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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  I know that I have a lot of power: “Every man and every woman is a star”. I used to write that out when autographing. Unfortunately, because I didn’t have a lot of control over that power, it had a lot of control over me. It did make me almost insatiable as far as my sexual drive. Luckily, for all, most of my sexual drive was on camera. That’s a double edge for me because I hurt myself physically, but it also prolonged me getting more balance. I had balance as far as my brain chemistry, but I got a bruised cervix and had a lot of problems. People were very, very rough on me — I’m sure accidently, most of the time. Foreign objects were inserted into me that weren’t flesh and that is horrible. As long as John Holmes was, he never hurt me. As long as his cock was, he wasn’t into raping my pussy.

  A lot of it was the director’s fault. I’ve wanted to talk about this. In most of my movies, I feel that I’m not acting in a script because I’m a certain character. I’m not being an actress. I’m just being a whore for the director so that he can get off. It’s usually the director or the producer whoever is standing there saying, “Say, fuck me! Say, fuck me!”

  I don’t want to say, “Fuck me.” They are very aggressive during most of the love making scenes unfortunately, where it was an intrusion. I never liked that about the movies.

  On the other side of the coin, Serena also recalled high caliber artists who worked in her circle and cited still photographer Joel Sussman as someone whom she revered for his impeccable eye and proficiency. As has been noted, Sussman captured some of the stunning images of Serena featured in this chapter.

  Joel Sussman was an archetypical, big time, legitimate, thirty-five millimeter film still photographer. He could have been doing big movies at the studios. I always got that from him, that he was a total professional. I admire that.

  One of the true times when I was being myself is in a movie called Olympic Fever (1979) which is actually quite a good movie — I must recommend it. I’ve enjoyed watching that one as a full feature film. There’s one point in it where I’m doing my Monkey laugh. I didn’t know it was my monkey laugh; it’s just me having a good time in bed evidently. I’m happily and joyfully laughing. The last time I saw this movie was with Bill Margold and he said that when they play it at the theater, it’s just like Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Everybody does the Monkey laugh.

  Serena (as Janet) and Laurie Smith (as Kristin) play two swimmers part of an American team contending for Olympic Gold in Philip Marshak’s Olympic Fever, a refreshingly funny and light-hearted take on the manipulation and antics behind-the-scenes during Olympic competition. The stakes are high, and under the guidance of coach Rod (Bill Margold), Janet and Kristen, along with their teammates (Candida Royalle, Connie Peterson, Hillary Summers, and Vicki Glick), strive to give their all in hopes of attaining the coveted title. Sinister forces are at play, however, as former, United States Olympian, Kenneth Swift (Paul Thomas) has joined the Russian judges (Ron Jeremy and Seka) in an effort to sabotage star swimmer Kristin along with her chances for a gold medal. First, they must determine how Kristin is able to sustain record -breaking times. When Ken isn’t able to obtain the secret information from his girlfriend, Janet, or from Kristin herself, he and the Russians decide to kidnap, drug, and whip Kristin, rendering her incompetent for the competition on the following day. In the nick of time, Janet catches wind of her two-timing boyfriend’s plot. With the aid of Coach Rod (Margold appears to be driving his beloved “Bear Mobile” van — he and Serena come across as comfortable old friends) the two locate the hideaway where Ken and the Russian coaches are holding Kristen. Fisticuffs ensue and on the following day of the competition, Kristin reveals the secret to her success as she extracts some lucky elixir from Coach Rod’s rod, just minutes before she and Janet are due in the pool.

  Paul Thomas makes a perfect bad guy, in tandem with Ron Jeremy’s valiant attempt at a Russian accent, but the highlight of Olypmic Gold is Serena who shows off her innate flair as an actress and is at her sultry best. A pleasure to watch, Serena’s effervescent presence magically transforms the material from a porn cliché to an entertaining adult feature worth watching.

  I worked with Ron Jeremy [Hedgehog] in Olympic Fever. It’s funny because as sweet as he is, I met him in a rape scene in the Bronx [before Olympic Fever]. It was so scary, I was a California girl and he had never been out of Manhattan, which was mind blowing. They took me to the Bronx, and had Ron Jeremy and a couple of other guys in black leather, rape me in an elevator which was claustrophobic enough. It was the scariest thing; if you really want to scare yourself, that’s one of the predicaments you’d put yourself in. I was quite scared of him for a long time, but I’m sure he’s just a nice man. He’s always very sweet to me whenever I run into him at functions. Actually, around the same time as Olympic Fever, I did a 3-D movie, Blonde Emmanuel (1977), which is also still shown in theaters. Teenage Cruisers (1977) is fun too. There’s only about five of them that I think are good.

  Also known as: Disco Dolls in Hot Skin, Blonde Emmanuelle stars two of the most attractive adult performers of the era, Serena and Mike Ranger, heading up the stable of actors in this campy film that manages to weave a believable plot within the fabric of the 3-D psychedelic adventure. Chick (Ranger) and Emmanuelle (Serena) become starry-eyed lovers upon their first meeting. They attempt to consummate their burning passion, but Chick can’t maintain an erection long enough to get the job done. As nightclub manager — Chick inevitably dodges hopeful dames in his wake, and decides to talk to a shrink about his shrinkage.

  There are some entertaining and fun gags throughout this zany flick. At one point, Harry Balls (Bill Margold) teams up with Chick to convert the nightclub into a brothel. Hilarity follows as Balls keeps the cops at bay, while Pat Manning grows a pair of her own balls in her appearance as a domanitrix, and Serena and Lesllie Bovee enjoy a little girl-on-girl delight. The film’s shocking ending foreshadows a page right out of John Wayne Bobbitt’s book.

  With the tagline, “They’ll strip your gears and pop your clutch!” Teenage Cruisers (aka Cruising for Sex) has one of the best soundtracks of 1970s adult flicks containing a good number of rock and roll and rockabilly tunes spanning three decades. The story jumps all over the place however, as local DJ Mambo Reaves (played by one of the screenwriters, Johnny Legend) fills the airwaves with nonsensical ramblings while various characters cruise the streets in search of sexcapades. People seem to interconnect through random experiences, and unrelated sexual groupings pepper the story.

  Big-breasted Babsy Beaudine (Christine deShaffer) has escaped from an asylum, and kidnaps a high school teacher (Bill Margold) who becomes her sex slave. Serena, who is deserving of a better script, gives a first-rate performance as a woman who longs to make out with her long time boyfriend, Johnny, and imagines him covering her from head to toe with his load as if it’s from a can of silly string. Handsome Rick “the Bod” Cassidy appears from out of nowhere (likely a clip from another endeavor) in a hot sex scene with a very willing partner. Out of the blue, two women compete in a topless, bake-off contest while the next scene hints at bestiality as a beautiful woman becomes aroused while brushing her donkey. Teenage Cruisers makes a valiant attempt to achieve the cool factor and works well as a cult sex film, but lacks clarity and continuity. Still, it’s jam-packed with lots of action and decent sex. Of course, it also has Serena.

  Blonde Pussy & the Beast

  In California, pretty much I had fun with everybody. When I first started working in the Bay area, [former pornographic actor and director] John Seeman was around and he was very gentle. This was all before Jamie, who was the worst/best influence.

  When I first got into films it was because I was a hippie, and like Alfred Kinsey, believed that people should be out fucking in the streets, walking around naked and on the grounds of Berkeley, California, and whatever. Since I’ve moved to Northern California, it’s too cold up here to always be doing that. In the northern part of the state, it was pretty laid back and I wa
s making films for all of the right reasons. Bill always calls me the “Last Flower Child”.

  During the 1970s, Serena was often invited to parties hosted by various Hollywood celebrities. She remembers how she and fellow starlet, Constance Money, were once guests at the Playboy Mansion. Serena was Warren Beatty’s date and Money was paired with Hugh Heffner. The two couples wound up in Hefner’s bedroom having sex, but the men ingested so much cocaine they were unable to achieve an orgasm which Serena didn’t particularly like. She described the experience as painful for the women and said, “The drug made the men hard, but they weren’t able to climax,” due to “coke dick” — a term associated with the side effects of excessive cocaine ingestion. Despite the technical difficulties, a good time was had by all.

  I want to thank Ron Jeremy — he gave a mini interview to the National Enquirer about how Warren Beatty and I had gone out. It was a very sweet little article about Warren Beatty and me. I always talk about that first night.

  At the same party, Constance talked about Jamie Gillis to Serena (Money and Gillis had both starred in The Opening of Misty Beethoven in 1976). At that point, she and Jamie had not yet met, but the Columbia University grad that became a highly regarded adult thespian intrigued her. Serena and Jamie Gillis eventually became a consummate couple in a long and involved complex relationship while making films together.

  In 1978, Serena and real-life lover Jamie Gillis, co-starred in People, a Gerard Damino docu-film considered a precursor to today’s trend of “Reality” or “Gonzo” porn. Serena and Gillis, always unpredictable, exciting, and forever daring, made classic adult film history as two of the most sexually deviant, delicious stars of the era. In addition to Gillis, Serena reflected upon some of her favorite people in the business.

  I enjoyed working with [director] Gerard Damiano. Unfortunately, at that time, you would get flown to Chicago and there would be some money put together for what they called a movie. If they could afford you, you’d go, even if it was just for somebody’s basement or something. Those “one day wonders.” As for actors, of course, there was Jamie, but on the west coast, I liked John Nuzzo [John Leslie] a lot. Holmes is in a class of his own. Bill [Margold] calls John “The King,” and to anyone who is really in the business, there will only be one King like Elvis. When I first started, I was doing films with Georgina Spelvin and she was sweet.

  The same year People was released Serena appeared with Gillis in Robert McCallum’s The Ecstasy Girls (1979) in which she played twin sisters Nancy and Diane Church. The twins, along with their two siblings (Lesllie Bovee and Laurien Dominique) and Aunt Madeline (Georgina Spelvin), are in line to inherit their grandfather’s fortune. Unbeknownst to them, a devious uncle, J.C. Church (portrayed by the multi-talented character actor, John Alderman, aka Frank Hollowell), hopes to alter the natural course of the inheritance by exposing the girls’ sexual wantonness. Knowing his dying father is concerned about the virtues of his granddaughters, Church hires an out of work actor (and escort to the rising stars) Jerry Martin (Jamie Gillis) to film the sisters and their aunt during the heat of passion. His hope is that once the footage is exposed to his father (Richard Norris), the fortune will be left solely to J.C. Martin is paid one hundred thousand dollars up front, and he recruits a couple of buddies and burgeoning filmmakers (John Leslie and Paul Thomas as hilarious sidekicks) to help seduce the sisters and film the action.

  The action is definitely hot from the outset of this feature as Gillis and the rarely seen actor Nancy Suiter (who has achieved cult status based upon few appearances) are part of an intense threesome, while Aunt Madeline and C.J. watch from the hallway. Soon to follow, are Gillis and Nancy (the edgier twin) who engage in a great S&M game of cat and mouse. Nancy banishes Jerry/Gillis behind bars where she toys with him and taunts his penis until he breaks free and punishes her in a mini torture chamber.

  Serena is exceptional in her interchange with Gillis as she methodically brings him to the edge like an elastic band, and then snaps him back to the corner. When Gillis (as Jerry) turns the tables and becomes the dominant, Serena is equally as effective as she fearfully obeys his every command while intimating that his requests are not part of the game. Jerry finally climaxes, and it is revealed he sensed what Nancy wanted all along and gave it to her. Later, when Jerry and Diane (the reserved, well-mannered twin) are paired together for a picnic in the rain, their sex scene is tender and loving — a complete paradox to the earlier sexual rendezvous in leather with Nancy. With Desiree Cousteau added for good measure and honorable acting turns from all involved, The Ecstasy Girls finds a perfect balance between eroticism and smart dialogue, with competent pacing between the sex and non-sex scenes. By far, The Ecstasy Girls is one of the supreme offerings of late 1970s adult entertainment.

  It was a fun time when I was with Jamie Gillis. He didn’t fly and we would travel from California to New York where he lived, and go back and forth across the country on the train and have adventures. We’d be three and a half days on the train, with lots of pussy running around for Jamie to drag back to our den. We would have a lot of fun. We were sexual creatures. When I was with Jamie, we were on the prowl for practically anything that moved. That’s a time in my life where he really was “The Beast,” and I “Blonde Pussy”. I had flown in from California as this golden angel with a one-week gig. I stayed for two years as a natural born New Yorker. My accent was so thick that in a couple of months people thought I was a local. I loved the role; I loved acting the part. His tenement was between Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen and the Restaurant District. Paradise for him, he could walk to the sleazy area of which he was King and get some pussy; eat, and call out the window back at home to the Puerto Rican transvestites on the corner. Jamie and I had this period together, where we were just together fucking through the disco era. Fucking leaning up against walls in dark Clubs; fucking en orgy at Plato’s Retreat. It was a period of time that was very hot — sizzling hot, a short part.

  The well-known New York sex club Plato’s Retreat catered to porn stars, swingers, celebrities, and socialites during the 1970s and up until 1985. Gillis is known to have been a fixture at the club during the peak of its popularity. Formerly located in the Ansonia Hotel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Plato’s was closed down by Mayor Ed Koch in response to the outbreak of AIDS before relocating to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In 2006, Plato’s Retreat 2/The Slammer re-opened and now functions as a Men’s club.

  Serena and Gillis continued living and working together, and in 1979, Serena turned in a tender performance as a Southern Belle in the Philip Marshak release Dracula Sucks (aka Lust at First Bite), the X-rated counterpart to Bram Stoker’s brilliant horror drama, Dracula. Jamie Gillis is eerily astonishing as Count Dracula as he proposes to seduce the women (Serena and Annette Haven) while visiting the mansion adjacent to his. Matching Gillis on screen in her sensuality and versatility, Serena, as Lucy Webster, captures the imagination of viewers as she haltingly encapsulates the charm and innocence of a Southern girl unaware of the powers of the Count’s crafty ways. When Gillis finally consumes Serena, their chemistry is at its hottest as they make love with an intuitive ferocity. Dracula Sucks is an intriguing incarnation of the original story, and generates some great sex with the help of the esteemed lineup: John Leslie, John Holmes, Mike Ranger, Kay Parker, Annette Haven, Seka, Paul Thomas, Pat Manning, Bill Margold, and Nancy Hoffman — all tip top in distinctive roles.

  Instrument of Lust

  When asked if she had a voice when it came to choosing to work with a particular actor or performing a specific sex act on camera, Serena outlined the rules within the parameters of the adult entertainment business and its cast of participants and personalities.

  It would depend upon the film and the director. Probably the producer who wrote the checks would have the last word. You wouldn’t want to argue with anybody. Of course, you wouldn’t stomp off the set. Some women would play diva and play those games. I was always the “can’t we
just get along” type. I would always try to adjust whatever body part of mine wasn’t comfortable to some level of comfort. That would be the trick for me. A lot of the uncomfortable feelings came from the fact that strangers would be getting together, and that’s not all that hot because they don’t necessarily fit together well. Maybe it’s a turn on to watch, but they are not the right people necessarily, without a lot of K-Y jelly lubricant.

  One scene that did not require K-Y jelly is the erotic Jacuzzi encounter showcasing Marilyn Chambers and Serena together in Insatiable (1980). With her short-cropped, copper hair, Serena, breathtakingly beautiful and at the height of her sexual prowess, brings a playful attitude and genuinely sensual approach to her lovemaking with Chambers within a story about one woman’s vow to indulge in life’s sexual appetizers after her parents are killed in an automobile accident. It is believed there is cut footage of a fisting scene between Serena and Marilyn Chambers that was purposely edited out of the film because of risk of arrest.

  Two years prior to making Insatiable, Serena had given birth to a daughter, Lucy Sky Diamond, named after the young girl in the 1967 Lennon and McCartney song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” When Serena lived in Paris in the summer of 1979, her two-year old daughter had gotten gum in her hair. Serena sat in the tub with Lucy to cut the gum out, and then proceeded to cut her own hair short so that her little girl would stop crying. When she returned to the United States, Serena arrived on the Insatiable shoot literally by helicopter (as is shown in the film) sporting a becoming pixie coiffe.