by Hyapatia Lee
The day after we finished “Sweet Young Foxes”, we started shooting “The Young Like It Hot”. The film is about a group of telephone operators that are going to be replaced by the “ever efficient” computer. In order to keep their jobs, they provide a more personal style of service. Because of the title, owners of theaters where this film played were arrested for incest in my home state of Indiana a few years after it’s release. The arresting officers didn’t even bother to watch the film to find it had nothing to do with incest at all, but the daily workings of a telephone company.
I was to have four sex, or “commercial”, scenes in this movie, two with women and two with men. One of the men I was cast opposite of was also in “Sweet Young Foxes” and I had been able to watch him film his scene. He was very rough. All I could think of was-that’s rape, violent, abusive, over-dominating sex without any thought or care about your partner. During the shooting of his scene, I asked Harry if he could find a replacement. Who? Bud of course, and so it was.
My scenes with Rose-Linda Kimball and Lilly Marlene were fairly easy for me. Since I didn’t have to keep my partner erect, the girl-girl scenes went quicker.
One of the newcomers was a lovely blonde girl who called herself Callie Aimes for this movie, but would soon change her name to Shauna Grant. She was nice and sweet, very soft-spoken and innocent-like. Not at all what one would expect to find on the set of an X-rated movie. Actually, only two of the women I worked with in these movies were the kind one might expect to be sexually open and active. I was beginning to form opinions about the people in this industry, just as I had about the ladies who dance in strip clubs. There were a lot of similarities. There were pretty much three basic types of girls doing these kinds of things. There were girls who were working their way through college and were planning on getting out of it just as soon as they could. There were those who were very comfortable with the environment and the clientele in clubs. These included girls whose boyfriends were in bikers clubs. There were girls who, like me, had been abused as a child and saw this as a way of having power over men and escaping from the victim role.
In these two movies, I was to be the star. I had much more dialogue and more screen time. Production Assistants (PA’s) would rush me from make-up to wardrobe to the set. I felt in demand and important. Once on the set, I would hear “Here comes the star, clear the way. Get her a chair.” The cinematographer made it a point to show me how much work was being done on the lighting to show me off best. This wasn’t always easy because of my coloring. My dark hair ate the light and it wasn’t really possible to make my skin tone match that of my co-star. He used camera angles that made me look tall and majestic. I was always asked if I was ready to do a scene, especially if it was to be in the nude or sexual, and I was given all the time I needed to get comfortable.
On the second night after we finished shooting, Bud and I went back to our hotel after we ate dinner on the set. We were sitting in front of the television when there was a knock at the door. It was Callie, or Shauna as we came to call her. She waswearing a simple T-shirt and a pair of nice panties, and nothing else. We invited her in.
She was lonely in her room and wanted to talk. She was new to the business of making X-rated movies, just like we were and we enjoyed her company. It was nice to make friends with these people we were working with. They were all friendly and polite and “normal” folks and it was good to realize that one could make adult films and still blend in with society. These people were living proof. It made me feel like I didn’t have to be ashamed of what I was doing and perhaps, I could even be proud.
Soon there was another knock on the door. It was JD, the cinematographer. Shauna had told him she would be in our room and invited him to come get her when he got back to the hotel. After talking a while, they went to her room. Bud and I listened through the thin walls to the sound of our neighbors, more cast members, making love.
Bud played a telephone operator and I was his supervisor. After listening to an especially steamy and helpful call to a horny customer, my character rewards him with a blowjob. Bud had no problem rising to the occasion and the scene was shot smoothly and without a hitch. I thought it was quite a hoot that I got paid for having sex with my husband. I was totally relaxed and found it exciting.
We were really feeling at home there and I felt like I had been on a set almost all of my life. Theater people are different from most and I felt like I was back in Indianapolis. Having done so many different plays and musicals, memorizing my lines was a cinch. It was challenging to learn about hitting my mark (a spot on the floor you must stop on in order to be in focus) and key light (a light especially for a certain actor to highlight them and show them off to their best advantage). There were many small differences to remember when acting in front of a camera as opposed to on stage. I was having fun learning them all and changing my style of acting.
When the movie was done being shot, I was almost as heartbroken as I had been when the first play I was in finished its run. I wanted to do more. Sex seemed a small price to pay to be able to star in a couple of movies and fit in, be accepted, and maybe even looked up to.
This was different from the plays I had done at dinner theaters though. I decided to wait for these movies to come out and see the reaction I got from the public. Would I be recognized everywhere I went? Maybe no one would even notice. Would my family and friends find out and have a canary? Or would life go on as usual. I had to find out first before I made any more films. Besides, I was under contract with Caribbean and they were going to wait almost a year before they shot again.
I knew it would take a while for the movies to be edited and finally released, but I did not understand just how long. While we waited, we went back to the dancing circuit. I thought I would get a bigger salary because of the films I had made, but it didn’t make any difference if they weren’t out yet for anyone to see.
We were booked in Quebec City, Canada. We had worked in Montreal and many other Canadian cities before, but this was the farthest north we had ever been. It was a nice club, with male and female dancers, none of whom spoke English. We even had a hard time ordering food in a McDonald’s up there because everything is in French. It was winter and my first show was at 6pm, my last, 3:30am. By the time we got done with my show, found some food to eat and went back to the hotel to go to bed, it was so late that we slept until early afternoon. The sun sets at around 2:30 in the afternoon in winter in Quebec City! We never saw the sun the entire two weeks we were there! I was very depressed.
Our agent, Adele, told us there was a booking in Chicago for us the Monday following the two weeks in Canada. We were still driving everywhere at that time and in order to make it from Quebec City to Chicago in time for our first show Monday night, we had to leave Saturday morning and drive continuously. We made it to Chicago late Monday afternoon. We had to cancel our last Saturday night in Quebec in order to make it to Chicago. We were not happy about it. To top it off, this was a new club that had never booked a dancer before and no one I knew hadever been to it. All agents are known for their unscrupulous acts and I wondered if this was really such a good idea.
When we got to Chicago, we were tired and half crazed from driving for so long without rest. We went straight to the club. Inside, we found a theater but no stage. We asked to talk to the manager. He was shocked to see us.
It seems he had contacted the agent a few weeks ago to ask about the possibility of having dancers there some day. Adele had jumped the gun and started insisting he take me on this date. The club said they could not be ready by then, they didn’t even have a stage yet and would have to build one. They wanted to offer live entertainment periodically during the day as a break between movies like so many other theaters had done. She thought that if I showed up, they would feel bad and put me to work. They did not. It seemed there just was no such thing as a decent agent.
Mike and Bud started booking the act and we went to Minnesota to work for a theater called th
e Faust. While we were there, we got a call from Shauna Grant! She was visiting her family in nearby Farmington, MN and on Sunday, our day off, we went to visit her.
Her boyfriend and some high school friends were going to get a bite to eat and we went along. Her friends almost made fun of her because they knew about her x-rated movies. She was a very sensitive girl, quiet and shy. They were loud and teasing teenagers. Her boyfriend acted like he didn’t think much of her. He was gone more than he was at the table. Her family seemed rather cold and distant in my brief encounter with them. I felt sorry for her and could relate to how she must’ve felt. As we left, she gave me a white smoking stone to remember her by. I have always treasured it and still have it today, even though I no longer smoke.
Harry wanted Bud and I to learn the film industry inside and out. He asked us to come to California to watch the movies as they were being edited so we could learn more. It was fascinating to watch as the film slowly took form. We looked through the Motorola and saw how they splice the frames together, how the sound track is added, how the color is matched in every scene, and how the credits are done. Bud and I could never thank Harry enough for the fabulous education we were getting in filmmaking.
After a long day at the editing bay, Bud and I went out to eat. We stopped by a newsstand first to see if any of the photo layouts I had done were in print yet. Sure enough, the first Hustler shoot was in the magazine. We bought a copy and went in to a nearby restaurant to eat and study the spread.
As we stood waiting for our table, a waiter came over to us with excitement in his eyes.
“Congratulations! I saw your movie last night. You were wonderful! Are you going to make any more?”
I was in shock! I looked at Bud and accused him of paying the guy to say that. They both denied it vehemently. The guy started talking all about the movie and my scene. I could tell that he had really seen it. I was freaked out. “Naughty Girls Need Love Too” had just opened in a theater down the street the day before. He must’ve seen the first showing! I wanted to leave and find another restaurant.
Once we left, and were on our way to finding another place. Bud gave me a lecture about anonymity. He said that I should’ve known I would have no more private life when I started making these movies. I really didn’t think that many people watched them, and even if they did, they wouldn’t want everyone to know they were fans of adult entertainment. I never imagined I would be recognized on the street. It became a more common occurrence as time went by.
When it came time for “The Young Like It Hot” to open, Harry took it to New York for the premiere. There was a theater on Broadway called the Pussycat and he rented it out for two weeks. I was to do my dance there for the entire run in between showings. On the night of the opening, they had spotlights in the sky and a red carpet an hour before I was to arrive in a white Rolls Royce limousine. There were people standing there staring at the street just waiting for someone famous to show. The front of the theater had bigger than life-sized cutouts of me on the marquis. There were photographers there from every men’s’ magazine I’d ever heard of and more. The lobby had strings ofballoons draped across the ceiling. There was free fresh popcorn served to you by topless waitresses and the smell was mouthwatering. The place was packed with people and I was in heaven! I was about to dance on Broadway!
The movie was held over after it’s two week run. By the time it was all over with, Bud and I had spent almost three months in New York. I interviewed with just about all the magazines and shot layouts to go with the print, or “copy”, as they call it. It all happened so fast. It took forever to make the movies and get them out, but once they were, everything just sky rocketed.
People started to recognize me in restaurants and on the streets. Bud had warned me that this would happen, but somehow I never believed him. At first it was nice, but then it got to be a scary invasion of privacy.
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE
Life in the fast lane was getting more glamorous but also more difficult. The schedule was demanding. In most places my first show went on at 12:00 noon and my last one went on at 1:00 or 2:00 am. It took about and hour to an hour and a half to complete a show from the dancing to the question and answer session on stage, usually in the nude, and then the photo session where I posed with fans for a fee. I worked six days a week and flew to a new location on the seventh, starting the whole thing over again on Monday morning. When I got exceptionally tired, Stacy would come out. I found myself crying in hotel rooms with a sore body from so much dancing. I didn’t know where we were, what the date was or the time of day. Bud would be frantically trying to get me to get ready for a show I didn’t want to do at all. There were times when Hyapatia didn’t take over until right before I went on stage. I needed to decrease my work schedule but we needed the money. I couldn’t wait for my salary to go up as a result of the movies so I could take some time off and these traumatic scenarios would stop.
The editor for Oui magazine, Peter Wolf, had a friend named Alexis X who was just beginning to get involved in making movies. She was a pretty young blonde with a heart of gold and a bubbling personality. She was wild, willing and always out for a good time. One night, Peter, Alexis, Ron Jeremy and his girlfriend and I all went to Plato’s Retreat.
Plato’s Retreat was a warehouse-sized adult playhouse. With an Olympic sized pool, discotheque, buffet, alcoholic drinks, orgy rooms, X-rated movies, rooms for four, six and eight, etc., it was known the world over. We couldn’t wait to see this infamous place.
When we first arrived, the ladies hit the buffet while the guys all got some drinks. Once we had eaten a bit, we began to look around in the dimly lit club. People were making out everywhere! As we sat there in amazement, a man approached me and started to kiss me and touch me. I didn’t quite know what to do. I made up some excuse and walked away. He apologized. I looked at my friends and we decided to check out the disco.
Not very many people were dancing, although there was a wonderful light and sound system. Alexis asked me to dance with her because she didn’t want to get hit on and I agreed. After a few minutes on the dance floor, some guy came up and asked her if she was Alexis X. He had seen her movies. She was very proud, just beaming. It can be a very flattering thing to be recognized. It can have a funny effect on you, like it did her. She started to feel a need to live up to her reputation and before I knew it, she was stripping on the dance floor right in front of me. That’s when the guy recognized me. Before I could say much, Alexis was kissing me and groping my body. Soon I was naked. Then there were the flashes of the cameras. Peter and a few other photographers were there to catch the action on film. It was very exciting to be the center of attention with everyone rushing to see what all the excitement is about, but before long I had had enough. I was all for a good show, but I saw no reason to have sex with someone I was not into just to be a “good sport” for the camera.
After getting our clothes back on, we realized we would have to go somewhere private in order to get away from all the guys trying to grope us. We went to an orgy room. As we all sat there, just talking, another guy came up to me and started rubbing my feet and legs. We soon left.
While in New York, we met several other actors, actresses and directors in the business. F.J. Lincoln and his wife, Tiffany Clark, were celebrating the opening of Fred’s new movie, “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll” and we were invited to the opening. It was a good movie and it was nice to meet another couple like us in the business.
Fred and Tiffany were members in another exclusive New York underground club, and I do mean “underground”. Hellfire was an S & M swingers club underneath the streets of Manhattan. The club was supposedly founded as a devil-worshipping group back in the days of Thomas Jefferson. As a matter of fact, Benjamin Franklin was said to have been a member that played quite a trick on his comrades. It is said thatwhen the first monkey was brought back from Africa, no one had seen such a thing and had no idea what it looked like. During one of the satan
ic incantations, he released the monkey to the terror of all. They thought they truly had summoned the devil.
When I first walked down the stairs into this place, I saw a man tied arms stretched out above his head and feet spread wide. He was naked and being whipped by a short brunette woman in black leather. A man crawled around on the floor. Other men and women were being led around on chains attached to either a dog collar around their neck or to a chain that connected their two pierced nipples. I just stood there, staring, probably with my mouth wide open.
Fred nudged me and pointed me over to the bar. I could use a good strong drink about now! I waited for the bartender to fix my drink, trying not to stare at anyone in particular. I was looking at some spot on the bar or cocktail napkin; a man crawled up to my shoe and started licking my heel. I almost screamed.
“Hey, hey, back off.” Fred stopped him.
Finally, my drink was here. As I drank it, I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just didn’t feel right. I was dizzy, week. I felt like I might pass out.
“Hey, we’re about ready to do a big show in the back room, come on!” Some guy passed us and invited us through a door I had not seen before. I started to get up.
“I don’t think you want to go back there.” Fred said. “That’s where they do all the devil worship. Hey, are you O.K.?”
He could see that I was not feeling well. I was pale. We left immediately.
As soon as I was outside in the fresh air, I felt fine again. I don’t know if it was the stale air in the underground, or the energy of the place, or something in the drink, but I was fine once we left.