Ordeal

  Although I was terribly let down after that, there was one good side to the experience. The more that decent people became interested in me for decent reasons, the stronger I became.

  Every other day, Chuck had new papers for me to sign. Releases, deals, contracts that tied me to him forever. Everything that was put in front of me I signed. There was only one small moment of rebellion. We once flew from California to Florida to meet with Philip Mandina and sign papers forming one corporation or another. As they piled up the papers for me to sign, I thought I’d throw a scare into them.

  “I don’t think I should sign anything until I show it to my lawyer.”

  The bottom fell out of Mandina’s face and Chuck spun toward me.

  “What’s this about a lawyer?” he said. “What’s this fucking talk about a fucking lawyer?”

  “Come on, Linda,” Mandina said. “Be smart. You know you’re going to do what your husband tells you to do.”

  My little ploy had gotten a large reaction. But the experience didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. These two men had raped me every way it was possible for one human being to rape another. And never, at any time, had either one of them considered my interests in anything.

  I’ve still got the contract for employment that I signed that day. Right below my signature is Chuck’s signature. And there’s a salary clause that grants me 3 percent of my gross earnings. The contract is for ten years and was renewable for another ten years beyond that. No wonder they were frightened that I might have another lawyer look at it.

  That summer of 1973, Chuck decided that I should star in a musical review. He had found a backer, a Gerry Brodsky, and he was willing to put up a mountain of cash. He found a theater in Miami that wanted me. He had gotten calls from Las Vegas. And now, using Brodsky’s money, we were going to interview producers who knew how to put together a musical stage show.

  Introducing: David Winters. David Winters was well known as both a choreographer and a producer. He had been in West Side Story, had worked on Elvis Presley movies, and had put together successful musical acts for Ann-Margret, Raquel Welch and many others.

  All I knew about David Winters was that he had a reputation for extravagance. I was told that if the budget was $20,000, he would manage to bring in a show for $60,000. But he also had a reputation for bringing in nothing but winners.

  Describing David Winters as flamboyant is to seriously understate the case. He habitually wore stretch pants and boots, a loose chemise with puffed sleeves, and a pocketbook with jingling little bells on it. As I met David Winters for the first time, he handed me a single long-stemmed rose.

  I took one look at David Winters and decided he was wonderful. Chuck took one look at David Winters and decided he was “a fag.”

  We both decided to hire him. And David immediately assembled a team that had worked with him before, the best talent money could buy. Voice and dance coaches, a back-up team of dancers and singers, a choreographer named Joe Cassini, and a writer, Mel Mandel.

  On August twenty-first we signed contracts to open at Miami’s Paramount Theater on November first. The salary was to be $15,000 a week for two weeks. Three twenty-minute shows a day. There was only one bad clause in the contract, this one inked in: “Lovelace agrees to appear nude at a point in time during the act.” Chuck signed it and I signed it and it was co-signed and guaranteed by a certain Philip Mandina, Esq.

  It wasn’t a perfect contract. So Susan Hayward never had to sign a contract calling for her “to appear nude at a point in time during her act.” At least I was going to be doing honest work. And it was work. I started immediately working with the vocal coaches where our first problem was trying to find out what my key was. And then trying to find songs I could sing. We had to begin by agreeing that I wasn’t an Ella Fitzgerald or a Judy Garland; I had a range that could most politely be described as limited. But I could carry a tune. Some tunes anyway.

  Actually, I love music—I’ve always loved music and I still love it today. It’s my favorite escape. If someone turns on a radio, my feet want to dance. Just listening to music gives me a feeling of well being. When Chuck realized that, it became one of his favorite punishments; he would forbid me to listen to music. And now, for the first time, music itself became an important part of my whole life.

  At the same time I was learning how to sing, I was practicing dancing. And, also at the same time, I was going over the comedy routines that Mel Mandel was writing for me. The script was a collection of double-entendres joined together by this comic theme: Being Linda Lovelace is not easy; in fact, it’s hard to make even casual conversation.

  The opening went something like this: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming … Oh, excuse me, I can’t say that. It’s so hard … oops … it’s so difficult for me to say anything. Every time I open my mouth … oops, sorry about that.” It was a little crude, but it was also a little cute. If I’d been in the audience, I might have giggled at some of the lines.

  Once the rehearsals started, I began to feel good, really good. I never worked harder in my life, but it was decent work. Singing and dancing and learning new things. And somehow, the more I did, the more I was able to do. And the less important Chuck seemed.

  Chuck must have seen the danger here. Although he didn’t say anything to me, he seemed to be doing everything possible to undermine the production. At this time he was into partying in a big way, staying out until four o’clock every morning, sleeping until noon. The only trouble was that my rehearsals were supposed to begin at nine in the morning.

  This was one of the few times in my life I found the courage to speak up to him.

  “Chuck, this is just no good. I’ve got to get to my rehearsals on time. If I’m going to get up on a stage and sing and dance, I don’t want to make a fool of myself. I’ve got to know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Hey, Babe, take it easy there.”

  “This just makes basic sense,” I said. “We’re renting the rehearsal space. We’ve hired all these people to teach me and—”

  “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” he said. “Just who the fuck do you think you are?”

  After that, Chuck had me missing one appointment after another. If my singing lesson was for 11:30, he’d get me there at 12:15. If the rehearsal hall was available at ten, he’d lead me in around noon. David Winters and Mel Mandel finally had a talk with Chuck. They told him that unless I started making it to rehearsals, they’d have to take their names off the act.

  This was the final straw, the ultimate indignity, and I found myself hating Chuck more than I ever had. He didn’t care whether I ever learned how to sing or dance. He cared about only two things, the steady streams of money and sex that came to him because he was married to Linda Lovelace.

  Maybe my pathetic little career was doomed from the start. Here I was, going on a stage, and I had never even seen a live play. I was going to be dancing in front of people, and I had never seen a professional dancer. Of course I was going to make a fool of myself. A fool twice over. I was already a fool to think Chuck would ever let me do anything on my own.

  On the day I finally ran away from Chuck, he was particularly angry with me. All that morning he had yelled and screamed at me. Then, while I was rehearsing, he came barging into the rehearsal hall and told me he was calling off my work for the rest of the day.

  “No!” I screamed right back at him. “I’m not going. This rehearsal is too important to me. You can go back to the office until I’m finished here and then you can come and get me.”

  “And when the fuck is that supposed to be?”

  “Four-thirty!” I said. “That’s supposed to be four-thirty!”

  While Chuck and I were going at each other, the rest of the company stood silently by. They were all frightened of him. The week before they had seen him at his worst; he had hit me in front of everyone. Later David Winters and Mel Mandel spoke to Chuck alone and told him they wo
uld have to leave the act if that happened again. That conversation was still fresh in Chuck’s mind.

  “I’m supposed to leave you here until four-fucking-thirty?” he said.

  “That’s right!” I was still excited. “Just leave me alone!”

  And he left. Chuck Traynor actually left. For once in my life, I had the last word in an argument with Chuck. But only God knows how determined I was that day. What Chuck had been doing to me then made me angrier than all the things he had done before. It was one thing to force me to do indecent things; it was another to stand in the way of all my hopes for a decent life. When he left me alone that day, I threw myself into the rehearsals—really singing, really dancing, really feeling it. I was into it. For once I was into something with every part of me. The people there all saw the change.

  “You know something, Linda?” one of the back-up dancers said. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you smile.”

  “Oh, you’ve seen me smile.”

  “Just with your lips,” he said.

  “You know what it is,” another dancer said. “This is the first time I’ve seen you when you looked like you were really living.”

  It was then that our writer, Mel Mandel, said something that changed my life. Maybe it was not all that profound or original, but it triggered something deep inside of me, and I’ve never forgotten it. At the moment he said it, it seemed to be a capsule holding all the truth in the world.

  “I think I’d rather be dead,” he said, “than not really be living.”

  I went back to my singing then but I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind. All my energies during the past couple of years had gone toward preserving my life. I had stayed alive—but I had not really been living. And I agreed with Mel. Yes, it would be better to be dead than not really be living.

  Later in the day, Chuck called to say that he was going to come to get me. For the second time in a single day, I told him no, that I needed more time for working. But what I really needed was more time for thinking.

  By this time, David and Mel and most of the others had gone. The only one left with me was my choreographer and dance coach, Joe Cassini. Often, Joe and I would be the last ones in the rehearsal hall. I suddenly turned to him.

  “Joe, could you drop me off somewhere?”

  “But Chuck—”

  “I don’t want to be here when Chuck gets here,” I said. “I don’t ever want to be with Chuck again.”

  Joe was scared to death of Chuck and didn’t try to hide that fact. Everyone who had ever seen Chuck’s temper was scared of him.

  “I won’t tell Chuck who took me,” I said. “But Joe, if you don’t drive me away from here, I’m just going to start running. And I won’t have a prayer. Chuck would find me and kill me. You know Chuck.”

  “Where could I take you?”

  “The Beverly Hills Hotel.”

  I don’t know why I chose a celebrity hangout like the Beverly Hills Hotel, or why I put my trust in a choreographer I barely knew, or why I signed the name “Linda Hyatt” when I registered, or why I did almost anything I was doing. But God was with me. God was definitely with me. No one at the hotel gave me a second glance, and no one recognized me as I went to my room. The bellboy left—“We hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us, Miss Hyatt”—and I closed the door and locked it; then I took a deep breath.

  Finally. Finally I was safe behind a locked door and the madman who ruled my life was on the other side of the city. My mind raced over everything that had gone down. Had I been too careless? Too trusting? Too stupid? No, I was all alone and Chuck Traynor had no way of finding me. I was accountable to no one, owned by no one.

  It was a heady feeling and I gave in to it completely. One of the first things I did in that hotel room is the same gesture that millions of adolescents have done to declare their independence. I lit up a cigarette. I took in a deep swallow of the smoke and let it filter out through my nostrils. Today, years later, I’m still smoking. I know it’s stupid and I intend to quit someday, but it will be on a day that I choose.

  Then, a long hot tub bath. From time to time, I thought of Chuck—I imagined him furious and frantic, scurrying everywhere looking for me—and then I put him out of my mind. I thought about my past escape attempts and where they had gone wrong. They had failed because I had relied on other people, because I had gone to other people and sought help. Well, this time I was alone. I was relying on the strength of just one person, and I had no doubts about that person.

  Later, relaxed from the bath and lying down, I finally got around to calling the offices of Linda Lovelace Enterprises. If Chuck had answered, I would have hung up the phone. But it was Dolores.

  “Where are you?” she asked. “How could you leave me alone with that nut?”

  “I better not tell you yet,” I said. “It would only cause trouble for you. What’s been happening?”

  Dolores lowered her voice and talked rapidly. She said that Chuck was going berserk. He had called every taxi company in town and none of them would say they had picked me up. Then he had gotten hold of my co-workers—David Winters, Mel Mandel and even poor Joe Cassini—and he had ranted and raved at them. The latest thing he had done was to pack a loaded revolver in his flight bag and—

  Suddenly Chuck was on the phone.

  “Where in the fucking hell are you?” He was screaming. “What in the fuck do you think you’re doing? Do you realize we’re supposed to be meeting with Brodsky and his—”

  I looked at that noisy little telephone receiver and dropped it into its cradle. Click. That simple. Click, and all that awful hysteria came to an end. It was such a pleasure being able to turn Chuck off, to sever his grip on me. And now he couldn’t threaten me or yell at me or do anything to me at all. I reached for another cigarette.

  The next time I spoke to Dolores was that evening and she was at her home.

  “Linda, you must be very careful,” she said. “Chuck’s a madman. He’s got his gun with him and he’s cruising everywhere looking for you. He’s been here three different times.”

  “He’ll never find me,” I said. “I’d tell you where I am but it really would put you in danger—”

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “I don’t want to know. You can tell me when Chuck has cooled down.”

  That didn’t happen quickly. During the next few days, Chuck became more and more frantic. The meeting with Brodsky—and that represented ten or fifteen thousand in cash—had to be postponed again and again.

  Chuck was paying visits to everyone who had been involved in the act with me. No longer was he alone. Now he was in the company of Vinnie, Lou Perry’s old bodyguard. Somehow Chuck had persuaded Lou that I was being held against my will, that I had been kidnapped.

  Chuck was very direct in talking to David Winters and Mel Mandel and the rest. If they tried to hide me or help me, he would kill them. He would also kill their wives and children. The threats became so bad that several of them got a court order barring Chuck Traynor from ever talking to them.

  This time I was determined not to crack. Every day away from Chuck made me stronger, made it less possible that I would ever again go back to him. I didn’t tell Dolores where I was until it was absolutely necessary and it was then that she proved herself to be a friend in need.

  It was Dolores who advised me to move out of the Beverly Hills Hotel; there were too many people who might recognize me there. It was Dolores who drew some cash out of the company for me; Dolores who showed up with wigs and new clothes; Dolores who checked me out of the hotel and then drove me to a new hotel while I crouched on the floor of her car. And it was Dolores who arranged for two bodyguards to watch over me twenty-four hours a day.

  In the company of one of the bodyguards, Dolores and I took a wild chance and drove out to the Malibu cottage Chuck and I had been renting. We went frantically through bureaus and closets, grabbing everything we could get our hands on and taking it out to the car. After a short time of this, th
e bodyguard became suspicious.

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” he said. “Are you two girls doing something you’re not supposed to do?”

  While I was hiding out, my brand new career as a stage performer came to an end. The men who had been working with me explained that they enjoyed working with me but they also enjoyed breathing; Chuck had told them they couldn’t have it both ways.

  As the days went on, my only constant companion was fear. Every time I spoke to Dolores, she had a new story about Chuck, a new threat or a new tantrum. There was no longer any question about going back to Chuck. The other times I had tried to escape, the punishment had been unbearable. This time he would surely kill me. So be it. This time he would have to kill me. This time I would choose death ahead of Chuck Traynor. I kept thinking about what Mel Mandel had said that day: I’d rather be dead than not really be living.

  While I was alone, with plenty of time to think, I asked myself why I hadn’t taken this step before. Why hadn’t I made the complete break? The answer: I was not strong enough. I was the kind of person who needed to draw strength from other people. The people I met with Chuck were not the kind of people anyone could draw strength from; they had no strength to spare.

  Finally I had been exposed to decent people with talent. I became stronger by seeing myself through their eyes—I was not crazy, not sick, not a bad person. They had made me feel like a whole human being again and so I had finally been able to function as a human being.

  I needed strength now more than ever. I learned that Chuck was searching for me with both his pistol and his automatic rifle by his side. Acting on Dolores’ suggestion, I called the police. They knew who I was and they listened to my story about my husband coming after me with a gun. I gave up forever on police help when I was told, “Lady, we can’t get involved in domestic affairs.”

  While I was still hiding out, I called Sammy Davis, Jr. This time I told him everything, my true feelings about everything. I know now that I was looking for more support, perhaps even for a place to go. What I got instead was a little philosophy.