by Legs McNeil
He called and asked, “Where are you?”
I told him where I was, and he came and picked me up and took me back to his place—he had a nice house in Pompano with a pool.
My dad just cracked open a beer, and we sat down, and I told him my long, emotional story. He would just sit there and nod, and every once in a while he’d reach into his pocket and break a Quaalude in half, and just hand me one, and open me another beer.
When I was done with the story, I got the spins, and I’m like, “Dad, I have to puke.”
He says, “It’s all right, babe.” He walked me down the hall to the bathroom, and he held my hair while I just heaved my guts up.
It was like the nicest thing my dad ever did for me—holding my hair when I puked.
REUTERS INTERNATIONAL NEWS, DECEMBER 7, 1981: ACTOR ARRESTED: “John Holmes, 37, was arrested in Miami on Saturday and brought to Los Angeles, where he is being held on a charge of suspicion of murder, police said.”
FRANK TOMLINSON: On Monday, December 7, in jail at the Parker Center, in an interview room, Mr. Holmes said that he—indicating Eddie Nash—had him taken at gunpoint to the house on Wonderland Avenue and that Holmes knew what was going to happen but that he had no choice, that he had to set things up and let them in.
SHARON HOLMES: One morning I went into work and this girl I work with says, “Did you know John is back in California? He’s down at county jail.”
It’s almost prophetic that I learn about it that morning because that very evening John calls and tells me he really wants to see me. I said, “Why, John?”
He said, “You’re the only person who doesn’t want a piece of me.”
And I thought, yeah, I can tolerate seeing him once a week, and yes, if he wants me to write him, I’ll write him, and I’ll send him pictures of the dog. All this just to keep him sane, you know?
DAWN SCHILLER: After I puked, my dad said, “I’m going to Belize.”
My dad was trying to get some money from this chick—she came from a wealthy family—to start a hotel in a resort area. So we went to Belize for six weeks to check it out. And he paid for it.
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, FEBRUARY 2, 1982: HOLMES ORDERED TO STAND TRIAL: “Porno star John Holmes was ordered Tuesday to stand trial for the murders of four people bludgeoned to death in a Laurel Canyon home last July, although a detective said he was forced to set up the slayings.
“Holmes, 37, charged with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, could face the death penalty if convicted.”
FRANK TOMLINSON: John said that he was there when the murders occurred but that he himself did not hurt anyone. At that point I told him that one of his palm prints had been found in a location and a position above one of the victims.
I suggested to him that perhaps Nash made him strike one of the victims—thinking that if he himself were involved in the murders, he would be afraid to talk.
I assured John that he was just as guilty of first-degree murder for what he had told me in regard to going to the house to allow the killers inside as he would be if he had struck one of the victims.
John stated that he had not hit anyone and that he did not know how his palm print could have been near one of the victims.
DAWN SCHILLER: When my dad and I got back to the States, I started to have to think about money.
My dad says, “Well, we decided not to buy in Belize—we’re going to go to Thailand. But if you want to go, you’ve got to come up with your own ticket.”
I wanted to go. But I don’t have any skills—I mean I’d been a nurse’s aide, but that didn’t make you much money. And I needed money pretty fast.
So my dad opens up the paper and goes, “What does it say under ‘dancers’?”
I go, “Wanted: Dancers. Top money. Great tips.”
He said, “Dawn, strip clubs.”
I go, “That sounds too scary.”
He goes, “I’ll go with you. It should be safe if I go with you.”
I figured that Dad was big and bad enough, so I get dressed, and we go into this place—the Pink Pussycat on Seventeenth Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale. The owner says, “Have you ever done this before?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “Well, we’ll need to see you dance.”
SHARON HOLMES: I went down to the jail once a week. I had Wednesday afternoons off, so I would leave the office at 12:30 and go down. Sometimes I would wait two or three hours before they let me see him. I took a book with me—I think I was the only literate person there.
I’d get to spend about an hour with him. John was always paranoid that they recorded everything, so we’d just talk about my family. He’d want to know how Grandma was and how my mom and my dad were. You know, “What have you been doing in the office?”
Just light stuff. Everybody else wanted something from him, and he knew I didn’t because what I wanted he couldn’t give me…or didn’t want to.
DAWN SCHILLER: My father’s at the bar of the Pink Pussycat with his friend Mick—this English dude he traveled the world with—and I come out and go, “I’ve got to audition.”
My dad’s like, “Okay.”
I was scared to death. I did three straight shots of whiskey and just bit the bullet. I had this purple dress on—and that comes off—and I think a G-string.
So I go up there and dance to “Start Me Up” and “Another One Bites the Dust.”
FRANK TOMLINSON: Holmes said that Eddie Nash held him at Nash’s house, took his address book, and wrote down the names of his family, and that Eddie Nash told him that if he ever talked to the police, he would kill someone in Holmes’s family. And Holmes said that that was why he was afraid to tell me what happened.
DAWN SCHILLER: When I finished dancing, I put my clothes on and went and talked to the owner. He goes, “You can start tomorrow….”
I wanted to leave but my dad says, “Come here a minute. I’ve got to shake your hand. There’s no fucking way in hell I would ever take my clothes off in front of a bunch of people. You’ve got balls.”
This is an immensely proud moment in my life, you know? I go, “Did you watch?”
My dad goes, “No, I couldn’t watch. I had to cover my eyes and shit. But I’d look over at Mick, and his eyes were glued to the stage. All I could ask was, ‘How’s she doing, Mick?’”
“And Mick was saying, ‘She’s doing real good, Bill. Real good!’”
My dad was, like, way proud of me, you know?
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, JUNE 25, 1982: HOLMES FOUND INNOCENT: “Porn star John Holmes was found innocent Friday of murdering four people found bludgeoned to death in a Laurel Canyon bloodbath last summer.”
AL GOLDSTEIN: Despite his acquittal, Holmes was kept in jail, first on a stolen-property conviction, then on contempt-of-court charges for refusing to answer the grand jury’s questions about the Wonderland Avenue killings.
DAWN SCHILLER: I raised about fifteen hundred dollars for a round-trip ticket to Thailand. My dad and I went together. He prepped me about traveling. He said, “Once you fly someplace, it’ll never get out of your blood.”
He would set me up for these things, and I would get so excited. We flew into Bangkok and I was like, “WE’RE ABOUT TO LAND! WE’RE ABOUT TO LAND!”
REUTERS INTERNATIONAL NEWS, NOVEMBER 22, 1982: JUDGE ORDERED HOLMES RELEASED: “A judge today ordered pornographic film star John Holmes released from prison after he had apparently told what he knew about one of Hollywood’s most grisly murders, the bludgeoning death of four people.
“Holmes, 38, was acquitted in June of the murders after his lawyers said he had been taken to the scene at gunpoint, but did not take part in the killings.
“Holmes had been held in prison for 111 days for contempt of court for refusing to give details of the murder.
“But today Holmes appeared before a grand jury behind closed doors.
“‘Holmes answered each question put to him,’ Deputy District Attorney Rober
t Jorgensen told reporters. After the hearing, Superior Judge Julius Leetham ordered the release of Holmes.”
SHARON HOLMES: When John got out of jail, he called me and said, “I want to go away and start a new life.”
I could hear a party in the background—and he’s going, “SNNNNIFF”—and I said to myself, “Geez, he just got out of jail, and he’s already snorting coke.”
I had never used the word “fuck” in my life, but I said to John, “Get the fuck out of my life,” and slammed the phone down. I just couldn’t believe he had the audacity.
DAWN SCHILLER: It wasn’t a big deal when I told my father I was going to become an escort. It was something I knew how to do, and he knew my story, you know? I had given him that seven-hour debriefing of what I had been through with John.
I had my freedom. I had control. I was doing it for a purpose—for money to spend like I wanted.
I took pride in the fact that I wasn’t just doing twenty-dollar blow jobs and stuff like that, that I was making good money. I felt like I was getting paid for what I was worth. I was getting a lot of self-esteem.
John was very open about talking about how sex was a good thing—that there was nothing bad about it. And that we were all whores. That was his theory of life.
SHARON HOLMES: John was let out of jail in November 1982. I waited a year; then on Christmas Eve 1983, I built a fire and opened up the Pandora’s box—John’s trunk. When I found out what was in there I said to myself, “Uh-uh. I’m not going to be party to this anymore.”
John was planning on using the trunk as blackmail against the famous people in the photographs. It was like his retirement fund. But I wouldn’t be a party to blackmail.
DAWN SCHILLER: I’d have to fly to Japan to see my sugar daddy like once a week—that was it—and he’d pay my rent and give me a bunch of money. But I also worked in a hostess club where you offer fruit and things like that, and you have to look pretty, and be polite, and listen to them talk while they drink. And you try to get them to drink more.
It was very prestigious, too.
Wives would commit suicide because their husbands didn’t go out to a hostess club with their bosses after work because, you know, “Oh my gosh, you’re not good enough”—it was a loss of face.
But then my sugar daddy paid for me to go to school in Bangkok, so I would be gone for three months and then come back for a couple of weeks. And he visited me in Bangkok a couple of times, and I had to take him out to the live sex shows and show him around. You know, get his name written by someone’s pussy. He was all happy.
SHARON HOLMES: Was what was in John’s trunk incriminating? Oh, yes. I think it would have been very embarrassing to people if their spouses knew. Did I recognize a lot of the people as famous people? Oh, yeah. People who are in the paper, on television, on a regular basis. Probably 50-50, movie stars and politicians. Celebrities. It could have brought down the California state government.
I burned everything—every piece of paper, every photo, every loop.
DAWN SCHILLER: My friend Donald got me this job through a friend—who turned out to be part of the Yakuza—at this hostess club down in the Goya, and I ended up getting trapped down there.
They wouldn’t let me leave. I begged them. Then they sold me to this other Yakuza guy who would take me around with all his bodyguards and shit—and he had tattoos, and permed hair, and you know, no little finger and shit.
They kept me in this room; I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. I was pretty much property. Were they forcing me to be a prostitute? Yeah, a couple of times. And, you know, I wasn’t given any money.
I was just made to stay in his place while they had their big scary meetings with little cutting-off-little-finger ceremonies.
So I told them, “I know a place to get bulletproof vests in the United States, and if you let me go over there, I can hook you up.”
So I went and never came back.
SHARON HOLMES: I guess John was afraid to call me after that last phone call. But his brother called me about a year and a half later and said, “John’s back in Ohio.”
I said, “That’s nice.”
David said, “Um, I’m out here visiting friends, but I’m going back, and John asked me if I could pick up his trunk?”
I said, “I don’t have it, David. I don’t have any of his things.”
And that was true because I’d burned them.
Part 8:
Video Vixens
1981–1984
Hooray for Hollywood!
LOS ANGELES
1981–1982
MICHAEL LONDON (WRITER): A lot of what happened to Colleen Applegate wasn’t very different from what happened—years ago—with girls who had some dream of stardom in the legitimate film business.
I don’t think wanting to be in sex films was what was driving her; it was that I think that she wanted be the center of attention, to be successful. She had these huge, vague dreams of stardom.
And what Colleen Applegate of Farmington, Minnesota, had to offer was something in precious short supply in Hollywood: innocence. For a business devoted to spinning fantasies about the archetypical midwestern girl-next-door, Colleen Applegate was the real thing.
KAREN APPLEGATE (COLLEEN’S MOTHER): You see movies about young girls wanting to be movie stars who get out to Los Angeles and get mixed up with the wrong people—but you never think of it happening to you. Colleen just wanted to be somebody. It wasn’t enough for her to stay in a small town and work in a bank.
GINGER LYNN (PORN STAR): I left my hometown when I was nineteen. I came to California from Rockford, Illinois, to visit my grandfather, who was very sick. I had one suitcase packed with my things.
I thought that when you lived in California, everything was free and beautiful and you lived on the beach, you know. It was the eighties. I had this delusion that everything was like it was in the movies.
KELLY NICHOLS (FORMER PORN STAR): I was the girl who gets murdered in the bathtub in Toolbox Murders. That’s how I got my SAG card. Yeah, I’m the girl on the poster. I was getting paid for it—but I wasn’t that excited about it because I don’t want to be a straight actress. Bob Veze, my mentor, was always very frustrated with me because he thought I could be Demi Moore—who came out of his studio.
But I didn’t want it that bad, and you have to want it bad to exist in Hollywood. You’ve got to be willing to go to all the auditions. I went to auditions, and I hated them. I didn’t want to stab anybody in the back. I didn’t want to fuck to get a part. I just didn’t care that much.
Instead I’d say, “I don’t need the part. Just invite me to one of your parties—then I’ll fuck you!”
MICHAEL LONDON: Colleen Applegate was accompanied to a Steve Hicks photo session by Mike Marcell—her longtime Minnesota boyfriend who drove her west. The pair had scouted a variety of jobs in the month since they arrived in Los Angeles, but nothing had come through. Then one of them spotted an ad for World Modeling, an agency in the Valley that aggressively seeks out new recruits for “figure modeling.”
JIM SOUTH (PORN AGENT): To me, Colleen had a real look. When I first saw her she was very classy, with an almost girl-next-door look. I thought she was very nice and would do very well.
TIM CONNELLY: Jim South is the ultimate porn broker. He runs an ad in every goddamn local newspaper in Los Angeles, and 90 percent of the girls who come into the business get in by answering that ad.
He’s really the same guy that’d be selling you an encyclopedia or a Bible or a hooker on a street corner. He’s really just selling a commodity. And he never wavers from that.
MICHAEL LONDON: Steve Hicks’s photo session immediately led to others, so ultimately Colleen’s relationship with her boyfriend soured. The pair broke up less than two months after they reached Los Angeles. Marcell joined the army, but before signing up he called up his family and friends in Farmington with a hot piece of gossip—Colleen Applegate had become a nude model.
PHIL
LIP APPLEGATE (COLLEEN’S FATHER): I don’t think it would have been such a big deal if Mike Marcell hadn’t talked about it.
MICHAEL LONDON: Mike Marcell was angry. He was hurt and he felt rejected. Colleen was clearly moving on to more worldly men, and that was his way of striking back.
GINGER LYNN: I was living in my grandparents’ fifth-wheel trailer in Revins, California. Then I moved up to an apartment building with a beautiful pool—unfortunately it had a crack in it and no water and rats lived in it. I lived in a one-room studio, and I was paying triple what I had paid for a two-bedroom, split-level apartment in Illinois.
GLORIA LEONARD: My husband, Bobby Hollander, was Colleen Applegate’s manager. She was that homespun little midwestern kind of girl that guys love. That shiksa-blond-thing, you know?
MICHAEL LONDON: Bobby Hollander began managing Colleen in the fall of 1982, casting her in several feature-length productions for his Gourmet Video line. Hollander even coined what he felt was an appropriately “classy” screen name: Shauna Grant.
BOBBY HOLLANDER: When I first met Colleen, she was making a hundred dollars a day, which was more than her father made. Remember, this was a girl who came from Minnesota in a polyester dress and a pair of wedgies. Under me, her pay rate rose to nearly fifteen hundred a day for hard-core—and seven hundred a day for nonsexual roles. Offscreen, she received star treatment—limousines, first-class hotels, and her own makeup artist, Laurie Smith.
LAURIE SMITH: She always played the one who stays a virgin for the whole movie and then gets laid in the final scene.