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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  As a teenager, I loved the way Bridget Bardot looked. I wish I looked like her, and I loved Natalie Wood. Honestly, I get bored talking about the beginnings of my life because it’s so long ago and there aren’t any big highlights. I had no tits and I was a very skinny girl. I wasn’t boy crazy or anything, but I was into being the popular one — the clown. I enjoyed it a lot because I got attention.

  I fell in love with my first boyfriend, and being from a Catholic family, I had to take my sister along on my dates. She’s the one who was born after me — she hated going on dates with me. My sister was always a chaperone and if I went to the Drive-In, I had to take the whole family. Occasionally, my boyfriend and I would take cover because it was cold, and we would do heavy petting. I think graduation night was my first time alone with him and we did it. It was not good because it happened too fast. I actually think he was already shooting before he got it in. It was a disaster, but you know what? There was the always next night! It got better and better every time.

  For a young girl originally from Mexico, Kitten had few difficulties adjusting to life American style. As a teenager in the mid-1960s, she was ecstatic to land a plumb, summer employment position with one of Hollywood’s hottest and most desirable celebrities.

  On my vacation from high school during my junior year, my uncle got me a job working as a maid and a cook for actress Stella Stevens. I loved it. She’s my hero. She was a wonderful, wonderful person and I loved her and her kid. After graduation, I came back to work again with her. It wasn’t going to be forever, but I enjoyed working for them. She wasn’t married at all. She was beautiful and she lived with a guy who was the owner of some nightclub that was very hot. When I went back to school, I was the hit of the entire school because I had lived with a movie star. It was just wonderful!

  Stella Stevens, a sex siren and Pin-Up girl in her own right, had posed for Playboy in 1960 before becoming a Hollywood actress. Stevens landed roles in some of the popular comedic films of the decade such as Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) cast opposite Elvis Presley, and won parts in other trendy productions. In many ways, Stevens and Kitten were kindred spirits.

  I graduated from high school in El Paso. My other grandmother was living here in Los Angeles and I came to visit her and fell in love with [Los Angeles]. I said, “This is where I want to live the rest of my life.” I already knew, and I knew what I had wanted in my life — not as a teenage girl, but when I first came to this city. After graduation, I went to key punch school, and then I got my diploma and I got a job as a key punch operator. My god — was that fucking boring! Jesus! I fell asleep at the key punch machine.

  Blessed with a shapely figure and effusive personality, Natividad decidedly took a page out of her former employer’s book and set her sights on becoming an entertainer. In the beginning, a detour or two presented some competition with her career aspirations.

  A friend of mine that lived across from where I lived had a sister who was a dancer. She told me how much money she made, and I thought, “Oh, my god, I’ve got to get that job!” and I did. It was hard because I didn’t want to leave my job as a key punch operator because I had benefits, but I was probably there for about a year before I got into dancing. When I first started dancing I was single, and eventually, I gave it up because I got married. The first time I got married, I was around twenty-one. He was way older than I was. When I met him, I was nineteen and he was around sixty-four. He was a Russian guy with a big cock, and then later, after I got married to him I missed dancing. He told me that if I went back to dancing it was over. After nine months, we annulled it. That was fine with me.

  Altogether, I’ve had three husbands, and I’ve kept one of my married names because when I used to stay at the hotels I would have guys knocking at my door. They’d see “Kitten Natividad,” or “Francesca,” and the hotel would give them my room number, so that wasn’t good. My fans don’t know my real name.

  At the ripe age of twenty-one, Francesca, who assumed the stage name “Kitten” apparently as a nod to the demure side of her demeanor, received the first of many silicone injections for breast enhancement surgery in Tijuana, Mexico — a procedure believed to have been a rite of passage for topless dancing, particularly during Natividad’s prime years. Armed with her twin forty-four cannons, Kitten commanded top dollar as a crowd pleaser for patrons of burlesque nightclubs populating the dance circuit in the late-1960s-early 1970s. She and other plucky beauties worked it out as headliners in the infamous Classic Cat on Sunset Boulevard.

  My reason for getting into stripping and adult entertainment is that I really enjoyed the attention. It was my decision to get into it, and into the dancing. It was also for the money. I have to tell you that money is at the top on my list — and the men. You do meet a lot of guys, of course. My heart, my everything belonged to dancing and stripping. I was a stripper first. The reason I initially got into porn is because it would reach out to more men. I did the layouts to make a name for myself.

  Going Up! With Russ Meyer

  I was already married when I met Russ [Meyer] and I was working at the Classic Cat. At the time, he had the movie Supervixons (1975) out and the star of his movie, Shari Eubank, was working at the club. She was a beautiful girl, a very sweet girl from Illinois. They told him that he should come and check me out because I was the kind of woman he liked for his films. He came by while he was working on another film called UP! He said, “You’re so hot looking, I want to put you in that film no matter what.”

  Prior to fortuitously locking horns with cult filmmaker, Russ Meyer who would undoubtedly impact her life’s path, Natividad was briefly seen in a club scene in an uncredited bit part as a Go-Go dancer in the 1972 straight film The New Centurions starring George C. Scott.

  By the time Kitten and sexploitation sultan Russ Meyer were introduced in the mid-1970s, Meyer had spent almost two decades smothered in cleavage. Rather famously, he launched the careers of far more than his share of amply endowed women in campy, satire-laden, sexy features usually depicting strong, indomitable women beginning with his first venture into filmmaking with The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959). For almost twenty years a compendium of hits and misses followed, partly comprised of Vixen! (1968), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (a 1970 release written by film critic Roger Ebert, not to be confused with the original 1967 movie The Valley of the Dolls starring Patty Duke and Sharon Tate), and Supervixons (1975). Meyer’s stellar line-up of big-breasted (and more often than not, au natural) protégés encompassed Babette Bardot, Shari Eubank, Uschi Digart, Tura Satana, and Kitten Natividad to name only a handful — definitely in the literal sense.

  He hired me as a narrator and that’s how it started. After that, he kept asking me out and I said, “I can’t go to dinner, I’m married,” and then finally, I don’t know how it happened, it just happened. We started dating each other. I eventually had to make a decision to leave my second husband, but I didn’t have any regrets because he was too much of a control freak. He has passed on already. It’s all very complicated.

  Developed from a script written by Meyer and Roger Ebert (under an alias), the feature film Up!, is appropriately suited under the “extremely bizarre” category for exploitation film fans. Consistent with most Russ Meyer pictures, the outrageous storyline is laced with metaphors, and exists primarily to showcase beautiful, large-breasted vixons frolicking nude in tranquil outdoor settings. In an effort to explain the sequences of events, characters, and multiple convoluted plots throughout the bewildering tale that is actually a murder mystery, naked Natividad keenly provides cryptic narration in mannerly fashion as “The Greek Chorus” while various scenarios are depicted. Bisexuality, fetishes, and various softcore sexual situations add flavor throughout, and are supported by a wide array of musical accompaniment. Raven De La Croix, Edward Schaff (in the role of former Nazi Adolf Schwartz, a parody of Hitler), and Candy Samples (as Mary Gavin) are featured.

  When I started with Russ Meyer — those were not pornographic mo
vies. He was not a pornographer. It was T & A, baby. They were nude films, period. A lot of the mainstream films made today with the big stars, they look like they’re fucking each other. They don’t call it porn though. It’s a movie, which is not that different.

  Hollywood has come precariously close to showing genuine sex acts in recent decades, but no cigar — or “pickle” to be more precise. Examples of mainstream pictures containing one or more simulated sex scenes in the past forty years are directors Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972), Adrian Lyne’s Nine ½ Weeks (1986), Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987), James Toback’s Two Girls and a Guy (1997), and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999). An illustration of an exception to the rule is Vincent Gallo’s indie film Brown Bunny (2003). Shot in sixteen millimeter and blown up to thirty-five, “Bunny” made waves at the Cannes Film Festival because it contained an explicit scene featuring oral sex followed by an orgasm. However, Brown Bunny was largely panned by audiences and film critics alike. Roger Ebert, who later gave the re-edited version “thumbs up,” initially had said “Bunny” was the “worst film” ever screened at Cannes which led to a verbal war between Ebert and Gallo. Despite the fact the feature itself is not considered to be on par as a Cannes competitor, the inclusion of the controversial sex scene was a rather bold stroke by Gallo to break free from the status quo.

  Russ Meyer did not do porn films. I love him to death. He’s dead now, but I have to come to his defense. Later, I did some Triple-X films, but Russ would be rolling in his grave because he could not compete with porn.

  Meyer’s reasons for remaining in the shallow end of the porn pool are blunt and to the point. He said, (a) “I don’t want to do business with the mob,” and (b) “I don’t find what goes on below the waist to be that visual.”

  He was my old man on and off for ten years. I wanted to marry him. He’s the one I should have married. We had our own residences, but Russ paid my rent and he lived with me at my place. In other words, he had his own place, but I wouldn’t live there because it looked like a factory. He worked out of there. I didn’t want to sleep there and so we lived and ate in my house, and then he’d go to work at his house. The only furniture that he had was a dining room table and a bed. The rest was all equipment for his movies and cutting rooms and screening rooms, and it was like a big warehouse. His work was his tunnel vision. He lived, breathed it, and slept it. I only did two films for him. Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1977) was his last film; he never did another movie after that.

  Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is indeed Russ Meyer’s last official classic film co-starring Candy Samples. Uschi Digart provides narration in addition to Meyer. Written by Meyer and Roger Ebert and directed by Meyer, the hero in the Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is Lamar (Ken Kerr) with a fixation on entering his wife Lavonia (Natividad) through the back door. Lavonia’s disgusted reaction to her husband’s misfire(s) creates a domino effect of circumstances and the appearance of more top-heavy women, each one serving to teach Lamar to satisfy his woman through more conventional (vaginal) means. Fortunately, for the couple, the story has a happy ending as Lamar sees the error of his ways and converts to the missionary method of pleasuring Lavonia.

  Considered by critics to be less than stellar work, Meyer’s swan song, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (apparently, a commentary on Meyer’s own homophobic predisposition), has redeeming qualities mostly in the way of its star, Kitten Natividad, who is in virtually every scene doing what she does best — playing a luscious, over-sexualized, busty dish. In 2001, Meyer produced one final effort, Pandora Peaks, starring model, stripper, and pornographic actress Pandora Peaks.

  After Ultra-Vixens, I kept doing layouts and I was on the road. I did some hardcore films that were an hour long with fucking and sucking — that was in the 1980s. I forget sometimes though. You know, one time a guy said to me, “We did a hardcore film together.” I said, “We did?” I didn’t even remember fucking some guys! I don’t remember their names. I don’t know, honey. Hardcore wasn’t a big part of my life. I wasn’t a real hardcore chick. I don’t even remember the directors’ names. I was like a walking Zombie back then.

  Cup of Coffee in Hardcore

  Natividad’s contribution to the 1970s-1980s hardcore market was mostly limited to nude, softcore/simulated sex scenes and the casual girl-on-girl interlude as seen in the 1983 film Bodacious Ta Tas with Patty Plenty. Kitten was also known to do the occasional “beaver” (spread-eagled) scene or provide complementary faux oral action. Generally, the stripper turned actress was hired for big breast exposure.

  John Holmes and the All-Star Sex Queens (1980) is an example of a straight softcore production showcasing Natividad, along with fellow ample-breasted beauties Uschi Digart, Candy Samples, and Kelly Stewart. After auditioning for casting director (Holmes) the three chesty females take turns frolicking in the sack with “The King,” but without actual penetration. Natividad related that once the camera stopped rolling, she and Holmes enjoyed a little nookie and shared toots of cocaine; one of the habits she developed once her film career began.

  John Holmes was very charming. I had a crush on him and we had sex off-camera. It wasn’t that I was forced to have sex with him or got paid to have sex with him. It was because we wanted to. It was good and he was a gentleman, but he preferred eating pussy. He didn’t like fucking. He said he had no feeling in his cock. He just didn’t like to fuck. He said that the blood flow made it heavy, but I really enjoyed it.

  While scouting some of the work in Natividad’s filmography, it seems likely her first feature hardcore production involving actual anal penetration was at age forty-two. In the 1991 film 40, The Hard Way Kitten participated in an anal performance with James Lewis and Sasha Gabor. Other hardcore inserts interspersed within her unusual film career are sporadic as Video on Demand and online hardcore distributors reveal. Natividad explained how the shift from softcore to hardcore transpired.

  What happened along the way and it’s very easy after ten years of working in bars every single day, six days a week — I ended up becoming an alcoholic and a drug addict. I’m sixty-two now; that happened when I was about thirty. I didn’t really care for alcohol and drugs, but I did it because I was so fucking bored after a while and I found out that when I’d drink it was all wonderful. That was around the time when I first met Russ Meyer and he was a big alcoholic. None of my other husbands drank.

  When I went into porn, I was in bad shape. I was a lush by that time. When I quit, I didn’t miss it at all, and now, I don’t drink either. I went through a phase and now it’s over. When I stopped drinking my life got back on track and I’m doing okay. Sometimes my friends will ask me to have a drink and I think why should I get started again? One might lead to two, and that might lead to more. I don’t want that. I do go to AA to remind me not to drink. I’ve enjoyed my life whether it was bad or good. Sometimes I didn’t know it was bad!

  Pornography films can be done in one day. I only did something like five films [with penetration] in all — it wasn’t a career. I did a little here and there. Some girls have done hundreds of movies. No matter what I did, it became big because I already had a name, but that’s about it.

  Kitten downplayed her hardcore sex appearances during our interview, and rightfully so since they are indeed few and far between — but available. Other titles containing Natividad engaged in anal penetration mode are Private Fantasies 4 (1991) opposite Nick East, and Titillation 3 (1991) with Marc Wallice (seven years before Sharon Mitchell and AIM confirmed Wallice was HIV positive). Rounding things out with a masturbation scene is one of Natividad’s recent appearances in Busty Mature Vixens 5 (2008).

  The commercially successful Kitten Natividad Collection (released in 2006 by Alpha Blue Archives) is an assemblage of various segments encompassing some of the star’s best softcore work in addition to showcasing the infamous “champagne” number lifted from her stage act. The collection includes one hardcore
piece and a glamorous choreographed striptease routine for a pair of bar patrons (Ron Jeremy and a friend). Coy Kitten demonstrates every inch of her assets with class and impeccable style — a true testament to her roots in burlesque and as an experienced Pin-Up model. Natividad acknowledged working in adult movies sometimes had its benefits.

  You know, Bettie Page was very hot in the fifties and I was hot as a Pin-Up in the seventies. At one time, there were plans in the works to do a book on me, but then they decided not to because they felt that the Pin-Ups of the seventies were not that interesting. That really hurt my feelings. That was also the era where we were taking porn very seriously; we thought we were big time Hollywood. We had scripts and everybody had tons of lines — they were cornball films but they were kind of cute. They don’t make them like that now. It’s just fucking, but we used to have actual scripts and would be required to learn all of these lines. I loved it! We got big time money.