photo: Alan Mercer make-up: Katrine Lieberkind Art Direction: Eric Venturo
Ginger Lynn! Once again I find myself working with someone who is a “name”. I have known this name since 1984. In that year alone Ginger made 38 movies! Some titles include ‘An Unnatural Act, Surrender in Paradise, The Pleasure Hunt, Return To Paradise, On Golden Blonde, Night Of Loving Dangerously’, you get the picture. Somehow I never saw one of her movies…..and yet I knew exactly who Ginger Lynn was. That is the power of a “name”. There was just something star-like about ‘Ginger’.
By 1985 she starred in movies titled no less than, ‘I Dream of Ginger, Ginger’s Private Party, Ginger on the Rocks, The Ginger Effect, and finally Ginger’. The list goes on and on, 131 movies in 24 years!
By 1986 she was tired of the porn industry. She retired, partially because the work was no longer fun and she had very little time off. That same year, she was approached by the FBI to testify on behalf of Traci Lords, who had just been exposed as having been underage during her years in the adult-film industry. She refused and was eventually arrested for tax evasion and went to prison.
Now here is the GREAT part, she has proven herself to be a talented actress with a natural flair for comedy. She has many legitimate Hollywood movies to her credit including ‘American Pie Presents Band Camp’ and ‘The Devil’s Rejects’. She also starred in Metallica's music video ‘Turn the Page.’
She is considered a legend among her admirers and has achieved a status close to mythical. The E channel made a two-hour version of the ‘E True Hollywood Story’ all about her where she discussed in detail about her two year romance with Charlie Sheen and her time in prison.
Ginger is just so nothing like I expected her to be. She is a down to earth, passionate human being who enjoys being a Mom to her teen-aged son. She has a Middle American appeal due to the fact that she was raised in the farmland of Illinois. I like her a lot and I’m so glad I have the chance to know and work with her.
AM: Hello Ginger, how did the recent death of Marilyn Chambers affect you?
GL: I had always looked up to Marilyn and Seka, they were the ‘Wall Girls’ when I was young.
AM: Wall girls?
GL: You would walk into the agent’s office and their photos would be on the wall. I always wanted to be like Marilyn Chambers. We never had the opportunity to work together back then. Only a couple of women intimidated me and Marilyn was one of them.
AM: Did you get to know her?
GL: When I made my first come back in 1999 after leaving in 1986 Marilyn was making a comeback as well. We found ourselves on the same set and I got to know her. She was a wonderful, wonderful woman. Over the years I would see her at autograph conventions and she always looked good. The last time I saw her was this past Valentines Day and she looked better than I had ever seen her look…so I was really shocked to find out she was gone. I never did hear about the final autopsy report. That is so heart-breaking to know that so many women give so much throughout their life, and Marilyn was one of them, to end up like this.
Her daughter told me that Marilyn was mixing pills in order to lose weight, but that is why we have doctors and exercise equipment. I will miss her.
AM: Tell me about your time with Charlie Sheen?
GL: The first and last time I have ever been in love. He was the first man ever to break my heart. All the hearts that I broke all came back when he broke my heart. For me…he was a wonderful, wonderful man. I fell in love with him the day we were driving along the beach and he saw a homeless man. We went to a sporting goods store and bought him a sleeping bag, a back pack and some water bottles. We went and found the homeless guy and gave him all these things. He was wonderful to me and we had a wonderful relationship.
AM: Was it just the pressure of the business that broke you up?
GL: I don’t think I would ever date anyone with that high a profile again. We broke up publicly long before we broke up privately. It was basically managers, agents, and attorneys and his Mom. She didn’t care for me.
AM: How has the adult industry changed since the time you entered up to now?
GL: When I got into the adult industry it was taboo. There was no fame, no fortune. It wasn’t cool to be in the industry. It was actually illegal. There was a very, very small group of us, in all, including cast and crew, about fifty people. It was very, for lack of a better term, incestuous.
AM: Because you all knew each other?
GL: We all knew each other on a very personal level, on a friendly level, on a family level. We hung out before we filmed, while we filmed and after we filmed and it was fun. We had fun! I made films for 2 years and three months from December of 1983 until February of 1986. During that time I made 69 films, and most of them were shot on film, with real budgets and real scripts.
AM: I didn’t know that.
GL: Basically what they would do is take a real script and add sex. When I left for thirteen years and came back in 1999 there were three page scripts that were just scene one, scene two. We would have to adlib the entire dialogue. Instead of having this small wonderful family it turned into a thousand and fifty people. A thousand of those people were just there for fame and fortune. Then it was cool to be in the industry, well it was transitioning in 99. I left again after another two years and came back about a year ago and I’ve got to tell you it sucks.
AM: Why do you say that?
GL: I’m bisexual and if I had to choose, and I don’t want to, but if I had to, I would choose men. I don’t even want to do films with men in today’s market. They have no clue what they are doing. They are all robotic and do everything on queue. They have no idea what passion is. They can’t look you in the eyes. You literally have to hold their heads still and force them to look at you because there is nobody home.
AM: That doesn’t sound like fun.
GL: They are performing the most generic, systematic, programmed, act that you can imagine. This is intimacy and they have taken out everything that is intimate. It’s all by formula.
AM: How are you dealing with this?
GL: Basically I have become a professional lesbian now. I only want to do films with girls because the female directors and the films I do with women today are so much better. They are like, ‘Ginger do what you want’. We have fun and we laugh and we have the intensity and the reality that is no longer there between the men and the women.
AM: I have heard that women have taken over the adult film industry. Is that true?
GL: I wouldn’t say that they have taken it over. I would say that there are so many different niches now. Because it used to be illegal, everything we did was so vanilla. Today everything that is out there is all fetish. So when you say that women have taken over I think it is…women have taken over a certain niche for girl/girl films. It’s a healthy natural niche. No matter what is out there, there will be an audience for it.
AM: Ginger I think of you as one of the only women who came from the industry and made it in mainstream films. How did you do it and why did you succeed?
GL: I believe Marilyn Chambers did some things before me. One of the reasons I stopped doing films in 1986 was because I saw myself on the big screen and I looked stupid. From then on I only wanted to watch myself acting. Then I saw that and I thought I was awful so I signed up for acting classes.
AM: How long did you study for?
GL: I studied for seven years with all these important teachers. I made up my resume by changing the titles of my films to the legit titles, like I made ‘Kinky Business’ so I wrote down I was in ‘Risky Business’. People just went oh you were in Risky Business and I would say yes. I changed my entire resume to look like I had done all these things. I started getting auditions and got the Vice Academy films. Then I got my first big audition for Beverly Hills Cop 2.
AM: That must have been exciting.
GL: I was so excited. I drove up on the lot with my white sticker. I get there and the woman says, ‘Are you wearing underwear?’ The part I was auditioning for was a bimbo waitress. The director is Tony Scott. My heart is beating so fast. He hands me the script and asks me if I can do it topless.
AM: Oh you’ve got to be kidding.
GL: At this point I am trying not to cry and I ask if I can just read for the part. He says alright but he is not happy. He then asks me to read it like a slut. I said this is a nightclub waitress. He didn’t care. At this point I started to cry and I just left.
AM: I’m sorry that sounds like a humiliating experience.
GL: Then I realized it was going to be a lot harder than I thought to break in to Hollywood movies. It didn’t matter if I did a film yesterday or ten years ago, if you have a problem with it, you always will. So my agent took a different approach and started sending me on auditions where people knew who I was but did not want me to play it naked. I ended up doing ‘NYPD Blue’, ‘Young Guns 2’, and so much more.
AM: I think you paved the way from porn to mainstream films.
GL: It’s much easier to make the transition today. It is a double edged sword and if you take no for an answer you will never make it.
AM: Is that what you did?
GL: Oh yes. Anytime someone said no I kept going back. My secret was to go in thinking I was not going to get the part but I would say I got one out of six jobs that I auditioned for.
AM: Are you auditioning now?
GL: Yes I am. I did quit for a couple of years. I told my agent just put everything on hold. I only get so many years to be with my son while he is young and then it’s gone. I decided I was going to be home to cook dinner every night. I’m going to be home to help with homework every night and take him where he needs to go and just be there for him.
AM: You have spent your time being a good Mom.
GL: I just called my agent a couple of weeks ago and said I am ready to go out again. I’m not going to do any parts topless or nude. The more I get out there and focus on getting parts the more I will do. I like to do other things like paint and make jewelry. I tend to isolate sometimes. I get happy in my own little world. So now I am socializing by going to events and functions where I get to meet people. I think once people meet me they see there is more to me than in the movies. I know I have more opportunity if I get out there. I do believe I am in my prime!
AM: You sure are. I think you should focus on comedy. You are a gifted comedian. You can communicate through a facial expression.
GL: Thank you for the compliment. Well if I don’t get enough dialogue I will use whatever I have.
AM: What shifted that porn lost the stigma?
GL: I think rock n’ roll had a lot to do with it. All of a sudden rock stars were dating porn stars and putting them in their videos. I am in Metallica’s ‘Turn The Page’ and it’s my favorite work that I have ever done.
Madonna played a big part in this. Music and pop culture along with television just shifted to appreciate porn stars. Then Jenna Jameson came along. Jenna was the first media-generated, doctor created porn star. She was the cookie cutter Barbie doll. She had a big PR firm behind her and they decided that the public would accept her and they did. Jenna basically legitimized it. But before there was Jenna there was Ginger in a different time.
AM: Can you tell me about your time in jail?
GL: Well I never really spent any time in jail. I went to Federal Prison. I never do anything half-assed. (Laughing)
AM: Was it about taxes?
GL: The true story is in 1986 the government pretended it was going to close down the industry, not that they were ever going to do this, but they had to be politically correct. They were not about to lose that money. They simply had to satisfy the needs of the falsely puritanical public.
AM: So what happened?
GL: There was a knock on my door and it was the DA wanting me to testify before the Grand Jury on Tracy Lords behalf. The US Attorney came in and said if you don’t testify we will make your life miserable. So I went before the Grand Jury, and I have a “really, really bad memory” and I “don’t know faces or anything. I didn’t know anyone’s real name or know anything about anyone. I’m sorry.” Five years later, almost to the day, I was indicted.
AM: On what charges?
GL: They tried to charge me with tax evasion but I had always paid my taxes. They spent five years investigating me and the guy made over a hundred thousand dollars a year watching all of my movies, reading every interview, looking through every magazine. I’d like that job! They eventually charged me with willfully subscribing to a false tax return. It was over two thousand eighty seven dollars and four cents. The sad part is I had to spend four hundred thousand dollars defending myself on trial. They kept saying just admit you did it. I said no…if I had done it I would say so, but I didn’t. All but two of the people I refused to testify against, all but two…testified against me. They were told if they didn’t talk they would get in trouble. The problem was it was not mandatory to 1099 people back then.
AM: Did you have proof of income?
GL: There was a paper trail. I was making a quarter million dollars a year back then I was not concerned about two thousand dollars. Give me a break. It was more the point of it. I’m not a snitch AND I stand up for what I believe in.
AM: What was Federal Prison like?
GL: The day I was released I wore two different shoes, one stiletto, one combat boot. That should give you an idea.
AM: Start at the beginning.
GL: I was supposed to turn myself in at noon that day. My parents (Grandmother and Ginger’s Father) drove in twenty four-hours from Illinois the night before to help. OK I’m going in. I have to do four months and seventeen days and then seven hundred and fifty hours of community service. They could have taken everything out of my bank accounts so my father and best girlfriend went in my car to the bank to empty out my safety deposit box and get everything out.
AM: Is this the next morning?
GL: It’s nine in the morning, I’m still asleep and I get a call that I answer to a hang up. I don’t think anything about it, I roll around and try to go back to sleep. Then a bit later I hear a knock on the door…and instinct kicks in. I jump up and scream, ‘Don’t answer the door!’ My grandmother was just opening it and I saw the Marshal. I slammed it shut and said I am not going in until I’ve at least had a shower!
AM: Was the Marshall there alone?
GL: It was my probation officer as well. He just wanted to humiliate me. I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye to my father either.
AM: Was your father still gone?
GL: My father and my girlfriend were just getting back from the bank. They had been pulled over in my car. Now my girlfriend is a 5’9” dark hair and eyes Italian. We don’t look anything alike. They even made her take her boots off to make sure she did not have the tattoo on her ankle that I have on mine. That was there hold up. I heard my Dad outside yelling at me so I let them in.
AM: By now you had to accept the fact that it was time to go?
GL: Finally I let them take me in and they hand-cuffed me and used the belly chain. They take me to a holding tank. Now I have never been in prison before so I can’t help but socialize. I’m there…what do you want me to do?
AM: Can you describe the experience?
GL: It’s a big room with one toilet out in the open. You are going to be there for a while so every girl there has taken the toilet paper and is using it as a pillow. I don’t even know if I can pee in front of people. I look over and see this woman who looks six months pregnant with track marks on her arms. So I said, ‘When’s your baby due?’ She kept staring at me. Then I said, ‘You know one of the good things about being pregnant in prison is you will be taken care of.’ She then starts lunging at me. Then Juanita and Juice came to my rescue. Juanita was a sixty year old grandmother who owned an antique store who happened to sell heroin out the back. Juice was this little Asian woman in charge of laundry. They ran interference so this woman couldn’t mess with me. So they were my two best friends.
AM: Sounds like great fun!
GL: Now its lunch time and everybody gets a paper bag with a sandwich, and I swear to God his name was JETHRO!! He was a fan! He gave me McDonalds. I’ve got hot fries and a burger. Everybody hated me. Of course I shared with Juanita and Juice.
AM: How long did you end up being in there?
GL: I was in the holding tank about twelve hours.
AM: What happened next?
GL: I finally get taken from the Court House to the main prison. It is after midnight now and I am strip searched, cavity searched, and they give me the prison clothes, red pants and white t-shirts. They didn’t have a bra small enough for me and they couldn’t give me two t-shirts because it was against the rules. They said I couldn’t go out into the general population so they took me to a cell.
AM: Is this to keep you safe?
GL: Now there is every kind of section in there, the Columbians, the Blacks, the Latinas, the Asians, and me and one other white girl. That night I am in this cell. I’m the only one in there. I am petrified. They gave me my sheets which were blood and urine stained. They were disgusting. I get up in the top bunk and I start crying and I’m freaked out. The door opens and two uniformed guards walk in. I’m thinking I’ve done this movie before. I am so scared but they both laugh and leave.
AM: I am mortified!
GL: You get two five minute phone calls a day so the next morning I get up and the first thing I do is call my attorney. What I didn’t know is they record every conversation. It went straight to the New York Times. Not only am I going through all this, being called the porn industries sacrificial lamb, but I didn’t turn on anyone, but I’m on TV! My cellmate was the only other white person there. Every night I was on Hard Copy and there was only one TV so I’m on it. Now everybody really hates me.
AM: Did you get along with your cellmate?
GL: My cellmate was a junkie. I had to learn to make a fix. If she got caught with heroin we would both have to go to solitary confinement and I didn’t want that. It’s a great chapter in my book. There were a lot of things that happened.
AM: How far along are you with your book?
GL: I have thirty-eight chapters written. My book was written as far as I was concerned but the editor said I had to have the childhood chapter. I am uncomfortable with this because everyone is still around, except my Grandmother who died four years ago, and I just stopped writing for a while, but the book is primarily done.
photos: Alan Mercer Art Direction: Eric Venturo Make-up: Katrine Lieberkind
To learn more about Ginger visit her web site http://www.gingerlynn.com/
photo: Alan Mercer lighting and art direction: Eric Venturo
photo: Alan Mercer lighting and art direction: Eric Venturo
