Jill C. Nelson's Blog, page 6

Spotlight on Amber Lynn

Amber Lynn at 'Golden Goddesses' Book LaunchThe following excerpts are extracted from chapter 22 of Golden Goddesses titled Amber Lynn: The Blonde Panther:

     Orange County, California generally conjures images prevalent in the popular TV show by the same name depicting affluent white privilege, texting teens languishing on perfectly groomed beaches ambivalent to the sun’s harmful rays while surfer boys gauge the wave action in anticipation of their next big adventure. Growing up in the OC for Laura Lynn Allen however, was anything but idyllic or opulent. After her parents’ complicated break-up at age three, Lynn was placed in foster care for a period of four years at which time her mother convalesced in a hospital following a mental breakdown. Tragically, at age seven and shortly after Lynn finally left her foster home, her mother was killed in an automobile accident leaving Laura to be placed under adoptive guardianship.
     As she grew into an attractive young woman, Lynn took advantage of the omnipresent sunshine and mild temperatures offered by the allure of the Orange County coastline. With her ultra tanned skin, precocious sex appeal, and bleach blonde hair, Amber set her sights on a modeling contract while destiny seemed to be in her corner in 1983 when she crossed paths with Althea Flynt, wife of the magazine mogul, Larry Flynt at one of West Hollywood’s prestigious nightclubs.
     After modeling for Hustler and Penthouse, the natural next step was a meeting with the successful west coast director, Bobby Hollander. Hollander cast Lynn in her first film Personal Touch 111 (1983) with Bunny Bleu and Lisa DeLeeuw.
     “When I got out of the [foster] home and went back to my mother, within that year of returning home, my mother was killed in a car accident in front of me. My life was spared because I was thrown from the car. I was seconds and inches from dying and I witnessed my mother’s death. I was almost decapitated in the car. This all happened by the time I was seven and a half years old. I suffer from PTSD and there was a kind of a huge splitting in my childhood. That’s what children do when they suffer from traumatic events because they are too young to interpret. They split so that they don’t go into shock. I didn’t find this out until years later in therapy and I was able to leave myself to create a character and be someone completely different. Now in my mid-forties when I look back at it squarely, even with all of the recovery, it’s still huge. In my memory, I had a short relationship with my mother, but a few things my mother had said to me always stuck. Her words formed me on the very little information that mattered. My mother was a Lithuanian Jew. She had wanted me to marry once and she wanted me to be a wife before I was a mother. On these little things, I rely.”
     “When I came into the industry, I was a kid. I was escaping from all of that past. I was so ready by the time I got on the road to come to L.A. and be an actor to get the hell out of what had happened to me as anyone could imagine. I was going into modeling and got into the industry by accident. I had come to Los Angeles from Orange County where I had been modeling to get into the magazine side of modeling. I wound up getting involved with Hustler and Club and Penthouse Magazines. There was a photographer named Jay Stephen Hick who shot me for Penthouse and that was my focus. These people separated the model from the porn actress. At that time, it was very important that you were separated. Girls who modeled for Men’s magazines didn’t necessarily do porn and now they are kind of required to do so much more than what we did.”       “John Leslie’s death changed my idea about doing this interview because his passing triggered many memories and it triggered the first time I met John. I was going to do a film for the late Bobby Hollander who was actually the man who discovered me and got me into the industry. I went over to meet Bobby Hollander for a go see, to talk about a part in a film where it was planned for me to do a single, pretty girl scene. It was not sex and it was not supposed to be hardcore or so it was promoted to me. I was just a magazine model, but I guess he had seen me in a magazine so I went there and he pulled out a pipe and I got loaded with him. It was the first time I had ever experienced smoking cocaine. The next day I was on a [porn] set and I made my first movie.       There were drugs involved and they were definitely used as a ploy. The first time I smoked cocaine I had no idea what I was doing. I thought that I was smoking grass. I had done grass in bongs but I had never done freebase. I didn’t even know it existed. Now, you can’t rape the willing. Let’s just be honest. You can’t rape the willing and I was willing. You make the decision. The decision is laid out right in front of you no matter how the manipulation occurs. You have a free choice to walk across that line or not. You have to take responsibility and accountability. That’s the deal. Were there manipulations? Of course there were. That’s business, in all business. The bottom line though good or bad, is that’s how I got in.”       “I’ll never forget the day I set eyes on Jamie. He came into the make-up room where he would always hang out and I was sitting in the chair. Here he was this older, revered actor in the industry and they were making a big deal of him. He had this beautiful curly hair which I loved. To this day men with curly hair is one of my things. He was very elegant and this wonderful talented actor. I was just sold on it all.      When I met Jamie Gillis, I just thought he was a nice Jewish boy and he was. He was crazy and sexually deviant, and all of those things that other people have talked about he could absolutely be, but he was also a brilliant man and he was really the love of my life in that respect. I was very young and Jamie knew everything about me. He knew where I’d come from, he knew what had happened. When I got into the industry I didn’t want people to know who I was and where I’d come from because then people would always judge me as the kid from the broken home, or that I’d come out of foster homes. I didn’t want that. I wanted this bright, shiny persona. That’s what the industry gave me the ability to do. I was able to recreate something new and exciting that didn’t have all of this heartbreak and tragedy. That’s why I got into that industry and just took off." 

Spotlight on Laurie Holmes/Misty Dawn

The original 'Spotlight on Laurie Holmes/Misty Dawn' (excerpted from the book) posted July 2012, was deleted when I tried to correct the text formatting after I recently updated my blog. Therefore, I have re-posted it today.

At forty-nine years old, Laurie Holmes (born Laurie Rose) is an apt example of what it is to be a survivor although she’d be the first one to proclaim she’s nobody’s victim. As the youngest of three children from a nuclear family in New Mexico, Laurie was not unlike any other little girl growing up in the southwestern United States during the late 1960s and 1970s. The daughter of a military man and kindergarten teacher, Laurie grew rebellious in nature during her teen years. She was sent to live in foster homes before becoming pregnant by her boyfriend at age sixteen. When she was unable to reclaim the carefree years she’d lost before becoming a young mother, Laurie entered adult movies in 1982 to support her young son and chose the stage name “Misty Dawn”.       In her first feature film, The Best Little Cathouse in Las Vegas (aka For Love or Money, 1982) Laurie co-starred opposite her favorite veteran actress at the time, Rhonda Jo Petty. Although her tenure as a performer was sporadic, her petite stature in conjunction with a high-spirited girlish essence and well-formed figure, made Laurie popular with male audiences.     "My first movie was called The Best Little Cathouse in Las Vegas (1982) with Rhonda Jo Petty who was starring in the lead role. Rhonda became one of my favorite actresses for the longest time.       In the early years, I was star struck and found it all to be extremely exciting. After a while, I found that it wasn’t what I had initially thought. I didn’t get as much work when I first started working just like everyone else, and there was always someone new or prettier coming along. I found it was hard to cope with feelings of rejection at such a young age. It was very difficult. You are so young and you try to hide those feelings. I know I did, but still, they are there inside of you to deal with."     "I danced from age twenty-nine to thirty-five, and even at that age it was rough. I needed the speed to get me there and keep me dancing throughout the night. I needed the alcohol to cut the chase of the speed. The sugar in the alcohol also gave me a false sense of energy and security. In my experience, ninety-nine percent of the girls were in the same boat I was. There was usually one girl in the entire bunch that didn’t need the drugs or alcohol, and usually, she was the youngest one.     In many ways, stripping is much harder on your body and your psyche than doing porn. When you are in a movie, you have wardrobe, a make-up artist, and a cameraman looking to get the best angle on you. When you are stripping, you don’t. Women are stripping because they can no longer get work in the movies. It takes a lot of energy to dance all night, so like I said you have got to have something to get you there and keep you there. You know in your mind that you’re not the same hot sex object that you used to be and the competition is fierce, yet when you come out on stage everyone is expecting to see the way you were, not the way you are now. It takes even more drugs and alcohol — and some tips — to make you feel like 'you’ve still got it,' until the next day when you wake up, look in the mirror and your reality and mortality is staring back at you. Then you turn around and do it all over again. It is rough enough for a regular aging stripper, but to have the expectation of being what you used to be on top of it ― yet, if you were to use a different name other than your porn name, nobody would come see you at all.       I think it’s extremely sad that many of the girls don’t know how to become normal working people after porn, and they have such little self-esteem they think they can’t do anything else but rely on their aging and abused bodies. It’s a vicious, psychological cycle enhanced by your over-the-hill aging body. Again, I stripped for roughly five years and I would never do it again. I feel sorry for those girls. Porn was much easier and prettier."

Book Review by Ian Jane

As book reviews for Golden Goddesses start to come in, I will be posting some of them at this blog. The following review is written by Ian Jane. Jane's excellent website, rockshockpop.com, contains news and reviews about pop culture including music, film, books, magazines and theatre. The link to this review can be found here: Golden Goddesses review: Rock, Shock, Pop  Thank you, Ian.


"Author Jill Nelson follows up the seminal John Holmes: A Life Measured In Inches (which she co-wrote with Jennifer Sugar, who provides an introduction to this latest book) with a massive 950 page tome entitled Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema, 1968-1985. Once again published by Bear Manor Media, this latest effort from Nelson casts a wider net and rather than focus on one single subject, instead covers the life and times of twenty-five of the greatest female performers to make a name for themselves during the golden age of adult cinema. The end result, is a fascinating mix of biographical insight and, dare we say it, a distinctly feminist slant on an industry often reviled as sexist and misogynist. It’s this mix that makes the book so fascinating and infinitely readable as it provides us, not only with the dirty details on who did what, when and why, but it also provides a unique snapshot into the porno chic movement of the day that, like it or not, had a profound cultural impact on North American society.
Interviewed here are the following actresses, pretty much every one of whom should be familiar to regular readers of this site: Ann Perry / Jody Maxwell / Barbara Mills / Candida Royalle / Marilyn Chambers / Annie Sprinkle / Georgina Spelvin / Sharon Mitchell / Serena / Rhonda Jo Petty / Gloria Leonard / Juliet Anderson / Kitten Natividad / Kay Parker / Julia St. Vincent / Kelly Nichols / Seka / Veronica Hart / Laurie Holmes / Amber Lynn / Ginger Lynn / Nina Hartley / Christy Canyon / Roberta Findlay / Raven Touchstone
That list gives you a pretty good idea of the sort of broad cross section of the industry that the book covers, but it hardly does justice to the material itself. Never before has anyone seemed to have had access to the type of personal and in-depth content that Nelson’s subjects offer up here. Whatever her secret is, the woman has a serious knack for drawing out details that few others before her have been able to provide, and while quite a few of the ladies showcased in the book have done plenty of interviews prior, just as many have not.
Roberta Findlay makes a great example. A fairly reclusive woman by nature, Nelson interviewed her by telephone and snail mail – no email or chat here, it was all done the old fashioned way. Her efforts paid off though, as through this correspondence, which must have been pretty time consuming, Nelson is able to paint a much more detailed portrait of Findlay than anyone before her. We get to know her not just as a filmmaker but first and foremost as a human being. We learn about her relationships with Michael Findlay and with her second husband, we learn of her work in the recording industry and about her thoughts on the various movies she made, and throughout all of this we get a good feel for her attitude towards her life and towards her work.
Nelson also interviews a few actresses who are no longer with us, Juliet Anderson and Marilyn Chambers. This gives their stories some historical importance as they are not only likely some of the last interviews they gave before their untimely passing but also the most detailed. Chambers’ accounts of her rise to superstardom and crossing over, however briefly, into the mainstream are a fascinating document of a bygone era while Anderson’s discussion of her infamous ‘Aunt Peg’ character are completely charming and shed some interesting light on why those movies were and remain so popular.

Thought it would have been easier and perfectly interesting in its own right to have simply asked questions of these women about their career highlights, Nelson instead takes an obvious personal interest in each of her subjects. This allows for Georgina Spelvin to open up about her battles with alcohol and Rhonda Jo Petty to discuss the abuse she suffered as a girl at the hands of her father. If you want to know Gloria Leonard’s thoughts on the difficulties of getting by once a porn star hits her golden years, you’ll get that too along with insight from the continually sex positive Annie Sprinkle, who spends as much time talking about her work outside of the film industry as in it. Serena reveals intimate details about her infamous relationship with the late Jamie Gillis while Seka reminisces not just about her exploits on camera but on her adventures at New York City’s long gone swingers club, Plato’s Retreat.

If there’s one complaint to levy against the book, it’s that the three hundred or so photographs used to compliment the text didn’t replicate so well on the printed page. They often look soft, harshly compressed or both. The plus side is that if you want images of any of the ladies featured here, a Google search is only seconds away from anyone reading this. Golden Goddesses isn’t a book you’re going to buy for pretty pictures of pretty ladies, it’s a book you’re going to buy for some seriously fascinating and revealing stories from a collection of unsung heroines of the adult film industry.

The amount of detail here, the layers which Nelson manages to peel back in order to expose the people behind the personas, is outstanding. Anyone with a serious interest not just in the history of adult film but in the very definition of celebrity and the rise and fall that goes along with it should consider this a must read. Never before has a book tackled its subject with the grace and care which Nelson shows here – let’s hope she’s able to tackle a second volume, or even make a series out of this as once fans make it through the mammoth tome, they will most certainly be left wanting more."

"Golden Goddesses" full interview with EMMREPORT

Cutting "Golden Goddesses" cake at Hustler HollywoodThe following links are a two-part interview I did with Dominic Ace from EMMREPORT the day before our official book launch in Hollywood:
"Golden Goddesses" interview, Part-One
"Golden Goddesses" interview, Part-Two
During our interview, we discussed many topics including how "Golden Goddesses" came to be and what the distinguishing factors are between the women of the adult golden era and today. "Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema, 1968-1985" is now available in kindle format  in addition to softcover which is applicable for several e-readers: "Golden Goddesses" on Kindle  Enjoy!

"Golden Goddesses" is now available for Kindle readers and other devices!

"Golden Goddesses" Cake at Hustler LaunchGreat news! Just in time for the holidays: Golden Goddesses is now available for purchase through Amazon.com for all kindle devices at $14.95.  Readers can send Golden Goddesses directly to their kindle instruments or download the free kindle apps for kindle fire, iPad PCs, Android tablets, PC or Mac for access. Many readers have remarked how they appreciate the way the book is designed so that one can virtually open to any chapter without necessarily starting at the beginning. The kindle version presents the photos at the end of each chapter. Please follow this link for more information: Golden Goddesses in kindle format.

As I've done throughout the process of developing this book, I'd like to share a glimpse of my chapter on Kitten Natividad titled Sex "Kitten" Natividad. I was thrilled to finally met Kitten for the first time last month at our book launch in Los Angeles. She's a wonderful person, full of life, and kind. I'd also like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy, peaceful and safe holiday season. :)



     Brazen, buxom and brassy, “Kitten” Natividad, former burlesque queen, Pin-Up girl, and adult film actress, has delighted in arousing male sexual fantasies for four decades. 
     Born in Mexico in 1948 to a teenage bride, Francesca Isabelle Natividad was three years old when her parents divorced. Before the age of ten, Francesca and her mother immigrated to El Paso, Texas where they settled in with her new stepfather. Natividad adapted easily to her congenial surroundings and dutifully assisted with her younger siblings. While engaged in secondary school studies, a relative hooked the young teenager up to keep house for actor Stella Stevens in Hollywood for summer work where Natividad flourished. After graduating from grade twelve, Francesca was hired as a key punch operator but quickly became unfulfilled by the monotony of her work. At the advice of a friend, she decided to audition as a Go-Go dancer, and ultimately became an exotic dancer, a profession she found to be gratifying and profitable. During her early years as a stripper, Natividad adopted the stage name “Kitten”.
     While married to her second husband, Kitten was introduced to sexploitation director, Russ Meyer. She became a star prodigy after her provocative debut as an orator in the cult classic Up! (1976). Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixons (1977) followed as did a lengthy relationship with Meyer, and subsequently, several breast augmentation surgeries that provided Kitten with a forty-four inch chest.     “It was a normal childhood. My mother started working at the same time my father worked and went to college. I came home from school, did homework and made the dinner ─ there were no hobbies. I did like to put on the radio and dance around the house doing housework. My childhood was definitely not the life that kids have today. I was very responsible as a child. I can’t say anything terrible about my childhood. I don’t feel bad about my childhood because it taught me one thing: I didn’t want any children when I grew up. I remember those two a.m. feedings. My mother would go to work so she called on me – I’m the oldest one – to go get the baby and change his diaper; give him his bottle. I thought, “Is this what I have to look forward to?” Not for me. I’m from the era of baby boomers and we are different from other generations. We started doing things differently and we behaved differently.      As a teenager, I loved the way Bridget Bardot looked. I wish I looked like her, and I loved Natalie Wood. Honestly, I get bored talking about the beginnings of my life because it’s so long ago and there aren’t any big highlights. I had no tits and I was a very skinny girl. I wasn’t boy crazy or anything, but I was into being the popular one – the clown. I enjoyed it a lot because I got attention.”     “I was already married when I met Russ [Meyer] and I was working at the Classic Cat. At the time, he had the movie Supervixons (1975) out and the star of his movie, Shari Eubank, was working at the club. She was a beautiful girl, a very sweet girl from Illinois. They told him that he should come and check me out because I was the kind of woman he liked for his films. He came by while he was working on another film called UP! He said, ‘You’re so hot looking, I want to put you in that film no matter what.’”       “Russ Meyer did not do porn films. I love him to death. He’s dead now, but I have to come to his defense. Later, I did some Triple-X films, but Russ would be rolling in his grave because he could not compete with porn.”    “When I went into porn, I was in bad shape. I was a lush by that time. When I quit, I didn’t miss it at all, and now, I don’t drink either. I went through a phase and now it’s over. When I stopped drinking my life got back on track and I’m doing okay. Sometimes my friends will ask me to have a drink and I think why should I get started again? One might lead to two, and that might lead to more. I don’t want that. I do go to AA to remind me not to drink. I’ve enjoyed my life whether it was bad or good. Sometimes I didn’t know it was bad!”    “A lot of girls just don’t last in the business. They might be dysfunctional or they are just overnighters. On the other hand, some of them who did have a horrible life were able to make themselves stars. I am so proud, of Jenna Jameson. She’s worth forty-five million dollars or something and she’s very smart. You know, one of the strippers I danced with came from a wealthy family and she was given everything and people would say, ‘Why is she a stripper, she comes from a great family?’       I’d turn around and say, ‘Hey! I come from a great family and I’m doing this!’ You get my drift.”

"Golden Goddesses" Book Launch Interviews

Thanks to Dominic Ace and Jeremy Meyer from Emmreport (www.examiner.com), we have interview footage from the Hollywood Hustler Launch on Thursday November 30th. Please go to the following links for access:Author Jill C. NelsonCover Girl: SerenaAmber LynnVeronica HartRhonda Jo PettyNina HartleySharon Mitchell
With "Conduit" Kay Parker and "Thespian" Veronica Hart
Serene Serena
The legendary Lynn Girls: Ginger and Amber "Global Goddess": Annie Sprinkle with Veronica Hart and Kay Parker
Sex "Kitten" Natividad and "Roller Girl" Rhonda Jo Petty
"Miss Sharon Mitchell" with "Heart-On Girl", Nina Hartley, Amber Lynn and Ginger Lynn

Porn's "Golden Goddesses" alight in Hollywood by Gram Ponante

The following article is written by writer Gram Ponante. Ponante attended the book signing at Larry Edmunds Bookshop last weekend in Hollywood.

Written on December 8, 2012 at 1:31 pm by Gram the Man
Porn’s “Golden Goddesses” alight in HollywoodFiled under classic, events, galleryno comments


Some of the “Golden Goddesses” with author Jill NelsonAnnie Sprinkle recalls a story about “Deep Throat”‘s Linda Lovelace.
“She had turned her back on the adult industry, but Hepatitis C had destroyed her liver, and she needed a new one. Her new feminist friends turned their backs on her, but it was her porn fans who bought her the liver.”Sprinkle, along with several other actresses from Porn’s Golden Age of the 70′s and 80′s, is greeting a crush of fans at Hollywood’s Larry Edmund’s bookstore. She is there promoting Jill Nelson’s exhaustively detailed oral history Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema, 1968-1985.Nelson herself is there. An unassuming Canadian with salt and pepper hair, she made significant inroads into the porn industry in 2008 with her first book (co-written with Jennifer Sugar), John Holmes: A Life Measured In Inches (Second Edition).“I talked with many of these women then about John Holmes,” Nelson says, “and knew there was so much more to tell.”And what stories they have. Joining Sprinkle on the makeshift dais are a dozen women who helped change popular culture, and whose stories haven’t been collected in one place until now. Serena, Nina Hartley, Laurie Holmes (who met and married John Holmes when she was the performer known as Misti Dawn}, Russ Meyers siren Kitten Natividad, “Taboo”‘s Kay Parker, Rhonda Jo Petty (who traded on her resemblance to Farrah Fawcett, and who was sued because of it), “Exhausted” director Julia St. Vincent, screenwriter Raven Touchstone, and Veronica Hart share stories for two hours to a room that is, but for them, 95 percent male.Among them are pioneering pornographers Richard Pacheco, Tony Montana, Bob Chinn, and Roy Karch, who directed Serena in one of porn’s first directly-on-videotape productions, 1979′s “The Reincarnation of Serena.”“Annette Haven told me, ‘This industry is a hundred times harder for women than me,’” says Pacheco, addressing the dais. “It’s true. Maybe you got paid more…for our part, we had the good opportunity for intimacy with beautiful women.”For many on stage and in the audience, there is a feeling of nostalgia and loss, as if it could never be that way again. Some of the women rarely talk. Serena and Kay Parker say barely a word. Nelson says that some women she wanted to talk with are unreachable or wanted to put that part of their lives behind them.Knowing that porn stardom is much different now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, I ask what it is like interacting with fans.“Fans are so polite,” says Nina Hartley, who got in the business in 1984 and, unlike most of the women interviewed for “Golden Goddesses,” never left. “I have to tell them to squeeze my ass.”But Veronica Hart tells a different story.“[Years ago] I was walking with my baby and a man started telling me about blowjobs,” says Veronica Hart. “That was the worst one.”Elaborating on her Linda Lovelace story, Sprinkle says that her fans sent her money to help rebuild from a fire 15 years ago.Fans’ motives might be different, but it is a natural tendency to want a beautiful and seemingly accessible woman to show gratitude. We can see this reflected in current porn stars’ publishing their Amazon wishlists.Many on the panel talked with longing about the camaraderie on set and the budgets that allowed for shoots to feel like vacations.“Do you remember that little man-made island near Sausalito?” Hartley asks.From the audience, Pacheco thinks he remembers the place.“We shot ‘The Seven Seductions of Madame Lau’ there,” he says. “It was me and Kay Parker and about 7,000 mosquitoes.”Veronica Hart has been working as a production manager for several years, most recently at Mile High Media. “We shoot things like ‘My Mother’s Best Friend’ and ‘My Daughter’s Boyfriend,’” she says. “Crazy stuff.”I think about how taboo the series “Taboo” was, in which Kay Parker starred as a stepmother incapable of keeping her passions out of the family, and that was the early 1980s. One thing that is striking about the audience (aside from Nelson’s college-age daughter and Petty’s daughters, I’m sure I’m the youngest person there, which is a feeling I never have on porn sets) and panel is the distance between them and today’s porn world.Unless we consider Nina Hartley herself, porn has no elder statesman program.I have not yet read “Golden Goddesses,” an even weightier tome than Nelson’s John Holmes book at 800-plus pages, but I can’t wait. In fact, I could read a whole book about Rhonda Jo Petty who, for me, was the evening’s breakout star.“I met Charlie Manson when I was 13,” she says (and no one asks her why she met Charles Manson at age 13, but I bet it’s in the book), “and then I’m on set for Playboy and it’s Deborah Tate (Manson gang victim Sharon Tate’s sister) who’s doing my makeup. My life is full of crazy stories. I was a loose cannon.”The evening breaks up when Julia St. Vincent, itchy for the past half hour, slips out for a cigarette. The panelists pose for photographs—some reluctantly—and head out, alone or in pairs, onto Hollywood Blvd. Nina Hartley squeezes my ass, Kay Parker chats briefly with her soft London accent, fans crowd around Sprinkle, who is promoting an “Ecosexual” art opening the next day.These women deserve a week of packed houses at the nearby Egyptian theatre, but this crowd is respectful and thoughtful, and that’s good to see, even if there’s no residuals.A man from the bookstore audience asks, “Was it ever mentioned in your contract that —”Hartley cuts him off.“Contract?” she says. “That was hi-larious.”Previously on Porn Valley Observed: John Holmes book also “Measured in Inches”; Kay Parker—The first “Taboo” is the deepest; Annie Sprinkle invites the Moon to her marriage; “Nina Loves Ron“: Raven Touchstone’s “Shared Wives”; “Insatiable” at 30; John Holmes still isn’t “Exhausted”; John Holmes tells his own story in “Porn King”
Some of the “Golden Goddesses” with author Jill Nelson (L-R) Raven Touchstone, Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Hart Tony Montana with Roy Karch, wearing hat, in background
Richard Pacheco Larry Edmunds Bookstore for “Golden Goddesses” signing, November 2012 (L-R) Nina Hartley, Laurie Holmes, Kitten Natividad, Kay Parker, Rhonda Jo Petty

Two Very Special Engagements

Where to begin. No one but my husband can truly appreciate not only what this book project has entailed for the past three plus years, but also, what the last five months has involved since I sent the manuscript for Golden Goddesses to my publisher, BearManor Media, on the 30th of June. Planning not one, but two Hollywood parties from three thousand miles away and in another country, isn't as easy as one might think. But thanks to the cooperation and hospitality of the folks at Hustler Hollywood and to Jeff at Larry Edmunds Bookshop, not to mention Tom at Cake and Art, we were able to make it happen and with great success.

Writing this book has been a once in a lifetime experience. Given the subject matter, some might have believed when I set out that I'd saddled myself with a monster of a project most writers (and readers) wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. After all, this book is not about a woman's fantasy sexual exploit like Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by the best selling novelist E. L. James. Golden Goddesses is about reality and truth, heartache, humour and acceptance. It is a book about women. Like any good ideas, "Goddesses" ignited with a flame and it grew. Once the seedling was planted, the process seemed to take on steam and a natural course of events. The ladies, all twenty-five, have supported me along the way like sisters might, by being frank and honest and funny and open and kind. Collectively, they sent and approved photos, proofed their interview transcripts, shared ideas, offered suggestions, discussed their films, wrote poetry, tolerated my amateur photography skills, and even designed the front cover. This experience has been an exhilarating and emotional journey, which finally culminated in the events of the past week.

Last Thursday night on November 29th at the Hustler Hollywood flagship store on Sunset Boulevard was an experience like nothing I have ever before encountered. Flanked by fifteen beautiful ladies seated at several tables, I stood next to our Master of Ceremonies, Bill Margold, and stared in awe at the throngs of fans, press and papparazi, who came out in droves to photograph and engage with this amazing all-star cast of women that included: Kay Parker, Serena, Nina Hartley Rhonda Jo Petty, Sharon Mitchell, Veronica Hart, Annie Sprinkle, Ginger Lynn, Amber Lynn, Christy Canyon, Kitten Nativdad, Kelly Nichols, Laurie Holmes, Julia St. Vincent, Raven Touchstone and Debi Diamond. The estimated number at the store was well over 200, and for a girl from a suburban neighbourhood in Southern Ontario, Canada, this was something to behold. The cake, created in the design of the front and back covers of the book, was outstanding as we toasted with champagne. My husband and twenty-three year old daughter shared in the celebration....We three are still stupefied and electrified.


On Friday evening, the 30th, we did an encore appearance with ten of the ladies from the previous evening coming out in the rain (yes, rain) where they again wowed a loving crowd of people that filled the store to the rafters. The store's owner, Jeff, did an outstanding job accommodating the guests and keeping things running smoothly. Margold did an outstanding job acting as MC once more, and after I read the book's introduction, we opened the floor to a Q&A with the audience and media before the book signing began. Thanks to the ladies and to all involved, we are very proud to announce that every single copy of Golden Goddesses in Hollywood last weekend, were sold out at both stores. What an amazing feeling.

Special guests over both evenings in addition to the women, were Marilyn Chambers's best friend Peggy McGinn and her husband Darcy. They are such a wonderful couple. Carly Mills, daughter of the sexploitation actress Barbara Mills, spoke from the heart about her late mother. Ann Perry's step-son, Roger Perry, attended on behalf of his family and mother who is unwell due to Alzheimer's. Photographers and contributors to the book, Joel Sussman (who shot the beautiful cover image of Serena), Paul Johnson, a close friend of the late Juliet Anderson, and Kenji, were also there to support the ladies as was legendary Johnny Wadd director Bob Chinn, the former adult actor Richard Pacheco, and directors Roy Karch and Cass Paley.

Only once before did I have the opportunity to stand in gratitude after more than four years of hard work when my friend and former co-author Jennifer Sugar and I held our book launch at Book Soup in Hollywood on August 8th, 2008 for the release of John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches. I thought about Jennifer on Thursday evening while milling among the crowd and I smiled at the recollection of another sensational evening.

On Sunday, we left Los Angeles for Encinitas, California to rest up, visit with our friend and pinch ourselves in amazement that we actually pulled it off before returning home last evening. To all of the Goddesses and to everyone who came out to meet and greet the fabulous ladies, we couldn't have done it without you. Thanks for the memories.

Thanks to Carl Gerard and Dominic Ace for sharing photos taken at Hustler Hollywood. Thanks also to Amber Brooks for photos taken at the Larry Edmunds' event. More photos will be posted here and on facebook in the coming weeks.

Additional photos can be viewed at the following links here: Hustler Photos by Emmreport
and here: Hollywood.com

Golden Goddesses Hustler Launch & Larry Edmunds!

'Golden Goddesses' of Porn Light Up Hustler HollywoodBy Jared Rutter, XBIZ.comFri, Nov 30 2012 12:00pm PSTWEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The years rolled away Thursday night at Hustler Hollywood on Sunset Strip when a crowd of about 200 porn-lovers gathered to celebrate the release of a new book. Golden Goddesses by Jill C. Nelson is a collection of interviews with divas who lit up the XXX movie screen from 1968 to 1985, considered the Golden Age of Porn.The hefty tome — 900-plus pages, $50 cover price — covers 25 women, and more than half of them showed up at the Hustler store to sign copies and meet fans.In no particular order: Kitten Natividad, Rhonda Jo Petty, Kay Parker, Serena, Annie Sprinkle, Laurie Holmes, Nina Hartley, Veronica Hart, Ginger Lynn, Amber Lynn, Christy Canyon, Kelly Nichols, and late arrival Sharon Mitchell. Also: screenwriter Raven Touchstone, one of the few non-performers interviewed, who’s about to publish a memoir of her own.Nelson, who earned porn-historian cred as co-author (with Jennifer Sugar) of John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches, seemed relieved that the book’s unveiling had finally arrived. “Now it’s fun,” she laughed nervously, looking back at three-and-half years of hard work. “But I think it’s gonna be fine.”For the stars it seemed like old home week. Kay Parker oozed class, warmth and charm, as ever. Veronica Hart appeared on the arm of her Las Vegas high school beau. Annie Sprinkle had a brief moment of panic when she couldn’t find her lipstick, usually stashed in her capacious cleavage. She relaxed when it turned up in her clutch purse.The women sat behind tables at the front of the store, and fans — who mostly seemed to be in the same age group — moved down the line with their copies of the book, much as they might have back in the day at CES in the Sahara Hotel in Vegas.There were quite a few guests from the same period, including directors Bob Chinn and Cass Paley, actors John Seeman and Richard Pacheco, and still photographers Kenji and Joel Sussman. It was Sussman who snapped the book’s stunning cover photo of Serena, “in my backyard in 1974.”Attendees from a later porn generation included Debi Diamond, director Ernest Greene and actor-director Luc Wylder with significant other Alexandra Silk.Bill Margold, who like many of the stars was there at X’s beginning, emceed the proceedings, finally getting the chatty crowd to quiet down enough to hear him read a letter from interviewee Gloria Leonard. He called the event “a once in a lifetime experience” full of “a whole lot of love for people that we love.”Then he turned the mic over to Nelson, who read a few excerpts from the book’s introduction. She was effusive in her praise of her subjects, whose current ages, she said, range from 46 to 76. “This is a really good representation of the era I wrote about.”Then she paid them the ultimate tribute: “I would go into a foxhole with any one of these women, any day of the week. They are awesome.”Another round of star appearances was scheduled for the following night at Larry Edmunds Bookstore on Hollywood Blvd.

12/1/201209:24 AM PST



I Meet The Golden Goddesses
 

Adult FYI --Gene Ross

Hollywood Boulevard’s known as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I had mine shattered years ago by a thick-calved, heavy breasted Irish beauty name Erin.

But that story doesn’t count in this town loaded with wannabe actors and porn stars trying to make it big. I ran into a few of them Friday night – female porn stars, that is - at The Larry Edmunds Bookstore in Hollywood for a signing.

They’ve already made it big. Jill Nelson, a housewife-turned writer from Canada, a few years ago wrote a book about the late John Holmes subtitled A Life Measured in Inches. And now she chronicles the story of these children of porn’s golden age of the Seventies, over a spanse of 900+ pages in soft cover.

Nelson calls her latest work appropriately enough, Golden Goddesses. I’m sure more than a few fans came out of curiosity in the light drizzle of the early evening to see whether the panel collectively looked like Estelle Getty from Golden Girls. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that this was mostly an AARP crowd of porn fans. The kind that still buys their porn, judging by the fact they were more than willing to plunk down fifty bucks for Nelson's book. And one guy, I swear, was wearing a fez.

Expecting caskets and colostomy bags, they may have been sadly disappointed, though. Kay Parker at 68 looks hardly ready for mothballs and cedar closets, while Rhonda Jo Petty once known as the Farrah Fawcett of porn still has more oomph than women half her age.

Over the course of the evening which was getting as crowded as an elevator, Petty told a story about a lawsuit because she, perhaps, looked a little too much like Farrah. Except Petty, tanned and wearing her blonde hair in a French twist, has the last laugh now that Farrah’s tucked away in the dirt.

From where I was standing- I couldn’t tell- maybe it was Veronica Hart [or Annie Sprinkle] relating the story about some guy who walked up to her on the street one time and gave her the holy-hell-what-for, for being in porn. She gave it right back to him for being an A-hole. The guy backed off and apologized.

Which basically illustrates the fact that Nelson’s book, besides being copious biography, is also about choices. The Golden Goddesses were glad they did it and wouldn’t change a thing.

Now that Gypsy Boots is gone, Hollywood needs a resident kook and seems to have picked one up in Bill Margold. I’m only saying this because the bear-ish Margold looks crazy, what with the hippie hair the hermit beard and the Hawaiian shirts, but he sure knows his porn history.

Margold, who emceed the evening, illustrated with stories about how mean and nasty LA Vice cops truly were before the Freeman decision and how Serena was one of their favorite targets.

Serena, who's featured on the cover, has a set of choppers on her and one wonders whether she and Roy Karch share the same orthodontist. Karch, also a product of the porn Seventies, is no longer directing. He’s become a tour guide of the Hollywood highways and byways, and he sports a tour guide smile that’s positively preternatural. Picture Liberace’s piano keys in someone else’s mouth and you’ve got Karch.

“Yours is the book I’m dying to read,” says Karch who lives in the neighborhood. I think Karch is suggesting I know where the bodies are buried. I tell Karch I’m now in professional wrestling, and I think for a minute he bought it.

Someone in the crowd brings up a question about one of the old Pussycat Theaters, and Margold immediately goes into a spiel about how the porn handprints on the sidewalk, ala Grauman’s Chinese Theater, “belong to us.”

I think I’ll let Free Speech and Diane Duke fight that battle as well since they’ve done such a remarkable job already with Measure B.

A few others from the industry - I won’t say who - give me the nudge and the wink as if to say they know that Duke has taken Free Speech to a whole new level of sleight of hand.

“You know that whole Mr. Marcus press conference was bullshit,” I’m told.

“Marcus wanted to take his story directly to the performers and Diane Duke wouldn’t let him.”

You hear so many choice things at these gatherings. Meanwhile, former kid actor, Scotty Schwartz, now in the memorabilia business, points out a nearby apartment building. There he once played a dead body in a $20,000 movie composed of a kitchen, a living room, a trash bag and a graveyard. I ask Scotty if it ever made it to the IMAX experience.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Golden Goddesses (and Their Book) Grace Hustler HollywoodThey'll also be appearing tonight at Larry Edmunds Bookstore in Hollywood ��but you'll have to buy a book to get in!By Mark KernesNov 30th, 2012 04:45 PMBEVERLY HILLS—It was a night that's unlikely ever to be recreated. We're talking about the gathering of 15 adult stars from the classic era—porn's "golden age"—to help promote the most recent book about them, Jill Nelson's Golden Goddesses, a tome of nearly 950 pages that, according to Nelson, took more than three years to write, and contains the life stories of 25 classic performers.Former talent agent Bill Margold served as Master of Ceremonies for the event, which drew a capacity crowd to the Hustler Hollywood store at 8920 Sunset Boulevard, and just trying to get the actresses to stop signing autographs briefly and take part in the short book-release ceremony seemed more like a job of herding cats.The "goddesses" present for the event included Serena, Amber Lynn, Ginger Lynn, Laurie Holmes (widow of John), Kay Parker, Veronica Hart, Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Christy Canyon, Kelly Nichols, Sharon Mitchell, Rhonda Jo Petty, softcore star Kitten Natividad, Exhausted director Julia St. Vincent and screenwriter Raven Touchstone—but that's hardly all.Spotted in the crowd were actresses Tori Welles, Kelly O'Dell, Alexandra Silk and Debi Diamond; actors Richard Pacheco, John Seeman, Luc Wylder and Scotty Schwartz; directors Bob Chinn (perhaps best remembered for his "Johnny Wadd" series), Loretta Sterling, formerly of Totally Tasteless Video, Ernest Greene, Wesley Emerson and Dana Dane of Erocktavision.Calling it "the best program ever created from the adult industry," and noting that Sprinkle had deemed it "the ultimate pajama party," Margold introduced each of the actresses to the crowd, which pressed in close for photo (and video) opportunities that they likely would never see again.One actress who couldn't be in attendance was Gloria Leonard, but she had sent a letter expressing her feelings about the (then-impending) gathering, which Margold read to the crowd."I am very proud and humbled to be included in Jill Nelson's definitive book about the golden age of adult movies," the letter began. "Hey, back in the day, they were movies, shot on either 16 or 35 film. I have nothing against video, but celluloid provided a certain depth of field and skill by all involved at the time... Along with my many sisters-at-arms, I'm sure there were many times when they were overjoyed by the results of a film, and others when they wished they could hide under their seat. Jill has compiled a rare homage to the women who did it all, and I am flattered that she chose to include me. And to all the other brave, ballsy babes whom Jill selected and some who were not, due to space constraints—no doubt perhaps there'll be a Volume 2—all I can say is, being in the adult industry gave me more than I can list here: Opportunities to travel, meet great people, make some lifetime friends, have my own TV show, speak at colleges and universities, and much more."Margold then introduced Nelson, who thanked everyone for appearing "to support this book and to support all of you ladies who are legends in this industry," and Hustler for sponsoring the event.Fearing that she'd give one or more of the actresses short shrift if she read some excerpts from her book's individual chapters, she instead quoted a section from the book's introduction—which she accomplished more easily with Kay Parker acting as her bookstand while she read."My idea for each woman to share her own story openly was surprisingly met with a positive reception when I pitched it to a few of the females I'd gotten to know," she stated. "I remember speaking at first with Rhonda Jo Petty in the spring of 2009. Petty was enthusiastic about the concept and encouraged me to get started. In September 2009, I packed up my little black Yaris on a sunny Sunday morning, and traveled east to Montreal to interview Seka."Nelson continued, describing that first meeting with Seka and her husband, following with, "Afterwards, Seka promised to put me in touch with some of her legendary girlfriends: Kay Parker, Veronica hart, Gloria Leonard and Annie Sprinkle. True to her word, by the end of September, I had established interview dates with all four ladies. One thing led to another, and soon I had enough material and additional contacts to begin piecing together a chronological history of the lives and times of these fascinating women."After Nelson finished reading her excerpts, the actresses continued signing autographs until it was time for a group photo-op, and later, some champagne and the cutting of a ceremonial cake which had been carved and decorated in the shape of an open Golden Goddesses book.It was a congenial evening, with many "old-timers" renewing acquaintances with people they hadn't seen in decades, and an ample crowd of "newbies" getting their first exposure to performers they'd probably jacked off to as teenagers.The festivities had begun well before the official 7:30 starting time, and when we left shortly after 9 pm, the party was still going fairly strong—and like Margold, we too can't wait for a Volume 2.As we previously noted, a second signing will take place tonight at Larry Edmunds Bookshop in the heart of Hollywood. There will be readings, a slide show, and a discussion of the '70s Golden Age with several of the "Golden Goddesses." Larry Edmunds Bookshop is located at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The signing will begin at 7:30 pm. Seating will be limited, but attendance can be guaranteed with advance purchase of Golden Goddesses while space is available. Call Larry Edmunds Bookshop for details at 323-463-3273.

Golden Goddesses Hustler Launch!

'Golden Goddesses' of Porn Light Up Hustler HollywoodBy Jared Rutter, XBIZ.comFri, Nov 30 2012 12:00pm PSTWEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The years rolled away Thursday night at Hustler Hollywood on Sunset Strip when a crowd of about 200 porn-lovers gathered to celebrate the release of a new book. Golden Goddesses by Jill C. Nelson is a collection of interviews with divas who lit up the XXX movie screen from 1968 to 1985, considered the Golden Age of Porn.The hefty tome — 900-plus pages, $50 cover price — covers 25 women, and more than half of them showed up at the Hustler store to sign copies and meet fans.In no particular order: Kitten Natividad, Rhonda Jo Petty, Kay Parker, Serena, Annie Sprinkle, Laurie Holmes, Nina Hartley, Veronica Hart, Ginger Lynn, Amber Lynn, Christy Canyon, Kelly Nichols, and late arrival Sharon Mitchell. Also: screenwriter Raven Touchstone, one of the few non-performers interviewed, who’s about to publish a memoir of her own.Nelson, who earned porn-historian cred as co-author (with Jennifer Sugar) of John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches, seemed relieved that the book’s unveiling had finally arrived. “Now it’s fun,” she laughed nervously, looking back at three-and-half years of hard work. “But I think it’s gonna be fine.”For the stars it seemed like old home week. Kay Parker oozed class, warmth and charm, as ever. Veronica Hart appeared on the arm of her Las Vegas high school beau. Annie Sprinkle had a brief moment of panic when she couldn’t find her lipstick, usually stashed in her capacious cleavage. She relaxed when it turned up in her clutch purse.The women sat behind tables at the front of the store, and fans — who mostly seemed to be in the same age group — moved down the line with their copies of the book, much as they might have back in the day at CES in the Sahara Hotel in Vegas.There were quite a few guests from the same period, including directors Bob Chinn and Cass Paley, actors John Seeman and Richard Pacheco, and still photographers Kenji and Joel Sussman. It was Sussman who snapped the book’s stunning cover photo of Serena, “in my backyard in 1974.”Attendees from a later porn generation included Debi Diamond, director Ernest Greene and actor-director Luc Wylder with significant other Alexandra Silk.Bill Margold, who like many of the stars was there at X’s beginning, emceed the proceedings, finally getting the chatty crowd to quiet down enough to hear him read a letter from interviewee Gloria Leonard. He called the event “a once in a lifetime experience” full of “a whole lot of love for people that we love.”Then he turned the mic over to Nelson, who read a few excerpts from the book’s introduction. She was effusive in her praise of her subjects, whose current ages, she said, range from 46 to 76. “This is a really good representation of the era I wrote about.”Then she paid them the ultimate tribute: “I would go into a foxhole with any one of these women, any day of the week. They are awesome.”Another round of star appearances was scheduled for the following night at Larry Edmunds Bookstore on Hollywood Blvd.


Golden Goddesses (and Their Book) Grace Hustler HollywoodThey'll also be appearing tonight at Larry Edmunds Bookstore in Hollywood ��but you'll have to buy a book to get in!By Mark KernesNov 30th, 2012 04:45 PMBEVERLY HILLS—It was a night that's unlikely ever to be recreated. We're talking about the gathering of 15 adult stars from the classic era—porn's "golden age"—to help promote the most recent book about them, Jill Nelson's Golden Goddesses, a tome of nearly 950 pages that, according to Nelson, took more than three years to write, and contains the life stories of 25 classic performers.Former talent agent Bill Margold served as Master of Ceremonies for the event, which drew a capacity crowd to the Hustler Hollywood store at 8920 Sunset Boulevard, and just trying to get the actresses to stop signing autographs briefly and take part in the short book-release ceremony seemed more like a job of herding cats.The "goddesses" present for the event included Serena, Amber Lynn, Ginger Lynn, Laurie Holmes (widow of John), Kay Parker, Veronica Hart, Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Christy Canyon, Kelly Nichols, Sharon Mitchell, Rhonda Jo Petty, softcore star Kitten Natividad, Exhausted director Julia St. Vincent and screenwriter Raven Touchstone—but that's hardly all.Spotted in the crowd were actresses Tori Welles, Kelly O'Dell, Alexandra Silk and Debi Diamond; actors Richard Pacheco, John Seeman, Luc Wylder and Scotty Schwartz; directors Bob Chinn (perhaps best remembered for his "Johnny Wadd" series), Loretta Sterling, formerly of Totally Tasteless Video, Ernest Greene, Wesley Emerson and Dana Dane of Erocktavision.Calling it "the best program ever created from the adult industry," and noting that Sprinkle had deemed it "the ultimate pajama party," Margold introduced each of the actresses to the crowd, which pressed in close for photo (and video) opportunities that they likely would never see again.One actress who couldn't be in attendance was Gloria Leonard, but she had sent a letter expressing her feelings about the (then-impending) gathering, which Margold read to the crowd."I am very proud and humbled to be included in Jill Nelson's definitive book about the golden age of adult movies," the letter began. "Hey, back in the day, they were movies, shot on either 16 or 35 film. I have nothing against video, but celluloid provided a certain depth of field and skill by all involved at the time... Along with my many sisters-at-arms, I'm sure there were many times when they were overjoyed by the results of a film, and others when they wished they could hide under their seat. Jill has compiled a rare homage to the women who did it all, and I am flattered that she chose to include me. And to all the other brave, ballsy babes whom Jill selected and some who were not, due to space constraints—no doubt perhaps there'll be a Volume 2—all I can say is, being in the adult industry gave me more than I can list here: Opportunities to travel, meet great people, make some lifetime friends, have my own TV show, speak at colleges and universities, and much more."Margold then introduced Nelson, who thanked everyone for appearing "to support this book and to support all of you ladies who are legends in this industry," and Hustler for sponsoring the event.Fearing that she'd give one or more of the actresses short shrift if she read some excerpts from her book's individual chapters, she instead quoted a section from the book's introduction—which she accomplished more easily with Kay Parker acting as her bookstand while she read."My idea for each woman to share her own story openly was surprisingly met with a positive reception when I pitched it to a few of the females I'd gotten to know," she stated. "I remember speaking at first with Rhonda Jo Petty in the spring of 2009. Petty was enthusiastic about the concept and encouraged me to get started. In September 2009, I packed up my little black Yaris on a sunny Sunday morning, and traveled east to Montreal to interview Seka."Nelson continued, describing that first meeting with Seka and her husband, following with, "Afterwards, Seka promised to put me in touch with some of her legendary girlfriends: Kay Parker, Veronica hart, Gloria Leonard and Annie Sprinkle. True to her word, by the end of September, I had established interview dates with all four ladies. One thing led to another, and soon I had enough material and additional contacts to begin piecing together a chronological history of the lives and times of these fascinating women."After Nelson finished reading her excerpts, the actresses continued signing autographs until it was time for a group photo-op, and later, some champagne and the cutting of a ceremonial cake which had been carved and decorated in the shape of an open Golden Goddesses book.It was a congenial evening, with many "old-timers" renewing acquaintances with people they hadn't seen in decades, and an ample crowd of "newbies" getting their first exposure to performers they'd probably jacked off to as teenagers.The festivities had begun well before the official 7:30 starting time, and when we left shortly after 9 pm, the party was still going fairly strong—and like Margold, we too can't wait for a Volume 2.As we previously noted, a second signing will take place tonight at Larry Edmunds Bookshop in the heart of Hollywood. There will be readings, a slide show, and a discussion of the '70s Golden Age with several of the "Golden Goddesses." Larry Edmunds Bookshop is located at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The signing will begin at 7:30 pm. Seating will be limited, but attendance can be guaranteed with advance purchase of Golden Goddesses while space is available. Call Larry Edmunds Bookshop for details at 323-463-3273.