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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  In her debut as a primary player, Hart’s polish as a trained thespian endows her with the capacity to bear the weight of her character rendering her a likeable heroine and one who is unashamed to cross the threshold into womanhood without second-guessing the authority of her libido. Hart’s fantasy scenes with Paul Thomas are sexy, but it’s hard not to root for Heather and her unlikely suitor Tom. Hart and Richard Bolla make a beguiling and unpretentious couple.

  As it is with stripping, when you’re involved in a performance what you’re doing is not on your mind, but when you eventually see what you’re actually doing, it’s a completely different thing. It’s much easier doing it than watching it I think because you’re actively involved. There are these other feelings and there are other things going on around you. It’s similar to when you look at a picture of yourself and you say, “That picture is good, or that picture is bad. This was shot from a good angle, but this wasn’t.” You get to know about yourself. When you hear about the Hollywood divas who want a certain side to be shown, they’ve learned and actually paid attention and they care about it. They know what kind of light is flattering and that’s all because they pay attention to the detail. I was more interested in my acting than my lovemaking. That still interests me more than adult films.

  Bobby Kerman [R. Bolla] who was in Scent of a Heather was one of my favorites — we did tons of stuff together. I first met him on that set. We were getting ready to do a sex scene and we were shooting the shit, and he asked me what my dad did. I’m very close to my mom and dad — my daddy passed away a year ago. He was very special and he was a “man” as far as I was concerned. I grew up a lot like a boy because my dad never said I couldn’t do anything. He always led me to believe that I could do whatever I wanted to in life and I was certainly capable of doing it all. My dad had worked out on the Nevada test site and I told Bobby about this. All of a sudden, my dad was the cause of all of the ills of the world. I said, “Wait, this is my dad you’re talking about. You don’t know my dad. My dad is amazing.” Here he was telling me that my daddy was the cause of all of the evils in the world. Then we had to do a sex scene and I thought, “I’ve got to fuck you — okay.” I gave him a great grudge fuck and then we became the best of friends after that. Bobby did No Way Out (1987). He was the F.B.I. guy in that film and he did some legitimate acting afterwards for a while.

  More recently, Robert Kerman played the tugboat captain in the highly popular 2002 film Spider-Man adapted from the Marvel Comic book series starring Tobey McQuire.

  To get to where we originally started with the burns — you don’t have to be a psychologist to know that in my life I didn’t think I would be able to turn one person on. I think that was a lot of it. What better thing is there than to get into something where I was going to turn the world on? I think that was a part of what motivated me. I don’t think it was a conscious motivation. If you look at a lot of girls at that time, many of them were making up for some kind of something. I’m not saying we’re victims or anything like that, but you look for kudos in something else when you feel deficient in a certain area. Whether or not they were missing out on love from their parents or seeking attention — it could have been anything like that.

  Amanda by Night & Sex 101

  “There once was a hooker who thought she was a human being. Can you believe that?”

  — AMANDA HEATHER IN AMANDA BY NIGHT

  There are certain kinds of girls who come into our business that get absolutely chewed up and spat out. For her, it’s the worst business. I’ve seen the other type of woman that comes in and a lot of times, it’s with some suitcase pimp or some husband who’s got some kind of fantasy that he wants to fulfill with his wife. All of a sudden, she gets a sense of her own power. She gets a sense of her own sexual power and she gets a feeling that maybe she does count for something, maybe she is cool. You see these women actually blossom. The business is not always good — it’s not always bad, it depends upon the people that you get involved with and your own personality.

  When touching upon what vintage adult film fans believe is her most significant starring work in films, Hamilton affirmed that one of her powerful pieces is Amanda by Night (1981) directed by Robert McCallum. In her spirited portrayal of Amanda Heather: a gold-hearted, high class prostitute on the verge of becoming extinguished when friends and enemies become one, Veronica Hart (Jane Hamilton) is given ample latitude to explore the moral parallels influencing one’s choice to work in the sex trade.

  As the film opens, Heather has set her sights on upward mobility after making a decision to leave the business, but agrees to one last favor for her pimp and sometimes boyfriend Friday (played by Jamie Gillis). Friday, who plans to open a new club, has requested Heather send over a couple of girlfriends: junkie Gwen (Samantha Fox) and Bev (Lisa DeLeeuw) to entertain a shady city Councilman Blakely (played by the terrific John Alderman) with some S&M exercises in exchange for leniency on zoning restrictions. Immediately, Gwen and Bev get into character. The women dole out supercharged verbal and sexual abuses during role play just as Councilor Blakely anticipated, but when Gwen makes her departure (likely to go do some smack), Bev remains behind continuing to lay insults upon Blakely even after the sex games conclude. Blakely tells her to “knock it off,” but she continues to get riled up until he becomes forceful and kills her in his swimming pool. Shortly afterwards, Gwen’s dead body is also discovered — apparently from a drug overdose. The film quickly shifts into a murder mystery and one Lt. Ambrose Hart (R. Bolla/aka Robert Kerman) is on the case. Lt. Hart starts to nose around and begins with Heather who was the last person to see her two friends alive. Understandably, she tells him to get lost, but like all good private dicks, Hart is persistent and doesn’t take “no” for an answer. As he delves more deeply into the particulars surrounding the dead girls, Lt. Hart discovers the dirty truth behind the inner workings of the police department and its intrinsic relationship with local politicians. Hart and Heather grow to become friends and eventually lovers, after he saves her from obliteration. The picture wraps with a promising future on the horizon for the pair.

  Through Veronica Hart’s potent incarnation of Heather, one could easily interpret Amanda by Night as a parable for individuals (primarily women) working in the adult film industry often misunderstood by outsiders as immoral and depraved. The story touchingly magnifies the point that they are indeed worthy, compassionate, and capable of giving and receiving genuine friendship and love.

  Hart was honored with a Best Actress award from the AFAA while director Robert McCallum was voted Best Director by Critic’s Adult Film Awards. Jamie Gillis, Samantha Fox, Lisa DeLeeuw, Ron Jeremy, Jon Martin, Eric Edwards, Arcadia Lake and Pat Manning all make viable contributions in one way or another in this film. For a sexually explicit movie that is also a heavy weight both in the acting department and in its narrative, viewers need to look no further than Amanda by Night.

  Probably a film that received more critical reviews than Amanda by Night is Roommates (1981). That played a midnight showing in the Village for years. Judith Crist of The New York Times reviewed that. I think it’s a very interesting film because it’s not a very sexy film. Roommates, is one of those true to life films they don’t make anymore. It’s about three girls and it wasn’t such a nice story. It was more about how real life can suck and it’s very dramatic. I have some lesbian friends that asked me what I felt was my best film, and I said, “Roommates”. Kelly Nichols is in it and Samantha Fox and they both gave amazing performances. Afterwards, my friends said it was an amazing movie, but such a downer, they were so depressed. The last thing they wanted to do was make love. It certainly had plenty of jerk-off material but it had so much more of a story line.

  In Roommates, I had a scene with Jerry Butler. He was playing a gay man who was my best friend, but he decided that he wanted to try it with me. My husband got very upset about this. We weren’t married at the time. I’d said that it had felt like love. It wasn’t lov
e. I wasn’t in love with Jerry Butler, but the way we were doing our job with all of the candles and the quiet, it was luxurious and it felt like love.

  The Veronica Hart/Jerry Butler love scene in Roommates (reviewed in chapter 17) is as elegant as Jane’s description. One could believe Jane and Jerry are genuinely making love in their sequence together consummating the relationship and desire felt between characters within the context of the story. Hart/Hamilton is marvelous in Roommates, which allowed her to display her range and dexterity as an actor whether she is featured in a sex scene or non-sexual interaction with her co-stars.

  The strength of Jane’s early 1980s film work is also evidenced in her leading role as the cagey (blonde) Wanda Brandt drafted by a stock brokerage firm to seize control of a Wall Street corporation in Wanda Whips Wall Street (1982). Hamilton sizzles and pops when the plot calls for erotic measures, and when she’s playing it straight, she’s as steadfast as ever.

  Fucking can be many different things. There is a fun fuck and there’s the old porno fucking, cowgirl style where the two bodies are apart. You can have some rough, not-so-nice sex if the guy’s an asshole, but that might be the kind of sex two people like if they’re both into it. Sex is all of that. It’s like eating a meal. Sometimes McDonald’s does it. Sometimes you’re dying for French fries, and sometimes you want to sit down to a Thanksgiving feast. They both can be very satisfying. Something nasty in an alley way or a quick hand job before you go into a restaurant can be really fun, as well as a six hour tantric lovemaking session. All of that can be fun and all of that should be fun.

  Most people only watch adult material so that they can jerk-off. I’ve had guys tell me, “Why do you bother acting with people who can’t act and sets that are bad and there’s not enough time to do it in? Why bother to even have any kind of a story?” Then I have other people who actually tell me that they miss the days of the story and they like to get involved, and they like to know the people. I guess it depends upon your point of view. I think it depends if you are watching the film with a person. I’ve never watched a film for the sole reason of getting off. Well, I guess maybe I have. One terrible experience stands out when I was seeing someone. The guy turned on the video and was fucking me, but he was definitely watching the video and not watching me at all. I felt just like a live marital aid and that was very strange. Most of the time, I don’t watch adult films unless I’m making them or seeing someone else’s work or seeing what’s out there. It is funny because probably the people who make adult films are the least likely to actually watch them. I would say there are many people who make sex films who know little about sex. That’s okay, because I think it’s wonderful that people make movies that turn them on. I came into it from the exact opposite end — I was more interested in the acting rather than the sex part of it.

  Passionate about Love, Fantasies & Directing

  In 1988, Hamilton caught the directing bug when she co-directed Jeanna Fine and Alexis Firestone in Tales of Ambrosia along with her friend and colleague Candida Royalle for Candida’s own production company Femme. Jane’s years of experience as an actor parlayed into a smooth evolution into her directorial career, she was able to effectually transfer her knowledge and vision behind the camera lens. By the early-mid-1990s Jane’s days as an actor were limited to special projects such as the cult film Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh (1991), considered by many to be Hamilton’s best non-porn role. Jane decided to move into directing full time in 1995 and was able to inject new life into her career through her first solo effort, Right Connection (1996) for VCA. In 1998, she rolled out one of her personal favorite ventures, Love’s Passion, the first of three movies Jane believes are her best.

  Still Insatiable (1999), I had a little cameo in, and Torn (1999) with Ginger Lynn, I also had a little cameo. As far as directing, there is one film that I did is called Love’s Passion (1998) which is more about romantic love. It’s about being so in love with someone that you just want to be fucked everywhere and everyplace just because you love them. I’ve been accused by my guru of being in love with love and I think I am. I’m very much in love with the idea of romantic love. I love the notion of love. I’m a horrible romantic. Romance, as far as I’m concerned is being able to do the dirtiest things you can possibly do with that person, and being able to fall asleep with them and then look at that person in the morning and carry on about your business and get up and fix breakfast or look after the kids. When you can be that abandoned and that free with the person you love it’s easy to do stuff with strangers. It’s easy to be this little piggy-slut that you want to be. If you own that and face that person and continue to share with them — to me that’s the ultimate, when you can live out your fantasies and everything.

  There are a lot of women who don’t want to own the responsibility of being sexual creatures. That’s not me, but we know from polling women that there are tons of women with rape fantasies and everything. Does that mean they really want to be raped? No, but they want to have abandonment and they want to be relieved of the responsibility of wanting crazy sex. That way, they’re still a good girl; they haven’t done anything wrong; they couldn’t help it, it was forced upon them. Somebody made them do it as far as a choice. How do you portray that common women’s fantasy without saying that it’s okay to go out and rape a woman? Edge Play (2001) was my attempt at that. The premise for the film is there is a society that you could join to have women’s fantasies fulfilled. A situation would present itself and you could either say the code word or you’d pass on it so it would be ultimately up to you if you were going to indulge yourself in that fantasy or if you weren’t. I directed this film and it was with Marilyn Chambers. Edge Play was fun and that was shot in four days.

  Love’s Passion and Edge Play are two of my favorite films, and Taken (2005). My husband wrote Taken. That was meant to be an R-rated film, but I shot six days on that which is unheard of these days. Taken is another one that a lot of people thought that I shouldn’t have made because it’s a story of a woman who is abducted and who falls in love with her captor. If you only look at it three quarters of the way through, you think, “Why is she making a movie about this?” If you follow it to the end, you will understand this is a woman neglected by her husband who falls asleep and has this whole dream of being abducted because she wasn’t taken care of. The message is not that women need to be abducted. The message is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been married for a number of years or have children you’re still a vital, sexy woman who probably has desires. That was my message, not that women need to be taken out and raped but if you don’t take care of stuff at home, you might have to do something about it, or if anything else, a woman spends a lot of time daydreaming about it. When Playboy [channel] played it, they cut out the whole abduction part where the woman falls asleep and wakes up at this guy’s house. They would not show what they felt to be coerced sex. My boss stuck up for me because he saw what I was trying to do. I give him credit for that.

  Obviously I made films that I cared about and that’s why it’s difficult for me to go out and sell myself as a director right now because I don’t have any burning passions. I also produced a horror film called Parasomnia (2008) of which I’m very proud. I think it’s the best movie in which I’ve probably ever been involved. Parasomnia was an actual movie that we shot and I spent two and a half months on that. It helped bankrupt me, but I’m really quite proud of that. There’s a chance that I might see a little bit of money out of that. Who knows?

  Parasomnia is an intriguing independent horror movie about a young hospitalized woman (Cherilyn Wilson) afflicted by parasomnia. The condition causes people to sleep for extended periods only to awaken for brief intervals. After a visitor (Dylan Purcell) falls in love with the patient during a period of “awakening,” he moves her to his apartment to protect her from a fellow patient and murderer (Patrick Kilpatrick), a man who convinced his wife (Sean Young) to jump from a building while under hypnosis. Jane Hami
lton appears as a TV reporter.

  I think, in adult, I absolutely have done everything I’ve wanted to achieve. I could make more films, but I’d like to try other things and do other things. It’ll happen or it won’t. I don’t know; I don’t care. It’s like love. Love might happen to me again, or it might not. I’m lucky that I’ve had the love that I’ve had, and I’m lucky that I’ve made the movies that I have made. I’m hopeful, but I’m still going to be okay if it doesn’t happen.

  One of Hamilton’s great loves, her late husband, Michael, was her collaborator in life and in what she considered her finest movie projects and other initiatives including Electric Blue, a softcore TV program for the Playboy channel that first aired in the early 1980s. The couple learned how to pool together their individual strengths in order to form an alliance and complete work they were both proud of — which included two sons.