My feeling about those offers was simple: no. I will never do anything pornographic again.
I look at my life then and I know I went along with some things. I was wearing revealing clothes and signing autographs and enjoying the attention that came my way. But I wasn’t being dirty. I wasn’t being thrown into a room with five men. I was wearing silk and satin, and, if I was in a room with men, it was to discuss a contract or a deal, not their favorite perversions. Most of the propositions I was listening to were clean ones.
Maybe at times I did get a little carried away with myself, a little impressed by the fact that I was Linda Lovelace, but I always came back down to earth. When we were in France for the Cannes film festival, I was walking into a hotel lobby as the famous actor Rex Harrison was walking out. When he recognized me, a fantastic smile creased those famous features and he called out to me, “Miss Lovelace, I must shake your hand.” Rex Harrison! I was so pleased and flattered. Then later I had time to think about it. Hey, wait a minute. I hadn’t just done a great film that had gotten me an Academy Award. I had been in a disgusting film with disgusting people. All those celebrities who wanted to meet me—what were they doing watching a movie like that in the first place?
The offers coming our way were varied: tee-shirts, posters, record albums, commercials, books, college lectures, public appearances at car-racing tracks, pornographic cassettes. In a way, the proposals were like ghosts—they loomed large for a brief moment, then disappeared without ever quite materializing.
Since I was now able to meet the press on my own, without Chuck feeding me lines, I decided to tell the truth. And I did. I told the exact story you’ve been reading here—that I had been brutalized, raped and forced into every sexual situation imaginable. But maybe you never read that story in your favorite tabloid. They couldn’t use that story. The minute I started telling it, the reporters would turn off their tape recorders. They’d explain to me about the laws of libel. And then they’d point out that the true story would really be a downer for their readers.
Finally, since the truth got such a negative reaction from everyone, I was advised to become more general in my answers and to talk about my present, not my past. Unfortunately, my present wasn’t much to talk about. My only stage appearance was in a sex farce, Pajama Tops, that closed during the first week of its run in Philadelphia. There were no decent movie offers. And the only apparent way to make money was to go back and do a second book.
This time I was looking forward to the thought of doing a book. This time I would be free to tell the truth. And my writer this time would be Mel Mandel, a man who not only knew the true story but who had lived some of it with me. And so Mel tape-recorded my memories of life with Chuck and sat down to write The Intimate Diary of Linda Lovelace.
Well, life is filled with hard lessons. And the lesson I learned this time is that no one really wants to hear the truth. The publisher read the manuscript and was deeply disturbed to realize that it was not another Inside Linda Lovelace. They complained that there wasn’t enough sex; they said they couldn’t publish it in its present condition. It was explained to me that what really happened wasn’t important; what people thought had happened—that was important.
David Winters thought the situation over and said that we should give the publishers what they wanted.
“We’ll try a little bit of the truth now,” he said. “Then, later on, a little more of the truth. Anyway, the world wouldn’t accept it; no one would believe it if you told the whole truth all at once.”
So David and Mel got together and made up the stuff that the publisher wanted in the book. The big difference between the two books is that in the second one, Chuck is described as a villain. No longer is he the world’s greatest lover. No, now the world’s greatest lover is David Winters.
With a tremendous thrust, he put that surging, gorgeous cock inside me. A pulsating jackhammer that kept driving, driving, driving, plowing into me, over and over.
Trash.
Then they made up a lot of other things that had nothing at all to do with real life. They wrote about my desire for other women and my skill with vibrators. Trash and garbage, all trash and garbage. I didn’t blame Mel Mandel when he put a make-believe name on the book (“as told to Carl Wallin”); I wish they’d never used my name either.
I never realized how many lies you have to tell to sell a book. They invented a sex scene with a father and a son, both supposed to be famous Hollywood actors. And another scene between me and a telephone repairman. Then they added one with a famous football player that they wanted everyone to think was Joe Namath. All trash and garbage.
The truth of the matter was that I did meet Joe Namath at a party. I went over to the world-famous football player and introduced myself. He suddenly saw a young chick on the other side of the room and he said, “Oh, excuse me,” and then he was gone. That’s the whole story, the true story of my intimate life with Joe Namath, but I guess that wouldn’t have sold too many books.
They managed to get a quote from Hefner for the cover of the book: “Linda is the new sex goddess of the 70s!” And they added a centerfold, a bunch of revealing photographs, and they shipped it out.
That whole book was make-believe, no better than the first one. Maybe that makes it a good California book. Because so much of life out there is make-believe. It’s all cocktail-party talk, deals that vanish, and early enthusiasms that fade away—all smoke and fantasy.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of person would read a book like that one and what would he think? It’s completely schized out. Half of the book is complaining about all the terrible things I was forced to do. The other half says how much I love doing all those terrible things. In publishing, I guess they figure that half a truth is better than no truth at all. To me, it’s still a lie.
Finally David Winters and Mel Mandel found a movie I could do. It began its life as a proposed comedy album—Linda Lovelace for President—and the idea became a movie.
But not the kind of movie I had done in the past. Oh, no, not that! This was going to be a really first-rate comedy, the kind of picture that Carole Lombard once did. Top comedy writers, men like Chuck McCann, were going to be consultants. The producer-director was Arthur Marks, a man involved with putting the Perry Mason shows on television. And my salary was going to be a payment of $25,000 against a percentage of the profits.
Before signing the contract, David and I went over every detail of the movie with Arthur Marks. The sex issue came up during our first discussion and it was settled at once.
“How far will you go?” I was asked. “Will you do soft-core sex scenes?”
“No.”
“She’s not doing anything like that any more,” David spoke up. “Never again.”
“Fine. Now, just let me know this: nudity or no? We get the nudity business cleared up now, there’ll be no hassles later on.”
“No nudity,” I said.
“Fine,” I was told. “No problem.”
So we were going to make a big color comedy about a certain Linda Lovelace running for the office of President of the United States. Without nudity and without sex, but with all the comic talent that money could buy. Not only was I signed as the star of the movie, David was signed to be co-producer.
I see now that something was going on between David and myself. Or maybe something was not going on. Whatever, we weren’t as close emotionally as we had once been. Most evenings we found ourselves going over to the Playboy mansion where David would play backgammon. That way we didn’t have to talk much. Things weren’t perfect. But I didn’t realize how far apart we really were until we started making the movie.
From the first day of shooting, I realized the movie was dumb. One of the dumbest movies ever made. None of that high-priced talent ever showed up. The script was something you laughed at, not with. But at least nothing dirty was coming down. At first.
Then one morning we had finished shooting and were sitting down for lunch.
Director Arthur Marks came over to us.
“Okay, Linda,” he said, “get ready for the fuck-and-suck scenes.”
“What?”
I waited for David Winters to stand up and defend me against this idiotic suggestion. I could almost hear him say, “Mr. Marks, what are you talking about?” Yes, I could almost hear him say that—almost but not quite, because David never said a word. The co-producer of the movie turned to me and shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
For about one second I was furious. Then disappointed. Then heartbroken. Then finished, just done in. I looked at this man who had made me feel like such a human being. For almost a year he had been my knight in shining armor, my slayer of California dragons, my last line of defense against the sharpies and the conmen and the sleaze artists. This was the same man who had called Chuck Traynor a complete degenerate. And now, in a single instant, he did a one-eighty, a total turn-around.
I ran from him toward my trailer. Dolores was there to comfort me, to listen as I said the same thing over and over again, “I can’t believe it; I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
“Take it easy,” Dolores told me. “Linda, you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, not ever again.”
Oh, I needed to hear that. Especially when David came back to explain everything to me: I would only have to do it in this movie; they weren’t going to show everything, not all the details; they were just going to show part of it.
This time I didn’t go along with them. This time I refused. They went on shooting the movie, as I knew they would. And they went on calling it a “sex comedy” although they weren’t supplying any comedy, and I wasn’t supplying any sex.
The issue came up just one more time. We were in Kansas, filming on location. And again Arthur Marks came up to me.
“Linda, you’ll have to take off your clothes for this next scene.”
“I’m not taking my clothes off.”
“You misunderstand me. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you to take off your clothes. We’re doing the sex scenes next.”
“Then do them without me. I’m not doing any sex scenes.”
“You’re fired.”
“Good.”
“You’ll never work in movies again.”
I walked off the set then and went back to my hotel room. I was sure they would come to their senses. But then the pressure started. From David, from my new lawyer, from accountants, from everyone. They kept telling me I would have to go along. If I didn’t, I’d be guilty of walking off a set and I’d be blacklisted in the business. And they quoted from my contract. Clause Four: Arthur Marks will supervise production and will exercise creative and artistic control of the film. Linda Lovelace will follow his direction.
I hate to have to admit that I wound up compromising a little. No sex scenes. But some nudity.
As the movie was coming to an end, so were David Winters and myself. And it was not an easy end. It was, in fact, violent. He beat me up. But I don’t want to go into the details here because that was just an incident, not typical of our year together. My love for David was a perfect bubble, but bubbles do burst.
twenty-one
And then I met my husband. I’d rather not tell you his name because he’s already gone through enough trouble. You’d be surprised how people react when they learn your wife was once a person named Linda Lovelace.
I thank God I was able to make love to my husband. After this whole ordeal, I found myself disliking all men on sight. I still distrust most men instinctively. It was a great surprise to learn there was one man I wanted to love, a man I could actually enjoy making love to. I still consider this a small miracle.
My husband is a strong man. He has had to be. The minute someone recognizes me or discovers who his wife is, the remarks begin. He also happens to be an old-fashioned man, the kind who believes you’re supposed to defend your woman’s honor. Defending the honor of a Linda Lovelace can be a full-time occupation.
My husband is someone I knew when we were both young. To him, I will always be the former Linda Boreman, not the former Linda Lovelace. We got together just as I was coming down from my year with David Winters. He saw me as a confused young woman wearing see-through blouses, trying to live the life of a Hollywood star. By this time I had learned how hard it was to escape my past. All my advisers were telling me that since I couldn’t escape my past, I should make peace with it. Since everyone expected me to be a certain way, then that’s the way I should be.
I didn’t know what to do.
I needed to hear another voice, and that voice belonged to the man who was to become my husband and the father of our child. In the beginning, he volunteered to help me sort through the financial debris of my life, and I accepted that offer gratefully.
He went through all my records. Then he wrote down two long lists of numbers, added them up, compared them, stared at them in disbelief.
“How much money do I have?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Well, Linda, it looks as though you owe about fifty thousand dollars.”
“I owe fifty thousand?”
“Give or take a few thousand,” he said. “A lot of money came in over the past couple of years but a lot more went out.”
I had to go back to work so that’s what I did. And whatever I did after this, whatever project I became involved in, it always seemed to be a replay of what had already come down.
Just one example. The people who had produced an enormously successful R-rated movie, Emanuelle, had been talking to me about starring in a movie called Laurie. The up-front money would be $50,000, enough to clean up my debts, and there would be more to follow. R-rated didn’t sound good to me but it sounded better than X-rated.
And this time there would be no doubt, no confusion. My husband-to-be sat through the conferences and meetings. All hard-core sex was out. Nudity was out. This time there was no doubt about it, no fuzzy areas.
Oh, this time I had high hopes. The script they showed me was about the size of an issue of TV Guide. It was a beautiful love story about a woman who was deeply in love with her husband and they share a great adventure. I was cast as an anthropologist studying the Maya Indians on a South Pacific island, Zamboanga.
However, by the time we got to Rome, the script had grown. Now it was as large as the Manhattan phone book. It went from a beautiful thing to pure sleaze. It had me going to bed with twelve different people, including one transvestite. It had me masturbating with camera lenses. Being with fags. Being with lesbians. Yeccccchhhhhhh!
I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was simple typecasting. I had once been a sexual commodity, and that’s what everyone wanted me to be forever. If I had started out as someone else—if I had begun as, say, an Elizabeth Taylor—no one would ever have asked me to do the things that everyone was now asking me to do. Nor would they take an Elizabeth Taylor from a movie like National Velvet and then ask her to make love to a camera lens.
When we got to Rome, I told them sorry but I wasn’t going to do any of that stuff. Instead of rewriting the script, they moved me from a leading role to a lesser role. They hired another actress for the lead, someone more willing to follow their script. Now I found myself playing a pregnant woman who waves goodbye to her husband as he goes off to study the Mayas in Zamboanga.
For my husband-to-be, this was all an education. He had lived his life as a working man and he had no idea what kind of lives movie people led. He learned. He learned one night when we were invited to have dinner with the director and his wife. In their hotel room after dinner, the man started speaking.
“We must really get to know each other better,” he said. “All four of us. So that we can work better on the movie.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said.
“Yes, it is so important,” he went on, “that we all be involved with each other … intimately.”
“Yes, it is important that we learn how each of us touches and feels.” He reached out and touched my hand, lightly. “If you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know just what you mean,” I said. “But we’re very tired now and must get some sleep.”
Later, when I explained to my husband-to-be what was coming down, he was angry and offended. I told him this was the way that everyone in movies behaved; this was the way they were. He couldn’t believe me then, but he believes me now.
Then we were given still other script changes. Now cast as the pregnant wife, I suddenly found myself locked in a room with two homosexuals, saying the most idiotic things imaginable. I wrote the director a short note complaining about the changes and saying that his writing talent seemed to be suffering in the tropical heat. He fired me on the spot, and we caught the next plane back to the States.
twenty-two
That was the end, my last picture show, the final starring role for Linda Lovelace. There would be another venture, a deservedly short-lived sex farce in Las Vegas, something called My Daughter’s Rated X. And then, nothing.
Oh, other movies were offered to me, are still offered to me, but there is always a catch. Always the catch.
The patterns didn’t change. I would go into a big office, and men wearing business suits and ties would treat me, with respect. They would describe their new movie project and it would sound like a beautiful love story or a screamingly funny comedy. There would be meeting after meeting. The ties would come off and the collars would be loosened. At each meeting the story would change slightly. All of a sudden there would be a nude scene, then another. And a sex scene. Soft-core, of course. Then hard-core, maybe just one hard-core scene. Or two. And by the time anyone ever saw a movie camera, we’d all be knee-deep in garbage. And somewhere along the line I’d have to tell the men in their business suits to take a hike.
There were other propositions, as well. The possible three-picture contract if I would just give so-and-so a sample of my wares. The network show if I’d go to bed with Mister Big. The comedy that would be written just after I deep-throated the director.
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