Remembering Barbara Mills

In memory of Barbara Caron Mills, who would have been sixty-three today, I have reposted this excerpt from our interview in June 2010 which appeared in Barbara's chapter (2) of the book titled 'Eat, Read, Live.'

A well respected sexploitation actress, in 2010 Barbara Mills reflected on her history in adult pictures with an air of indifference and bemusement. She is best known for her exceptional thespian work in The Love Garden (1971), Blue Money (1972) and Gabriella, Gabriella first released in 1972.

Shortly after turning seventeen in 1968, Barbara left her home in Massachusetts and ventured to Venice Beach, California. Eventually, she established permanent roots there, along with her husband of more than forty years, Frank Mills. Drawn to its bohemian vibe and idiosyncratic lifestyle, Mills flourished in the relaxed beach community and continued to develop her artistic skills while accepting occasional work doing nude modeling and acting. Augmented by her long brunette mane and classic appeal, beautiful Barbara considered her employment in adult films a stepping stone that enabled her to pay the bills so she could focus on her primary love, painting.

At fifty-nine years old on December 15, 2010, Barbara Caron Mills passed away peacefully at her 'spa' home in Koh Samui surrounded by Frank and her loved ones. I interviewed Barbara in the summer of 2010 while she and Frank were visiting their daughter Carly in Venice, CA.

With beguiling charm, Barbara fondly reminisced about her life and years in adult entertainment and valued the charm of the era in which she worked. The following is a short excerpt from our interview.

      “Venice Beach has really always been an artistic community ever since its conception. Being that most of the streets were canals when they first built the city and then it was the Gay nineties and the Roaring twenties, and bathing beauties and muscle beaches started. It was crazy. There were a lot of poets: Ginsberg and Laura Lee Zanghetti lived down here and it evolved, but it has always stayed bohemian. So it’s a very comfortable place to live. It’s cold sometimes with the wind coming in off of the Pacific, but other than that, it’s a good place to be.”

      “In the beginning, I worked at Woolworth’s behind the soda fountain. It was horrible. I was just a messed up kid and I knew I had to go back to Massachusetts. I told my mother I wanted to come back. She was worried about me even though she let me go and we decided I was going to go to hairdressing school, so that’s what I did.”

I was back at home until my mother died in March. At that point, things got crazy. My grandparents were too old to take care of us. We were very close to my grandparents [my mother’s parents]. My father’s parents died young, when I was a baby, so I never really got to know them. My aunt and uncle were almost at the point of being too old to take care of us at the time, so they hired a housekeeper.

      “I met my husband Frank in 1969. Shortly after my mother died, I came out here and met him. He tried to meet me in Massachusetts; he was from Massachusetts too. He came back to Massachusetts to his brother’s high school reunion. Our mutual friend thought we’d be perfect together so Frank called me on the phone, and he sounded so pompous, you know. He did imbue me for a few years with ideas and some lofty intentions, but now he was in California trying to get into the film business. I didn’t want him to come to my dinky little town just to meet me. I ended up moving in next door to him three months later.

I looked at him and I said, ‘God damn, he looks like John Lennon.’

      “Frank got me work and he got me an agent. One of his neighbors, I forget her name, got me into modeling. I did quite well strictly modeling – and then came the Sexploitation films. It all started when the United States was allowed to show X-rated films, which was around 1968; right when I started. Hal Guthu was my agent’s name. He was a sweetheart. The last time I actually saw Hal was in 1972.”

      “I thought Chain Gang Women (1971) was really funny because it’s not my voice. They dubbed it. It was Christmas time and we had plans to go back to Massachusetts to visit our families so it has someone else’s voice and it’s really funny.”

      “Actually, sometimes I can remember things from back then and sometimes I can’t. I didn’t willingly hold onto any memories. There are some things in my past where I say, ‘I’ve got to remember this and I do.’ It was a job, after all. It wasn’t a career move; it wasn’t an art form per se. It was a job and it paid well and it left time for living. I enjoyed the people. And it wasn’t sexual.

I wasn’t crazy – I was completely nude in my film appearances but no penetration, no genitalia and no oral sex. That would have been stupid. If you’re going to sell it, you might as well keep your anonymity. They never tried to get me to do more.”

      “When I remember my former work in films, I believe we left behind a really free spirit. We weren’t condemned for what we did. We were sometimes greatly appreciated for our work. It was interesting. It was an innocent time, it wasn’t considered real.”
Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema,1968-1985 © 2012 Jill C. Nelson

Golden Goddesses coverage by What Up Hollywood

The following is an article posted at What Up Hollywood which includes one hour of video footage from our Golden Goddesses reunion event at Larry Edmunds bookshop last October. The evening featured appearances by Ginger Lynn, Kay Parker, Rhonda Jo Petty, Georgina Spelvin, Kitten Natividad, writer Raven Touchstone and adult film historian William Margold. Huge, heartfelt thanks to What Up Hollywood for covering and taping this event, and posting it on your website and youtube. :)

 

Sex Sirens of the Swinging Seventies Sign in at Famous Larry Edmunds Bookshop in Hollywood

Remember all those great adult movies of the 1970s, like “The Devil in Miss Jones”? If you didn’t ever watch movies “like that“, better skip this posting. But if you ever wondered whatever happened to those stunning ladies of yesteryear that you spent so much time watching in your miss-spent youth, then you should have been at Larry Edmunds Bookshop when a bevy of stars from adult film history came in to talk about their careers and their lives.

Ginger Lynn

A long discussion, led by author Jill Nelson, introduced 5 of what Jill calls “The Golden Goddesses”, the super stars of sex. Also on hand was Raven Touchstone who wrote screenplays for over 400 adult films. They all had actual stories, she insisted, although I have personally never met a guy who ever remembered much of the story line. The girls, yeah, they remember every luscious inch of them. Star Ginger Lynn remembers the hours she spent with Raven, creating the sex fantasies that made her films so appealing. Face it, you gotta have a script, a story that will tease, build tension, and then deliver the goods, just like any other movie. Raven Touchstone is the Queen of adult screenplay writers, with a boundless imagination.

Kitten Natividad

The ladies signing Jill Nelson’s book “Golden Goddesses“, included Rhonda Jo Petty, Kay Parker, Ginger Lynn, Kitten Natividad, and the legendary Georgina Spelvin. Also on hand to speak was Bill Margold who writes the great back page “Cinema Seen” for LA X…Press. Margold’s reviews of adult films are a hoot, he has covered the sex industry for decades, and he is one of the most entertaining chaps in Hollywood. He knows everyone, writers, producers, directors, all the girls, the guys, and most of all, the stories. As Nelson points out, behind the camera, when the filming is done, these guys and gals are mostly regular folks, with all the same drama, happiness, and challenges that we all face in life. Well, maybe a tad more drama.

A lively crowd listened to Nelson read some excerpts from her book, stories about each of the ladies who were present. Questions came from the audience, and memories and laughter from the film stars. Also on hand was Jim Dawson, local author, and national film reviewer for Velvet Magazine. He is also a spokesman for XRCO, the X-Rated Critics Organization. His great book on Bunker Hill is a must read for anyone who is interested in Los Angeles film history.

So you missed the event on October 16th? Couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse to slip away from the significant other for a couple hours? No problem, just strap yourself into the What Up Hollywood time machine, and watch the entire event. Larry Edmunds still has copies of “Golden Goddesses”, so get your copy before you go blind. At least you’ll have your memories….

Click Here to watch the event directly on youtube.

Click Here to go to Larry Edmunds website and blog.

William Margold Remembers Gloria Leonard in Cinema Seen

The following tribute is written by William Margold, adult film historian and long time friend, comrade and admirer of Gloria Leonard. The Cinema Seen piece will appear in the Feb 13, 2014 edition of L.A. Xpress. Bill sent his reflections along this morning and granted permission for this article to be posted here.

02-13-14

CINEMA SEEN  By William Margold

 

Death takes the life out of us.

I offer up this sobering thought because my own life has just lost an irreplaceable element of vitality by the name of GLORIA LEONARD.

She passed away from the ravaging effects of a massive stroke a few weeks ago, unforgivably alone in the relatively unpopulated paradise that is the west side of Hilo, Hawaii.
    The wondrous woman who was worthy of an audience 25 hours a day, didn’t even have a cat or a dog to lick her face when her body gave out, and she unceremoniously collapsed in her tiny house, and was left unnoticed for over 24 hours to dwindle away in the eerie experience of watching her life flash before her eyes.
    I suggest this concept only because I had a searing slice of something similar when the Pacific Ocean slammed me onto a shore in Malibu, and then its riptide took me for an unnerving yet illuminating ride way under its waves in the summer of 1965.
    But while I only glimpsed a short subject, and then was spit back onto the shore, I suspect that Gloria got to see a double feature, the news, and even a couple of cartoons!      
    If anyone ever fulfilled the sentiment “Bigger Than Life”---it was the force of nature that reigned supreme as an Adult Entertainment Industry Icon for well over three decades.
She essentially brought her own stage with her wherever she went, and she could spellbind an audience into a state of awe when she spoke.
   The luminous lady, whose laugh conjured up the image of a percolating volcano, was without a doubt the single most impressive human being that I’ve ever known.
And with that being said, it is going to take the rest of my existence---and most likely beyond, if there is such a place--- for me to even remotely try and qualify my feelings for---and about---her.
    Historically, from her sex screen debut presence in 1976’s “The Opening of Misty Beethoven” the most lauded adult film of all-time, to her various marketing endeavors as the publisher of High Society, to her incomparable leadership on the Boards of The Adult Video Association and The Free Speech Coalition, Gloria was a dynamo of dedication to the cause of Free Speech…and to speaking freely.
    And for all those reasons, but in particular for her choosing to champion “speaking freely”…she was justifiably  honored (in January 2002) by Larry Flynt with a block of cement that now sits in front of his Hustler store in West Hollywood.
    And as the frivolity of fate would have it, I was chosen to “be cemented” as well that chilly evening, in what ranks as the proudest moment of my carnal cinema career because of having the opportunity to escort Gloria Leonard into the edifice of/for eternity. Gloria Leonard & Bill Margold Hustler Hall of Fame Inductions
     I’ve been agonizing over a way to reluctantly end this page, and then it dawned on me that the very best I could do was dedicate (donate) my own extremely controversial/unique business card (God Created Man…William Margold Created Himself) to her, so that she can hand it out (God Created Woman…Gloria Leonard Created Herself) wherever she winds up holding court.
end

Tribute: Gloria Leonard was not just a Porn Star ~ (1940-2014)

Photo by Kenneth Brewster

In March 2010, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gloria Leonard for Golden Goddesses. I had admired and respected Leonard since I first became aware of her while co-researching and writing "A Life Measured in Inches," and knew that once I began work on "Goddesses," I wanted to profile Gloria in her own chapter.
     Delighted when she accepted my request for an interview (I have to thank Seka again for being instrumental in this process as she alerted the "Club 90" girls about my intentions for the book), we set a date to talk on the phone while Gloria was still living in Florida.
     In June 2012, I, along with two friends, had the opportunity to spend time with Gloria in New York during a private gathering with friends on a boat. It was a wonderful, memorable afternoon. Gloria was lively, hilariously funny, and full of great stories. She looked beautiful. Three months after the book was published, Gloria sent me a touching note. In January 2013, she wrote:

 

'So far, I haven't been able to put it down - have just hit my chapter (love the name you gave it). Just wanted you to know how grateful I personally am to have been included but more than that, am blown away by the amount of work you invested in the project. Over the years, I have granted interviews to dozens of so-called writers only to never see a single thing in print so am particularly thrilled to have "Golden Goddesses" in my hot little hands.  I am grateful for your insights and hard work.

 

Love Gloria'

 

Last evening, I learned the sad news that Gloria Leonard passed away in her 74th year. In her memory and honour, I have updated her profile on this blog, with added excerpts from her chapter (see below). Adult film historian and friend, Bill Margold, is credited for her chapter's title, appropriately named: Gloria Leonard: The Grand Damndest of them All.

 

May you rest in peace, Ms. Leonard. You will be forever missed.  ♥

 

***

Excerpted from Chapter 8: Gloria Leonard: The Grand Damndest of them All

 

'Gloria Leonard is considered by her contemporaries as the highly esteemed “Grand Dame” of the Golden Era of pornographic movies. Now in her 71st year, Gloria still possesses razor sharp wit, intimidating intelligence, beauty and savvy. As a fiercely independent woman who entered adult films at the ripe age of 35, Leonard's verbal dissertation about her life, career, and the world around her is delivered with delicious deprecating humor that would make her teenage mentor, Lenny Bruce, smile in his grave...'

Gloria Leonard: Contrary to the stereotypical perceptions out there, nobody was every drugged and dragged off of the streets. The only person whom I ever hated was Linda Lovelace because, even in her book [Ordeal] and when she spoke publicly, she would always bring up the fact that a gun was held to her head when they were making Deep Throat (1972). But what she would neglect to include was that the gun was not held by anybody involved with the actual production, rather than by her boyfriend [Chuck Traynor], a lousy choice in men that she made. That always pissed me off that she wasn’t totally forthcoming about the circumstances. Marilyn Chambers was a very honest gal, whereas Linda adopted this kind of ‘I’m a victim’ and ‘poor me’ attitude and wound up having all of these hardcore, humorless feminists supporting her.

I earned quite a good living, by the way, specifically in the ‘80s, literally speaking at dozens of colleges and universities, very often debating the so-called, "feminists.'  My thinking was, if the bottom line of the feminist movement is for women to be able to choose whatever they want to do without any repercussions, well, shit, that’s what I’m doing. You should be cheering me on, not wagging your fingers at me.

I am somebody who was at the forefront of what was considered as a rebellious and radical industry, that is now quite commonplace. I feel we championed free speech and freedom for people to do what they want and to watch what they want.

Working in the adult industry has given me an opportunity to meet people that I would otherwise never have met. It's given me an opportunity to travel to places that otherwise I might never have had the opportunity to visit. It has given me a platform from which to espouse my political views. Bearing in mind that here I was raising a child single-handedly without the benefit of child support or anything else -- working my tail off to put a roof over our heads and food on the table -- this was before the term 'Women's Lib' ever existed, I was doing this.

I actually discussed my decision to work in adult films with my daughter prior to doing it. I explained that just the way there are movies with comedy, and with action, and horror movies, there are also movies with sex. I told her that I was contemplating performing in one and she was very supportive and encouraging. Occasionally, a few years down the line there would be somebody at school who would make some sort of an unpleasant comment to her, but she was tough, she let it roll.

Jamie [Gillis] inducted me into the Las Vegas "Legends Hall of Fame." He stood behind my chair, and of course, predictably, extolled my virtues, but the thing that he said which actually brought me to sobbing tears is this: "Babe Ruth was not just a baseball player, Frank Sinatra was not just a singer, and Gloria Leonard is not just a porn star." That, for me, is my Kodak moment. It was very, very touching.

***

 

*Please also visit Rialto Report to read a magnificent Tribute to Gloria Leonard by Ashley West, and  listen to a July 2013 Interview Podcast for a segment in which Ms. Leonard is featured.

Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema,1968-1985 © 2012 Jill C. Nelson