The Secret Lives of Hyapatia Lee

by Hyapatia Lee

  She would not stop yelling until everyone in the audience had left. The owner asked her to let the next lady dance.

  Jim, the owner of the bar, invited us all into his office and the backstage area. He knew why I was there and he was trying to help me get close to Lee so we could talk. Eventually we didhave our chance. I asked her what it was like to be an X-rated movie star.

  “It’s shit, honey. You eat shit.”

  “But everybody thinks you’re so beautiful. They all watch your movies. I’ve never seen this many people in this club in my life!” It was the truth. “They all came to see you. Doesn’t that make you feel good? I’d be going crazy!” I was being perfectly honest.

  “You want to get into the movie business?” She laughed hard. “You’re crazy!”

  I was getting pissed now.

  “Why? Don’t you make a lot of money? You get to dance on the road any week you want work and you make good money.”

  “Listen, you want to get into this business, you’re going to have to eat shit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you have to eat shit! Literally, you have to eat shit!”

  Right there I made up my mind that if this little bitch and Seka could be big stars and make all kinds of money, I could too. And I’d be sure never to act like they did.

  Carla, Bud and I went back over to Sinbad’s in shock.

  The rest of the week went from bad to worse. Lee exposed herself to an officer of the law in a Denny’s restaurant one night after work and was almost arrested. The next night she got so drunk she fell asleep and could not be awakened when closing time came, so everyone just locked her in the bar. At about 5am the alarm went off when she tried to forcibly break out of the bar. The police had to be begged not to take her downtown.

  Since then, Lee has stopped drinking. I’ve heard she was an alcoholic. When I ran into her some three years later she threw her arms around me like I was an old friend. Alcohol can do strange things to people.

  THE MICHIGAN CIRCUIT

  The most popular circuit on the road was known as the Michigan circuit and it consisted of Mishawaka, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, Lansing, Flint, Kalamazoo, Port Huron, Ypsilanti, and Detroit, Michigan, and Springfield, Illinois. The same company owned all of the clubs and to be booked with them meant a lot of money. It was also rumored that these people were producers of X-rated movies. One of the men, Mike, who was the booker for the company (meaning he decided who to hire to dance the circuit) had asked me at the Miss Nude Galaxy contest if I was interested in making X-rated movies. At the time, I said I was not. I had heard about Linda Lovelace and her book “Ordeal” and I thought the Mafia owned the entire business and that I would be forced to do scenes I didn’t want to do and murdered if I dared to retire. My opinion had obviously changed since then.

  In Mishawaka, at the start of the circuit, I asked the owner, Faye, if she knew anyone who made adult movies because I was interested in talking about getting into them. Not long after that, I was re-introduced to Mike.

  Mike met us at a theater he had part ownership in and actually watched me dance, unlike the agent Lee. Afterwards, he took us to a nice dinner and we went back to our hotel to discuss our long list of questions.

  Bud and I were fairly nervous and hoped Mike didn’t expect a sexual audition. I wouldn’t have sex for an audition for a Broadway musical and I sure wasn’t going to do it for a part in a porno flick! Luckily, it was never suggested or alluded to. Mike told us facts, like: the company he worked with always shot their films in California. I would have to commute, but I did not have to live there. I could have script and cast approval as far as the men I’d be working with and possibly even work with Bud occasionally. When Bud asked him what would happen if we decided we wanted to quit after one film, Mike said, “Well, then you quit. Lots of girls do one film and quit.”

  “Are you sure no one’s going to put a gun to our heads, or whisk her away somewhere?”

  Mike gave a look of surprise. “Absolutely not! You’ve been reading too many books. Look Bud, everyday a couple of dozen women walk into the offices of the many talent agencies that work exclusively in this genre. There are plenty of women, beautiful women, who are more than willing to make an adult film. Why should we force your wife? That’s ridiculous!”

  Mike seemed very honest and I immediately believed him. Even my doubting Bud could trust him. We talked again one night after my last show and I asked even more questions about the specifics of how those movies were really made and how the talent was treated on and off a set. It all sounded better and better. Mike was telling me all the things I wanted to hear. He said he had a friend who was really the one I should be talking to and that he would try to arrange a meeting.

  Several weeks passed and we were now working in Lansing. Bud was running the follow spot for me and I was doing my last show on stage when a man came to the back of the theater, where the spot light was, to watch. After a few minutes, he spoke.

  “So you want your wife to make fuck films, eh?”

  Bud was taken off guard. He didn’t quite know what to say.

  “Well, uh, yeah. I mean, she wants to. I mean, she’s been thinking about it. Who are you?”

  “I’m Harry, Mike’s friend.”

  Harry was Gail Palmer’s boyfriend. Gail was a writer and producer of X-rated movies, some of the best, and one of the few women in such a position of power at that time. She also sometimes appeared in them, not in sexually explicit scenes, but as a narrator in a sexy outfit to tie the story together or simply introduce it. I later learned that this is called a “wrap-around” in the business.

  After the show, Bud brought Harry back to my dressing room so I could be introduced. Of course, I waited until I was fully dressed at the time. He’d already seen my show, but I wanted to express that I was not available to him for sex. I thought that if I let him in before I was dressed in my warm jeansand sweatshirt, he might think I was available. I worried about what he would think of me. Would he think I was nothing more than a common prostitute? Would he expect me to give him an example of my sexual prowess? I told him about my acting resume, how many different plays and musicals I had done, the choreography, everything. He was a bit confused as to why someone like me would want to get into X-rated movies.

  Harry was a gentleman. He wanted to make sure Bud was not forcing me into this decision. He made a point of asking me questions about how I thought this might affect my mental health. Of course, I didn’t let him know about my multiple personalities or post-traumatic stress disorder. He was concerned I was interested in it only for the money and would later regret it. He wanted to know if I did drugs.

  Good questions. Why was I pursuing this so vehemently?

  After all the sexual abuse I had gone through, after all the therapy, the tears and frigidity, what was I doing this for? I had to prove to myself I was healed. I had to show myself and the rest of the world that no matter how many times your step-father rapes you, no matter how many times you wake to find a man standing over your bed with a pair of scissors at your throat who does the same thing, you can survive and thrive again, if you want to. I had to share my joy at finally regaining control over my own sexuality and being able to achieve orgasm again. I had to stand as an example to anyone else out there, male or female, who may have been hurt like I was, that we could overcome!

  I had to keep running from my other personalities who were trying to reclaim the body I, Hyapatia, was using. I had to keep pushing it so I would be in charge and in control. If I deliberately put us in situations only I could handle, I could be in charge all the time.

  Nancy Qualls-Corbett writes about the clay and stone figures of the feminine goddess in “The Sacred Prostitute”. She was called by many names, including Diana, Astarte, the Mother Goddess, and The Goddess of the Moon. She was represented as having wide hips, full breasts and a full-bodied, feminine nature. The idea of the female Goddess and the feminine archetype circled the globe
in different time periods and cultures such as the Celtic traditions and ancient archetypes of the Goddess that are sold to this day in Israel. The White Buffalo Cow Woman of the Native Americans and the Oriental and Australian Aborigines all had them. They respected the female side of nature and themselves. They were balanced. Today, because we have thrown away the feminine side of nature, we are not.

  Why must sexuality and spirituality be at odds with one another? Why can no one today accept a sexually active person with devout spirituality? It was not always this way. Throughout the world people have looked at sex as a sacred union between the male and female powers of nature. There were rituals where the sacred union was worshipped and held in high reverence. The sacred prostitute danced in the temple and her union with a man insured fertility of fields, animals and humans. She was just what her name implies, sacred. Why and where have we lost this important connection?

  Surely the union between man and woman, yin and yang, is still sacred, otherwise it would not produce the miracle of our children and the joy of orgasm. Orgasm releases oxytocins from the brain, natural stress reducers which are necessary for a healthy life. Studies have shown a decrease in oxytocins throughout the system can contribute to ulcers, cancers, hypertension, irregularity and a host of other diseases. Why does the predominant religious culture in this society remove all hints of sex and femininity from sacredness? It was not always so and it is not right.

  Why is God always a male in the Bible when women are the sex chosen to create the miracle of a new life, give birth and feed their precious young from their own bodies in all but snails and seahorses? The feminine power of the universe is very strong and our current world has chosen to dominate and silence it. Mother Nature has already started her revolt with unseasonable tornados, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and droughts in record numbers and severity. One cannot live out of balance long before there is disease. This planet is one organism. We are not living off of the Earth; we are a part of it. What we do to ourselves, we do to her. If we deny the sacredness of femininesexuality and enjoyment, then we are denying the Earth her feminine creativity.

  Women are told in this society that they must remain virgins until their wedding night. They are not to let men touch their genitals or to let a man see them in anything less than a healthy bathing suit. Yet, as soon as a woman starts her first menstrual cycle, she is expected to visit an unknown person, usually male, and just because he has the initials “Dr.” in front of his name, she is to let him spread her naked legs and insert a foreign object into her vagina. All this is considered normal and she is not expected to complain, or have any emotional problems with this situation!

  So, as society dictates, a young woman reaches the altar a virgin, soon after, she is pregnant. Now this strange Dr. is putting his hands all over her body and in places she didn’t even know existed. In a few months he will be there at one of the most frightening times in her young life, when she is expected to spread her innocent legs and push her beloved baby into this strange man’s hands. He will probably cut her vagina open before she does this in what he calls an episiotomy, and then sew it back up again. Then she must feed this child from her breasts, if she chooses to do it the way Mother Nature intended. In our society, her breasts have always been considered “sexual organs”. This poor woman is probably very embarrassed at the thought of her newborn being hungry at the mall or grocery store.

  These things; sex, birth, and breast feeding, are perfectly natural. Why should a woman be inhibited or embarrassed doing any of them? The society we live in has been too masculinized so that these normal female functions have been feared and relegated to the hidden corners. These functions are the very ones that are the most important for survival of the species, and yet, we have deemed them dirty (sex), a medical emergency (birth) and disgusting and inadequate (breastfeeding).

  I wanted to stop these crimes against humanity. People should not be made to feel so guilty about their sexual urges that they suppress them to the point they explode. Babies should not eat less nourishing food simply because some prudish society can’t get over the fact the natural source is a breast. Mothers should feel comfortable and safe in birth, otherwise, the “fight or flight” instinct takes over and most women end up with medication or a cesarean. Our nation has the highest cesarean rate of any of the industrialized countries. Many experts believe it is because birth is managed in a hospital with strangers and the mother is out of control of her environment and does not feel safe enough to let her body birth her baby. Our culture simply must get over this Victorian age and embrace normal human sexuality, before one more woman is raped, before one more baby is cut out of it’s mother unnecessarily and bottle-fed, before there is any more suffering. I thought making x-rated movies would contribute to this end.

  Bud did a good job of getting me decent money for my prospective work. At the time, most women started out at $200-$500 per day. Because of my titles, I would be making $750. We shook hands, he gave us his office phone number and we said goodbye. I was surprised it was so simple.

  It turned out that it wasn’t quite that easy. Now we had to wait months for a script. Gail Palmer had given Harry a rough copy of one she had started, but for some reason, she still wasn’t finished with it. I had waited so long to get all the information and make a good decision about getting into this business and now that I was finally ready, it was taking forever. Bud called Harry almost daily.

  Eventually, we were invited to Harry’s office in Michigan to talk. He and Bud went over the script of what was to be “The Young Like It Hot”. It was 13 handwritten pages long. I couldn’t believe it had taken this long to get the script, and that was all there was to it. Harry saw my hesitation and offered to let me rewrite it and stretch it out. I was surprised at the opportunity. The movie went through several working titles, including “Dial 69”, “The Girls of Ma Bell” and “Finger Talking’”. We quickly learned that a “working title” might not mean anything by the time the movie is marketed. It was eventually called “The Young Like It Hot” because it was released on the 25th anniversary of “Some Like It Hot”. Harry also contacted a friend of his who could get me in a photo layoutfor Hustler magazine. We knew that would be great exposure for me and increase my demand and salary on the road.

  Mike booked us in a few of the theaters he knew of while we were waiting for the movie to be shot. Lee the agent was out of the picture. We were scrimping to buy two one-way tickets to the west coast in hopes that we would find enough gold to get us home again.

  MY FIRST MOVIE

  After months of preparation, Bud and I were ready to go to Los Angeles for the first time. On the plane ride out, I ran into an old friend from theater in Indianapolis. Dave Garrison had been the host of a kids’ show back home and was an expert ventriloquist, amongst other things, and we had gone on a date to Chicago to see “The Wiz” years before. I thought it was a good sign that we were on the same plane and that he was going to visit some old mutual friends from the good old theater days. I figured I was definitely doing the right thing.

  The plan was to shoot for Hustler, then go to San Francisco within two weeks to start production on “The Young Like It Hot” and another film called “Sweet Young Foxes”. Hustler supplied our room for the three days it would take to shoot the layout. If all went well and it was good enough to be a centerfold, I would get a $500 check on the last day of the shoot and a $1000 check in the mail when the magazine went to print some 8 months later. The problem with the $500 check was cashing it. How does a person from another state get a check that is written to a stage name cashed? It took some doing, but the company was eventually able to pay us in cash.

  The centerfold would give my name publicity and notoriety right before the movie was released and give me some pocket money before the shoot. I worked with a photographer named Clint. We shot on a sound stage in a set that was as close to authentic as they could get.

  I was amazed at the professionalism of it all.
Everyday I was told to come to the studio with clean hair and body and they would do the rest. The make-up artist worked for hours to apply make-up in such a way that it looked like I had none on. I had never seen a reflection like that staring back at me from the mirror before. She did my nails, made them all the same length with plastic tips, and then made the color match my toenails, even though they never showed in any of the pictures. My hair was fussed over until it was “just right” and then I was taken down to the set and it was messed with again. Between every shot she would powder my nose, add lipstick, smooth my hair, etc. I had never been pampered over like this in my life. I felt pretty and they treated me like a Goddess.

  For each of the three days I did not want to take my make-up off when it was over. I usually hated to eat out, I did not enjoy being in groups or crowds of people, but these days were different. I wanted the world to see me like this. I couldn’t believe I looked like this, and I knew I never would again because I had no clue as to how to apply my make-up that skillfully.

  I hoped the movie would be the same way and I waited in nervous anticipation to find out the shoot date. It seems the soundstage we were to shoot in was booked for a solid month. What were we going to do? We couldn’t afford to stay in hotels for a month, yet we certainly couldn’t afford to fly home, much less back again!

  We turned to Mike for help, since we were closer to him. He told us Harry had some clubs in San Diego I could work at for a while.

  In San Diego we were invited to stay in Harry’s home in La Costa. Bud and I were given directions and keys in Los Angeles and when we arrived, we were very pleasantly surprised. It was a beautiful place right on a golf course. We were so impressed with Harry’s hospitality. He told us to make ourselves at home in the downstairs bedroom. As we moved in the suitcases, I stared to put things away. I opened the closet door and found clothes, a set of golf clubs, and a suitcase belonging to someone else. I was perplexed. I called it to Bud’s attention.