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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  I grew up in your normally dysfunctional family. I don’t think there is anything as normal and I don’t think there is anything such as a “normal” childhood. You can be rich, you can be poor, you can be religious or hippies whatever the case may be. Every childhood has its dysfunction which at this point, is normal. My mother is what I consider a psycho bitch and has absolutely no remorse whatsoever for her actions. She’s a sociopath. Her mother, my grandmother, died in an insane asylum. My grandmother was a hooker in the south and was impregnated by a Native American Indian who had been adopted by a Southern Baptist minister and his wife. The Southern Baptist Minister and his wife adopted the Native American man who impregnated the hooker, and my mother was born.

  After my parents married, they began to have difficulties. My father was much too young and my mother was way too nuts. When my mother was home, it was a nightmare. When my father was home, even though he was an alcoholic, there was always a lot of laughter and a lot of joy and a lot of fun. My father had a sharp tongue and a quick wit, and he’s funny and entertaining. Even if he had a few drinks or he was shit-faced drunk, it was still joyful.

  I believe I was probably about eight or nine when my parents separated for the first time and that continued off and on — back together — apart again until I was eleven when they finally divorced. My mother, being raised by a southern Baptist minister and his wife, was taught to believe in hell and damnation and God would punish you for everything you did. The Baptist minister had the philosophy that you spare the rod and spoil the child. I remember my mother telling me stories that she wore burlap sacks to school. They were very, very, poor. Being that she was punished in a physical way growing up, she continued the cycle. My mother was not only mentally ill but she had tendencies toward physical and verbal violence. When my parents separated and finally divorced, there came a point where I was done with it all. I knew I didn’t have the same belief systems as my mother did. I had a breaking point one night and moved out of my mother’s home.

  The night that I left my mother’s home, there was an altercation and a beating. I had gone to bed and I’d forgotten to brush my teeth. I got up and went into the bathroom, and began to brush my teeth. My mother came in and said, “Get back to bed.” I went back to bed and then I snuck out to brush my teeth again. She came in and she started wailing on me with a belt, and at thirteen, I was just stunned. I remember grabbing the end of the belt, not the part with the buckle, but the end — I had it in my hand and I put it into a noose and put her around her neck. I said, “You ever fucking touch me again and I will kill you.” I meant it. There’s no doubt in my mind that I would have, could have, killed this woman. The phone rang and it was kind of one of those moments when you’re suspended in time. Everything stopped and I let go of the belt and my mother went and answered the phone. It was my grandfather. I knew it was my grandfather. I started to scream and scream. At the time, my grandparents lived about six blocks down the road so my grandfather called the police — he was a Deputy Sheriff. He showed up and the police showed up. My mother had suddenly changed into this little baby blue nightgown. I was bleeding with welts on my back and she was running around with her nipples and tits hanging out. I put everything into a brown paper grocery bag, took everything with me and got into the car with my grandfather. My mother said to my grandfather, not in these exact words, but close, “Give me five hundred bucks and you can keep her.” My grandparents brought me to their home without a question and I lived with my grandmother, my grandfather, and my father. That was my freshman year in high school. Because he was seventeen when I was born, my father never really had a childhood so when he moved in with my grandparents as a newly single man he was out and having fun. My grandparents had become the main caregivers from the time that I was thirteen and on.

  My father’s parents were wonderful. My grandmother is the woman who taught me how to have patience and to believe in myself. She also taught me to knit and to sew and design jewelry, and she really inspired the creative side of my personality. They were integral in my upbringing. My grandparents are gone now, but they were and they will always be my two favorite people in the world. I also have to include my dad today. My father is a recovering alcoholic. Now, somehow, when I hear myself saying these words, it sounds like your stereotypical porn star upbringing or background, but I believe that any and every family has their colors and mine just happens to have a few more colors than most people’s do. Things are good with my dad today, fabulous. I talk to my dad every day. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man.

  As Ginger grew older, she retained close ties with special friends. Along with her grandparents, her small circle became her salvation.

  Even as a young child, school was my playground. It was my escape. There were four of us, and I was the fourth in the wheel. I was very, very close with a girl named Pattie. When I lived with my grandparents, it was a house in a cul-de-sac with a park across the street. Pattie was my best friend and is still my best friend to this day. We have known one another since we could walk in the park. Her house was on one side of the park and mine was on the other. I also had two other girlfriends, another Pattie, and Michelle. Those three women, Pattie, Pattie, Michelle and I made up the Four Musketeers. With the exception of Pattie, the other two women are gone already. Pattie died of pancreatic cancer about four years ago, and Michelle died of alcohol poisoning three years ago. There’s a lot of comfort in a small town that you would never get in a big city, but there’s also a lot of down time, a lot of poverty. People tend to find solace in drugs and alcohol, and unhealthy lifestyles. So unfortunately, although I made three fabulous friends growing up, two of those three are gone and one remains. Pattie moved out here to California in the late 1980s-early 1990s, and she now lives about two hours from here. People from Illinois have good hearts and most of them will be there for you no matter what.

  Rebel, Rebel

  Hobbies for Ginger were plentiful and diverse as she described her most impressionable teen years with high hopes of becoming a rock ‘n roller.

  I was definitely not the popular girl in school. I had my little quirks and cliques. I didn’t have the money to dress the way that a lot of the other girls did. The friends that I had, for the most part, were a wonderful little group of misfits. None of us became cheerleaders or the popular girls. I wasn’t a jock, although I was on the gymnastics team. I wasn’t the “brain” although I have a 142 IQ. When we had our Student of Education courses, they’d have the statewide event with a thousand kids who came from all over the state and I took second place. The only reason that I didn’t take first was because I’m mathematically challenged. If anything, I was the “alley” girl. I was the girl who went to every concert there was. I wore the Van high tops and the concert t-shirts and the blue jeans. I had the long straight hair, but not really a hippie chick. I graduated in 1980 so disco was popular then, but I was much more of a rock and roll girl. I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan. I still am. I also liked AC/DC.

  I did a lot of sewing and I did a lot of art projects. I can shoot a gun; I can shoot a rifle. My grandfather used to take me to a shooting range where we would line bottles and cans whatever we could find along what was left of the walls of the camp, and just shoot. I grew up riding on the back of my grandfather’s police Harley and then moved onto my father’s Harley. I’ve got a photo of me, it’s probably the earliest one, and I’m no more than about nine months old on the back of a Harley. I’m in my little bassinette with my grandfather’s police cap. We go to Sturgis, South Dakota every year for the bike rally. My father called me up a couple of weeks ago and he said, “I’m tired of hauling your ass on the back of my bike!”

  I was thinking to myself, “I don’t think I’ve gained that much weight.”

  He said, “You’re getting one of your inheritances early. I’m giving you my first Harley. I’m giving you my Sportster. Take your course and you’ll have your own Harley.” It’s a Sportster, not my favorite Harley, but a wonderful on
e to learn to ride on.

  You know, I had my first job at eleven. I vacuumed Joseppi’s Restaurant which was right down the street from my home and I think I made $1.65 per hour. I worked from the time that I was allowed to work so that I could have money to get the things that I wanted to have. I was the talking Christmas tree at our local department store. I’d sit in a box underneath this big tree and pull a little lever down, and talk to the kids. I directed cars in the parking lot at Bingo while my grandmother would play Bingo. We would go on Friday nights where my grandfather was the Sherriff on duty. I’d say that my first real job was when I worked at a clothing store during my freshman year in high school. I was involved in a special program where I would go to school half a day and work in the store during the other half while I became manager. I believe it was Junior High School. I kind of thought that I would work in retail, and eventually, own my own store and design my own clothing, but my dream when I was growing up was that I wanted to be a rock and roll star. My girlfriend and I were going to be the next Heart. I got my first guitar at thirteen and I took guitar lessons at a couple of places. One was Charlotte’s Web and another one was Nielsen’s. Cheap Trick is from my home town of Rockford and [the lead guitarist] Rick Nielson’s father owned a music store where they sold instruments and sheet music and gave lessons. I learned to play guitar and I was reasonably good at it. When I first wanted my family to hear me play, everybody sat on the front stoop, and I was out on the lawn with my guitar and I sang “Mr. Tambourine Man”. My father had remarried at this point. He had actually remarried in 1980, but his fiancé and her two children, my stepbrothers, moved in a couple of years before that. My brothers, and my sister, and my dad, and my grandparents, and my step-mom were all sitting on the stoop and I was playing my heart out. When I finished no one said anything. All of a sudden, my dad, who is hysterical, started laughing this gut wrenching belly laugh and said, “You sound like a dog scratching his butt on a nail board!” I can’t carry a tune to save my life! I pretty much hung it up after that.

  I always knew that I didn’t belong in Illinois. I wanted to leave and I always wanted to go to California. I had bigger hopes; I had bigger dreams. I wanted everything that there was to have in life. I always said that I would never get married until I was at least thirty. I wanted to have a career and even though I didn’t know what it was, I knew I wanted it.

  In 1981, my grandparents moved to California. It was my grandmother’s dream because she wanted to be where it was sunny. When I was growing up my grandfather used to buy and sell twin model trains. That was his hobby. Our basement was a giant train track. It was an entire city, state, country — made up of trains. He sold all of those and bought a fifth wheel and sold the home that he and my grandmother had built from the ground up to my father, who still owns that home today. They moved to California and built a house in Lucerne Valley. I was supposed to go with them, but I chose a boy instead. I’m not a good picker when it comes to men.

  My grandparents had moved out here and I was working in retail part-time in Illinois. At night, I was a cocktail waitress in a bar so I had three jobs. A phone call came when I was at work and it was my father’s brother. My Uncle Donny said, “I need you to get on a plane, your grandfather had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital and they’re scheduling a triple bypass. He has lost his will to live and if anyone can make him live it’s you.” There was pressure there because I was nineteen or twenty. My uncle bought me a plane ticket and I packed a suitcase and came to California. My grandmother couldn’t stay in the house because she had to be close to the hospital. She lived in a trailer and I stayed with her while going to the hospital. When my grandfather recovered from the surgery, he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t feed himself, and he couldn’t take care of himself. He’d just given up and it didn’t matter whether I was his favorite person in the world and he had me on a pedestal or not, I don’t think he wanted to go on living like that. My grandfather died the day after his 65th birthday. He died November 3, 1982. I didn’t go back home after that.

  California: Making Ends Meet

  While I was here in California and my grandfather was passing, I had been working as an assistant manager at a Musicland store which was back when we still had record stores. I went into the store at the San Bernardino location and said, “I’d love to work out here.” They doubled my salary — they gave me a thousand dollars to move and made me a trouble-shooter at one of their stores. It was my job to go in and get locations out of the red and into the black. I’ve always been good with people. I can sell you anything. I’ve sold everything from stereos to Santa Claus. When I came here, I had my suitcase that I’d left town with and got my apartment and different furnishings, and things that I thought I would need at the time. I thought California would be fun and free and easy — that’s what I had imagined growing up. In reality, it wasn’t that at all, but it was wonderful and beautiful. There was the ocean and the sun and people didn’t judge you, and they didn’t have attitudes. It was much easier for me to fit in than it was in Illinois. I didn’t stand out here. Actually, my bodyguard, my Nanny, my Manny, is from my hometown. I met him out here in 1992. It’s amazing — two of my best friends that I’ve met in California are from my hometown in Illinois. We’ve just gravitated towards one another.

  I was working in the music store seventy hours a week and life was a little more difficult than I thought it was going to be financially. I was in charge of hiring and firing people — that doesn’t make you the most popular girl around. I was so lonely that I bought two cats that lived in my trailer with me, Blondie and Rio. The band Blondie was very big at the time and Rio was the name of a song by Duran Duran. I had Blondie and Rio, and a different boyfriend from Illinois decided that he loved me and he came out to California with his Corvette and the payments that went along with it. He was living with me and I was paying his Corvette payment. On top of that, I’d gone from a two bedroom, split-level apartment in Illinois at a hundred and sixty-five dollars a month, to a three hundred odd dollar studio apartment with a pool that had no water in it. It was a home to rats. Now I had a boyfriend living with me, and I couldn’t quite make it.

  I’ve always been a survivor. I’ve always made things happen no matter what I had to do so I looked in the newspaper and answered an ad for stripping. It was for a bachelor party. It was for two hundred dollars and it was a lot of money. I thought, “I can do this.” I got my little boom box and my cassettes and picked a few songs, and got my outfit put together. My boyfriend drove me to this bachelor party gig. Well, I hadn’t thought it through. Sometimes I tend not to think things through completely. I got inside and I went, “Fuck! These are all men! I’m the only woman here.” I just didn’t think about the fact that I was going to be in a room full of men getting naked by myself.

  Apart from winning a wet t-shirt contest at a local gym, Ginger had little experience with nudity before a group of testosterone driven males prior to being hired to strip at the bachelor party.

  When I got the bachelor party, and walked in there and saw all of the men, I just realized “I can’t do this. I can’t get naked in front of all these men.” I left. I went outside and talked to my boyfriend and he went inside. I took his car and left him there. It was shitty and mean thing to do. I was scared. I was young. They beat him up and the whole thing was ugly. I went back and got him and it was horrible. He was a very nice guy. He was the quarterback of the football team and he did have a fabulous job in Illinois. He designed microchips for computers, and back then that was groundbreaking so he did have potential but he and I were having difficulties.

  I answered another ad in the newspaper which was for figure modeling. It was in the Orange County newspaper and it advertised five hundred — five thousand dollars per day. I was living in Orange County at the time and I drove up to Van Nuys, California and walked into World Modeling Agency. I did my test the next day. Jim South was working there at that time.

  Highly regarded by
mostly everyone in the business, Jim South is responsible for helping to instigate the careers of many of the popular pornographic film actresses of the 1970s and eighties. In 1987, South became embroiled in a legal battle when World Modeling Talent Agency was charged with hiring the underage Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma) to do nude modeling and sexual performances in films prior to the legal age of eighteen. When it was discovered Lords had intentionally falsified her date of birth in order to obtain a government passport (issued to her under the name Kristie Elizabeth Nussman) to gain employment in the adult business, South was cleared of all charges.

  Among other claims made against South in her autobiography Traci Lords: Underneath it All, (2003) Lords stated that South supplied her with drugs and alcohol in order to lure her to comply with his offer for adult work. Since making a fresh start, Lords (who, ironically still uses her porn moniker) has enjoyed moderate success in “B” feature films, television, and as a video pop star. In addition to Ginger, many other performers such as Christy Canyon and Laurie Holmes who also began their careers in the adult industry under the direction of Jim South, have sung South’s praises and are vehement that Lords’ accusations are completely unfounded.

  When I walked into Jim’s office, there were eight by ten framed photographs of a dozen or so beautiful women on the wall. Every single one of them was stunningly beautiful. The only one I remember specifically was Shauna Grant, a blue-eyed blonde who is no longer with us. I think it was the first year that I was in the industry that she shot herself in the head. I wanted to be one of the girls on the wall. I just thought they were so pretty. My new goal was to be a wall girl and I think I was a wall girl within three days. I was up there as soon as the photographs had been taken of me and printed. I probably posed for every major male magazine over the next three months.