four
Larry Marchiano came out to Hollywood with his wardrobe of dungarees and T-shirts, with his work boots and casual ways. He wasn’t into pornography, showed no interest in kinky sex, didn’t do cocaine. And most of all, he seemed to care about me—not me as a product or a sex machine or a potential gold mine, but me as a human being. I hadn’t met a man like Larry Marchiano in far too long.
Part of his role would be to offer protection. Here I knew I was in particularly good hands. Larry is not tall but he is muscular; he has always worked with his hands and one of his hobbies has been the martial arts. It was so strange to be with a man with these abilities and never have them directed against me. Larry immediately started cushioning me against other people, forming a barrier between myself and those who wanted to take advantage of me.
And he began to know me, began to realize the kind of person I really was. The truth was this: After breaking away from Charles Traynor, I never again would settle for sex without love. What I wanted—all that I ever wanted—was a lasting, loving relationship.
Although I met many movie stars at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion West, I never accepted their invitations. I remember the night I met Warren Beatty,
the
Warren Beatty, the same Warren Beatty whose picture was pasted all over my bedroom wall when I was fifteen or sixteen; then, just the thought of him touching my hand would create shivers. Suddenly here he was, the real person, asking me to go home with him. Several different nights he invited me to go off with him. If ever I faced temptation, it was then. Still I never went. It just wasn’t my thing. In fact, at the Playboy Mansion I felt most at home with the help, and some evenings I spent the whole night hanging out with them in the kitchen, just talking.
One of the men I responded to was Shel Silverstein, the
Playboy
artist and writer. I can remember just sitting in the jacuzzi with him and talking. I always liked Shel. The thought of having sex with him never crossed my mind; if anything, I feared that. That whole world seemed unreal then and more unreality wasn’t what I needed.
And now with Larry joining me on the West Coast, it was back to business. Directly ahead of me lay something I had been dreading—a trip across Canada to publicize the movie
Linda Lovelace for President.
This was one of the dumbest movies ever made. It was so bad that I can’t remember the names of the other so-called actors in the movie, and even if I could I wouldn’t embarrass them by repeating that information here. Who knows? Some of them may have even gone on to acting careers.
Anyway,
Linda Lovelace for President
taught me what was meant by the phrase, “exploitation movie.” People would be amazed if they saw how a movie like this is actually made. The only smart thing they did was to hire comedian Chuck McCann. The script would go from pointless to inane to ludicrous, and then someone would turn to McCann and say, “Do something funny here—anything at all.” Farther into the movie that same someone turned to me and said, “All right, Linda, we’re ready for the fucking-and-sucking scenes now.” McCann obliged them with gags, because that was his job; I didn’t oblige them with sex, because that was no longer my job.
Maybe it was bad enough that I had to appear in the nude. But to me that was a big step up. The movie was R-rated (probably R for Ridiculous) and instead of real sexual perversions, it was filled with simulated sexual perversions. Maybe the audience couldn’t tell the difference, but I could.
Not only was the movie an artistic disaster, it provided me with another of life’s little embarrassments. There was a screening of the movie in California just before I was to go on tour to publicize it. My mother and father were there; my twenty-year-old niece was there; my sister Jean was there; as was Larry, a man who was becoming increasingly important in my life.
Suddenly there was a picture of me standing in front of a huge American flag, saluting, á la George C. Scott in
Patton.
The major difference between George C. Scott and myself was that he wore a helmet and uniform while I wore a helmet. Just a helmet, nothing more, not a stitch of clothing. Unfortunately, the helmet wasn’t large enough to crawl under.
Immediately after the screening, I joined the movie’s other “stars.” It was just expected of me, just another thing I would do mechanically. I tried to keep a stiff upper lip but this time it wasn’t so easy. Larry Marchiano was looking at me with a funny expression on his face.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m just thinking about the movie,” he said.
“Yes, but
what
are you thinking about the movie?”
“You really want to know? I was thinking that it’s a worthless piece of shit,” he said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, unbelievable and terrible.”
“Oh, come on, Larry,” I said. “Don’t be so polite—what did you
really
think?”
It had been so long since someone just told me the truth, simply and directly, that I almost welcomed his comments. However, I didn’t really need anyone to tell me what kind of a movie it was. This was not one of the movies where the producers wait anxiously for those early critical notices; this was a take-the-money-and-run movie, the kind of movie you sneak into town and open everywhere at once, before anyone has a chance to write—or read—a review.
five
Unfortunately, my embarrassment was not going to be confined to just that one night. Next on the schedule: a cross-continental tour of Canada to promote the film. And Larry was supposed to go on the tour with me.
“No way,” he said. “No way you’re going to embarrass yourself by going, anywhere for this movie”
“There happens to be a contract—if we don’t go, they sue,” I said to him, quietly. “And there are 2,500 other reasons to go. They’re paying me $2,500, plus expenses. You’ve been going through my books and you’ve probably figured out about how much money we have”
“So when do we pack?” he said.
The next day, as a matter of fact. Okay, the bottom line was $2,500 and we decided to make the most of it, to have a good time and not think about what we were doing. God knows I had had enough practice at that—at not thinking about what I was doing.
But I don’t think either of us dreamed how important this little publicity trip would turn out to be. Not for the movie and not for my career. But it was then, during an idiotic trip to promote a moronic movie, that we came to realize how much we cared for each other.
For once it was a comfort to have a man with me. A real man, not a male. All I could think of was the contrast between Larry and Chuck Traynor. Say I’d be at a live autograph signing—Larry would check people, watch them, try to stop any trouble before it got started. He was truly protecting me. If it had been Chuck Traynor, he would have been trying to figure out which girl to come on to, which people were into weird sex, how he could cash in on my presence.
In a sense Larry was a fish out of water; the entertainment world would never become his element. In the world of the laboring man there was one way to handle a difficult situation—the direct way. But in my glitzy show-biz world he always had to stop and ask himself what was the proper thing to do. Tact was never his strong suit and this must have been terribly frustrating. At times I could see that frustration bubble up and break through the surface.
Our first concern was costuming. Of course, I was going to wear my movie-star clothes—necklines cut down to my waist. This part of it didn’t bother me at all; I had learned that you could get clothes that were sexy and attractive, revealing without being too revealing. At this stage of my life, I may not have known just who I was yet, but I was no one’s prisoner. No one was
forcing
me to wear low-cut dresses. I think every woman likes to feel attractive.
Larry, too, had to adjust to the necessities of a publicity tour. In the first place he owned nothing but work clothes, so we had to make a few purchases before leaving. Slacks instead of jeans, shirts instead of T-shirts, shoes instead of boots.
We both sensed (correctly) that I’d never earn another penny from the movie; therefore, this trip—the way we lived and ate and played—was my final paycheck.
Larry got into the swing of things fairly rapidly. Early in the tour the three of us—Larry, my niece, myself—checked into a suite of rooms in a Vancouver hotel. Actually, it was
supposed
to be a suite but there was barely enough room for our suitcases.
When I heard Larry complaining to the hotel manager, I could hardly believe my ears (I had to remind myself that just a couple of weeks earlier he had been an apprentice plumber). Now I heard him saying, “I don’t care if this is your only available room. Either you find us a better suite or we pack up. But before we go, we’ll explain to the press why we’re leaving—we’re leaving because this hotel couldn’t give us proper accommodations.”
And
I
was supposed to be the actor! Larry’s threat sent the manager scurrying; when he returned he explained the only other suite available was the Howard Hughes suite, the one the billionaire used during his stays in Vancouver.
“Fine, we’ll take that,” Larry said.
“Are you sure the movie company will pay for it?”
“I
said
we’ll take it.”
And so it was we wound up in a suite of rooms too large to explore in a single evening. We could have played football in the living room. Since the movie company was also paying for our meals, I dialed room service and ordered the meal that quickly became our staple throughout the tour: shrimp, lobster and champagne, a generous supply of each.
And we sat there, in the middle of the Howard Hughes Suite, basking before a glowing television set—watching ourselves on TV for the first time ever—and dining on a millionaire’s picnic. At some point, my niece went off to bed and the next morning Larry Marchiano and I awakened in front of a television test pattern; during that night we became lovers and we have remained lovers ever since.
Getting to know this new man in my life was the only really important thing about the Canadian trip. Every day was divided into two parts. One part was the shabby business of promoting a worthless movie. The other part: getting to really know each other.
Slowly, Larry came to know the kind of woman I
really
was—a one-man woman giving herself completely to the man she loved. The world, on the other hand, saw me as not just a scarlet woman, but
the
scarlet woman. Larry had trouble reconciling the two. I remember being on a television show in Ottawa; a local minister was waggling his finger in my face and lecturing me on morality. There was no way for me to defend appearing in a film of such awesome stupidity; still, I’ve always hated being lectured to.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it was bad manners to point your finger at a lady?” I said.
“Who are
you
to talk to me about bad manners?” he began again. Larry decided he had heard enough of this. From the corner of my eye I could see him wandering about the set; then I saw him bend over to what seemed to be an enormous cable; the last thing I saw was Larry disconnecting an electric plug. The minister was talking into a dead microphone in a suddenly darkened set as Larry and I left.
“I’m not sure you should have done that,” I said.
“Really?” he said. “Didn’t you think that had gone on long enough?”
But what did Larry really know about me or I about him? There were times when I tried to tell him that I was forced into
Deep Throat,
that I had been the prisoner of a madman. But what happened in the past didn’t seem all that important, not when the present was so promising. As a result, I didn’t get around to telling him the whole story then. He had never seen
Deep Throat.
He hadn’t seen any of my 8-millimeter movies. He had never seen me being raped as public entertainment.
And all he was hearing were interviews in which I seemed not to take it, or anything else, too seriously.
“I’m a comedienne, like Marilyn Monroe,” I said in one set speech. “Her problem was that she took being a sex symbol too seriously. Personally, I can’t stand hard-core porn films. If they don’t have comedy in them, like
Deep Throat
did, I find them boring. They’re like medical films.”
On a Friday afternoon we were in a Toronto bookstore, The Book Cellar, and I was signing autographs for three hundred people. The manager of the bookstore, Bruce Surtees, seemed upset by the number of people who stood in line for my autograph.
“If we had a thing like this for Will Durant,” he said, “nobody would show up.”
Although I nodded my head in sympathy, I had no idea who this Will Durant might be or why people should want his autograph. One of the men in line was young, intense, nervous. Larry was keeping a close eye on him as he approached, book in hand, waiting for an autograph.
“Write anything,” he said, “as long as it’s dirty.”
“I don’t do that,” I said.
“Then write anything at all. I saw your
Deep Throat
film,” the young man said. “I saw your
other
movie, and that was really good.”
“What other movie was that?” Larry said, coming up suddenly.
“Never mind,” I said, “it’s really not important.”
“No, what was the
name
of the movie?” Larry pressed the young man. “If there’s another movie out there, I want to know about it. They probably owe you money on that one as well.”
“It was the
dog
movie,” the young man said. “There was no name.”
“Larry, forget it,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Larry was only taking his new job as business manager seriously. He backed off, but I knew he wasn’t going to drop the subject. That night we returned to our suite at the Hyatt Regency and had our shrimp, lobster and champagne—but nothing sat well on my stomach. All afternoon I had avoided Larry and now I was unable to meet his eyes. If only he would just forget about it. That had been the worst day of my life and I’d never been able to talk to anyone about it. How could I go over it with the man I was loving? To this day I have trouble pronouncing the word “dog”—I usually spell it out, D-O-G—and I was hoping he would go to sleep and not ask.
“Tell me about it.” he said.
“No, Larry. Please.”
“You’re going to have to someday.”
That was my first attempt but it was just too painful. Not that I had any trouble remembering the day with the dog. That day is a wound on my memory. But it was an experience I had never been able to discuss with anyone. Instead I tried to tell Larry about that part of my life, the time just before
Deep Throat.
We were in New York, flat broke, and Chuck started meeting with people who made 8-millimeter movies for the peep-show trade.
Flashback to—
A filthy loft in Manhattan, sheets draped over the furniture, floors that had never been mopped, a bathroom sink that had never been scrubbed. Two other actors waiting there, a young man named Rob and his wife, Cathy. The director giving us the story line: “All right, Rob, you lie down on that rubber sheet and Cathy, you and Linda come over and piss on him. ”
Not believing my ears, watching Cathy try to do it in vain, her saying finally, “I just can’t.” The director announcing, “Well, fine, if you can’t be the pisser, you can be the pissee. Cathy, you lie down and Rob, you and Linda piss on her.” Insane, so very insane. None of us able to do it and then the director sends out for six-packs of beer. How do you do it, how do you manage to urinate on another human being? I’ll tell you how. The director says: “All right, Linda, if you’re having such trouble, you get down on the sheet and they’ll piss on you.” That’s how you do it; that’s your motivation. Me saying, “Hey, wait a minute, give me another chance.” And so the movie is made. Aware of the sickness, the insanity, but still doing it, still urinating on another human being.
“I must have been crazy,” I said to Larry.
“Maybe not so crazy,” he said. “You’d rather piss on than be pissed upon—that strikes me as a symptom of sanity.”
“That was the only kind of choice I’d get in those days.”
“And the dog?” Larry said. “What was the choice there?”
“My choice? It was either the dog or death. They had a gun.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Later,” I said. “Someday I’ll be able to tell you about that. When I can do that, I’ll know I’m over it—that I’m well.”
I tried to tell him more about that whole time in my life, about what happened, but the tears finally got in the way of the words. Why even try? Because I had decided that whenever Larry asked me about my past—and whatever he asked me—I’d tell him as much as I could. I knew there was no way to tell it all at once; it would have to come out in dribs and drabs. But in time it
would
all have to come out. There should be no surprises to plague him in the future. But it was hard, so hard, and I wondered whether I would ever come to grips with it.
I’ve been worried other times with Larry, worried that once he learned all the atrocities I’d been through, he might just get up and leave. But he hasn’t, and he didn’t on that night. He just wrapped me in his arms and listened as I told him as much as we could handle.
He seemed to react well. I saw him as an antidote to the horror of the past. But I may have been overestimating his strength; I know him better now, and I know this kind of information could rip him apart.
“Chuck Traynor should be killed,” he said.
“I wanted him dead,” I said, “but I never had the strength to kill him.”
“An experience like that didn’t give you the strength?”
“Just the opposite,” I said. “That day made me weaker, more docile. Now I was totally defeated. There was no humiliation left for me. Now he could do whatever he wanted. It wasn’t sick, it was out there somewhere beyond sick.”
“It’s all in the past,” he said. “It’s all over now. And it doesn’t matter any more. I love you and I’ll always love you”
That was what I wanted to hear,
all
I wanted to hear. We were still happy and we would be together. He didn’t blame me for anything that had happened—at least on an intellectual level. Whether he blamed me on a deeper level, a psychological level, whether his heart ever found me guilty—that I’ll never know for sure.