Born | Linda Susan Boreman January 10, 1949 Bronx, New York, U.S. |
---|---|
Died | April 22, 2002 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
(aged 53)
Other names | Linda Lovelace |
Ethnicity | Caucasian |
Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) |
Spouse | Chuck Traynor (divorced) Larry Marchiano (1974-1996) |
No. of adult films | 21 (per IAFD) |
Linda Susan Boreman (January 10, 1949 – April 22, 2002), better known by her stage name Linda Lovelace, was an American pornographic actress who was famous for her performance of deep throat fellatio in the enormously successful 1972 hardcore porn film Deep Throat. She later denounced her pornography career, claiming that she had been forced into it by her first husband, and for a while became a spokeswoman for the anti-pornography movement.
Contents |
Early life
Boreman was born in Bronx, New York.[1] She was born into an unhappy working class family, the daughter of John and Dorothy Boreman. Her mother was a harsh, domineering disciplinarian and her father, a policeman, was seldom around.[2] She attended private Catholic schools including Saint John the Baptist (Yonkers, New York) and Maria Regina High School (Hartsdale, New York). She was nicknamed "Miss Holy Holy" in high school because she kept her dates at a safe distance.[3] When Boreman was 16, her family moved to Florida after her father retired from the New York City police force.[4]
She gave birth to a son in 1969 at the age of 20. Her mother put the child up for adoption, but told Boreman that the child was only being placed into foster care until she was ready to care for him herself. After realizing that she would never see her son again, a heartbroken Boreman moved back to New York in 1970, wanting to get away from her family and particularly her mother.
While living in New York, Boreman was involved in a serious car accident requiring her to undergo a blood transfusion; the transfusion would lead to future health problems.[3]
Career
Pornography
While recovering at her parents' home, Boreman became involved with Chuck Traynor. According to Boreman, Traynor was violent and controlling. She said he forced her to move to New York, where he became her manager, pimp and husband.
Boreman was soon performing as Linda Lovelace in hardcore "loops", short 8mm silent films made for peep shows. She starred in a 1971 bestiality film titled Dog Fucker or alternately Dogarama. She later denied appearing in the film, until several of the original loops proved otherwise.[3][5]
In 1972, Boreman starred in Deep Throat, which achieved surprising and unprecedented popularity among mainstream audiences, and even a review in The New York Times.[6] In Deep Throat she famously performed the film's eponymous act; additionally, all of her pubic hair was shaved off and she engaged in anal sex. None of these were common in pornographic films of the early 1970s.[citation needed]
Media career after Deep Throat
Sometime after this, Boreman met producer/choreographer David Winters, who helped to convince her to quit pornography. In an Interview with Eric Danville in 1975 Boreman described her relationship with Winters: "When I was with David Winters I had an awesome time. I met a lot of people and had a lot of fun at that point. I went to see my first play. I saw Richard Chamberlain in 'Cyrano De Bergerac,' I saw 'Grease' in Manhattan. I saw the Alvin Ailey Dancers. I became cultured, I guess. I'd never been cultured." (Interview with Eric Danville, 1975).[7] Although she left porn at this point, she did not publicly condemn it.
After Deep Throat, Boreman appeared in only two films, both of which were softcore: Deep Throat II (1974), an R-rated sequel to the hardcore original, and an erotic comedy, Linda Lovelace for President (1975) produced by Winters.[8] The movie also starred Micky Dolenz, whom Winters knew from Winters' first job as a director on Monkees Blow Their Minds (1968).[9] In her 1980 autobiography, Ordeal, Lovelace maintained that those films used leftover footage from Deep Throat; however, she frequently contradicted this statement. She also posed for Playboy, Bachelor, and Esquire magazines between 1973 and 1974.
In January 1974, Boreman was arrested for possession of cocaine and amphetamines.[citation needed] That same year, she published two "pro-porn" autobiographies, Inside Linda Lovelace and The Intimate Diary of Linda Lovelace.
In 1976, she was chosen to play the title role in the erotic movie Laure. However, according to the producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, Lovelace was, "very much on drugs" at the time. She had already signed for the part when she decided that "God had changed her life," refused to do any nudity, and even objected to a statue of the Venus de Milo on the set because of its exposed breasts. She was replaced by French actress Annie Belle.[10]
Charges against Chuck Traynor
In her suit to divorce Traynor, she claimed that he forced her into pornography at gunpoint, and that in Deep Throat itself, bruises from his beatings can be seen on her legs. She made the assertion that her husband "would force her to do these things by pointing an M-16 rifle at her head." Boreman wrote in her autobiography that her marriage had been plagued by violence, rape, forced prostitution and private pornography. Some of her assertions have been challenged, but many have been verified by witnesses (as well as by lie detector testing).[11] Traynor would later marry and guide the career of Marilyn Chambers, another major porn star. Traynor himself told Vanity Fair magazine (in a Marilyn Chambers interview, with Chambers on the cover) that he thought nothing of slapping "his woman" if she said something he did not like. Lovelace wrote:
When in response to his suggestions I let him know I would not become involved in prostitution in any way and told him I intended to leave, [Traynor] beat me up physically and the constant mental abuse began. I literally became a prisoner, I was not allowed out of his sight, not even to use the bathroom, where he watched me through a hole in the door. He slept on top of me at night, he listened to my telephone calls with a .45 automatic eight shot pointed at me. I was beaten physically and suffered mental abuse each and every day thereafter. He undermined my ties with other people and forced me to marry him on advice from his lawyer.
My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn't go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed...The lives of my family were threatened.[12]
On the second commentator's DVD track of the documentary Inside Deep Throat, Deep Throat 2 co-star Andrea True said Traynor was a sadist and was disliked by the Deep Throat 2 cast.
In the book The Other Hollywood, by Legs McNeil, witnesses, including Gerard Damiano, the film's director, state Traynor beat Boreman behind closed doors, but they also question her credibility. Adult-film actress Gloria Leonard is quoted as saying, "This was a woman who never took responsibility for her own [...] choices made; but instead blamed everything that happened to her in her life on porn."[citation needed]
Eric Danville, a journalist who covered the porn industry for nearly 20 years and wrote The Complete Linda Lovelace in 2001, said Boreman never changed her version of events that occurred 30 years earlier with Traynor. When Danville told Boreman of his book proposal, he said she was overcome with emotion and saddened he had uncovered the bestiality film, which she had initially denied making and later maintained she had been forced to star in at gunpoint. In The Other Hollywood, Eric Edwards, Boreman's co-star in the dog sex films and other loops that featured Linda urinating on her sex partners, disputes this claim. According to Edwards, Boreman was a sexual "super freak" who had no boundaries and was a pathological liar[citation needed].
Boreman maintained she received no money for Deep Throat, and that the $1,250 payment for her appearance was taken by Traynor.[citation needed] In 1979, she retained Victor Yannacone, an attorney more frequently associated with environmental lawsuits, to sue for a share of the film's multi-million-dollar earnings. The suit was dismissed without trial by the New York Supreme Court in Mineola, New York, and was never appealed.[citation needed]
Marchiano marriage
In 1974, Boreman married Larry Marchiano, a cable installer who later owned a dry wall business. They had two children: Dominic, in 1977, and Lindsay, in 1980. For a while, marriage and particularly motherhood brought her some stability and happiness [1]. However, in 1990, his business went bankrupt and the family moved to Colorado [2]. In The Other Hollywood, Boreman painted a largely unflattering picture of Marchiano, claiming he drank to excess, verbally abused her children, and was occasionally violent with her. They divorced in 1996. However, the divorce was civil and they remained in contact with each other for the remainder of her life.
Anti-pornography activism
With the publication of Ordeal in 1980, Boreman joined the feminist anti-pornography movement. At a press conference announcing Ordeal, she leveled many accusations against Traynor in public for the first time. She was joined by supporters Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinem, and members of Women Against Pornography. She spoke out against pornography, stating that she had been abused and coerced. She spoke before feminist groups, at colleges, and before government hearings on pornography.
There was controversy over her allegations, and her objections to the pornography industry as a whole. Pornographer and writer Hart Williams coined the term "Linda Syndrome" to refer to women who leave pornography and repudiate their past career by condemning the industry.
In 1986, Boreman published Out of Bondage, a memoir focusing on her life after 1974. She testified before the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography in New York City, stating “When you see the movie Deep Throat, you are watching me being raped. It is a crime that movie is still showing; there was a gun to my head the entire time.”[citation needed] Following Boreman's testimony for the Meese Commission, she gave lectures on college campuses, decrying what she described as callous and exploitative practices in the pornography industry.
In The Other Hollywood, Boreman said she felt "used" by the anti-pornography movement. "Between Andrea Dworkin and Kitty MacKinnon, they've written so many books, and they mention my name and all that, but financially they've never helped me out. […] They made a few bucks off me, just like everybody else."
Last years
Boreman contracted hepatitis from the blood transfusion she received after her 1970 car accident.[13] She underwent a liver transplant in 1987.[14] In 1996, Boreman divorced Larry Marchiano. In 2000, she was featured on the E! Entertainment Network's E! True Hollywood Story. The following year she did a pictorial as Linda Lovelace for the magazine Leg Show. She said she did not object to the magazine shoot because "there's nothing wrong with looking sexy as long as it's done with taste."
On April 3, 2002, Boreman was involved in yet another serious automobile accident, suffering massive trauma and internal injuries. On April 22, 2002, she was taken off life support and died in Denver, Colorado, at the age of 53. Marchiano and their two children were present when she died.[15] Boreman was interred at Parker Cemetery in Parker, Colorado.
Legacy
The coordination system Linda was named after Linda Lovelace as a play on words because of the programming language Ada, which was named after computer pioneer Ada Lovelace.[16]
Boreman was the focus of a 2005 documentary, Inside Deep Throat.
Indie pop singer/songwriter Marc with a C released a 2008 album entitled Linda Lovelace for President, containing a song of the same name.
In 2008, Lovelace: A Rock Musical, based on two of Boreman's four autobiographies, debuted at the Hayworth Theater in Los Angeles. The score and libretto were written by Anna Waronker of the 1990s rock group that dog. and Charlotte Caffey of the '80s girl group, the Go-Gos.
As of 2011, two biographical films on Boreman are scheduled to begin production.[17][18] The first, entitled Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story,[17][18][19] starring Malin Åkerman, was scheduled to be directed by Matthew Wilder and produced by Chris Hanley and to begin filming in early 2011.[20][21] The second, titled Lovelace, is filming as of January 2012, with having Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman directing. After unofficially slating Kate Hudson in the lead role,[18][19] Amanda Seyfried was finally cast as Lovelace. The movie also stars Sarah Jessica Parker (playing Gloria Steinem after Demi Moore withdrew from the role), James Franco, Sharon Stone, Peter Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria and Robert Patrick.[citation needed]
Tina Yothers, who as a child actress co-starred on the television sitcom Family Ties, was cast as Lovelace in Lovelace: The Musical.[22]
Partial filmography
- Dogarama (1971)
- Sex for Sale (short) (uncredited) (1971)
- Peeverted (short) (1971)
- Knothole (short) (1971)
- Gomorrahy (short) (uncredited) (1972)
- Deep Throat (1972)
- The Confessions of Linda Lovelace (1974)
- Deep Throat Part II (1974) as Nurse Lovelace
- Linda Lovelace for President (1975)
Books
Boreman has been the subject of five biographies, four authored or co-authored by her:
- Inside Linda Lovelace (1974), Linda Lovelace, ISBN 0-902826-11-5
- The Intimate Diary of Linda Lovelace (1974), Linda Lovelace, ISBN 0-523-00394-3
- Ordeal (1980), Linda Lovelace and Mike McGrady, ISBN 0-517-42791-5
- Out of Bondage (1986), Linda Lovelace and Mike McGrady, ISBN 0-425-10650-0
- The Complete Linda Lovelace (2001), Eric Danville, ISBN 0-9705502-0-0
Other books:
- Jack Stevenson (ed): Fleshpot – Cinema's Sexual Myth Makers & Taboo Breakers (Headpress, England 2000): Features an interview with her.
References
- ^ "Ex-Porn Star Lovelace Dies After Crash", Daily News (New York), April 23, 2002. Retrieved January 7, 2008. WebCitation archive.
- ^ "Linda Lovelace". The Daily Telegraph (London). April 24, 2002. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1391959/Linda-Lovelace.html.
- ^ a b c Briggs, Joe Bob (April 25, 2002). "Linda's Life". National Review. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-briggs042502.asp. Retrieved March 16, 2007.
- ^ http://www.arlindo-correia.com/linda_lovelace.html
- ^ Linda Lovelace, Ordeal, pages 105–113 and 194, cited by "PETA and a Pornographic Culture, II", by Carol Adams, Feminists for Animal Rights, April 1994. Retrieved July 17, 2007.
- ^ The New York Times, January 21, 1973
- ^ April 2008. Linda Lovelace (April 7, 2008). Retrieved on August 25, 2011.
- ^ IMDb Pro : Linda Lovelace for President Business Details. Pro.imdb.com. Retrieved on August 25, 2011.
- ^ IMDb Pro : Monkees Blow Their Minds Business Details. Pro.imdb.com. Retrieved on August 25, 2011.
- ^ Statement by producer Ovidio Assonitis in the featurette "Emmanuelle Exposed" on the 2007 DVD release of Laure (1976), Universal Product Code 891635001230
- ^ MacKinnon, Catharine, and Andrea Dworkin (1997). In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings. Harvard University Press. pp. 206–213. ISBN 0674445783. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SQTjuSdZ1i8C&source=gbs_navlinks_s.
- ^ This quotation is copied from Catharine A. MacKinnon, Are Women Human (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA 2006).
- ^ Lovelace, Linda; McGrady, Mike (2006). Ordeal. Citadel Press. p. 7. ISBN 0-806-52774-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=6vWTP4QMsncC&pg=PA7&dq=Linda+Lovelace+hepatitis&ei=Kf8DTJmyM4ayNrGKvIsM&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Linda%20Lovelace%20hepatitis&f=false.
- ^ Reuters (March 7, 1987). "New Liver for Linda Lovelace". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9B0DE4DD1F3AF934A35750C0A961948260. Retrieved March 16, 2007.
- ^ de Vries, Lloyd (April 23, 2002). "'Linda Lovelace' Dies". cbsnews.com. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/23/entertainment/main506940.shtml. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
- ^ Markoff, John (January 19, 1992). "David Gelernter's Romance With Linda". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/19/business/david-gelernter-s-romance-with-linda.html?scp=1&sq=David%20Gelernter%20began%20doctoral%20studies%20Stony%20Brook&st=cse&pagewanted=all.
- ^ a b A Linda Lovelace movie (or two) fights on, 24 Frames (blog), Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2011.
- ^ a b c The Race to Release the First Linda Lovelace Biopic by Mark Kernes, AVN, May 2, 2011.
- ^ a b "Malin Akerman Hoping Her Lovelace Film Is Finished Before Kate Hudson's", ContractMusic.com, April 25, 2011. WebCitation archive.
- ^ Pham, Thailan (November 21, 2010). "Lindsay Lohan Loses Porn Biopic Role to Malin Akerman – Lindsay Lohan, Malin Akerman". People. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20444040,00.html. Retrieved February 1, 2011.
- ^ Finke, Nikki (November 20, 2010). "Lindsay Lohan Dumped For Malin Akerman In Matthew Wilder’s Linda Lovelace Biopic –". Deadline.com. http://www.deadline.com/2010/11/lindsay-lohan-dumped-for-malin-ackerman-in-matthew-wilders-linda-lovelace-biopic/. Retrieved February 1, 2011.
- ^ Martens, Todd (May 17, 2003). "Musical traces life of Deep Throat star". http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/647856671.html?dids=647856671:647856671&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=May+17%2C+2003&author=Todd+Martens&pub=Toronto+Star&desc=Musical+traces+life+of+Deep+Throat+star&pqatl=google. Retrieved August 12, 2009.
External links
- Linda Lovelace ultimate memorabilia website at www.lindalovelace.org
- Linda Lovelace at Lukeisback.com
- Linda Lovelace (1949–2002) @Arlindo-Correia.com – Collection of Linda Lovelace obituaries and other articles.
- Linda Lovelace at Find a Grave
- Linda Lovelace at the Internet Movie Database
- Linda Lovelace at the Internet Adult Film Database
- Linda Lovelace at the Adult Film Database