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Traci Lords

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File:Traci Lords headshot.jpg
Traci Lords

Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7, 1968), also known as Traci Elizabeth Lords, is an American actress. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic films and Penthouse magazine (she was 16 years old in her first film), but has now made the transition into more mainstream acting roles.

Early life

Traci Elizabeth Lords was born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7, 1968, in Steubenville, Ohio to parents Louis and Patricia Kuzma. 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 mother's 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. Shortly after, she was modelling for widely distributed adult magazines, most notably Penthouse, in the same September 1984 issue that exposed Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. She quickly became one of the most popular starlets in town, and by now ventured into Adult movies. Her first being "What Gets Me Hot" followed by "Those Young Girls", both made in the first half of 1984. Lords' youthful appearance and enthusiastic sexual performances propelled her to stardom and she is considered by many to be one of the first porn queens. By the time she was 18, she'd appeared in 100 adult films. (According to Lords in her autobiography, however, approx. 80 of those films were composed from leftover and re-edited footage from the original 20 films that were shot.). 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. See United States v. X-Citement Video.

The ensuing prosecution against the agencies cost the pornographic film and distribution industry millions as they were obliged by law to remove hundreds of thousands of her videotapes, 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 films 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.

In parts of Europe and other regions where the minimum legal age for involvement in pornographic films is lower, Lords' films and images in a variety of formats are still legally available. In this France leads the way with a number of her 'Adult' titles available uncut on DVD. The controversy still sparks debate. Government prosecutors declared that 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, Ginger Lynn and Tom Byron, 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 pornographic film industry, she continues to use the stage name she gave herself as a minor.

Also of note is that the one film that can be legally distributed in the USA, the aforementioned "Traci, I Love You", was the one and only film produced by Lords herself, and she profited by the sale of it. Many found it interesting that the controversy breaks just after her one legal film hits the market, with her gaining the proceeds.

The Justice Department was forced to drop all charges when it was revealed that the fake ID which Lords had used to dupe the pornographic film industry was a U.S. 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.

A new beginning

Leaving her porn past behind her, Lords moved into mainstream films with success. She has played roles in a number of B-movies. At 18, Lords began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and soon after, starred in a remake of Roger Corman's cult favorite Not of this Earth. Then in 1990, Lords' mainstream career was legitimized when she was added to the cast that included Johnny Depp, Ricki Lake, and even Iggy Pop, in John Waters' Cry Baby, playing the role of Wanda Woodward. Other movies on her resume include Blade, Extramarital, Black Mask 2:City of angels, and Chump Change, the latter of which won her a Best Actress Award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

In addition to movies, Lords has also made many appearances in various TV shows, including Married... with Children, MacGyver, Highlander, Tales from the Crypt, Hercules, Gilmore Girls, and Will & Grace among others, along with recurring roles in Profiler, Roseanne, and Melrose Place. From late in 2000 to 2001, Traci Lords appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola produced sci-fi series First Wave, playing "Jordan Radcliffe", the newest member of a group called Raven Nation that combats extraterrestrial aliens.

In the 1990s, Lords began developing a career as a singer, performing vocals for Manic Street Preachers on the single "Little Baby Nothing", and also appearing in the music videos of other performers and groups. In 1995, Lords made her solo debut, in collaboration with Juno Reactor and Jesus Jones' Mike Edwards, called 1000 Fires. The album was a hit with critics and club audiences. The Juno Reactor-produced first single "Control" proved a smash, reaching a peak of #2 on the Billboard Dance Charts. "Fallen Angel", the second single off the album, earned a lot of attention because one of its remixes ("Honeymoon Stitch Mix") was produced and remixed by Chad Smith and Dave Navarro, with a strong indie and "alterna-chick" sound. The lavishly-produced video was directed by Stéphane Sednaoui, who had also directed such high-profile videos as the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away", and Madonna's "Fever". Lords' music isn't a mindless dancefloor affair; she marries highly addictive beats and sonic landscapes to personal lyrics. "Father's Field", from 1000 Fires, may be the best example, in which a very suffocating musical framework gives place to a harrowing, personal account of sexual molestation as a child. After a couple of years of musical silence, Lords returned to the music scene in 2004 with a new, independently-produced recording, the double A-side "Sunshine".

In 2003 she published her autobiography, Traci Lords: Underneath It All (ISBN 0-060-508-205), which made the New York Times bestseller list. In December, 2003, Traci wrote and directed a short film with Fox Searchlab entitled Sweet Pea, released and shown at film festivals in 2005. Loosely inspired by an experience recounted in her autobiography, it's about a teenage girl who finds herself doubting everything in her life (God, family, etc.) after being raped by her boyfriend.

Acting credits

Film

Television

Video games

Notable adult videos

Tributes

  • A punk rock band called Sloppy Seconds wrote a song called "Come back, Traci", which describes being a fan of Traci's underage appearance in pornography.
  • The Spanish punk rock band La Plaga wrote a song called Traci Lords.
  • Traci contributed vocals to the Manic Street Preachers song "Little Baby Nothing," from the Welsh group's Generation Terrorists album in 1992, and released as a single in November of that year. The song is about the sexual exploitation of a woman, and Traci agreed duet with Manics singer/lead guitarist James Dean Bradfield after Kylie Minogue turned the song down. Bradfield said that "we needed somebody, a symbol, a person that could actually symbolize the lyrics and justify them to a certain degree. Traci was more than happy to do it. She saw the lyrics, and she had an immediate affinity with them. It was definitely easy to incorporate her personality into the lyrics. We just wanted a symbol for it, and I think she was a great symbol. She sounds like a female Joey Ramone to me." Traci said that "I listened to the tape and really identified with the character in the song...this young girl who's been exploited and abused by men all her life." In an interview some years later, Traci admitted to being distressed at the news of the disappearance and presumed suicide of Manics' guitarist/lyricist Richey Edwards.
  • A German based punk/metal band is named after the actress, though the spelling of her name has been changed to "Traceelords."
  • Motley Crue wrote about her on their 1987 Girls, Girls, Girls album. The song "All In The Name Of..." doesn't name her directly, but it is based on her underage porn career.

See also

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