GOLDEN GODDESSES: 25 LEGENDARY WOMEN OF CLASSIC EROTIC CINEMA, 1968-1985
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One of the underpinnings of our society has traditionally been the family unit, and it was always believed that one of the ways to ensure that we have a family unit is to make sure that one parent stays home and is the truly functioning parent. Society had decided that parent needs to be the woman so that the father can know who his heir is. If women become too sexually evolved and empowered even to the point where they’re performing sexually for public consumption, then you really are sending a message to young girls that this is okay. Really, what they mean to say to girls is, “No, no, no…To be a viable choice is marriage and motherhood. To be a respectable citizen you must remain virtuous and not fall into certain pitfalls and do certain things.” For girls to follow this path, they have to be punished somehow, or else it is seen as an okay thing to do.
According to the Crisis Intervention Centre that reports one out of every three women nation-wide are sexually assaulted in a lifetime, Royalle’s statistics are accurate. Of all of the countries who track these findings, the United States reported the highest incidences of rape. In contrast, thirty-three percent of all males are sexually assaulted, either as a child, or an adult.
I think that most of our culture still doesn’t accept [sexual performing] as a choice for women, and we’re conditioned to believe it. I think it helps to uphold a certain underpinning, a structure of our society. It pretty much started with Western Religion and the Church. Prior to that, there were certainly cultures and societies that were more open sexually. Women were allowed to be highly sexual and they were still respected, prostitutes and women who taught sex — that this was not a bad thing. It was a very different kind of culture.
While it is true that many conventional religions do not always recognize or welcome females as sexual human beings or encourage women to embrace their own sexuality, several cultures are not accepting and have never been accepting of women who do not adhere to traditional roles and expectations intrinsic to the practices and etiquettes of a specific country or group. It is well documented that select countries and cultures ostracize women and even brutalize them using extreme methods in the way of physical torture and worse as a means of punishment for innocent displays of affection as simple as hand-holding or revealing a portion of the face or body in public. Western civilization might not condone women in pornography or pornographic material in general, but a relative plateau of tolerance does exist.
I think that pornography itself is a reflection of how we have perverted our sexuality and for the most part, what would be described as “male” pornography makes sex look rather dirty, and mechanical and loveless. I think it’s a reflection of what we’ve done to our sexuality through positioning it as something dangerous and bad, needing to be controlled and suppressed. I spent all of those years looking into my soul and trying to look objectively at having been in movies, and whether or not this was good or bad — was this bad for society? I had to flesh it out for myself and I couldn’t live with this burning question in my mind. “Oh, my god, did I take part in something horrible?” I don’t think it was, but I don’t think we’ll see in our lifetime a society that doesn’t condemn it even while millions of people consume it.
I was an okay porn star, but I was definitely not one of the more monumental ones just because I always had a little shyness. There was always some conflict about doing it. I certainly wasn’t like Jenna [Jameson] who came into this wanting to be the biggest porn star. I remember thinking, “Ah, no one is going to see these things”. I had thought that they’ll go into some vault eventually and collect dust somewhere. It’s interesting that the guy [mentioned earlier] with all of the loops, lost all those loops in a big fire. I thought, “Oh boy, talk about karma!” He was one of the ones who tried to take advantage of the girls. I think that definitely my most significant work is as a director. There’s no doubt about that.
Femme Productions
Candida set her talents in front of the camera aside in the 1980s when the AIDS crisis adhered itself like an unsightly scab to the adult entertainment medium. Royalle took bold steps in 1984 when she decided she could improve upon the current formula of sex films by appealing to the desires of female audiences and couples as opposed to catering specifically to the traditional trench coat crowd. The timing was optimum as the conception of video, an unexpected meeting through a friend, and the encouragement of family helped Royalle’s idea to become a reality.
I think a number of things came together to make this the right thing to do. I had gone into therapy to understand why I did what I did. After much reading and exploring, and looking at it through a historical perspective as well as my own personal perspective, I decided there was nothing wrong with performing sexually with others for others to view, and enjoy, and learn from. I felt that the pornography that existed reflected a society that had great conflict about sexuality and above all, there was no woman’s voice. We were not getting a whole lot out of looking at these films other than easy jerk-off material. That is fine in and of itself but there could be so much more. Of course, that got me to thinking that it would be interesting to create movies that had a woman’s voice that actually had good information, and that people could actually learn something. I knew there would be some people who would love movies that are more intelligent with more craft and artistry. At the same time, women were starting to become more curious because of the feminist movement. We had received permission to explore our sexuality and quite significant: home video and cable television were introduced in to the culture. This really gave people a place to view and explore these movies and their fantasies at home. They could now look at them within the safety of their own home. I saw this all come together and I thought that it was a viable market that the industry was ignoring.
In my own personal life, I was married at that point for a period of four years to a great guy and we had a nice life together. I had been working by writing articles — a number of different articles for different magazines — mostly men’s entertainment magazines. I was doing gossip columns for High Society and I did a funny expose for High Times magazine of which I am most proud. I was in my very early thirties by this time and I always wanted to have my own career and be able to take care of myself. I had given up on the idea of performing on stage singing, because I had developed stage fright for some reason and I was looking for something that was a reliable career choice like a business. It had to be creative. I thought I’d be a good person to create adult movies from a woman’s perspective because I had experience in the adult industry. There are directors that would have loved to explore eroticism, particularly back then. They wouldn’t touch it because it would ruin their career. I had nothing to lose. I already had a big scarlet letter on me.
At the same time, through an incredible series of coincidences, I was called out of the blue by this woman named Lauren Niemi, who had come to town from the mid-west. She was a photographer and she had this idea that she wanted to create erotic rock videos from a woman’s point of view. This was when rock videos were all the rage. An old friend of mine that I had lost touch with for fifteen years who I had just run into on the street sent Lauren my way after hearing her pitch the idea to someone in the office where she was working. Lauren came to see me and we had a total meeting of minds. That same day, my in-laws had been visiting and were packing and getting ready to go back home to Sweden and my father-in-law overheard Lauren and I talking. At that point, they were in the production and distribution business in Europe and had started the first major video distribution company in Sweden. They had made their fortune producing Spaghetti Westerns in Italy. They had also invested in some of the bigger adult movies like Roommates (1981), Games Women Play (1981) and Blue Magic (1982) which was the last movie in which I had both written and starred.
When they got back to Sweden, my father-in-law called. He’d been saying for the last year that I should direct and he said that if I could find distribution, he would invest in Lauren’s and my production company. He said it w
as a brilliant idea — to do these movies with class. I thought, “Well, this is clearly meant to be.” We formed our company right then and there: Femme Productions. In February 1984, we registered our company name. We wanted something that said “woman” and I came up with “Femme,” which is of course, French for “woman”.
We shot our first movie, Femme (1984), in April and then two more Urban Heat (1984) and Christine’s Secret (1986) that summer. Christine’s Secret, where we finessed our trademarks of pairing up actual lovers and shooting with as much existing light as possible rather than using harsh lighting, went on to win five awards from the New York Adult Critics Association including “Women’s Favorite Erotic Scene”. I went to the three biggest adult distribution companies — they didn’t have to put up any production money, just the cost of distribution. They all kind of patted me on the head and said, “Nice idea, Candida, but women aren’t interested in this sort of thing.”
My former partner [Lauren] and I — We’re an interesting case study because I credit her with equal responsibility for the initial launch of Femme Productions. Her coming into my life really gave me the impetus to do this. She came up with the solution I was looking for when I had pondered, “How do you turn an adult movie into something that appeals to women?” I didn’t want to make up some big old soap opera plot and then surround it with the same old formulaic mechanical sex because what really needed to change was the sexual depiction; the erotic component. How do you create believable stories with people who don’t have a lot of acting skills? How do you keep it simple while also engaging the viewer? When she came up with the idea to do an entire erotic rock video, I said, “This is the perfect solution.”
We went our own separate ways after about a year. She was getting married. I think her husband was pressuring her to stop making sex movies and I think she had some conflicts with my husband and me. My husband was the assistant director and kept on eye on the entire production, keeping an eye on his father’s investment. He was a bit hard on Lauren who began as the director while I produced. While it was our vision and she had a photographer’s eye which was lovely, she and I were both completely inexperienced in terms of running a set on our own and my husband could be a fierce taskmaster.
After going our separate ways, I continued on my path. We’ve stayed in touch and have remained somewhat close. She did a little bit of video work after that, but later, became a stay-at-home mom home schooling her two sons. We’ve gone off in two completely opposite directions. She will say to me, “Look at me. I’m a stay at home mom. I wonder what might have been in store for me. You went ahead and did all this”.
I’ll say, “Gee, you have this stable, wonderful home life and a husband. You still love each other and you have two sons. I never had children and I wonder what it would have been like if I had.” You always wonder, but in the end, we each did what we chose to do. She helped create something very special and unique and shares in that legacy, but her life today is very fulfilling and interesting for her in another whole way.
I’m very proud of Femme. I knew it was going to be big. You just know in your gut when something is right, and I did it as a very pro-woman thing because the films I’d been in did not celebrate female sexuality. They used us and paraded us up there to get off on, but they didn’t give us any sort of voice. I wanted to give something back to women, and I wanted to create movies that women could look at and feel good about sexually.
Femme (1984), the first picture produced by Femme Productions in which Royalle is credited as a writer, producer, and director starred Rhonda Jo Petty in the title role and co-starred Jerry Butler. Shot in rock video style that is surprisingly crisp, the film has a classic eighties texture with lots of big hair, exaggerated make-up and tasteful lingerie. The sex scenes are framed as six one-act fantasies patenting Royalle’s vision for what she believed women wished to experience in an erotic movie. Petty and Butler, two of the most attractive and famous performers of their respective eras, occasionally appear to be going through the motions which is a little disconcerting, considering that at the time Femme was filmed, Petty was not in a good emotional space. On the other hand, Sharon Kane is healthy in her appearance and clearly enjoys her sexual interaction with her partner (Klaus Multia) as she envisions making love with a soap opera star in the sensitive exchange. Tish Ambrose, who began her career in the early 1980s, and gay star George Payne (Payne also acted in a good percentage of heterosexual adult films) are also part of the ensemble cast. A twentieth year special edition of Femme was released in 2004. Commentary and insights into the transitioning years of the adult business are provided by Royalle.
I worked on a lot of stuff in therapy — I also wanted to get back in touch with my original, lovely, and pure sexuality and passion that I felt I had come into the world with. That often gets spoiled by society and religion. I discovered how much guilt and shame I had about sex, and I wanted to put something out there that celebrated women’s sexuality. Especially back then, women didn’t look at those movies and feel sexy. I wanted to create something that made them feel sexy and good about it.
Leilani
Former adult film actor, director, and writer, Howie Gordon, contributed the following introduction and two photographs to this next section in his dedication to the late adult film star, and dear friend of Candida Royalle and many others, Laurien Dominique. Dominique is lovingly remembered by her nickname, Leilani (aka Lailani), meaning “heavenly.” Gordon recently completed writing his memoir titled Hindsight, a journal of his own experiences in the industry under the stage name Richard Pacheco.
“This image of Leilani is very flapperesque to me. It harkens back to the wild days of the Roaring twenties. There is a hardness in her face; a smoldering mistrust that bespeaks the difficult life of the farm girl who had come to the Big City to become a dancer or a showgirl and now already has been used and passed around by some bruising men. It’s aged her. She’s older than her face and beyond her own innocence. She could use the sense of humor of a Carole Lombard to arm herself for the struggle. She could use the kindness and affection of a true lover before ever being asked to surrender her body again. It was a random moment on a rooftop. It was young people playing tough. Using their sex, using their bodies just like the grownups that they would one day become.” — Howie Gordon, Berkeley, 2011
In 1986, Femme released Royalle’s most personal piece, Three Daughters. The erotic Harlequin romance feature set during spring break features Gloria Leonard in her final acting appearance as the mother of three daughters about to navigate their own sexuality. In a bittersweet tribute to her beloved best girlfriend who passed away tragically prior to the film’s completion, Royalle dedicated Three Daughters to Laurien Dominque (listed in the credits as Lailani Detgen).
Candida agreed to share memories of Laurien for this chapter.
Laurien was like a sweet ethereal little beauty. She was a very bright, very smart, and gifted young girl. I met her when she came to San Francisco at the age of fifteen. She grew up as Laurie Ann Detgen in the mid-west. I think she was from Illinois and had a very sad home life. Her mother wasn’t well. I think her mother ended up in a mental institution, although a lot of women ended up in that situation back then when they probably just needed some good therapy. Her father raised her and her brother until he remarried — it was kind of your typical nightmare situation where his new wife got pregnant with a child, and the two former kids were moved into the basement. Who knows, maybe it was a nice, furnished basement, but from the stories Leilani told, they weren’t treated well. That certainly was how she remembered it anyway. The fact that she was allowed to leave home at fifteen doesn’t sound like they cared a whole lot about what happened to her. A lot of young kids like Leilani ended up in Haight-Ashbury. The streets were lined with beautiful old Victorian row houses, and there were flats that were inhabited by groups of kids who came to San Francisco from all over the states.
She lived in one down the block from w
here I shared a flat with a bunch of transplants from New York. Ours was an infamous, colorful house of artists and performers including Jorge Socarras, who performed under the name Jorge Havana and later went on to form the progressive rock group Indoor Life, and Joe Merlino who worked and performed under the name Joe Morocco. We had a lot of “orphans” pass through and Leilani became a beloved member of our “family”. We were all orphans really, and although I was only about twenty-two years old myself, I became her big sister. We all took her under our wing and she began performing with us. She and I sang together, she would do the melody and I would do the harmony. We had these wonderful smoky voices that blended beautifully. We all performed together in avant-garde theatre groups created with some of the original Cockettes, like Scrumbly Koldewin, and Martin Worman, and Pristine Condition. One of the funniest groups Leilani and I were in was an all girls group called White Trash Boom Boom with Dolores [Delux] Deluce.
After my boyfriend, Danny Isley, who was a musician and one of the original Cockettes began performing in a few adult movies under the name Danny Leighton, Leilani decided to follow him into the business. I followed the two of them in to the business! It was a great way for all of us to make some money so we could continue to spend the majority of our time doing our art and free performances.
Leilani was a heavenly little beauty who believed in the existence of other realities and other worlds. Life was difficult for her. I think her happiest time was when she went to Hawaii and she came back with the name Leilani. She was always looking for a way out through science fiction, or experimentation with drugs. I guess we all were looking for ways to escape in those days. I think Leilani was never meant to be here for very long…and eventually, she found her way out.