Porn, cocaine and Christianity: the intense life of Linda Lovelace, star of “Deep Throat”

Deep Throat is a benchmark of porn cinema, this film was released in 1972, with the lead role of Linda Lovelacewhich became an icon of adult cinema.

Lovelace’s brand in the conditioned film industry marked the beginning of the “golden age of porn”. Is that your job? Deep Throat made her the biggest star of the genre in America.

The controversial film hit theaters at a time when anti-obscenity laws were extreme.and it still became a phenomenon.

Linda Lovelace: the actress of “Deep Throat”

Despite its seedy nature and its shady Mafia fundingearly audiences included high-level figures such as Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew.

Deep Throat seduced viewers with the incorporation of a real storyline and character development. However, Linda Lovelace was undoubtedly the star.

Some estimate the film grossed over $ 600 million. However, viewers were unaware that the actress was only paid $ 1,250 to star in the film. Y this is only part of its tragic story.

Linda Susan Boreman was born on January 10, 1949 in the Bronx, New York, Linda Lovelace He had a rather turbulent childhood. Her father, John Boreman, was an absent NYPD officer. Her mother, Dorothy Tragney, was a girl who took Lovelace hard.

“He beat me up for the smallest detail. Once she sent me to the pharmacy to buy some nose drops and I came back with the wrong brand: I was 11 and he hit me with a broomstick for that mistake. He said he would have taken the right one if he hadn’t thought so much about the boys, “he wrote in his autobiography. Ordeal, the truth behind the deep throatfirst published in 1980.

In addition to a strong belief in corporal punishment, the Boremans were very religious. That’s why the little one Lovelace attended several strict Catholic schools. Fear of sinning, according to his biography, she did not allow the boys to get close to her, earning the nickname “Miss Holy Holy”.

When he was 16, his family moved to Florida. He made few friends during that time, but according to his autobiography he did she lost at the age of 19, got pregnant and the following year gave birth to a boy.

Although details about her first child remain unclear, it seems that Lovelace gave her baby up for adoption after inadvertently signing some papers he couldn’t read well. In the same year he returned to New York and enrolled in computer science school.

Although he planned to open a boutique, a terrible car accident left Lovelace with a torn liver, broken ribs and a fractured jaw. He returned with his family to Florida, where he recovered from his injuries

While Linda Lovelace As she lay by a Florida swimming pool, she caught the attention of a bar owner named Chuck Traynor, her future husband, manager and pimp.

Linda Lovelace’s Beginning in Porn Cinema

At the age of 21, Lovelace moved in with Chuck Traynor. Although Lovelace was initially happy to escape from her family, it soon became clear that her new lover was quite possessive. Also, he seemed eager to guide her to a new life.

Lovelace recounted this in his autobiography Traynor used hypnosis to expand his sexual knowledge. Later, she said that she forced her to work in the sex industry and, at one point, changed his surname from Boreman to Lovelace.

Lovelace began working as a prostitute with Traynor as a pimp. The two moved to New York, where Traynor realized that Lovelace’s good looks could have earned her a lot of money in the porn industry. Thus he began making short silent pornographic films, called “loops”.

While his industry peers said he loved his job, Lovelace later stated this in his bio she had been forced to have sex at gunpoint.

The actress decided to move on, despite the abuse and death threats, and agreed to marry Traynor in 1971.

Immediately after, Lovelace e Traynor met a porn movie director named Gerard Damiano at a party that turned into an orgy.

Damiano had directed a few films, but was so impressed by Lovelace that he promised to write a screenplay just for her.. Within a few months, that script became Deep Throatthe first porn feature film.

Deep Throat: A classic of the porn movie

In addition to being the first conditioned feature film, Deep Throat it was also one of the first pornographic films with plot and character development.

Although the plot revolved around the character of Linda Lovelace with a clit in her throat, it was still a novelty. The film also contained real dialogue and lines, with co-star Harry Reems playing his psychiatrist.

Damiano financed the film with $ 22,500.. Part of the money came from the mafia, which saw adult films as a goldmine that provided them with the largest source of income since Prohibition.

Lovelace, however, only received $ 1,250 for her role in a hugely successful film that grossed millions. And what’s worse, that small amount of money would have been confiscated by Traynor.

The film was shot in low-budget Florida motel rooms and no one expected its success.. The New York premiere in June 1972 was an unexpected success, with high-profile stars like Sammy Davis Jr. lining up to buy tickets.

With millions of tickets sold and media coverage, Lovelace became a celebrity, and in one of the major “sex goddesses” of the 1970s.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner even threw a party at his mansion in his honor.

Fall and Resurrection of Linda Lovelace

In early January 1974, Lovelace was arrested in Las Vegas for possession of cocaine and amphetamines. In the same year he ended his turbulent relationship with Traynor.

She soon became involved with a producer named David Winters, who helped her make the comedy film Linda Lovelace for the president in 1976. When it failed, LOvelace has abandoned both Winters and Hollywood.

Then she became a born again Christian and married the construction worker Larry Marchiano, with whom she had two children in 1980. In the same year he publishes his autobiography. Calvary. In it you told a different version of the years of Deep Throatexplaining that she was not a carefree porn star, but a trapped and vulnerable young woman.

Linda Lovelace claimed that Chuck Traynor had controlled and manipulated her, forcing her into a career as a porn star. He said he beat her unconscious and threatened that if she didn’t do as he asked, she would be “another prostitute shot dead in her hotel room.”

Eventually, Lovelace claimed her surname Boreman and became an anti-porn activist.. Feminists like Gloria Steinem rallied for her cause, defending her as someone who had finally found her voice.

However, out of necessity, in the late 1990s, Lovelace was seen at porn conventions signing copies of Deep Throat. It was said to be an act of desperation, as she divorced Marchiano in 1996 and needed the money.

However, he insisted in a 1997 interview: “I look in the mirror and see myself happier than ever in my entire life. I am not ashamed of my past nor am I sad about it. And what people may think of me, well, it’s not real. I look in the mirror and I know I survived. “

On April 3, 2002, Lovelace died in a car accident.