Read The Other Hollywood Online
Authors: Legs McNeil,Jennifer Osborne,Peter Pavia
No condom?
Fine.
TOM LANGE (LAPD DETECTIVE)
:
We knew Holmes was dying. The only reason we went to see him was that we felt it would be irresponsible if we didn’t because he still had information that could have shed light on what happened with these murders, and you’re not going to find out unless you go ask. Holmes had always played a game with us. He played a game his whole life, I think.
LAURIE HOLMES
:
I’d been tipped off that the cops were on the way. I cut out of work and got to the hospital fast. You never knew what state of mind John was going to be in; some days he was all there, and some days he thought Ronald Reagan was outside with a bomb.
I didn’t want them to trick John into saying anything. John could have spun a whole tale on something that would have come down on someone else that wasn’t true. I told him the cops were on the way, and I said, “Don’t say anything. Just act like you’re out of it, and I’ll cover for you.”
TOM LANGE
:
It was, quite frankly, a waste of time, but as responsible law enforcement officers following up on a very brutal quadruple murder, we had to at least try to see if on his deathbed he’d give us some information.
Of course he didn’t. It was all nonsense.
LAURIE HOLMES
:
John moaned and groaned the whole time. About ten minutes later, Detective Lange turned to me and said, “What about you? Do you know anything?”
I said, “I don’t know anything.” I could just see John looking at me with that
shakes-head-no
look. I didn’t know anything, and they would twist anything he would say, anyway. He was worried for me at that point.
TOM LANGE
:
We had to wheel Holmes out beneath a staircase. He was in quite a bit of agony. He wanted a cigarette, and he couldn’t smoke in his room. So we got him a cigarette. He said, “You know, I always respected you guys, and I played a cop, and the LAPD is the greatest law enforcement outfit in the world.” And on and on. It was a big stroke job.
He knew why we were there, and he wasn’t about to answer any direct questions.
LAURIE HOLMES
:
They left disgusted. Oh, well.
CICCIOLINA
:
This was the time when I started my relationship with Jeff Koons, the famous American artist. He’s like Andy Warhol; he makes art, like painting or sculptures, and he’s very talented. He was courting me, and he knew I did this scene with John Holmes. So when John died, he called me from the States, and he asked me if I knew that John Holmes died of AIDS?
I said I didn’t; they told me that the cause of his death was colon cancer. But Jeff told me that he’d been informed by friends in the hospital that the real cause was AIDS. So he faxed me the report from the hospital, and it really did read: Cause of Death—Related to HIV.
LAURIE HOLMES
:
John did get in touch with his brothers and sisters during his life but just toward the end. He sent his dog—our dog, Charlie—to his sister. His mother was trying to get him and his half brother, David, to
make amends. John’s mom had made a mistake and tried to rectify it later on. They were good people.
CICCIOLINA
:
I got really scared, but I went to take a test, and I was okay. Later that year Jeff and I got married in Budapest, and we went for our honeymoon in Germany, where we conceived our baby, Ludwig. Well, throughout our relationship, which lasted a couple of years, we both took tests every three or four months, and everything was fine. So I guess I’m fine.
LAURIE HOLMES
:
John didn’t want a funeral. He was adamant about it. The funeral he did have wasn’t really a funeral. He was cremated. I viewed his body before they put him in the oven. I put a picture of Jesus on his heart and watched them wheel him in.
I asked them, “Why is he green?”
They said, “That’s the decay.”
When we got his ashes, his mother and his half brother and I went around the islands on a boat out of Oxnard called the
China Clipper
, and I slept with John’s ashes that night. I didn’t want anybody to steal them. His brother David had drilled holes in the urn and put tape over them; around 4:30 or 5:00 that morning—before it got light—we all got up, peeled the tape off and tossed it over. We didn’t say anything; our thoughts were inside us.
But you know, there was no funeral. I wasn’t aware that a memorial service was going to be held until I heard it on the news, after the fact, you know?
Nobody invited his widow.
BALTIMORE/LOS ANGELES
1988–1989
TIM CONNELLY
:
I was making a movie in Sam Kinison’s old house in the Hollywood Hills; Ron Jeremy was directing it. We’d been fucking all day and doing lines with Sam—off a mirror that had John Belushi’s face on it—when we heard that the Hal Freeman conviction was overturned on appeal.
It’s kind of ironic: There we were, in the middle of a shoot, when we found out that we could
legally
shoot, ha, ha, ha.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
, AUGUST 25, 1988: SUPREME COURT EXONERATES FILMMAKER OF PANDERING
:
“Pornographic filmmakers cannot be convicted of pandering for paying actors who engage in sex acts in movies, the California Supreme Court ruled today.
“Sexual acts in filmmaking are protected free speech rights, the court unanimously held in overturning the conviction of Hollywood filmmaker Harold Freeman on five counts of pandering in the film
Caught From Behind II.
”
BUD LEE
:
When Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles were defeated in their attempts to prosecute Hal Freeman on the grounds of pandering, that’s what enabled us to move down from San Francisco. Because then, to make movies, all we had to do was buy insurance and get our insurance certificate to the permit office. Now we were the same as everybody else.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
, DECEMBER 24, 1988: REJECTED LEGAL ASSAULT ON SEX FILMS APPEALED
:
“The district attorney’s office is trying to revive a novel legal assault on pornography—rejected by the California Supreme Court in a case involving Hollywood sex filmmaker Harold Freeman—by appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
JOHN WATERS
:
I knew that Traci Lords was the top porno star at the time. I had never seen her in a movie, but I knew about her, and I knew about the scandal. That had just happened.
At the time I was casting
Cry-Baby
. It was my first Hollywood movie; I was with Universal, and it was actually the only time I had much power there—because
Hairspray
was perceived as a big hit. I had accidentally made a family movie.
GINGER LYNN
:
Not long after I had amnesia before the grand jury, the feds told me they were investigating me for tax evasion. So they kept their word—if I didn’t help them, they would make my life difficult.
Well, I had always paid my taxes, so I wasn’t worried.
TOM BYRON
:
Ginger’s tax trouble started the same time mine did. First of all, her lawyer fucking
put her on the stand
. I never went to trial; I fucking pled out, you know?
JOHN WATERS
:
Suddenly all the studios want to see what I want to do. And all of them want to let me make
Cry-Baby
, right? So Imagine Films did
Cry-Baby
, with Brian Grazer producing. I told him I wanted to use Traci Lords, and he said, “Fine.”
If I’d been any other director at Universal, they probably wouldn’t have let me use Traci.
GINGER LYNN
:
I’d paid my taxes, so they spent five years—and I heard one man was paid a hundred thousand dollars per year—to watch every movie I’d ever made, to look at every layout, and read every interview. In those days, it wasn’t mandatory that companies send 1099 tax forms to employees; they could send the records to the government. Most companies did; a few didn’t. I ended up going to trial over two thousand and eighty-seven dollars and four cents—and they didn’t want me to pay.
TOM BYRON
:
Ginger went on the stand and said that the reason she didn’t keep her fucking files straight was because she was on coke all the time. And, “Oh, I’m the poor porn victim.” Consequently she was found guilty and was subjected to the mandatory daily drug testing. But for her sentencing she hired my lawyer. She did thirty days’ probation, and then she had to go to rehab. But she ended up going to jail because she came up dirty on the drug test.
GINGER LYNN
:
I was put on probation, and then some things happened—it was directly related to the entire fiasco, mess, charade—whatever the hell you wanna call it.
I ended up spending four months and seventeen days in federal prison. How was it? I have a lot more character now, ha, ha, ha—you thought I
could lick pussy good before? You should’ve seen me after I got out of prison!
I was in with murderers and rapists and weapons dealers and drug dealers, you know? Two girls got knocked up while I was in there. I was the only other white girl there. I was fortunate enough to have several women who I did favors for, who took care of me and protected me. You know, you learn to assume the position very quickly. I was not raped. I was not injured.
But I saw a girl—who was a snitch—taken to a room by several girls; she was sodomized with a toilet brush, and one of her eyes was put out.
It was an experience I wouldn’t wanna go through again.
JOHN WATERS
:
Traci read for me a couple times. She came in the first time looking great. She had on—very smart—no makeup, a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt. Traci looks mighty good in a T-shirt. But she’s very quiet and very shy, the opposite of a porno star.
DAVE FRIEDMAN
:
I said to the attorney for the Adult Film Association, “We’ve got to strike back. This little broad [Traci Lords] fooled a lot of people. People are in real serious trouble now. How did she get a California driver’s license? How did she get a passport using this phony ID? She is capable of a misdemeanor and a felony—using phony ID to get a passport and a license.”
And the lawyer says, “Oh, well, we don’t wanna turn her against us.”
I said, “How much more damage can she do?”
Against my better judgment, I didn’t go on the
CBS News
and say it. The lawyer talked me out of it.
RUBY GOTTESMAN
:
Now I stop sellin’ Traci’s movies; all the movies are comin’ back from my customers. I’m gettin’ back a couple thousand of her movies, right? I’m givin’ ’em back to the manufacturers. And I had maybe a hundred left that I couldn’t give back.
STEVE ORENSTEIN (RUBY GOTTESMAN’S PARTNER)
:
I didn’t really know Ruby Gottesman until he offered me a job. Jeff Levine, who I worked with at CPLC, went out on his own and was doing business with Ruby. Jeff called me and said, “Ruby’s looking for someone to run his warehouse at X-Citement Video. I think you’d be good; if you’re interested, give him a call.” Ruby was running his company mostly out of his house; he wanted someone to run the warehouse and take over some of the buying—things like that.
RUBY GOTTESMAN
:
One day this Japanese guy comes in—his name was
Steve Suzuki, like the motorcycle. Nice American and everything. He says, “You got any, uh, Traci Lords movies?”
I says, “I got ’em, but I can’t sell ’em to you. It’s against the law.”
He says, “Yeah, but I’m sending them to Hawaii—nobody’ll know over there. Then they’ll take ’em to Japan.”
STEVE ORENSTEIN
:
When I got the phone call about Traci, I dunno, my reaction was probably just that we had to deal with it, whatever that meant—make a decision about what to do with the stuff because as innocent as it was at the time, we really didn’t know what to do with it. The guys in Texas would return them, and the manufacturers wouldn’t take them back.
So we’d say, “Well, put ’em upstairs with the defectives.” And then along comes this guy, who says whatever he says to Ruby and convinces Ruby to sell them to him.
Remember, this was self-censorship. Nothing was coming down at this point, and everybody was pulling it from the shelves everywhere. And it wasn’t some “taboo” product. It was normal product that was being sold up until yesterday.
RUBY GOTTESMAN
:
So I take Steve Suzuki upstairs, and I sell him a hundred movies, right? For cash. Then what happens is, he says nothing and leaves.
STEVE ORENSTEIN
:
Steve Suzuki was actually a customer for a year or two—undercover for the LAPD. And I guess when the Traci Lords thing came down, he was in a joint investigation with the FBI. And since he was already a customer, he just started asking for all these things everywhere he did business.
RUBY GOTTESMAN
:
Then I get the call where Suzuki says, “Yeah, I’ll be there on Friday—just try to have as many Traci Lords movies as you can. I’ll take them all.”
And I hang up the phone, and I says, “This guy’s a cop.”
STEVE ORENSTEIN
:
I mean, I dealt with Steve Suzuki. That’s why they indicted me, too. At one point Ruby asked me to go upstairs and help Steve, and I said no. Then Ruby went up there, and I guess I just thought, “I’m being out of line. I guess I’ll go and do my job.” Whatever. I don’t know. It was like, “I guess I should go do it.”
RUBY GOTTESMAN
:
So I get rid of all the Traci Lords movies. But, sure enough, they come on Friday and bust me. I was drivin’ around, and I got a phone call, and a guy told me, “There’s twenty FBI agents at the Denny’s on the corner.”
So I pulled in, and there’s the FBI agents, lots of LAPD, and they’re all over the place like I was the most wanted, right? They put me in handcuffs, and some guy comes over and says, “You know, Ruby, you’re in big trouble.”
STEVE ORENSTEIN
:
I wasn’t even in the place when the cops showed up, so I don’t know what they did. I got a call after they were in there, and I called the attorney, who said, “Don’t go in. It’s Friday—and they like to arrest everyone on Friday.”
At this point they had already arrested Ruby, and that’s really who they wanted anyway. So I just went to the office and turned myself in. Again, it’s one of those usual things. They’re surprisingly all nice and everything, asking questions about the movies and the girls and that sort of thing.
DAVE FRIEDMAN
:
When Ruby got involved with the Traci Lords thing, of course I took his side on it. Even though Ruby’s a guy I don’t think too much of.
STEVE ORENSTEIN
:
Part of my plea bargain was that I was supposed to testify against Ruby. But I was never called as a witness.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
, JUNE 16, 1989: LORDS VIDEO AGENT CONVICTED OF CHILD PORNO CHARGES
:
“Holding that ‘the law is designed to protect children until they are adults,’ a federal judge Thursday convicted Van Nuys video distributor Rubin Gottesman of three child pornography charges stemming from the distribution of a trio of films in which teenage porn queen Traci Lords appeared.”
GINGER LYNN
:
Was I thinking about Traci while I was in prison? Not so much. I tried to keep a very positive attitude and surround myself with my friends, and I did that by writing a lot of letters. And you can make two phone calls a day. I called my friends, my family, my attorney. At one point, I called the
Wall Street Journal
. Some things happened that were really ugly, and between
Hard Copy
and the
Wall Street Journal
I was out quicker than I thought I would be.
Everybody wanted to know,
Why?
You know, I’m a little porn star. I wasn’t running the industry. I’m not some Mafia wife. I just fucked on film. I felt like the government’s sacrificial lamb.
BILL MARGOLD
:
What I think saved us in the long run was that, lo and behold,
Penthouse
discovered that they’d shot Traci under the false identification, and
Penthouse
then pulled out the other piece of identification that Traci had used—a passport, which implicated the federal government. I don’t think the government wanted to be implicated in child
pornography—and if Tracy had fooled them, they were as culpable as we were. Their neck was on the block. So all of a sudden the Traci Lords thing started to lose its ferocity.
GINGER LYNN
:
The last three months in prison, I was in Gateway, which is a halfway house. There were seven women, and the rest of them were men. I got out during the day to go on jobs. I had an audition to act on
NYPD Blue
. I was there under a different name; no one in prison knows my name because the guys can get to you.
Anyway, I walked into the studio, and I saw Traci Lords sitting there.
Now, I’m in prison at the time. I’m only out to go to this audition. And my heart’s beating so fast I can’t stand up. I go up and get the script, and I’m reading through it, and there’s one line that reads, “I wanna lick your lollipop.”
I put the script back on the desk, walked out, and called my agent. I said, “I’m not doing this.” It had nothing to do with that line about licking the lollipop, though. I was in shock that Traci was there.
My agent says, “Get back in there. Get the role first, then turn it down.”
So I go back in, I audition, and they put me on hold—which means they want me for the role. Now, I’ve never had this happen in my career, ever. So I take the script back to prison, and I’m running my dialogue with my bodyguard, who picks me up every day and takes me back to this place in Echo Park. I’m working really hard on it—and eventually I go before Steven Bochco and the entire team for a second audition, and they say, “The role is yours.”
For some reason, I was so hung up on the fact that I was doing time—and I was so angry at Traci—that I turned it down. I said, “You know what? I can’t do this. I don’t wanna say this line.”