Savannah was born Shannon Michelle Wilsey on October 9, 1970 and died July 11, 1994. Shes
stared in more than 100 porn moviess during her career. One of the most high-profile porn
stars of her time, she achieved notoriety within her short (1990 - 1994) career due to her
on-screen presence as well as her off-screen life.
Savannah reportedly took her stage name from Savannah Smiles, a 1982 movie she enjoyed. Her nickname among friends and costars was "Savvy". When Savannah's parents divorced in 1972, she moved to Texas to live with her mother. When she grew older, she lived briefly with her father in Oxnard, California and then with her grandparents in her hometown of Mission Viejo, California. At the age of thirteen, she learned that the man who had raised her was not her biological father. Soon afterward, Savannah began to transform into a "wild child" and became a groupie. She lived with Gregg Allman for two years (starting at the age of sixteen), became pregnant and miscarried. After breaking up with Allman, she moved in with Billy Sheehan, bassist for rock group Mr. Big. When she began working as a nude model and porn movie actress around 1990, she and Sheehan parted ways. On July 11, 1994, at about 2 in the morning, Savannah drove herself and a male friend, Jason Swing, home from a night of partying. According to reports, both were intoxicated. One block from Savannah's home, she drove her Corvette into a fence, suffering lacerations to her face and breaking her nose. When she and Jason got to her house, she sent him out to walk her Rottweiler, Daisy. Savannah called her friend and manager Nancy Pera and hysterically begged her to come help her. When Pera arrived, she found Savannah lying in a pool of blood but still breathing. She had apparently shot herself with a handgun she kept in her home. After almost 11 hours in a coma, she died at 1:20 p.m. on July 11, 1994 at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, California. After her death, her family swapped angry public statements of blame with her friends in the porn industry. Police investigators concluded that she was deeply depressed due to several factors, including her drug use, financial difficulties, and failed relationships. The accident in which she sustained injuries that might have seriously hurt her career, police theorized, was the final factor that led her to take her own life. As is the case with many figures in entertainment, Savannah's popularity further grew posthumously. According to some reports, demand for her films tripled in the months after her death. Movies Find a Sex Partner (adultfriendfinder.com) Sources: Hustler.com, Wikipedia |