Traci Lords was born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7, 1968, in Steubenville, Ohio, USA. She
made her stage name by combining the first name of her high school best friend, Traci, and
the last name of her favorite actor from Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord. At twelve she fled from
her abusive, alcoholic father to Lawndale, California with her mother and three sisters.
Later, while attending Redondo Union High School, she had an abortion and after having a
nervous breakdown, ran away from home. While living with her Mom's forty-something
ex-boyfriend who posed as her stepfather, she used a friend's birth certificate and a fake
driver's license indicating that she was twenty-two years of age to fake her way into the
porn industry at the age of fifteen, starting with Jim South's World Modeling Agency. She
quickly became one of the most popular starlets in town and is considered by many to be
one of the first porn movie queens. She was most famous for her enthusiastic sexual
performance. By the time she was 18, she'd appeared in 100 adult films. She even modeled
for widely distributed adult magazines, such as Penthouse, in the same September 1984
issue that exposed Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. But in 1986, federal authorities
discovered she was underage while making movies and they arrested her, as well as the
owners of her movie agency and X-citement Video, Inc.
The ensuing prosecution against the agencies cost the porn movie and distribution industry millions as they were obliged by law to remove hundreds of thousands of her videos, films and magazines from store shelves to avoid the risk of prosecution for trafficking child pornography. Lords herself was never charged, since as a minor she was unable to give legal consent to perform sex acts on film for money. Instead, the agents and producers who accepted her fake IDs were charged and people affiliated with the movies in question experienced legal troubles for years. Only one of her films, Traci, I Love You was actually produced after her eighteenth birthday, and is the only one of her films commonly and legally available in the United States. Since Traci retained the distribution rights to that film, there has been speculation within the industry that she engineered the revelation of her age, to channel people's purchasing to the one film which would actually make money for her. In parts of Europe and other regions where the minimum legal age for involvement in porn movies is lower, Lords' films and images in a variety of formats are still legally available. They are commonplace on the Internet, and not hard to find in the New York City area. The controversy still sparks debate. Government prosecutors declared that Traci Lords was a victim of a manipulative industry, while Lords has claimed that she was drugged and made to do things she did not want to do, but did it because she had a drug habit. But industry insiders, like Ron Jeremy and Ginger Lynn, as well as boyfriends say they never saw her use drugs and that she was fully aware of her actions even if, as a minor, she could not legally consent. While Lords decries the porn movie industry, she continues to use the stage name she gave herself as a minor. The Justice Department was forced to drop all charges when it was revealed that the fake ID which Lords had used to dupe the porn film industry was a US passport in the name of Traci Lords - the government had been duped, and any defendant would simply have been able to hide behind the government's error. Traci has since moved into mainstream films and television with some success. She has played roles in a number of B-movies. Some of her more notable films include Not of this Earth (1988), John Waters' Cry Baby (1990), and Blade (1998). Lords also appeared in continuing roles in several television series, including Married... with Children (1987), Roseanne (1988), Melrose Place (1992), and Profiler (1996), with single appearances in MacGyver (1985), Highlander (1992), Tales from the Crypt (1989), and Hercules (1995), among others. Movies Find a Sex Partner (adultfriendfinder.com) Sources: Hustler.com, Wikipedia |