by Legs McNeil
KRISTIN STEEN: So they finish, and the guy gets off me, and I’m crying. I’m completely in shock, freaking out, and they just walk away, right? But the cameraman is there packing up his stuff.
I don’t know what the hell to do, so the cameraman takes pity on me. He comes over, puts a blanket around me, and says, “Listen, I’m really sorry. Can I take you home?” I can’t believe this, but I believed he felt sorry, so I let him drive me home. I get home and I can’t sleep and it’s like four o’clock in the morning now. I stay up all night, and I’m freaking out.
VERONICA HART: This was a very frightening time for the porn business. It seemed like everybody was out to get pornographers, and you could actually go to jail for having produced or distributed or directed an adult video. There seemed to be a real witchhunt going on.
BILL MARGOLD: I’m not sure how I got to the Meese Commission. All I know is that I got this very strange call from this FBI man, Hagerty, chief investigator of the commission, and he says, “I hear you want to speak to the Meese Commission. What do you want to tell them?”
I said, “The truth.”
KRISTIN STEEN: The next day I call my boyfriend, and he says, “What’s the matter?” because I sounded really screwed up.
I said, “Well, I had this shoot last night….”
So he drags it out of me, and he blows his top. He’s furious. So he picks me up, and we go to the police station. And I said, “They’re never gonna believe me!”
He says, “No, this is serious.”
I said, “Well, I know it feels serious, but I don’t know if they’re gonna think it’s serious.”
But they did. They made out a report, and I gave their names. My boyfriend got me a lawyer, and we took them to court. I won about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a civil case against them. But they’d disappeared.
TOM BYRON: The Meese Commission said that pornography spawned violence against women. They cited all these biased reports of research they’d done with criminals, saying that criminals were inspired by pornography—which is so much bullshit. We inspire violent behavior no more than Freddy Krueger. I mean, we’re doing movies, okay? We just happen to put a penis into a vagina, and that makes it bad?
KRISTIN STEEN: I had been raped on film. I don’t know whatever happened to that; I mean maybe it was sold in South America. A few years later, when I was taking classes at NYU, I met some of those Women Against Pornography, and they wanted me to join them. But I didn’t feel that my experiences with pornography were damaging to me. What was harmful to me was the violence perpetrated on me on that one occasion. So I didn’t entirely agree with their premise; there were a few things I agreed with, but I couldn’t blanket it. And I didn’t want to go into attack mode.
JOHN WATERS: I think good pornography today is when the women are having as much fun as the men. I don’t think all pornography is degrading to women at all, and some people I know are happy being in pornographic movies. Many are not.
But I would bet, if they ever did a survey, that 90 percent of porn stars were abused.
KRISTIN STEEN: I couldn’t be a feminist because I’m not against anybody. I could be against child pornography—because children don’t have a choice. And if I’d been abducted and raped as a child, and films were made, and pictures were taken, I would probably be very active in the movement. I have a child now, and I’ve educated her about certain rules—that you can say no.
BILL MARGOLD: The Meese Commission found some underground shit that somebody had made that had nothing to do with my business because I’m in the adult entertainment industry. This wasn’t commercial stuff—it was underground mail-order crap. It wasn’t sex; it was violence. It’s seeing somebody with a cut-off tit or a hacked-up breast. That’s what they thought was hard-core.
VERONICA HART: People love to see stories about how we’re victimized. I mean, obviously, how could a thinking, rational, sexually whole person choose this as a business? You know, it’s baloney—every business has their casualties. But the porn business—as much as any business—has some very smart, bright, well-balanced people working in it.
BILL MARGOLD: At one point, as an aside, I told them, “What you people believe is that we have sex with underage German Shepherds and then kill them. We don’t have any time for that. Animals bite, and kids say no. Our stuff is between consenting adults. My job is to talk people out of this before they get into it. I don’t want them to do anything that will hurt them.”
TOM BYRON: I go on Cinemax and HBO, and I can’t find a good movie to save my life. They’re all soft porn—but that’s okay. But as soon as you put a penis into a vagina, the rules change. The gloves come off; and all of a sudden you’re branded a criminal, a detriment to society. You know, “We’re gonna put you in jail for the rest of your life. You dirty, filthy pornographer, you.”
BILL MARGOLD: As I was coming down from testimony, Barry Lynn of the ACLU came over to me and said, “I wish I could speak like that for those people, but I wear a suit.”
And I realized at that point that the ACLU would sell us out in a heart-beat—that they have no use for the X-rated industry. Come fucking on.
KRISTIN STEEN: The Women Against Pornography were throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think pornography has a place in our society—sex for money has a place in our society. Definitely.
Until people can have really honest, fulfilling relationships with each other, this is the way it’s going to be. Pornography has always been there, and it always will. Until we’re so evolved that we don’t need to pay for it, or don’t miss it, we’re going to suffer from not having it.
I am not against pornography at all. I’m for it. I’m against people being used—and you can use people on either side of it.
LINDA LOVELACE: When I look back at all the feminists and Women Against Pornography—I kind of feel like they used me, too. Because when I came out and said what I said, you know, about being a victim, too, it supported everything they had been saying, and it was coming from the horse’s mouth.
They needed me; that was good. But if I ever needed anything, they weren’t really there. Between Andrea Dworkin and Kitty MacKinnon, they’ve written so many books, and they mention my name and all that, but financially they’ve never helped me out. They don’t want me to do this or that, but they’ve never really helped me. When I showed up with them for speaking engagements, I’d always get five hundred dollars or so. But I know they made a few bucks off me, just like everybody else.
Christmas Eve with Lori and the Kids
WORTHINGTON ESTATES, OHIO/TERMINAL
ISLAND PRISON, CALIFORNIA
1986–1987
RUBY GOTTESMAN: The MIPORN trial went on for years. And finally, when Norm Arno went to jail, they took everything from him. He got sentenced to five years on Terminal Island. Who gets five years for interstate transportation of obscene material? They picked on him because he had that big company, and they wanted to make an example of him.
TOMMY SINOPOLI: When Norm went to Terminal Island, VCX was the largest X-rated video company in the world, and it was a known fact that we started it together. I mean, I could have taken half the company, but after I spent a few hundred thousand dollars in court trying to get it back, I decided to just open up another company instead.
Did I ever call Lori and say, “Hey, this is half mine?” No. I didn’t want those associations in my life. I don’t think Lori Smith’s elevator went all the way to the top. I don’t think the lights were on in every room.
LORENE SMITH’S SANITY EVALUATION: “Ms. Smith stated that her husband, Norman, was convicted in the distribution of pornographic materials and incarcerated in the Federal Correctional System on such charges. At this time, she began to believe that she was ‘the great prostitute,’ a reference to a chapter in the Book of Revelations. She began to believe that her children were ‘devils’ and that she and her children must die.”
RUBY GOTTESMAN: Norman made birthday parties for
the kids. He’d hire a fire engine to come and take all the kids for rides up to the hills where he lived, you know? He was very nice with the kids.
But Lori, she was a wacko. She was completely out of it. And she had no use for me because she read, in the MIPORN wiretaps, that I said she was nothin’ but a two-dollar whore.
Norm loved those kids. They were his whole life. I mean, the guy came alive when he saw those kids. When she killed the kids, that was the end of him. It was all downhill. And then they put her in an insane asylum.
LORENE SMITH’S SANITY EVALUATION: “Ms. Smith stated that once, while in a parking lot, she saw a car with a vanity license plate of an Eagle and interpreted it to mean that she should ‘fly off a cliff.’
“She stated that as a result, she drove her Jaguar with her two children off of a cliff, but this, of course, did not result in the death of she or her children.”
RUBY GOTTESMAN: Lori was drivin’ a Jaguar or somethin’, and she crashed it, fell down a cliff with the two kids in it. Maybe a hundred feet down, she went. And nobody got hurt. Imagine that!
LORENE SMITH’S SANITY EVALUATION: “Ms. Smith stated that she told hospital personnel that she lost control of her car, but that ‘people knew’ who she was and ‘were trying to take my children away.’ In a subsequent interview, Ms. Smith also indicated that while at the hospital, she attempted to drown her older son in a commode.”
RUBY GOTTESMAN: I didn’t visit Norm in Terminal Island—maybe I was mad at him at the time. Our friendship was hot and cold for a long time because of Lori. But I seen him right after that. I mean, he was terrible. He was drinkin’ a lot and everything. He didn’t shower; he didn’t shave. He missed Lori and the kids; he was lonely.
LORENE SMITH’S SANITY EVALUATION: “Ms. Smith indicated that her ‘delusions’ persisted from September through May of 1985, and then ended. She stated that she ‘became normal again and moved to Ohio, but in the back of my mind I still thought such things.’”
WORTHINGTON ESTATES POLICE DEPARTMENT SERGEANT LAWLESS (CRIME AGAINST PERSON CASE REPORT): “Approximately 3:35 P.M. Sheryl A. Lang and her husband, Gerard Lang, approached this officer and advised that they were concerned about the welfare of Mrs. Lang’s sister, Lorene L. Smith, who lives at 6695 Hayhurst Street. I accompanied them to the Hayhurst address, and we checked around the house.
“Mrs. Lang stated she was willing to break into the house as we were getting no response at the door. I requested Lieutenant Hopkins to come to 6695 Hayhurst Street, and on his arrival we found a window unlocked on the northeast side of the house.”
WEPD LIEUTENANT HOPKINS (CRIME AGAINST PERSON CASE REPORT): “Upon entering and unlocking the front door for Sergeant Lawless, a female voice called from the family room and said, ‘Who’s there?’ I entered that room and identified myself as a police officer and asked Lori Smith if she was okay, and she said, ‘Yes.’ She was smoking a cigarette and watching TV. I asked if her kids were okay, and she said, ‘No.’”
LORENE SMITH’S SANITY EVALUATION: “Ms. Smith indicated at 5:46 P.M. on Christmas Eve 1986, she took the children into the car in the garage and told them they were going to see their grandmother. As the car ran, one child, Jordan, complained of the smoke, and she had him come up to the front seat and sit with her. She said that after a period of time, the children lost consciousness.
“She then turned off the ignition of the car, got out of the car with the intention to open the garage door, but lost consciousness.”
WEPD LIEUTENANT HOPKINS (CRIME AGAINST PERSON CASE REPORT): “I opened the southwest bedroom door and observed a small decomposed body in bed along the south wall. The body was covered to the neck with blankets and head exposed. I returned to the lower level and called for detective units.
“Upon Lieutenant Dayton’s arrival, this officer and Sergeant Mauger located another small decomposed body in the southeast bedroom.”
MIKE MAUGER (WEPD SERGEANT): Lori Smith’s story to us was that she was getting ready to go somewhere for Christmas—that the children were outside in the garage, and apparently one of the children started the car. At the same time, somebody called, she got on the phone with them, started talking, and forgot about the children in the garage. She alleged the children succumbed to the carbon monoxide poisoning. She then took them upstairs to their beds and covered them up like they were normal sleeping children.
LORENE SMITH’S SANITY EVALUATION: “Ms. Smith stated that when she awoke, she found both children unconscious. She indicated that Jordan had expired and that Michael was comatose. She stated that she unsuccessfully gave Jordan mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“She stated that she took Michael and put him on her bed, wrapping him in an electric blanket. She stated she put on the movie Flash Gordon for him to watch, as that was his favorite movie, in the hope that this would revive him. She also indicated that she would feed him small amounts of potato soup via an eye dropper.”
MIKE MAUGER: We went out to the garage. Normally, if there’s carbon monoxide poisoning, the garage is dark—black. But it wasn’t. And the first thing we did was look at the children to see if there was discoloration on the skin, but they had started putrefying. That’s how bad they were.
The story of carbon monoxide didn’t hold up because the chemical test we did showed no abnormal monoxide in the garage. What we believe was that she probably slowed their breathing by giving them some medication, and then smothered them. Possibly rolled pillows over their faces.
RUBY GOTTESMAN: When Lori killed the kids, Norm was devastated. He was, like, cryin’ all day. I mean, I had to go sit with him. He was saying, “How could she do that to the kids?” All that shit.
COLUMBUS DISPATCH, JANUARY 13, 1987: FATHER RELEASED FROM PRISON FOR WORTHINGTON BOYS: “The father of two boys whose decomposing bodies were found last Tuesday in their Worthington home has been released from federal prison on a $100,000 bond so he can attend their funeral, Los Angeles officials said yesterday.
“Norman Arno, 59, of North Hollywood, California, was released Friday from a medium-security federal prison at Terminal Island, California. He has served four months of a five-year sentence for conspiracy to transport obscene materials across state lines.”
MIKE MAUGER: I thought this might have been a major suicide plan—that she was going to kill the children and then kill herself. As time went on, we started hearing about Norm Arno being locked up. Apparently, she had money; I mean, there was no doubt that somebody was taking care of the household. Did anybody talk to Arno? I don’t think they did. He may not have wanted to talk to us. I always thought that was really strange.
COLUMBUS DISPATCH, JANUARY 14, 1987: CON WANTS TO TAKE SONS’ BODIES FOR CALIFORNIA BURIAL: “The father of two boys found dead in their mother’s Worthington home is prepared to fight for what he believes is his right to take their bodies to California for burial, a Los Angeles attorney said yesterday.”
MIKE MAUGER: We knew that Norm Arno came back here because we saw him. We knew he was doing federal time for pornography, so he probably did have somebody assigned to security, but I think he was a low-end security risk because it was Terminal Island, not some maximum-security prison.
COLUMBUS DISPATCH, JANUARY 18, 1987: JUSTICE DEPT. MEMO DETAILS DAD’S PORNOGRAPHY DEALS: “Arno, who was divorced from Ms. Smith in 1983, adamantly believes his ex-wife is innocent of any wrongdoing in the boys’ deaths, one source said. The source said, ‘They may not be together, but he still loves her.’”
MIKE MAUGER: We got Lori Smith indicted for murder, but they found her not guilty by reason of insanity.
The Last Chance
LOS ANGELES/MILAN
1988
LAURIE HOLMES (AKA MISTY DAWN, PORN STAR): I met John Holmes on the set of Marathon in San Francisco—I think it was early 1983. I didn’t know what to think of him at first.
I thought, “Oh my God, John Holmes is going to be there!” I was nervous. I had driven up the coast with another L.A. guy, and when
we got there he goes, “That’s John Holmes in that limo!”
I went, “John Holmes! Oh no! Should I bring my gun?” John had just recently gotten out of jail. I think he got out in November, and I met him in January.
RON JEREMY: I worked with Misty Dawn, aka Laurie Holmes, before John did. Misty and I did one of the greatest scenes of all time, and when we were shooting it, she says, “I’m doing a scene with John Holmes next week. I’m all excited. I heard good things about him.”
LAURIE HOLMES: I was immediately attracted to him. I walked up and said, “Hi, I’m Misty Dawn.”
He kind of looked at me. I thought, “Well, he’s kind of arrogant.”
It was a different crowd in San Francisco than what I was used to. It was kind of a weird scene—I’ve never been on quite a set like that before. Some of the girls got a little jealous of me, tried to accuse me of stealing things out of the locker room. I said, “Everybody and their mother has been in here. Why are you looking at me?”
They were a rough crowd. They wanted to cut my face up or something. And John took me under his wing and said, “No! You leave her alone.” Which made them really mad because then he locked me in his own dressing room.