Obituary: Linda Lovelace

Actress. Died aged 53.

The mainstream appeal of X-rated films can be traced back to the early 1970s when Linda Lovelace became the first internationally famous porn star, thanks to a mind-blowing performance in the notorious Deep Throat.

Shot in under a week by director Gerard Damiano, the 1972 adult movie had a ludicrous plot.

"How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle?" screamed the lurid yellow poster for the movie that eventually grossed more than US$500 million ($1.1 billion), though its star saw little of the profits.

Later, Lovelace claimed in her autobiography Ordeal that Chuck Traynor, her first husband, had forced her to perform at gunpoint.

For a while, she became a feminist and testified before the US Senate's Meese Commission on the dangers of pornography.

Born in the Bronx in 1949, Linda Boreman was the daughter of a New York traffic policeman. She died from injuries sustained in a car crash in Colorado.

She had a strict Catholic upbringing and was frequently beaten by her mother. Things only got worse when she met and married Traynor, who became her manager and created the Linda Lovelace alter ego.

When promoting her X-rated films in the early '70s, the actress claimed to be a sex-mad free spirit. Of course, it was all an act.

When she began work on her autobiography, published in 1979, she told her co-writer Mike McGrady that she had filmed her genre-defining part under duress. Traynor had forced her into prostitution and made her perform depraved sex acts in 8mm films.

The disbelieving McGrady submitted Lovelace to a lie-detector test and had to admit she was telling the truth: for her role in Deep Throat, she received only US$1250 ($2778), most of which Traynor kept.

"I did everything I could the right way so that I wouldn't get beat up. I was scared of him, no doubt. The mental abuse was definitely the worst," she confessed.

"I knew the feeling of a gun in my back and hearing the click, never knowing when there was going to be a real bullet. But I always knew some day, somewhere, somehow, I would get away. It was just a nightmare and I would wake up some day. Deep Throat was a low point in the salvation."

Nevertheless, whatever went on behind the scenes, the cultural impact and significance of Deep Throat cannot be underestimated.

Sure, the premise beggars belief: the heroine's clitoris is located at the back of her throat, and she tries a succession of males on for size until one Harry Reems reaches the part others couldn't.

The adult movie broke the mould of the 10-minute-long stag films shown in backrooms and recovered its US$25,000 budget in its first-week run on the big screen of a Manhattan cinema.

New Yorkers just had to see it and talk about it. Soon, it was playing in 70 cities around America and grossing millions of dollars.

A belated ban only added to its notoriety and cachet. Couples unashamedly saw it together and recommended it to their friends.

As Behind the Green Door and The Devil in Miss Jones followed Deep Throat, porn went mainstream and global.

"Why was Linda Lovelace the first porn star?" the actress would ask herself when invited during interviews to explain her unique appeal. "From what I've heard, it's the fact that Deep Throat was a 'comedy', and because it was on the big screen.

"Gerard Damiano thought it was the fact that I had that sweet, innocent look. I didn't have bleached blonde hair, I wasn't chewing bubble gum and counting the cracks in the ceiling.

"As far as what I was doing, I just thought everybody else did that. I didn't know any better. For me, it was cool because, after being with Mr Traynor and being forced into prostitution, I felt like I wasn't being abused sexually. As much."

Since the poster for Deep Throat proclaimed "Introducing Linda Lovelace as Herself", many cinema-goers assumed that Boreman was indeed Linda Lovelace.

But the actress always knew how much role-playing was involved: Lovelace was a robot, a super sex freak who couldn't get enough. She probably had an orgy every night at her house. She walked around naked in the streets and picked up anybody.

World-famous by 1973, Linda Lovelace now moved in the upper echelons of society. She was a celebrity guest at premieres and used her new-found fame to escape Traynor's clutches.

In the '70s, she remarried and brought up two children. She continued to join the odd television debate on the negative effects of pornography.

When Playboy compiled its list of the 100 sexiest women in 1988, Linda Lovelace was voted No 34, ahead of Madonna.

- INDEPENDENT