Interview: Veronica Hart
“Somebody had told me that choosing a life of Adult is a very selfish and self-centered life. And I was just appalled and mortified when he said that. And I think he was right.”
Note from Rachel: This was a December 2008 phone interview with ’80s porn legend Veronica Hart (real name Jane Hamilton) for the Spanish magazine Popular 1. I had never spoken to her before and didn’t know much about her personally. I had never before or ever since had such an transparent, open-hearted initial conversation with another human being. This was a truly soulful and extraordinary woman. The interview lasted 3 hours and ended up a whopping 53 pages of text. Here you have it in its original, uncut form, in its original language of English.
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VERONICA HART
It’s been a really strange year… but a very good year. I broke up from a long-term relationship last year, which wasn’t working, but the way it went down was just devastating. I was pretty devastated by the whole thing. But what it allowed me do was allow my husband to move back in. We’d been separated. He had terminal cancer, and it allowed him to come back in and spend wonderful, healing, loving time together.
We were really blessed because we were able to spend time with him and help take care of him, and we got to a place of really great healing, and love, and forgiveness. God, it was really wonderful. But then he passed on in June, so it’s been real tough. It knocked the stuffings out of me, to be quite honest. I’m in a wonderful relationship now, so thank God I’m very lucky that I’ve been able to rebound. And God’s been really good in helping me find somebody else again. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him. He’s an actor by the name of Timothy Bottoms. So Timothy and I are together now.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I know who Timothy Bottoms is.
VERONICA HART
He’s not “Hollywood”. He can be difficult, but he’s not a general asshole. You know how some actors are really insufferable? He’s not like a regular actor. He’s a man, he’s got a family. He ‘s a rancher. He’s at his ranch right now. He’s as damaged as I am. He recently got a divorce from his wife, and his family that he’s been so adoring of, and that he’s loved so much, is estranged from him. So he’s dealing with his own loss as well.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How did you meet?
VERONICA HART
I produced a horror film called Parasomnia. The director was Bill Malone. He’s the gentleman that did the remake of “The House on Haunted Hill”, “Fear.com”, he did the Masters of Horror thing called Fair Haired Child.
I’d worked with Timothy a couple years ago. He was married, but he impressed me. I walked up to him, I said, “Hey, I’m Jane, and here’s your paperwork.” I didn’t say, “Hi, I’m Jane the producer.” I could have been a P.A. or anything. And he was very kind and nice, and not standoffish. A real gentleman. He’d talk about his family and stuff.
And I just thought, “Gosh, what a nice guy. What a nice gentleman.” And when I saw the movie put together, I thought, “Gee, he is so good.” ‘Cause he grounds the movie. He gives it a reality. He’s the base for it. He’s like this doctor who kind of makes you believe these incredible things that are going on. He’s really an excellent actor. God, he’s cool! And when I heard that his marriage had broken up and he was looking for a place to stay in L.A., I thought, “Hmm!”
And I thought I was flirting around with him when I saw him at the Cast and Crew screening, but he didn’t get that I was flirting with him. He said he’d call. He didn’t. I just kind of chalked it up. But we reconnected over Screenfest. There was an opening party. I’ve been very “VERONICA HART” and I certainly don’t carry my Veronica Hart persona with me that much. It’s part of me, but I don’t have to advertise it if it’s not appropriate, and so most of the people that I worked with on the film weren’t even aware that I’m also Veronica. I am and I’m certainly not ashamed of it. I’ve very proud of it, but if it’s not that kind of milieu and if it’s not appropriate, I don’t make a thing about it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did you ever have trouble separating them, or was there a time when it was more difficult to deal with the two?
VERONICA HART
I think it probably took me about 10 years after I’d stopped performing as Veronica to realize that I am Veronica Hart. She is Jane. Jane is Veronica and Veronica is Jane. There’s parts that are certainly interchangeable. It’s not like this alien being comes down and zaps into your body. It was like, “of course that’s me.” And it’s a part of me. And a part that I love. I mean, I’ve always pretty open and very sexual. And I’m a huge pacifist. I’m a vegetarian for, what, 37 years now. There’s a part of me that just is all about love and loving.
When I started out on this journey and got into Adult, I thought, “My God, I hope to God out of all of this that I don’t become jaded, and I don’t end up one of those persons who either hates sex or can’t stand it or something.” And thank God I’ve been okay. I’ve managed to still maintain my love of all of that. Yay!
RACHEL ARIEFF
Yay!
VERONICA HART
What about you? Are you like a real sexual person?
RACHEL ARIEFF
(Uncomfortable) Me, I’m more cerebral.
VERONICA HART
(Disappointed pause) Are you? Are you in your head?
RACHEL ARIEFF
I think i was most sexual when I was a preteen. And then I became more cerebral. But I was going to ask you about what made you decide to get into the business? You studied drama, theater…
VERONICA HART
To be honest, I don’t usually talk about it, but this is a nice, honest interview. There’s a lot of reasons. First of all, I found acceptance through my sexuality. I was a nerd at school. I was kind of stupidly bright, you know? And I was a nerd when it wasn’t cool to be a nerd. It really wasn’t. That was almost something to be ashamed of, that you were a smart person. I grew up in the late sixties, early seventies.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Where did you grow up?
VERONICA HART
Las Vegas. And I was that – God! – I was that stupid gal that would be at the front of the class, and the teacher would ask a question, and I would be popping out of my seat, waving my hand in the air. “I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW! PICK ME, PICK ME!” And a lot of people think that people that get into our business get in because they’re growing up was terrible. My growing up was wonderful! I became a people pleaser not to try and get love. It wasn’t like love was withheld from me. I was a people please because I wanted to hang on to the love I got. I wanted to be a good girl. Because then Mom and Dad would love me more, and I loved love, and it was like more of that. Instead of trying to do stuff to get attention, I just wanted to keep the attention. I just wanted to keep the love. So I was always trying to be the good girl and the pleaser. But by doing that, I was a social outcast. I was in theater, and you know how those thespians are. I was a cheerleader in junior high. But I was still one of those gals on the fringe.
It wasn’t until I started doing drugs and having sex that I became… it was like, “Oh my God! VERONICA HART gets high?? God, she’s cool. She’s hot!” You know? And drugs and sex came to me at the same time. And I guess it made me a more acceptable commodity. It made me feel like not such a, it made me feel like I belonged somewhere, finally. Not just with the nerds, but that I had a place to belong. So I think that’s how I got into sexuality.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you remember the first porno that you saw?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. I was in Australia. I met a guy in Las Vegas. I actually thought he was a chick. He had long hair. I saw him from the back, I thought, “Ooh, she kind of looks hot.” I went to say, “Hey, is this seat taken?” It was a guy! And I thought, “Oh, okay. That’s cool.” (laughter) And we were talking, and he was visiting the States with his parents. They were going up to San Francisco. So I stole away to San Francisco with him, and we had a terribly romantic time. And I ended up going to Australia on Christmas break from college. My mom seriously thought I would never come back from Australia. And we went to this place called King’s Cross in Sydney. And it’s kind of like, in San Francisco, you know where they have all the strip shows? That’s what King’s Cross is about. It’s kind of seedy, and there’s all these strip shows and everything. I think we went into this place, and there was a gal who was stripping. And then after she stripped, a blue film came on. I think that’s the first time I saw anything sexual.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How old were you?
VERONICA HART
I graduated from college when I was 19, so I was either 17 or 18. I’d seen books before. My parents had “sun worshipping books”, and I knew what they were. And whenever they would leave, I’d run and get in their closet – you know, get a chair and get the stuff out of the closet and I’d read all this stuff.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Are you talking about the “naturist” magazines?
VERONICA HART
Yeah! “Sun worshippers”, nudist books. I never saw any pinup girls, but I saw these nudist books. And then I read “Candy”. I found “Candy”, and there was, like, my dad had a lot of dirty detective novels that were all about, you know, they were really good, really steamy, really nice. And I always was intrigued about sex. I always wanted to. When I lost my virginity, I seduced my boyfriend. I really set it up. So after a concert, we’d go to my friend’s house and we could do IT. And I was so crushed after we had done IT because I was like, “Oh my God, this is so cool, I’m so in love.” And then he told me that he’d done it with about four or five girls before. And I didn’t have any idea.
RACHEL ARIEFF
He sure didn’t let you out easy.
VERONICA HART
But he was sweet. He didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. Anyway, so sex has always been fun, and a way to be accepted. I liked it. It’s never been a bad thing. And my mom and dad were very sexual with each other. My dad married a woman who’s ten and a half years older than him. And later on I realized that they would go past each other, and she would grab his balls, his crotch. And they’d laugh. And he’d kiss her, and she’d kiss him.
RACHEL ARIEFF
That is so cool.
VERONICA HART
Yes! It was wonderful. When I hear the stories of how many people didn’t ever grow up where there was public displays of affection… I was really lucky. And I think it was really healthy for me, and wonderful. It was great.
RACHEL ARIEFF
When did your parents find out that you were doing Adult, and how did they react?
VERONICA HART
I called them up. Oh, I called them up right away. Before I was going to do my first adult film, I called them up because we’ve always been really close. I’m still close with my mommy and daddy, and I’m so lucky I still have them. And I love my mom and dad, and they love me. I’m so, so lucky that we have such a good relationship. I called up my dad. I go, “Hey, Daddy.” And he goes, “Hey, honey.” And I go, “Is, uh, Mom there?” And he goes, “Nope, she’s out shopping.” I go, “Well…” (takes deep breath) “Dad, I’ve gotta tell you something.” And he goes, “Okay.” And I go, “Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna make an adult movie, dad.” And he started laughing and said, “Yeah, right.” And I go, “No, Dad. I’m gonna do this.” And he goes, “Yeah, yeah, honey. Of course you are. Right. Okay, so what did you call about?” And I go, “Dad, I’m really gonna do this.” And he goes, “What?” And I go, “Dad, I’m gonna make an adult movie.” And he goes, “Oh! Oh. Oh, well. Um, well, I’ll be sure and tell mother when she gets home.” I said, “Okay, Daddy. I just wanted to let you guys know before I did this.”
RACHEL ARIEFF
Poor Daddy.
VERONICA HART
When he said, “Okay,” I think it was probably something like, “Be careful.” Later on, they told me that one time when they were looking at each other at breakfast, and Dad looked at Mom, and Mom looked at Dad, and they said, “She’s really doing this.” And they went, “Yeah, I guess she really is.” Because I think they were thinking, “Oh, it just looks like it. But she wouldn’t be really doing that.” And then they had this reckoning that, “Oh my God. She’s really doing that.” And that was it.
But one time my dad was approached by somebody at work with one of my magazines. One of my layouts or something from the magazine. And they said something like, “Sid, is this your daughter?” He said, “Nope. No, no, no. That’s not my daughter.” That’s the only time.
So they’ve been proud of me when they could be proud, and proud that I get awards, and that I’ve done cool things, and I’ve showed them the parts of the movie without the sex in it, where I’ve just been acting, and they’ve been as proud of me as they could be. But you know, they don’t have that lifestyle where they could call up their friends and say, “Gee, isn’t my daughter hot.” It’s never been something like that. They’re not swingers. They’re very monogamous. They’re not a typical couple that got together in the fifties. I was born in ’56. So they’re not typical. The fact that my dad married a woman with four kids who was ten and a half years older, she must have been one hot tamale. I think she was totally hot.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How many kids do you have?
VERONICA HART
Two men! I don’t have kids anymore. They’re 23 and 25.
RACHEL ARIEFF
And you never hid what you did from them. How do they feel about it?
VERONICA HART
I probably gave them too much information. They always accused me of giving them too much information. I think at one point they said, “Mom, if you tell us about girls and rubbers and being careful one more time we’re gonna scream. The only time I ever had falling outs with my parents was when they withheld things from me for my own good. They thought I couldn’t handle it, or that I’d just worry, or I wasn’t mature enough, or something. So the only problems I’ve ever had with my mom and dad was over stuff like that. So I made a vow when I had kids that I’d just really level with them about everything. But sometimes I think you can tell your kids too much, more than they need to know or want to know. So if anything, that was my problem. I think, my one son it didn’t affect very much, but I know the other one, it was terribly difficult for him. I know he was at a party once, and Latex came on. And he knew that I had something to do with Latex, but he didn’t know if I was in it, or… I’d produced it, and I had a straight role in it, but he didn’t know exactly what my part was in it. So I think he hid behind the couch when all of his friends were watching it. And I found that out later. I didn’t know it while it was going on. It took another relationship to actually discuss with my sons about how they were feeling before I knew how they were feeling. I thought everything was fine and everything was cool. So I had no idea how my choices in my life had impacted on my kids.
Somebody had told me that choosing a life of Adult is a very selfish and self-centered life. And I was just appalled and mortified when he said that. And I think he was right. Because by choosing your own path, and by bucking society and saying that you’re okay with stuff that the rest of society isn’t, we make it tough for the people who choose to love us and have no choice in loving us. We make it tough for our friends that aren’t in the business. We make it tough for our family that’s not in the business, and we certainly make it tough for our children. And it’s hell on relationships. It really is.
RACHEL ARIEFF
When they were in school, were your kids open about you being an adult actress, or was it something they kept secret?
VERONICA HART
With my older son, if somebody asked what his mom did, he would say, “She’s an editor.” Which I was. At that point, I was producing and directing a lot of adult movies, and editing them. I’d started editing my own stuff. So he wasn’t lying when he said I edited low-budget movies. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t saying, “Yeah, my mom’s Veronica Hart.” So Max, my youngest son, he’s the one that’s been able to deal with it better. When I’d give college lectures or something like that, Max would come with me. And he’s okay to be in the audience. He’s been more fine with it. He doesn’t go out and say, “Hey, my mom’s Veronica Hart.” But he would never say, “My mom isn’t Veronica Hart.” It’s not something that he’s proud of that he has to tell everybody, but it’s certainly not anything that he’s ashamed of. And I know he has been proud to be my son. A lot of times, like when it’s mentioned in college or something like that, it’ll get out that that’s his mother, it’ll be like, “Wow, cool. That’s your mom!”
But it has to be something that happened at college age, as opposed to high school age. It’s been really difficult. Here’s how somebody put it to me: “It doesn’t matter what your mom does. But at one age, all kids want is for their mom to be a mom and to blend in, and have done nothing special.” There was somebody who was about 27 years old who was talking to me about when my kids were younger. He said, “My mom was a lawyer and politically active. And the last thing I wanted was a mom that stood out and was on TV and controversial. I just wanted a mom that was a mom.” And I think all kids do, until a certain point. Until they can say, “Hey, she’s cool. She’s done something. She’s been somebody.” Then you can be proud of her. But certainly not while you’re growing up Nobody wants a mom that stands out. Everyone wants somebody that blends in.
My worst fear in life was that my kids would grow up wanting to be like everybody else. And they go through their phases where they do want to be like everybody else. And as an alternative person, I’m going, “Oh God, no. Not my kids!” And then of course they turn out to be wonderful, idiosyncratic, interesting, out-of-the-box thinkers. And I’m like, “Oh, thank God!” (laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
They just had to do it their way.
VERONICA HART
Right. And everybody goes through stages when all they want is pure acceptance. And that’s wonderful. Later, after they’ve decided if they want to be part of the pack or they want to go on their own, then they make their own choices. My kids were really conservative. Mine are still much more conservative than I am, still. I think it’s true. They have a tendency of going the opposite direction of what their parents are. I think kids need to rebel. So what do you do when you’ve got two very open-minded parents? I think you become fairly conservative.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Is it true that Paul Thomas Anderson based his character of Amber Waves on you?
VERONICA HART
I think she was a cross between me and Annette Haven. P.T. was a fan of mine, and the wonderful thing that he said was that if he cast me again, he would never cast me as a prostitute or a porn star or anything like that. Because he’s under the impression that I can act, which is wonderful.
RACHEL ARIEFF
As the judge in the trial with Amber Waves, you were really good.
VERONICA HART
Thank you! And I played the dental assistant in Magnolia. Bill Macy looks up and you see my head and another gal’s head bent over. I think my name in the credits got more screen time than my face in that movie, but it was still wonderful that P.T. was a guy doing mainstream stuff and he wasn’t afraid to put me in it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How did he contact you to be in the first movie?
VERONICA HART
It was through Ron Jeremy. Ron Jeremy was working with him for a long time. I think Ron Jeremy hung out with him for a year and a half. Taking him to places, introducing him to people, taking him around… I mean, all those guys came to one my sets. I was directing one of my house parties from VCA, and they all came down to a set: Wahlberg and some of the guys, and hung out for the day to see what really went on on a porn set. They had this idea that we’re all, like, having a party. And while there’s nothing wrong with work being fun, it’s work. It’s fucking… well, it’s fucking work, is what it is. (laughter) It’s still work. Those of us who are still connected to scripts and have to give lines and do the setups and you got to set up for the scene… A lot of things that I do right now, like I’m a stylist for the Penthouse videos. It was money and I needed money. Jane Hart’s my name for that. And I’m responsible for all the wardrobe and all the sets. And I tell that to people, and people go, “Oh, I didn’t know that people had wardrobe. It always gets taken off.” And I go, “Yeah, but they’ve got to start out in something.” (laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
How did you feel about the final Boogie Nights movie?
VERONICA HART
I appreciated that it was a really a cool movie, that it even chose to deal with us. Usually we just don’t get dealt with. Or we get dealt with where every case is like victims. There was a lot of victim in that, but if you look at the time that it was, everybody, everybody at that time was doing cocaine. It wasn’t just the porn people, it was the music business, it was the entertainment business, the whole society was doing it. Lawyers, doctors. Everybody at that time was doing blow. You look at, what was it, Take Back the Music or whatever those shows were called? EVERYBODY was high! Everybody was doing blow at that time.
RACHEL ARIEFF
You say there was a strong victim theme in Boogie Nights, but I saw no victims of sex. They were victims of drugs. Sex was not portrayed in a bad way.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. So a lot of people in our business took offense because there was a lot of violence associated with that movie. And our business is not violent. It’s really not violent.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Because it focused so much on the Wonderland murders?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. And that thing where that guy got the shit beaten out of him in that limo scene. But our business is not about violence. It never really has been. The mainstream adult business is not about violence. It’s just not about that. So a lot of people were a little up in arms over that. And also the anachronism of the time there. The times that they were depicting at that time, nobody shot in L.A. because it was against the law to shoot in L.A.
RACHEL ARIEFF
That’s what Nina Hartley said too.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. This was before the Friedman law. And we were still considered prostitutes back then.
RACHEL ARIEFF
What’s the Friedman law?
VERONICA HART
The Friedman law overturned the pandering law. Up until that time, adult performers were considered prostitutes. They considered it pandering. Even though both parties that were participating were being paid, they still considered it prostitution. And it wasn’t until the Friedman law that they considered it an artistic endeavor. And the fact that both parties were being paid. It wasn’t like one party was being serviced. One party wasn’t paid while their other was paid. Both sides being paid and the fact that it was an artistic endeavor basically made us legal here. Then it became legal to shoot pornography. We were no longer considered prostitutes. It was no longer a pandering thing. And that changed everything. We used to shoot in San Francisco and Marin County, and we would shoot in New York. It probably was still against the law there, but there was so much going on. Unless you were running around naked and being really obvious, nobody cared in those places. The last thing that they were worried about was adult movies. But down here, if you filmed adult movies, you would be busted. If you went outside of New York City. If you started filming in upstate New York or Connecticut, you could get busted. We used to hand out scripts where instead of “sex scene” it would be written “commercial scene”. Or if anybody asked what you were doing, you were doing a low-budget movie. Or you were doing a “commercial.” Or later on it got to be a “music video”. We would never say “adult”. Now when I do a film permit, when they ask what kind of project I’m doing, I say “adult”. There’s always riders in our stuff that says that nothing can be visible or audible to the public. No visible nudity and no audible moans and groans can be heard by the public. We’re responsible, and they really love us. We’re responsible right now for about 1/5 of the money that goes through the L.A. film office.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did the underground, outlaw nature of the early days contribute to a stronger sense of cameraderie between people in the business?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. But see, by the very nature, it’s prevented us from ever having a union. The only unifying stuff that’s ever happened in the business, that everybody could agree on, was when there was the AIDs scare. We were dealing with a slight epidemic. No, it was never an epidemic, there was – I think the first time, I don’t know how many people were involved, maybe three of four, and the second time, maybe five or six. So that’s the only time that we’ve really been able to get together and agree about anything as an industry.
The very nature that we’re outlaws and that we do things that other people don’t usually do makes it very difficult to get together on anything. We can’t see eye to eye on anything. There’s pornography that I think is acceptable, and there’s pornography that I don’t like.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I was going to ask you, what’s your opinion about Max Hardcore (real name Paul F. Little)?
VERONICA HART
Here’s a very interesting thing. Paul is an interesting guy, and very intellectual, and can carry on a great conversation, and he’s kind of a cool person when you don’t meet him in the context of the heinous videos that he puts out. Paul is probably that guy that so wanted to go out with the cheerleaders, or be popular, or wanted that gal in high school. Or he’s probably that nerd that never had a chance, that maybe was shot down. Maybe he had some woman be so horrible to him that it scarred him early on, and that all he can think about now is debasing and humiliating and defiling.
I’ve heard women tell me that there’s something that he’ll say, “Is there anything that you don’t want me to do?” And then he’ll turn around and that will be the first thing that he does to them. To me it’s unforgiveable. But look, the women like me who hate his work, there’s as many people that hate the pornography that I put out. So it’s a very slippery slope. I can’t say – well, I can say. That’s bullshit.
RACHEL ARIEFF
There is a line, right?
VERONICA HART
For me there is. And I make society make the line. Free speech is easy to stand up for when it’s the speech you agree with. Right? But the thing about free speech is, you have to be able to stand up for even the speech that you hate.
It’s so funny because Timothy and I had a horrible falling out the other day. He said something in jest that… I hate putting voice to negative energy, but I’m completely sensitive about homosexual issues because so many of my friends are gay. And tons of his friends are gay. And he was saying it in jest, and his point was, “I can say whatever it is I fucking want to say. Period.”
And my thing is, don’t put that energy out there. Even when it’s said in jest, it’s just such negative things that you’re actually putting into vibrations and onto our planet. And I did something very childish. I threw something at him.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Are you talking about jokes? Do you know who Sarah Silverman is, and the kind of comedy she does?
VERONICA HART
Yes.
RACHEL ARIEFF
It’s very provocative, and it’s actually anti-racist and anti-sexist, but a lot of people don’t get it, and they think she’s racist and sexist. She makes a lot of rape jokes and stuff. Are you talking about that kind of thing? Is that over the line?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. I’m not sure how I actually feel about that. But you know what? I’ll turn around and I’ll repeat some really – I’m a hypocrite. I am a hypocrite. Because I’ll do blonde jokes. I will do gay jokes. I will do jokes about everybody. But then every so often, something will come around and it’s just so horrible, and it’s just so inflammatory to me, that I have to strike out against it. So it’s a bit hypocritical. Some of the stuff, I think everybody’s got to fucking lighten up over. But some of the stuff is funny because it’s so horrible, and it’s so heinous that you have to laugh at it.
But getting back to Max Hardcore, there’s Max, but there is also Rob Black. Rob Black is the one that I got my knickers in a twist about. That was when I was producing and directing a lot of stuff. And I was trying to do stuff – I’ve always been on the bandwagon that women should be allowed to express their sexuality, and it should be a participation sport. Sex should be a participation sport. It’s not something that’s done to somebody else. It’s something that a couple engages in together. Even if it’s S&M, they have an agreement.
RACHEL ARIEFF
You’re talking about objectification versus…
VERONICA HART
Yeah, and I wanted it to be an enjoyable thing where people are giving pleasure to each other. And it’s not about – unless it’s an S&M consensual roleplaying thing – it’s not about torturing a woman or being mean to a woman or degrading a woman or debasing a woman. It should be a sexual celebration. I’m an old hippy. That’s what I am. I’m just an old hippy. And I am about loving everybody. So when Rob Black came out, and he came out with this shit that all female performers were basically psycho sluts that didn’t deserve anything better, and they just need the shit fucked out of them because they’re all crazy and they’re all… You know, it hit me on so many levels.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Maybe he’s a puritain.
VERONICA HART
Maybe.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Where would that need to punish come from?
VERONICA HART
You know what it is? Chuck Zane is his uncle. So he was brought up around hard core sex. I’ve thought about this whole thing my whole life, okay? We in the business, it’s to our advantage to say that sex is cathartic. That you see hard core sex or you see violent sex, and it gets it out of you. That it’s not imitative. So people who see stuff that’s mean to women, it’s a catharsis, we know it’s fantasy, and it gets it out. That’s the one argument – that it’s okay, whatever you do. And the other argument which always the puritains take, and the heavy duty holy rollers take is that it’s an imitative form. So if you see it, you want to do it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
The media creates desires?
VERONICA HART
Right. And we, obviously wanting to stay in business and wanting to make our movies and wanting to have free speech, always say it’s cathartic, and the anti-pornographers always say it’s imitative. You know what I think it is? Both! And it depends on the person who’s viewing it. Look, somebody can make Taxi Driver, and there’s only one person that sees it and wants to shoot the President. So then there’s that argument: rope is sometimes used to hang yourself. So should we stop making rope because one or two people choose to use it for an intention that wasn’t meant for. So I’ve always dealt with that. But then again, I’ve been lobbying in Sacramento for free speech, and there was one outed lesbian that worked for a female senator, and she said she’s anti-censorship and free speech, but she said it’s really tough on the senator because the senator works with a lot of battered women’s shelters. And she said often, the women, whether it was from other men or their husbands, were forced to watch pornography and have sex after it. It just made me feel so terrible that I would be involved in something that could be used against women. I never thought about it before like that.
RACHEL ARIEFF
But that’s not you, that’s the world. Someone’s taking your work and abusing it.
VERONICA HART
Rob Black was a great PR person. So, what I believe what Rob Black was, I think he was brought up on hardcore sex. So for him, going to the next place, to combine violence with sex, was not a big jump for him. I was so outraged that I wrote to AVN, and I was trying to be clever. I said it’s really upsetting to me because when I watch violent acts against women, I guess the thing that I dislike the most is that it makes me violent. And when I see women get smacked around, I want to go smack the person who’s smacking them. It makes me want to do the same thing. When I see somebody mistreating women, I just want to go and whack them upside the head and say, “Hey, how the fuck do you like that? Let me grab your dick. Let me hit your balls.”
RACHEL ARIEFF
It provokes an Aileen Wournos fantasy. I loved that scene in Boogie Nights that you mentioned earlier, when Rollergirl beat the shit out of that guy. It was like me getting my vengeance against every humiliation that’s happened to me.
VERONICA HART
I wrote it down and I said, “Watching Rob Black’s videos makes me want to blow him… away.” … the Adult Expos are like the AVN awards every year. And I was at on of the stands and this lady comes up to me and she says, (little old lady voice) “Hello!” And I said, “Hi!” And she says, “Are you Veronica Hart?” And I said, “Yes I am. Who are you?” “I’m Rob Black’s mother. My last name ends in a vowel (i.e., she’s Italian so it’s a vague Mafia threat) so if anything ever happens to my son, it’s your fault.” And I said, “What??!” And she had interpreted what I’d written as me inciting my fans to kill him. Which is not what I want to do. I don’t want to kill Rob Black. I don’t want to kill anybody. I’m a pacifist! But she’d read it that because I’d said that I’d like to blow him away, that it was an invitation for my fans to “blow him away”. We got into this, and it was really interesting, because we, Van Damage heard this whole thing. I found out years later that he had heard this whole conversation we’d had. I never found out until years later when I was working with him. because I thought that because he’d worked with Rob Black that he was a nasty, mean guy, and Van Damage is not. He’s really a lovely, wonderful guy. I really like him.
We talked about it and I said, “Look. I’ve got sons. He’s your son. How does it make you feel? How does it make you feel as a woman what he’s doing?” And she said, “I don’t know where he got it from. I think he’s just trying to make press. I think he’s just doing it for P.R.” I think that’s what he really is. He’s like a side-showman. And he touched on a nerve that would get a lot of controversy, and he did it. So he’s quite successful in that aspect. And he certainly got me in a tizzy, and a lot of other people in a tizzy.
We had this whole conversation, and that’s what she said: that he grew up with Chuck Zane, and he went to his uncle’s warehouse, so he’s always been surrounded by these images and stuff like that. But she had no idea of how he’d gotten to be like that. And then, it’s very funny, because at the end of the conversation, I said, “Well, I understand. I’m sure Hitler’s mother loved him too.” It was probably bad of me to leave it like that, but I did.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Like that Cagney movie where his mother says, “No boys are really baad.” And then the mob blows him away.
VERONICA HART
(Laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
How did you get the acting role of the porn star who dies in “Six Feet Under” and how was that experience?
VERONICA HART
Oh come on, are you kidding me? Working with Kathy Bates and Alan Ball?
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did Kathy Bates direct you in that?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, she sure did.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How was that? I love her.
VERONICA HART
Awesome. I love her too. They were calling up looking for a couple of people to audition for it, right? And they called me up because I was working for VCA. I was probably Head of Production at that time. Or somebody had given her my number as a good contact, who would know people. So they called me up. And I gave them the contact information they wanted to know. I think they were interested in contacting a few of the other ladies, like Marilyn Chambers. So I said, “Well, is there any possible way I might be able to audition for the part? because I’m an actress too and I’m certainly interested in that. I’m VERONICA HART but I’m also Veronica Hart. Blah-blah-blah. So they said, “Absolutely you can audition.” So I went down there, and basically I walked into the room, and there’s Kathy Bates, and there’s Alan Ball. I mean, very seldom do you actually get to audition for the people who are doing the show. You usually audition for casting directors. But they were right there. I kind of came down and put my hands together and bowed my head and said, “Oh my God, I am not worthy. Thank you ma’am. Cool!” And I read the part for them, and they were like, “Oh man, that was great!” And 15 minutes later they called me and said, “The part is yours.” So I fucking nailed it. But it was still nice. It was so nice. It’s always nice to be chosen. It’s always wonderful. I’ve seen that with Timothy. As big as he is, and as amazing an actor as he is, and as famous as he is, he still has to go to auditions. And sometimes he gets chosen, and sometimes he doesn’t. And it just blows me away.
RACHEL ARIEFF
It was so sad when you in the bathtub and you were talking to your little kitty-cat and you were all excited to go to the, what was it, an awards ceremony you were going to go to?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, some kind of ceremony or something like that. And this new guy I’m dating…
RACHEL ARIEFF
Yeah, and then the radio falls in. It was funny, but it was so sad.
VERONICA HART
What a wonderful thing to be involved in, Rachel. It’s just awesome. What a wonderful project. And the best part of it for me, besides all the other stuff – besides everything else about getting to work with such quality people, and quality projects, is I’m walking with Alan, and I said, “Okay, Alan. Who died?” You know? Because usually with writing that good, you write about what you know. You write about feelings that you’ve had. I said, “Okay, Alan. Who died?” And he said – I guess when he was 13 or something like that – his family had a tremendous car crash. And his sister was sitting next to him. And he lived and she died.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Oh, man.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. And he’s been obviously spending his whole life working that out. Survivor’s guilt, you know, and it was always being a man. It was always about “buck up and be strong”. Never about fucking wail and grieve and get it out. So he’s been dealing with that whole death issue forever.
RACHEL ARIEFF
And very much reflected in the two brothers.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. Yes!
RACHEL ARIEFF
The stoicism of the family.
VERONICA HART
I’m sure Alan’s out of the closet, I think he’s pretty gay, and so he’s been dealing with that whole sexuality thing, and he wrote so wonderfully well about it. That was the nicest thing, is to have that moment of connection and walking on the lot with him and just talking to him. I will always treasure that. They were just wonderful people. They were wonderful, they were a class act. They treated me well and with respect. They didn’t treat me like some second-class porno citizen. They treated me as an actress, and that’s what I am. I am an actress.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Has that been a stigma during your career, to be treated by people in the “legitmate” business as if you’re less than them?
VERONICA HART
Because people are afraid of it. Even in Parasomnia, it’s tough for the director to deal with that side of my personality. Because he doesn’t want his project to have the taint of Adult. Even though he loves me, and he’s told me many times that without me the project wouldn’t have happened — couldn’t have happened. He buys into VERONICA HART, but he doesn’t want to be associated per se with Adult. And it’s funny because he’s Horror, and a lot of people have the same feelings about Horror as they do Adult.
I had a partner who was a rock musician. And even somebody that deals with rock and roll and been through those kind of times, you’d think he’d have no problem with it. But he completely could never get over the fact of my history, and my background and my connection with it. He could never, ever recover from it. He just could not deal with it. Could not deal. So it colors business relationships, it colors personal relationships. It’s quite a stigma.
RACHEL ARIEFF
When you first got into Adult, if you’d had any idea of how far it would reach into your personal life, would you have done it all differently?
VERONICA HART
Well, I wasn’t naive about it. I knew that I was pretty much giving my legitimate aspirations up by doing it. But at that point, I wasn’t that much in love with the mainstream. I had worked on a mainstream movie, and I was cast by Bernie Styles, Central Casting out of New York in a thing called Going in Style. And Bernie kind of lured me out to New York with promises of movies and stuff like that. And I’d just done summer rep. I’d played Lulu in Pinter’s “Birthday Party” and I played Susie in “Wait Until Dark”. And I just had big write-ups in the Las Vegas paper, the Review Journal and everything. And another guy had contacted me about starting in the music business because I’d spent a lot of time in England — three years in England, trying to break into the music business, and I mismanaged a rock group over there.
He said “Move to New York,” so I moved to New York. And I found out that I had never been with a tough New York Jewish entertainment person. And Bernie was completely tough. He was tough on actors, tough on people, tough on everybody. And it kind of unenthralled me with the business. I thought, “If this is the mainstream business, maybe I don’t need to be involved with it so much.”
You asked me how I got to be there. I moved to New York to be with Bernie, and then it became horrible for me to be with him. And I was looking around for a place to live, and a gentleman – Roy Stewart, who I rented a room from – was involved in the adult business. And he saw my modeling pictures and my acting resumé – and I had gone to bed with him a couple of times, because I do go to bed with people I like – and he said, “Have you ever thought about acting in adult?” And the only thing I’d seen at the time was that stuff in King’s Cross, and they weren’t movies. They were stag films. They’re “loops”. The chick comes out, she strips, the guy comes in, and they screw.
So I said, “No, no, no. I’m an actress.” But I’ve always been hugely sexual. Highly, highly sexual. I’d already been with men and with women and everything, way before I got into the adult film business. I’m a scorpio. I really like sex. And he said, “No, no, no. Check this movie out. And I went to see a movie on 54th Street, the World Theater, and I couldn’t believe it. Yeah, they were getting it on, but there was acting.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you remember what movie that was?
VERONICA HART
Geez, no. But I remember thinking, “Yeah, there’s sex in it, but they’re really acting, and it’s really a movie. Hell, I could do this.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Was that the late seventies, early eighties?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. I think ’79. And at that time, I’d moved out to New York to be in the legitimate film business, the guy I moved out with just made me think that – I’d had a horrible accident. And I didn’t want to be a cutthroat for anything. I didn’t want to claw people’s eyes out to get to the top. I was all about healing, and not about being aggressive. And the nature of my injury, I’d gotten burned. So I felt very scarred. I am scarred.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How did you get burned? It was a coffee carafe, right?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, a pot of coffee. I was in England and I was at one of those stands at the National Exhibition Center. It was my job to bring people into the stand and get them talking about our product, and hooking them up with salesmen. It was an old-style coffeemaker, where the water boils out of the pot and it goes up into a funnel that filled with grounds. And after the water leaves the pot, the machine is supposed to turn off and the coffee percolates back down through the grounds. Well, it was broken and it would stay on and would shatter the pot if I didn’t take the pot off and set it on the counter in front of the coffeemaker. I bent down to get a cup and saucer and I hit the counter with my shoulder on the way up, and it tipped over on me. It was in a funnel, so it just splashed out over my shoulder and down my right side.
I didn’t know anything about burns then. So if there’s anything you want to say to people about burns in this, tell people if they get burned, immediately put yourself in ice or cold water. If you have clothing on, get your clothing off. Pack yourself in cold. Because if you leave the clothes on, and you’re hot, the heat just sinks it into your skin and it does more and more damage. And that’s what happened to me. I got left in my clothes, and it just burned through all my skin. So I ended up with 3rd degree burns. I had to get a skin graft. They had to take skin off my butt and plaster it on my arm.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How long did it take you to heal?
VERONICA HART
I was in the hospital about a month and a half. It’s taken me all my life to heal. So I still don’t wear tank tops, do you know what I mean? If I ever have a new lover or a new relationship, I always think twice about it. When I have to do scenes in movies where I’m supposed to have strapless stuff, it’s always a dilemma as to what to do. They’re great now – I’m looking at them right now, they’re not so bumpy – but it’s still an irregularity in my skin. But all the pinkness and the redness and the anger has gone out of them because it’s been, what? Thirty years now since it happened. But it’s still a scar that I will always have. They’re my life scars. They’re my life tattos, I guess you’d call them. But in a business that deals with physical appearance, it’s always been very tough.
So I guess if you’ve been insecure about turning one person on, then it’s only natural that you want to turn the world on. If it’s difficult for you to disrobe in front of one person, then you might as well disrobe in front of everybody. Do you know what I mean? There’s that thing about people who are in show business, or people in the sex business are trying to make up for something. So yeah, you could say that I had a physical defect and that I was trying to prove otherwise. But you could say that about anybody in entertainment, that they’re needy and want attention or whatever. So I’m lucky enough that I could be a star, I could have attention, and then I could continue to be a normal person.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Why did you stop acting in Adult?
VERONICA HART
Well, a lot of people said it was because of the AIDs thing, and it wasn’t. It was pure and simple. I said I would be in adult when I had fun and I enjoyed it. And when it stopped being fun for me, then I would get out. I fell in love. I fell in love, and I didn’t want to make love with anybody else. It just wasn’t fun for me anymore. It became not fun.
And it was a hugely pivotal moment. My husband basically married a nutcase. I was a nutcase when he married me. We had come to the agreement that we were gonna get married, and it was okay for me to be in the business as long as I confined my sexual activities to work. It was the agreement we had. Well, I came out to Los Angeles, and I was with a big mainstream movie producer that I had a friendship with – still have a friendship with, I don’t see him very often. We used to do blow together and we used to have sex, and I basically went over there to say, “I’m not having sex with you anymore,” and we did a lot of blow, and I ended up having sex with him. And I told Michael about it, and Michael said, “Well, that’s it. We’re through.” And I was distraught. I was gonna kill myself that night. That was gonna be it. And as I was writing my goodbyes to everybody, and my notes to say what had happened, as I was coming down from the cocaine, I began to realize what I was about to do. I ended up calling my mom, and my mom said, “Honey, don’t do that. Come here.” So I was in the middle of making a movie, and I finished the next couple of days as a complete nervous wreck. Essentially I had a breakdown. And I went to be with my mom in Las Vegas, my mom and dad. And I talked to Michael and I guess he’d been talking to my parents. And I said, “Honey, what are you doing this next couple of weekends?” And he goes, “I have to work two weekends from now.” And I go, “Well, what are you doing this weekend?” And he goes, “I’m gonna come out and marry you, honey.” And he did. He came out and married me. And he didn’t know what he was getting into, if I was gonna come around and say I’d made a mistake. Or, “Thanks for being there when you needed me, I’m okay now.” But that’s when I left the business, just like that. I had movies that were lined up, I had big interviews. I was supposed to start a business with this mainstream producer. We had like 10 movies that we were slated to do. I was basically at the very top of my game and I just walked away from it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
What did you do for a living after that? Did you start directing right away?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, I picked up Electric Blue and I started directing that. And Michael was a cameraman so he started shooting that. He gave me a real bad time, about how I wasn’t professional, I didn’t know what I was doing. And then I just said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ve seen you work with clients. And I know a lot of them are assholes. And I know I’m a lot less of an asshole than most of the people you work for. And you cut them a lot of slack.” I said, “I’d like to keep the money in our family, and I’d like you to shoot this stuff for me. But if you can’t be nice to me, I will get another cameraman. I will get another director of photography.” And (laughter) he became nice to me and we started working really well together. And he was my cameraman and he was my director of photography forever. Even in the stuff that I did, even when we were no longer together, he was always my lighting director.
When it became tough for him to hold the camera and do hand-held stuff for that long, he was always my line director. He was one of my films, “Love and Bullets” when he first became so ill. My crew sent him to the hospital, and that’s when I realized how sick my husband was. It was the beginning of… (A long pause. Jane begins to weep.) We didn’t realize how bad he was until he said he needed a transplant. So luckily for him, he had stopped drinking in the summer. That’s when I came in. I started taking care of him again and just really lobbying for him, because he would have died… (Weeping) about five years ago had I not stepped in and said, “What are we gonna do here? This man’s dying. Something’s gotta be done.”
He was on a list to see the doctor to be rated for a transplant, but he was dying. And he hadn’t even been seen to be rated yet. So I just got on the phone and called doctors and insurance companies and said, “You’ve got to do something. We’re losing him now.” And they did. They actually responded. They got him into St. Vincent’s Hospital and I got him rated, and then he almost lost the game then. He had an infection in his blood that he probably picked up from the hospital. And that cleared up. I didn’t know this at the time, but we waited a couple weeks while he was on the critical, critical list – he’d been in intensive care all that time – that he maybe would have lasted one or two days more. I didn’t know it was that down to the wire. But I never prayed for someone else to die so he could live. But then I talked to a pastor and he said, “It’s okay to pray for him to live.” Because I always just prayed for God’s will. And then I did pray for him to live, and we got a kidney-and-liver donor. And he got transplanted.
RACHEL ARIEFF
He got a kidney and liver transplant?
VERONICA HART
When your liver fails that badly, it ruins your kidneys. He never had bad kidneys, but he got bad kidneys because of the big liver failure. When your body becomes so polluted, there’s a thing called a brain cloud. Basically your blood, your body becomes so polluted, so full of toxins, you completely are delusional. You completely hallucinate, you’re completely in another space. The way that I finally found to communicate with him, one of my girlfriends was there, who had just lost her husband. She said, “It’s almost like being with somebody who’s tripping on acid.” I went, “Oh my God.” And I started talking to Michael. I was always a tripper. And I was always very good at helping people that were having bad trips. Helping them find their way, and ground them and give them something okay to hang onto until they came down. And I started relating to him as if he was trippìng, and I was really able to soothe him and calm him and put him in a much better space. When he came around and was conscious again, all he could remember is he was on a cot in South America and he was tied down with piano wire, and he was begging for ice cream. That’s all he remembers of that time. But it was very difficult. He tried to punch my sons because he thought the hospital was holding him prisoner. We had to tie him down so that he didn’t take out the IV’s. Heavy duty stuff.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did he survive the transplant?
VERONICA HART
He survived the transplant. He had Hep C, which none of us knew, because when he got Hepatitis C, they didn’t know what it was. It was called an Unspecified Hepatitis. Anyway, he survived all that. But the immunosuppresant drugs made it possible for cancer to come in. Basically, Rachel, all of us are dealing with cancer every day. But those of us with healthy immune systems fight it off. That’s why you eat antioxidants, because the free radicals that are around tear down our body and give our body cancer all the time. But those of us with healthy immune systems fight it off. And about the transplant: I thought that once the body accepted the organ, you were home free and you could go off those drugs. Not so. The body can reject the organ at any stage of your life! So you have to be on these heinous drugs for the rest of your life. By the time found out he had cancer, it was fully metastisized, stage four cancer. And that was 14 months before he died. He fought so long and so hard. He is such a hero to me. He was such an amazing fighter and such incredible spirit. I was just completely blown away. He did such a good job fighting, he was so brave. He did not want to do radition. He was so against it, but he had no choice. It was eating at his spine, and would have paralyzed him. It had already taken out his right arm and right side. It’s just horrible, and his brother Sam is dying of terminal brain cancer. Cancer is so fucking hideous. It’s so insidious, and it wants to live as much as we do. And boy, does it fight to be there. And it usually wins, especially by treating it the way we do, by destroying the body to try and destroy the cancer. If they had detected cancer in Michael, he never would have gotten a transplant. They do not transplant people with cancer.
I’ve been so horribly depressed. You know, my sons are grown, so they’ll always need a mom, but they don’t need a Mother. Do you know what I mean? They’re past the point of needing to be watched and cared for. I don’t have any younger children. And Michael, taking care of him for the past 5 or 6 years, gave me a purpose of who I was. And yeah, I am a director and a producer and blah, blah, blah. Who cares? How I define myself is more by the relationships that I have. I want to do good work, don’t get me wrong. And it’s really important for me to do good things. But that’s all what you do. Who you are is the relationships you have with people, and relationships are so important to me. So to break up from my major relationship, to have Michael leave my life, and for my kids to grow up, it was like, “Boy!” I just didn’t see the point of being here anymore.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Empty nest, empty hands – emptiness.
VERONICA HART
Everything. It was just like, “What am I doing here? I don’t have a purpose.” So I’ve got to tell you, it’s been really wonderful for Timothy to be here, because I think he was feeling bad too. I mean, having a family that he loved and adored break up like that, it just demolished him. So we were both coming from places of great loss.
RACHEL ARIEFF
People help each other out.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. We had to be careful, because when you know where those holes are, it’s really easy to get your fingers in there to tear each other apart, too. It’s interesting navigating. And that’s what I have to do. I have to maintain being positive. I am basically a positive person, but it’s been tough to stay positive. But, like you said, you never know what’s around the corner. The fact that things can change – for the better or the worse, in any moment. In an instant, things can change so dramatically.
RACHEL ARIEFF
The big test is not to become too attached to the moments when you’re happy, because everything changes.
VERONICA HART
“Be focused on your goal, but stay detached from the outcome.” That’s the Kriya yoga, Paramhansa Yogananda way. Be completely focused, yet detached, so you don’t base your happiness on it. And know that this is all an illusion anyway. But having said that, I think because I’ve chosen to be down here, and to be a physical person on the physical plane, I take great pleasure in wallowing in it all. I’m a wallower, I am. I’m like a crocodile girl. My dog, she likes to roll around and wallow in stuff too. I’m like that. If I’m happy, I’m pretty fucking happy. But if I’m sad, I really am sad. And I really get to the bottom of that, and really do it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I have some questions about the business. Do you find it hard to find sensuality in the adult films today? Do you feel that the adult cinema of the past was more peace, love and granola as opposed to the porno of today, which is purely commercial? Or do you not agree with that at all?
VERONICA HART
I agree with that completely. Here’s the deal: I think it’s worse for filmmakers, and the climate right now is terrible for pornographers. DVD sales are going in the toilet.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Because of the free downloading?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, video on demand. And right now there’s so much free porn on the Internet that it’s very difficult for the big companies to stay alive. People don’t buy it like they used to. So ultimately, for the consumer, it’s good. Because the consumer can say, “Okay. I want a short blonde with huge breasts fucking a Black guy with a ten-inch dick.” And they can find that. Or they can say, “I want S&M with a dwarf, this, and that. And they can find that.”
RACHEL ARIEFF
It’s like going to Baskin Robbins and ordering whatever kind of sundae you want.
VERONICA HART
Exactly! But for filmmakers who are interested in making movies and everything, the budgets are limited because there’s not the payback, there’s not that many people doing quality stuff, so it’s not a good climate for those who want to really do stuff. Personally, I’ve kind of said everything I need to say in pornography. I’m interested in the next level. There’s artcore, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, and there’s more of that in Europe than over here. They’re regular movies with hardcore stuff thrown in.
RACHEL ARIEFF
The French have it but it’s more violence-oriented.
VERONICA HART
Yes. Timmy and I are gonna do a project together, about a lot of our situations. It’s kind of like a Last Tango in Paris, but it probably won’t be in Paris, it’ll probably be in the High Sierras, because that’s where he’s most comfortable. And its’ really interesting and beautiful country. We’re gonna go that way. What interests me most is – sex films, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with them, but it’s just “been there, done that.” You know, you gotta do something different after a while. I’m interested in a film with sex in it. In other words: in life, your whole life – well, maybe if you’re a nymphomanic, or severely deranged or disturbed – your life does not center around sexuality. It’s a part of life. But it’s not all of life. So therefore, if I do a picture, I would like for there to be a sex scene or two in it, but it doesn’t have to be all sex. Most of the movies that I’m involved in, it’s all just about sex. There’s no big dramatic storyline or something like that. And as an actress and as a person, I’m just more interested in stories and stuff like that. I mean, fucking’s fine, but I’d rather be doing it than watching it. I’d still rather be the participant than the voyeur. And don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with it. But personally, it doesn’t really hold much interest for me anymore.
I might be starting an adult business: a next wave. And that’s because I’ve got a technology that I think people will pay for. There’s a gentleman that I’m working with. And we’re working on that next technology thing. And if we can do that, I think it’s a business worth staying in. Otherwise, I work in it. I produce it. I production manage it. Sometimes I style it… just because it’s comfortable and it’s people I know, and the work comes to me. So I think it can be everything. There are a few people that are doing amazing stuff. There is some really beautiful stuff. Penthouse, if it’s kind of vacant what they’re doing, at least it looks beautiful. At least they’re putting out beautiful images, even if it’s the same stuff over and over. At least it’s beautiful.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I was going to ask you about the porn stars of the past. They were really individuals; they were stars. Just as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were stars, Vanessa Del Rio, Marilyn Chambers, Seka were also stars. Each woman was an individual who had nothing to do with the other. But nowadays it’s all so cookie-cutter, and the porn stars all look and act the same.
VERONICA HART
Isn’t it interesting? You can be an actor without being a movie star. But you can’t be a porn star without being a porn star. Anybody who fucks in front of a camera – and it could be on somebody’s Super 8 or home video camera – is a porn star. Anybody who does that is called a porn star. It just becomes hysterical. Anybody who performs sex in front of the camera is, by virtue of that fact, called a porn star. They’re not called Porn Performers. They’re called, “Oh, she’s a Porn Star.” Isn’t that funny? So are there big stars? There’s a few. But only from the companies that can promote it. I mean, you can say Vivid Girls maybe are stars like we were stars. Wicked has their little contract girls set up. So there’s a few of the contract players. Tera Patrick has really achieved stardom. Jenna Jameson has achieved stardom. But for the most part, nope. For the most part, they come in and go out and they’re fairly replaceable.
RACHEL ARIEFF
In your opinion, how does a star like Tera Patrick or Jenna Jameson compare with someone like Vanessa Del Rio?
VERONICA HART
There were timing and a company behind them. Vanessa Del Rio never had a company pushing her. But when we were stars, they told me that I had ruined my career one year because I had appeared in 13 movies. That I had absolutely oversaturated the market, and I’d ruined my career because I had been in 13 movies during that YEAR. Now, ladies can do 13 videos in a week. It’s such a different beast now. Before we would have openings, and we would play the Pussycat theaters. And we would be advertised in the movie section along with all the other movies. And then slowly we got moved out to the Sports section. And then finally we got moved out completely. Video came in and brought it into people’s homes, so it made it much more acceptable. You didn’t have to go out to a theater with a bunch of other raincoaters and hunch the shooting jism [slang for esperma].
And nowadays it’s all about Internet, which is perfect for video on demand. You don’t have the stuff around for your kids to see. You don’t have the boxes around. You don’t have the tapes around for your kids to pick up. You don’t have them around for your spouse or your girlfriend or your prospective girlfriend to see. There’s no trace of it. You download it once and it gets removed from the history of your computer. If you want to be an anonymous perv, if you want immediate gratification, you can go on the internet and you can get it.
So what’s next? I think what’s next is making those images feel more like you’re there. That’s what I think the next wave is. And they haven’t been too successful in holography. But 3D is certainly coming along.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Interactive adult?
VERONICA HART
Or at least where you feel that you’re sharing the same space with that person. Whatever you can do that makes it feel that that person is in the same physical presence, to break down that 4th wall, that’s what I think is gonna be happening. And that’s what I think will be making the money. If I actively try and do something in the adult business, that’s where I’m gonna be.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Is Amanda By Night your favorite movie of your career?
VERONICA HART
I think so. I love Amanda By Night, and I love Roommates. Scent of Heather was cool too. But I think Amanda, yeah. She was kind of like Jane Fonda in Klute.
There is a kid who is a fan of older stars. He’s younger than my sons, 21 or 22. And he puts up huge chunks of the movie up on YouTube without the sex. We would have 90 or 120-page scripts. Now, the things I’m working on, we have to do them in a day-and-a-half basically, they’re only 12 or 13 pages. So the formula before was you’d have 15 or 20 minutes of setup for maybe 5 minutes of sex. And now that’s reversed. You’re lucky if you have 5 minutes of setup for a 15 or 20 minute sex scene. So the formula has been reversed.
What have we perfected? The angles. You look at the old stuff, and you can’t – oh gosh, between the bush and the shadows… You kind of get it, but you don’t see much. You look at one of ours, (whistles) you see everything! And that’s also made it very clinical. You know all the angles you’re gonna see. We’re been shooting it for 30 years now. So we know the “up-and-over”, the “up-and-under”… We know all the angles that are good for shooting hardcore. But what does that do? It tends to make everything look the same, shot the same, and make it look very clinical.
RACHEL ARIEFF
And the shaved beavers everywhere. There was mystery and glamour with the bush.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. I like being a woman. I don’t like looking like a little girl. I’m not prepubescent. I mean, I’ve tried everything, I’ve done everything, pretty much. But if you’ve ever had a really shaved pussy growing in, boy, does that itch. (laughter) I’m into keeping it trimmed. And I like a little bit of hair.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Will you give me your opinion of some stars? Let’s start with John Holmes.
VERONICA HART
Johnny was the biggest star I never had. I never got the pleasure of fucking him onscreen or offscreen. When I was in, he was out. When he was coming back in, I was going out. I think he probably had hopes and aspirations for so much more, and he settled for porn. But he was always trying to do bigger and better movies, and trying to being the Bruce Lee and do all that. I think he really wanted so much more for himself and his life. And it was sad, because the drugs fucking totaled him.
RACHEL ARIEFF
In the book The Other Hollywood, someone in the business said he was the most desired actor among women because the actresses thought he was sweet and sensitive to work with.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. There’s two feelings of sex: there’s regular sex, and then there’s that feeling of just being stuffed. And they’re both cool. They’re both really interesting feelings. And they’re both good. Do you know what I mean? There’s the regular fucking, sliding in and out, and there’s the kind where it’s so much, it’s overwhelming. And that’s very cool too. And I think that’s the way he was. I don’t think he ever got tremendously hard, because he was so big. But there was just so much of him. I know women really enjoyed being with him. And unfortunately, I never got to work with him. I met him.
RACHEL ARIEFF
What was he like?
VERONICA HART
He just seemed like a real sweet guy. He was always just really nice: “How are you? Good to meet you.” You know, that’s the kind of interaction I had with him.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Kind of a normal, uncomplicated person? No dramas?
VERONICA HART
No drama. I didn’t see any drama, and I didn’t see any “Hey, I’m a big star.” He really seemed like a nice, easygoing guy.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Like the guy next door.
VERONICA HART
Yeah, who happens to have a HUGE dick.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did you know Vanessa Del Rio?
VERONICA HART
I know Vanessa well. I love her so much. She’s a good girlfriend. She just had a huge picture book put out in Taschen Books about our time, and pictures from that era. And I think it’s done hugely well. She’s replaced her – we tend to be obsessive, both of us, we’re in pornography, with something around us. And she replaced her obsessiveness with drugs and everything with a penchant for working out. So she is a complete bodybuilder. And she’s been very successful about building her own website and everything.
Vanessa was amazing because she appealed to everyone. She appealed to Whites, to Blacks, to Hispanics. She’s Puerto Rican, I believe. So she had such an appeal to everybody.
RACHEL ARIEFF
And her personality is so likeable.
VERONICA HART
And she’s got a big clit.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Likeable and lickable.
VERONICA HART
Likeable and lickable. You got it, I like that. Yeah, she’s wonderful. And a great lady.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did you know Traci Lords?
VERONICA HART
I ran into Traci a couple of times, but we were never close. Suze Randall was really close with Traci. They were good pals. What do I feel about her? I think she was naughty, man. I think she was very, very fucking naughty. I think the reason that the industry didn’t go down bigger than it did was because she fooled the government first. And the government really couldn’t say anything about her fooling us, because they’d been fooled. She had a fake passport. She had a real passport, but she got it with fake I.D. Her passport from the United States government said she was older. She had documentation. I mean, if she fooled the government, of course she fooled us. There are women who are extremely mature at a very young. And she was. She was. Yeah, she looked really young, but she held herself and carried herself much more.
I have problems with women denouncing our business or saying that they were taken advantage of. Because our business is mutual exploitation. It’s like, “Yeah, I’ve been exploited, but I exploit them. I got paid cash in hand, and paid well, and knew exactly what I was getting into.”
Are there instances where girls do get taken advantage of? Absolutely. Are there sleazebags and assholes in our business? Absolutely. There are bad people in every business. But that’s not all what pornography is. I mean, pornography’s HUGE. To say it’s all of anything is ridiculous. That would be like saying, “All movies are good. All television is good. All radio is good.” It’s everything. There’s really good pornography, there’s horrible pornography. There are wonderful people, there are terrible people. There’s people who know about sex, there’s people who don’t have a clue about sex. There’s people who love women, there’s people who hate women. There’s people who love men, there’s people who hate men. There’s everything in this business.
RACHEL ARIEFF
So why do you think she did what she did?
VERONICA HART
Probably to make money, and she saw an opening. And then she turned around, and she saw an opening by denouncing it to the mainstream. So she’s a very clever kid. I’ve got to give that to her. But I don’t like her.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Ginger Lynn went to jail because of her, right?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, the whole tax thing. Traci really hurt a lot of people. So I don’t really think kindly of her. Because she went in, she duped people in our business. Do you know how much money was lost on her? You know how many films? Overnight. Overnight, people were carrying one product, and overnight, when this came out, all of a sudden, those people who had those films were child pornographers.
Overnight. They became child pornographers. People who didn’t want to be child pornographers, people who weren’t interested in that, who didn’t seek out underage girls, all of a sudden it made everybody a child pornographer. If you had one of those videos, you were against the law. I mean, people had to take her product off the shelves and fucking burn it. And how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue from her? Oh, poor her.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Have you ever run into her?
VERONICA HART
No. And I’m sure I wouldn’t say anything except “How are you, Traci?” I wouldn’t say, “Fuck you, you ruined our lives,” or anything like that. But she’s certainly somebody I wouldn’t go out and seek. Do I admire her? Well, anybody who’s done adult and has been more successful than me, and moves to the mainstream, yeah, I admire her. Because I would like to be more successful in mainstream, to be perfectly honest. To say that I’m completely satisfied with everything that I’ve done? Hogwash, not true. There’s so much stuff I’d like to do.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you know Nina Hartley?
VERONICA HART
Yeah! She’s an icon in our business. She’s been completely warm and wonderful to the fans. She’s had a personal journey of self worth and self realization. She was in a relationship where she basically took care of the world, and now she’s in a relationship with somebody who’s her peer, and they’re more as equals, and they can be creative and everything together. A very intelligent woman, speaks very well, was a nurse before she got into our business. So she’s cool.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Nina’s a sex educator, and you do lectures in colleges on films, right?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, about the movies or the business or whatever they do. There’s a gal at U.C. Santa Barbara who’s really good about having us out. I used to go out to Dr. Elias’s psychology courses in Northridge to talk about the business. Ron Jeremy is hugely successful in the college circuit. There’s a debate team that goes around that’s about pornography, and he’s on the pro-porn side, and there’s two or three people who debate him on the other side. And it’s funny, because they’re all friends. They travel together, they get booked together, they eat together, they’re friends. But even if they do see each other’s point, it’s beneficial for them to be adversaries in front of an audience. And that’s what they do, they go around and they have these debates at colleges. And Ronnie has turned me on to that lecture circuit. There’s a lot of stuff that if he can’t do, she’ll (Nina) do. She’s a very good public speaker and so motivated.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I got to meet her in Barcelona. She was a lovely person, very sisterly.
VERONICA HART
Very pro-female. I love her.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you ever think about the possiblilty of working as a sex educator?
VERONICA HART
I work with a gal called Dr. Ava Cadell, she’s a sexpert. She’s got the Lobology University. She runs courses for people who want to be certified. She’s awesome. She’s been my girlfriend forever. She came from a background of being a B-movie actress. Big guns, big hooters. She was always the little tiny girl with big breasts. She’s just wonderful, she’s been a lifelong friend. If there’s anybody I would work with, I would work with her. She’s been my pal forever. We did a book called Hot Spots, I think in ’94. We took off on the Tuppy Owens’ Sex Maniac’s Guide, and we did it for here. It didn’t take off. I think we were kind of overshadowed by the Internet coming in. She’s a really cool gal. She’s a true, true sex educator. I mean, a certified doctor-therapist.
Sharon Mitchell is also a certified doctor-therapist. Annie Sprinkle is a fine sex educator. These are all amazing women.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you know Annie?
VERONICA HART
I know Annie so well. I adore Annie Sprinkle. We have a women’s group, it’s called Club 90. It began with Kelly Nichols, Sue Nero, Veronica Vera, Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royale, and Gloria Leonard. And the five of us that have still maintained it – Kelly and Sue dropped out pretty much within the first year. And it was the rest of us that were hanging together. We’ve since picked up a performance artist, Linda Montana, and Barbara Carell, who’s amazing. She used to be an agent. She’s a huge urban tantrist and positive sex educator herself. And we have an email group. We help each other through our life crises, and something to bounce things off of, and everything. So I know those ladies REALLY, REALLY well. Better than I know anybody else. And I just adore Annie. She and Beth, her wife, are doing seven years of weddings to correspond with the chakras. So i was lucky enough to be in the bridal party at the orange wedding, the Sex Wedding, which was up in San Francisco. And I was lucky enough to be mistress of ceremonies this past year, at the Green Wedding, which is the Heart Chakra. Which is good, Veronica Hart, and being the Heart Chakra, and being able to do that. I just have so much respect for her. She makes most of her living the way that I would like to. She does performance art everywhere in theaters with her girlfriend. Her work now centers more around love than sex. But they just do amazing things. They’re in Europe now, performing. She’s been to Serbia to perform. And now she was in – was it Finland or Norway? It was absolutely horrible for her. She is so far removed from pornography, but they just remember her as a porn star, and they don’t allow her to grow as an artist. And she’s been everything! She’s been a photographer. She graduated from the SVA, the School of Visual Art. She’s got her Ph.D. in Sex Education. She’s huge in the tantric community. She was the first person that got me interested in moving energy and being around that, and knowing what that was.
She’s reinvented herself more times in this one life than I ever have. She’s a full-scale artist. The pieces that she makes, my house is filled, thank God, with her art.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Does she make sculpture?
VERONICA HART
Mostly paintings. Tit prints! I’ve got beautiful. I’ve got a chakra chart she and Beth made from a shooting target. I’ve just got amazing stuff from aspects of her life. I’ve got beautiful photos that Annie took of the kids when they were younger. She has more talent and more creativity in her little finger than I’ve ever been able to experience in my life. I bow down to her. She’s awesome.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you know Christy Canyon?
VERONICA HART
I was just on a radio show with her. She does the Playbody Radio on Sirius. And she has taken over the Night Calls position. Now it’s Christy Canyon. It used to be Christy and Ginger. Now it’s Christy. And they have the dinosaurs week, when they have the stars in the from the past, and I went on.
Christy was always someone that was in the periphery. And I always felt bad, I felt like I never belonged in her clique. I never knew much about her, except that she was really cool and a star. But I never had a lot to do with her.
But I went on her show, and she was so nice, and she said she’d always wanted to meet me and spend time with me. She stuck her breasts in my mouth, so she was very kind. I was very lucky. I got to have a couple of breasts in my mouth, which I haven’t had in a long time. Her breasts can come in my mouth whenever they would like.
RACHEL ARIEFF
How long have you been friends with Kelly Nichols?
VERONICA HART
We were in Roommates together. So we’re talking about 29 years. I love her. She’s seen my children grow up, and I’ve seen her children grow up. It’s been a trip. It’s wonderful.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did your kids play together?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. Did you know that Melanie (Kelly Nichols’ daughter) married Jessie (Melanie’s girlfriend, who she was able to marry before California recently banned gay marriage)? It’s illegal here.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Yes. They got in just under the wire.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. And they come over, and we have Taco Night. A lot of times on Sunday nights — because Chris doesn’t live here, my one son Max still lives in the house. He’s got the downstairs floor. But Chris doesn’t live here, so on Sundays we usually have family night. A lot of times Jessie and Melanie and Jessie would come over. That’s just wonderful. You know, it’s extended family. It just feels so good. It feels wonderful to have a history with these people. She’s (Kelly Nichols) actually performing a little bit. A lot of the ladies have gotten back to performing.
RACHEL ARIEFF
You directed the comeback movies of both Marilyn Chambers and Ginger Lynn.
VERONICA HART
I love Marilyn. What a wonderful lady. She and Ginger and truly really great actresses. Besides being sexual performers and everything, they’re really really wonderful. Ginger, I think, was more comfortable with her sexuality in coming back and how she felt about herself, but I don’t think Marilyn was at the best point in her life as far as physically and mentally wanting to do it. I think she wanted to do it more for monetary reasons than for other reasons. I think that part was tough on her. But I adore Marilyn. And Ginger I have so much respect for and so much love, because I think she’s such a great actress and she’s so present in what she does. And she really cared about the sexual chemistry and all that kind of stuff. I mean, she insisted on auditions so she could see if she wanted to be with the person she was gonna be acting with. So I have utmost respect and love for both of those women. And to be perfectly honest, they were women, as I was growing up, that – I don’t spend a lot of time being jealous, I don’t think I’m a jealous person, I’ve fought my whole life against being jealous. But if there was somebody I was envious of, I’m sure it was Marilyn Chambers when she had her huge entourage and she was the “it” girl and she was just amazing. And it was Ginger who was always bubbly and lively and the life of the party. And I look at the life these ladies have had, and their ups and downs, and their travails and problems, and I’m so lucky to be me and to have the life that I’ve led. It’s interesting how you realize these things a long time afterwards.
I never thought I would say that. But I love both of them very much.
Marilyn Chambers and Jane Hamilton
RACHEL ARIEFF
Marilyn Chambers told us in an interview a couple years ago that when you directed her comeback film, she was shocked to see how turned on you were by the process of directing because she views filmmaking as just work.
VERONICA HART
Do I get aroused? I don’t get aroused. I get excited if I think it’s good. No, I get aroused when I’m in bed with somebody. Or if I’m with my vibrator. Watching adult doesn’t arouse me at the time. Directing adult – I’m hoping that she felt that way, and I’m hoping that I made her feel sexy, and I’m hoping that she felt that I turned her on. Because I want my performer to think they’re sexy. I want them to feel like they’re arousing everyone. As a director, that’s my job. I want them to feel in that space. But do I sit and jerk off while I direct? Absolutely not. I’m always worried about the camera angle, I’m worried about the time, I’m worried it could go late at the location, I’m worrying if we’re going to be able to get into the next scene, I’m worried if the next person’s already in makeup, I’m worried, “Is lunch gonna be called on time?” Is catering together? Does that wardrobe fit?
RACHEL ARIEFF
You’re a director.
VERONICA HART
It’s a complete job. But at the same time, have I as a director, ever gone over to a male actor and whispered absolutely filthy things in his ear to help him perform? You bet I have. I’m diabolical. I will do whatever it takes to get a performance out of somebody – I mean, within reason. Do you know what I mean? If you’re in a position of making a movie and and you care about the movie and you want it to be the best movie it can be, yeah, you pull out all your tricks. If it’s about making a performer feel they’re hot, when you know that maybe they don’t feel particularly hot, then you do that.
I find myself, if I’m watching a really good scene, I will move. I’m a physical gal, I’m a dancer. If they’re in a rhythm and it’s good, I will find myself behind the monitor moving with them. I will find my head bobbing and going, “Yeah, yeah, right, right, get it, get it.” I will do that.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you have any funny stories about shooting scenes?
VERONICA HART
When a guy was having a bad time, I did go up and I just whispered some really dirty, disgusting things about what I was gonna do to him, and it helped him finish the scene. I love flirting with my performers, but I’m certainly not into fucking them. It’s not that I don’t respect them as people, it’s just that I would never want to take advantage of somebody, make them feel like they had to fuck me to be in a film I was doing.
That’s the joy of adult films. You don’t have to fuck people to get in them. Your job IS fucking.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Is it true what I read in “The Other Hollywood”, where someone said that strangely enough in the Adult business, there is no casting couch like there is than Hollywood, which is filthy in comparison with the amount of people fucking directors and producers to get the job.
VERONICA HART
I never had to fuck anybody to get a job. But I know a lot of porn producers that are not beyond getting a blow job, if you want to get into his next movie. So there are sleazebags in every business. I tell you, it’s a lot less prevalent in our business than it is in Hollywood. I’ve fucked a lot of mainstream people and that doesn’t mean I got anywhere either. (laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
I love what Kelly Nichols said in the “The Other Hollywood”. When she said, “I didn’t want to fuck anyone to get a part. I’d say, ‘Just invite me to your party. Then I’ll fuck you.’”
VERONICA HART
Yeah. I think
RACHEL ARIEFF
What’s the most ridiculous thing that ever happened on a shoot?
VERONICA HART
We invariably put people in terrible positions. As a director, I’ve got it so much in my mind what I want to see happen, that’s it’s a pain in the ass when it comes to the sex. If it’s not happening the way I want it to, I will stop and say, “Okay, get it from over here, get it from over there.” And it stops the flow and it’s really difficult for the performers. As a person who just appreciates a sex scene, I can understand how it’s better to let two people just go at it. But as a craftsman and filmmaker, I know what I want to see. I’m a pain in the ass because I stop and start and stuff like that.
We put people in horrible positions. So inevitably you’ve got someone in a winter outfit in the middle of summer. Or, you’ve got somebody fucking naked in the middle of winter. There was one set, we were in Palm Springs. If you know Palm Springs, in January, it’s fucking freezing at night. It’s the high desert, we’re on top of a mountain. I think it’s gonna be cool, because you see Palm Springs in the background. And a red sports car. The crew, myself included, was wearing parkas and mufflers and everything. And there’s this poor guy fucking two women on the car. And I was responsible for that! It seemed like a good idea at the time. So we were up there in the middle of it, and I’m going, “Oh my God, what have I done? What an idiot I am to put these people in this position.” Just for a movie. Was I out of my mind?
RACHEL ARIEFF
Were they pissed off at you?
VERONICA HART
Pretty bad circumstances. When I first produced for Michael Ninn, I forgot towels. Debbie Diamond never let me forget that. I was first producing it. And I didn’t have towels for after the shower. It was pretty unforgiveable. But I learned. I never go to a set now without towels.
And then there’s stupid stuff that I do: walk into a set when they’re rolling, and say, “Hey, Buddy!” and everybody looks at you like they’re gonna kill you. I mean, that still happens. (laughter)
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RACHEL ARIEFF
You worked on the remake of The Opening of Misty Beethoven with my friend John Skipp. He was your roommate, wasn’t he?
VERONICA HART
He sure was. That’s how it came about. He needed to write something because he was getting behind in his rent (laughter). It worked really well because he’s such an excellent writer. And they talked about doing something at work that was a little bigger budget, and I was thinking, what could work with a bigger budget? And what my ___ was throwing at me was remaking classics. So I remade Barbara Broadcast. And then they were talking about remaking Misty Beethoven. And I just thought it was a sin to remake something that was so amazing to begin with. How do you do that? And we thought about making it a different genre: making it a musical. And it just so happens that the guy i was with at the time was a music producer, and had his own studio. And Skipp was a writer, and wrote music. And it just all seemed to fit together. I mean, I don’t think it could ever happen that way again, but it was just perfect. So I asked Skipp if he would rewrite Misty Beethoven with music in it, as a musical. And he became “Maxwell Hart” (Skipp’s pen name in the credits). And he had fun alluding to his X-rated past.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I remember Skipp talking about one scene that was filmed in a downtown L.A. warehouse, where he got to play drums during a huge sex scene with hundreds of people fucking on glass coffee-tables, which was murder on their knees.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. There was – Oh, I’ve done that before. I’ve put ‘em on plexiglass, and try to have them fuck on plexiglass and shoot it from underneath. All these ideas seem like they’re really good ideas, but if you watch a lot of the movies and you see the way they’re fucking, it’s like, “I don’t think so. That would be so uncomfortable.” We constantly do that, we constantly put people in uncomfortable positions.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Well, mainstream movies do it too. My pet peeve is watching a guy fuck a woman against the wall, and slams her repeatedly against the wall. It doesn’t look very comfortable.
VERONICA HART
No, but oh, it can be hot. I had a lover who was so wonderful. He was completely into being spontaneous. We would meet each other for lunch and fuck in the van. Or I’d just blow him before we went into a restaurant or something like that. It’s that stuff that makes it so fun. And we were on a movie theater in downtown Glendale. We were coming down the stairs, and it’s like he looked at me, and I looked at him, and I just dropped my pants. He bent over the railing and just FUCKED me! That was GREAT! He wrote Edgeplay (one of Marilyn’s comeback movies that Veronica Hart directed). He used to be a cross-dresser. He was in an L.A. band called Foxtwat.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Fox-twat?? (laughter)
VERONICA HART
Yeah. I loved him. He’s still one of my favorite people. He really taught me how to move energy. I’ve had a lot of affairs with filmmakers or performers or musicians. I’m a sucker for them. And I’m continuing that trend with Timothy. Our musical tastes differ, but I’m beginning to like country a little more (laughter). I’m a rock-n-roll girl.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did you find out if any of the original cast of Misty Beethoven saw your remake and what they thought of it?
VERONICA HART
I don’t know! That’s an interesting question. I tried to get Jamie Gillis to be in it, but we just couldn’t afford him. He just wanted too much money to fly down from San Francisco and to be in it. And it was’t a sex role. So we got Freddy Lincoln to do it instead. So I really didn’t have the participation of some of the original people. But I hope they liked it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you know Jamie Gillis pretty well?
VERONICA HART
Yeah I do.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Sharon Mitchell said that once in New York, he called her at three in the morning and asked her to come to his apartment immediately. And she was good friends with him, so she just got in a cab without asking any questions. And when she got to his apartment, he was playing some kind of S&M game with (70s porn star) Serena. He was holding Serena’s head in the toilet while he flushed it, and he’d called Sharon Mitchell because he needed an extra set of hands to hold Serena’s head.
VERONICA HART
Absolutely. He used to tie Serena up. He’d get a cheap motel on 42nd Street, and he’d tie her to the bed, and he’d go downstairs and get guys off the street to come up and fuck her. Yeah, he was quite an interesting cat.
I was doing live sex shows. That’s how I began. Before I ever did a movie, I moved to New York. And Roy Stewart said that I should be doing movies. And he took me around to a couple of places, and back then, people prepared for a couple of months to do movies. So in the meantime, I was trying to get enough money together to go back to Las Vegas to spend Christmas with my folks. And I was working as a temporary secretary at Psychology Today. And Roy says, “Why don’t you do live sex shows?” Roy had a very interesting psychology. He would constantly put himself as a performer. Personally, when we were making love, at home, just fooling around, he never had any problem. He was always a great lover. But when we would try to do it publicly, either at a movie, or at the sex shows, he wouldn’t be able to get it up. So literally, I blew my brains out that week. If you would imagine doing five shows a day! I’d come out and strip, and then he comes out. And then we’d do head-and-head in three positions and a pop (ejaculation). But the thing to do that, with a guy that never got hard, and it’s a live thing, it was very difficult. I was always trying, and he was always half-assing it… Anyway, I got enough money to go home with my boyfriend, and when I got back I decided to do it with my boyfriend. And that seemed to be wonderful for a long time, doing the live sex shows.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Was that at Show World?
VERONICA HART
We didn’t do it at Show World. There was the Avon 7, the Doll, and the Bryant Theater. And that was the circuit that we did. Sometimes you’d migrate from place to place, but usually you were one week at the Doll, one week at the Avon 7, and one week at the Bryant. It was quite wonderful because you would be boyfriend-girlfriend, you’d be making love anyway. And this way, you could both be making money, and you’d be making love, and it was fun. It was really great fun. The first time Billy and I did it, we went up onstage and we did it. And it was so fun, we fucked out brains out and he came. Alright? And then, in between shows, it was so exciting, we were up in the dressing room, and we fucked each other and he came.
Came time to do the second show: oh boy! There was nothing there. So we learned. He would come maybe once a day, and we would space it out between performances. We would make it look like he was ejeculating, but he wouldn’t. And he had to take Brewer’s Yeast and all this stuff that’s supposed to be good for your libido, and keeping a hard-on and producing sperm. And it seems like it would be a really good job, but after my 8th week straight of sex five times a day, six or seven days a week… and I had conjunctivitis, so I had perform with my sunglasses on, I was on my period, so I was using a sponge, and I went, “Oh my God. I can’t do this anymore.” It was like, “Honey, I love you, but I cannot do this anymore. I love sex, and I will stay liking sex, but this is not the way it’s gonna happen for me.”
RACHEL ARIEFF
Burnout.
VERONICA HART
Oh, complete burnout.
RACHEL ARIEFF
What was it like doing a live sex show for the first time? Were you nervous, was it weird?
VERONICA HART
Yeah! It’s exciting!
RACHEL ARIEFF
Did you have to drink or do drugs to get out there for the first time?
VERONICA HART
No. I was a dancer. I’d always performed. I’d been in dance recitals since I was a child. And I was onstage plenty. We won the American College Theater Festival. I played Adela in The House of Bernarda Alba at the Kennedy Center. I’d been onstage a lot.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Yes, but not having sex.
VERONICA HART
It was just combining two things I really loved. I really loved acting, and I really loved sex. AND, I could paid for it!
RACHEL ARIEFF
Being paid is a big turn-on in itself.
VERONICA HART
Yeah! It was like, the business the MADE for me! (laughter) It was awesome! I had college friends of mine that were doing anything except acting. They always wanted to act. They never got a chance to act. And I was doing movies, I was fucking, and I was making money, and I was being a star.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Your friends were waiting tables for shit money and sometimes getting sexually harrassed, so what’s more degrading?
VERONICA HART
I only felt degraded once, when I worked for Lenny Kurtmann. It was a first shoot I was ever on. Lenny put the scum in scumbag. I was wise enough to say, “Okay, you can’t tape my audition.” He would have people come over to “audition” for him, and he would have a close-up of a fucking shot, and he would run a camera, and shoot them fucking. Not their faces or anything like that, but just the genitals, so he could slip them in a movie in the future.
So I’m on one of his films, and I learned a lot because I worked with Seka on that, and she taught me the ropes. I adore her, I love her. She’s still a great friend to this day. I was with a guy called Zebedy Colt. Zebedy was primarily gay. I didn’t know that, but Zebedy was primarily gay. So I would work really hard, bone, get him up, and when we’d get him up, we’d shoot soft. And then he goes, “Well, time for the hard core. Well, better get him up again.” So I would continually have to get him hard. And I had never been on a set before. So Lenny Kurtmann says, “Honey, aren’t you tired?” And I go, “Um, I don’t know. I guess.” He says, “Wouldnt you like this to be over?” I said, “Gee, I don’t know. I guess.” And then he goes, “Okay.” And I bend over. He whips out his dick and he fucks me and pops on me.
Now, I didn’t know much at that time, but I knew that was wrong. There were directors, and there were performers. And I just felt like the cheapest piece of shit. I remember I went home and cried that night. It made me feel very cheap and very degraded. And then he had the nerve to invite me to the Bahamas with him the next day. He had no clue that he was being a scumbag. He really had no idea. I couldn’t believe it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
And then you told Seka what had happened.
VERONICA HART
Yeah, and she said, “Honey, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do in this business. If they ask you do something and you don’t want to do it, you say, ‘No, I won’t.’ No big deal.” And that was the best advice I ever got. Only do what you want to do. And that’s what I tell girls. If this isn’t comfortable for you, if you’re asked to do something… But again, I also tell people: you have to tell performers coming in what’s expected of them. If you would like there to be such-and-such a scene and you want it to be that way, make sure everybody knows what’s involved. Make sure everybody’s comfortable playing it. Occasionally, I’ve gotten going so busy sometimes, and you’re in the middle of production, and at the last minute, somebody calls and cancels, and you replace them. And you forget to tell the other person that you’re replacing them. I mean, it’s bad. Have I done that? Yep. I’ve done that a couple of times. I felt really bad. “Oh my God. I didn’t tell you that you’re now working with such-and-such. I hope that’s okay!” And I’ve apologized. Sometimes that happens in productions. Should it? No. Does it? Yes. Do I make mistakes? Yes. Do I mean to? No.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Going back to Seka, one of the funniest lines in “The Other Hollywood” is something you said about her. I’m sure you remember what it is.
VERONICA HART
“As long as I have a face, Seka will always have a place to sit.” (laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
Why do you feel that way?
VERONICA HART
She was just so nice. She took me under her wing. And I’d been with women before, and she was so fun. She just was very kind to me and made me feel at ease and at home and taught me the ropes. And she’s sexy and wonderful and hot. A good person.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Are you still in touch with her?
VERONICA HART
Yep. She sends me funny stuff all the time. She sends me cute little things you’re supposed to send on to 20 other people, and sister stuff, and love stuff, and funny photos and stuff like that. And the last time I saw her, we connected really well. We were at a thing where we were signing autographs at this place in Seattle. She’s happily married now. She married a really good guy. A regular guy, but really good for her. Good to her. They have a good relationship. She goes around to a lot of the trade shows and sells her old pictures and takes pictures with fans and stuff like that.
RACHEL ARIEFF
She lives in Kansas?
VERONICA HART
Yeah, she lives somewhere out there. She used to live in Chicago, but I know they moved from there.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Who were your favorite sex symbols as a teenager?
VERONICA HART
Oh, rock stars. Yeah, David Bowie. David Bowie was my favorite. He was the one who inspired me to try women and expand sexually, and I just thought he was amazing. And I loved that whole Glam Rock thing he had. That’s probably why I’ve always had a thing for musicians. Believe me — and I’m sure you’ve found out:– you always get what you want. It may not make you feel the way you thought it would make you feel, it may not look the way you thought it would look, but you always get what you want. You always do. I mean, you call this stuff in. Whatever you want, you get it. Just be careful what you wish for.
And if you want something, be as specific as you can be about it. And if you’re calling other people into your life, be very specific, because you WILL attract these people. You will call stuff in. And the more specific you can be about it, the better. That’s what I know. I called in Craig the last time, and he was a lot of things that I wanted. But like I said, he never could handle who I was, or what I’d been, or my sexuality.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Craig was your boyfriend from the last relationship that just ended?
VERONICA HART
Yeah.
RACHEL ARIEFF
The younger you are, the less specific you can be because you know so little.
VERONICA HART
I knew this time that it had to be somebody that wasn’t afraid of me, and was okay with my sexuality, and I wanted somebody more famous than I was. And in walks Timothy. It’s kind of interesting.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Are a lot of men or women afraid of you?
VERONICA HART
Yeah. Yeah. They get a false idea of what I am. They think I’m like a circus performer of stuff like that. They think they have to do circus acrobatics with me. I’m normal. I’m certainly not average, but they don’t have to do tricks to be with me. I’m really interested in a connection. I thrive on connections. That’s what makes this whole place up here liveable, are the connections I have with people. I’m completely a connection junkie.
RACHEL ARIEFF
There are three legendary porn movies: The Devil in Miss Jones, The Opening of Misty Beethoven, and Deep Throat. A lot of people don’t like Deep Throat at all…
VERONICA HART
I’ve seen Misty Beethoven because I had to research to do a remake on it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
You hadn’t seen it before?
VERONICA HART
I’ve seen Devil in Miss Jones. Never seen all of Deep Throat. But Behind the Green Door was another defining one. I worked with Marilyn from Behind the Green Door. One of my best friends is Georgina Spelvin, who is The Devil in Miss Jones. She’s got a great book out, by the way: The Devil Made Me Do It. There’s this funny story: Georgina would tell me about this real cool guy that she’s known, called Michael from New York. And I would tell her about this Michael that I knew, who I was hanging out with and falling out with. So we meet at the company picnic, which was the AVN awards, used to be the ERotica Awards. And I go, “Oh, George! Here’s the Michael I’ve been telling you about.” And Michael turned around, and her jaw drops to the floor, and her Michael and my Michael are the same guy. Can you imagine? And he was a legitimate camera guy. And she was on Broadway before she did adult. She was a producer for J.C. Penny’s. During the hippy time, they had a place called The Pickle Factory that they were trying to get off the ground as an alternative filmmaking studio. Isn’t that wild that her Michael and my Michael were the same guy?
But George and I are still best friends. We still email each other all the time. So I’ve worked with her, worked with Marilyn, and we did Misty. And I worked with Harry Reems in his comeback film called Society Affairs. I was his fluffer in a couple of scenes. I was dating the producer, and Harry was having a tough time getting it up. And you know, I’d do anything for the sake of the movie. (laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
You’re a soldier.
VERONICA HART
(laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
Isn’t Harry a religious Christian?
VERONICA HART
I don’t know if he’s born again, but he’s a realtor in Park City, Utah.
RACHEL ARIEFF
He’s an interesting guy.
VERONICA HART
He’ll never come to any of our things, but he trades on being Harry Reems. So he trades on it to his advantage, but he doesn’t have any association with us. We’ve tried to get him to show up to different award shows before, and he won’t. But I know that he trades on being that Harry Reems.
RACHEL ARIEFF
He had drug problems and I think he cited that as being one of the reasons that he got into the religion.
VERONICA HART
Hmm. It’s like Linda Lovelace. It’s funny, because Linda hated her connections with pornography, but it was always the porn people that came to her aid. When she was trying to get her liver transplant, it wasn’t only the Holy Rollers that were giving money. When she didn’t have money, it was’t the Christian Right Wing that helped her.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Nor the feminists.
VERONICA HART
Yeah. It was always the porn people who embraced her and loved her, which I think was pretty interesting.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you feel like Linda Lovelace bit the hand that fed her?
VERONICA HART
Yes, yes, yes. Annie Sprinkle really loved her and has a lot of feeling for her. She feels that she was such a victim and everything. But Linda was a victim and remained a victim. There are just some people who are so comfortable with that persona, and they never want to do anything to help themselves get out of it.
RACHEL ARIEFF
When Linda Lovelace went anti-porn and came out with the books, I got so sick of reading the stories in which she blamed her troubles on everyone else except herself, I wanted to slap her.
VERONICA HART
You were there, you did it, and I’m sorry to remind you, but you liked it. I had a problem with Samantha Fox. Samantha Fox and I were very close. We were both stars at the same time. I didn’t realize how much of an alcohol problem she had at that time. She hid it very well. We were on Phil Donahue together. I mean, she had come to my wedding. I was on Phil Donahue with her, and I had to defend myself and being in pornography against her. I never thought I would ever be attacked by her on a television show. I was tempted to say, “Well, when I was eating your pussy, you didn’t seem to be minding it.” I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to drop down to that level, but I said, “Samantha, never ever in my life would I ever have dreamed that I would have to defend myself against you.” She said, “I was just trying to be controversial.” I couldn’t believe it. She was mad at me, I guess. We were shooting a scene in Amanda By Night where I was acting in a limo. I was dating Ted Paramour. This is true. Teddy and I were an item, and I was dating the producer of the movie, so that’s true. And I did drive around with him in a limo because we were shooting a scene from the movie. And she was out in front of a bar, because they’d finished a scene and they were waiting for the limo to come back. So somehow, in her drinking frenzy, she thought that she was waiting out in the cold while I was jerking around in a limo with the producer. And we were making the movie! So I think if anything, I think she got a chip on her shoulder from that. Or maybe she had a thing for Ted. I know she’d come on to Teddy, and he’d chosen me instead of her.
RACHEL ARIEFF
So she’s not anti-porn?
VERONICA HART
I don’t know what she is. She certainly doesn’t want to talk about it, and she doesn’t want to get into it. I just think it’s so much more adult to say, “Yes, this is what I chose to do then. It’s not right for me now. It’s not what I do now, but yes, it is what I did then. And I was happy to do it.” I’m just really sick of all these people who were seemingly having fun, making money doing it, and then all of a sudden, turning around and saying, “I was forced to do it.” And they weren’t. It makes us all look bad, (laughter) like we’re all twits. And we all have no choice, and we’re all victims. And I’m NOT a victim.
RACHEL ARIEFF
In America’s puritanical culture, it’s so easy to scapecoat the adult industry. That’s what so many people do. It’s what “Joe the Plumber” likes to think. –How ‘bout that Sarah Palin, hey?
VERONICA HART
I think that’s great: “Nailin’ Palin”. (laughter)
RACHEL ARIEFF
What do you think about our hot new President?
VERONICA HART
Obama’s wonderful. I’m so glad. It gives me so much hope for America. I’m so thrilled and happy that for once, America hasn’t disappointed the shit out of me. After Bush getting in for two terms, I started to think, “Spain looks really good.” (laughter) And all my girlfriends – like Annie, when she traveled, she would tell people she was Canadian.
RACHEL ARIEFF
Do you think Obama’s hot?
VERONICA HART
Do I lust after him? Gee, I’ve never thought about fucking him. Isn’t that terrible?
RACHEL ARIEFF
I totally lust after him.
VERONICA HART
Really? I think he’s hot mentally. He’s like what a President should be. He should be cool, level-headed, intelligent, but a man of the people.
RACHEL ARIEFF
All this talk about “values” in American politics has made it a dirty word for me. But Obama really does communicate values.
VERONICA HART
Yeah, he doesn’t seem to be a hypocrite at all. And he never sunk to the level of all the politicians around him. And I think we’ll probably have some international standing again… I’m hoping.
We’ve premised our whole country upon the fact that everybody’s got a shot. That everybody’s equal. And that’s all been bullshit for so long. It’s been the Old Christian White Boys’ Club forever. And now it’s wonderful.
RACHEL ARIEFF
I have dreams about this President, he makes me so hot.
VERONICA HART
You know who makes me hot is Timothy. He makes me so fucking hot.
-December, 2008