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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  I really didn’t attend the last couple of years of high school. My attitude was that I didn’t give a fuck. I hardened myself against the world and I went all out doing heavy drugs. I had dirt bikes and I had a beautiful new truck that my dad had bought for me when I was sixteen — that’s something he did do for me — he bought me things. I drove that thing around like a wild person. Back in those days, everybody would tail gate up and down Van Nuys Boulevard, hundreds and hundreds of kids. I’d get in trouble over there all the time, and I’d end up with tickets, like twenty or something. When I turned eighteen, my dad found out about the tickets and he made me go turn myself in. I went to court and the judge pleaded with me to do a repayment plan and said, “Rhonda, you don’t want to do jail time.” He even pulled me into his office. I was just, “Fuck everybody.” He was offering to do anything to avoid sending me to jail but I was just, “Fuck you guys. I’m not paying it.”

  I had a very bad attitude so I got sent to jail. I was sentenced to thirty days in Cybil Brand [L.A. Women’s County Jail], but I only ended up spending twelve or fifteen days for good behavior, and then they let me out. My dad and mom came down to see me. My mom was crying and my dad was laughing. Cybil Brand was bad. They threw me in with all the prostitutes and all of the girls coming off of heroin. All of the dykes and the lesbian girls were in a different section and they scared the shit out of me. They were trying to smoke toothpaste and do whatever they could do to get high. You know, I had to play tough to make it through that. I’m a tough cookie.

  Disco Lady

  When I was eighteen, I met this guy and I moved in with him. His name was Tim Lagoy. He lived in the Valley and we moved around to a couple of different apartments. Within about six months, I was thinking about modeling. I got a photographer who took pictures of me with clothes on — I’m only 5’2”, but they turned out nice. I was looking in the newspaper one day and saw that World Modeling Agency needed models on Van Nuys Boulevard, so I went down there and met Jim South. He’s still around. I found out that it was for nude modeling. I thought, “What the hell? I’m a free spirit.” He started telling me how much money I could make. Jim South really was the big agent back then. I’d like to take a moment to give a pat on the back to Bill Margold who was also an agent, because he’s done work on the history of the industry and he tries to keep things alive. I’m very supportive of him.

  Dallas, Texas native, and former Insurance salesman Jim South (James Marvin Souter) is a well-known talent scout and recruiter for the adult entertainment industry. South opened World Modeling Talent Agency in Sherman Oaks, California in 1976. In addition to Rhonda Jo Petty, he is credited for helping launch the careers of many prestigious stars such as Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon, and Shauna Grant. After her introduction to Jim South, Rhonda Jo quickly became a sought after ticket.

  You know, in the home, my dad made jokes with my mother and he would tell sex jokes, nothing explicit, but he would always joke about sex. In our home, sex was very open. Sex wasn’t a dirty thing in our house. My dad would grab my mom’s boobs or grab her butt in front of us and joke about sex. I think my dad raised me with a healthy attitude towards sex; that is another good thing he did give me. My dad was a character and he liked to tell jokes, and when he was in a good mood, he’d tease about it so sex was okay.

  Anyway, Jim took some Polaroid photos of me, and the next thing you know, he started calling me. I began getting covers of magazines because I was the new hot item. Whenever they have a hot girl come in there, everybody wants you. I was making money hand over fist doing magazines. I was on the cover of Cheri magazine and High Society. They start you off with the magazines and then they approach you about doing the loops — I would say about six months after I started. You know if I ran the place, that’s probably how I would do it too. You’d see that if a girl was okay with nude modeling, you’re going to approach her about doing films.

  I was getting around a little bit and getting to know some of the girls. Of course, my boyfriend was having a rough time with it. He was very physically abusive. I ended up doing a shoot with him for a hardcore magazine. To tell you the truth, I vaguely remember doing it with him, and in the end he never really liked what I did and it did cause problems between us. Even though he caved in and did that shoot with me the one time. In fact, my husband found that shoot on the internet — somebody uploaded the pictures, so I have those.

  At one point Jim South approached me about doing hardcore, and of course back then, there were a lot of hardcore shoots for magazines. I was nervous and I was scared in the beginning. I really don’t remember the first loop that I did. The first time I had a girl-girl scene on a loop, I was very nervous about it. When I did Disco Lady, I was okay with the process by that time. I don’t remember now who had approached me to do Disco Lady (1978). Bob Chinn was the director of that film which was the first feature I ever did. It was a thirty-five millimeter movie.

  Bob Chinn is a sweetheart. He’s a very gentle, nice man. He was always very professional and good. He was never rude. I really love Bob. It’s funny, Bob always stayed out of the drugs and all of that. He didn’t really socialize much with a lot of those people. I always wondered what he was doing in that business. He just didn’t seem to be the right type of character.

  When I walked off the set of Disco Lady, they asked me what name I had wanted to use. I was already using my real name without a problem. My family didn’t know yet. I turned around and said to them, “Use my real name. I don’t care.” Little did I know; I was just trying to make a buck. My real name is Rhonda Jo Petty. My gay friends call me “Rhonda Jo,” but that’s my real name. My dad wanted to slit my throat for using my real name in films.

  Director Bob Chinn recalled that his friend and stuntman, Jerry Wade, introduced Chinn to Rhonda Jo Petty one day by exclaiming, “Get a load of those zyzycks!” Wade’s comment was in reference to Petty’s ample breasts. The two men invited Rhonda to play the lead in an upcoming movie titled Disco Lady. Rhonda did not profess to possess acting skills, but she was able to pull off a reasonable performance in a role that didn’t demand a great deal of experience in the acting department. Her uninhibited sexuality encouraged the film’s cameraman, an Israeli immigrant by the name of Jaacov Jaacovi, to offer Petty a starring role within a storyline he had proposed for a jointly directed film project (with Chinn) called Little Orphan Dusty (1978). Billed as the “Farrah Fawcett of Porn” Rhonda’s long, feathered blonde locks framing her fine facial bone structure created a remarkable resemblance to 1970s Charlie’s Angelstelevision star Farrah Fawcett. The marketing hype associated with the risqué venture that widely advertised taboo fisting and rape scenes, caused Petty’s star to ascend. Subsequently, the film was busted in theatre after theatre, but the negative publicity generated curiosity which translated to box office success. At that point, there was no turning back. Rhonda would soon learn to assert herself in the work place. To date, Petty has watched only a very few of her movies.

  Little Orphan Rhonda

  After Disco Lady, Bob had me come and do Little Orphan Dusty and that’s when I met John [Holmes]. Little Orphan Dusty (1978) was scary for me because of John Holmes. I was very nervous about meeting him and working with him. At first, he didn’t like me. About the second day or so, we sat down next to each other and then I opened up. We were sitting on the stairs inside of the house at the beach where we were filming, and we just started talking. We became very good friends after that.

  He knew I was nervous; he knew I was scared about the big thing between his legs and he was so gentle with me. He was so good with me. He took his time because he knew that I was nervous. You will hear a lot of girls say that about John. John had a way with women. He would massage your back — he was a little bit like Ron Jeremy. He’d play around with you and sweet talk you, and he just had a way with women. John was such a sweetheart. I believe though that he was also a pathological liar and he made up millions of stories, but he would pull you in. He�
�d take your cigarettes and say, “Give me those cigarettes. You’re not smoking those cigarettes,” and he’d put them in that briefcase of his. Then, I later found out, goddammit, that he smoked too! Oh, my god, he was a character, a real character — a little bit of a con artist and very, very colorful. Anyway, it all really started for me when I made Little Orphan Dusty. I didn’t know it was going to go big. I figured nobody would ever see it. I used my real name again, and soon it came out who I was because the film was advertised in the newspapers and at The Pussycat Theater. That’s when my dad found out.

  Rhonda Jo Petty played waif Dusty (Petty is completely shaved) as the film tracks the sexual and emotional experiences of the wayward girl. After running away from an orphanage, Dusty is raped by a motorcycle gang and left naked and unconscious in the Southern California hills. She is discovered by a local artist Frankie (Holmes) who takes her under his wing. Following a few orgy parties at Frankie’s, and some ugly confrontations with the biker gang ringleader, Dusty discovers that she’s pregnant. Realizing he is in love with her, Frankie swears off all other women and proposes to Dusty. The two misfits marry before one final altercation with the gang members.

  Little Orphan Dusty contains three fisting scenes and two rape scenes. One is a gang rape so for those who prefer violent free porn, this film is not for you. These types of depictions are illegal in contemporary X-rated movies, and even at the time, they were against the law.

  During the shoot, Petty felt that Jaacov Jaacovi was insensitive and that he and his wife at the time, newcomer Svetlana (aka Svetlana Marsh) were controlling and cruel. Bob Chinn, who assumed a joint directorial role in the project, stated that Petty’s stamina, energy, and co-operation made it possible for the challenging two-day film production on a meager budget, to be completed without any glitches.

  Jaacov Jaacovi was intimidating. I was scared to death and he wanted that first scene in the film to be a rape scene where I am raped by a motorcycle gang. It was very hard to do. You know, I was very naïve, but now that I look back on it, I see exactly where Jaacovi was going. His whole reason for doing what he did was because he wanted to cause controversy for the film’s release. We were on the set, and at first he wanted me to do the fisting scene with a guy and I said, “Oh no. No. Their hands are huge. Are you kidding me?” He finally talked me into doing it with a girl with a ton of Vaseline, and yes, it hurt. I let him intimidate me because of where I came from. That was a rough one to get through, but good old Rhonda…I have another fisting scene by myself, and then the one with John. I look back on it and I ask myself, “How did I ever let [Jaacovi] talk me into doing that?” The fisting scene with John was faked pretty much, because there was no way I was doing a man. I know that they had to make sure the angle was right — we faked that. I don’t think I could have done that — the girl was hard enough.

  When my dad found out about the film, he said he would break my legs and my arms. He was pissed! At that time, I really had little contact with him. They didn’t know where I lived, and I didn’t speak to my father again for I don’t know how many years. I said, I didn’t expect the movie to come out and I got scared. This is where some craziness really started happening in my life. I was living in Van Nuys at the time in an apartment with a girlfriend. I had a little VW and I was on the freeway, and this guy drove up alongside of me and he kept pointing at me to get off. My off ramp was coming so I got off and he followed me all the way to my apartment building. He got out and he said, “You look so familiar.” I ended up inviting him into my apartment. He had cocaine. We started talking and it turned out that he was involved in the X-rated business. His name is Ruby Gottesman. He’s still in the business today. He started seeing me, and at that time anybody that had cocaine, I would hang out. We started a connection and it was afterwards that my dad had called me. I was very scared and I told Ruby about it. He said, “Rhonda, let me get you a place at the beach and we’ll hide you. I’ll take care of you, and you’ll never have to work again.” At that point, I was scared shitless. My entire family was going to find out. Then, the film started getting busted all over the United States because of the fist-fuck scenes that were in it.

  We found a place on Manhattan Beach in a house they had split down the middle into a studio. It was so cute. It had glass all the way up with high ceilings. I was right on the strand with a big porch with a cute little kitchen, a garage, and I had my own backyard. I think it was only three hundred or six hundred dollars a month. He put me in there and he paid the bills. He was married and had kids. I was young and naïve and I never really figured out what it was exactly that he did in the porn business. He came in and out of my place and showed up about twice a week. He would leave me vials of cocaine because he was a huge cokehead.

  Time went on and nobody knew where I was — not my family, and not my friends. I was on the run and hiding out. I wasn’t expecting this big hoopla with the film coming out and theatres getting busted. Here, I’d been going along quietly, and now, all of a sudden, I was splashed all over the place.

  There was lot of drugs and I’d go on these trips with Ruby to Hawaii and everywhere. On one flight, he brought a vial of five grams of cocaine. I took it into the bathroom, and by accident, I snorted a huge amount and I almost blew my brains out. After a period, Ruby called me and said, “Rhonda, I’m not going to be able to come around for a while.” It turned out that the FBI was looking for him because he was a pirater. He was pirating these movies in the black market. I thought, “Oh shit!” I was totally dependent on him and suddenly, he’s not showing up.

  Rhonda Jo’s Sugar Daddy, Rubin “Ruby” Gottesman, former owner of X-Citement Video, was eventually arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for duplicating X-rated movies. In 1987, Gottesman was charged with distributing videotapes of Traci Lords made while she was underage. Gottesman was sentenced to one year in jail.

  I remember I went eight days without eating. During this time, there were neighbors next door to me. They were a little older than I was but they were big partiers.

  With Gottesman gone AWOL, Petty was soon introduced to a new boyfriend.

  I had met a guy through them that was a member of the Hell’s Angels from Palm Springs. I really thought he was cute and started seeing him–this went on for a while. He had his own private little plane and he would come to my house at least twice a month with large amounts of cocaine while Ruby lay low. Ruby didn’t really care that I was seeing the Hells Angel guy anyway. I can’t remember his name now, but he was maybe 5’6” with blonde hair, and very cute. He also had a bodyguard with him who was about six feet. They would start to cook the cocaine at my house to make rocks out of it.

  You know, Ruby had disappeared from my life during this time so one day I called the friend of the Hell’s Angel, the bodyguard, even though I had a lot of pride. I didn’t tell him that I was starving, but I’d told him things were bad and that I was frightened. He flew in, picked me up, and we flew back to Palm Springs. When we got off of the plane, he didn’t take me to his friend’s house. Instead, he sat me down and said, “Rhonda, I’ve got something to tell you.” He’d said that the Hell’s Angel guy I was dating was married, and on top of that, the bodyguard wanted me to go to bed with him! I freaked, I just freaked and I refused. He had somebody pick me up and drive me back to my place at Manhattan Beach.

  I had another friend at the beach who was a Jewish guy which is what led me back into the business. He came over one day and saw what dire straits I was in and he said, “Rhonda, you need to go back to work. Let me help you. I’ll help you get a big contract and I’ll help you get big money.” This is when Julia [St. Vincent] and her uncle Armand [Atamian, owner of Freeway Films] entered the picture. I had done some work for Armand before. Phone calls went back and forth, and this Jewish friend of mine took over the calls and said, “Let’s go to Las Vegas”. We went to Las Vegas and he got us a room. We were sitting around the pool one day and he started making a deal with Armand over the
phone. He played my agent and I got fifteen thousand dollars for two films and a boob job.

  Welcomed back into the fold with open arms, Petty was hired to play the lead in two movies for Freeway Films. Petty and Armand’s niece (and second in command) Julia St. Vincent discovered many commonalities between them even though they worked on opposite ends of the porn spectrum. Rhonda Jo often stayed at St. Vincent’s Hollywood apartment where she could unwind and occasionally partake in seasonal traditional celebrations such as Thanksgiving dinner with St. Vincent and friends.

  My breasts were huge, but at that point, they were sagging. I wanted a reduction so Armand agreed to pay for that. I got fifteen thousand dollars and a thirty-five hundred dollar breast reduction. People will notice in my films after that. You can see my scars, but I went to a phenomenal plastic surgeon. We tried to cover them up a lot with make-up, but you can see them especially during the first year after it was done. Eventually, the redness went away.

  The two films that I was hired to make for Armand were Sweet Captive (1980) and Sweet Dreams Suzan (1980). We shot those films back-to-back in two weeks and they were on thirty-five millimeter film. In one of the scenes at the end of two weeks, I couldn’t even walk I was so coked out. They had to prop me up in a chair.

  I loved Armand. Armand was like an uncle to me. He treated me so well. I loved him. I would go over to his house and I would have dinner over there. I had a good relationship with him — he was a very kind man. Julia and I became good buddies.