WEBVTT - Chapter 5: Savannah 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.280 Both my parents know I'm in the business, and my 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.760 mom thinks it's great because I make so much money. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.440 Savannah performer. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.759 My dad subscribed to the Playboy channel, and when I 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.840 saw her in a movie one night, she took my 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.319 breath away. I couldn't get over the fact that a 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.280 woman who was so gorgeous she seemed untouchable, would ever 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:35.320 do adult movies. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:54.040 Jenna Jamison, Welcome to Jenna World. Welcome back to Jenna World. 0:00:54.760 --> 0:01:02.120 I'm your host, Mollie Lambert. This is episode five Savannah. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:09.520 The San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, nineteen eighty seven, porn 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.880 is fully legal in America for the first time. It 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.080 no longer has to be shot secretively because it's been 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.760 ruled art protected by First Amendment free speech laws. So 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:25.680 the porn business continues to boom unstoppably, raking in an 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.800 alleged seven hundred and fifty million dollars a year. There 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:34.080 are thirty seven production companies, major and minor, across the 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.839 San Fernando Valley. Despite the hard won legality and constant 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.680 demand for new product, the Reagan era crackdown still has 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:47.200 some instant cooling effects. In nineteen eighty eight, a company 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.600 called Essex Video is busted by FEDS using these report 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:56.240 tactics that focus on interstate distribution of pornographic materials. Essex 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.160 Video has been bringing in ten million dollars a year, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.640 but it's the EO. Jeff Steinmann has been constantly harassed 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.240 by the FEDS for shipping porn movies like Flesh Dance 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.920 and I Want to Be Teased across state lines from 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.640 California to Tennessee, where porn is still restricted. All the 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.720 money Essex Video put into extravagant production costs didn't stop 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.800 some of its films from flopping anyway. Legal fees from 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.639 defending themselves against me's influenced obscenity suits have drained their 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:30.360 coffers and essex Video goes bankrupt. Jeff Steinmann keeps emphasizing 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.200 that essex is a film distribution company, not a studio. 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:37.359 I don't make movies. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.560 Essex Video was never a production company. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.079 Jeff Steinmann Essex Video. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.040 Jeff Steinman has also just bought a five bedroom, five 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.079 bathroom mansion for almost one million dollars in Santa Clarita's 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.600 Canyon Country neighborhood. Worried that they wouldn't sell it to 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.560 a porn maven. He lied to the former owners that 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.320 he was rich off of construction business. The deal for 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.200 the mansion has just closed. When essex video goes belly 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.360 up within the adult industry, folks start to worry that 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:17.799 the porn market is becoming oversaturated with content. Adult videotapes 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.120 are becoming less valuable because there are so many studios 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.440 making them cheaply. Now there are also people making pornography 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.440 who truly don't care if the content is any good 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.440 at all. They are just trying to constantly flood the 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:37.200 market with new product. Meet Mark Curtis of Video Exclusives. 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.680 My mother used to tell me all women are whores 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:50.600 and sluts, and she was wry. Mark Curtis Video Exclusives. 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.480 Mark Curtis aka Mark Carrier is a guy from Alabama 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.280 who starts a mail order VHS company in nineteen eighty 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.960 that becomes Video Exclusives, which moves into the Valley neighborhood 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.640 of Canoga Park. Video Exclusives cuts script lengths and shooting 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.520 times in half, shooting scenes fast and dirty at single locations. 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.040 I came up with the idea that instead of shooting 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.159 over two or three days, you could just do it 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.960 in one day, and instead of a thirty page script, 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.560 you'd use a fifteen page script. And if you don't 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.520 move to different locations, well, you know that cuts costs tremendously. 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.200 By nineteen ninety one, Curtis's sales figures have risen from 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.359 three million to thirty million dollars a year. He invests 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.120 the profits back into a West Valley sound stage with 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.080 sets for standard porn setups like a hospital, as well 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.080 as a styrofoam ice cave. Mark Curtis buys a Bentley, 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.159 a Porsche, a Ferrari, and a vintage Corvette. He is 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.400 hated within the porn industry for his cost cutting techniques, 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.559 which he compares to Japanese car makers undercutting American ones 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.840 with cheaper, better cars. While his pornos are cheaper, they 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.800 are definitely not better. Flooding the market with shitty but 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.840 plentiful content like Mark Curtis is doing, is making the 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.239 value of all porn content go down. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.640 I'm always looking to cut corners to cut people out 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:19.320 of the picture. 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.719 When the technology is brand new, porn videotapes go for 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.600 as much as one hundred dollars a pop. By the 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.440 late eighties, products like Video Exclusives tapes sell for five bucks. 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.240 Mark Curtis is also obsessed with building the perfect girl 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:42.440 to fit his own sexual fantasy. Video Exclusives hires contract 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.000 girls like an Australian blonde named Kelly Blue, and pays 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.400 for them to have plastic surgery like nose jobs and 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.360 breast enlargements. He also pays for professional makeup for his 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.560 girlfriends even when they're not on set. People joke about 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:57.920 the girls that Mark built. 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.880 We make the stars instead of waiting on them to 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:05.920 come to us. 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.680 The IRS starts keeping an eye on Mark Curtis, and 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.200 in nineteen ninety one they bust him for misreporting his 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.800 income to evade taxes. Whenever customers pay for their tapes 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.400 in cash, Video Exclusives has been putting that cash into 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.880 a secret safe and not reporting that money to the government. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.160 Right now, isn't a real good time for these people, 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.240 Sergeant Donald Smith LAPD. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.560 By the late eighties, thirty of the San Fernando Valley's 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.719 foremost adult companies have been searched by the Los Angeles 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.919 Police Department and the FBI. The FEDS are specifically going 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:51.320 to more conservative states and filing obscenity charges against pornographers 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.800 in California, a practice called venue shopping. Hoping to rile 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.560 up the folks in red states against adult films, The 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.360 film companies get lawyers to fight back against the onslaught 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.880 of new lawsuits. In nineteen eighty nine, undercover fed set 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.880 up a fake video store in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.960 Feds order porn tapes for the fake video store from 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.600 Calvista Video and Van Nis. They receive four films on 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:24.520 vhs Backdoor, Lust, Awesome, Sorority Pink, and Sorority Pink Too. 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.520 Then they try the pornographers on obscenity charges in Oklahoma, 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.239 assuming the venue shopping will help get them a conviction 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:37.160 from a more culturally conservative jury than in California. Instead, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.560 they get a hung jury who can't decide if the 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.200 tapes are obscene. Sydney Nikerk of Calvista is threatened with 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.080 a two million dollar fine for shipping pornographic materials to Oklahoma. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.840 He gets off with one hundred thousand dollars fine after 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.960 promising to shut down Calvista and its subsidiaries. He doesn't 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.840 have the one hundred thousand dollars left after being bankrupted 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.760 by legal fees. The Mese reports suggested tactics are working. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.760 Golden Age porn stars like Nina Hartley and Ron Jeremy 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.480 see this as a conservative pushback against the sexual revolution. 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.160 It's a lot safer than a woman who abstains a 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.720 month than gets so desperate she goes out to a 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.720 bar and picks up a guy. Life is a risk, 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:24.680 Nina Hartley, performer. 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.680 Part of my defense is it's a very honest business. 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.760 It's exactly what it is. I don't have a problem 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.720 with the Lord above, who do I hurt. I do 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.120 the same thing you do, except I do it on film. 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:41.679 Ron Jeremy, performer. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.120 As the Reagan era tries to put porn back in 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:51.640 the VHS box, the HIV retrovirus that Reagan refuses to 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.520 acknowledge is also tearing through the adult industry. John Holmes, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.640 who returns to performing in the eighties and continues to 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.640 struggle with drug addiction, contracts HIV in nineteen eighty six. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.040 Holmes then shoots two movies in Italy without telling producers 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.840 or co stars about his HIV status while shooting unprotected 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.800 sex scenes. Holmes continues to claim his health issues are 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.760 colon cancer until nineteen eighty seven, when he finally tells 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.360 friends he has AIDS before dying from complications in nineteen 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.520 eighty eight at the age of forty six. Two of 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.640 seventy's porn's biggest stars, John Holmes and Linda Lovelace from 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.960 Deep Throat, are held up as cautionary tales against the 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.760 idea that porn can ever be ethical or safe for participants. 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.800 After several HIV scares, the porn industry starts to require 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:47.840 monthly STD and AIDS tests from performers. A former adult 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.400 performer named Sharon Mitchell starts a nonprofit called Adult Industry 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:56.320 Medical Healthcare Foundation to oversee STD testing. Mitchell has a 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:00.480 PhD in sexology from an unaccredited facility in Sanvardzion that 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.240 is not recognized by any university or college. She acted 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.640 in a thousand adult movies directed twenty and appears briefly 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.920 in The Deer Hunter and Tutsie. The model for STD 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:17.040 testing in the porn community originated from another West Coast tradition, communes. 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.920 Because of the free love aspect of communes, group BESTD 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.800 testing was first practiced in communes like Resniche Peram. The 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.320 Oregon Commune founded by Osho, as well as the Morehouse 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:34.559 Commune in Lafayette, California, and the Korista Commune, a polyamorous 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.360 intentional community founded by a World War Two veteran named 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:42.719 John bro Jed Presmont after he heard voices telling him 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.200 that he was the founder of the world's next great religion. 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.680 Koristans formed fidelitous groups called b f I c's Best 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:56.120 Friend identity clusters rotating sleep arrangements. There was some political 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.040 friction at Kurista when bro Jed turned out to be 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:03.840 pro war in the Vietnam era, the adult industry comes 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:08.640 together to debate mandatory condom use. Some think requiring condoms 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.280 will ruin the fantasy that porn sells of raw spontaneous sex. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.440 Others think it's not worth the risk of shooting without them. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.920 Everyone has to grapple with the new reality. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.200 I'm hoping that the talent will band together and look 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.040 out for themselves and each other. 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:28.679 I don't think we've ever had a better. 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:33.319 Idea Shane performer and a head of Shane Enterprises. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.440 By incorporating these things, we're making a statement to the public, like, hey, 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.880 it's okay to use condoms. I think it's good for everybody. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.640 Deanna Lauren Vivid Video Contract Girl. 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.000 While adult tapes led the way into the video rental revolution, 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.560 they are no longer the top sellers. Some think the 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.559 novelty of easily being able to watch people have sex 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.640 has simply worn off. Maybe it's the influx of amateur 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.800 sex tape shot on home camquarders. It's possible the porn 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.880 industry has flooded the market with too much easily available content, 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:17.120 and now nothing is appointment viewing. There's also increasing globalization. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.480 You can now watch porn made all over the world. 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.040 Between nineteen eighty eight and nineteen eighty nine, porn tape 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:31.520 rental numbers start dropping. In nineteen ninety eight, Ginger Lin 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.200 Allen is indicted for two counts of tax fraud, probably 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.400 direct retaliation from the FEDS for her refusal to testify 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.240 in the Tracy Lord's Fake ID case. Two years earlier, 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.680 Charlie Sheen and his father, Martin Sheen, write a letter 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.400 to the judge asking for leniency in the case. Ginger's 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.000 defense includes a psychologist who brings up her traumatic childhood 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.479 and calls her need for sexual validation from men pathological, 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:02.240 which I don't know that there's any other kind. After 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.600 a week long trial, Ginger Lynn Allen is convicted on 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.640 one count of tax fraud for failing to disclose a 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.520 measly eight thousand, five hundred and eighty dollars to the 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.480 United States government that she made in nineteen eighty three 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.760 during her first few months in porn. In nineteen ninety one, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.040 she's making thirty thousand dollars a year stripping and a 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.040 measly twenty five thousand dollars a year from mainstream acting, 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.120 much less than she got paid to perform for Vivid. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.080 She stars in Vice Academy three and asks for ten 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.400 thousand dollars and a personal trailer, but she shows up 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.200 late and hungover to set and then fucks up her lines. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.839 In nineteen ninety two, she fails a court ordered drug 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.560 test and is sentenced to forty five days in rehab. 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.280 I love sex, and I love sex with rockets is 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:01.560 more than anything else. 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.640 But even with dark clouds gathering over the San Fernando Valley, 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:12.600 a new starlet arrives to shine brightly in the pornographic firmament. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.720 She's a rocker bad girl for the new decade. The 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:22.480 nineteen nineties She's platinum blonde with blunt betty page bangs, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.200 poudy lips, and a penchant for dating famous rock stars 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.880 and comedians. She has dark clouds inside of herself too, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.080 and the media loves to watch a beautiful woman self destruct. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:50.000 Her stage name is Savannah the Future. Savannah is born 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.440 as Shannon Michelle Wilseie in Hawthorne, California, in nineteen seventy 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:59.680 on October ninth, an apple cheeked, dirty blonde libra. Her 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.160 mother is Pamela, a seventeen year old teenage runaway who 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.680 meets her father, eighteen year old postal clerk Michael Wilsey. 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.560 Her parents are hippies who meet in nineteen sixty nine 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.480 and have a whirlwind romance that ends after the birth 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.800 of their daughter. According to pam when the child is born, 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.160 Mike Wilsey says he wanted a boy and that he 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.360 doesn't believe he's the father. Nevertheless, Pamela and Mike Wilsey 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.680 get married when Shannon is eighteen months old and split 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.320 up three months later. Pamela moves to Justin, Texas with 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.520 Shannon and gets a job at a grocery store. She 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.240 marries a clerk at the store named Joe Longoria, who 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.640 has four kids from his first marriage. Shannon, a toddler, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.560 is told by her mom that Joe Longoria is her father, 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.240 but she's never formally adopted because Mike Wilsey won't agree 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:53.360 to it. Ham and Joe have three more children, for 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.800 a grand total of eight kids, and Shannon figures out 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.160 how to get some attention in her big family by dancing. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.200 I listened to a lot of music, and she did too, 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.760 and danced all the time when the music was on 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:10.840 Pam Wilsey. 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.240 The family moves to Haltam City, Texas, and Shannon attends 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.720 grade school. Her teachers say she was cute, well liked 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:24.120 by classmates, and an a student. By age twelve, Shannon 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.760 is telling everyone she's going to move to Hollywood and 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.960 become a movie star. At thirteen, she's told she can't 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.640 enroll in middle school as Shannon Longoria because she's not 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.520 really a Longoria. This is how Shannon finds out that 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.640 the man she thinks is her dad is really her stepdad. 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.640 This upsets her entire worldview. Her personality changes from a 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.840 bubbly child to an angry teenager. She starts talking back 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.600 to her stepfather, skipping school, smoking pot, and climbing out 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.040 of her bedroom window at night. Pam Wilsey decides to 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.200 ship her daughter off to Mission via Ho, California, to 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.359 live with her great grandparents and uncle, a guy named 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:10.119 Mike Winnitt. Mike Winnett becomes Shannon's legal guardian, but she 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.879 finds trouble there too and gets sent back to Texas. 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.680 She's moved around between homes in Texas and California, where 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:23.199 she experiences a traumatic sexual assault. At age sixteen, she 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:27.000 moves in with her birth father, Mike Wilsey, in Ventura, California, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.440 but he too has other kids and Shannon once again 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.840 gets lost in the shuffle. She goes back to her 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:37.119 uncles again and confesses to him about how she was molested. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.359 Her mother steadfastly denies that Shannon was sexually assaulted, possibly 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.920 because it was by somebody close to the family. Then, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.280 at thirteen, she goes back to her mom in Texas 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.800 until she's allegedly found on her stepfather's lap, then back 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.879 to Mission via Ho, where she becomes a high school cheerleader. 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.359 She starts dressing provocatively and asks her uncle to walk 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.680 six feet behind her She is sixteen years old when 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.600 she meets Greg Alman of the Almon Brothers outside his 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.240 tour bus at a hotel in San Juan Capistrano. He 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.600 is forty years old. She asks him on a date 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.520 to a club called the Coach House. He even meets 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.640 her uncle, says he plans to take good care of Shannon, 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:23.320 and then offers him coke. 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:29.040 I was like, well, you know, it's cocaine. It's not 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:36.640 that bad. It's okay, And then we all did some cocaine. Ah, 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.119 Mike win it. Savannah's uncle. 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.679 Uncle Mike says in retrospect he was not doing a 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.680 good job parenting his niece. Next thing, Uncle Mike knows 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.720 he's receiving a phone call from his niece with some news. 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:55.240 I'm on the road with Greg Almon. 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.520 Shannon Willseye drops out of high school to joined Greg 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.560 Alman on tour from nineteen eighty six to nineteen eighty eight. 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:06.560 Now you know, I'd love to do five hours of 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:08.879 stuff just about Almond Brother's band lore, but I have 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.040 to keep it moving. So here are the bullet points. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.000 Greg Almond snitched on his friend during a coke bust 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.040 in the seventies and the rest of the Almond Brothers 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.399 band stopped talking to him afterwards. He was married to 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.080 Share for nine days until he pulled a knife on 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.640 her on their honeymoon in Jamaica. When All Men meets Shannon, 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.320 he is at the peak of his alcoholism, drinking a 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.439 fifth of vodka a day. Greg Alman allegedly introduces his 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:38.280 underage girlfriend to hard drugs, including heroin. Shannon gets an 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:44.080 ankle tattoo that says Greg in all caps, she liked the. 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.119 Fact that he bought her expensive things that we never could. 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.639 Isolated in Greg Alman's luxury high rise apartment in Nashville 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.560 or on the bus with the band, Shannon starts to 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:01.000 yearn for her old teenage life. Greg dumps her when 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.720 she turns eighteen, and she moves back in with her uncle. 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.840 Shannon realizes she's pregnant with Greg Alman's child, then has 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.520 a miscarriage. She moves back in with her father, Mike Wilsee, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.960 and Ventura and tries to return to a normal California 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.600 teenage girl's life. She goes to the beach, gets a 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.480 job at a clothing store, and works on getting her ged. 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.919 At night school, she subscribes to Guitar Player magazine and 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.640 puts posters of her favorite rock stars on her wall 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:30.160 at home. 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:36.119 My favorite thing in my little life is rock and roll. 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.399 My ambition is to marry rock star. 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:47.040 When Jenna World returns, Shannon Wilsey moves to La and 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:59.320 becomes Savannah Oh my Gosh, Welcome back to Jenna World. 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.800 After being a rock star's girlfriend on the road, Shannon 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.800 gets easily bored in the small beach town and starts 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.840 seeking out local thrills, strolling the strand in song bikinis 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.159 and dyeing her hair platinum blonde. She enters a local 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.440 bikini contest in Ventura. At the bikini contest, she meets 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:29.000 Racal Darien, a penthouse pet, who wins. Shannon comes in 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:33.600 third place and throws a fit. She meets a photographer 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.679 there who takes her first topless shots and becomes her 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.840 next boyfriend. She steals his prescriptions and passes out on 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:46.320 his couch. She starts trawling LA's rock clubs with her friends, 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.840 dressing sexy and trying to get backstage passes from Rhodie's. 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.679 She goes to every show at the Ventura Theater. A 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:00.520 musician named Billy Sheehan spots Shannon from the stage. She 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.720 Hann is a road dog bassist who's toured with Post 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.119 Van Halen, David Lee Roth. He's now in the band 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.240 Mister Big, who are about to tour with Rush. They 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:12.159 have sex. 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:19.120 Babe, you're a fucking star, Billy she head musician. 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.760 Shannon decides to pursue acting and gets cast in some 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.600 B movies. She shacks up with Billy Sheehan in La 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.920 and speeds around town in his red Corvette while he's 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.960 on tour. She seems to have no fear behind the wheel, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.080 even after she gets charged with drunk driving and placed 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.040 on probation. A few weeks after her night in jail 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:50.560 for drunk driving, she totals the corvette. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.639 I need an a to graduate, and I'd be willing 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:54.480 to do anything. 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.440 She gets her first speaking role in a movie called 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:04.320 The Invisible Maniac, where she's credited as Shannon Wilsee. Although 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.960 it's a slasher comedy, she is mortified at the movie's 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.440 August nineteen ninety premiere when the audience keeps laughing at 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:15.160 her lines. She feels like they're laughing not just at 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.800 her character Vicky, but laughing at her personally in her acting. 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:25.240 Feeling ridiculed, she decides to give up on pursuing mainstream acting. 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:28.840 She sends a love letter to Greg Allman with a 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.840 picture of herself that's returned to her by another woman. 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:36.840 Out of acting work and low on money, Shannon decides 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:39.959 to do nude modeling and shoots with her photographer X. 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:44.400 She and Billy Shehan reconnected to Denny's after the rush tour. 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.160 Sheehan dumps Shannon when he sees her on the cover 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.880 of an adult magazine giving a blowjob. She goes out 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:55.560 on the Sunset Strip that night and picks up allegedly 0:23:56.200 --> 0:24:01.000 Billy Idle. Ready to fully jump into doing porn, she 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:03.560 gets booked to do her first scene with Raquel Darien 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:06.640 under the name silver Kine and shows up to set 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.960 two hours late. She demands somebody find her some heroine, 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:15.720 and when nobody obliges, she settles for five volumes. She 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:18.520 is so wooden that the production has to loop in 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:24.119 sex noises. She isn't very interested in movies or even sex, 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:28.119 but she has one goal. She wants to be a star. 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:34.199 Shannon Wilsey signs a contract with Video Exclusives The Shitty 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.160 Low budget porn company run by Mark Curtis. The contract 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:40.560 is for twenty five movies at two hundred and fifty 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:45.320 bucks a scene doubled for box covers. Shannon takes her 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:49.040 stage name Savannah from a nineteen eighty two family comedy 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.840 called Savannah Smiles, based on John Renoir's La Grande Delusion, 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:55.240 about a six year old girl who runs away from 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:58.800 her rich father with the help of two escaped convicts. 0:24:59.520 --> 0:25:02.480 Men have telling Shannon she's beautiful enough to be a 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:07.399 movie star. Her whole life. Now a Savannah, she will 0:25:09.119 --> 0:25:12.440 video exclusives, buys her a Mustang and rents her a cheap, 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:16.320 shitty apartment in Hollywood. She dubs her new place the 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:20.919 hell Hole and leaves it unfurnished. Savannah thinks her boobs 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:24.200 are too small for porn, referring to them as tater tots, 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:29.480 so Mark Curtis, builder of dream Girls, arranges for her 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:32.439 to get decup saline implants from a plastic surgeon in 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:36.240 Beverly Hills. She also gets hooked up with a crooked 0:25:36.359 --> 0:25:41.359 dentist who prescribes her unlimited percocets. She moves into a 0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:44.720 nice place in the hills of Universal City, overlooking the 0:25:44.760 --> 0:25:49.200 San Fernando Valley. The new place is furnished with black 0:25:49.280 --> 0:25:53.000 leather couches, a walk through closet, and a glass coffee table. 0:25:53.840 --> 0:25:57.680 On the walls, Savannah hangs beautiful, glossy pin up pictures 0:25:57.680 --> 0:26:03.840 of herself naked. In nineteen ninety one, Savannah's contract with 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:07.919 Video Exclusives ends, she moves up in the porn world, 0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:12.159 joining the more prestigious ranks of the Vivid Girls. By 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:15.240 the early nineties, Vivid Video is signing six Vivid Girls 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:18.000 a year, who each make movies that are budgeted at 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:22.160 one hundred thousand dollars. As a Vivid Girl, Savannah gets 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:25.359 to work less for more money. She only has to 0:26:25.400 --> 0:26:29.400 do eight movies for Vivid each year. Just as they 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:32.919 built the Ginger series around Ginger Lynn Allen and the 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.919 Brat series around Jamie Summers, Vivid Video builds a film 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:41.560 franchise around Savannah called On Trial. Directed by Paul Thomas. 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:45.520 On Trial is a four part series about a porn 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:48.879 star obscenity trial that cashes in on the popularity of 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:53.240 the new cable TV channel Court TV, which broadcasts trials 0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:57.719 live from the courtroom. While Savannah doesn't like to work. 0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:00.320 She does like the acting part of her job. 0:27:02.280 --> 0:27:05.160 Do you think I should like make my voice catch 0:27:05.440 --> 0:27:06.399 right as I'm saying this? 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:12.359 Having instant access to a lot of money is not 0:27:12.560 --> 0:27:17.080 great for Savannah's impulse control. She spends her contract earnings 0:27:17.080 --> 0:27:21.800 compulsively on designer clothing, drugs, fancy food from the william 0:27:21.880 --> 0:27:25.480