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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  I got pregnant after going out with him for two years. We had just moved to this place where we are now — this big place with three acres. I had his two older kids that I was taking care of and we had wanted to get horses. We got this place and we started getting into horses, and I just started getting into raising kids. I was pregnant and had a baby, and then I had another baby, so I was just living the American life and all the pornography was behind me. I was a mom and I was a wife, and we started showing horses. That has turned my whole life around.

  Alcohol and drug addicts and their families understand relapse is part of recovery. For Rhonda Jo, the road to sobriety is one well traveled. With the ongoing support and love of her family and children, Petty’s commitment to staying on the wagon is sincere. Rhonda Jo has been working on her sobriety for most of her adult life. At the time of this interview, Petty and her husband were still together. As of March 2012, after more than twenty years of marriage, Rhonda Jo and her husband have parted company.

  I’m very grateful that I have two wonderful kids; they are MacKensie and Brock. MacKensie is almost twenty-one and Brock is nineteen. They are such good kids. They both live at home. McKensie recently started doing hair and modeling, and Brock is going to community college right now. They’ve known since they were teenagers who I was.

  Rhonda’s son Brock recently made the Dean’s list.

  They’ve been through it with me too. I’ve had bouts where I started drinking again — I’ve had a couple of years here and a couple of years there, and they’ve always stood by me. They’ve always been supportive of me. I’ve been sober now for five years. There was a time when I’d had fourteen years of sobriety behind me.

  My mom is the sweetest thing in the world. She has never judged me; she is very religious. She’s always been supportive of me and had an open door. My dad was angry in the beginning, of course, but nowadays he’ll make comments that surprise me. One time he said, “Oh, Rhonda, me and Uncle Bobby were on the internet and I told Bobby you were in Debbie Does Dallas (1978). Weren’t you in that movie?” It blew me away because it has been something we don’t discuss. Here he was coming off as if he was a little bit proud of me. He knows that I made it big in the industry and he’s made a couple of comments here and there to let me know.

  It’s been a very rough life, and you know, even to this day, I feel like I’ve had to hide in the closet a lot because my dad is still alive and what he did to me while growing up was horrific. I’m not allowed to talk about it. It seems like I’m waiting for the day for my dad to die so that I can finally talk about it. He had cancer this year, and this sounds terrible, but the day my father dies is the day I will feel free. It’s tough because my dad has changed tremendously, and I know he feels bad, but the relationship we have today is good. He’s always calling me and telling me “I love you,” but then I think, “Where was that when I was little?” I love my dad but I have to say I resent that I’m supposed to pretend that everything was great and wonderful. I’m just not allowed to talk about it so I feel I have a dirty secret. He tells me he is sorry for the past, even though we don’t get into what happened. I think he has erased a lot, and he’s glad I got out of porn and got married and had kids. That’s when he started getting involved again in my life. He and my husband are close. It’s just like everything’s great, and nothing ever happened. I hate it that I’m in this closet. That’s what I’m working on right now. I’m walking through what happened, and I’m learning how it had affected me. I need to deal with all that shit. I don’t know how I’ve lived through it all, I really don’t. I should have been dead a million times and for some reason I’m here. I am currently going to counseling.

  By the time I was seventeen, nobody was there for me and I was out on the streets. I feel like I almost didn’t have a choice — I fell into it. It just was what it was. I really ran away, and I wasn’t in touch with my family and I got a new family, which were the porn people. The porn directors were good to me. They treated me well. Well, I thought they did because there were bowls of cocaine and Quaaludes and, “Come to our house, Rhonda. You’re great and we love you. You’re wonderful.” Even though there were drugs around, they treated me really well. They’d treat me like a daughter. I’d never had that before. I got more out of them then I ever did from my family, but I’m not saying that doing pornography is the right way to go, especially nowadays, no.

  So, you wanna be a Porn Star?

  Rhonda Jo maintains friendships with few people from her days in the business. She has gained perspective from the positive aspects of her experiences as she witnessed the transformation — for better or worse that has taken place since she left. While visiting her ranch in Riverside County on a hot summer’s day in July 2011, Rhonda Jo took me on a tour of her sprawling down home spread fully equipped with a horse stable, swimming pool, tennis court, a stretch limo in the driveway, and her favorite pet, a rather large and cuddly bulldog. I met her son, Brock, and her daughter, McKensie.

  Rhonda Jo is unassuming, unpretentious, and kind. She opened up her home and her life as we sat sipping lemonade on her colorful outdoor patio and talked easily. Now, at fifty-six, “Soccer Mom,” Petty spoke candidly about the good ole days — and the not so good.

  I stay in touch with Ronnie [Jeremy] and I’m very close with Johnny Keyes. He comes down, and stays with us and cooks for us. He and my husband are the best of friends. They talk all the time. He’s more of a character than Ron Jeremy is. He lives up in Washington and he’s a jazz singer now. Johnny is godfather to my kids, and his son is very close to my daughter — they text each other all the time.

  It was a small family of us. Nowadays, all of the girls want to be a porn star. Back then, it was looked down on. It was degrading; there were just a few of us who were doing it; maybe twenty girls. It was a very tight family and everybody knew everybody. Even though we had the girls back then who were trying to prove their sexuality — they were in and out of there, but the real ones like Seka, and Vanessa del Rio, and all of those girls, we were family back then and we were the only girls who would do that. It’s a goddamn meat market now. They eat you up and spit you out.

  I believe that the adult industry exploits women. Any woman that goes and does porn, I don’t care what you say they are being exploited. To me, that’s just the way the world is. The business has gotten so reckless. I talked to Ginger Lynn a few years ago when she was doing talk radio for Playboy, and she told me that she couldn’t believe the girls who came in to do interviews for the show. She said, “Girls are stitched from here to there and wearing pads.” What they make the girls do these days is horrendous. It’s not the same as it was when I was working. Now, everyone wants to be a porn star — in our time, you didn’t tell anybody!

  When my kids started going to high school, and since porn has become more mainstream, other kids would say, “Oh, I want to be a porn star.” Word got around school because up where I live there are a few kids around. I was always home and these kids always came to my house. I’ve seen them all grow up. My kids have had positive and negative experiences, but they have always supported me. There have been times when they’ve even been proud about it around some kids, but they’ve experienced both kinds of reactions. What has shocked me the most during the last ten years is how acceptable pornography has become. I can’t believe the stuff that they have on TV now. I was watching Bravo last night at 11:00pm and they now have advertisements for the adult channels. They show girls in bathing suits and they are advertising the porn channels — satellite.

  Today, I’m very moralistic. It’s funny because I shock my psychologist. He said, “I can’t believe that someone like you, who did what you did, would become as moralistic as what you are, Rhonda.”

  I don’t worry about people judging me. If I did, it would drive me crazy. I’ve always been very private, and have always been careful about who I have around me. Even after being married for twenty years, I only allow friends into my home who I know do
n’t judge me and I feel comfortable around. If people show up and I’m not comfortable around them — you’re not coming in my house. The only friends that I allow are people who accept me and don’t judge me. I don’t need to be judged because I know why I did what I did.

  I’ve had to deal with the bad side of it and the good side of it, but I’m fine with it today. I’m almost proud of it because at least I did make a name for myself and I have a real good reputation in the business. They finally put me in the Hall of Fame. I wouldn’t change it for the world because it’s a part of my past and a part of who I am. I’ve seen a lot, and I’ve met so many people and traveled all over the country. I’ve done that whole drug scene — I really lived it! I’ve experienced a life that most people could never say that they have. It’s made me who I am. It has been a hell of a ride.

  COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  Teenage Rhonda Jo with her father. COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  Rhonda Jo Petty and John Holmes in Little Orphan Dusty. VCX

  COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  Rhonda Jo with Max Baer. COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  Rhonda Jo and her friend, Brian. COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  Rhonda Jo and Johnny Keyes. COURTESY OF RHONDA JO PETTY

  Rhonda and her best friend.

  10.

  Serena

  Tiny Dancer

  PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL SUSSMAN

  “Getting into baring my body was no ‘moral’ choice. I was completely at ease in my nakedness. Nudes were in abundance in etchings and prints about the house. They were a part of my mother’s collection. The figures on the walls of my childhood are nude women by the seashore in the moonlight.”

  — Serena

  Affectionately dubbed the “the last Flower Child” by friend and adult film historian, Bill Margold, the statuesque strawberry blonde, Serena, plays coy about how old she was when she made her debut in a sexually explicit movie. Quite possibly, her first film was Massage Parlor Wife (1975); some databases list the release as early as 1971. Serena’s appearances in adult pictures reveal a delightful display of free spirited, perennial youth encapsulated by sexually charged, unrestrained performances that are marked, but not exclusively, by BDSM, double penetration, and rape scenes. Serena has said there was a time in her life when the only “real sex” she had was on camera.

  Contemplative at heart, Serena, a Southern California born Karen Black/Mia Farrow hybrid, developed a sensibility to the human condition by osmosis, through the painful process of adolescence and teen years due to a misdiagnosed mental health condition. When she entered adult movies and during the era in which she worked, Serena was convicted about changing minds regarding sexual taboos and the right to personal freedom. Money was not the motivator, for Serena it was the opportunity to rally against conventionalism, and spread the word about sexual liberty toward an attainable paradise where people could be free to manifest their fantasies in demonstrative symbolic expression. At the zenith of her career as a pornographic film celebrity, Serena was able to communicate her exhibitionistic tendencies in front of the camera and throughout her red-hot relationship with golden age legend, the late dark knight of porn, Jamie Gillis.

  Within a filmography spanning more than ten years, Serena’s appearances include the memorable and erotic hot tub segment shared with Marilyn Chambers in Insatiable (1980), in addition to a very brief appearance in the Hollywood blockbuster 10 (1979) starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek. Teenage Cruisers (1977), one of Serena’s most popular films, is a cult fan favorite frequently on the marquee at the New Beverly Theatre in Los Angeles. Serena readily admits she enjoyed the glory days of porn and being a starlet, but also recognizes she wore “Serena” as a mask which enabled her to release the uninhibited, carnal style that is consistent in her film facade.

  Today she has not strayed far from her hippie roots and philosophies. Serena is soulful and works as an artist in multiple mediums depending upon inspiration and the season. Some of her unique pieces are on display at the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas and at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. When Serena is not designing art, she cherishes time spent with her soul mate and her beloved family.

  I interviewed Serena in the spring of 2010.

  Serene, Serena

  I grew up in a wonderful town. I would still be living there except that the smog drove me out. It was in the foothills, right up against the San Gabriel Mountains: the Angeles National Park with lots of oak trees. I was born under an oak tree. That’s the family story. Dad was at his second job, he had worked the night shift and Mom decided to have a hot fudge sundae at four a.m. Mom was home with my older brother and he called dad at work and said that my mother had to have a hot fudge sundae. He’d better come home because my mother was having the baby. My brother held the flashlight and I popped out in my dad’s arms. He had pulled over under an oak tree because there were no sidewalks then; it was a very rural place. There was a plaque placed on the tree in a small ceremony.

  My real name is Serena. The nurse told my mom that I should be Carla, but Mom didn’t like that. She thought she made it up because she’d had such a serene birth. My dad literally pulled the car over and they had me with barely a grunt. The hospital only charged us half. They cut the cord, and I was allowed in my mother’s bed being “contaminated”. Babies born in hospitals in those days would normally be put in the nursery away from their mother. I would say I’m the middle child, but there were two older than I am. There is a gap between the two sets of siblings in my family, but there is a strong link because we all adore mother.

  My parents had incredible taste in houses, and we moved around to different homes and knocked out walls, and changed them around and then we’d resell. Then we’d go to another house and turn it into our dream house. We would do that as a hobby. One of the houses was in Mount Oak Park; it’s still there. It’s a private park. It’s huge, just acres and acres. There were eight or ten houses in it. It was wild and I kind of grew up there in one of the houses.

  My mother went to the temple which was at the very top of the mountain. It’s called the Ananda Ashrama founded by Swami Paramananda. Vedanta teaches to respect all religions and it’s a type of religion but there is Jesus, Krishna, Mohammed; they are all there in the chapel. All of the idols are there. The teachers there were primarily Sisters from India: that was kind of the influence of my life.

  My father was a Polish Catholic from Chicago, and he and I would go to the Polish Church downtown in Los Angeles where they only spoke Polish and Latin, so I got these two different things and it was wonderful visually.

  Vedanta’s philosophies are taught by the Vedas. The texts constitute the most ancient spiritual scriptures of India. Contrary to Christianity’s practices, Vedanta’s premise is not founded upon the desire or need to be saved. Rather, the faith teaches that we are never lost, but in ignorance of our true selves only to be reclaimed through a journey for self-knowledge.

  Early Influences

  My parents were very interesting people. We would go to museums a lot and my mother read constantly. My father is a hero of WWII and a hero in his life. He was born in Chicago, learning English as a second language. He worked two jobs and worked his way up from severe poverty. He went to night school. He had worked his way up in the county, from loading trucks on the docks and kept taking test after test in order to better himself. He reached the top job from the most labor intensive: head of transportation for everything that moved, literally, from airplanes to trains to buses, everything in Los Angeles County. He would be an amazing character study — he is a real everyday hero.

  My mother was a server, but in her youth, she worked for Hollywood studios — Paramount. She had experience in the offices. Her father was also involved with movies in that he was one of the very first artists that painted “one sheets” for theatres. They used to be p
ainted by hand! That’s what he did for a living. He’d be down in the basement of a theater painting posters for the next movie coming out. There is a fabulous book out [Now Playing, 2007, by Anthony Slide] about those artists that did the movie posters; it’s about the art and history of movies. I love movies. If only we’d kept one of his posters! Ephemera like this cannot only be worth something in dollars, but even more sentimentally. My grandfather’s name was David Carlos Leberman. As Jews, we had to drop the “I”. I am close to my ZaZa — that is grandfather in Polish. My Busha, his wife, was the love of my formative years because she was also an artist and a poet.

  We had an incredibly connected, happy family. I was daddy’s little girl until I had a younger sister, and unfortunately, it probably was at that time that my bi-polar disease flared up. From the time she was born until the last two years, we didn’t really know each other. I didn’t really remember her. I have complete amnesia of any evil doing to her. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with her and we’ll have coffee. She’ll just look me in the eye and say, “You don’t even want to know. You were so mean to me. You were so awful.”

  I’ll look at her and say, “What are you talking about? I love you, you’re my sister.” I had been in some kind of a rage because I was daddy’s little girl. I had horrible jealousy; it was just rage, rage, and hate. The mania of being bi-polar has me seeing a red haze over everything and my gut eats itself, burning. Unfortunately, I had that jealousy with men later in life — it’s one of the issues that I need to work on. Everybody has something. It took years being misdiagnosed as a teenager for me to get any medication for my disease and still it must be monitored closely. I want to be the one to say you know, “If you love me let me go,” so I have got to learn that.