Linda Lovelace

Linda Susan Boreman (Bronx, New York, January 10, 1949-Denver, Colorado, April 22, 2002), better known as Linda Lovelace, was an American actress and writer.

Biographical information

Family and early years

She was born into a working-class family. The daughter of a police officer, she grew up in Yonkers, New York, where she attended a Catholic school. According to her autobiography (titled Ordeal), she had a son in 1969, when she was 20, and her mother convinced her to put the child into foster care until she was ready to care for him.She later discovered that her mother had actually given the child up for adoption, and she never returned. Her family moves to Florida, although she returns to New York in 1970. After being involved in a serious car accident, she returns to her parents' home in Florida to recuperate.

Charles Traynor

During convalescence, she meets pornographer Charles "Chuck" Traynor. As he stated in Ordeal , Traynor was a violent and controlling man who forced her to return to New York, where he married her and also became her pimp and handler.. She dedicates herself to prostitution at the same time that she begins her career in pornography as an actress in short, clandestine, low-budget and low-quality films in eight-millimeter format. Her themes were diverse, and she came to participate in at least one bestiality tape with a dog, called Dog Fucker or Dogarama (1971). She always denied filming the dog scene until the original tape showed otherwise. In 2013, Larry Revene, the cameraman who recorded the film, first spoke about it, stating that Boreman he participated voluntarily, and that he was not forced at any time. Porn actor Eric Edwards, who was present at the filming, also stated that there was no pressure, and that Lovelace appeared to be cooperating voluntarily.

In 1971, Lovelace also participated in the film Piss Orgy, with scenes of urolagnia or golden showers.

Deep throat

She became famous with the pornographic film Deep Throat (1972), directed by Gerard Damiano. The film, in a comedy tone, focuses on a type of fellatio, deep throat, in which Linda had specialized while working as a prostitute: the female character discovers, with her doctor, that she cannot have orgasms because, to her surprise, of both, the clitoris is located in the back of the throat.^{[citation needed]}

She performed, several times a day, for more than ten years in the Pussycat Theater chain, where she did promotions such as printing her hand and foot prints on the concrete sidewalk, outside the Hollywood Pussycat.^{[citation needed]}

Although the film initially went unnoticed, its subsequent success saw the film go from being shown in clandestine venues to commercial movie theaters. The film later became one of the most celebrated, critically rated, and best-selling porn movies on videotape.^{[citation needed]} There was even a review in the New York Times. This led to the intervention of the authorities, who tried to prevent its dissemination. The administration of President Richard Nixon and conservative and fundamentalist sectors of American society were concerned about the sudden public interest in this type of cinema.^{[citation needed]}

Trial of Harry Reems

After multiple failed attempts to have the film banned and to prosecute the director and producers, they finally managed to sentence the lead actor, Harry Reems, to five years in jail, in a highly controversial trial. The administration was looking for a scapegoat. The FBI arrested him in New York in July 1974, and he was indicted in Memphis, Tennessee, in June 1975 on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute obscenity across state lines. He was convicted in April 1976 along with another 11 people and four companies.

His conviction was overturned on appeal in April 1977, because his filmmaking activities took place prior to a 1973 United States Supreme Court ruling on obscenity (Miller v.. California), and Reems was granted a new trial. The charges against Reems were dropped in August.

The defense argued that he was the first American actor to be prosecuted by the federal government solely for appearing in a movie, and he was endorsed by well-known Hollywood and New York actors and actresses during the trial: Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Dreyfuss, Colleen Dewhurst, Rod McKuen, Ben Gazzara, Mike Nichols, Julie Newmar, Dick Cavett, George Plimpton and Stephen Sondheim, who saw the sentence as an attack on freedom of expression, and began a campaign in his favor in which Linda Lovelace also collaborated. Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Louise Fletcher said they were willing to testify on his behalf at trial. His appeal was handled by Alan Dershowitz. ^{[citation needed ]}

Reems had been hired as a lighting assistant, but when the lead actor left the shoot, he was offered the lead, paying $250 for a day's acting work.

Commercial success

All the attempts of the administrations to prevent the dissemination of the tape achieved just the opposite. The controversy and the various campaigns for and against the film aroused the unstoppable curiosity of the public, which packed the increasingly numerous commercial rooms where it was shown. The film opened the doors to many others in the same genre, and suddenly made Linda Lovelace a very popular public figure.^{[citation needed]}

The film, produced with mob money, is believed to have grossed as much as $600 million. The actress always maintained that she never charged for participating in the film. Her husband alone received $1,250 for performing production tasks. ^{[citation needed ]}

Other films

Although he continued acting in inconsequential pornographic films (Deep Throat II, 1974; Sexual Ecstasy of the Macumba, 1975), he also wanted to excel in non-pornographic cinema, with Linda Lovelace for President (1975), which was a flop.

Divorce and health problems

Linda Lovelace divorced in 1973 and sued her husband. She accused him of forcing her into prostitution and pornography. In addition, she accused Traynor of being to blame for her breast cancer, since he was the one who had convinced her to increase her breasts through dangerous silicone injections (current implants were not common). He also claimed that he contracted hepatitis during that operation, due to a blood transfusion, although it is likely that he got it from the blood transfusions he received after his car accident in 1970, when he was engaged in prostitution or on the set of a movie. some porn scene.

Feminism

After the divorce, she became a member of radical feminism and a prominent anti-porn activist, testifying before the United States Congressional Commission investigating the world of pornography on the orders of President Ronald Reagan. Before the commission she testified, regarding Deep Throat : ^{[citation needed ]}

"When you see the movie Deep throatThey're seeing me being raped. It's a crime that the film continues to exhibit; there was a gun pointing at my head all the time. "

Linda Lovelace

Second marriage

She married again, in 1974, this time to Larry Marchiano. After having two children, they divorced in 1996. In the divorce, she alleged that Larry Marchiano drank excessively, insulted her children, and was violent towards her.^{[citation needed ]}

Autobiography and other books

In 1980, he published his controversial autobiography, Ordeal (Ordeal or Death Proof), the only one he admitted as legitimate, since the two earlier ones (Inside and Linda Lovelace's Diary, the latter from 1977) were written by ghostwriters. In Ordeal, she warned young women against the dangers of engaging in pornography, recounting how she had been forced at gunpoint.^{[citation needed]}

In 1986, he published a new book: Out of Bondage, which deals with his life beginning in 1974.^{[citation needed]}

In the book The Other Hollywood, she stated that she had felt used by the anti-pornography movement. Some feminist authors had published books in which they used her to promote themselves, without helping her financially at any time.

Accident and death

He died on April 22, 2002, in a traffic accident in Denver, Colorado, where he had lived since 1990.

Works about her

The life of this controversial actress was played by the young Amanda Seyfried in the 2013 film Lovelace: Deep Throat. The film, which was directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, had an estimated budget of $10 million and included performances by Sharon Stone and James Franco.

Books

• Inside Linda Lovelace (1974)
• The Intimate Diary of Linda Lovelace (1974)
• Ordeal (1980), Linda Lovelace and Mike McGrady
• Out of Bondage (1986), Linda Lovelace and Mike McGrady
• The Complete Linda Lovelace (2001)

Filmography

• Dogarama (1971)
• Sex for Sale (1971)
• Peeverted (1971)
• Knothole (1971)
• Gomorrahy (1972)
• Deep throat (1972)
• The Confessions of Linda Lovelace (1974)
• Deep throat Part II (1974), like nurse Linda Lovelace
• Linda Lovelace for President (1975)