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

by Nelson, Jill C.

  “Angel”

  From what I saw, Marilyn Chambers was bigger in public acclaim than I ever saw anyone else, even bigger than Jenna Jameson was. Jenna Jameson is great and I love her and think she’s done tremendously well. She took a lot of ideas that were already created by other people and just made them big. All of the things she’s done with her career, like traveling and dancing, were already created by me, and Ginger and other people — she took it to another level. Marilyn was doing all of these things for the first time. When my star got handed to me — they don’t just hand it to you — you have to have some kind of credibility that says you’re the biggest or whatever. I was dancing and I went to the O’Farrell Theatre to do my booking for the first time as a dancer. I got there and I broke Marilyn Chambers’ attendance record the first time I was there. She had made that place famous for her sex shows. I broke her attendance record which is why I was recognized as the number one star. Jamie was there that night. That’s when I met Aerosmith and Stephen Tyler. They came to my show, and I was in my dressing room and there was a knock at my door. I said, “Who is it?”

  A voice answered, “Stephen Tyler.”

  I said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” My personal assistant grabbed the door and we were laughing because we thought it was a joke. The door opened up and there he was behind the door. I almost wet my pants. I went out on stage and they were there to see my show. Jamie was there backstage, flitting around wearing my fur coat. He was so proud of me. They wanted me to go on stage with them in San Francisco. I couldn’t go to Aerosmith’s show. They wanted me to open with them for this song “Angel” which they had done. The story goes that Stephen Tyler would write songs to porno that he had on his piano. He wrote that song to a porno called Pink ‘n Pretty (1986) that starred me, and Porsche Lynn. He was a huge Amber Lynn fan. He had known what I was wearing in the movie and the color of garters that I’d was wearing. I wound up flying to Sacramento the following week and I started dating their keyboard/sax player for many years. His name was Tommy Gimbel. I dated him and we flew all around, and that was the deal.

  One leads to the other. In 1992 I was about to turn twenty-eight, and at that time, Victoria Paris was my best friend. She and I had a friend that was the head of the Youth AIDS Foundation of Los Angeles. Through the course of a dinner, he revealed to me one night that they wanted to do something for my birthday. They had been bugging me about having a big party for me. I had been working very hard traveling on the road and I was not comfortable with people just having a party for me. During this conversation, he revealed that his Foundation was in trouble and at risk of its doors being closed. The Foundation had been spearheaded by Aaron Spelling who had kind of developed it around the 90210 show as kind of a press thing. They used to go out on the streets and to train stations and collect kids that were getting off the buses. They were runaways from all over the country coming to Los Angeles to become actors. They would find them on drugs and involved in prostitution, and they’d be infected with HIV if they were needle users and so on. They had this whole operation going where they provided shelter for these teens and those who had HIV. They were trying to get them off the streets and using clean needles. Back then this kind of work wasn’t usually done. In spite of the fact that it had been formed for press purposes, they had left it behind and now it was about to go under. I said, “We’re going to do a benefit.” We had absolutely no idea how we were going to make this thing happen, but we all had good intentions and we made an agreement right there that we were going to do this benefit. We set out to do it and we got everything single thing donated. We realize that society judges the adult business and considers us pariahs, but the truth of the matter is there is a community that exists within the industry, that is very strong. We do have a kind of camaraderie of sorts.

  The Bel Age Hotel [in Los Angeles] was donated and we had the event at this beautiful location. It was the first time in the history of the adult entertainment industry that any money knowingly had been accepted by the outside from an adult entertainer. Money was raised and it was turned over to them. The most significant thing about it was we got on the phone with every contact we’d ever known in the adult business and asked for donations to help put the thing on by buying a seat, ticket or table so that one hundred percent of the money would go to this cause. We wound up in the L.A. Times. We wound up in the New York Post and others. We just got much attention and worked so hard to make this thing happen. We had famous actors. We had Larry Flynt and big names for this charity benefit that was put on by the Adult business. Everybody was in full gowns and black ties. It was an amazing thing that we all walked away from with warm hearts and extreme pride to have been a part of. I learned so much throughout the course of putting the AIDS benefit on that when I went away and got into my own twelve-step program, and got into recovery, I learned a lot about being of service. A part of what I do for my own recovery is to go out and try to be of service to others.

  Over the years, I’ve had so many people misrepresent me, or my motives at times in the industry. I’ve heard people tell stories about me that I think if I was half the person that I hear people say I am or have those kind of motives, I would not be able to live with myself. When that happens, you don’t have any control and there’s no way to go back and change or restructure things. I do notice that the filters that the industry relies on can often sensationalize things on purpose to get a good story. I look at things and say, “Oh my god, that’s not me. That was never me.”

  We are the World XXX

  For the first time documented, Amber shared her side of the story regarding the controversy, misunderstanding and allegations that punctuated an attempted fundraiser effort devised by Lynn to assist a dying comrade and long time member of the family of X. It all started with an idea.

  Bill Margold is the guy whose office I ended up in the first time when they sent me on the go see to do the Bobby Hollander film. I absolutely adore him. I’ve known him for many, many years and I know the good and the bad. I know that this industry, regardless of who wants to admit it or not, is better off having had Bill Margold as the captain in the story and what he has been to the industry, than not. He’s a brilliant man. I made films with Drea [Margold’s ex-wife] in the early part of my career. Bill is just Bill. He doesn’t become another person when you turn your back on him. That’s why people have such a hostile opinion of Bill because whatever he is thinking of you, he is telling you. He won’t stab you in the back. If he wants to stab you, he’ll stab you right in the front. That’s just Bill. I will tell you one thing, if I was on a sinking ship and I wanted to know there was going to be one person on that lifeboat I would want it to be Bill. He would not think twice about putting his life on the line for anyone in this industry whether he liked you or not. He is not about the individual. He is about the common cause and movement that this industry entails.

  No matter how far away any of us go, when you turn around one day and realize you’ve gotten really far from the ship, you go, “Wow, John died. Jamie died. I’m in trouble. My brother passed away. We did We are the World” — who do I turn around and call to get the status? Bill. Everybody thinks that way. Like Bill or not, if you need to make a phone call one day, it is mostly Bill’s number that everyone remembers. He’s the reason why this industry continues to survive. I can’t tell you how many times in my career when I’ve had resentment toward someone for something that’s happened and I’ll say, “That’s it, I never want to hear that person’s name again.”

  He’ll go, “Oh, you’ll get over it, don’t worry.”

  I’ll say, “No, I won’t!”

  He’ll go, “Yes you will.” The next thing you know a couple of years will pass and I’ll say, “Do you remember when blah, blah happened?”

  He’ll say, “I told you you’d get over it. We’re family, kid. And that’s the way it is.”

  I thank God for him.

  Bill Margold, a graduate from Northridge College
with a Journalism degree, is also the founder of PAW (Protecting Adult Welfare).

  One day I found out that Henri Pachard [Ron Sullivan] whom I had a lot of respect for and had worked with early in my career, had cancer. They were broke — penniless, about to lose their home and they were appealing for money basically, trying to get handouts because they were so desperate for money. They had appealed to several people I knew so I immediately said, “What can I do to help?” That’s just who I am and it’s who I’ve always been. I went to Bill Margold and said, “Bill, we’ve got to help Henri Pachard.”

  He said, “That would be wonderful kid, but the bottom line and the sad truth is there is really not a lot of money in the PAW Foundation to help anybody anymore.” The benefits that had been put on to raise money were not making much money anymore. There was no money in PAW to help him. What I saw immediately were two things: There was a fire to be put out and that was the fact that Henri Pachard needed help. The bigger picture was that we needed to get some money either in the PAW Foundation or into a Foundation that would be there for these people that get sick that have no insurance. It happens to all of us, and it has happened time and time again to people in this industry who have wound up broke or with no money. They end up with HIV or whatever and there has been no one to turn to for help. I thought, “Let’s do something about this.” Bill Margold is always willing to help and I got this idea to do another benefit. I thought we’d figure it out as we go. We each grabbed our contacts and sat down in Bill’s living room, and got on the phone with Henri Pachard, who was incredibly sick. The truth of the matter is they weren’t interested in what we were doing really. The day Bill and I were to go to Henri Pachard’s house to tell him what our plans were, he was sick and his wife said, “Just do whatever and if you get anything out of it that would be really great.” I believe she was focused on her dying husband and she had little faith that I could pull it off. The industry doesn’t really come up against these situations where they try to help one another. That was the thing supposedly, of days gone by. And I knew if I could get Bill — Bill might rub certain people the wrong way, but he loves you and I’m a ballsy woman who everyone knows is not afraid to speak up and speak out and people will listen. They might not like what I have to say but they have to stop to hear. That’s what we did and we started to get things going.

  What happened very quickly, and what I was told soon after was that if I handled the money I would be liable if the bottom came out from under this thing. I thought then that we could create it as a PAW benefit. Whatever money came in was to go to the Henri Pachard fund, which we created as a 501(c) (3).

  The reason we did that is because as a tax benefit I could not accept money from people on behalf of Henri Pachard. If he accepted the money directly, there would be tax issues and laws that would have come into play. When you do a 501(c) (3) there are a couple of things that are law, and one of them is you have to have open books. Number two, is that any money collected has to go into the benefit, and then be paid out after it’s accounted for. This is legal.

  A 501(c) (3) refers to an American non-profit, non-tax benefit for a charitable cause.

  Behind the scenes, this thing was inches from death at any moment because there was no money. Everybody would contribute time, but people would not contribute money so I sold them on the idea that this would be completely non-profit. Everybody who worked on the production: from the person supplying food to the lighting person to the actors to the crew, was not going to get paid. Their time was going to be turned in as non-profit, but in order for everything to be successful right to the end including the distribution, had to be donated. In order to be non-profit and a benefit, money collected would have to go into the Henri Pachard fund to be accounted for and then obviously back out to be distributed from this fund. Then, all of these other things would come into play like taxes.

  People said “I’ll do grip and I have a truck,” or “I have a camera and I’ll shoot,” and “I’m an actor and I’ll work with so and so and then I’ll donate my scenes.” A handful of people were willing to be a part of the production based on the fact we were doing this film for Henri Pachard. There were many holes in the boat and in the eleventh hour, the production was going to close down and fail. There was no money to buy film to shoot. We couldn’t get anyone to donate film because film costs money so I got a poster distributor to print out a stack of posters that I took to L.A. Erotica with some pictures of myself that Wicked had given me to use. I sat there and signed pictures for donations. It was actually PAW who got these posters created of some of the actresses. In turn, they would go down and sit in the booth for a couple of hours, and sign posters and put it in the PAW fishbowl.

  We counted up the money to see how much film we could buy and in the end, I literally borrowed money to go out and buy what we needed which was a dozen rolls of film. There was a cameraman named John Keeler who worked very closely with us on this. There weren’t enough people to put this project together so I got on the phone and asked everybody I knew to come in as a favor. We turned it into a PAW benefit and there were a lot of people who were there because they wanted to do a good deed that were friends of Ron, but there weren’t enough to create a production. We got people to come in who were friends of Bill’s. We asked other friends to come out, and certain people showed up just because they were going to work with certain talent and that certain talent was going to work for nothing. We worked every angle we possibly could to get this thing and it turned into a benefit. We had the opportunity — just like what had happened with the Youth AIDS Foundation — we got to be a part of this bigger picture of doing good.

  The film was shot and people were not showing up for their committed spots and they were not showing up with their equipment that they had promised, and they were not coming across. Certain people were showing up too loaded to do what they had promised they would do. I had to run this thing and it was like trying to thread a very tight needle. We had time constraints and we had fire codes and we had things that weren’t arriving, and here I was trying to make this thing happen. Everybody was getting mad at me, the captain, because feathers were getting ruffled. I would say, “No, we’re going to keep going! All hands on deck and we’re going to make this thing!”

  They said, “Oh, well, you’re not being nice to me!” or “I’m upset,” and so on. Drama was going on, but when all was said and done, we got the project shot. We went to go into post-production. At some point, I got a call that said there had been some money that had exchanged hands directly around the production through Henri Pachard. I needed to confront that.

  We had procured this whole thing that we had done, a huge production which had gotten a lot of press so it wasn’t as if we could say it never happened as a non-profit. I’m the one who was spearheading the whole thing. If they turn it into a profit-making venture because somebody’s going to give them cash underneath the table that they don’t want to claim they received — they get to run off with the money and I’m the one left with the criminal charges. Meanwhile, Henri Pachard’s life is hanging in the background. I said, “What do we do about this?” We had decided early in the game that it was going to be a 501(c) (3) and the law required that we do things a certain way so we had to continue on the path we’d originally planned. We couldn’t go back now and redo it. Everybody was screaming at me and I said, “We can’t go back and recreate the wheel.” The production couldn’t have existed or been completed if we hadn’t turned it into a non-profit.

  Vivid Entertainment sought to purchase select scenes to use for their own proposed revision of the film.

  It was Vivid and Paul Thomas who was a part of the production. I got on the phone with PT who, up until that time wouldn’t even take my calls because he was busy shooting the latest huge Vivid movie which is understandable. He’s a big director. PT said to me, “Just give us the scenes!”

  I said, “I can’t do that because I promised these workers who gave me their wo
rk under an agreement.” People had agreed to work for us on a specific day to give me their craft which was just like giving me money out of their pockets. When they come in to give me their work, it is like sweat equity. I told them that they wouldn’t be paid and neither would anybody else profit. When they decided, that they would have to use their own box people and their own distributors and their own replicators and whatever it was because Vivid doesn’t work any other way, I said, “You can’t do that because that was not the original agreement. This one time, you’ve got to work with us.”

  He said, “We won’t do it.”

  I said, “Well, I can’t rip off everybody I’ve made all of these promises to so I have to take a stand.”

  Saving our Own Lives

  When Vivid was arguing and saying they were going to do it a certain way, I had Wicked Pictures ready to take it. They were going to distribute it exactly according to the 501(c) (3) requirements. They were willing to set aside any idea of profit and just put it out and make sure that our original conception was going to be followed. It went back and forth, and eventually it was killed off. They were too many chiefs trying to run the last part of the show. Evil Angel was involved and wanted it at one point, and everybody just started squabbling in the middle and it got killed. I took a stand for everyone who was standing behind me who had worked a day or two or more for free and had helped me make this thing happen. It’s not just about Henri Pachard it’s about the whole industry making an agreement to do this benefit together. You know what they did. They went to the press and they threatened my reputation and said things like, “We’ll burn you to the stake!”

  I said, “Do your worst.” I looked at Bill and I said, “Bill, I know what the agreement was and you know what it was and if the agreement is going to change I don’t have a problem with that, but what I have to do is give these people the option to opt out.” What that meant was there were many people that were involved in certain scenes that wanted to pull their releases. If they pulled their release then that scene fell apart. PT started screaming at me on the phone saying, “Fuck these fucking actors and these porno people! Nobody gives a shit about them! They don’t even give a shit about each other!”