Interview with Anti-Porn Advocate Shelley Lubben

Shelley Lubben

I recently conducted an interview with Shelley Lubben who went by the name Roxy while she was an active adult performer in the mid-90’s.  Since leaving sex work, Shelley has become one of the most outspoken critics against the porn industry and has established the Pink Cross Foundation to help porn addicts and adult performers.  Shelly and I discussed her past, the struggles she endured as a porn performer, and her recovery.

Where and when were you born?

May 18, 1968 in Pasadena, California

What was your family life like early on?

My early childhood was pretty uneventful. I grew up in a middle class family. I was a Brownie, attended Sunday School and was very creative. I was an extremely energetic child and my mother says raising me was like raising twins.

I felt my parents ignored me and I began to make up stories like men were trying to kidnap me when I walked to school in order to get their attention. My Dad worked a lot and loved his garage.

What was your childhood like? Were you happy?

I was bored most of the time. My parents weren’t very involved in my life and much of the time I was on my own hanging out in the neighborhood. I was often writing and directing my own plays and skits beginning at age seven where I would invite neighborhood kids to come and watch.  My 1^st grade teacher told my mother I was a creative genius and my mother replied, “Oh yes she’s very peculiar.” The teacher told her I should be put into a creative program. My mother didn’t “get it”. I was never developed and grew up very frustrated. I was left to myself and began to get into trouble.

By age 9 I was sexually abused by a teenage boy and his sister, a classmate of mine. I had my first lesbian experience at that time. I was horrified. Immense shame and guilt followed me well into my adult years. I began masturbating at 9 years old. I looked for love in boys and realized if I gave them sex they would tell me how special I was. I longed for my parents, especially my father, to notice me and give me affection but he was a workaholic. My mother was a religious nag and drove me crazy. My family spent most of our quality time together in front of the TV so I grew up with people like Jack Tripper and Lucy Ricardo as my role models.

I was writing short stories and poetry beginning at age 8. I played guitar at age 9. I was very creative and musical.

My family attended church the first 8 years of my life and then we stopped going. I loved Sunday School and what I learned still remains with me to this day.

When I was around 7 Jesus told me I would be working for Him some day and He showed me a vision of me speaking to thousands of people in an arena. I was sure someday I would be a preacher and an author. Those were my childhood dreams.

Looking back, is there anything that happened in your childhood that made you turn to the adult industry?

Yes, one of the factors that ultimately led me to be in the adult industry was sexual abuse. The other factor was lack of parenting and proper child development.

At what age did you first start using drugs and alcohol?

Age 16 I started drinking and dabbling in drugs.

I read somewhere that you become involved in prostitution at a young age. How did that come about?

I was a prostitute right out of high school after I barely graduated. I was 18. I got pregnant by a client the following year and had a baby girl in June, 1988.

Shelley on an adult box cover in the mid-90's

How did you first become involved in the porn business?  How old were you?

I was 24 years old when a woman told me I should do porn and would make much more money. By this time I was exhausted from stripping and prostituting so porn sounded better. I was wrong. Nobody told me I would catch an STD. They gave me a false sense of security telling me if I tested I would be safe.

Describe the first time you filmed an adult scene. What do you remember about the experience?

I remember big red doors that led me to a very dark and seedy place where I saw a couch with sexy pillows and lighting all around it. Naked people walking around. A pornographer looked me up and down and asked for my HIV test and my i.d. At the time they didn’t test for anything else. It was a lesbian scene mostly with one guy. We were told to be college girls and have sex with each other. I was not at all interested in having sex with a woman I didn’t know. I was very nervous although I hid it. They asked me my stage name and I had been to the Roxy the night before so I just said, “Roxy” on the spot.

I went into the back, changed  my clothes and downed a bunch of Jack Daniels. They called my name to do my scene and I felt really awkward. I kept trying to figure out if I should shake hands with someone I was about to have sex with or how should I greet them? No one to really guide me.

The director explained what he wanted out of the scene. Nobody checked each others’ tests. I didn’t know we were supposed to do that. I was very nervous and was more focused on what the hell I was about to do. The scene started and something came over me, something very dark. I just started going crazy and took over the scene out to prove I was the best. The scene ended and they threw a rag at me to clean the “stuff” off my face. I felt totally humiliated and disgusting and had tears in my eyes but I turned my head to hide them and told myself to suck it up.

During the scene the producer kept cheering me on and saying things like, “Wow you’re going to be the next big porn star. I never saw anybody give a *** like that. You are so hot Roxy”….blah blah blah. I was desperate to be noticed and so the attention was like a drug for me. I was desperate for attention. Of course the fast money was a major attraction.

After the scene the producer told me he was setting me up with a big producer where I would be doing pro movies with people like Peter North, Nikki Sinn, Ron Jeremy…. I was thinking no way would I do another movie but I really believed I had no other option. I was a single parent and totally burned out from stripping and prostitution. I took the bait and next thing you know I’m doing whatever they asked me to. I had something to prove and they KNEW I would prove it. I had to prove I was better than everyone else so I did very hardcore scenes early on in my so-called career.

You are very anti-porn these days. What are some of the negative things that you witnessed during your time in the adult business?

Where do I start. I saw and participated in drug use. We stood around naked waiting for our scene outside in the backyard where we were filming in and smoked pot and sniffed meth, coke, and whatever else was available. We got drunk in the back rooms or high in the bathroom. Some pornographers said no drugs but that just meant no drugs near the “set”.

I saw girls crying their eyes out and screaming like maniacs. I remember when I was just new I thought to myself “Why are the women so bitchy?” I found out later why of course. I saw women vomiting while their heads were forced up and down some guy’s large penis. I was one of them who gagged and vomited several times on set even though I put my hand up to stop them. They didn’t stop. I saw pornographers make women do scenes they didn’t agree to and threaten them if they didn’t. I was one of them. I experienced disgusting work conditions where rags of crap, pee and blood were thrown on the floor next to where we were “acting”. Women had hair pulled and faces smacked. We were called whore, bitch, cunt, slut and the list goes on. I was forced to do a scene I did not agree to. The pornographer threatened me and I was so naïve about it all that I actually thought he would and could sue me. I remember being very sore that day after doing so much anal sex.

I saw and experienced torn body parts. I saw used sponges and enemas on the floor in the bathroom. NOTHING was ever sanitary. The industry was and is still totally unregulated and operating ILLEGALLY according to Cal Osha’s Adult Film Standards which you can read at http://www.dir.ca.gov/DOSH/AdultFilmIndustry.html . I also saw and experienced a lot of prostitution. Pornographers set us up and we flew around the country to have sex with high dollar clients. They often expected sex without a condom and paid us enough money to do it.

Shelley Lubben

According to the IAFD (Internet Adult Film Database) you only appeared in about a dozen films over a couple of years in the industry. Do you feel like you were involved in adult films long enough to form an accurate opinion about the entire industry?

I appeared in more than a dozen films. The IAFD doesn’t list them all and also some of them are too old or too amateur to be listed.

I was in the porn industry and lived the lifestyle about 2 years. That’s long enough. Between prostitution, pornographers and performing I definitely received a big taste of the porn industry. And I have the herpes and early cervical cancer to prove it.

Your life was obviously headed in the wrong direction before you started doing porn, so do you feel like porn made it any worse? Was your recovery more difficult because you were involved with pornography than say if you were just a stripper and a prostitute?

Yes porn made it worse. The porn industry attracts and lures in people who are damaged and damages them more. They lure in the sexually exploited because they are vulnerable and will agree to be more sexually exploited. Anyway, it’s all about money. None of us enjoys making porn. It’s extremely traumatizing and hard work. There are over 100 porn stars easily who have confessed in interviews or their blogs how hard making porn is. Anyone can go online and find this information. Not to mention all the deaths in the last 20 years or even the last couple years from HIV, Suicide, Drug overdose and Homicide. No other industry kills more people due to the negative effects I just mentioned than the porn industry.

Yes, my recovery was harder due to making hardcore movies. I did things in porn I never did in prostitution.

What were some of the negative consequences you experienced personally from performing in adult films?

Herpes. Early Cervical Cancer where half of my Cervix had to be removed. Three pregnancy losses due to porn. One of them entopic and two were miscarriages. My reproductive system was very damaged after I did porn. I did prostitution 6 years and used a condom and never caught an STD. STDS lead to cervical cancer and other reproductive damage.

I also was diagnosed with mental disorders and had major emotional problems that took 8 years of hard work to recover from.

You have spoke in the past about the illusion of porn. Tell the readers about that.

Yes I have spoken about the lie of porn on the web, tv, radio interviews, churches, government and secular organizations since 2004. Since then more than a dozen other women and men have joined me and spoken out as well. And the cause grows as more and more people contact us for help and want to speak out. Every month a porn performer joins our cause and speaks out against the porn industry.

Shelley Lubben founder of the Pink Cross Foundation

There are some women who are adamant that they enjoy performing in adult films and are able to express themselves sexually by performing. What would you say to them?

I love you but bullshit. Then I would try to get them to open up and share their history and background with me which often causes porn stars to run away. Funny how they hate to talk about their childhood and history.

Remember, it’s ALWAYS about the money, not sexual expression. If it’s about sexual expression then why don’t porn stars ever work for free?

What are some statistics you have about the adult film industry?

I have been researching the porn industry for about three years and share statistics below. I can’t even keep up with all the deaths happening lately. So sad.

http://www.shelleylubben.com/index.php?truth=porn

See stats on the left. If you just want quick stats you can visit www.thepinkcross.org and they are on the right. You may check out my blog for recent deaths.

What caused you to give up making adult films? What was the final straw for you personally?

HERPES!

What was the hardest thing about walking away from adult entertainment?  What was the most difficult thing to give up?

The money $$$. The attention.

After leaving porn did you continue using drugs and working as a prostitute?

I did try to go back to prostitution but it was short lived due to me infecting a married couple with Herpes and being a total wreck due to increased drug and alcohol use in the porn industry. There were LOTS and LOTS of parties I went to where drugs and alcohol were in abundant supply and given freely. Pornographers also loved to give us drugs and alcohol. Good for business if we were intoxicated because then WE WOULD DO ANYTHING.

Have you been diagnosed with any mental disorders?

Yes. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Impulse Control Disorder, Alcohol Dependence, Depressive Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was prescribed zoloft, sleeping pills, lithium and counseling.

Most recovering addicts describe a definite low point in their lives. When did you hit rock bottom?  When did you realize that you had to change your life?

I hit rock bottom several times but was spared by God. I overdosed and tried to commit suicide several times in my 8 year involvement in the sex industry. One suicide attempt and overdose was right after I caught Herpes. That was rock bottom for me.

How long after leaving the adult film business did you clean up your life? Was it though Christ or therapy? Or both?

Right after I left I made a serious decision to really seek God whose love and faithfulness was revealed to me through Jesus Christ. The Bible says those who diligently seek God find Him and I really did find Him, met Him in a very personal way and He did everything His book said He could do. He healed me from substance abuse, mental disorders, emotional disorders, flashbacks, horrible memories and healed my mind and THEN even did above and beyond and blessed everything my husband and I set our hands to. It’s like I won the lotto. That’s how GOOD God is. People think He’s mean and doesn’t care but they just don’t know Him. They haven’t even tried to get to know Him. Unfortunately the church has done a terrible job at revealing God to people. I am not a church person. I am Christian who believes in love and serving people that I might compel them to step into the Light and live the life they were truly meant to live. A life of purpose, meaning and beauty.

I tired therapy but didn’t work. I don’t think they were prepared to help someone like me. They prescribed me the medication listed above and made me watch anger management videos.

When did you first start working to help porn performers?

Women started contacting me in 2005. It was hard to go back to the industry after so many years. It had changed so much. It’s worse now. It’s much bigger now. I started really going after the porn stars and reaching out to them on the web in 2006 and I began to get response after response from girls telling me how screwed up the industry is and that their agent fucked them over and so and so ripped them off and how they caught HPV or another STD. Some had their cervixes removed at age 22! Some were force fed meth and slapped and spit on. Horror story after horror story and I became enraged. I knew I had to do something about it.

Shelley Lubben

Having been involved in prostitution longer than you were an adult actress why is it that your main focus is on porn these days? Why don’t you focus more on helping prostitutes?

That’s not my calling. I only do what my Father tells me to and when it’s truly the work of God, it is successful.  This is the first time in history so many women and men have left porn and are also speaking out.

Do you feel like prostitution is a larger problem since there are more women involved in prostitution than porn?

Porn stars ARE prostitutes. Porn IS prostitution and DOES involve prostitution so it’s all the same problem. Agents are pimps and porn stars are prostitutes.

http://www.lukeisback.com/essays/essays/prostitution.htm

Do you feel like the viewers of pornography are victims as well?

Absolutely.

Some girls in the industry claim to live healthy, happy lives. Do you think that there are drug-free, well adjusted adult performers anywhere out there or are all porn performers miserable?

I haven’t met one yet. I’d love to.

Porn has become a big business. Used to almost every performer walked away from the business empty handed. These days there are a select few that walk away millionaires or at least very wealthy. What would you say about them? Is it possible that porn has made some lives better?

No, it just means they get to live a little more luxurious. They pay the same ugly price. Maybe a bigger price since they are now stuck in a luxurious life style they have to pay for.

Do you think that the mainstream entertainment industry exploits women in some of the same ways the porn industry does?

No, not the same way. They aren’t forced to gag on some guy’s penis or being slapped in the face while called a whore. They also don’t risk their lives physically like porn performers do. Even Dr. Sharon Mitchell confesses that 66% of porn performers are Herpes carriers. We don’t hear statistics like that in the mainstream entertainment industry. Statistics show the death rate in the porn industry due to HIV, Suicide, Drug overdose and Homicide is more than the mainstream entertainment industry. It’s not hard to add the numbers up.

We are a society obsessed with sex. Some of your critics would argue that the problems you expose are part of a broader more cultural problem. What do you say to that?

I agree. We definitely have a huge sexualized culture thanks to the porn industry. Companies like Playboy glamorized it and exposed us to it and others followed.

When did you start the Pink Cross Foundation?

It officially began on January 24, 2009 but took a little over a year to do the legal paperwork and set up business.

Tell the readers what the Pink Cross Foundation is all about?

Pink Cross Foundation is a faith-based IRS approved 501(c)(3) public charity dedicated to reaching out to adult industry workers offering emotional, financial and transitional support. We largely focus on reaching out to the adult film industry offering support to porn stars. Pink Cross Foundation also reaches out to those struggling with pornography offering education and resources to recover.

How can adult film performers and addicts contact you?

Porn performers can contact me at help@thepinkcross.org and porn addicts can get help at www.thepinkcross.org where we offer a free web site membership where they can receive help from the Pink Cross Team which is made up of recovering porn addicts, ex porn stars and ex drug users and on and on. We’re a bunch of Ragamuffins who have been there and care.

Tell the readers about your life today.

Shelley Lubben and her husband

I’m a mother of three beautiful and healthy daughters. I live in Bakersfield, California, in a nice home my husband and I own. My husband and I are ordained Chaplains who love to help porn stars and porn addicts and pretty much anyone who crosses our path. I fight porn. I attend a University where I am pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree in Theology/Counseling. I love gardening and roses are my specialty. I study great reformers and American History.

How long have you been married?

I have been married 14 years since Feb. 14, 1995. I married a Pastor’s son who loved a beat up and broken sex worker.

Do you still struggle with your past or have temptation to return to your old lifestyle?

I don’t struggle with my past but I admit my present is pretty stressful. No, I do not have temptation to go back into sex work. The grass on the other side really is greener.

How long have you been clean and sober?

I got clean the minute I turned back to God in 1994 thanks to the Cross of Jesus Christ. Sobriety didn’t happen until 2000.

What would you say to a girl who is considering appearing in adult films?

Don’t do it. You are made for greater things than porn. And everything I wrote above.

Is there anything you would like to promote or websites you would like to tell the readers about?

I’d love to!

Pink Cross Foundation at www.thepinkcross.org

My personal web site at www.shelleylubben.com

Any final words you would like to say?

Yes, to the porn stars.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m here for you.

Shelley Lubben

Shelley on an adult box cover in the mid-90’s

Shelley Lubben

Shelley Lubben founder of the Pink Cross Foundation

Shelley Lubben

Shelley Lubben and her husband

Sasha Grey is a hit in GFE

Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience

When adult film star Sasha Grey, who makes a living having sex, was cast to play someone who has sex for a living in ‘The Girlfriend Experience,’ it was seen by many in the biz as both a gamble and a gimmick by director Steven Soderbergh.

To many influential movie critics around the country, though, she’s no fluke. Grey’s deadpan delivery as a pricey prostitute in Manhattan who promises clients a “girlfriend experience” — dates, good conversation with added chemistry and, in the end, sex — has been getting mostly positive reviews.

“The smartest thing director Steven Soderbergh did in the making of ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ was to cast Sasha Grey,” beamed the San Francisco Chronicle.

This is a bit of a coup for the 21-year-old star of over 150 pornos since 2006. Few titles can be printed here, but one can only imagine what ‘Soloerotica 10′ and ‘Black Power 3′ were all about. Since wrapping ‘Girlfriend’ last year, she’s starred in several additional adult films.

Check Out a Smattering of Reviews:

Roger Ebert: “Grey wasn’t hired because of her willingness to have sex on screen; there’s no explicit sex in the movie and only fleeting nudity. I suspect Soderbergh cast her because of her mercenary approach to sex — and her acting talent, which may not be ready for Steppenwolf but is right for this film.”

Village Voice: “Grey isn’t the first porn actress to go straight, but she may be the first to allegorize her own situation — projecting an on-screen self-confidence that’s indistinguishable from pathos.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “The smartest thing director Steven Soderbergh did in the making of The Girlfriend Experience was to cast Sasha Grey … Grey is very likable, if only because she seems so vulnerable.”

LA Times: “Whether Grey, in her first ’straight’ gig, has character chops or not feels inconsequential when her affectless delivery becomes a referenced joke toward the end.”

Entertainment Weekly: “[Grey is] a real-life adult-video star who is not so much a natural actress as a natural-born placid, affect-less Barbie doll (imagine Eliot Spitzer consort Ashley Dupré with a touch of Demi Moore).”

http://www.popeater.com/movies/article/sasha-grey-reviews-girlfriend-experience/495313

Fleur Brown found guilty of pimping a 13 year old

Fleur Brown

Former European gang-bang queen Fleur Brown was arrested back in 2004 for trying to sell the virginity of a 13-year-old girl.

Brown had originally sought to make a film depicting the girl losing her virginity but once that went belly-up she decided to simply sell the girl’s virginity to the highest bidder.  A reporter posed as a wealthy Arab businessman and offered Brown 30,000 British pounds.  When she went to meet the businessman at a hotel she was arrested and crack-cocaine was found in her possession.

Surprisingly, Brown later received a suspended sentence.  She was able to convince Judge Timothy King at Snaresbrook Crown Court that she had turned her life around, was no longer using crack-cocaine, and had a steady job.  She also received a concurrent suspended sentence for the crack-cocaine conviction.  According to other reports the 13-year-old was a willing participant but was also a crack addict.

Fleur Brown arriving at court appearance

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/photogallery/porn_stars.html?curPhoto=3

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-456956/Woman-sold-13-year-olds-virginity-escapes-jail.html

Feisty adult-entertainment attorney David Wasserman kills himself

David Wasserman (seen in this file photo) made his career as a lawyer defending strip clubs, X-rated bookstores, swingers

Not long ago, David Wasserman was a high-powered attorney for the adult-entertainment industry who wore $100 ties, lived in the country-club community of Heathrow and had an office overlooking tony Park Avenue in Winter Park.

But then Wasserman was arrested, his law license was suspended and he started living in a $350-a-month Orlando-area apartment.

On Thursday, Wasserman, who owned Lake County’s only strip club, committed suicide at home, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. He had battled depression since his mother’s death 16 years ago, said his companion, Lois Stone, 48, who found his body.

“I want David to be remembered for who he really was,” said Stone, a bartender at Wasserman’s Fantasy Gentlemen’s Club in Four Corners. “He was the most loving, caring individual I have ever met.”

Wasserman, 52, was a passionate defender of the First Amendment who loved a good fight and reveled in speaking his mind, those who knew him said. He was the Christian Coalition’s nightmare, a guy whose credo was naked bodies are no big deal. And none of the government’s business.

“I’m a crusader,” Wasserman said in an April interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “A lot of people love to hate me.”

At the time of his death, Wasserman was fighting for the survival of his club as Lake County and his landlord tried to shut him down. He was facing criminal charges for what investigators say were violations of Lake’s adult-entertainment law stemming from a raid earlier this year. Last month, he sued Lake County in federal court over the matter.

But his tribulations only made Wasserman feistier. A human run-on sentence, he was eager to preach his gospel of First Amendment freedom.

“When I knew him, he was passionate, he was bright, he was committed and he was absolutely a believer,” said Orlando defense lawyer Mark NeJame.

Wasserman made a name for himself in the 1990s by defending high-profile clients in Central Florida and beyond.

He argued for the rave club Cyberzone, which was fighting a county ordinance requiring it to close at 2 a.m. In Kissimmee, he battled the city over a store that sold X-rated videos and argued for a couple who operated a sex dungeon at a warehouse. He represented men who ran a gay-pornography Web site out of a Seminole County home. He fought adult-entertainment laws in New Smyrna Beach, where he owned a lingerie shop that gave the locals fits by selling adult videos and sex toys.

Although he was proud of his work, depression remained a near constant in Wasserman’s life. He told the Orlando Sentinel that he wrote his own eulogy and had tried to kill himself, including the night in January 2003 that he was arrested for growing marijuana at his Heathrow apartment. His law license was suspended in 2004 after he pleaded no contest.

“I’m not afraid to die,” Wasserman said.

“I want to be remembered as a first-class lawyer who was very ethical, that I was a caring person and tried to help the poor and the downtrodden.”

Wasserman is survived by his father, several siblings and a stepdaughter.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-wasserman2708sep27,0,192306.story

Ex-Playboy Palymate and Porn Actress Teri Weigel Is Now A Fishing Boat Girl

Teri Weigel

Teri Weigel is best known for being one of the only Playboy Playmates to ever appear in hardcore porn.  After Playboy she was also able to land mainstream roles in Miami Vice, Married With Children and The Prededtor 2.

Teri’s latest gig is on a fishing boat that operates out of Fort Pierce, FL.  Smokin’ Em Charters is a deep sea fishing operation that started to offer charters with bikini clad women in January of 2008.  Once the boats get 3 miles off shore the women go topless for the patrons.

In March, Smokin’ Em was kicked out of Fisherman’s Wharf Marina but quickly found another marina around Fort Pierce, FL and setup shop there.

Weigel, now 46, has appearead in adult films as late as 2007.  She has had a long career in the adult industry and has worn many hats.  She started as a model, to mainstream, to softcore, hardcore, feature dancer, bunny ranch girl and now fishing boat girl.  Teri will surely keep us entertained for years to come.

Teri Weigel, Smokin

I found an interview that Teri did back in 2004 and have also pasted her Wikipedia entry for anyone who wants to read all the specifics of her life and long career.

http://www.florida-fishingcharters.com/

http://www.wpbf.com/news/15793866/detail.html#

Porn Legend Teri Weigel Interview

Conducted and Edited by Brian Bush
Originally published in layers magazine issue number five

The third of five children, Teri was raised within a devoutly Catholic family in the conservative city of Deerfield Beach, Florida. A natural beauty, she began modeling in her teens, appearing in catalogs for Saks Fifth Avenue and other high-end companies. She later moved to New York and signed with a major modeling agency, which placed her in “Seventeen” magazine and other publications. Modeling gigs in Europe followed. Upon her return to Florida, Teri entered her first beauty contest and was named Miss Deerfield in 1979.

Teri Weigel Playboy Cover, November 1985

As a result of Teri’s lingerie work for Saks and others, Playboy Magazine soon came calling. She did some test shots for the magazine, and was asked to become a Centerfold. Teri graced the cover of the November ‘85 issue, and appeared as the Centerfold in April 1986. Teri found posing nude liberating, and she enjoyed the fame and money that came with being a Playboy Centerfold.

Teri worked for Playboy for a couple of years, producing several well-received videos. But company gigs eventually became fewer and fewer. Worse, Playboy refused to help promote her mainstream television and film work, which ranged from multiple appearances on Fox’s “Married With Children” to roles in “Predator 2″, “Marked for Death” with Steven Seagall, “Sunset” with Bruce Willis and James Garner, and cult genre flicks such as “Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies” with Karen Black, “Cheerleader Camp” and John Landis’s “Innocent Blood”.

It quickly became obvious that Teri had outlived her usefulness as a Centerfold, and Playboy unceremoniously kicked her to the curb. (It was the beginning of an acrimonious relationship that continues to this day.) As mainstream jobs became increasingly fewer, Teri finally considered a career in hardcore porn – something no other Playboy Centerfold had ever done (or has done since). Because of this decision, Teri became persona non grata within Playboy, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to squelch her porn career. In one notable example, Hugh Hefner actually called Bob Guccione asking him not to make Teri a Penthouse Pet. As a result, she has appeared only in smaller pictorials.

Wisely capitalizing on her fame and exposure a Centerfold, Teri quickly became a sensation within the porn industry. She had her breasts enlarged (something she says she did for her own self-esteem, not because she had to) and almost immediately achieved superstar status as a result of her remarkable enthusiasm as a performer. To date she has made nearly 50 adult videos. Much of Teri’ continued success is a result of her uncanny ability to re-invent herself within an industry infamous for using then tossing aside its talent, and this has kept her in the forefront for nearly a decade.

Layers: What’s the best part about what you do?

Teri Weigel: Probably the fact that I’m able to be myself. Unrestricted. No rules.

Layers: What’s the worst part?

Teri: The traveling. I have 9 puppies at home and I have to leave them almost every week. I work about 40 weeks out of the year. I come home on Sunday and leave again on Tuesday or Wednesday. I only get to see my puppies like three days out of the week.

Layers: Have you had any problems in the past with obsessive fans?

Teri: Not really. I can usually handle people. No gory stories.

Layers: And you’ve been married for 16 years, correct?

Teri: Yes.

Layers: What’s the secret to maintaining a marriage not only outside of the adult industry, but especially being in the industry?

Teri: It’s hard. It takes a lot of communicating and talking to your spouse about the things that trouble you or about the things that you are interested in. The most important thing is the communication. There are times when I’ll be up against the wall with certain things that are brought up and you have to learn that when it comes to men that it’s “give and take” in order to get a step ahead. And as far as being in the adult industry, that’s just helped the relationship because of the honesty that comes with it. We were put in a position were we were forced to be honest with each other and it worked for us.

(Murrill Maglio, Teri’s husband, is in charge of most of Teri’s career on the business ends. He’s also directed approximately ten adult video, one of which won an award at the Adult Video News Awards circa 1995.)

Layers: Where did you guys meet?

Teri: We met in West Palm Beach Florida. He was doin’ a gig with his band and my sister was dating the keyboard player at the time. I was home visiting from Paris. That’s where I was living at the time because I was modeling. And we just started talking at the bar in between the gigs. He told me that he was going through a separation with his wife and are relationship began and ended that night. Then a couple months down the road, my sister told me that he asked to see me and I came in again.

Layers: And all of this happened even before Playboy?

Teri: Yes.

Layers: So you guys have been together since the beginning.

Teri: Yes. And it was hard with Playboy because Playboy didn’t want us to be married.

Layers: Why didn’t they want you to be married?

Teri: Because you are considered to be a “Miss” of a month. I was Miss April and they wanted you to stay single for as long as you could so you could be available for parties or whatever they wanted to throw you into. So we kept it quite for almost a year until one of the other Playmates blabbed her mouth. And Hef (Hugh Hefner, Playboy Publisher) was pretty pissed. Cuz I worked a lot for them. I was one of there top girls.

Teri Weigel Playboy

Layers: So how did that original Playboy deal come together?

Teri: About two months after I began dating Murrill, Playboy held a casting call for “See Through Fashions” in Miami. I had just gotten back from Paris and I had established a great look. I did a lot of stuff over there and I had a great portfolio put together and they picked me. They flew me to some island over the Atlantic and they did a small pictorial with me and another girl from the same agency I was with. And the make-up artist said that I would make a great Playmate and that I should go to Chicago and test shoot. So I waited a couple of months and Murrill thought that it would be a great opportunity for me. So I listened to him and I called Playboy and told them that I wanted to test to be a Playmate. They flew me to Chicago and we shot. And the shots turned out beautiful. I never saw myself look so good in a picture. The photographers were brilliant. It was the first time that I did anything like that and I was excited because of how good I looked nude. Then about a month later they called me and told me that they wanted me for the cover. And my cover ended up getting bumped for Madonna because there was a big scandal going on with her at the time. And I was pissed because I would have been the first cover girl in the staple-less issue. So I was the cover girl for the second staple-less issue.

Layers: What was Playboys initial reaction when you first made your venture into the world of hardcore?

Teri: It was almost hypocritical because Playboy began to venture out into cable with the Playboy Channel. And because me and Murrill were married, they decided to use us together in scenes. And the people who were shooting these “soft-core” videos for Playboy were filmmakers from the adult industry. So after about ten or fifteen of these shoots we started to get comfortable being on camera. And since we were married they just told us to go ahead and have sex. So we did and it made the films look really good and real and Hef didn’t seem to have problem with it probably because they were editing out the penetration. But I knew that once I crossed over to the point were I was working for other companies doing penetration that there would be trouble. Hef wrote me a letter telling me that I let the Playmates down by what I did. And I didn’t feel that way because I probably wouldn’t even have done all of this if it weren’t for Playboy. I just viewed it as a step forward in my career. There wasn’t much left for me to do for Playboy. I had done everything I possibly could for them. And at that point it was either go home and raise kids or continue on with my career. So I chose to go X-rated.

Layers: So you and Murrill made the step into hardcore together?

Teri: We did the first movie together. They had it set up where him and I did a scene and then he had a scene with two other chicks. It was his first time and it was really hard and the girls were real mean to him and he got turned off and decided not to do it anymore. We finished the movie but it was really hard for him. I had no problem though and it was a lot of money.

Inferno Box Cover

(Teri Weigels first XXX film was for Wicked Pictures. It debuted in 1991 and was titled Inferno. Inferno stared Ashley Nicole, Alicyn Sterling, April Rayne, Joey Silvera, Mark Wallace, Joey Murphy, and Teri’s husband Murrill Maglio.)

Layers: And he didn’t have a problem with you being with other guys?

Teri: No. It was something that we knew was gonna happen if I wanted to pursue this career. And that’s where the honesty comes from.

Layers: Was it difficult to make that transition?

Teri: Yea it was. I had a lot of factors to consider. Family and stuff like that. And Playboy just kind of shut the door and I was already kind of doing it so it seemed O.K. to me because they weren’t having a problem with it when I was making the money for them. The problem was that Hef no longer had any power over me.

Layers: What’s your relationship with Playboy today?

Teri: I tried to write him when they came out with the pictorial with the pornstars because they left me out. And I was very upset. And he wrote back and told me that I was a Playmate who broke the rules.

Layers: Is there anything you won’t do on film?

Teri: Anal. I will not do anal.

Layers: Has the adult industry changed at all since your first film in 1991?

Teri: Absolutely. There’s some good things and there’s some bad things. There’s better looking guys now. But they’re better looking with bigger attitudes and less performance qualities. Meaning that they’ve got big dicks but they can’t keep them hard. And with everybody eating Viagra like candy, they sometimes get aggressive. Back in the old days they fucked and it was their adrenaline. The companies have changed a lot too. There are a lot more companies out there and there are a lot more girls doing it. Stuff has gotten a lot harder- core too. A lot of the guys are into knockin’ the girls around. I’m not into that shit at all.

Layers: Who are some of the more well known stars you’ve worked with in the past?

Teri: I’ve worked with Rocco Sigfried, Peter North, Randy West…

Layers: …Marc Wallice?

Teri: Yea, I fucked Marc Wallice years ago and I know were you’re going with this and during the time period that he contracted HIV my career was on hold do to a major car accident. I was out for about three years. But yea, I was with him before the whole AIDS scare.

(Marc Wallice was considered to be one of the biggest male stars in the industry until he tested positive for HIV in 1998. If you’ve seen a porno, then you’ve seen Marc Wallice. This news was considered to be the biggest shock to the industry since the death of John Holmes in 1988 from an AIDS related illness.)

Layers: What was the feeling in the industry when they found out he had it?

Teri: It was pretty fuckin’ scary. The main concern was to how long he had it and who he had been with while he had it. And back then, they didn’t really know as much about AIDS as they do now. They didn’t know how long it lay dormant. It was scary.

Teri Weigel Recent

Layers: You appeared for a short while at the Bunny Ranch in Nevada, the only legal brothel in the United States. How did that gig come about and what was that experience like for you?

Teri: It was just an experience. I met up with Dennis, the owner, and it was kind of like doin’ movies. They had really respectable high-end clients and it was a lot of money.

Layers: You’ve done some mainstream work too. What’s the different in the atmosphere on a big Hollywood set compared to the atmosphere on a porn shoot?

Teri: The attitudes are a lot more neutral on a Hollywood set. There’s more attitude on a porn set because sometimes you have a lot of hot girls together who each think they are better than the other. It can get catty.

Layers: Can you offer any advice to young girls out there who are considering a career in the adult industry?

Teri: They need to think about it really long and hard because it’s a journey that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. And if they are strong enough to handle it then they should have no problems. If they’re not strong individuals, then they might want to rethink it. It’s not as glamorous as it seems. It’s a hard life and people always recognize you for what you do.

Layers: What’s been the biggest obstacle that you’ve had to overcome to get where you are today?

Teri: I don’t really know. Everything that has come my way in life I’ve been able to work through in a logical manner. If I had to say one thing, it would probably be my relationship with Playboy.

Layers: What do you have to say to people who condemn pornography as socially irresponsible?

Teri: I just think that everybody should think for themselves and make their own decisions in life and not have their decisions made up for them by what other people delegate as to what’s good or what’s bad. I think that an open mind is very important for young people today so that we can form a stronger society than what we already have. Porn is not the problem.

Layers: What’s next for the great Teri Weigel?

Teri: I just finished two films for Wicked Pictures. Those will be the last ones. But they don’t know that yet. I’ve got five more weeks in the adult industry and them I’m gonna turn a new leaf and I’m gonna have my own show at the Sahara Hotel in Vegas singing. We don’t have a name for the group yet but there will be a live band behind me and four backup singers. It will be a mixed show with a comedian and a magician and we got the big room so it sits 850 people. Rehearsals are the whole month of January and we’ll be premiering the week after the Super Bowl.

http://layersmagazine.blogspot.com/2004/10/porn-legend-teri-weigel-interview.html

Wikipedia

Teri Weigel

Teresa “Teri” Susan Weigel (born February 24, 1962) is a American pornographic actress, Playboy Playmate, and occasional prostitute.

Weigel was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and grew up in Deerfield Beach, Florida, where she attended Deerfield Beach High School, and began her career as a lingerie catalog model for companies such as Saks Fifth Avenue. She first appeared on the cover of the November, 1985 issue of Playboy, and then was the Playboy Playmate for April, 1986. (See List of people in Playboy 1980-1989.) Weigel also appeared in a number of Playboy videos before her relationship with Playboy ended acrimoniously in 1990, and she has claimed that Playboy has tried to interfere in her post-Playmate career.

In addition to modeling, Weigel appeared in a minor role on NBC’s Miami Vice during the 1985-1986 season.

She subsequently had several minor roles in mainstream film, including Predator 2 and Marked for Death, and made multiple appearances as “Jade” on Married… with Children, before becoming the second Playmate ever to act in hardcore pornography, after appearing in Playboy, in 1991. (The first was Susan Lynn Kiger.) She was also the second Playmate to go on to appear in Penthouse magazine, after Ursula Buchfellner,[3] November 1985, although not as a Pet of the Month (that “first” belongs to Linn Thomas). Weigel continues to act in porn videos, pose nude in magazine pictorials, and also performs nationally as a nude dancer. She has also worked as a featured performer in a legal Nevada brothel, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Her husband since 1986, Murrill Maglio, is also her manager.

Shortly after beginning to act in porn films, Weigel had her breasts augmented. She has also changed her hair color from her original dark brown to blonde. Weigel has been in two serious car crashes (in 1990 and again in 1994), and it is unknown if she had any plastic surgery as a result.

In 2005, Weigel was one of many porn actors inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame at the AVN Awards, the major industry awards show held annually in Las Vegas.

As of April 2008, Weigel was working as a Bikini Girl on fishing charter boats out of Fort Pierce, Florida.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teri_Weigel

Star Stowe, A Fallen Star

“Star” Stowe (born Ellen Louise Maligo , March 19, 1956 in Little Rock, Arkansas – died March 16, 1997 in Coral Springs, Florida) was an American model. She was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for its February 1977 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Pompeo Posar.

She was an acquaintance of Gene Simmons and hung out with him and the rest of KISS. In 1977, she married Peter Maligo and had a son. She eventually divorced her husband.

Stowe moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1986 to find work as an exotic dancer. She fell out of the limelight and into drugs, alcohol and street prostitution in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. She was found murdered on March 16, 1997. Police belived her killing to be a serial murder.

Taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Stowe

Vanessa Freeman, Murdered By Her Boyfriend

Vanessa Freeman AKA Trudy Webb was found in her bed strangled to death on January 9, 2007. Webb was a British porn actress and an escort. She had boasted a boy band member among her list of A-list clients. Shortly after her death police discovered Webb’s boyfriend attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. She was 30 at the time of her death.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article7664.ece

Rebecca Steele The Life And Death Of A Porn Star

By EARL SWIFT , The Virginian-Pilot
March 24, 2004

SHE WAS DARK-EYED and fine-boned, with chestnut hair that tumbled over her shoulders. She had a body, lithe and firm, that she loved to show off. In the spell of her smile, sweet and inviting and crazy all at once, men gave her money, jewelry, a Corvette.

For years, Jeanette Dee Rogers traded on her most obvious strengths. She worked Norfolk’s go-go bars young, made bigger money as an exotic dancer in Hawaii and earned an international following as Rebecca Steele, a centerfold model and featured player in scores of X-rated movies. She lived large, dressed well, partied without care.

But the heady times didn’t last, and she wound up back in Norfolk with little to show for them. By the time she turned 42, on Jan. 17, Rogers had been through so many marriages that her mother couldn’t name all her exes. She was flat broke, on the run from creditors and half a step from homeless. She’d fallen into drugs and spent days on end in chemical fogs. She was suffering from full-blown AIDS.

Her fall ended two days after her birthday, on the floor of a worn motel room on East Little Creek Road. Her obituary, two sentences long, failed to mention her peculiar fame – that a Google search of her name generates more than 4,000 hits, that she continues to flicker on video screens around the world.

Only a handful of people turned out for her funeral.

Rebecca Steele is easy to find: Years after her departure from adult films, her turns in such fare as “Down and Dirty” and “Open Ended,” in “Bi-Bi Baby” and “Dutch Masters,” still sell on the Web.

Online biographies chart her career: “Rebecca Steele was easily one of the most enticing young women on the late ’80s/early ’90s hard core scene,” one reads. “Her endlessly alluring good looks were sure to please, but it was her energy and spirit that kept fans coming back for more.”

The real woman is far more elusive, for Rogers assumed many names, and many roles, over the years. She was Jeanette Markvart, Jeanette Moore and Jeanette Zuelly, Mindy and “Rebel.” She was a biker chick, a construction worker, a victim and a predator, exploited and exploiter.

Stretches of her life, some of them years long, are blanks.

This is certain: She was born in 1962 to an enlisted sailor and a teenage mother from the sticks named JoAnn Skeeter. The sailor took off before her arrival; a young Marine named Markvart married the pregnant JoAnn instead.

The couple split soon after. For a while, JoAnn Markvart raised Jeanette in an apartment nestled among the honky-tonks of East Ocean View, but she eventually sent the girl to live with relatives in Bent Creek, in Appomattox County. Jeanette bounced between Norfolk and Bent Creek for the next several years.

Before long, JoAnn was with another sailor, Joel Anito, and two more children, Priscilla and Joseph, followed. In the meantime, JoAnn Anito became troubled by her firstborn’s visits. “All you had to do was say no,” she recalls, “and she was almost like an untamed horse.”

An angry Jeanette set the laundry on fire. She spiked her mother’s bath water with broken glass.

“A psychiatrist told me that when she came home, if I had any knives or anything, I should secure them because she was capable of killing me,” JoAnn Anito says.

“They told me that when she was about 7.”

Rick Mills sits on the bed he shared with Jeanette Rogers. He is the key to another certainty about her: the manner of her death. Mills, a 41-year-old carpenter, was Rogers’ fiance. He reaches into a knapsack of her belongings.

“This was her last cell phone,” he says, eyes red-rimmed. “This is the bandana she wore. These are the earmuffs she wore when she was cold.”

He continues to live in their motel room, to sleep in their bed. “She was my soul mate. We shared everything. There was nothing we didn’t talk about.”

He opens a small, wooden box to reveal a tangle of elastic hair bands. Opens a velvet box containing a long lock of her hair. He sniffles. Beneath his feet, at the foot of the bed, is the spot he found her.

“I seen her curled up, right here.”

As the police report put it: “Ms. Rogers appears to have overdosed on prescription medication and pills were found on floor of room.”

A couple feet away is a bright red Christmas gift bag. It contains her ashes. “I called 911 immediately,” Mills says. “They talked me through CPR on the phone.” He shakes his head.

He was the last man to fall for her. No telling how many came before him; his fiancee learned early that she had a power to beguile. Her family says she traded favors for cash with a Bent Creek neighbor while still a preteen. She broke hearts in Norfolk whenever she swept into town. Once her mother had her institutionalized, and she performed stripteases in the hospital.

“She was always wild, even when we were young,” says her half-sister, Priscilla Garbett. “Men fell out over her. Guys went ga-ga over her.”

“The men, it was like they were coming up out of the floor,” JoAnn Anito says.

“She loved it,” Garbett says.

She quit school in seventh grade, about the time the Anitos’ marriage was breaking up in a swirl of drunkenness and violence. At 15, she was pregnant. She married her baby’s father, who lived near Bent Creek, but the pairing didn’t stick. Neither did motherhood: When her son, Brian, was still a baby, Jeanette Moore – that was her name by now – left him with her husband’s parents and took off.

Back in Norfolk, Jeanette dropped by the beauty shop where her mother worked to announce she wanted to dance at a go-go joint. She was “about 17″ at the time, JoAnn Anito says. That’s her recollection, anyway: Rick Mills says his fiancee told him she was 14 or 15 and that she used a fake ID to get the job.

Whatever the case, Anito accompanied her daughter to an audition near the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. “She did real well. She looked good. And before I knew it, she had beautiful outfits, and the money was rolling in.”

She worked clubs in Ocean View and the Peninsula as “Mindy.” She danced at military bases. “She could work two, three days a week,” her half-sister says, “make a couple grand, and do what she wanted, when she wanted.”

She bought a motorcycle and in her off hours ran with a gang. At a North Carolina bar, she was jumped by other bikers, dragged into the woods; they broke her ribs, even shaved her head. Years later, she told of having been kidnapped by a rival gang, too, and held prisoner for months.

If so, she managed to escape back to Norfolk. She danced under a tough new name, “Rebel,” and the money kept coming. “She could pick a sucker out of a group,” Garbett says. “She’d say she could tell them by the shoes they wore. She’d use ‘em up, take everything they got and leave ‘em with nothing.”

Greater glory beckoned, however. Anito remembers Rebel telling her she was headed to California to make movies. “I said, ‘I guess there’s not a whole lot more you can do in those movies that you haven’t already done,’” she says. ” ‘You’re 18. I can’t stop you.’ “

So was born Rebecca Steele. She moved west, got a house in the San Fernando Valley, and got busy. One online database lists her as a performer in 66 titles. Anito says she’s heard her daughter appeared in 152. Mills says she was in about 350.

Rebecca Steele movies tended to be the sort the porn industry turns out by the hundreds – shot in bad light, with bad sound, on cheap tape, with little thought given to plot or actual acting. Performers weren’t paid well, though some, like Steele, earned more by agreeing to onscreen acts that others refused.

One of her 1990s vehicles, “Sex and Other Games,” was typical. Steele, who has top billing, appears about halfway through the movie, couples with a stranger, then pairs up with a girlfriend. The camera shows off her tattoos – eagles on her left shoulder and upper back, an amateurish flower on her right thigh, smaller images scattered elsewhere – more than talent; her screen presence, in fact, approaches lethargic.

She took pride in her work, however. “She took me down to the place they were doing the filming,” Anito says of a visit to California. “They had different scenes going on. To them, it’s like sitting down, having a cup of coffee and lighting a cigarette.

“She wasn’t working that day,” she adds.

Last year, Adult Video News, the trade paper of the porn industry, estimated that adult film performers engage in as many as 50 sexual contacts per workday. At the time Steele made most of her movies, male performers rarely used condoms, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases among her co-stars was not the routine it is today. Sometime in the early 1990s, she was infected with the HIV virus.

Apparently unaware of her illness, she moved to Hawaii to dance. Many adult film performers join the stripping circuit, where a performer with a national following can make thousands of dollars a week. She tried her hand at film directing, too, and posed for Cheri magazine in leather chaps and little else. She appeared with Anito on “The Joan Rivers Show,” in a segment devoted to mothers and their porn-star children. Otherwise, her activities left few footprints.

Anito figures she was married again, perhaps several times, and says that after seven years in Honolulu she moved back east, to bounce among Norfolk, New York and Florida. She stripped, raised pit bulls, kept snakes. And she fell ever deeper into drugs: Anito and Garbett say she was jailed in Florida on a cocaine charge in the mid-1990s, was busted in Mexico at another point. She may have broken her neck in a car wreck and acquired a yen for prescription painkillers. She married yet again, becoming Jeanette Rogers.

In 1999 she was back in the Virginia Piedmont, with another husband. As Jeanette Zuelly – the spelling is inconsistent from one court record to the next – she ran up a slew of bills, was arrested for stealing from a drug store, lived in a trailer in the woods. Her family says she was almost constantly drugged – on crack, cocaine, pills, marijuana.

The marriage broke up, and she moved in with one “J.D.” On Christmas Eve, 2000, he threw her out of his car on a roadside near Crewe, Va. She sought help at a truck stop where Rick Mills, born in Richmond but living in Dinwiddie, was sitting in his car.

“I had a ‘93 Ford Mustang, and I had the whole back of it filled with presents and flowers, because I was going to Richmond the next day,” he says. “Jeanette came walking up. She had on baggy jeans, an Oakland Raiders jacket. She was beautiful, and she asked me which way I was headed.”

Mills agreed to drive her to Norfolk the next day. On the way, they stopped in Richmond. His family, Mills says, recognized that she was high on something, and horrified, urged him to dump her.

Already smitten, he refused, creating a rift that has yet to close: When his mother died last April, Mills says, he didn’t attend her funeral.

In the late spring of 2001, the couple moved to an apartment on Norfolk’s Willoughby Spit. They got construction jobs on a new department store, and for a while, the money was good. But both used copious quantities of cocaine and other drugs. The cash didn’t last.

“She had an – I’d call it an arsenal of pills, all prescription drugs,” says Chris Glover, a neighbor who befriended her. “I’ve seen pictures of her when she was younger, and she was a knockout. But that lifestyle, it’ll burn you out.”

The worst was yet to come. The couple bounced among Ocean View motels and apartments, growing ever more lost in drugs. They argued frequently, three of their fights ending with Mills facing battery charges. He was locked up for several weeks.

When he got out of jail, Mills moved to Richmond without her. He got work. He cleaned up. “But one night I got to missing her real bad,” he says. “I wound up going and getting her the same weekend.” The happy reunion gave way to another bout with drugs. Miserable, the couple attempted suicide together in Richmond in April 2002; they split a 100-count bottle of Carisoprodol, a prescription muscle relaxer.

“We both woke up in Chippenham Hospital, not dead,” Mills says.

Once released, they lived for a while in another motel, then moved back to Norfolk. Rogers – she was using that name again – raised money by hustling. Around the same time, she began to complain of chronic diarrhea, and in short order dropped to 90 pounds. A thrush infection bloomed in her mouth. The symptoms went undiagnosed until she and Mills tried to donate plasma at a Wards Corner clinic in the fall of 2002.

“I used to say, ‘Look, Mom, we’ve got to let her hit bottom,’” Garbett says. ” ‘We’ve got to get her to the point where she realizes she needs to get clean and get her life together.’ Then she found out she had AIDS.”

Her downward spiral steepened. While Mills checked himself into a hospital in July 2003 to straighten out, an emaciated Rogers began abusing the prescriptions written for her by doctors treating her AIDS. In the fall of 2003, she overdosed on pills four or five times, Anito says.

Once, she collapsed in a supermarket. She seemed to turn a corner late in the year: The AIDS medicine appeared to be working. She put on weight.

“I said, ‘You can get pretty again. You can,’ ” Anito says, “and she was just getting to grasp that. She seemed really happy that last week.”

Mills agrees: “Jeanette was very happy.”

Perhaps she was. Acquaintances say Rogers was proud of her past, comfortable with herself and generally upbeat.

“She considered herself a movie star,” says Cindy Williams of Virginia Beach, who came to know her about the time she was diagnosed. “And she was no angel, but she had a whole lot of compassion. Doors opened for her and people wanted to be kind to her because she was always kind to them.”

Still, whatever odd glamour Rogers had enjoyed earlier in life clearly was vanished from it now. She and Mills lived in a room at the M.D. International Inn. They ate meals she cooked in the room’s microwave.

“All she had were a few things in a bag,” Anito says. “Her life kind of deteriorated.”

A final certainty: On Friday, Jan. 16, Mills picked up Rogers’ prescriptions, and she immediately dived into one – another bottle of Carisoprodol.

“She started doing pills that day, and she stayed that way all weekend long,” Mills says.

She passed her birthday in a stupor. Garbett called on the couple to drop off a present; Rogers gave her 10 of her pills, but later remembered nothing of the visit. Monday came. Mills left for a roofing job.

“I begged her, I said, ‘Jeanette, please, don’t be all messed up on these pills when I get in,” he says. On his return, the motel manager told Mills he’d discovered Rogers incapacitated in a hallway. Mills found her cross-legged on the floor of their room, surrounded by strewn clothes. Of the 100 pills in the bottle, 13 remained.

He called for help. Norfolk paramedics arrived. She told them she didn’t want treatment and signed a form saying so. The rescuers left. Just before midnight, Mills woke – he’d drifted off to sleep – and found his fiancee lying on the floor. The same paramedic crew returned to declare her dead.

Mills hangs his head, eyes welling. “After I met Jeanette,” he says, “my whole life changed.”

Friends came into town from Florida for the service, but no one from the movies, no co-stars or directors or producers from her glory days. Mostly just family, and not all of that; her son didn’t make it, either.

The few who did were surprised when they approached Rogers’ open casket, Garbett says. It was as if she hadn’t spent decades in a high-mileage life, as if too many bad decisions had left no mark. Years had vanished from her face.

She looked beautiful.

Taken from this article: 

http://www.oneangrygirl.net/RebeccaSteele.html

Where is Viper? The Ex-Marine turned Porn Star

At the request of a reader I have done a little background check on Viper.

She was born Stephanie Green in 1959 in Oak Ridge, TN. She danced ballet as a child and a teenager. In 1978 she joined the Marines, married a fellow leatherneck, and was eventually kicked out for fraternizing with superior officers. She reportedly tried to have sex with an entire platoon at one point during her 6 years of “service.” After her discharge she left her husband, put her daughter up for adoption and worked in Baltimore as a prostitute. In 1986 she moved to L.A., started doing porn, dabbled in witchcraft, dated Bill Marigold, won AVN awards, got addicted to methamphetamine and got breast implants. Does this story sound familiar?

Viper made about 70 films during her stint as a porn actress. She was instantly recognizable by her full body tattoo of a snake that morphs into a tiger and back to a snake while biting at her left nipple and clitoris.

Now on to the scary stuff. After getting implants she supposedly had a mental meltdown, believing that she got schizophrenia from her implants. She disappeared in 1991, later her driver’s license, social security card and birth certificate were found on a grave in Arkansas. In September of 1991, her car was found abandoned in a high-crime area of Little Rock. According to LukeIsBack Viper now lives with her parents somewhere in the Midwest and hangs out with a group of transsexuals and transvestites.

Another interesting tidbit…In 1990 she gave an interview with Howard Stern during which she admitted to trying to have sex with a dog (boxer) but could not get it inside her. One can only wonder how she became mentally unstable.

Luke is Back article

Wikipedia

Where is Cara Lott? Back for a 3rd stint… at the ripe old age of 46

Cara Lott was born on August 6, 1961. At the age of 18 she sent Polaroids of herself to Hustler Magazine and was soon called to pose as a centerfold. By 1981 she was appearing in adult features. Cara’s first stint as an adult actress lasted until 1991. In 1990 Cara was charged with prostitution. In 1997 she returned to the industry and quickly made 6 more films. In 2005 she made a second comeback appearing in mostly MILF and 40+ titles. At the age of 46 Cara appears to be in for the long haul. According to her own site she is available for “appointments” although she denies that she is an escort or a hooker.

She looks to have aged rather well for a porn star.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cara_Lott