HOME



Before Sunset With Lynn LeMay

3/1/05

We met at the FOXE Awards at the Mayan Theater on Hollywood Blvd in February 1996. Over the next few days, we spoke for about eight hours on the phone.

Then we didn't speak again until Tuesday, March 1, when we sat down at Barney's Beanery near Santa Monica and La Cienega Blvds.

Deja vu.

Deja vu
Could you be the dream that I once knew
Is it you
Deja vu
Could you be the dream that might come true
Shining through

I keep remembering me
I keep remembering you
Deja vu

Lynn, 43, wears jeans, a white T-shirt and running shoes. She's the oldest of ten daughters.

Luke: "What have you been doing since February 1996?"

Lynn: "I took a break for a while, after I fell in and out of love. I went off to Europe and stayed in Finland for eight months. I liked being different. Over there, you were a celebrity, no matter what. Film stars are huge. Porn stars are just as huge. They had a press conference at the airport. I was impressed with myself. It was cool. It was not like anything we ever did here.

"I did a few movies there. They were interesting. They shot in churches. I wore a nun's habit. Big ol' candles. Hot wax. They did different kind of movies. It broadened my horizons. I'll try anything once or twice."

Luke: "How were the movies different?"

Lynn: "They were bigger. They shoot in locations we wouldn't even think of, such as an 18th Century Catholic church. There are bigger casts. The movies take a month to make. They don't look much different. The quality comes out about the same as ours. They just do it different.

"I did this Sexhibition, which was odd. I thought it was the language difference, but there really isn't a language difference in Finland. They speak English as well as we do. It was a mad dash of five days of every kind of sexuality. There were girls on stage."

I order a pitcher of supposedly fresh-squeezed orange juice and Lynn orders coffee.

Lynn: "They showed how to apply a condom to a cock and then they had sex. Live show. Open to the public. It was a teaching of sexuality. They brought me in as the headliner and it taught me a lot."

Luke: "What did it teach you?"

Lynn: "It taught me openness. How uptight we are. Every little line has to be covered on our chests or we go to jail for prostitution. Over there it's just balls to the wall. If people accept it, then it's ok. It's all about broadening everyone's horizons. Topless is no big deal."

Luke: "Then you came back here."

Lynn: "I figured I was done. You can only be in another country for so long. Eight months seems to be my thing. Every time I leave, I come back eight months later. I get lonely. I want people that I've known for a while."

Luke: "Did you have a long relationship?"

Lynn: "About three years. You just want to get right to the relationship part, don't you? I'm over all that. I understand what I don't want now -- men that want me as badly as they do. I want a challenge. I don't want them to attach themselves to me and their whole lives revolve around me and they suck the blood out of me. They turn into me. They know all my friends. They know my world. Then, when we break up, everyone has to make a choice. I don't want to do that anymore."

Luke: "You sound like you did nine years ago."

Lynn: "Some things never change. Now I'm sticking to it. I've been single for three years. Since March 1, 2002 [when Lynn broke up with the producer of the E! True Hollywood Story on Scott Schwartz.

"I did a few movies last fall. The first one was so tragic."

Luke: "Why did you return?"

Lynn: "I was getting the reward of being a legend and I wanted something further to say that I've done. I was getting into the Legends of Erotica [Lynn was inducted by her middle daughter, 23, at Ray Pistol's sex shop in Las Vegas in January]. I wanted to be in three decades. I did my first movie on Easter Sunday 1988."

Luke: "What was it like doing movies again?"

Lynn: "I was so disappointed in myself. It was horrible. It wasn't like it used to be. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I was a professional but it is not about being professional anymore. It's about showing up and getting f-----. They film you from everything from brushing your teeth to going to the bathroom. This isn't from my world. I was off guard from off the bat.

"It was a little girl named Layla [Rivera]. She looked 12. She was so young and so tiny. I'm not the pretty little thing I used to be. I'm older now. I don't want to be the tiny thing I used to be. Starving myself into a size five isn't my idea of a good time. I'm comfortable in a pair of nines. Standing next to a zero, your ego [falls]. It was Henri Pachard, who I love more than life. He's giving me this stroking about how great I am and how glad he is that I am back. I was too much in my head. We did it all in less than an hour.

"I did two scenes with Dino Bravo. We get along great. He entertains me. We shared a room in Las Vegas. We hardly ever saw each other."

Luke: "Why did you quit?"

Lynn: "I didn't quit. I just don't need them anymore. They're doing stuff out there that I just don't believe in. Things that aren't sexual. When somebody comes up with something sexy, maybe I'll think about it."

Luke: "Tell me about being inducted into the Legends of Erotica by your daughter."

Lynn: "Oh, my tummy hurts so bad. For months my tummy hurt. I was nervous. I've still got stage fright."

I chuckle about Lynn's 23-year old military daughter inducting her.

Lynn: "She was really cool about all this."

Luke: "What did she say to you? 'Mom, I'm so proud you are getting inducted into Legends of Erotica.'"

Lynn: "We have an agreement. I don't agree with what she does. She doesn't agree about how I got to where I am. But she's proud that I was the best at what I did. And I won't say anything to her as long as she doesn't kill anybody. She's in the Air Force. She's a mechanic for F-15s. I don't agree with the fact that she's gung ho over being a marksman... She doesn't want to hear the details of what I do. She tells everybody who I am. It doesn't seem to bug her. She's a child of porn. She was standing up there when I got inducted, boobs and all. I was wearing an A-line skirt with a low plunging top down to my navel.

"I don't know. The whole thing made my tummy hurt."

Lynn says her middle daughter doesn't look anything like her [but like her father]. Her eldest daughter looks just like her. The youngest one doesn't look like anybody. She's her own person."

Luke: "How did it affect your kids?"

Lynn: "Apparently, not very much. It didn't stop them from having kids. Over the past three years, I've been playing grandma. I'm the proverbial GILF (Grandma I'd Like to F---) now. Don't laugh. Most of the girls my age are MILFing."

Lynn has five grandchildren and another one is on the way. "I turned 40 and all my kids were pregnant. People like to do things to me all at once.

"I am a normal person. I lead a normal life. This is my attire -- jeans and T-shirts. I've worked at Fantasy Island [as a publicist to the strip club] for 11 years. I'm not as crazy as people think.

"I had a guy who said to me, 'I can't go out with you. You're too wild.' It wouldn't have meant a lot except it was [porn director] Roy Karch.

"We were going to go out for coffee and reminisce. It was more than I could handle. That made me look in the mirror."

Luke: "How many men have you had sex with this year?"

Lynn: "On a personal level, none."

Luke: "On a professional level?"

Lynn: "A couple."

Luke: "You looked great on that E! True Hollywood Story on Scott Schwartz."

Lynn: "I ran into Scotty at Erotica LA. He said, I should've had them talk to you.

"I didn't think he meant it. I said, sure, have them call me. The next day they called and booked the interview for the day after."

Luke: "You were given to him in the back of a limo?"

Lynn: "Nothing happened in the back of the limo. Buck Adams gave me $100 to follow him around. It was about six months later that [Scotty and Lynn] started going out. He was 21. We last about four months."

Lynn stands 5'10 while Scotty is about 5'2. "He just broke up with his wife. I didn't call him back. People still remember who he is. I can't believe it. Don't ever hang out with him around Christmas. He has his own action figure at Tower -- with his tongue stuck to a flag pole.

"He lives with that photographer Dr. X."

Lynn dated the producer of that True Hollywood Story for three years. He came to her house for the interview and never left, spiritually speaking.

Luke: "How do you like fame?"

Lynn: "Fame has its benefits. I'm not as wild with it now. I was the first girl to walk into a bar and go, ahhhh, you! I don't do that anymore."

Lynn and Kassi Nova used to do that around 1990. "She still works in a grocery store around here. She has a nice girlfriend. I was her best friend and I didn't know she liked girls."

Luke: "I remember talking to you for about ten hours in February 1996."

Lynn: "That was my breakup phase. I was lonely."

Luke: "You talked and I wrote."

Lynn, bitterly: "Boy, did you! I regret a lot of that. A lot of it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It makes me look bad. It was the last time I spoke openly with people, particularly guys who have pens. Now I'm more guarded."

Luke: "It was the best profile of you ever written."

Lynn: "Bulls---. You made look like an asshole. But I'm here to make up and give you another chance, so be nice to me this time. Everyone told me that I was a fool to come here.

"I went to KSEXradio.com last night and a few people I know were there. They said, 'You're doing what with whom?'

"I'm doing KSEX on the 11th. I wanted to see what it was like first. Some of these things I'm walking into are blowing my mind. Now when I get booked to do something, I go look first.

"I wanted to see what it was like. Immediately I picked up the phone and called Rhonda Jo Petty and said, do you want to do this with me? I don't think I could handle the Wanker by myself.

"This girl was beating him with a rope and tying him up and stepping on him and smothering him. That's not my world anymore. An interview show I could do, but I'm not going to perform for him like that.

"Rhonda [JO Petty] is like a mentor for me. I see that you can come through this business... She's got a gorgeous husband. She has a good life. She raises horses. I like being around her. She stabilizes my thoughts."

None of the Lynn LeMay websites are her's. "Everyone in the world has cyber-squatted me."

She says she gets hundreds of emails. "If someone describes how they want to f--- me, I'm not going to exactly answer them back, but if someone asks an honest question, I've got no problem with that.

"Rhonda and I and Mai Lin and Johnny Keyes, we're all putting a [website] together. That will be a house and each of us will have our own rooms. There's a difference between porn and shock porn, and everything out there seems to be such shock. It's not the kind of porn we did where a guy would sit with his girlfriend on the couch and she'd say, oh honey, let's try that. Now it's, oh honey, did you see that? It's totally different porn."

Lynn usually goes to the FOXE Awards. "That is where the fans are supposed to be and I always go for them."

This year Lynn says she was stood up by her date -- porn accountant David Bider. "It reinforced my anti-men [attitude]. He said he was tired, but he didn't call me until 10:30PM. I haven't spoken to him since. I'm not going to date for a while."

The date was scheduled for 7PM. So Lynn took a taxi. She threw the after-party for Marilyn Chambers at Fantasy Island.

Luke: "Do you do interracial?"

Lynn: "Not anymore. I've got kids. I can't do anything that will totally freak them out. It might freak them out."

I laugh.

Lynn insists: "It will. To have their girlfriends say, I just saw your mom in this movie. I've got to think of [her kids]."

Luke: "How did your kids deal with your being a porn star?"

Lynn: "I didn't want them to know until late. They told more people... This is a different era. When I was going to school, if someone had found out that my mom was a porn star, I would've been on the outside. Now, that means you're on the inside. They use it to their best benefit.

"What? You've got this smile on your face."

Luke: "Did you ever date any of their friends?"

Lynn: "No. But they got a lot of -- G-d, your mom's hot. I've been making movies since I was 26. They don't know the difference between old and new. They don't know how old I am. I'd like to keep that timeless era going on."

Luke: "How do you like growing older?"

Lynn: "I can deal with it. I don't look my age. I'm Indian and I'm Swedish, so I have good blood lines. I sleep a lot. I go to bed early. You have to give up drinking. You have to give up drugs. You have to give up all the fun stuff if you want to stay cute.

"How do you like getting older?"

I shrug.

"Go ahead. Put it into words."

Luke: "I'm more sure of myself. If you were to start screaming at me right now... Ten years ago, that would've frightened me. Now I just make sure I tape it."

Lynn: "You just hide behind the power of the pen. That's not being more sure of yourself."

I talk on.

Lynn: "I think that's called cocky.

"Getting older makes you not react. You sit back and know that you have the power to take care of it.

"Bill Margold has made me the keeper of the new child. Four of these girls have never made it into the industry. It's not right for some people. These are girls who will ruin their lives. They have real jobs and they think this is cool. When I talk them out of it and they disappear, I feel better about myself."

Luke: "Do you wish that somebody would've talked you out of it?"

Lynn: "Nobody could've talked me out of it. I started dancing at 23 in Seattle. The windows came up and the windows came down. I lasted a month. They offered $7 an hour which was a lot in 1981. I was the mother of three with a husband who wasn't paying child support.

"All my exes live in Florida. My first husband is married to a Bible beater who felt it her need to hire private detectives to see if I had a criminal history. Nope, I didn't."

I ask Lynn if Frank Marino hurt her the most.

Lynn: "Yeah. Frank really bothered me. How he could be f---ing my best friend (Lacey Rose) in my house really pissed me off. For eight months. In this business. Jesus Christ. I heard he got someone pregnant again and moved to Florida."

Luke: "Who have you loved the most in your life?"

Lynn: "The same guy I've hated for much of my life, Frank. Would I ever go back? No. It changed everything. For always. Most of my memories involve coming up to that point [where she found out Frank was cheating with Lacy Rose] and from that point. It wrecked me. It wrecked what I thought I was. I thought I was this untouchable, gung ho, everything I did turned out right... Afterwards, I became this meek, mild, withdrawn, unsure of herself...

"Before, I had my balls than any one I had I ever met. Nothing stopped me. I'm the guy who left Hawaii, got on a plane, went to New York, became a porn star, and traveled the world. I never blinked when I ended up in a country all by myself. I got on a train and went to a different country.

"That destroyed all of that. I sat at home and wondered what people thought of me. I never thought of that before. Now it is the first thing I think about before I do anything. Now, after I do things, I think, why did I do that for? I never thought that before."

Lynn slept with many directors in the business including Cameron Grant, Ron Sullivan and his son Jason (one right after the other), and Nic Cramer. She never slept with a journalist.

"When we [Ron and Lynn] faded out, he said, you should go out with Jason, who was 18, probably. I was 27."

In Finland, Lynn, at age 32, dated a 19-year old. "He told me he was 23. I found out he was 19 when I found his passport. It doesn't make you feel younger. It makes you feel older. Hanging out with their friends, it makes you feel older."

Luke: "Which other directors did you sleep with?"

Lynn: "I don't think I want to pour this out. But I'll give you one more -- Scotty Fox. I f---ed most of them. It was a power trip. You should never f--- a director because then you never work for them again."

Lynn says she's slept with about 20 porn directors. "I'm a home body. Look where I live. I live in the middle of everything. Every nightclub in the world is within walking distance of my house, but I never go out. I don't have the desire.

"I was a 40-year old Hollywood bimbo parading around in mini skirts, high heels, platforms, going to clubs. Now I'm a grandma. It's a shock to the system. In the world I grew up, grandmas don't go to clubs.

"When I go to parties, I wear evening gowns rather than miniskirts.

"I should probably move. This is a neighborhood for young people. I should find a man and settle down. I don't want any more kids. They spend two weeks of every summer with me. It kills you.

"I was dating a regular guy. I took him to the Night of the Stars [thrown by the Free Speech Coalition]. He sits back and says, 'Which one do I get to f---? You've f---ed everybody here.' That's what I don't want. Somebody that arrogant... I want a nice guy who wants me, not because of who I am or because he gets to f--- my friends. I want someone who is not in it for the cheap thrill."

Luke: "Do men use your porn star status against you?"

Lynn: "Oh yeah. It's the first fight, the last fight and every fight. What do you do about it? How do you find a real guy?

"How do you find a nice girl? Do they use porn against you? You're hanging out with all those porn sluts."

Luke: "Yeah. None of them like it."

Lynn says she wants to live a nice quiet life and not talk about organized crime guys she used to live with in New York. "Don't put that on tape," she says.

I put it on tape.

"You're an asshole," she says. "Put that on tape.

"What's the best story you've heard about me? I've been around for 17 years. I've got some knowledge about some things. Some things I've forgotten. You'll have to prod me. Bring back some cool memories for me. I'm guarded but... I've learned my lesson with you. I thought you'd at least have some good questions."

I don't. I'm tired and empty.

Lynn: "He's looking at me with these big green eyes, nodding his head. He's thinking."

Luke: "How did it make you feel to see all those long conversations we had end up on the Internet?"

Lynn sighs. "Do you know when I saw it for the first time? Somebody printed it out and handed it to me in Finland [in 1997]."

Luke: "What was it like when you read it?"

Lynn: "I called you a few names."

Luke: "How did it feel?"

Lynn: "Violated."

Luke: "Did you feel like you had been raped on the Internet?"

Lynn: "No. A lot of it had been taken wrong. You talked to other people and intertwined what they said with what I said, which didn't match. It made me look one way when you talked to them and another way with what I said. It made me uncomfortable."

Luke: "Did you recognize yourself in the portrait?"

Lynn: "Some of it. Some of it made me hate you a lot."

Luke: "Why?"

Lynn: "It's taken me until 2005 to volunteer to do this again."

Luke: "Why did it make you hate me?"

Lynn: "Because a lot of it was taken out of context and it made me look more bad than good."

Luke: "Do you think it revealed some uncomfortable truths about you?"

Lynn: "I'd already been knocked down. I didn't know who I was anymore. Before all I knew who I was was what people wrote about me. I made Lynn LeMay up. I went from being this shy little nobody to a girl who put on her high heels and became a star. When I talked to you, I was teetering. It made me, once again, wonder what people thought of me. You weren't very nice to me while everybody has always been nice to me. You were the first person who wasn't kind, out of everybody I had ever known. That has become your reputation.

"I never wanted to do the counseling thing. I was never any good at talking to a stranger and letting them into my world."

Luke: "You did with me."

Lynn: "That was different. You were an industry person. Being interviewed is different. You expect what you say to be taken and glossed over. You didn't do that. Everybody, everybody else did.

"A lot of my good friends in the industry have died -- Trinity Loren, Cal Jammer, Woody Long. I did Cal's first scene. I remember him sitting and crying after his first scene.

"The Internet has been good and bad. It tells too much, more than you want to know. Some things are better left in the grey area. There are no boundaries. Whatever you say goes out. People in porn are sponges. Whatever is out there, people believe. You don't know if it is true or not.

"My mother and I made an agreement: Never do anything that will hurt anybody. Never do anything illegal. Never do anything that you don't want to do. And don't bring who we are into it."

3/4/05

Lynn LeMay Calls

Lynn (lynnlemay1 at yahoo.com) writes me Friday morning: "Oh Luke, Why o why did you put that old f--king interview on your front page? Why did I give you a new one to replace the one I hated..."

She calls an hour later. "So I read it. I think I know what makes me so mad when I read the stuff you write about me. It's because you clip little things. You don't do full paragraphs."

We make a few additions and corrections to her Tuesday interview.

Lynn: "You can f--- up my life but don't get me in trouble with my kids."

She repeats something I wrote nine years ago: "LeMay grew up in the state of Washington as an unloved child of a poor family..."

Lynn: "That is cruel."

Luke: "That is what you said."

Lynn: "I would never have said that. That gets the bristles up right off the bat."

Lynn lists the professional occupations of her parents. She says she wasn't unloved as much as ignored, being the eldest of ten daughters.

"Nobody paid much attention to me. I was always the one who was left out because I was the oldest and they thought I could handle it. The younger ones always needed more attention.

"I have a new half-brother. We just found him. It was an Oprah moment.

"Some asshole on Yahoo, a member of my free fan site... This escort site in New York said I was coming. But they never told me about it. They fully booked the schedule. And then brought some other girl in. I started getting emails from guys who had come up from Washington D.C. and got hotel rooms. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

"This one evil bastard...He said that if I didn't fly to Washington to make retribution, he was going to delete everybody out of the fan site. He wrote a message on the site, your kids go to this school in this town.

"They can find your name, your address. There are sites dedicated to your real name. Isn't that too weird? Fan should only know me by Lynn LeMay. They shouldn't have access to my real world. Some fan found me through my Post Office box.

"There are evil bitter men with a lot of time on their hands. They probably had an ex-wife who left them. That's the only explanation I can think of. They are very good at torturing somebody and we're just open targets.

"This interview is a teddy bear compared to the last one [nine years ago]. It was like you were trying to make a name for yourself with that last one. Some of the little jabs you made at me.

"I'm getting attached to video games. I always think I can do better. Just one more game."

Luke: "Which game?"

Lynn: "All of them. Puzzle games. Mindless junkfood.

"I bought myself a domain name - ClubLeMay.com. I don't know what to do with it.

"I've hired four different people to make me a website and everyone has ripped me off."

Luke: "I'm sure you can find a fan who would be glad to do it for free."

Lynn: "It doesn't have to be for free. Just somebody who won't f--- me without kissing me for it first.

"Hans Rudelstein aka John Dragon, photographer, just did it to me. Jeannie Peppers' ex-husband. He said, I found a domain name. I bought it for you. When I get back from Las Vegas, I'll hook you up with my webmaster and we'll make sure you get a website. By the time I got back from Vegas, it was already up and a portal to his site."

Luke: "Did you talk to him about it?"

Lynn: "No. There is no mistake.

"The guy from LynnLeMay.com takes the cake. In Vegas, he walked up to me and handed me his business card and said, 'You have time to do a 15-minute photoshoot? I'll pay you a couple of hundred bucks.'

"I looked at him and every name I could think of went through my name and it was everything I could do to bite my tongue."

Luke: "Find a friend to help you."

Lynn: "I don't do friends. I have acquaintances. I have this problem now of looking at somebody and believing what they put themselves out there to be. I've been told it's because I need to think that there are people like that out there. But I've never failed to be disappointed. I find out that they are not the people I thought them to be.

"You know when you meet somebody they put their best [self] out there? Everything is glossy and colored in pink. I'm a sucker, gullible, sucked right into it. Then I find out they're backstabbing and vicious and evil. So I just have acquaintances."

Luke: "That's not healthy."

Lynn: "It's more healthy than constantly being hurt."

Luke: "No. It means you don't have good judgment."

Lynn: "I have terrible judgment of character. Why do you think I'm still single?"

Luke: "You need to work on that."

Lynn: "Nah. I keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

"To look at a normal person's face when you tell them all this stuff. You, it doesn't phase. You've heard all these stories from these whacked out porn girls. When you're sitting across the table from somebody who has no clue about your world... They go home at night with nightmares. It will open their brain to a whole other world out there with evil men who write bad interviews."

Luke: "Why do women do porn?"

Lynn: "Sex wasn't a big deal to me. We never talked about it. My mother is a prude. At 43-years old, if I say f--- around my mom, she looks at me and threatens to get the soap out.

"I didn't [have sex] until it was [with] the guy I married.

"I didn't cheat on my first husband and I didn't cheat on Frank Marino. [As for the others,] it wasn't really cheating. I dated disposable men. Bartenders. Doormen. Directors. I was in the porn business. It wasn't like cheating."

Luke: "That's what they [Frank Marino and company] thought."

Lynn: "It's different when you go behind someone's back and sleep in their bed...

"It was my house. Frank moved in with me. Then Lacy, who lived out in bumf--- with her kids, would stay with me because she would be so f---ed up she couldn't drive home after a movie. When I'd be out of town on a dance tour, and she'd answer my phone at home, I didn't think about it. I don't think bad things about people.

"Henri Pachard said to me, we should get together.

"I said, aren't you married?

"Oh yeah. Apparently he's got a beautiful black wife now. I'm glad he could find somebody. Hopefully she will ground him."