Spotlight on Amber Lynn

Amber Lynn at 'Golden Goddesses' Book Launch

The following excerpts are extracted from chapter 22 of Golden Goddesses titled Amber Lynn: The Blonde Panther:

     Orange County, California generally conjures images prevalent in the popular TV show by the same name depicting affluent white privilege, texting teens languishing on perfectly groomed beaches ambivalent to the sun’s harmful rays while surfer boys gauge the wave action in anticipation of their next big adventure. Growing up in the OC for Laura Lynn Allen however, was anything but idyllic or opulent. After her parents’ complicated break-up at age three, Lynn was placed in foster care for a period of four years at which time her mother convalesced in a hospital following a mental breakdown. Tragically, at age seven and shortly after Lynn finally left her foster home, her mother was killed in an automobile accident leaving Laura to be placed under adoptive guardianship.
     As she grew into an attractive young woman, Lynn took advantage of the omnipresent sunshine and mild temperatures offered by the allure of the Orange County coastline. With her ultra tanned skin, precocious sex appeal, and bleach blonde hair, Amber set her sights on a modeling contract while destiny seemed to be in her corner in 1983 when she crossed paths with Althea Flynt, wife of the magazine mogul, Larry Flynt at one of West Hollywood’s prestigious nightclubs.
     After modeling for Hustler and Penthouse, the natural next step was a meeting with the successful west coast director, Bobby Hollander. Hollander cast Lynn in her first film Personal Touch 111 (1983) with Bunny Bleu and Lisa DeLeeuw.
     “When I got out of the [foster] home and went back to my mother, within that year of returning home, my mother was killed in a car accident in front of me. My life was spared because I was thrown from the car. I was seconds and inches from dying and I witnessed my mother’s death. I was almost decapitated in the car. This all happened by the time I was seven and a half years old. I suffer from PTSD and there was a kind of a huge splitting in my childhood. That’s what children do when they suffer from traumatic events because they are too young to interpret. They split so that they don’t go into shock. I didn’t find this out until years later in therapy and I was able to leave myself to create a character and be someone completely different. Now in my mid-forties when I look back at it squarely, even with all of the recovery, it’s still huge. In my memory, I had a short relationship with my mother, but a few things my mother had said to me always stuck. Her words formed me on the very little information that mattered. My mother was a Lithuanian Jew. She had wanted me to marry once and she wanted me to be a wife before I was a mother. On these little things, I rely.”

     “When I came into the industry, I was a kid. I was escaping from all of that past. I was so ready by the time I got on the road to come to L.A. and be an actor to get the hell out of what had happened to me as anyone could imagine. I was going into modeling and got into the industry by accident. I had come to Los Angeles from Orange County where I had been modeling to get into the magazine side of modeling. I wound up getting involved with Hustler and Club and Penthouse Magazines. There was a photographer named Jay Stephen Hick who shot me for Penthouse and that was my focus. These people separated the model from the porn actress. At that time, it was very important that you were separated. Girls who modeled for Men’s magazines didn’t necessarily do porn and now they are kind of required to do so much more than what we did.”

       “John Leslie’s death changed my idea about doing this interview because his passing triggered many memories and it triggered the first time I met John. I was going to do a film for the late Bobby Hollander who was actually the man who discovered me and got me into the industry. I went over to meet Bobby Hollander for a go see, to talk about a part in a film where it was planned for me to do a single, pretty girl scene. It was not sex and it was not supposed to be hardcore or so it was promoted to me. I was just a magazine model, but I guess he had seen me in a magazine so I went there and he pulled out a pipe and I got loaded with him. It was the first time I had ever experienced smoking cocaine. The next day I was on a [porn] set and I made my first movie. 

     There were drugs involved and they were definitely used as a ploy. The first time I smoked cocaine I had no idea what I was doing. I thought that I was smoking grass. I had done grass in bongs but I had never done freebase. I didn’t even know it existed. Now, you can’t rape the willing. Let’s just be honest. You can’t rape the willing and I was willing. You make the decision. The decision is laid out right in front of you no matter how the manipulation occurs. You have a free choice to walk across that line or not. You have to take responsibility and accountability. That’s the deal. Were there manipulations? Of course there were. That’s business, in all business. The bottom line though, good or bad, is that’s how I got in.” 

     “I’ll never forget the day I set eyes on Jamie. He came into the make-up room where he would always hang out and I was sitting in the chair. Here he was this older, revered actor in the industry and they were making a big deal of him. He had this beautiful curly hair which I loved. To this day men with curly hair is one of my things. He was very elegant and this wonderful talented actor. I was just sold on it all.

     When I met Jamie Gillis, I just thought he was a nice Jewish boy and he was. He was crazy and sexually deviant, and all of those things that other people have talked about he could absolutely be, but he was also a brilliant man and he was really the love of my life in that respect. I was very young and Jamie knew everything about me. He knew where I’d come from, he knew what had happened. When I got into the industry I didn’t want people to know who I was and where I’d come from because then people would always judge me as the kid from the broken home, or that I’d come out of foster homes. I didn’t want that. I wanted this bright, shiny persona. That’s what the industry gave me the ability to do. I was able to recreate something new and exciting that didn’t have all of this heartbreak and tragedy. That’s why I got into that industry and just took off."