'Golden Goddesses' of Porn Light Up Hustler Hollywood

By Jared Rutter, XBIZ.com

Fri, Nov 30 2012 12:00pm PST

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The years rolled away Thursday night at Hustler Hollywood on Sunset Strip when a crowd of about 200 porn-lovers gathered to celebrate the release of a new book. Golden Goddesses by Jill C. Nelson is a collection of interviews with divas who lit up the XXX movie screen from 1968 to 1985, considered the Golden Age of Porn.

The hefty tome — 900-plus pages, $50 cover price — covers 25 women, and more than half of them showed up at the Hustler store to sign copies and meet fans.

In no particular order: Kitten Natividad, Rhonda Jo Petty, Kay Parker, Serena, Annie Sprinkle, Laurie Holmes, Nina Hartley, Veronica Hart, Ginger Lynn, Amber Lynn, Christy Canyon, Kelly Nichols, and late arrival Sharon Mitchell. Also: screenwriter Raven Touchstone, one of the few non-performers interviewed, who’s about to publish a memoir of her own.

Nelson, who earned porn-historian cred as co-author (with Jennifer Sugar) of John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches, seemed relieved that the book’s unveiling had finally arrived. “Now it’s fun,” she laughed nervously, looking back at three-and-half years of hard work. “But I think it’s gonna be fine.”

For the stars it seemed like old home week. Kay Parker oozed class, warmth and charm, as ever. Veronica Hart appeared on the arm of her Las Vegas high school beau. Annie Sprinkle had a brief moment of panic when she couldn’t find her lipstick, usually stashed in her capacious cleavage. She relaxed when it turned up in her clutch purse.

The women sat behind tables at the front of the store, and fans — who mostly seemed to be in the same age group — moved down the line with their copies of the book, much as they might have back in the day at CES in the Sahara Hotel in Vegas.

There were quite a few guests from the same period, including directors Bob Chinn and Cass Paley, actors John Seeman and Richard Pacheco, and still photographers Kenji and Joel Sussman. It was Sussman who snapped the book’s stunning cover photo of Serena, “in my backyard in 1974.”

Attendees from a later porn generation included Debi Diamond, director Ernest Greene and actor-director Luc Wylder with significant other Alexandra Silk.

Bill Margold, who like many of the stars was there at X’s beginning, emceed the proceedings, finally getting the chatty crowd to quiet down enough to hear him read a letter from interviewee Gloria Leonard. He called the event “a once in a lifetime experience” full of “a whole lot of love for people that we love.”

Then he turned the mic over to Nelson, who read a few excerpts from the book’s introduction. She was effusive in her praise of her subjects, whose current ages, she said, range from 46 to 76. “This is a really good representation of the era I wrote about.”

Then she paid them the ultimate tribute: “I would go into a foxhole with any one of these women, any day of the week. They are awesome.”

Another round of star appearances was scheduled for the following night at Larry Edmunds Bookstore on Hollywood Blvd.

12/1/2012

09:24 AM PST

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I Meet The Golden Goddesses

Adult FYI --Gene Ross

Hollywood Boulevard’s known as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I had mine shattered years ago by a thick-calved, heavy breasted Irish beauty name Erin.

But that story doesn’t count in this town loaded with wannabe actors and porn stars trying to make it big. I ran into a few of them Friday night – female porn stars, that is - at The Larry Edmunds Bookstore in Hollywood for a signing.

They’ve already made it big. Jill Nelson, a housewife-turned writer from Canada, a few years ago wrote a book about the late John Holmes subtitled A Life Measured in Inches. And now she chronicles the story of these children of porn’s golden age of the Seventies, over a spanse of 900+ pages in soft cover.

Nelson calls her latest work appropriately enough, Golden Goddesses. I’m sure more than a few fans came out of curiosity in the light drizzle of the early evening to see whether the panel collectively looked like Estelle Getty from Golden Girls. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that this was mostly an AARP crowd of porn fans. The kind that still buys their porn, judging by the fact they were more than willing to plunk down fifty bucks for Nelson's book. And one guy, I swear, was wearing a fez.

Expecting caskets and colostomy bags, they may have been sadly disappointed, though. Kay Parker at 68 looks hardly ready for mothballs and cedar closets, while Rhonda Jo Petty once known as the Farrah Fawcett of porn still has more oomph than women half her age.

Over the course of the evening which was getting as crowded as an elevator, Petty told a story about a lawsuit because she, perhaps, looked a little too much like Farrah. Except Petty, tanned and wearing her blonde hair in a French twist, has the last laugh now that Farrah’s tucked away in the dirt.

From where I was standing- I couldn’t tell- maybe it was Veronica Hart [or Annie Sprinkle] relating the story about some guy who walked up to her on the street one time and gave her the holy-hell-what-for, for being in porn. She gave it right back to him for being an A-hole. The guy backed off and apologized.

Which basically illustrates the fact that Nelson’s book, besides being copious biography, is also about choices. The Golden Goddesses were glad they did it and wouldn’t change a thing.

Now that Gypsy Boots is gone, Hollywood needs a resident kook and seems to have picked one up in Bill Margold. I’m only saying this because the bear-ish Margold looks crazy, what with the hippie hair the hermit beard and the Hawaiian shirts, but he sure knows his porn history.

Margold, who emceed the evening, illustrated with stories about how mean and nasty LA Vice cops truly were before the Freeman decision and how Serena was one of their favorite targets.

Serena, who's featured on the cover, has a set of choppers on her and one wonders whether she and Roy Karch share the same orthodontist. Karch, also a product of the porn Seventies, is no longer directing. He’s become a tour guide of the Hollywood highways and byways, and he sports a tour guide smile that’s positively preternatural. Picture Liberace’s piano keys in someone else’s mouth and you’ve got Karch.

“Yours is the book I’m dying to read,” says Karch who lives in the neighborhood. I think Karch is suggesting I know where the bodies are buried. I tell Karch I’m now in professional wrestling, and I think for a minute he bought it.

Someone in the crowd brings up a question about one of the old Pussycat Theaters, and Margold immediately goes into a spiel about how the porn handprints on the sidewalk, ala Grauman’s Chinese Theater, “belong to us.”

I think I’ll let Free Speech and Diane Duke fight that battle as well since they’ve done such a remarkable job already with Measure B.

A few others from the industry - I won’t say who - give me the nudge and the wink as if to say they know that Duke has taken Free Speech to a whole new level of sleight of hand.

“You know that whole Mr. Marcus press conference was bullshit,” I’m told.

“Marcus wanted to take his story directly to the performers and Diane Duke wouldn’t let him.”

You hear so many choice things at these gatherings. Meanwhile, former kid actor, Scotty Schwartz, now in the memorabilia business, points out a nearby apartment building. There he once played a dead body in a $20,000 movie composed of a kitchen, a living room, a trash bag and a graveyard. I ask Scotty if it ever made it to the IMAX experience.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

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Golden Goddesses (and Their Book) Grace Hustler Hollywood

They'll also be appearing tonight at Larry Edmunds Bookstore in Hollywood €”but you'll have to buy a book to get in!

By Mark Kernes

Nov 30th, 2012 04:45 PM

BEVERLY HILLS—It was a night that's unlikely ever to be recreated. We're talking about the gathering of 15 adult stars from the classic era—porn's "golden age"—to help promote the most recent book about them, Jill Nelson's Golden Goddesses, a tome of nearly 950 pages that, according to Nelson, took more than three years to write, and contains the life stories of 25 classic performers.

Former talent agent Bill Margold served as Master of Ceremonies for the event, which drew a capacity crowd to the Hustler Hollywood store at 8920 Sunset Boulevard, and just trying to get the actresses to stop signing autographs briefly and take part in the short book-release ceremony seemed more like a job of herding cats.

The "goddesses" present for the event included Serena, Amber Lynn, Ginger Lynn, Laurie Holmes (widow of John), Kay Parker, Veronica Hart, Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Christy Canyon, Kelly Nichols, Sharon Mitchell, Rhonda Jo Petty, softcore star Kitten Natividad, Exhausted director Julia St. Vincent and screenwriter Raven Touchstone—but that's hardly all.

Spotted in the crowd were actresses Tori Welles, Kelly O'Dell, Alexandra Silk and Debi Diamond; actors Richard Pacheco, John Seeman, Luc Wylder and Scotty Schwartz; directors Bob Chinn (perhaps best remembered for his "Johnny Wadd" series), Loretta Sterling, formerly of Totally Tasteless Video, Ernest Greene, Wesley Emerson and Dana Dane of Erocktavision.

Calling it "the best program ever created from the adult industry," and noting that Sprinkle had deemed it "the ultimate pajama party," Margold introduced each of the actresses to the crowd, which pressed in close for photo (and video) opportunities that they likely would never see again.

One actress who couldn't be in attendance was Gloria Leonard, but she had sent a letter expressing her feelings about the (then-impending) gathering, which Margold read to the crowd.

"I am very proud and humbled to be included in Jill Nelson's definitive book about the golden age of adult movies," the letter began. "Hey, back in the day, they were movies, shot on either 16 or 35 film. I have nothing against video, but celluloid provided a certain depth of field and skill by all involved at the time... Along with my many sisters-at-arms, I'm sure there were many times when they were overjoyed by the results of a film, and others when they wished they could hide under their seat. Jill has compiled a rare homage to the women who did it all, and I am flattered that she chose to include me. And to all the other brave, ballsy babes whom Jill selected and some who were not, due to space constraints—no doubt perhaps there'll be a Volume 2—all I can say is, being in the adult industry gave me more than I can list here: Opportunities to travel, meet great people, make some lifetime friends, have my own TV show, speak at colleges and universities, and much more."

Margold then introduced Nelson, who thanked everyone for appearing "to support this book and to support all of you ladies who are legends in this industry," and Hustler for sponsoring the event.

Fearing that she'd give one or more of the actresses short shrift if she read some excerpts from her book's individual chapters, she instead quoted a section from the book's introduction—which she accomplished more easily with Kay Parker acting as her bookstand while she read.

"My idea for each woman to share her own story openly was surprisingly met with a positive reception when I pitched it to a few of the females I'd gotten to know," she stated. "I remember speaking at first with Rhonda Jo Petty in the spring of 2009. Petty was enthusiastic about the concept and encouraged me to get started. In September 2009, I packed up my little black Yaris on a sunny Sunday morning, and traveled east to Montreal to interview Seka."

Nelson continued, describing that first meeting with Seka and her husband, following with, "Afterwards, Seka promised to put me in touch with some of her legendary girlfriends: Kay Parker, Veronica hart, Gloria Leonard and Annie Sprinkle. True to her word, by the end of September, I had established interview dates with all four ladies. One thing led to another, and soon I had enough material and additional contacts to begin piecing together a chronological history of the lives and times of these fascinating women."

After Nelson finished reading her excerpts, the actresses continued signing autographs until it was time for a group photo-op, and later, some champagne and the cutting of a ceremonial cake which had been carved and decorated in the shape of an open Golden Goddesses book.

It was a congenial evening, with many "old-timers" renewing acquaintances with people they hadn't seen in decades, and an ample crowd of "newbies" getting their first exposure to performers they'd probably jacked off to as teenagers.

The festivities had begun well before the official 7:30 starting time, and when we left shortly after 9 pm, the party was still going fairly strong—and like Margold, we too can't wait for a Volume 2.

As we previously noted, a second signing will take place tonight at Larry Edmunds Bookshop in the heart of Hollywood. There will be readings, a slide show, and a discussion of the '70s Golden Age with several of the "Golden Goddesses." Larry Edmunds Bookshop is located at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The signing will begin at 7:30 pm. Seating will be limited, but attendance can be guaranteed with advance purchase of Golden Goddesses while space is available. Call Larry Edmunds Bookshop for details at 323-463-3273.