Ordeal

  Sammy’s wife, Altovise, was waiting for us at the entrance to the theater. Although she was extremely sweet with me, all the sweetness in the world couldn’t soften the blow.

  “Come along,” she said. “I’ll show you the way to the dressing room. Sammy will be along in a minute or two. He wants to tell you himself how disappointed he is that you won’t be able to do the television show.”

  “Oh, I can do it. I’m all ready.”

  “I can see that,” Altovise said. “But the women who own the theater—they’re just letting us use it for the telethon—they say you can’t go on stage. They tell us that if we use you, then we can forget about using the theater.”

  “But I’ll—”

  “I’m sorry, Linda,” she said. “Sammy doesn’t want any hassles.”

  I was shattered. The women were upset by someone who really wasn’t me, but I was the one who would do the suffering. Not that other person. Not that Linda Lovelace doll. What would she care about a Highway Safety Telethon? On top of the rejection, there was a feeling of helplessness—there was no way to tell those people that Linda Lovelace and I were two different people. I pretended that it didn’t matter to me, and that was the only acting I was to do that night.

  Sammy was all apologies and he insisted that we join him for dinner. It was then that I began to see what it means to be a celebrity. A Sammy Davis Jr. doesn’t just walk into a restaurant and eat dinner. No, for him there’s a special room upstairs, a private dining room, a long table by a window, service and food that regular patrons will never see.

  A Sammy Davis Jr. doesn’t just sit down and order a quiet dinner for two. As he sits down, the chairs around him fill with people, his people. The bodyguard. Two secretaries. The hangers-on. All told, seven or eight people to protect him, to love him, to laugh along with him, to tell him how good he is, to eat his food. And we were just like the rest, one of Sammy’s coterie, enjoying the first tastes of fame and first tastes of food I didn’t know existed.

  Sammy arranged the seating, placing me in the spot of honor right next to him. Putting Altovise beside Chuck Traynor. Sammy and me. Chuck and Altovise. It would become more in time, more than just a seating arrangement.

  sixteen

  Suddenly there was money and the prospect of more money to come. Deep Throat, Part II would bring Chuck a huge chunk of money. I forget the exact amount because it wasn’t important to me; I’d never see any of it anyway. And then Playboy was paying for me to fly to California and pose for a picture spread. Again, I’m not sure about the money part. But it was enough so that Chuck’s attitude toward me began to change.

  Chuck couldn’t get over the fact that a big celebrity like Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to know me. He again seemed surprised that a big magazine like Playboy would pay good money for pictures of me. Chuck realized he had a hot property on his hands though he didn’t yet know how much that property would be worth.

  No longer did Chuck make me go into stores and proposition salesmen. He stopped making me strip in cars and flash at diners. And he even stopped yelling at me so much. He seemed as though he were a little dazed by it all, like a kid being taken to Disneyland for the first time.

  I noticed this especially during our first trip to California to make the Playboy layout. We were driven everywhere in a limousine with a chauffeur. Our first stop was a huge estate with rolling lawns and imposing gates. The limo came to a halt beside a booth with security guards.

  I heard the words, “We have Miss Linda Lovelace,” and—open sesame!—the gates swung open and we were on a driveway that seemed as long as a country road. At the end of the driveway, atop a hill, sat Playboy Mansion West. It looked like an English castle, or at least the way I thought an English castle should look. A huge stone mansion with a slate roof and ivy crawling up the sides and trees pressing in against it. At that time, of course, it was just a place to me, a place to work. I had no idea that in time the mansion would become my second home.

  The prospect of the work itself didn’t bother me at all. I’d seen several copies of Playboy and I knew I’d be wearing few, if any, clothes. The silicone in my breasts had not yet started to break down so I wasn’t too self-conscious. And I knew that there’d be no whips or dildoes used as photographic props.

  The photographer waiting for us at the mansion was courteous and gentlemanly. The contrast between him and the other photographers I’d worked with was remarkable. He had decided on a theme for his photographs; he was going to use lace—as in Lovelace—and he had gone to dozens of antique shops looking for beautiful old lace. Then he commented on my hair, saying that he loved the way the sunlight reflected off my hair. Just the way he talked to me made me feel relaxed and even a little beautiful.

  The Playboy Mansion West was as impressive inside as it was outside. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows set in rock, gigantic fireplaces, leather couches, a beautiful library with backgammon tables and, everywhere, butlers running around carrying trays. The pool itself was a separate world. Have you ever seen a pool with its own waterfall? One could swim under the waterfall and come out in a cave-like room with a second pool, a huge Jacuzzi, piped-in music, and colored lights. In time I would get to know the full Playboy layout— the greenhouse, the tennis courts, the bath house, the whole fantasy.

  Everyone in the place treated me as though I was someone special. One of the photographer’s assistants put body makeup all over me. And the photographer didn’t just snap his pictures and move on; he worked hard for special dramatic effects. He made some pictures where the sun provided backlighting. He posed me beside a tree and in the company of a stone lion, usually with yards of lace draped over my body. True, he asked me to strike some absurd poses—licking my lips with my tongue, touching my breasts, sucking my nnger—but these things weren’t too upsetting, not really, not when I considered what other photographers had made me do.

  It was a giant step up. The shooting went on most of the day and when it was over, I had a visitor, Joanie, the private secretary to Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy.

  “Miss Lovelace, Mr. Hefner would like you to come back to the mansion tonight,” she said. “There’s going to be a buffet and a movie.”

  Chuck answered the invitation.

  “You can tell Mr. Hefner that we’d both be delighted to come,” he said.

  The secretary looked at her clipboard.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve only got Miss Lovelace’s name down here.”

  “Well, Linda does not go anywhere without me,” Chuck said. “If I don’t go, then she don’t go.”

  “I’ll have to check on that.”

  Which she did. The secretary returned almost immediately with the word that it would be fine if we both wanted to come that evening. Chuck could hardly wait. The rest of that day, as we were getting ready for the party, he kept telling me what a big deal Playboy was. To me, Playboy was just the magazine that my brother-in-law used to read in the bathroom, nothing more than that. To Chuck, it was a very big deal. How big? This big: Chuck decided that my usual army-surplus wardrobe was not going to be quite grand enough for the people who would be at the mansion that night. He took the unprecedented step of actually going out and buying me a dress, a beautiful, gray, knitted dress that buttoned down the front and clung to my body like an extra-long sweater. And for once, he didn’t try to negotiate a sexual trade with the salesman. Nope, he walked right into a nice store on Sunset Strip, picked out a nice dress, and paid almost $100.00 in cash for it. This was big.

  That was what I was wearing that night when the Playboy limousine picked us up and drove us back to the mansion. The huge living room had been converted into a small theater; a movie screen came down over the front windows and a projector was concealed in the walls between the living room and the library. Fifty or sixty people were there to see the movie that night.

  I can no longer remember what the movie was, or who starred in it, but whoever they were, they could not have been more impre
ssive than the stars who were there to watch the movie. It was there, at the Playboy Mansion West, that I first met Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn and Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens and James Caan and Peter Lawford, and many more. And they, of course, met Linda Lovelace. But that’s not entirely true. In many cases, I wouldn’t even speak to the people. Take someone like Elizabeth Taylor, for example—when I saw someone like that, someone so important to my own life, I was ashamed to even think about meeting her. I knew what she would think of me. I mean, how could she help it? And why on earth would someone like that even want to meet me?

  Thinking back, I can’t even remember what kind of movie they showed that first night. One reason my memory might be so bad is that I was thinking about the man who had chosen the seat next to mine. Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwod! When he came into the room and took the seat right next to my own, I thought I’d die. When I was growing up, I never missed his television show, Rawhide. My bedroom wall was decorated with many famous faces but my two favorites were Elvis and Clint Eastwood. And here he was, in real life. He didn’t say a single word to me all evening. I give him credit for that. In fact, it made me respect him even more.

  At the end of the movie, when the living room lights came on, we were again visited by Hugh Hefner’s secretary, Joanie.

  “If you’ve got a minute,” she said, “Mr. Hefner would like to meet you.”

  Then, as the celebrities and other guests headed for the dessert or the swimming pool, Chuck and I went for our first meeting with Hugh Hefner. I had no image of the magazine publisher at that time. All I knew about him was that he was high on Chuck’s list of all-time important people. And, as we went to meet him, Chuck whispered last-minute instructions in my ear. This was to become the usual celebrity briefing: If he wanted sexual favors of any kind, I was to be quick in offering them.

  Hefner greeted us politely. He seemed quiet but sure of himself. In the weeks and months that followed, I would get to know Hefner better, too much better, but my own first impressions were positive ones. He complimented me, saying that I was prettier in person than on a movie screen. Then he said that he thought Deep Throat was an excellent movie, one he had screeened several times at the mansion. The reason he liked it, he said, was that it was not just straight sex—he said that it had a story and a comic point of view.

  Thereafter, the two men tended to keep me out of the conversation. I know it must seem as though I don’t have much to say during many of these encounters. Well, that happens to be the truth. I was the reason that Hefner and Chuck got together, but I was not someone they talked to or with. I was someone they talked about.

  Then Hefner said that while he liked Deep Throat, he was more interested by the movie I’d made with a dog.

  “Oh, you saw that one?” Chuck said.

  “Oh, that was terrific,” Hefner said. “You know, we’ve tried that several times, tried to get a girl and a dog together, but it has never worked out.”

  “Yeah, that can be very tricky,” Chuck said. “The chick’s got to know what she’s doing.”

  “That’s something I’d like to see,” Hefner said. “I think I’ve seen every animal flick ever made but—”

  “You’d like to see that?” Chuck said. “Hey, no sweat. That’s no big deal for Linda.”

  Hefner was a collector of eight-millimeter movies. He supposedly has the second largest collection in the world, second only to someone in Singapore. His eight-millimeter movies go back to the first ones ever made, and they include some with actors and actresses who were to go on and become very famous. He seemed especially interested in his animal films; pigs, chickens, donkeys, horses—he had them all.

  For the next couple of hours, Hefner and Chuck went on that way, rapping about sex with animals and anything else you might imagine. They both seemed excited. In fact, they reminded me of two kids talking about what they had just gotten for Christmas.

  I may not have said much but I know what I was thinking. Until that night, I had felt that Chuck was absolutely insane, far gone. I was sure there would be no one else like him in the whole world. And then we meet someone very rich and famous like Hugh Hefner, a very well-known name around the world, and in an instant he is right down there on the same level with Chuck Traynor. That really bothered me.

  If you met the two of them, you would think they’d have nothing in common. And I’m sure that Hugh Hefner would never send a girl into a store and ask her to do something with a salesman. Nor can I imagine Hefner doing the kind of thing to me that Chuck routinely did. Although the styles were different, they did have a lot in common. And that first night, as they got to know each other, they were talking about every kind of kinky sex. Okay, they didn’t look the same and they didn’t act the same, but they both lived on the same street.

  After that night, Chuck and I became part of the “family.” That meant that we were given special golden cards. Most people driving up to the gate of the Playboy Mansion West need an invitation or their names must be on a special list. People with golden cards come and go as they like.

  In very short order, we became special members of the family. I’m not so sure that this was all a result of our own natural charm: I think it may have had something to do with the fact that we had a dog named Rufus. Whatever the reason, the dog also became a member of Hefner’s official family. Not only did the publisher arrange for the dog to be shipped in from Florida, he then set him up in the lap of luxury. That’s right, the Playboy Mansion West kennel. I can only imagine the dog’s confusion as the Playboy limousine picked him up at the airport and drove him to his new five-acre estate.

  While Rufus was living it up in the kennels, Chuck and I had been given the run of the Mansion. We were practically living there. We had joined the rest of the freeloaders for the movies, the food, the parties and the regular Wednesday night orgies. On orgy night, which is what everyone called it, the regulars would sit through a pornographic movie—Deep Throat was shown several times—and then join the others in the pool, the Jacuzzi or anywhere else that sexual pleasure might be available.

  Not always was orgy night announced in advance. It might start off as a regular evening—music, backgammon, socializing—and then the word would come down: “Tonight is orgy night.”

  Most people seem to feel that the Playboy mansion is always loaded with bunnies, centerfold girls, and famous actors. But whenever orgy night was announced, the real celebrities had the basic good sense to get out while the getting was good. As did most of the young women who wanted to maintain their amateur status.

  Some of the girls who did stay for orgy night told me they were hired to be there. They called themselves “models,” not hookers, but they weren’t being paid to have their pictures taken. They were joined by some weirdo women and young thrill-seekers who were probably there on the chance of meet-ting a real live movie star. One of the regulars at these orgies, and a favorite at the mansion, was a girl who didn’t look any older than seventeen, Lila. Lila was always invited, and she just had to say the word to have the limousine sent to her home.

  Many of the male orgy-goers were family. Often they were people who were almost celebrities or people who worked for celebrities. Actors who had never gone from television to movies; a hair dresser who worked for the stars; a real estate man who specialized in Beverly Hills; an agent; the owner of a famous restaurant. It may have been called orgy night but I thought of it as flunky night.

  There was no doubt that Hefner was the head of the household but he never seemed to be truly a part of his “family.” I always got the feeling that he was a very lonely man. Even when he was in the middle of a crowd, laughing and talking, he seemed to be holding onto his pipe for dear life.

  It was as if he curtained off part of himself from the crowd. The more I got to know him, the more unhappy he seemed. He is used constantly. Nobody around him seems to care for Hugh Hefner, the person; they’re all there for the lobster and the caviar and the sight of celebrities.
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  Sometimes he reminded me of King Midas. He had designed this perfect palace, and he had all these perfect looking people around him, all the sensational music and all the best games, the finest food and drink, and, yet, he could really touch none of it—and none of it could touch him.

  Other times he reminded me of that movie, The Great Gatsby. Some of the family would stop off on their way to work, buzz for a butler, have some breakfast, then be on their way. These people never brought anything to the Mansion except their bodies. You’d never see anyone bring a bottle of booze or a gift. Oh, no, they’d come to Hefner’s house, eat his food, drink his booze, watch his movie, pick up the chicks he provided; then they’d go home. Most often, they’d never even see their host.

  Once, about three o’clock in the morning, when most of us were packing up to go home, Joanie, Hefner’s secretary, came running down the stairs in a panic. She was really schizing out because Hefner had decided to come down and join the party just as everyone else was leaving.

  “Oh, will you please stay?” she asked one person. And: “Please, would you mind staying for a while?” And: “Hef will be coming down soon and we should have someone here when he comes down.” And: “Please stay, I think Hef will want to play backgammon. Oh, please stay.”

  That whole scene was so sad. Everyone who had been leaving froze and then went back to what they had been doing. When Hefner appeared, wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, holding a Pepsi in his hand, he was greeted by waves of false hilarity, as though the party was still going full blast. There were the smiles and the laughs and the big hellos. And I guess, when all was said and done, that was the price people paid for his hospitality.

  And Hefner’s hospitality was impressive, especially to members of the family. The Playboy publisher would decide to fly to his Chicago headquarters and many of us just got on his private jet with him and took the trip. If Hefner was staying in Chicago for a couple of weeks, we’d check in with him at the Chicago mansion. Quite a few of the girls who surrounded him seemed able to commute from one mansion to the other.