by Hyapatia Lee
Jerry called almost everyday to reassure us that signing was the smart thing to do. He sent us flowers for the holidays that happened to be in that month. He treated us like a dear friend, caring about us personally. We called Harry to ask his advice and he said it appeared to be a good offer and that if it were him he’d probably say yes, but he also suggested we talk to his former girlfriend, Gail Palmer. She was now with Essex. We saw her personally the next time we were in LA.
She accurately portrayed how we had been “wined and dined” and treated like royalty to persuade us to sign the contract, but she predicted a future full of non-communication, selfishness and unprofessionalism by the company. In particular, Jerry and his brother Terry were the masters of the game. We believed her, but after months of renegotiating the contract and more reassurances, we signed anyway.
Perhaps I should have known better, after my personal experience with Ed Black on the set of “Naughty Girls Need Love Too”. After all, he was probably acting under Jerry’s direct orders when he had Bud removed from the set. Experience is the best teacher and I was about to learn a lot.
The first project was to be shot on video and was called “Hyapatia Lee’s Secret Dreams”. I had never shot on video before. I thought it would only be a difference in the camera we used and some lighting changes. With the death of the theaters and the birth of the video market, no one was shooting on film anymore. It was so much cheaper to shoot on video. There were no developing costs, the editing was cheaper and easier, no answer prints, no prints to duplicate and send to theaters! All of the biggest expenses were slashed. Instead of keeping the rest of the budget intact though, everything was being cut. Actors and actresses were being told that their day rate should go down if it was a video. I never understood that. You do the same amount of work, it takes just as long, why should you get paid less because they are using a different format? The average shooting budget was cut in half. All of a sudden, anyone with a little money to invest could make an X-rated movie, and there were many new companies headed by guys who had always fantasized about making an X-rated movie and could now afford to do it.
Adult movie houses were always in high crime rate areas and slums because all cities have zoning ordinances that specify adult establishments had to be so many blocks away from schools, residential areas and shopping malls. Any business located in such a confined place is going to attract either very brave people, or those that don’t care about the surroundings, just the entertainment. Such people enjoyed sex in any way, shape or form, no matter how “perverted” in other people’s eyes. A major portion of this audience was comprised of businessmen on a lunch hour or off early from work. They were married for the most part, and could not take home hard core pictures and magazines but they could enjoy an adult film while out of the house and not offend or cheat on their wives. There are still lots of businessmen who do this.
It is interesting to note that most people in the production end of the “porn” business really look down their nose at their consumer. They say things like “the perverts will love that”, and “I can see the raincoat crowd jacking off to that already” in a derogatory way. At the same time, most people who watch that kind of entertainment think the actors and actresses are living one big sex orgy. They think they are so into sex, that’s all they do and they really live a life like the one they see in the movies and hear about in the magazines. They look down their nose at the talent, thinking they are too dumb to have a life other than a sex life. I can’t count the number of times I’ve signed autographs to men named Bob who felt the need to tell me how to spell it. They do not realize so much of what they read is just hype. The saddest part is knowing that both sides disrespect each other and sex itself.
When the video market hit, single men and married ones with free-thinking wives could now take these films to the privacy and safety of their own home. They were the exact same quality version they could see in the theaters. These videos that were shot on film had an average budget of over $50,000. Lots of men and women who had never seen an adult film before rented their first and many kept coming back.
Seeing the increase in business, the producers assumed that their films were renting and selling because people wanted to see nothing but hard core fucking and sucking. They thought that if the viewer wanted a plot or acting, they would watch a general release, or mainstream, film. They figured that the more sex, and the wilder it was, the more product they’d move. That’s where the fist-fucking, double penetration and heavy bondage and discipline came in.
Almost overnight, new video companies were popping up with an average shooting budget of $17,000 to $30,000. Soon almost 250 videos a month were being released. The distributors didn’t know what to buy and what not to, so they chose by price, and the wars began.
A video shot originally on film was selling to distributors for $35.00 in 1984. By the end of 1986 it had dropped to barely $19.00. Distributors cried for lower prices. They never bothered to even read the title or look at the box, much less watch the film.
During the question and answer sessions after my shows four times a day, I heard audiences begging for more plot and characters they could care about. They wanted the better quality movies they had originally fallen in lust with. Most men did not enjoy the kinky sideshow trend the industry had taken, even though Hustler magazine and other so-called authorities swore up and down that kinkier was better.
As one could expect, the law soon stepped in. It started out as a rebellion by closet fans in positions of power trying to steer the adult industry back on a suitable track before more conservative law makers caught on to the current wave and threw us back to the dark ages. But it was too late.
Local video storeowners couldn’t afford the tremendous legal bills for renting a simple movie, one that they themselves had probably never watched. They sent their message loud and clear in the form of rejections of certain videos back to the distributors who reluctantly told the producers to make some “clean” product.
“Hyapatia Lee’s Secret Dreams” was one of the first videos shot after the conservative trend was relayed back to the industry. As a natural result, all the wild sex scenes in “Secret Dreams” were substituted for more romantic ones and the wholescript had to be changed at the last minute. Director Robert M. was heartbroken to loose some of his favorite kinds of scenes. He held a big grudge towards it’s ‘tame’ sex scenes and the writer and star of the project, me.
Robert, or Bob, is of the belief that an adult film is nothing more than an excuse for sex and therefore, quality, acting, story and continuity are unimportant and can be thrown to the wind. “Oh who cares? It’s just a porno movie, no one will notice” was heard more than “action” or “cut”. Essex and the rest of the business were not like Harry and Caribbean. In this side of the business, no one wanted to hear of an actress having enough brains to write her own name, much less a script.
This is one of the few occupations, if not the only one, where women can make more money than men are for equal work. Actresses are hard on a macho man’s ego. These two points, along with everything else, caused Bob, a pure chauvinist, to repel off of me, a pure feminist, like oil and water. It was not a good shoot and it was an even worse video.
Immediately after we wrapped production, it was time for the standard signing of model releases followed by my pay. According to my contract, I was to be paid $5,000 in cash at the end of the last shooting day. Here was the first hitch.
Terry, who was in charge of production, claimed ignorance of this fact, although it was in plain black and white in my contract for any literate person to read. He wanted to mail me a check that, being from out of town, would’ve taken weeks to clear. I told him I would sign the model release when the check cleared. His response was that he didn’t need my signature anyway, the signed contract to work with Essex exclusively was probably enough. I took this as a threat of breach of contract as I still had not been paid for my work and he was insinuating release of
the video without compensation as specified. I was eventually paid a few days later in Essex’s office before I left town to go home. I signed the model release there.
Being a new breed of legal and clean video in an extremely hard-core market brought terrible reviews, especially from Hustler and the movie was best forgotten.
The next project was to be shot on 16mm film and was called “The Red Garter”. I wrote it about the gentlemen’s club of the same name that I had started in. In the movie, the law harasses the club. This was my attempt at opening the public’s eyes to the attack on our freedom that was starting all over the United States and Canada.
Essex accepted the script and a shoot date was set. Terry told Bud he could direct this project, although he would not be paid for it. They were letting him do it to appease me. A few weeks later I was told to take out the plot because they were afraid if they made the police look bad in the film, they themselves would be subjected to legal repercussions. It was no use arguing with them.
A week later we got a now rare call from Jerry Stonem. He was excited because he had gotten Anthony S. to direct the movie, even though it meant a $10,000 increase in the budget. What about the promises made to Bud? Jerry pretended he had known nothing about it and that it was too late to change things now, even though Bud was free and Anthony was an extra ten grand.
Naturally, Bud was heartbroken. Terry told him he had cleared his directing with Jerry. Everything had to be cleared with Jerry, as he was the owner of the company. We had both been assured it was in stone. Of course, it was just a big scam. Here were the lies and miscommunications we had been warned about.
The movie was about the law harassing a men’s club. As often happens in real life, if the cops didn’t get sexual favors from the dancers, they would arrest them on trumped up charges. This was way too controversial for Essex. They did not want to take any chances at offending the powers that be. I was asked to rewrite the script.
I tried to replace the original plot with another and was told “what do we need a plot for? We’ll just shoot a day in the life of the Red Garter Lounge.” How could I tell them they needed some semblance of a plot to satisfy the audience even though they considered them sexual perverts and misfits? They didn’t care.
I told Bud I didn’t want to do the film because of all the changes and lies, but he hated to see me throw away the money and lose the publicity. We got it in writing that Bud was to direct the next project, “The Wild Wild West” and I agreed to shoot “The Red Garter”.
After weeks of rewriting and arguing, we finally found a plot we all could live with, no matter how thin, and our shooting date was scheduled…and canceled. This time, the soundstage we wanted to shoot in was already booked. On the third try, we finally got the project underway with the direction of Anthony S.
Mr. S. is an admired and acclaimed filmmaker who finally gave me the acting instruction I had desired for so long. When performing on stage, one must project their emotions and voice over the footlights and back to the last row. One must be animated and show lots of emotions. A camera is closer and it takes a subtle, realistic acting approach to bring film to life. Anthony was the first to really help me with this transition.
Unfortunately, Anthony also had the “it’s just a porno movie” attitude as evidenced by the fact that he and his wife, who was on the set working script and continuity, physically left every time a sex scene was being shot. It was as if he preferred to think of himself as a general release director and any reference to sex was beneath him. So much was sex “beneath him” in fact, that even though the film is totally centered around a strip club, he had never been in one and blatantly refused to go even when we invited to treat him and his wife to an evening of burlesque to help lend the film an air of authenticity. Therefore, it doesn’t have one, but it sold outrageously anyway because of the lack of any quality X-rated videos on the market and because of the promotional package D. B. put together.
One of the incentives to buy it was the fact that four actual red garters would be placed in four different boxes of the movie and distributed at random to video stores across the US. If the store found a red garter in a box, they would win a free personal appearance by me. This was designed to bring in more customers. Lots of stores wanted the publicity this could bring them if they won, so they ordered big. Ironically, when stores did win, they realized the bad attention it would bring to their store by the local law enforcement agencies. Any time an adult movie store did not keep a low profile, they were asking for trouble. I ended up doing appearances in stores that were not advertising my visit or held the autograph session after the store was closed at night. Some told Essex they would just rather I didn’t come at all. I couldn’t really blame the stores or Essex, but it was frustrating, to say the least.
We tried to use our spare time to our advantage by booking ourselves in dance clubs when Essex didn’t need us to work, but this proved to be impossible as Essex didn’t know from one week to the next when they’d need us. This really cut out our major source of income. In view of all this miscommunication and/or outright lies, I didn’t trust anyone at Essex but Don, vice-president in charge of sales. He told us exactly how many pieces of each of our films had been sold so that we could keep track of the small percentage of royalties we had coming to us. When Terry found out we were getting an accurate count he took the books away from Don.
Terry was not as smart as he thought he was though. He ordered Don to send me a list of every distributor they sold to so that I could personally call the buyer at each one and promote “The Red Garter”. Nine times out of ten, they would automatically tell me how many copies they ordered and when they didn’t, I would ask. It didn’t take a whole lot of brains to add all the figures together for an accurate count on how much money they owed me. My royalties were to be paid 90 days after the sale. Within three months I discovered Essex thought I flunked my math courses as they deliberately took more than two thousand copies of “The Red Garter” they sold to Model Distributing in New York off my report. I called them on it and was ignored or put on hold. None of my calls were returned, until I threatened not to shoot “The Wild Wild West”. Bud wanted to direct this so badly that he could taste it as he felt he had really found his niche in life. He loved to direct so much that when Essex admitted to “putting me off’ on the pieces in question and promised to make amends, he talked me into shooting the film.
SHAUNA GRANT
Three times a shooting date for “The Wild Wild West” was set and three times it was postponed for one reason or another. Bud was still scheduled to direct. By now I was used to this ping-pong game of flying from Indy to LA for no reason so it didn’t upset me as much as all the other problems we were having with Essex.
Finally the day came to start the cameras rolling on what was originally supposed to be an 1870’s western but because of budget problems turned out to be a modern day video set on a ranch called “The Wild Wild West Dude Ranch”. It was a fun 3-day shoot with a great cast. There were some minor problems that seemed major at the time; for instance, the water main broke right before a shower scene. It all turned out to be just what I needed to put my enthusiasm and love back into my career. Barbara Dare, the other star under contract with Essex was in it and we had a scene together that was nominated for the best girl-girl scene of the year. She was good to work with. Being from New York, she did not have the midwestern manner I am used to, but she was still a nice person. A little aloof, but nice. She was one of the many ladies who preferred to work with other women.
A few days after the shoot we flew to Las Vegas for the Video Software Association convention where all adult companies try to out-do each other in display booths and sexy stars. Lots of people from the business are there.
J.S. was amongst the crowd. He was a former employee of Essex and from what we could see, one of the few to ever do his job there. We were discouraged when he left the company and very surprised when he came to our room to tell us jus
t how Essex was cheating us. He showed us where and several ways we could prove it, besides the distributor’s roster I had. He told us who was lying and who was not and gave us lots of ammunition to put us in a position of power. We were very grateful.
Since we caught them cheating on our royalties for “Red Garter”, Terry knew we would not let it continue. He was stuck with honoring the original agreement. This was too much money and Terry called to ask us to drop the contract. We asked to be bought out. I wouldn’t be making all the money they said I would and nine and a half months of the contract had already gone by. It was originally supposed to last only one year. Only three of the six films promised had been completed and I lost a tremendous amount of money by not being able to do the personal appearances in dance clubs because of their unprofessionalism. They had gotten their exclusivity, I worked for no one else but them. Next, Essex asked to drop the royalties on the last two projects. Obviously I was not happy taking $35,000 of what was originally a hundred thousand dollar contract, but there was no choice.
I shot a layout for three days with Stephen Hicks, a wonderful photographer who works for Penthouse magazine. He was not so sure Penthouse would publish the photos of me using my name, as they were not usually interested in using porn stars in their magazine at that time. It was a wonderful layout though, and Steve was great to work with. I was very comfortable and felt pretty with all the professional make-up and attention. When Penthouse called me to do an interview to go with the photos, I was very pleasantly surprised.
When the magazine hit the stands, I was shocked to find out I was in the one with Miss America, Vanessa Williams, and George Burns on the cover. This was to be the largest selling issue of any magazine ever produced. Penthouse sold out of their first printing and reprinted it twice and sold out again. Not only was this magazine graced by the presence of Ms. Williams, but also Traci Lords! I could not have handpicked a better issue to be in. It was just one of those lucky career breaks that meant the world for me.