The Birth Of "Lovelace"

Linda Lovelace died in the month of April, 2002. Her obituary appeared in the Los Angeles Times a few days later. I had quit my job as on-set publicist at Hollywood Squares a few months earlier because I felt that I was not giving enough time and energy to my writing career. I thought that if I took a risk and went for broke (literally) the universe would see that I was serious and bring me the means to a financially stable creative career.

When I read the obituary, the first thing that struck me was how much I did not know about the life of Linda Lovelace. Of course I knew that she had starred in a 1970's adult film called "Deep Throat." After all "Deep Throat" was and continues to be the most famous porn movie of all times. What I did not know was that, after making the film, she left the world of porn and eventually wrote a scandalous bestselling book which accused her then husband Chuck Traynor of severe domestic abuse and literally told the world that she was an "unwilling victim" of pornography. The article also revealed that Linda became an avid "anti-pornography crusader" and had testified in front of the Senate on several occasions about her ordeal (in fact her first "after-porn) book is called, fittingly, "Ordeal."

All of this left me wondering what kind of universe is this where the woman who was arguably the most famous adult film actress in the world actually didn't want to even be associated with the film that made her famous? I wanted more- much more- so I found myself spending hours on Ebay buying up all of her books as well as Googling anything I could find about the confusing Miss Linda Lovelace.

Months later, armed with a plethora of information about Linda, I came to discover that she had a very sad life, a very tragic life and seemed only to be happy during the period of her fame which was short lived. She ended up cleaning office buildings, suffered from cancer and varicose veins (from the beatings that Chuck had given her, according to Linda) and died in a car crash when she was 52 years old.

Each time that I envisioned writing a feature film about Linda Lovelace I came away with the feeling that it was all just too sad. And then one morning I awoke to an idea. If I made it a musical I could inject some much needed humor by writing songs that dealt with the making of "Deep Throat." I was cognisant of the fact that I did not want to minimize her journey or her pain, only to tell a well rounded story that audiences could walk away from experiencing Linda's story without being knocked over the head with it.

I had never attempted to write a musical although I had had nine plays produced. Lyrics were not my forte but I was inspired and sat down with a pad of paper and began to write- hopefully channeling a bit of Linda in the process.