by Legs McNeil
CANDIDA ROYALLE: It was like we were fourteen. We were singing songs from West Side Story and having such a wonderful time together. And then we thought, “We should do this more often.” So we decided to start meeting regularly.
GLORIA LEONARD: It occurred to me—having already been a veteran of some therapy—that women in this business have problems that are truly unique unto this occupation. It’s not like being a hooker; it’s not like anything else. Keep in mind that this was the era of filmmaking; video wasn’t even a blip on the radar yet. And none of us ever dreamed that our films would be ultimately preserved for posterity.
ANNIE SPRINKLE: I was having a problem being a prostitute. At a certain point I would be with a client and just burst out crying, you know? So I stopped. I felt like I needed to do something else with my life—and yet I was still kind of addicted to the money and the sex and the people and the attention.
It was a really hard transition. It was also about not being the young party girl anymore. I was starting to get more serious. All my friends from Panama were all doing amazing things, and I thought, “Well, I can’t be a prostitute forever.”
GLORIA LEONARD: We met at least once a month. We had meetings at other people’s houses, sometimes mine, sometimes Veronica’s. But the meetings seemed to be most comfortable at Annie’s—at her old address at 90 Lexington Avenue. Hence, Club 90.
I mean, I still maintained a circle of friends who were not in the adult business. I still went to the theater. I still listened to jazz. I had a life. I had a daughter to raise.
ANNIE SPRINKLE: I really needed a support group, and Veronica was pregnant, and she was going through changes. We were all going through changes.
VERONICA HART: Show business is not kind to aging women. If you’ve been a sexpot all of your life—or known for that—it’s very difficult when you start getting into your forties and fifties. It kills you. If they haven’t cultivated anything else, boy, it’s easy to get bitter. Mean and bitter.
CANDIDA ROYALLE: I had joined the Women’s Liberation Movement before porn because after experiences with men in the workplace, I started to get really angry about things.
But I left the women’s movement because it was getting split up—and that whole lesbian-feminism was coming in—what eventually turned into the Dworkinites and the MacKinnonites. Antisexuality—I mean, that’s just not for me.
KELLY NICHOLS: I mean, when you first meet a guy, how do you tell him you’re a porn star? But you have to—eventually. And it has to be before it’s gone too far, or they feel bamboozled. There has to be a fine timing, between where they just look at your tits and look at you as a slut—and where they think of you as a person. And if you really like them, it changes the dynamics, and it’s really strange. You’re just marked for life.
GLORIA LEONARD: I always had to make my own way. I never got any financial help. I mean, I raised my daughter alone. I never got a dime in child support. If I didn’t work, we didn’t eat.
VERONICA HART: When I went on Phil Donahue, we were supposed to talk about life after porn—but of course we didn’t talk about life after porn; we talked about porn. The media only wants to portray us as victims. They want sensationalism and ratings, period.
CANDIDA ROYALLE: At the time, there was a woman named E. Jean Caroll, who was doing a big piece for Playgirl—when Playgirl was still a decent magazine out on the West Coast.
This was going to be the chance to finally tell the world what we were really like—not just this simple bimbette-victim piece. So she interviewed Veronica Hart, myself, Tiffany Clark, Annie Sprinkle, and Kelly Nichols.
We devoted a lot of time to E. Jean Caroll. We devoted an entire day to this beautiful photo shoot, with us all dressed up in Gibson Girl outfits, and we all gave her very long interviews.
Then, when the issue came out, the one she focused on the most was Tiffany Clark—because Tiffany most fit what people expected the porn star image to be. I mean, bless her heart, Tiffany’s a very sweet girl, but she was probably the least clever and the most fucked-up. Definitely the most troubled.
Before the article came out, E. Jean Caroll would call me up for advice on men. She was really perplexed about how to give a good blow job.
So I really gave it to her in a letter. I was like, “You wasted our time. You lied to us. You did the same old crap—just feed the public what they want to hear about the typical porn star.”
I said, “The next time you want to learn how to give a blow job, watch one of our movies!”
That’s when I got a letter from something called Franklin Furnace. They were going to put on this big two-day show—with an installation called “Could There Be a Feminist Porn?”
So I went to the group and said, “This is our opportunity. No one can take this away from us now. Let’s tell the world who we really are and what we’re really about.”
So we all decided that what we would do was a reenactment of one of our support group meetings.
VERONICA VERA: So we did this show called Deep Inside Porn Stars in early 1984—it was a dramatization of Club 90. We did it at a festival called “Carnival Knowledge.” The festival invited all these women to answer the question “Is there a feminist pornography?” It was held at the Franklin Furnace, which at the time was like one of the cradles for performance art in New York.
KELLY NICHOLS: For an hour, we gave the public one of our Club 90 meetings. It was so much fun. We came in dressed in grungy clothes, and underneath we had all the porn gear. And we’d talk.
Like Veronica Hart rolled in a stroller, acting like she was feeding the kids. We said, “What’s up, Veronica?” And we got coffee for each other and made it like a coffee klatsch kind of thing. And then the lights would go down, and one by one we’d get up and do some little something that described ourselves.
I had a slide show where I started off with one of the pieces you see in Cosmo—where they have the person with the blank face—and then the next slide is like dots of makeup, and then it just goes on.
So by the end of my little spiel, I’m in full makeup. I basically just described what I felt: “Porn has been veddy, veddy good to me. I enjoy it. I love hiding behind it. It’s been a place for me to wait and figure out what I want to do when I grow up.”
Veronica Vera gave a slide show of all of her travels around the world—you know, she was in Egypt on a camel, and she’d talk about it. And every time the lights went back on, we’d go back to our talk about day-to-day.
Then we had Susie Nero—who looked like an R. Crumb drawing—big legs, big girl—and she just got up, turned to the audience, and goes, “I don’t have a lot to say. All I know is that someday I’m going to marry an Italian and have a lot of babies. And what I do is dance, and I’m gonna show you.”
Then she hit the music, and she did a great striptease for everybody. She was pure, simple, to the point. That was her moment—it was great.
Annie broke your heart—she had so much inside her—this little suburbanized girl from the Valley growing up as “Ellen.” She did this whole number about “Ellen versus Annie.”
She’d say, “Ellen likes cards with puppies. Annie likes the Hellfire Club. Ellen likes to make money. Annie likes to spend it. Ellen likes to take pictures. Annie likes pictures taken of her.”
Annie’s splits start getting weirder and weirder. At the very end of her whole diatribe, tears are rolling down her face, and she’s saying what Annie wants and what Ellen wants, and they’re just so diametrically opposed—and you hear sniffling from the audience.
It was so powerful.
We all had glasses on, we had sweats on, and we just had all this clothing underneath, and every time the lights went down, a piece would come off. You’d have Annie sitting there with a sweatshirt and a tiara. Our tennis shoes would come off and heels would go on. So we became what people expected us to become—by the end we were porn stars.
GLORIA LEONARD: We were actually recruited by a Broadway producer to �
�kick it up a notch,” as they say.
VERONICA HART: Joe Cates came to us and basically wanted to buy the idea of Deep Inside Porn Stars, but we didn’t want to give up creative control of it.
GLORIA LEONARD: It came down to where the producers thought we were stupid porn bimbos, and they could rob us blind for the rights—and the writing of it—and the talent of it. We figured, split five ways, it was not a worthwhile venture. So we never moved forward.
VERONICA VERA: As Club 90 got more serious and began to meet on a regular basis, Kelly Nichols, Sue Nero, and Sharon Mitchell dropped out. Those three were still making movies.
VERONICA HART: Susie Nero and Kelly Nichols stopped coming to the meetings. At that time in their lives, I think it was too much of a commitment—and people were really trying to get down and deal with their shit, and I don’t think they were in for that.
KELLY NICHOLS: I was working. So sometimes I would be on the East Coast or the West Coast and not be able to make meetings—and there would be harsh feelings because I didn’t attend the meeting. It’s like, “Sorry! I’m doing what we’re talking about,” you know?
VERONICA VERA: That was kind of the big difference between us. The rest of us weren’t really making movies. And so they were still kind of living “the porn star lifestyle” and partying hard. I guess that was a little different from where we were coming from. Maybe we seemed like old fogies to them, ha, ha, ha. We weren’t so much the party animals, but they were.
So they dropped out of Club 90 during that first year, and the rest of us continued—and have continued it for almost twenty years. We’re still meeting online.
Kristie Nussman
LOS ANGELES
1983–1984
JIM SOUTH: There was a little bitty photo studio in World Modeling, where my desk is now. I was in the office next door. Kristie Nussman came in with a guy, his name was something like Rogers. She actually had a state ID with her picture on it, and a matching birth certificate.
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): How do I spell my first name? It’s K-R-I-ST-I-E. But yeah, everyone calls me Krissy. And the last name is N-U-S-SM-A-N. Yeah, this is for your own. You’re not going to write any of this?
JIM SOUTH: So I sent Kristie into the little photo studio and told her—like we do with everyone—“Please strip your clothes. I’m going to take a couple Polaroids”—we get them started with that.
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): I was twenty-one when I was a model, originally. It got a little slow—then I started nude modeling.
JIM SOUTH: I went back into my office. This Rogers guy, who claimed to be Kristie’s stepfather, was going on and on about how Kristie knew who Ron Jeremy was. He was sure, in almost no time, that Kristie would be doing X-rated movies. This conversation happened while Kristie was still in the studio getting dressed.
So I confirmed her age and bing-dadda-bong we were off to the races.
TOM BYRON: Traci was hot. She was on the cover of all the magazines—very much in demand as a print model.
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): Oh yeah, I get a lot of public recognition. I mean, everywhere I go, I’m a cover girl. Even if I don’t even have a layout—they just put me on the cover to sell their magazines.
TOM BYRON: She was actually the centerfold of the Vanessa Williams issue of Penthouse. Kristie had done that before she’d done her first movie.
GINGER LYNN: I remember meeting Traci in the parking lot of the grocery store across from Jim South’s office. I thought she was a hooker. I never for a moment thought anything as to her age or if she was legal. She was definitely hard. Definitely—even then.
JIM SOUTH: Traci was very professional as a businesswoman, and to coin a Texas phrase, she was “slicker than owl shit in an okra dish.”
You ever eat boiled okra?
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): I always liked the name Traci. Then I went, like, looking up in the sky, and I went like, “Ha-ha!” and said to myself, “Ha-ha—Traci Lords.”
TOM BYRON: I met Traci on the set of What Gets Me Hot. Traci had a nonsex role—just a masturbation thing. In those days, you went from figure model to soft-core still model to movies. It was a gradual progression—they didn’t unload everything on you all at once—because it was still in the era of quasi-legality.
HUMPHRY KNIPE: I was working on my old, red Cadillac when I noticed this gorgeous brunette with this older guy—must have been in his fifties, gray hair, hobbling up our driveway. Her shoes were too small or something—real high heels; she could hardly walk. She was not very elegant.
TOM BYRON: I was the new kid on the block—kind of an up-and-comer—and I looked at her and said, “Oh my God! This girl is gorgeous!”
HUMPHRY KNIPE: After I finished with the car, I went in the house, and Suze Randall was talking to them. Except for that initial impact she had on me in those particular heels, Traci was gorgeous—baby-faced, sulky expression, very sulky—and she was nervous, ha, ha, ha.
Was she gonna pull this off or not?
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): I’m twenty-two. I’m five foot seven. A hundred and fifteen. The color of my hair? Chestnut brown, I guess. Measurements? Thirty-six on top. D. Waist? Twenty-four. Hips would probably be about thirty-five or thirty-six.
TOM BYRON: Traci comes up to me and says, “Oh, hi. Who are you?” And before I know it she’s sitting in my lap, and we’re fucking kissing, and it just blew my mind because I got this beautiful goddess all over me.
We just fucked all the time. I was in my twenties, and she had a California driver’s license that said she was Kristie Nussman and eighteen. I had no reason to doubt her.
HUMPHRY KNIPE: Suze and I did the initial shoot of Traci at our studio in Venice. It was policy at the time to take a picture of the girl holding her ID—so it was unmistakable that the model was connected with that ID. “Kristie Nussman” was on her birth certificate. She had California ID. So Suze took that Polaroid—and after that it was business as usual.
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): What lured me into films? The money, and the fun—both. It was for a piece of ass. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I’ve had about five or six boyfriends, so I wouldn’t say one. How long do they last? Not long. About as long as instant breakfast.
HUMPHRY KNIPE: Traci actively promoted herself. I was not aware of any one else—besides this shadowy stepfather figure—and he disappeared very quickly off the scene. She was just a regular girl being booked through a regular agency like everybody else.
TOM BYRON: Traci was one of those girls who in high school would always be going off with the football jock. I couldn’t believe a girl this gorgeous was attracted to a dork like me. Because I looked real young, and I thought of myself as incredibly lucky to be in this business, you know? It was mystifying. And, I was completely infatuated with her.
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): How old was I when I first started having sex? Nineteen—because I was brought up that way. Are my parents separated? They’ve been divorced since I was about four. My mom had custody. I decided to go see my dad. I lived with my dad for a while. He’s an electrician. He lives in West Virginia, and he’s real old-fashioned.
My mom had me when she was about sixteen, so she’s in her forties. She’s an airline stewardess, and she flies all over the country. I see her a lot. She comes into Los Angeles probably a couple of months out of the year. She answers my fan mail, ha, ha, ha.
TOM BYRON: I was too shy to ask her home that night, and I was still befuddled why this gorgeous woman was like paying attention to me. But I got her number, and we talked. We had sex the first time offscreen.
HUMPHRY KNIPE: Suze took Traci down to Mexico for a shoot, and, oh boy, she fucked her way around. It was, you know, anyone and everybody in the house—all night—and she’d be fresh as a daisy the next day.
Phenomenal sexual appetite. A very passionate girl. And fun—a load of fun.
GREG DARK (PORN DIRECTOR): Traci comes over to me on the shoot with this new guy, D
ick Rambone—who has fifteen and a half inches—who was having trouble getting it up.
Traci asks, “You think I’m going to help him get it up, don’t you?”
I said, “No. I didn’t ask you to.”
And she said, “I’m not going to.”
About five minutes later she comes back and asks, “It’s really fascinating, isn’t it?”
I ask, “What?”
Traci says, “His dick. I wonder how big it can get?”
TRACI LORDS (JANUARY 14, 1985): I’ve been wild about sex from day one. And I do scream. I’ve always been a screamer. That’s not an act. On my first video I tried to be quiet, but I couldn’t muffle myself. Then everyone started going, “Yeah…yeah…yeah!” And I thought, “Oh good, I’m allowed to do this!”
I didn’t know they liked noise. I’d never seen a porn flick—how was I supposed to know?
GREG DARK: I said to Traci, “I don’t know how big his dick gets. I guess it’s not going to get big at all on this shoot.”
Traci said, “I bet you I can make it get up!”
So I said, “Well, I don’t know, I can’t ask you to try.”