Death of a Blue Movie Star

The first hour or so Shelly discussed the pornography industry in a matter-of-fact, businesslike way. Adult films were experiencing a reluctant death. They were no longer chic and trendy, as some had proclaimed them to be in the seventies. The excitement of illicit thrills was gone. The religious right and conservatives were more active. But, Shelly explained, there were other factors that helped the business. Certainly AIDS was a consideration. "Watching sex is the safest sex." Also, people tended to be more faithful now; with fewer affairs, couples experimented more at home. You didn't have to go to some stinky theater in a tawdry part of town. You and your partner could watch sexual acrobatics in your own bedroom.

The mechanics for viewing porn had changed too. "VCRs're the biggest contributor to the new popularity," she explained. Porn, Shelly felt, was meant for the video medium. "Fifteen years ago, the heyday of big-production porn, the budgets for a film sometimes hit a million dollars." There were elaborate special effects and constructed sets and costumes and ninety-page screenplays that the actors memorized. They were shot on 35mm film in Technicolor. The producers of the classicBehind the Green Door actually campaigned for an Oscar.

Now, porn was virtually homemade, with dozens of small companies in the business. They shot on tape, never on film. A producer was somebody with five thousand bucks, a good source of coke and six willing friends. There were few superstars like John Holmes or Annette Haven or Seka or Georgina Spelvin. Shelly Lowe was as famous as anyone. (With a tough glance at the camera: "Hell, I've got five hundred films under my belt. So to speak.") But stars' fame was limited to New York and California mostly. In Middle America Shelly Lowe was just another face on the boxes of tapes offered for rental in curtained-off corners of family video stores. If she'd been in the business in the mid-seventies she would have done live appearances at theater openings across the country. Now, that didn't happen.

Making a film was easy: A three-person crew rented a loft or took over somebody's apartment for two days, set up the camcorders and lights and sound, shot six to ten fuck scenes and twenty minutes of transitions. The script was a ten-page story idea. Dialogue was improvised. In the postproduction house two versions were edited. Hardcore for sale to the adult theaters, mail order, peep shows and video stores; soft for sale to the cable stations and in-room hotel movie services. Movie theaters weren't the biggest outlet for adult films anymore; they went out of business or put in video projection units, then went out of business anyway. But people rented porn tapes and took them home and watched them. Four thousand X-rated videos were made every year. They had become a commodity.

"Mass production. It's the era of pornography as Volkswagen."

"What about you? Like personally?" Rune asked. "You get forced into the business? Were you like kidnaped? Molested when you were ten?"

Shelly laughed. "Not hardly. I wanted to do it. Or maybe 1 should say that the pressures were subtle. I wanted desperately to act but I couldn't get any legit jobs. Nothing that paid the rent. Porn was the only job I could get. Then I found that not only was I acting but I was making great money. I had control. Not only creative control but sexual control too. It can be a real high."

"Weren't you exploited?"

Shelly laughed once more, shook her head. Looked straight into the camera. "That's the myth of pornography. No, we're not poor farm girls who get enslaved. Men have the power in legitimate films but in porn it's the other way around. Just like with sex in real life: It's thewomen who're in control. We have what men want and they're willing to pay for it. We make more money than men do, we dictate what we do and what we don't do. We're on top. Forgive the joke."

Surprise in Rune's voice: "So you like the business?"

A pause and the sincere eyes glazed back easily into the Betacam's expensive, glossy lens. "Not exactly. There's one problem. There's no sense of… beauty. They call them erotic films but there's nothing erotic about them.

Erotic connotes emotional stimulation as well as physical. Close-ups of people humping isn't erotic. I think I said this to you before: The business has a real low common denominator."

"So why have you stayed with it?" Rune asked.

"I do some legitimate theater now. Not much but every once in a while. And most I've ever made has been four thousand dollars a year. Making porn, I made a hundred twelve last year. Life's expensive. I took the path of least resistance."

Shelley slumped an inch and Rune noticed something. The tough, flirty woman who'd begun talking, the Shelly with the facts and figures, the Shelly with the newscaster's grit in her voice, wasn't the same person who was talking now. This was someone different: softer, sensitive, thoughtful.