©2022 By Legs McNeil
I first met John Waters when Victor Bockris took me to Baltimore, Maryland in 1976 to interview him, for I believe Oui magazine, Playboy’s alternative nudie magazine. I don’t know if Victor’s interview was ever published, but it was great—John Waters was hysterically funny telling tales about going to all this infamous crime trials across the country and watching the dramas unfold. John definitely had an interesting life; he told a horror story about a child molester and killer salivating as he sat with his lawyer, while one of the boys he’d abused testified against him. But the way John told the story was hysterical, without minimizing the crime that had been committed, a difficult talent that John has mastered; talking about the sleaze and horror of the world, while making us laugh.
I was never a big fan of Waters movies, but I have always been a big fan of John’s writing and books and of the man himself. John Waters is better and more entertaining than his movies, I always felt, which is why he has become a National Treasure. So when I was doing my porn book, The Other Hollywood, The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, in 1998, I called him and asked for an interview, and told him what I wanted to talk about—and he graciously accepted. I think he wanted to try out his new stand-up act on me, and as usual John was hysterically funny. In honor of Valentine’s Day 2022, I present to you John Waters on pornography—So get comfy, I think you’re going to enjoy this one….
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John Waters on Letterman 1982
L – Where do you wanna start?
J – You’re the interviewer. You start, I’ll talk.
L – Were you aware, I mean, when did you become aware of porn?
J – God, really early– pornography that I first remember, I used to draw my own. But Playboy I guess was the first, especially, I’m old – 1956 you know…
L – What kinda…
J – Well, I can’t draw either, so uh, just fucking, the first thing I ever heard about when somebody told me about it, you know, two tits, a vagina and a dick– you know the first thing that you couldn’t see, until Playboy. The first gay pornography I remember was later, and I was shocked when I saw it. It was like these little match books that had muscle men on it, and I kept them– and my parents found them later and were horrified, you know? But then the ones I remember were things like One Magazine…
L – Were those guys in those reindeer costumes with the muscle men?
J – They were like, all dressed like Roman soldiers or dressed like, you know “Bruce of Hollywood,” that kind of stuff. And I didn’t buy it, I stole it. I was too embarrassed to buy any pornography, all kids steal pornography. It’s one of the first things all children steal, cause they’re too embarrassed to go up to the counter with it. Grown men would steal it if they could, everybody would steal pornography, it’s overpriced, ha, ha, you know. So I remember these magazines like Vim and Vigor and, but the first was called One and that was like sort of like, like the first gay lib ever, like the Mattachine Society for example.
L – One?
J – One. But it wasn’t pornography so much, it mighta had pinups but it was mostly, it was the very first gay lib ever. And I think they had pin ups…
L – Who did that?
J – The Mattachine Society, which was the first gay organization ever. And this is in the 1950’s so that’s my first memories of it, for gay and straight, cause Playboy was enough you know, I didn’t need to go further, ha, ha.
L – Did you just love it?
J – Sure I loved it, I mean it was like, especially I remember Jane Mansfield, that was the one when she was “Promises Promises,” you know? And I was more into you know exploitation movies, obviously, which I talk about ad nauseum in my books and everything. But that was my thing, to me the day pornography became legal was in 1969 when they showed “Pornography in Denmark” in a commercial movie theatre in New York and Variety will back me up on that, that’s the day it became legal, it didn’t get busted. Before that “Mona,” I think was the first one was shown. But “Blue Movie” got busted, the Warhol movie that had actual fucking in it, all before that, and they finally left it alone.
And exploitation movies were over then, the day “Pornography in Denmark,” which was a, “quote,” serious documentary, but it showed penetration, that’s how they got around the law, right, cause it was socially redeeming, which was the big deal one would have to prove, and that’s the day it became legal, and that’s the day exploitation films ended the same way Andy Warhol ended Abstract Expressionism in one-night by that soup can. The same way the Beatles ended rhythm & blues in one-night, same way, it was over. Sure, I went to see it, I came from Provincetown to see it, all the way to New York, because I knew it was historical.
L – Did you see, “Blue Movie?”
J – I saw “Blue Movie,” yeah, later I saw “Blue Movie.” I saw all the Warhol films.
L – Take the bus?
J – No, we hitchhiked probably. No, I actually worked at the Provincetown bookshop and I came with my boss and we had to come down to New York to get books and I went, I took him so see “Pornography in Denmark.”
L – How was it?
J – I knew what it was and I knew it was historical, to me it was a big deal, it was the day pornography became legal. And it never went back.
L – So you were aware, the one guy in the audience aware of…
J – Right, and Variety covered it heavily. Variety was then the only paper that ever wrote about pornography, then they made an editorial decision later to stop reviewing them. In the beginning, they reviewed every hard-core movie that came out, they did. “Deep Throat” certainly they reviewed, and that led to “Deep Throat,” a few years later, but certainly my memory is “Mona” was the first one, which I think maybe they let that one go, but maybe that was afterwards, but “Pornography in Denmark” is the one that broke it, because of the socially redeeming thing.
L – Do you think porn has an aesthetic? I mean were you going to watch?
J – I went by directors, still, yeah.
L – Cause it seemed like you incorporated the pornographic aesthetic in your early movies if you don’t mind me saying…
J – Sure, no I did. But the joke in “Pink Flamingos” was on porno chic, that you don’t get now; when Devine actually blows Crackers, but I mean, he had half a hard-on, which we call a Hollywood low, which is a good expression in your book, you might need to know that one, ha, ha, if you haven’t heard it already, is it was a joke on that. It was the year “Deep Throat” came out, porno chic. And this was like ludicrous cause they had to say these ridiculous monologues when they were actually having sex, which is really hard to do. And I think you don’t get that today when you see “Pink Flamingo,” you don’t realize what it was. But all those movies that were influenced me were like: “I, A Woman;” “Inga;” “My Sister My Loves;” “Therese and Isabelle,” all the Bergman movies when they were first in Baltimore were advertised as dirty movies, not art films. Still the dirty bookshop in Baltimore is called the Swedish book shop. Sweden in Baltimore means filth. And I say that every time I go to Sweden to promote my movies and they look at me so horribly. I say, “I’m telling you, to Baltimoreans, Sweden still means pornography.” Because of that movie.
L – Did you mourn the end of the exploitation…?
J – In hindsight, later in life I realized that was the day, you know?
L – The day the music died.
J – Ha, yes that’s right. It is, yeah it is the day it died, but I didn’t realize that till later. But it was then, there was no point, exploitation was an industry based on slowly and sneakily showing what you couldn’t be showing, what the studios wouldn’t do. And once there was nothing left, there was no point, then studios still make exploitation films now. “Anaconda” is an exploitation film; you know it’s no difference. Studios make close to pornography now. And the only taboo left, the only…
L – Did you see “Species?”
J – No. My friend is working on “Species 2.”
L – Is the girl still in it?
J – Yeah.
L – Oh gee, you have to see it. She has the perfect body and she’s naked for half the movie and she’s trying to have a baby so she can make another…
J – …species.
L – Yeah.
J – They’re shooting it in Baltimore right now. “Species 2,” my friend Pat Moran is casting it.
L – The day exploitation died…
J – Yeah was then, all those movies, there was no point in them anymore. Now Hollywood could make them and it was legal. But they had to spend a lot more money.
L – But they didn’t start making em till later.
J – Sure they did, I mean 20th Century Fox made “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.” I mean, they immediately gave Russ Meyer a budget. Now the other good one I remember from that period besides Russ who was certainly a pioneer, and made the best of them critically, I mean he made, to me, industrials about breasts really, you know, was Henre Paris, whose real name was Bradley Metzger, who made the “Liquorish Quartette,” oh boy! He was the class act, he was the one that did all the high production values and Autobahn Films was his company. I mean he was famous; he made the “Liquorish Quartet,” “Therese and Isabelle,” “I, A Woman,” I think.
John Waters & Divine on Letterman 1982
L – Did you feel like when you started that you were bringing back exploitation movies?
J – No, I was making exploitation movies for an art theatre. I was making a genre that hadn’t happened yet. “Pink Flamingos” did not work in real exploitation theatres at all, it worked in the richest, smartest, best neighborhoods, that’s where it worked.
L – You had to be smart to have some…
J – Well irony and real pornography, irony is the enemy. You can’t jerk off to something that’s so bad, it’s good, it doesn’t work, irony does not work, it ruins pornography. A pornographic audience, or a fan of pornography, hates irony, because it ruins it. Or knowing the person is dead, that’s why they always hide all the people that died– porn stars that are dead– because people have a tough time jerking off to somebody they know is dead. Those are the two things they keep from you.
L – You wrote a lot about that in Shock Value when you went to teach in…
J – …jail yeah. When I first went to jail to teach, they showed pornography in jail, this one, I couldn’t believe it, yeah, not any more. They actually did it a couple times, show like, I think “Misty Beethoven” or something. I thought, how could that be?
L – Why so the guys could get off?
J – They liked it, wouldn’t you wanna see it if you were in jail? I guess some prisoner had worked his way up in power enough to pick the films and they didn’t know. The guards probably liked it too, just the tax payers that wouldn’t. You know as long as nobody knew, as long as it didn’t leak. I didn’t see it, I just heard. Yeah, “Misty Beethoven” by Bradley Metzger, you should certainly find out about him, Bradley was one of the top directors and then became Henre Paris to do pornography. Now Russ Meyer stopped, he didn’t ever make a hard-core movie. He went as close as he could. Bradley Metzger did, but changed his name to Henre Paris. I think he made “Misty Beethoven,” he made a lot of them. So he did jump over the line to become actually a criminal, because it’s legal to make soft core, and it was technically illegal still to make hard core because of the prostitution laws.
L – Right and they had the pimping and pandering laws to get you on…
J – Right you are. It’s the only, pornography was the only true outlaw cinema in 1980’s because it still was illegal. It was truly outlaw, not creatively, ha, ha. I mean literally.
L – And they were getting them for pimping and pandering, arresting everybody in the late 1980’s when everything else didn’t work.
J – Well, then there was all the stuff they arrested with all the federal shipping laws, where if it went through Memphis, ha, you know…
L – I actually interviewed Larry Paris, the guy who prosecuted “Deep Throat.”
J – Well, you oughta do the guy, I mean there was this place, the Art Theatre Guild, you know who they were? They were– and this is in about 1969, they owned art theatres around the country. But then they showed pornography, all week. They were first-run porno houses, but on every Saturday night there was this thing called the “Underground Cinema 12.” And it was the first-time multiple porn films every got shown all around the country, it went to one city a week. It was a whole tour, and the guy’s name was Mike Getz, and if you want, I’ll give you his phone number. He ran this thing. The theatres were pornographic, his series wasn’t at all, you know, but it was good, and the Presidio were playing it in San Francisco and all the porn theatres on Saturday night had radical underground movies that were very well attended.
L – So you have a relationship to porn?
J – Certainly yeah. The theatres, the art theatres, they distributed Warhol’s one of em, “Lonesome Cowboy,” look them up.
L – Is this guy still around?
J – Don’t ask me. I don’t know. Mike Getz is yeah; I have his number.
L – What does he do now?
J – I have no idea.
L – Were you kind of tickled that you were, your movies were…
J – I paid my father back the $5,000 I borrowed from him mostly through that. You got a dollar a minute. The movie was 90 minutes long so I got $90 a week for quite a while, and that was like $500 then, you know what I mean, it was great. And it really was a big help, I would’ve never broken even without that.
L – Did you know that the baser forms of entertainment were, I mean were you always into comics?
J – No. Comics I was not into that much, except when I was a child like normal kind of shit, no, I’m not a fanatic at all about comics. I was about R. Crumb, certainly those comics, yes and S. Clay Wilson, those are the only two though, I know, I didn’t go beyond them.
L – Because it still seems to me if you watch the Simpsons, they can get away with saying anything.
J – They can yeah, which is why it is truly radical that they can get away with saying everything, especially on family hour.
L – I know and it’s so big.
J – Yeah, it’s great, it’s devious in the best sense of the word. Pornography today is almost middle class.
L – Well it’s 11 billion dollars a year industry.
J – I get Adult Video News, which is the Variety of Porn and what shocks me is that in the heterosexual list, straight pornography, all the titles are anal sex, the most unsafe thing and they don’t use rubbers. I find that truly shocking, where in a gay film you would never, if you didn’t have a rubber, they would not distribute it. I mean it’s truly a taboo not to fuck with rubbers in a gay movie, not one of them. And in straight movies they don’t, and it shocks me because that is how you get AIDS, plain and simple, that is how you get it, you know? I mean mainly, you know the dumbest thing you can, if you’re gonna try anything unsafe, I wouldn’t start with that. And they have that still and that’s in the top ten in hetero porn and all the movies have assholes in the titles. I find that truly amazing. I guess that, I guess that’s what straight America can’t do and that’s what they think about. Must be, that’s all the movies, what, the entire, every straight man in the country is a, wants to fuck up the ass? I never knew that.
L – But five years ago they wanted to be….
J – …blown.
L – No with two girls…
J – They always wannabe with two women, so they think they can get what they really need which is the opposite of what they really need, penetration is NOT what they want, digital maybe, but oh, ha, ha, you know it’s so ludicrous this heterosexual thing…
L – Were you upset, cause it seemed like in the early days, sexual revolution, it was like, oh everybody do what they want, but porn became codified very quickly, no two dicks could touch…
J – Oh, in straight porn, but I didn’t watch straight porn, so it didn’t bother me, ha, ha, what they did.
L – Cause there was supposed to be this sexual revolution with everybody…
J – But there was in real life, so I didn’t care about porn. There was plenty of sexual revolution in real life, you know what I mean, those rules didn’t apply to the hippies I knew, let’s put it that way, ha, ha. But I didn’t watch porn in the 1960s that much.
L – Or the 70s?
J – Well “Deep Throat” I went to see in the movie theatre because it was before the days of VCR. And I didn’t understand if you couldn’t go to a movie theatre and watch porn and not have sex in some way, it seemed like going to a horror movie and being told not to scream. I didn’t get it. But I saw “Deep Throat,” I saw, what’s the Ivory Soap woman’s name?
L – Marylin Chambers.
J – Yeah, the “Green Door,” and I went to the O’Farrell, the Mitchell Brothers who contacted me early.
L – Oh you have to tell me.
J – I don’t know that much about em. I went there one day, and they showed me– because of “Pink Flamingos.”
L – Did they call you?
J – Yeah, I can’t remember, they wanted me to just come see the theatre and I lived in San Francisco for a while, so I remember I went and saw the theatre and they were nice and just told me they loved “Pink Flamingos,” it wasn’t any major thing, you know?
L – Were they really into film?
J – Certainly, yeah. Well, they were one of the pioneers of pornography you know, and San Francisco has always been very liberal on that particular issue. And that was the first place my movies come out of the Palace Theater which was not pornography, but it was the place where the Cockettes played, and at night they had underground movies, but widely supported, I mean sold out at night and the audience was all on LSD and so were the people in the movies so it was…
L – Were you?
J – Yes. I didn’t see pornography on LSD, certainly, no, never did. Did I ever see porn on LSD? If I wanted a little old trip, it wasn’t some porno movie, I can’t think of a worse idea, ha, ha!
L – Ever have sex on LSD?
J – Not at the height of it no, because the LSD we took, that would’ve been impossible you know? But coming down, yes. But it wasn’t like I mean, the kind of LSD we took was stolen from the hospital in Maryland. It was Sandoz acid and I tripped in 1964 which is very early. And you were the chair, you couldn’t get out of it, so fucking was not an issue, you know?
L – Good. Did you have any sort of relationship with the Mitchell Brothers? Show your films there?
J – No.
L – Did you want them to screen them?
J – No, not really, and I wouldn’t’ve wanted it. It woulddabeen the wrong place. My films certainly, people that wanna be sexually aroused, don’t rent a John Waters film usually, unless they’re kinkier than I am. No, there was no reason, I didn’t wanna show. I probably, maybe thought, maybe they’d give me money to make one, maybe. I may’ve had that in the back of my mind and they might’ve had in the back of their minds, that I wanted to make a porno film, but we never asked each other those questions, you know what I mean? Ha, ha! But that could’ve led to the phone call, and me going.
L – When Metz was doing this film, underground series…
J – No, his name is Mike Getz.
L – Sorry…
J – He booked them, I never met him in my life.
L – When he was doing them and showing them in these porn theaters in downtown cities, were people…
J – The audience was totally hip, oh completely. Except they never went to the theaters during the day. Saturday night at midnight was the thing; “Underground Cinema 12.” And that audience was like the Angelica today, you know the hippest audience, but during the week, it was all pornography, but that audience didn’t go to that.
L – No crossover…?
J – No. Well, I went a couple times, but no. It was “four walling” almost, he made a deal with the Art Theater Guild to do this.
L – Can you just explain “four walling?”
J – “Four walling” is when you just go to a theater and you rent the theater for a certain amount of money and you have to pay them if no one comes, but you get to keep all the money. And theaters usually do that in off times, or if they have a flop, cause at least they get some of their money back.
L – Were you following the cases when “Deep Throat…?”
J – Certainly, I always read Variety, since I was 12 years old. And Variety covered the pornography business, it was the only person that did cover it, at all, then. It stopped once, I don’t remember the year, but there was a great reporter, a gay man that, I wish I could remember his name, he was very kind to me and he wrote about pornography a lot and he died very early. And once, I think maybe, past “Deep Throat,” then suddenly, editorially, they decided not to cover it. But before, they reviewed every one, I mean it was thought of, it WAS a giant business, “Deep Throat” made a fortune.
L – $100,000,000, outta $22,000 investment.
J – Yeah, now who actually got that money, who knows.
L – The Peraino’s.
John-Waters on stage – BFI
J – Well they had something to do with the Art Theater Guild, I think, you know that book, Sinema? It has some of that stuff, it’s a very good book. But then I didn’t go see, once pornography became legal, I didn’t then go see every heterosexual hit porno movie, because, for what?
L – But did you follow the legal cases?
J – Yes, certainly with Harry Reems and that whole show.
L – He was the first actor that was arrested for acting right?
J – Yes. Well, he got arrested because they, it was that horrible prosecutor that went against all porn and the way he did it was when, if it got shipped through Memphis, it was all federal offence then which was worse, you know the joke is don’t make a federally offensive, well I did, ha, ha! And I forget what, but you know for a time the pornography business has a few taboos of its own. And they have a list, do not ever show these movies if it has animals in it, of course underage children, or pissing and shitting. And “Pink Flamingos” was on that list, saying, this is the film you’ll lose it in court, don’t have it in your show. For a long time, the pornography business itself singled out “Pink Flamingos” as a loser in court, you know, “You’ll lose.”
L – No redeeming social values. Not even for porn guys?
J – Yeah. Yeah, I know, I was shocked. And then when it came out this time, we went very deep in America without any incidents and all good reviews, amazing, 25 years later. And it’s coming out on video, a box set.
L – We’ll push it in the book.
J – Well, the book will be out way after I’m out. Now I’m saying this, watch, in two months I’ll be in prison somewhere, because it got busted five years ago in Florida, yeah, video. Because it was unrated, that was the problem. Now it’s on NC17 proudly. And they, some video owner puts it on the shelf and some kid takes a unrated comedy home, from the comedy section, and sees the singing asshole, and you know, and their parents call the police. I would’ve just turned it off. I wish I coulda called the police when Forrest Gump started running.
L – Can you tell me about what “Deep Throat” did to the culture? Did you think “Deep Throat” introduced the blow job to the middle-class, suburban America?
J – Yes. I think it did. And it was, I remember the great ad they had, that, and you could never have this ad today, the New York Times ran this ad. It said, “If you like head, you’ll love Throat.” That was quite a strong ad campaign. And well, the idea of “deep-throating,” that’s a word now, it became a real word, I mean it’s like “sadism.” I mean, I always thought how impressive it mustabin to have a sexual life named after your last name, the Marque de Sade, “sadism,” pretty influential. Well deep-throat is now a verb. And I think if, not only, maybe it introduced the blow job, but beyond that, it did, you had never heard that expression before, and she showed how to do it in the movie. And I think it was the first porno, it was the first-time women had seen porno movies. But it’s pretty rude if you watch it today. It’s really pretty rude.
L – Yeah, it’s not that sexy.
J – No, but you’d never seen it before– and there’s nothing worse than used pornography, if you’ve seen pornography, it is valueless, unless it’s your favorite one. There’s nothing worse. And pornography does not hold up. I mean you look back on even, porno I remember as being incredibly sexual then, you look at now and it just looks silly. I mean it’s got so much slicker, it’s got so much better-looking, looks better, but the models, the hair’s always wrong, cause porno models are never classics. They’re always stuck in the extremes of the looks of that time.
L – Yeah they are.
J – Yeah, ha. They never are classic beauties, ha, ha. I mean timeless is not a word used to describe most porn stars. Ha, ha!
L – But you really can get a sense of the time.
J – Yeah, of what trashy people look like, or what was thought of trashily sexy, which pornography should be. Who wants to see a pornography film set in Geneva you know, it doesn’t work.
L – Isn’t it shocking to you that blow jobs weren’t bigger before this movie?
J – Well I don’t know that.
L – I mean in hetero…
J – Well I don’t know that because I never interviewed a lot of heterosexual married couples, whether they did that or not, you know? All the girls I know did it, hippies did it, yippies did it, and lunatics did it, that’s who I know, and gay people, that’s who I know, and they all did it.
So I don’t have any idea what regular people do in their sex life, I still don’t, ha, ha! Some, that’s the one good thing that any kind of success has brought me, I don’t have to ever meet those people. I have no contact with them in any part of my life, so that’s what success, the best thing money can bring to you, ha, ha, is that you never meet a person that hasn’t either given or gotten a blow job, ha, ha!
L – Can we take it up to the future when you start, more the present—did you follow Traci Lord’s career?
J – Certainly, I’m good friends with her, I baptized Traci Lords. She married my best friend’s son, they’re divorced now.
L – So were you friends with her before?
J – No. I didn’t know her at all, and I cast her in “Cry Baby,” this was sort of after the big scandal.
L – Did you know about her career? Read about her?
J – Sure, certainly.
L – Okay, you gotta tell me stuff from the beginning?
J – Well I knew that Traci Lords was the top porno star, certainly, she was at the time. I knew more of, I had never seen her in a movie, but I knew about her, and I knew the big scandal that happened when she was underage, and they had to destroy all the movies. That had just happened. And then I was casting this movie and I always have files where I cut out pictures and names you know for casting. And this was my first Hollywood movie. And I was with Universal Studio and I was actually the only time I was in ever much of a position of power there because “Hairspray” was perceived as a big hit, and it was accidentally I made a family movie. So suddenly all the studios want to see what I want to do. And all of them want to let me make “Cry Baby,” right? So I went with…
L – Were you shocked?
J – Not really shocked, I was pleased you know? So I went, Imagine did it, and Brian Gray was the producer, he’s an incredibly successful producer today. And I said I wanted to use Traci Lords and he said fine. If it’d been any other director at Universal, it probably wouldn’t have been done, but I take that sting away, because we were making fun of it. Traci played a sex pot which is always the best way to rid yourself of a image your trying to change, is play it and make fun of it. That’s what Johnny Depp did in “Cry Baby,” he was on “21 Jump Street” and hated it, playing a teen idol and he hated it. I said, “Stick with us, we’ll kill that,” and we did, in the right way, you know? Traci Lords made fun of her image as a porno star in “Cry Baby.” I think because it was me, they didn’t mind it. I think any other director would’ve probably had a hard time from a major studio casting her then. But with me, I’m always celebrating in reverse everything that your supposed to like and dislike. And she read for me a couple times. I mean she came in the first time, looking great. She had on, very smart, no make-up, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Traci looks mighty good in a t-shirt. But very quiet and very shy, the opposite of a porno star.
L – Were you excited to meet her?
J – Oh I was thrilled to meet her. I wanted to cast her you know? And I said I wanted her after she read for me and then I told the producer I wanted her. And he said, I’ll see, so she had to come back. Who knows, just so they could see her too, I don’t know. But no one said to me, no one fought me at all, and I know to this day she still has trouble sometimes.
So when Traci came to us, she came with a gentlemen that I didn’t know until much later was involved with in the porno business, but I didn’t know that and no one knew that. And half way through the film she bonded very heavily. It was like rehab this shoot, I mean think about it, we had Susan Tyrrel, Patti Hearst, Johnny Depp– who had just had some illegal incident, David Nelson, Iggy Pop, totally sober, you know, it was like rehab. Everyone, we played a game on the staff, who hasn’t been arrested, and everyone had a record, you know?
So Traci felt, no one judged her for the first time, we didn’t care, I mean I used to say to her, the only problem was you were too good of a porno star, you know? But during the making of it, the federal agents raided the set for her to make her come back to testify, something she was horrified and terrified of that. And she, I remember her sobbing on the set, saying, “I’m so embarrassed…”
I said, “I’ve been arrested, don’t be embarrassed, we don’t care, everyone here’s been arrested.”
Patti Hearst was comforting her. So I think she, we made her feel better, we did. We rehabilitated Traci Lords. We did. Then she fell in love with my best friend Pat Moran’s son who is practically half my kid in my mind, I’ve known him, she’s been my best friend before he was born, he’s practically grown up on all of my sets, he’s now a very successful prop master, he married her. And they had a very straight, big wedding in Episcopal Church in Baltimore.
L – Did you go?
J – Of course I went, it was a big deal, you know? And the day before, they said, the priest said to Traci, “Have you been baptized?” And she said yes, and later, my friend Pat said, “You’re half Jewish, you weren’t baptized, go over to John’s, he’ll do it.” See, because I’d been ordained by Johnny Depp’s lawyers to marry in the Universal Church, to marry Johnny and Winona Ryder at the time, but I talked him out of it cause they were both too young. But I have these powers, and I do happen to have a tabernacle.
L – Do you?
J – Yes.
L – So you’re a legitimate?
J – No, I had it anyway from a questionable source. But I have some strange religious paraphernalia. So I figured, well I better do it, so come over. So, I played this record, I have a record of castrated altar boys, I got all black tulips….
L – Where did you get a record of castrated altar boys?
J – I have one. It’s like… wait a minute…
L – They’re eunuchs, John?
J – Yeah, what are those things called, Castraltos, it’s old, all scratchy old, it’s a new record but it’s like these vintage singers. So I played that and I wrote this baptism scene for her. I wiped away her sexual defiance, and I wiped away males’ piggish behavior to her, for her whole life. And she started crying, she was, like, scared, I think. Yeah, cause she didn’t expect quite this much of a production when she came over.
L – So you took it seriously?
J – I took it dead seriously.
L – Robes?
J – No, but I wore all black, I had an outfit to wear, yeah.
L – A big tub?
J – No, I didn’t do that, I think I put some holy water on her, I can’t remember. Maybe some Evian water splattered on her.
L – Did she have to get naked or wear white robes?
J – No, certainly not, it should be the opposite of getting naked, we were not, we were doing the opposite of that. We were wiping away, just what you said, males’ defiant sexual behavior towards her, just what you said, ha, ha! And so that was it. And uh, they were married for quite some time and they did break up, but they don’t hate each other, you know what I mean? I still see Traci, actually she came to the premier of “Pink Flamingos” with me, the new version in LA and she said a really funny thing in the LA Time afterwards. She said, “I didn’t do anything THAT bad.” So certainly, I consider Traci a good friend, yes.
L – How did you become a priest?
J – I told you, Johnny Depp’s lawyers had me ordained. Johnny wanted me to perform the ceremony to marry him and Winona at one point when they were engaged.
L – When?
J – When we were making “Cry Baby,” right afterwards.
L – Oh they were engaged; I didn’t know that.
J – Yes, they were a famous couple.
L – Tell me the story, you talked em out of getting married.
J – Yeah that’s no big deal, I said they were too young and I knew her parents and I had them to dinner and you know they didn’t get married, not only cause of me, but I…
L – What did you say?
J – That they were too young to get married and they were.
L – Usually they say, we’re gonna get married anyway.
J – Well they didn’t, ha, ha, they listened to their priest. And it’s $8 to get married, and it’s $30,000 to get divorced. So of course, I don’t really have the power of divorce.
L – How many people have you married?
J – Six, but I don’t do it any more, cause it’s an ordeal and they expect me to write a ceremony, and uh-uh, not for $6. So I try to not do it any more, I hate doing it. So that’s the Traci Lords story. That I was not at all…
L – Can we just go back to the Feds, and since this is an oral history, you have to say…
J – Yes, they showed up… We were like…
L – Where were you?
J – In the woods somewhere making this, this scene where they’re driving down the road, when they’re in a car, so we had to go, it was way out in the country. And they were, and they just snuck up actually, in the woods and shit, to serve her with this subpoena or something right?
L – So they were crawling in the woods…?
J – Yeah, I think they were, I didn’t see them, but I heard something. I saw some people in suits, like, “Who the fuck are they?” You know? And then I saw Traci crying, then I took her in the trailer and said, “What’s the matter?” And she, well actually Pat Moran came and told me and warned me, said, “Go talk to her.” So I went in and Traci was crying, and I said, “We don’t care.” I mean she was embarrassed; you know?
L – That the FBI showed up?
J – Yeah, she was embarrassed, she was trying to make this legitimate movie, she was trying to put that life behind her. And this, and plus I think she was scared. She didn’t wanna go testify but she had to.
L – Do you know what she had to testify?
J – Oh the whole underage thing, all that stuff. And I don’t know if she actually did, to tell you the truth. But I know that she didn’t want to and this was something that would never end in her life, but she was trying to make it end.
L – Did she realize that she was with Iggy, Patty Hearst and Depp and you…?
J – She did, but it took her a while, but what, I think she felt bad about it, she felt that that was different somehow, and she felt bad about what she’d done, but we all didn’t react badly about it.
L – Cause you’d all been arrested?
J – Yeah and we said, plus you were good at it, which she really hated, really mortified. But now I don’t think she’s– it’s her past, she’s weary of talking about it because it almost became like Devine getting sick of talking about eating shit. It’s like such a part of your hype– and really no one else has ever done it since, really crossed over. Jeff Striker could’ve. But he didn’t want to which I found really impressive.
L – Did you follow the John Holmes?
J – Certainly yeah. I think he was a cocaine addict; I mean he was involved in that Eddie Nash murder; I mean he was the lookout driver; I mean that got really pretty serious there, ha, yeah.
L – It was the largest mass murder in California’s history since the Tate murders, did you know?
J – No, and did anyone ever get convicted?
L – No, Eddie Nash they tried twice, they charged Holmes with the crime first…
J – …then he died.
L – Well just to get him to talk, they knew he didn’t do it.
J – But didn’t he drive the getaway car or something? Oh actually, he knocked on the door…
L – He left the door open for them so the other guys came in.
J – You can go to the gas chamber for that.
L – Yeah, but no, for, when they robbed Eddie Nash in the beginning, and then they stole like $100,000 in coke and $100,000 in cash and they had jewelry and the bodyguard caught Holms wearing one of the rings or something. And Holmes said, “Well it was those guys,” so then they went over to those guys house and killed em, all of em.
J – No, I don’t know that many porn people, I know Jeff Striker, I know Chi Chi LaRue, I know Gino Colber, that’s really the only ones I know.
L – Ever meet with Holmes?
J – No. I read a few books on the porn business… I think the first book was by Linda Lovelace about how her boyfriend Chuck Traynor abused her, it shocked me; there was one part I remember, where they’d pull into a gas station, he wouldn’t pay for it, she’d have to blow the guy, imagine that? That is really insane living. So I believe that Linda was maybe brainwashed the same way I believe the Manson women were, the same way Patty Hearst was, you know, some ways they did this behavior—and they can’t quite understand today why they did it. But I don’t know if I completely believe Chuck Traynor had a gun to her head the whole time. But you can have a psychological gun to someone’s head very easy, the way pimps do with hookers. Why do they go and give all their money to somebody, you know? It’s the same kinda thing. Now of course Marylin Chambers says the opposite about Chuck Traynor and was with him many, many years. But Squeaky Fromme said she liked Manson, still. So, it just depends.
L – Are you friends with Squeaky?
J – No just read the, I don’t wanna talk about her, it’s the wrong context to try to help somebody get outta jail.
L – Right.
End Part One
STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO – COMING NEXT MONTH
999
By: Legs McNeil
The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry by Legs McNeil
John Waters Collection (A Dirty Shame NC-17 Version / Desperate Living / Female Trouble / Hairspray / Pecker / Pink Flamingos / Polyester)
