My Interview with Eric Danville, Author of The Complete Linda Lovelace

17 Jun

author pic twitterI’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to interview Eric Danville who has been a journalist for the porn industry and heavy metal world for more than 25 years.  Danville is currently the senior editor at Penthouse Forum and author of The Official Heavy Metal Book of Lists and The Complete Linda Lovelace, the biography about Linda Lovelace and the original basis for the film Lovelace. Previously he was the editor at High Times magazine, Screw magazine and Masters of Rock magazine. Here he shares with me the details of his career as a writer and where it has led him.

KBF:  When did you first become interested in writing, and start your journalism career covering the adult industry and the heavy metal world?

ED:  I was an English major in college, and a friend of mine in our little clique of stupid rebellious English majors suggested I write for the school paper.  I did and really got into it, and my stuff got a good reaction. I wasn’t afraid to say fucking anything about anything!

Later on, I had friends at High Times Magazine, and I ended up being in one of their photo shoots.  I played someone who was tripping and I had a pot of spaghetti dumped on my head.  A year later, they called me and asked for my resume.  I sent it and got a job as Managing Editor.  I worked there for almost three years.

After that, my sister told me about an ad in the New York Times for a men’s sophisticate magazine looking for a managing editor.   She said, “I think that means porn.”  I said, “Yeah, it does.”  I was like, fuck it.  I sent my resume in and got a job at Hawk magazine. This magazine was pitched to me like what Maxim is today but before Maxim even existed.  But they ended up getting real nervous with that concept and just turned it into another porn magazine.  I didn’t mind the job, but it was too corporate and I didn’t like wearing a tie and all that bullshit.  I didn’t like punching a clock and all that crap either. A friend of mine was working at Screw and they needed an editor, so I sent my resume and got that job.

KBF:  And, that’s when you worked for Al Goldstein?

ED:  Yes, that’s when I worked for Al Goldstein.  I was there for seven years, which is a long time to work for Al Goldstein!

KBF:  What was it like working for him?

ED:  He does occasionally have flashes of humanity!  He actually can be a real person.  You want to know something though?  Seriously, it was the best job I ever had.  He held me up to such a high level of accepting responsibility for my mistakes and he always said “Just because they’re dirty words doesn’t mean we spell them wrong!”  You know, we came from the Henry-Miller-meets-Lenny- Bruce-meets-Mad-Magazine’s School of Intellectual Eggheadism, because as far as sex goes, he also said to us, “You’re all good writers and you get to do what you want, but if you fuck up, I’m gonna fucking pillory you!”  And, I got pillaried a couple of times, but it really builds character to have yourself embarrassed for a month straight in print.  It was great. This experience brought out the best in me, to create the type of writerly voice I wanted, and take my writing where I wanted to go.

KBF:  When did you write The Official Heavy Metal Book of Lists?

ED:  This guy I’ve known since college was an editor over at Hal Leonard Publications, which published the heavy metal book.  He knew that I could do a really good research job and gave me the gig for The Official Heavy Metal Book of Lists.  It had to be funny and correct and all that shit, too. I got the job basically because I can find any fact and spin some story around it.

KBF:  How did you become motivated to write the biography about Linda Lovelace in the first place?

ED:  When I started working for Screw I had access to their entire archives of fucking everything.  I’d be looking around ’cause they’d encourage you to look at old issues and learn the history of the magazine. As I learned more and more about the Linda Lovelace story, it was really interesting because there were so many crazy sides to it.

KBF:  Was there one moment where you thought, “I just want to write a whole book about this”?

ED:  Yeah, actually there was.  Around 1996 Ron Howard and Brian Grazer had optioned Ordeal to make the biopic film and that was all over the news. “Opie’s going to make the Linda Lovelace story.” I had been working for five or six years at Screw and I wanted to get a straight writing credit, and a friend of mine had Linda Boreman’s (Lovelace’s real name) phone number. I thought, “Wow, I’d like to interview her for something like Vanity Fair.” So I called her up and said, “Look, my name’s Eric Danville and I’m a writer from New York City and I work at Screw Magazine and I would like to interview you for a mainstream piece that has nothing to do with Screw. “

The second she heard I worked for Screw, she’s like, “Goldstein, huh?” and then she says, “Oh, Linda’s not here, this is the secretary. Can I take a message?”  But I knew it was her, I knew what she sounded like from watching her movies. I said, “If you can give her that message about a possible interview.”  And, then she says, “Well, okay, I’ll give her the message and do me a favor: don’t ever call this number ever again.”  I hung up and thought, okay, that was five minutes of my life wasted. But I just kept the research going and focused on what I found interesting about her story.

As I was researching I realized that nobody wanted to talk about her.  Jerry Damiano wouldn’t talk to me about her. I asked Goldstein and he wouldn’t talk to me about her.  He’ll talk to fucking anyone about anything! He’s like, “No! When you get a publisher, I’ll give you the interview.” I said, “I’m not going to get a publisher until you give me the fucking interview!” I was pissed off because years later when Inside Deep Throat came out all these fucking people were willing to talk about her: Damiano was in it and Goldstein was in it. But this [Inside Deep Throat] did regenerate all this interest in her. This film turned into an exploration of the history of Linda Lovelace and American pop culture.

Part two of this interview will be posted next week. In the next installment you’ll learn more about Danville’s relationship with Linda Lovelace and how he finished The Complete Linda Lovelace with her help.

Check out Eric Danville’s blog at ericdanville.tumblr.com and follow him on Twitter @ThCmpltLndLvlc. The next edition of The Complete Linda Lovelace book will be available this September.

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Finally…..the Movie Lovelace Debuts at Sundance

23 Apr

LovelaceAfter two decades of the Linda Lovelace story bouncing around Hollywood, many false starts, and a bitter spilt from Matthew Wilder, the director of that other Lovelace biopic Inferno, the new Lovelace finally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past January. The debut was just in time to mark the 40th anniversary of the iconic porn movie, Deep Throat, which made Lovelace famous and gave America its first porn star.

It’s especially exciting for me to see this movie making headlines since my memoir, The Pornographer’s Daughter, chronicles my father’s involvement and subsequent indictment by the federal government for his role in distributing Deep Throat in the 70s. Those who produced and acted in Deep Throat were colorful characters brought to life in the movie by an amazing and noteworthy cast that includes Amanda Siegfried playing Lovelace, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Noth, Sharon Stone, Hank Azaria and Peter Saarsgard as Lovelace’s abusive husband Chuck Traynor. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but since it was just picked up by The Weinstein Company  it will be released in theaters nationwide this fall. I might be the first in line.

Whether you’ve followed the career and life of Linda Lovelace or not, the story is compelling and Amanda Siegfried’s performance in the starring role might just win her an Oscar nod. Lovelace launched her career in the porn business, and then later become one of the foremost anti-porn advocates. For me, this is the most intriguing characteristic of who Linda Lovelace was, and I’m most curious to see how this aspect of her life is portrayed in the movie. There’s a consensus in the reviews that, while mostly positive in particular noting Siegfried’s performance, the film has glossed over the underlying parts of Lovelace’s personality and life that drove her to accept the porn star role, and then later regret and fight against it.

The absence of these details, I suspect, will leave viewers with more questions than answers about the real Linda Lovelace, and will foster accusations toward filmmakers that their portrayal of Lovelace is inaccurate. Despite the omissions, the depiction of her abusive relationship with Chuck Traynor is definitely a centerpiece of the movie and a very important part of Lovelace’s life. By all accounts, Lovelace was a victim of domestic violence.  Delving into the reasons as to why she loved Chuck Traynor and why he had so much control over her life will prove to be a riveting part of the film. I don’t think any movie or book will adequately address her vexing transformation from porn star to anti-porn crusader, or the role she played as the victim and first amendment advocate. Sadly, any speculation about this will be left up to editorial license since Lovelace was tragically killed in a car accident in 2002.

All in all, I am so glad this film was made to capture this moment in pop culture history, one that will highlight the life of a woman who played an important role in the conversation about women’s rights. Those involved in making Deep Throat a success, like my family, were just ordinary people trying to make a living. I’m curious to know if you’re interested in seeing the film. Let me know what you think and I’ll keep you posted on the whereabouts of Lovelace.

Sundance Review: ‘Lovelace’ doesn’t go deep enough despite Amanda Seyfried’s efforts

Amanda Seyfried’s ‘Lovelace’ transformation pays off

Hollywood Reporter: Sundance Review

Sundance: ‘Lovelace’ is a porn biopic that gets under your skin, with a revelatory performance by Amanda Seyfried as Linda Lovelace

How Wicked Stars Stormy Daniels and jessica drake Got Their Start

20 Nov

I had the pleasure this past summer of chatting with Wicked Pictures stars jessica drake and Stormy Daniels to highlight the 40th anniversary of the release of iconic movie Deep Throat.  I asked them both to tell me about the moment they each decided the adult industry was the career path they wanted to take.  Here’s what they told me.

jessica drake:

There were a couple of moments that led to my decision.  I host a radio show called In Bed With Jessica Drake on Sirius. I was telling a story to my in-studio guest, Julianne, about how something that she did many, many years ago changed my life.  She was touring with Janine and they were doing a duo act called Blondage.  When I was 18, 19 years old, I was in El Paso going to college for the very first time, and I was stripping. I saw them come through at a club a few a few years after I had moved there, and I remember sitting at the tip rail and watching them, and just being completely fascinated by their dynamics, their power, their beauty…everything.  And, I had stars in my eyes… “I want to do this.”

 There was just not a lot to watch back then so that opened up my eyes to going from being a house dancer and being on stage.  I’m sort of comfortable with nudity.  I’m very much a people person so I just loved to hang out and talk to everybody, and just have a great time. I had plenty of regular customers and then when I saw them it sort of made me realize that it could be more of a career or more theatrical than I had made it so far. 

Stormy Daniels:   “I was always a fan [of porn].  I was never taught that nudity or sexual expression was bad or wrong.  So, I was blessed in that, especially being from Louisiana, I never grew up feeling repressed sexually, or that I should hide my body or that I shouldn’t say what I like, or that masturbating was bad.  Being raised open-minded led to me eventually watching adult movies and enjoying them. I was especially drawn to Wicked movies. 

 I had a friend who was going out to LA to make her first movie and she just invited me along for the ride.  She wasn’t afraid to do porn, basically I think she was afraid of going to California by herself!  I went with her to the first day and she was working on a film and they asked me if I wanted to be an extra, and it was just so amazing.  It wiped away any of the lingering preconceived notions that I had of the adult industry. And that first day on set just being a non-sex background actor, I was like, “This is nothing like I thought.”  And, that was what sort of was the final thought: I could really do this and enjoy doing it and believe in doing it and show other people, especially couples and women, that sexuality isn’t bad and that enjoying sex and pornography if  you so chose, is not something to be ashamed of.  And, so yeah, the shortened version of the story is five days later she got on a plane to go home and I signed a contract with Wicked. 

Not only did both jessica and Stormy end up writing and directing for Wicked Pictures, but each of them have successful empires, love their fans, and continue to stay on the current trending edge of this industry.  Follow jessica and Stormy on Twitter @thejessicadrake and @StormyDaniels. Also check out Stormy’s website and Jessica’s website.

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Interview with AIP Daily

14 Nov

Hello Kristin; for those who might not know you please let us know you are and please describe yourself?

I’m an author, a contributor to The Daily Beast and a marketing professional in the Washington, DC area. I love college football and on Saturdays you’ll find me watching ESPN College GameDay and cheering on my alma mater the Florida State University Seminoles. I am finishing my memoir, The Pornographer’s Daughter, about my family’s experience when my father, Anthony Battista, was prosecuted by the federal government on obscenity charges for distributing the movie Deep Throat in the 1970s.

Read the full interview.

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Getting Off for a Good Cause

15 Oct

As a social worker with a father who has been in the adult industry for more than 40 years, it made sense to me that Pornhub.com would offer donations to the Susan G. Komen Foundation in honor of breast cancer awareness month.  Pornhub.com might have just wanted to create a buzz knowing Komen would reject this money given their conservative rep (see Change.org petition), or perhaps they were capitalizing on the fervor around breast cancer awareness in what’s called “pink washing.” It could be either reason, but I would like to believe that Pornhub.com smartly engaged in an effective cause-related marketing campaign around an issue they care about.

It might seem surprising that Pornhub.com would do this but many corporations use cause-related marketing tactics to make their customers feel good about buying products and improve their corporate image. A good example is Tom’s Shoes. They give a new pair of shoes to a child in need with every pair of shoes purchased. It’s simple: it helps kids, makes people feel good about paying a little extra for sneakers and created a profitable company. And, good causes are in need of the investment to accomplish their goals, especially since government and foundation funding only goes so far.

For the adult industry, aligning with a good cause just makes good business sense. As we recover from bad economic times, this article points out people no longer want to mindlessly consume and seek out brands that hold values similar to their own. People want a better way to spend their dollars and the adult industry can take advantage of this trend as the perfect way to better position themselves with customers. They need an edge in an increasingly competitive porn marketplace where consumers’ excess income is now saved and not spent.

Giving to important causes would not be a big leap for the adult industry since there is a history of pairing advocacy with their corporate interests. Since Playboy’s beginnings, the Playboy Foundation has supported First Amendment rights, reproductive health and AIDS projects. Adam and Eve‘s President Phil Harvey created DKT International, a non-profit organization dedicated to family planning and AIDS prevention around the world. I also saw on Twitter that Wicked Pictures created #teamwicked in preparation for the Aids Walk LA.

There are others outside of the porn world trying to capitalize on this idea of pairing porn with promising causes too, like Marco Annoni and Riccardo Zilli, co-founders of Come4.org. In a recent article, Annoni and Zilli state, “We devised Come4.org, as our way to rethink pornography with ethics and to launch a new sexual revolution in the Internet era.”  The adult industry should take notice of this effort and let it be a warning; you should not let others reshape what you know best.

There is so much more that the adult industry can do to help important causes like AIDS/HIV prevention, breast cancer, violence against women, reproductive rights, human trafficking and addiction. The adult industry should care about these issues and I challenge them to take up these causes in greater number. Making a move like this will even increase the bottom line and change their image.

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Stormy Daniels on Being a Porn-Star Mom

14 Oct

Remember as a little kid, when a hug from Mom made everything better? And the fear and sadness you felt when your mother was angry or disappointed with you? Mothers are a powerful influence in our lives and responsible for raising thriving, well-adjusted human beings. We have created a romanticized image that mothers are supposed to be sexless and epitomize the perfect homemaker. So when we hear about a porn star who is a mom, it shatters our expectations, and many draw conclusions that these moms can’t be good parents.

Read full article.

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My Interview with Joanna Angel

11 Sep

For the 40th anniversary of Deep Throat article I wrote for The Daily Beast I was lucky enough to secure a spot in the crazy-busy schedule of one of the leading ladies in the adult industry, Joanna Angel, 2011 AVN award winner and mogul of her own production company and website www.BurningAngel.com. As a young business person (and college grad, I might add) Joanna’s take on the adult industry and her success weaves a common thread  found in the lives of many entrepreneurial women – work ten times as hard, be innovative, secure a great team, and stay true to your brand.  Read on for highlights of my interview with Joanna as we talk politics, the woman’s place in business, and the future of pornography.

Kristin Battista-Frazee (KBF):  Do you think there are any parallels between the way Deep Throat launched porn and the way Burning Angel changed the industry? 

Joanna Angel (JA):  I do know that Deep Throat did gain this level of legitimacy where everybody knows about it, and everybody saw it, and it stopped being looked at as just porn. When I started Burning Angel, I definitely wanted to cross over and be sort of a piece of pop culture and be a place where people were comfortable and it celebrated sexuality. I wanted to take something that was supposed to be secretive and bad and dirty, and turn it into something cool, as something that people could talk about and relate to one another and not just be this dirty kind of disgusting thing. 

KBF:  She [Linda Lovelace] gained a lot of fame and tried to capitalize on that as much as she could when she needed money, but then the other aspect is that she was taken advantage of. What good things about Linda Lovelace, do you  see in yourself? Specifically building a career, making something special and doing something different 

JA:  This is tough world for women who want to be in charge of anything.  You have to work ten times as hard to get half as far as everybody else, no matter what you’re doing. If you wanna be a CEO on Wall Street or you wanna be a doctor, you kind of have to be the best doctor and the best CEO because everyone’s waiting for you to fuck up, you know?  And being a woman is hard.  Women are more emotional than men.  Women do go through a lot of things that men don’t go through and it does make it hard to be a woman in a position for power, and part of what our weaknesses are is what gives us strength, the fact that we are more emotional than men and the fact that we do have a lot of feminine qualities.  It’s what hurts us and it’s what makes us amazing at the same time.  We’re able to be intuitive and, and I think we’re able to work with people on a different level than men can because we just have this level of sensitivity that men don’t necessarily have. The fact that we’re a little more vulnerable is what makes us weak and what makes us strong.  I’m not Sarah Palin’s biggest fan or anything but the second Sarah Palin stepped in… if everything she said was said by a man then she wouldn’t have been nearly as scrutinized. She would have just been another stupid politician, you know?

KBF:  Right.

JA:  Rick Santorum and George Bush have said stuff that is a million times worse than what she said and they don’t get scrutinized as much.  Everyone was waiting for her to do something stupid because she was a woman and she wasn’t ugly. 

KBF:  This notion of feminist porn, which is talked about a lot in conjunction with Burning Angel and the launch of your company, I’m curious about your perspective of how Deep Throat and early porn may have influenced women’s rights  or the basis for creating this feminist porn?

JA:  I don’t know if you’d call those movies feminist or not, but I think just having porn be so out there and so mainstream for everybody to look at and everybody to watch and to make their own judgments on, I think that is more of what opened up the door to women having an opinion.  And maybe just women watching the movie, because those movies were marketed for everyone to watch. They weren’t just marketed in adult video stores or in a small section of a store for a few horny men to watch.  They were marketed for everybody over the age of 18 to watch, just having porn be so mainstream at such a controversial time. I don’t even think that before those movies women even thought about having an opinion about porn.  I think it opened up the dialogue.  For women to watch it and to be like, “Do I like this?  Do I not like this?  Is it for me? Is this not for me?” “Is this making me horny or is this degrading?” “What is this doing?” Having something just be so out there where everybody had to have an opinion on it is what opened up the door to all women.  There are women who call themselves feminist or not feminist. I think you kind of had to have an opinion on it, so just the fact that the movies were so mainstream is what gave women a voice.

KBF:  Are people really surprised you have a college degree and work in porn? 

JA: People in porn aren’t that surprised.  It’s more people out of porn and it’s sometimes weird. I do all these interviews and I do all this press for people and… “Wow, that’s crazy, you have a college degree, that must be rare in porn.”  And, I’m like, “I don’t know, I own a company. How many people do you know that own successful companies but didn’t finish college?”  I sometimes feel bad because I do a lot of press and I feel like I get all this credit for being a girl in porn with a degree like it’s this super-rare thing and it’s not so rare, particularly if you want to pick out every single person who owns one of the porn companies, most of them are gonna have college degrees. Or, if they don’t, they just are very, very good at business.  To run a business it takes skill no matter what you’re selling. It takes patience, and it takes a lot of things that you do learn in college, or you have to be one of those super-geniuses that’s able to learn things on your own.

KBF:  I saw your blog, and I actually wrote an article for The Daily Beast in response to what Rick Santorum said about banning pornography.  You know, for me, it kinda came out of the blue, and yet it didn’t. 

JA:  It’s so ridiculous and it’s so stupid. I feel like around election time everybody will just come out and say something really radical, either to the left or to the right just to get a bunch of votes right away because they know anybody who agrees with that is gonna vote for them.  Especially in these tough times, the state of the economy has never affected me as much as it does now.  When you run a business and you’re selling a product and your livelihood and other people’s livelihood who work under me depends on whether people have extra money in their pocket to pay for the type of entertainment that I produce.  It’s kind of like… can we just have an election right now that focuses on money and the economy?  Which is ultimately I really think what everybody in America cares about.  Can we just not have an election that’s all about abortion and whether gay people should get married?  Who gives shit whether gay people get married or not? It’s not gonna affect the amount of jobs in America, you know?  Just stop it! Can we just stop talking about these religious issues that should have nothing to do with the election and let’s actually figure out what president can help the country.

KBF:  You’re called a pioneer of alternative porn. Do you still feel like this transformative figure in the industry? 

JA: In the beginning it was more like this huge deal, “Oh, what is she doing, it’s different, it’s this, it’s that,” and now things have kind of settled down and it’s just like, “That’s Joanna Angel and she does her thing.”  I’m focused on growing my company. I don’t know what I’ve done for the industry as a whole. I meet girls with tattoos have told me, “Oh, it’s all because of you that I’m able to… ” or “I didn’t think I could get into porn because I had too many tattoos,” or this or that, and “I didn’t think I looked like a porn star and because of you I’m able to work and I’m able to do this.” I didn’t spawn the creation of a hundred companies like me for girls to go, so I don’t know how much of a change it’s able to make. But the fact that my company has won awards, the same awards that big porn companies, your typical mainstream stuff… the fact that we’re always considered among them, the fact that CNBC lists the top ten porn stars and my name is included. The fact that Burning Angel and my name has been able to be considered as one of the top is  a really big thing because ten, fifteen years ago there was nobody who did anything like us, or even anything a little bit different, it’s considered amongst the top of the game.   

KBF:  Where do you think the porn industry will be in 40 years? 

JA:  40?? 

KBF:  I’m saying 40 because this is the 40th anniversary of Deep Throat and you look at everything that’s happened, and you just wonder what will happen in the next 40.

JA:  Yeah, I know. I have no idea. I don’t know!  Porn has gone in a whole bunch of weird circles. It’s gonna depend on what kind for technology comes out.  I hope it’s in a good place.  [laughing].

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