Traci Lords: Underneath It All

by Traci Lords

  Spence and I had chemistry on-screen and Brancato took full advantage of it, always putting Jordan and Cade nose-to-nose without letting them touch, teasing the audience for a full season. My on-screen relationship with Spence was the closest to a man I’d let myself be in months. I was single and intentionally dateless, having grown leery of all those possessing a penis. I’d become very Sex in the City, enjoying months of girl talk and cosmopolitans with my makeup and hair team coworkers, Donna Stocker and Danna Rutherford. We spent many long days on the set together and had become close friends. It was just me and the six-foot Canadian blond girls. They became my designated bodyguards, and the “Green Machine,” aka manager Juliet Green, was very happy with the merger.

  Juliet checked in on me often, and we spent most weekends on the phone gossiping about work. We’d become very close, particularly over the past year, and she was the one person I missed most besides my buddy John Tierney. I often called John from my living room as I’d watch the Vancouver rowing team stroke by my window. Usually they were shirtless, and man—the arms on those men!

  Now I was calling John to let him know that I had a three-day break coming up and I was heading to L.A. We made plans for a dinner date that Saturday at Muse. I was going home for the weekend! I was going to play with the kitties! Yay! I did a jig in the living room, waving to the Peeping Tom across the way who was watching me dance in my apron. Then I remembered Larry Sugar’s birthday cake in the oven. Yikes! I saved it just in time from a bitter fate. Frosting the devilish morsel carefully, I placed it in the fridge for delivery tomorrow, before my escape.

  Packing my weekend bag, I jumped into bed and fantasized about catching up with John and driving down Pacific Coast Highway in my black convertible. Eventually, my excitement gave way to sleep as I drifted off blissfully.

  Work sped by the next day. After lunch I serenaded my boss. Placing the sinful cake in front of him, Danna and I sang him a “Happy Birthday, Sugar Baby” song and then planted kisses on his face before I scrambled for the airport to catch a flight back to Los Angeles.

  I walked into Muse several hours later. It was lipstick lesbian night and I raised many a prettily tweezed eyebrow with my body-worshiping Dolce and Gabbana dress and sexy Gucci high-heeled sandals. John greeted me at the door with a good squeeze hello and whistled as I gave my best diva strut toward our usual table.

  He ordered us a beautiful bottle of Caymus and I purred like a happy cat when the waitress placed two ounces of beluga caviar in front of me. John always ordered for me, knowing exactly what I liked. We clinked glasses before he darted off to the kitchen to speak with the chef, and I sank back comfortably into the soft leather booth.

  I watched the ladies at the bar competing for one another’s attention and then momentarily locked eyes with Jeff, the lone male bartender across the room. He smiled and I smiled back, taking him in. I remembered him well—he’d poured me several martinis over the years. Tonight he had his hands full, surrounded by a heck of a lot of estrogen, and I laughed to myself….

  Over an amazing dinner of salmon and mashed potatoes, John and I swapped stories about his love life and my Canadian adventures. The restaurant was packed, though, so he often had to excuse himself to tend to business. I didn’t mind. Sitting contentedly at the candlelit table listening to Barry White croon, I was just glad to be in the company of friends.

  Jeff took a break and slid into the booth beside me. Smiling warmly, he offered me another drink and we chatted until John Tierney returned, teasing me about how I’d replaced him so quickly. “Not on your life, honey,” I said, excusing myself to the ladies’ room and leaving the boys standing by the table. I looked over my shoulder and caught them watching me.

  I felt beautiful.

  Forty-five minutes later John and I called it a night. We made our way toward the front door and collided with Jeff on the way out. He offered me an arm. Man, was he gorgeous. I looped my arm through his and John’s, and off we went to collect our cars from the valet. I gave Jeff a kiss on the cheek good night and turned my attention toward John, hugging him extra tight. “Thank you for an amazing evening,” I said. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” He grinned, peeling out in his Porsche.

  I said good night to Jeff again and he pulled me close into a hug. Then he gave me a nice kiss, smack-dab on the lips. Whoa, I felt dizzy. I broke the moment, backing off.

  “Not bad,” I said coolly, even though I was screaming on the inside. He laughed, his whole face lighting up. Holy cow—blazing green eyes!

  He kissed me again…deeper…. Wow!

  “Ahh, it could use some work,” I quipped, leaving him standing alone on the sidewalk grinning like a Cheshire cat. Every hair on my body was standing up. I wasn’t ready for this.

  56

  A New Wave

  My weekend jaunt to Los Angeles had been the perfect blend of good food and old friends, Jeff’s final kiss being the icing on the cake. I returned to work in Canada with a spring in my step and a lingering feeling about a certain bartender. Did he think I was a tease? I was a serial monogamist who seemed to have an undesirable talent for attracting bad relationships and I just didn’t want to do that again.

  As I sat in my trailer on the set of First Wave, engrossed in the upcoming week’s script, I gasped in mock horror when I learned my character would be possessed by the alien Antichrist Mabus! What fun! Oh goody…oh goody…oh boy! I called Chris Brancato, thrilled with the evil plot he had conjured up. My imagination ran wild as I fantasized about tormenting my fellow cast members—I would enjoy this! Brancato encouraged me to unleash my wrath on the unsuspecting alien fighters. Man, I loved my job!

  Brancato called me from Los Angeles the following week, having just gotten in the first Jordan/Mabus dailies. He applauded my performance and teasingly announced, “You’re a great villain. I should have made you a bitch a long time ago!”

  “Hey!” I feigned indignation, clearly pleased to have my work praised by the producer. He filled me in on my character’s story line for the remaining episodes and told me of his plan to have Jordan/Mabus seduce Cade Foster in a coupling that would result in Jordan becoming pregnant with his child.

  Holy cow! I was going to be a pregnant alien Antichrist!

  Days later, costar Sebastian Spence and I climbed onto a round bed, nearly naked, but not quite, to film a very PG-rated, TV-friendly love scene. We treated it like any other scene, but for me, as tame as it was and as smoothly as it went, it was a big deal. I wondered if the scene was really necessary. Or was it about getting Traci Lords to do a love scene? Any other actress would have concerns about that kind of scene, but no other actress would have had mine. Was I being overly cautious because of my past? Was every screen kiss today magnified because of it? Did my sexuality have extra weight because of the porn queen title?

  Did I still have something to prove?

  As the final season of First Wave came to an end, so did my time in Canada. During that year I’d found the balance that had eluded me my entire life. I don’t know why it took moving away from everyone to discover that missing piece of myself, or if that’s really why or what happened, but I do know that I returned to Los Angeles one layer thinner, stripped of what remained of my own judgment about myself.

  It was during those days that I realized there was nothing screwed up or missing or wrong about me. I was just a work in progress, like everyone else, and in truth I was as shockingly normal as they came. I’d just had an extraordinary journey.

  57

  Jeff

  On December 23, 2000, I walked into Muse and took a seat at the bar. My pal Tierney had some lingering business to finish up and left me in Jeff’s very capable hands. I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him since our kiss, but I’d thought about him often.

  With my best Ohio twang, I teased, “How’d a nice western boy like you end up in a place like this?”

  “This is fer mad money, honey,” he answered back in a thick Colorado accent. “You should s
ee what I do fer real kicks!”

  I was intrigued to learn bartending was an amusing night out for this man named Jeff. His day job was far more intense: he was a union ironworker. How sexy!

  “A union ironworker working nights in an oh-so-Hollywood bar?! Really now—that’s a new one,” I said, almost spitting my olives across the room, my head filled with images of him in a hard hat and a faded pair of Levi’s 501s. Oh my goodness.

  I nearly slid off my seat as I threw back the rest of my martini, grateful Tierney had come to save me from myself. Down, girl!

  I started dating Jeff in February 2001. Apparently, I was the only one who hadn’t noticed the crush he’d been nursing on me for the past seven years! He said he was a patient man, and over the next several months, I found out how true that really was. But I was cautious going into this relationship, testing him often, wanting proof that he wasn’t going to hold my life against me as so many others had.

  Looking back today I realize I had never really gotten over Brook. Was it possible that I’d been in love with him all along? For years I was convinced he was “the one who got away,” and during my time in Canada, I’d decided to do something about that. I’d reconnected with Brook, revisiting those feelings and finally putting them to rest. Ironically, I discovered I’d been hooked on the idea of him as the husband and family man but not really on him, and while I was glad we could remain friends, thankfully, his ghosts had finally left the building. My heart had a vacancy, but squatters were not welcome, and I spent the next few months scrutinizing potential resident Jeffery Lee.

  At the very least, our relationship had seven years of history behind it. Jeff and I had shared many a late-night chat at Muse about everything from boyfriends to jobs to sex, and we already had an ease with each other that was rare. It also helped that there was a lot I didn’t have to walk him through. He got life. He was a grown-up. His thirty-eight years on this planet had left him with his own battle wounds. He was a fighter and I appreciated that. I saw a kindred spirit in him.

  Our relationship blossomed. We wasted no time on the petty stuff new couples sometimes struggle with. He wasn’t interested in how many lovers I’d had, or who was the best, or any of that kind of meaningless ego stuff. He was secure in himself, smart and sensitive, and I was impressed.

  One evening at dinner in a romantic restaurant in the Hollywood Hills, the heel of my brand-new Gucci shoe broke. While I was glad to be sitting when it occurred, I was mortified at the thought of how I would leave the restaurant with a crippled shoe, in a town where image is everything. I whispered my dilemma to my handsome date and he just smiled, telling me to pass the shoe under the table to him. Hiding it beneath his jacket, he excused himself to the men’s room. What was he going to do? Did he have a miniature welding machine in his pocket?

  He returned to the table and discreetly slipped the repaired shoe back on my foot. We finished our meal and managed to make it out the front door and into the cool spring air before the heel snapped off again. I laughed, grateful for the rig job at least, and leaned on him to steady myself. Jeff was the kind of man a girl could lean on and a woman could trust.

  Six months later, we strolled arm in arm down a wooden pier in Moorea, Tahiti, a bottle of our favorite red wine in hand. We cozied up on the edge of the pier and looked out over the pristine turquoise water with not another soul in sight. Speaking softly, our sarongs dancing in the tropical air, we sipped our vino and rested in each other’s arms.

  Me and Jeff in Los Angeles, 2002.

  The collection of Traci Lords

  A brilliant sunset of orange and yellow painted the sky, and Jeff’s fingers slowly ran through my hair. The sun was so warm and his skin was so hot. I wanted him to kiss me, and I wasn’t afraid of what would happen next…. I was that little girl again…ten years old in the field…but everything was different—I was wiser and those wounds were badges of courage.

  He sees me, I thought, he really sees me.

  And here I am.

  “Will you marry me?” he whispered in my ear.

  I guess that broken Gucci slipper was an omen, because Jeff turned out to be the prince of princes. I’d given up looking for Mr. Right. He’d been right under my nose all along.

  On a glorious February morning in 2002 I drove up Pacific Coast Highway listening to U2 sing “Beautiful Day” and feeling like it truly was. My long red hair danced in the wind and my cell phone rang every so often, bringing me greetings and well wishes from my best friends Juliet, Donna, and Danna.

  I arrived at the private beach club just before noon and greeted the waiting staff. My dressing room was already filled with my giddy friends, and my hairdresser Reny whisked me into a chair and started combing out my windblown locks. I sipped a Starbucks latte and watched the waves crash through the big glass window overlooking the sea. People were rushing around outside. The scent of gardenias hung in the air, and the unseasonably warm February breeze sent iridescent teal green tablecloths dancing.

  Fishnets decorated the buffet tables and caterers bustled in the back kitchen. The whole place buzzed with excitement as guests began to arrive. Donna did my makeup and Reny pulled up my hair into a cascading mass of curls. Juliet and Danna helped me slip into my gown and John Tierney practiced the “butchest” way to hold the bridal bouquet, taking his role as “best thing” very seriously.

  With Canadian gal pal Danna, July 2000.

  The collection of Traci Lords

  With John Tierney at a Hollywood Bowl concert, July 2000.

  The collection of Traci Lords

  My soul sister Juliet and me on my wedding day, Malibu, California, 2002.

  The collection of Traci Lords

  Jeff and I were married quietly on that afternoon, overlooking the ocean in Malibu, California. We were surrounded by the most important people in our lives.

  My mother was one of them.

  Me and Jeff.

  The collection of Traci Lords

  58

  Underneath It All

  I have spent the last twenty years of my life trying to figure out who I am, what I stand for, and what my journey here on earth is all about.

  I’ve always believed that celebrities are given a platform, a stage, that enables them to comment on things in a very public way. Whether they choose to do so or actually have anything to say is another story. I for one have always been a bit reluctant to speak out on certain subjects, mainly because words have a way of getting tangled up. After having several articles come out filled with half-truths, untruths, and various other slants, I chose silence as a defense.

  Writing this book has broken that silence. It terrifies me on one level, to give my innermost thoughts to whoever chooses to read them, but it gives me great satisfaction to know that I finally got to tell my side of the story, after years of being terribly misunderstood.

  I talked about the onion effect earlier and once again I find myself surrounded by peelings. My quest for balance still continues after all these years, but I look at life differently now. I don’t believe things are black or white anymore. I see the gray area. I carry with me the scars of my battles, but my heart has healed a great deal.

  While I now have a caring relationship with my mother and sisters, I’ve accepted the fact that that will never be the case with my father.

  The hardest person for me to forgive has been me. I thought for such a long time that I was just a bad girl, and what happened to me was simply all my fault. Working those issues out in front of the camera, first in porn, then later in mainstream Hollywood, was hell. Today I feel about porn as I feel about an episode of Jerry Springer: I just can’t stomach it.

  Today porn is everywhere I look. I find it in the junk mail folder on my computer, it peers at me from local magazine racks, and sits blatantly in the window of the liquor store where I buy my wine. Porn stars play themselves on television shows, appear on billboards, and give interviews about how “liberating” porn is for women. Well, I believe i
t’s anything but. It annoys me that I can’t block out these unwanted intrusions in my life. I find the junk mail insulting, the box covers inappropriate (in a public place), and the women who claim porn is liberating, irresponsible.

  It disturbs me deeply to think some young girl could hear what these women say, find out about my start in porn, and think that is a viable path to success. While I am opposed to government censorship, I can’t help but wonder where it will stop. When is sex no longer sexy? I have struggled with that question in both my career and personal life. And I have come to the conclusion that, while I find sexuality and eroticism as healthy as laughter and as nourishing as good food, I believe hard-core porn is desensitizing to the viewer and that it objectifies its performers. I am speaking from personal experience when I tell you that while many porn stars may look pretty on the outside, I have never met one who wasn’t damaged by a business that makes it impossible to think of its “stars” as human at all.

  I hate that I’m the poster child for a business I loathe. I’m constantly reminded all these years later that I was a teenage porn star by people from all walks of life, people who are either ignorant of the fact that I was just a kid when I made those movies twenty years ago or who just refuse to see me in any other way. I find it infuriating at times and just plain simple in others. All I can say is, it keeps me humble!

  Growing beyond the porn queen image has been a daunting task in Hollywood. There were those who accepted me, gave me a chance, and to them I will be forever grateful. And then there were the others: the producer who got cold feet and fired me the day before I was to start work because he was afraid I would “taint” his project; the network exec who had my role cut because he didn’t think I belonged on his network (though he’s known to have a large collection of my bootleg tapes). I could go on and on, but I won’t. They say if something doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger. And in my case it’s true.