, in the fourth grade, I got to go to the school that was the teacher lab for the education programs at the University of Texas and we lived near the campus. They had orchestra in fourth grade. You could pick up a horn, and sit and toot, and they had incredible art classes, and drama, and all of the good stuff along with the reading and writing and arithmetic. At the age of eight or nine I knew that whatever happened in my life, dancing, and hopefully, singing one day, although I was never very good at it, and being on a stage some way or another, had to be.

  The public school system in Texas, and the school systems all over the place have completely abandoned an important part of education, it seems. If you do not get it outside of school, you’re just not introduced to it. That’s why the music today sounds like somebody pushed a garbage can down the stairs. Where are their heads? The best way to count is by music. You’ll learn far more math studying music than you will in a math class. Although I was never into the graphic arts that much, what little bit of schooling I did get in that area became totally invaluable when I was trying to make a living, and I got into computer graphics. I loved art, but I’m not good at it. With a computer, you don’t have to be.

  I was a very curious child and I played doctor and explored a lot. The actual encounter with a male penis came along in the seventh grade, I believe. He was an older man in the eighth grade, and we went out double dating with his best friend and his best friend’s girlfriend who had been a couple for a long time. This was a small town in east Texas. It was very rural. They were practically a married couple and we were double dating with them, and they were getting it on in the front seat, so I really couldn’t figure out a way to say “no”. I thought, “Oh, well, you know, it’s going to happen someday so why not?” and it was not as glorious as everything I’d read by a long shot, and it hurt. I
t took a long time to figure out how to do it right. Even with all the exploration, I didn’t really appreciate sex until I was married for a while, to tell you the truth. Now I’m beginning to find it quite nice. — Never give up.

  I was always just a little weird. I never quite fit in. When I’d figured out the dynamic, we’d move again. I naturally fell into the persona of the outsider, the one girl who, because we would move, didn’t really worry about my reputation. As soon as I was old enough to fit into the category, I kind of became the class whore in each town. I was very sexually promiscuous, and this doesn’t fit in well with the standards of a small Texas town. The nice girls didn’t and the nice girls hung out together, and I wasn’t one of the nice girls. I didn’t let it bother me because I was going to be a ballerina, and leave them all behind soon anyway. My associations, my close friendships which endure to this day, were ballet students who were not the locals.

  We’d been in one town for the whole time just as my mother grew up in one small town. Her younger sister was considered “promiscuous” by local standards. She’d gotten pregnant by an officer in the air force during WWII. I can remember in about 1946 when I was around ten years old, she advised me to be very careful with boys and “just never let them do what they want to do to you, or you’ll end up paying for it in the long run.” I didn’t understand what she was talking about at the time, but later, it clicked: “Oh right, she got pregnant and had to get married.” It was talked about in my family during my whole youth, but here was a case where my aunt had lived in one town her whole life and got pregnant. Not having lived in one town my whole life, I don’t know what I’d do, but it definitely made a difference in her life.