Speaker 1: Everyone watches poor No and if they say they don't,
Speaker 1: their motherfucking liars.
Speaker 2: Kid Rock. I do porno because that's what makes me happy.
Speaker 2: I fuck all day, I get money. I love what
Speaker 2: I'm doing. There is something wrong with that, Faco sa
Speaker 2: Frede performer.
Speaker 3: People often say that the world would be so much
Speaker 3: better if it were run by women, But women have
Speaker 3: as many faults as men. Their faults are just different.
Speaker 3: So the truth is that the world would not be better
Speaker 3: if it were run by a woman. It would be
Speaker 3: better if it were run by the right woman. Jenna Jamison,
Speaker 3: Welcome to Jeno World.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this so good.
Speaker 4: What does pornography reveal about the American sexual psyche? Critics
Speaker 4: say that porn degrades and disposes of its workers, So
Speaker 4: what's the difference between that and any other job? And
Speaker 4: what are we to make of performers who transcended their
Speaker 4: alleged disposability and created profitable brands around their screen personas,
Speaker 4: like the porn star Jenna Jamison did in the nineties
Speaker 4: and two thousands when she made herself into a brand
Speaker 4: and became queen of all media. But also, why should
Speaker 4: anyone have to become a brand? Just to survive in America?
Speaker 4: Why would anyone want to be famous? And then why
Speaker 4: would everyone want to be famous? How did a parasocial
Speaker 4: connection with a voyeuristic audience become mandatory for everyone with
Speaker 4: the advent of social media? How do we maintain autonomy
Speaker 4: in the attention economy? And why is the right wing
Speaker 4: actively trying to make pornography illegal again? How can I
Speaker 4: nut ethically? Welcome to Jena World Jenna Jamison Vivid Video
Speaker 4: in the Valley. I'm your host, Molly Lambert. You may
Speaker 4: remember me from Heidi World, the Heidi Flyfe Story and
Speaker 4: the Secret History of LA. This time, I'll be your
Speaker 4: tour guide for Genal World, a narrative nonfiction podcast about
Speaker 4: the history of the adult film industry, telling the story
Speaker 4: of porn superstar Jenna Jamison and a cavalcade of the
Speaker 4: people who make up the colorful world of X rated films.
Speaker 4: It's the crazy saga of the rise, fall, and rebirth
Speaker 4: of the adult film industry. It has sex, drugs, art,
Speaker 4: lots and lots of money, rock and roll, filmmaking, TV,
Speaker 4: Howard Stern, the Internet, family, and even.
Speaker 5: Love, love, sex love, sex, love, sex, love, sex, love,
Speaker 5: sex love sex.
Speaker 4: In the nineteen seventies, eighties, and early nineties, mainstream media
Speaker 4: used the tragic stories of several adult film stars to
Speaker 4: paint the porn industry as an inherently bad workplace that
Speaker 4: degrades women and leads its performers into addiction and an
Speaker 4: early grave. In the nineties, adult actress Jenna Jamison crossed
Speaker 4: over into mainstream pop culture and helped to normalize making
Speaker 4: porn as just another occupation. During her two thousands media peak,
Speaker 4: Jenna helped popularize the radical idea that sex work is
Speaker 4: a real job, requiring safe work conditions and fair wages.
Speaker 4: The idea that women are sexual beings who aren't degraded
Speaker 4: by sex on or off camera remains controversial. After being
Speaker 4: legalized in the nineteen seventies, porn is now under attack
Speaker 4: on multiple fronts. There are the conservatives who want to
Speaker 4: ban porn entirely with Project twenty twenty five and began
Speaker 4: a new era of sexual repression. There's also the nightmarish
Speaker 4: rise of AI porn, which aims to cut out adult
Speaker 4: performers entirely while simultaneously exploiting their images to train visual
Speaker 4: models and promote deeply unethical stuff like face swapping filters.
Speaker 4: And there's the puritanical way online platforms like TikTok and
Speaker 4: Instagram use sexually suggestive content to lure in viewers while
Speaker 4: punishing and banning actual sex workers from selling and promoting
Speaker 4: their content online. Whatever you think about porn, its continued
Speaker 4: legal existence is vital to American freedom of speech. It
Speaker 4: is imperative that sexual content remains protected under the law.
Speaker 6: Sex isn't something men do to you. It isn't something
Speaker 6: men get out of you. Sex is something you can
Speaker 6: dive into with Gusto and like it every bit as
Speaker 6: much as he does. Nina Hartley.
Speaker 4: Performer Jenna Jamison combined her talent at performing on screen,
Speaker 4: skill for marketing herself, an ability to speak up smartly
Speaker 4: for sex workers during what would turn out to be
Speaker 4: porn's last financial golden era. If she managed to make
Speaker 4: both art and money from an industry that is deeply
Speaker 4: corrupt and set up to exploit artists, well, that just
Speaker 4: makes her a woman in film.
Speaker 3: I'm a powerful woman. I think that's intimidating to a
Speaker 3: man on every level. That's why I always go out
Speaker 3: of my way to be ultra nice and ultra sweet
Speaker 3: and COI because it makes people feel comfortable, and I
Speaker 3: want people to feel comfortable around me before I put
Speaker 3: them in a headlock.
Speaker 4: This is a story about the American dream at the
Speaker 4: end of the twentieth century and the collapse of the
Speaker 4: American Empire at the turn of the twenty first. It's
Speaker 4: about one woman's self directed rise to power in an
Speaker 4: industry that was unknowingly experiencing its final rise to one
Speaker 4: last big climax of profit. It's about the people who
Speaker 4: make adult films and the place they once made them,
Speaker 4: LA's San Fernando Valley Suburbs. This is an American fable
Speaker 4: about money, love, sex, and familia. People seem to forget
Speaker 4: that adult performers are actors playing roles, and because there's
Speaker 4: now so little depiction of sex and mainstream American media,
Speaker 4: Horn takes on the load, so to speak, of representing
Speaker 4: all sex and intimacy, which it was never meant to do.
Speaker 4: Porn depicts sexual fantasies about power and control, and what
Speaker 4: people like to watch doesn't necessarily correlate to what they
Speaker 4: like in real life. Oh my god, honey, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of fear mongering that easy access to porn sexually
Speaker 4: dead ends its viewers, but nobody gives viewers credit for
Speaker 4: being able to differentiate media from real life. Consuming sexual
Speaker 4: images cannot be compared to, nor will it ever replace,
Speaker 4: the human experience of touching a real person's body. Is
Speaker 4: porn really the reason idealized images of beauty are becoming
Speaker 4: ever more unreachable? Or is porn just an easy target
Speaker 4: to deflect away from larger issues of how the human
Speaker 4: image can be visually idealized into an imaginary fantasy, a
Speaker 4: tradition that goes all through art history. I'm just asking questions,
Speaker 4: much like Joe Rogan, who will show up here later on.
Speaker 3: We get paid more than the men we call the shots.
Speaker 3: We say who we want to work with. In what
Speaker 3: way is that degrading? That's us taking hold of our
Speaker 3: life life.
Speaker 4: The history of porn is also about shifting media format.
Speaker 4: As a medium, porn is always changing to fit new
Speaker 4: technology and always slightly ahead of mainstream media. Paul Thomas
Speaker 4: Anderson's Boogie Nights covered the eighties shift from film to video,
Speaker 4: when porn moved from theaters into homes with VHS players.
Speaker 4: Porn had its own studio system, which began in the
Speaker 4: seventies peaked with DVDs in the early two thousands and
Speaker 4: collapsed as streaming online content to hold just ahead of
Speaker 4: the mainstream Hollywood studio system collapsing into streaming. Jenna Jamison
Speaker 4: bridged the gap between the old age of print magazines, videotapes,
Speaker 4: and DVDs and the new era of websites, social media,
Speaker 4: and streams. During her reign as the of porn she
Speaker 4: epitomized the perks and pitfalls of selling your personality and
Speaker 4: physical image for profit. Where being camera ready was once
Speaker 4: reserved for professional performers, now everybody knows how to perform
Speaker 4: when a camera is on, and a camera is almost
Speaker 4: always on. Your porn has always reflected American culture back
Speaker 4: to itself. It's possible to consume media and not agree
Speaker 4: with its politics or take them on. I call this
Speaker 4: the top Gun theory. Watching Top Gun doesn't mean you
Speaker 4: suddenly endorse the US military or that you believe Tom
Speaker 4: Cruise is an ace military pilot in real life. For
Speaker 4: some reason, we seem to know that movies like Top
Speaker 4: Gun are just movies, that they're fantasies. But when it
Speaker 4: comes to porn, there's some kind of slipperiness. The nineties
Speaker 4: also saw the popularization of third wave feminism, which embraced
Speaker 4: an idea that women could use sexual allure as part
Speaker 4: of their self concept of power. I did not anticipate
Speaker 4: that the feminists rise to power in the bedroom and
Speaker 4: boardroom by postmodern girl boss media stars like Madonna and
Speaker 4: Jenna Jamison would be followed by decades of sexist backlash.
Speaker 4: In real life, desire and beauty are deeply subjective and individualized.
Speaker 4: If everybody was only attracted to one media ideal of beauty,
Speaker 4: it would be eugenics. I don't think we're going to
Speaker 4: completely eradicate unreachable beauty ideals, which span from the Venus
Speaker 4: of Willendorf to big titty hentai Ai. But I do
Speaker 4: think we've lost the plot when it comes to media
Speaker 4: literacy and knowing that the images on screen are false fantasies.
Speaker 4: We need to move past the seductive perfection of idealized
Speaker 4: images into the messiness of real attraction, intimacy, and the
Speaker 4: soft fallibility of human bodies. Making horny movies like any
Speaker 4: job can be done fairly or in a way that
Speaker 4: explodes it's its workers. Growing up in the Valley, I've
Speaker 4: always been interested in porn as a low budget secondary
Speaker 4: film industry that went from a legal too autorist cranking
Speaker 4: out films that briefly made more money than Hollywood's despite
Speaker 4: most people being too embarrassed to admit they watch.
Speaker 3: The best sex takes place in the mind first.
Speaker 4: For a young, beautiful woman, the possibilities seem endless. You
Speaker 4: can try cashing in on your youth and beauty, but
Speaker 4: you will run out of collateral and need other skills
Speaker 4: to fall back on. Eventually, you might make a lot
Speaker 4: of money if you're smart, lucky, and cash out at
Speaker 4: the right time, but there's also a high chance you'll
Speaker 4: lose it all to the house, which almost always wins.
Speaker 4: If you're not careful. You might also get caught up
Speaker 4: in the high rollers' lifestyle, addicted to spending money and
Speaker 4: gambling with your life in an endless party that leaves
Speaker 4: you feeling empty inside. You could even start to lose
Speaker 4: your own sense of self to the perfect image up
Speaker 4: on the screen.
Speaker 3: In this business, you get to see all the double
Speaker 3: standards that women are held to in society, and it
Speaker 3: is important to keep from perpetuating them. One way is
Speaker 3: by refusing to allow anyone to disrespect you.
Speaker 4: So what do you do if you're a young woman
Speaker 4: who exactly fits the beauty standards of your era as
Speaker 4: a skinny, white blonde with big boobs, and you want
Speaker 4: to become independent from your family and escape medical debt
Speaker 4: induced poverty. Working against you is the limited timeline afforded
Speaker 4: women who become valued as sex symbols by heterosexual men,
Speaker 4: as well as possibilities. You might burn out from overwork,
Speaker 4: only climb up halfway, or fall off entirely. If you're
Speaker 4: Jenna Jamison, you spin the Roulette wheel of faith.
Speaker 7: I remember Jenna. You know she was so beautiful. I
Speaker 7: was pretty overwhelmed. I knew that Jenna was going to
Speaker 7: be a heartbreaker right away. Larry Mizzoli, Jenna's father.
Speaker 3: I miss my mother more than I can express.
Speaker 4: Jenna Marie Mizzoli is born on April ninth, nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 4: in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Aires. Her mother is a
Speaker 4: showgirl and her daddy is a cop. This is how
Speaker 4: Jenna's parents met and fell in love. Lawrence Larry Mizzoli
Speaker 4: is born in San Joaquin County, California, in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 4: His mother, Wanna Lee Dilbeck, Missoli is an Oklahoman whose family,
Speaker 4: the Dilbecks, goes back to the British colonists. His father,
Speaker 4: Henry Lawrence Massoli, is the son of Italians who immigrated
Speaker 4: to San Francisco's Little Italy. The Missoli's claim of family
Speaker 4: connection to Italian American nineteen fifties baseball star Joe DiMaggio,
Speaker 4: allegedly Jenna's grandfather's second cousin, Jolton. Joe DiMaggio gained his
Speaker 4: fame as a New York Yankee, but he was born
Speaker 4: Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio in Martinez, California, to Sicilian immigrants delivered
Speaker 4: into a family dynasty of fishermen. I couldn't verify the
Speaker 4: Massoli DiMaggio connection, but I do believe all the Italians
Speaker 4: living in northern California at that time made a nice
Speaker 4: sacchi a pio. After high school, Larry Massoli joins the military,
Speaker 4: gets sent to Vietnam, and becomes a cold blooded mass murderer.
Speaker 4: The United States government then asks him to go to
Speaker 4: the Congo as part of a CIA program to trade
Speaker 4: counter insurgents during the Simba Rebellion.
Speaker 7: It's interesting because when you first go over there, you know,
Speaker 7: you try to be so righteous. And I grew up
Speaker 7: with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, and they never shot
Speaker 7: anyone in the back, you know, his white hats against
Speaker 7: the black hats, and yet to do everything fair. While
Speaker 7: I found out and war the best way to come
Speaker 7: home alive is to sneak up on people and shoot them.
Speaker 4: Larry Mossoli briefly tries to retain his humanity under the
Speaker 4: conditions of warfare, but quickly descends into killing everybody in sight,
Speaker 4: including innocent civilians. The United States government gives him its
Speaker 4: most violent toys for the massacre.
Speaker 7: I'll come up to a village and instead of going
Speaker 7: house to house, I would level the whole place. Now,
Speaker 7: I'll call in the P fifty one mustangs. We used napalm.
Speaker 7: I had a contingent of Howitz's and we went from
Speaker 7: village to village, killing them all. We just didn't care.
Speaker 7: We didn't care.
Speaker 4: Rather than war turning him to pacifism, Larry Mizzoli becomes
Speaker 4: a steward of American violence back home too, first for
Speaker 4: the Italian mafia and then as a cop. He funnels
Speaker 4: his post traumatic stress into more violence because he's too
Speaker 4: fucked up to function normally in society.
Speaker 7: I couldn't cope in the world, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 7: carry on a conversation.
Speaker 4: When jenal World returns, we'll find out how Jenna's parents
Speaker 4: met and fell in love. Oh yeah, welcome back to
Speaker 4: jenal World. Jenna's mother, Judy, is born Judith Brook Hunt
Speaker 4: in Wichita, Kansas, on April twenty second, nineteen forty one.
Speaker 4: A Taurus. Her parents are Doane Casper Hunt and Audrey E.
Speaker 4: Smith Hunt. The Hunt side of the family consists of
Speaker 4: German immigrants to the Midwest and more British colonists.
Speaker 7: There was no one else in the world for me
Speaker 7: but Judy, the only woman I ever loved. Twelve years
Speaker 7: that we were together, I didn't even look at another woman,
Speaker 7: and finding her was like a fairy tale. You read
Speaker 7: about these perfect love stories, but you never think they're
Speaker 7: going to happen to you.
Speaker 4: Larry miss Oli ends up in the biggest little city, Reno, Nevada,
Speaker 4: working a dubious job in partying. Larry's crew in Reno
Speaker 4: includes Johnny Anastasia, nephew of Umberto albert Anastasia. Albert Anastasia
Speaker 4: was a mob guy nicknamed the executioner who was instrumental
Speaker 4: in murder incorporated the mafia's contract killing branch. Larry miss
Speaker 4: Oli is also good friends with another NEPO baby of
Speaker 4: a famous man connected to the mob, Frank Sinatra Junior.
Speaker 8: The guy was drunk. He said, you're a singer. You're
Speaker 8: a Sinatra. Ain'tia? I said, if I'm standing in a
Speaker 8: garage doesn't mean I'm a car. I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 8: Here my own voice, Frank Sinai Junior.
Speaker 4: Frank Sinatra Junior has a long standing engagement at the
Speaker 4: Harris Casino in Reno. Living in the shadow of his
Speaker 4: ultra successful father provides him the publicity benefits of the
Speaker 4: Sinatra name, but with it comes the downside of having
Speaker 4: a famous workaholic father who is almost never around in
Speaker 4: an era when fathers weren't expected to do much hands
Speaker 4: on parenting anyway.
Speaker 8: At home, he was dad. He was terribly, terribly human.
Speaker 8: This is what the penalty is when you have someone
Speaker 8: that has been famous for so long, the legend starts
Speaker 8: to eclipse.
Speaker 7: The man.
Speaker 4: Nevada holds special meeting for Frank Sinatra Junior at nineteen,
Speaker 4: while trying to launch his own singing career, he was
Speaker 4: kidnapped for ransom. This finally got his dad's attention, and
Speaker 4: Frank Junior was safely handed back to Frank Senior in Reno.
Speaker 4: The media spectacle of Frank Sinatra's sons kidnapping and safe
Speaker 4: return was drowned out by a much bigger media spectacle
Speaker 4: a few days earlier, the killing of President John F.
Speaker 4: Kennedy during a motorcade in Dallas. Larry Is also budds
Speaker 4: with William F. Harra, son of rich politician and lawyer
Speaker 4: John Harra. Gambling was illegal in the state of California,
Speaker 4: so Bill Harra developed a workaround for bingo called the
Speaker 4: Reno Game. The authorities repeatedly shut Bill Harra down, but
Speaker 4: his dad would bail him out. In nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 4: Bill Harra took his Reno Game to Reno itself, where
Speaker 4: gambling had been legalized in nineteen thirty one, along with
Speaker 4: fast divorces, in an effort to create tourism there. Bill
Speaker 4: Harra became a guiding force in Nevada's casino development and
Speaker 4: gambling regulation laws. He was married six times, including a
Speaker 4: four month long marriage to country singer Bobby Gentry in
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty nine that inspired her to write Fancy, a
Speaker 4: story song about a poor teenage girl who becomes an
Speaker 4: escort to sugar daddies and remains proud of her life choices.
Speaker 4: Fancy is a huge hit for Gentry and a breakthrough
Speaker 4: women's lib song for the Old boys Club of mainstream country.
Speaker 4: Larry miss Oli, Frank Sinatra Junior, and the executioner's nephew
Speaker 4: spend their nights carousing in Reno. They often end up
Speaker 4: at Bill Harra's house, where Bill invites old stars like
Speaker 4: Mickey Rooney to hang out. They bring party girls over
Speaker 4: to Bill's place in limos chartered from the local clubs.
Speaker 4: They have their own reserved tables at every joint in town,
Speaker 4: including one called the Golden Hotel. There's always a warm
Speaker 4: seat ready for Larry. At the Golden Hotel's showgirl review
Speaker 4: the Golden Girls. One night. Among the lineup of gorgeous
Speaker 4: goals and sequins and feathers, Larry spots a new show
Speaker 4: girl with blue eyes, a deep tan, dark coal cat eyeliner,
Speaker 4: and nude frosted lips. She's a natural blonde under the
Speaker 4: black Cleopatra wig she wears for the show.
Speaker 7: From the moment I laid eyes on Judy, I knew
Speaker 7: she was the one. I mean, even though she was
Speaker 7: one of identically costume women on stage, she just radiated
Speaker 7: in comparison to everyone else. I mean, to this day,
Speaker 7: I still can't explain it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 7: I certainly wasn't expecting it. It's like what my mother
Speaker 7: used to say about being struck by lightning. Now I
Speaker 7: looked at her, she looked at me, and I went, WHOA,
Speaker 7: that was it. It was amazing. I mean, that had
Speaker 7: never happened to me in my life.
Speaker 4: Larry already has a girlfriend named Barbara, who works as
Speaker 4: a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, but he sidelines her to pursue
Speaker 4: Judy while the other show girls come out to the
Speaker 4: lobby to shoot their shot with the high rollers each
Speaker 4: night after the show. Judy is shy and always stays backstage.
Speaker 4: This only strengthens Larry's resolved to meet her. Judy already
Speaker 4: has a boyfriend too, a local bartender, but one night
Speaker 4: Larry convinces Judy to join him and his friend's roving
Speaker 4: after party. Larry tells Judy he works at a grocery store,
Speaker 4: but he sure knows a lot of celebrity's sons and
Speaker 4: other well connected people in Reno for a bag boy.
Speaker 4: Larry and his friends have a security detail of football
Speaker 4: players from the University of Nevada, and Frank Sinatra Junior
Speaker 4: has his own bodyguard on account of the kidnapping his quarterback.
Speaker 4: Bodyguard scare off Judy's boyfriend and bring back in tell
Speaker 4: that Judy is a twenty year old virgin. Judy lets
Speaker 4: Larry buy her one ice cold coke and he takes
Speaker 4: her to see his good friend Frank Sinatra Junior performing
Speaker 4: at the Reno Haas. Judy decides he is worthy of
Speaker 4: devirginizing her if he makes her an honest woman. Larry
Speaker 4: doesn't want to settle down and commit to one woman
Speaker 4: for the rest of his life quite yet, but he
Speaker 4: knows this is his one shot with Judy and he
Speaker 4: doesn't want to fuck it up up. After they consummate things,
Speaker 4: he starts weeping because he feels so close to her.
Speaker 4: He proposes shortly after, and she accepts. Now engaged, he
Speaker 4: comes clean about his real profession, hijacking trucks carrying fur
Speaker 4: coats and stereos for organized crime. She accepts this about
Speaker 4: him too.
Speaker 7: Judy was an extremely intelligent girl from which Tuk Kansas,
Speaker 7: you know, not jaded, not very worldly, but very genuine,
Speaker 7: you know, very sweet. Judy's whole thrust in life was
Speaker 7: to be a wife and mother.
Speaker 3: In the few pictures I have of my mom, she
Speaker 3: looks so beautiful, fragile and sophisticated, like a swinging London model.
Speaker 4: Showgirls are sexual fantasies made it to commerce. Semi nude
Speaker 4: erotic dancers originate in Paris at clubs like the original
Speaker 4: Follies Burgeire and the Moulin Rouge, while burlesque dancers have
Speaker 4: been taking their clothes off in the US for years.
Speaker 4: The showgirl review concept comes to America in nineteen oh
Speaker 4: seven via Broadway impresario Florenz Zigfield Junior, who make stage
Speaker 4: stars out of his Zigfield Girls. In nineteen eighteen, Follies
Speaker 4: Burgeire introduces the first nude showgirls in Paris. Showgirls make
Speaker 4: their Las Vegas debut in nineteen forty one at the
Speaker 4: l Rancho Hotel Casino during breaks between musical acts. In
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty two, the Sans Casino introduces showgirls wearing the flashy,
Speaker 4: spangled peacocky costumes that become their signature Las Vegas look.
Speaker 4: During the fifties, there are publicity wars between the showgirl
Speaker 4: reviews and the flourishing casino ecosystem. The battle to have
Speaker 4: the most glamorous showgirls advances at rappac mainstays like the
Speaker 4: Desert Inn and the Sands. As showgirls take center stage
Speaker 4: with their own shows. The idea of beautiful semi clad
Speaker 4: women as diversion between acts, turns into boxing match ring girls.
Speaker 4: In nineteen fifty seven, Harold Minsky, the adopted son whose
Speaker 4: heir to the New York burlesque dynasty. Minskis brings topless
Speaker 4: dancing to Las Vegas, escalating the casino arms race to
Speaker 4: produce the most spectacular live show. The Tropicana, known as
Speaker 4: the Trop is the luxurious crown jewel of the Vegas strip.
Speaker 4: The Parisian Follies Bergeire franchises itself there in December of
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty nine, advertising its shows as the cultural intersection
Speaker 4: of Broadway and Hollywood in the Desert. Like all Vegas
Speaker 4: stunts and frills, showgirls are bait to draw tourists into
Speaker 4: the casinos to gamble. The trop crowd wears evening gowns
Speaker 4: and suits to the Follies Burgeire show at the Fountain Theatre,
Speaker 4: which is known as the Pink Room for its flamingo
Speaker 4: pink furniture and curtains. The Trop has a net over
Speaker 4: the orchestra pit because of how often the showgirls and
Speaker 4: heavy headpieces topple off the stage.
Speaker 7: I quit my job, I sold everything I had. I
Speaker 7: got in my car and I drove to Vegas and
Speaker 7: we got married. And if she lived, I would still
Speaker 7: be married to her to this day. You know I
Speaker 7: would never have left her. Let me tell you. It
Speaker 7: was the best twelve years of my life, even if
Speaker 7: I had the worst life in the world. Afterward, I
Speaker 7: knew I'd always have that. I mean, who gets so lucky?
Speaker 4: Judy gets hired at the Trop for the Follies burge Aire.
Speaker 4: The newlywed Missolis immediately start trying to get pregnant, but
Speaker 4: have no luck, so they turned to the professionals, scientologists.
Speaker 4: Larry's brother in law has spent time in Scientology's private navy,
Speaker 4: known as the Sea Organization or Sea ORG, having sailed
Speaker 4: on Sea Org's flagship, the Apollo, with Commodore Lafayette. L
Speaker 4: Ronald Hubbard He turns them on to dianetics. They take
Speaker 4: courses they find pricey but useful. Judy gets pregnant. They
Speaker 4: have a son they name Anthony Lawrence. When Larry is
Speaker 4: thirty four and Judy is thirty two, they have a
Speaker 4: daughter they named Jenna Marie.
Speaker 7: She came out of the womb with a smile on
Speaker 7: her face.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, there was another little entity, and
Speaker 1: I had to share that universe. Tony Mussuli, Jenna's brother.
Speaker 4: Larry's brother in law, helps him get a steady job too,
Speaker 4: working at KSNV, an NBC Network affiliate TV station in Vegas.
Speaker 4: Sometimes Larry lets little Jenna come into the studio, sit
Speaker 4: behind the news desk between broadcasts, and read off the
Speaker 4: teleprompter into the camera.
Speaker 3: I was really in it and really good at it.
Speaker 4: In nineteen seventy five, Judy Massoli gets a mole on
Speaker 4: her shoulder checked out and is informed it's malignant. She
Speaker 4: is diagnosed with melanoma, which quickly escalates. The Masoli clan
Speaker 4: has to watch helplessly as skin cancer ravages Judy, who
Speaker 4: becomes too weak from her chemotherapy treatment to take care
Speaker 4: of her children or herself. The family is drained emotionally
Speaker 4: and financially from the medical bills for her treatments. Even
Speaker 4: though Larry's making six figures working at the TV channel,
Speaker 4: He's losing it all, trying anything, in everything to save
Speaker 4: Judy's life.
Speaker 7: She became very ill.
Speaker 3: She couldn't bathe herself, she couldn't get up out of bed,
Speaker 3: she lost all her hair. I can remember so vividly
Speaker 3: her screaming at night from the pain.
Speaker 4: Larry sleeps by her bedside with morphine. Judy doesn't want
Speaker 4: the kids to see her because she looks so sick.
Speaker 4: Larry convinces himself she'll make a miraculous recovery, but she doesn't.
Speaker 4: Judith Brooke Hunt miss Oli dies on February twentieth, nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy six, when Jenna is almost two. Larry calls an
Speaker 4: ambulance and puts the kids in a room so they
Speaker 4: won't have to see their mom's lifeless body.
Speaker 7: They've given her about six months to live and she
Speaker 7: only lived about ninety days.
Speaker 4: Larry, miss Oli just wants to man up and move forward.
Speaker 4: But trauma doesn't desensitize you to new trauma. It just
Speaker 4: keeps stacking up already too emotionally fucked up from war
Speaker 4: to deal with processing his own feelings. He's now also
Speaker 4: too fucked up emotionally to deal with the aftermath of
Speaker 4: his wife's death. Jenna turns too, and starts having trouble
Speaker 4: sleeping at night. Now five hundred thousand dollars in debt
Speaker 4: for his wife's palliative care, the bank comes for Larry's assets,
Speaker 4: his vehicles, a boat, and an apartment building he landlords.
Speaker 4: Even after that, he's still left with a mound of debt,
Speaker 4: so the family moves out of their suburban house into
Speaker 4: a trailer park. Larry develops nervous exhaustion and ticks from
Speaker 4: the stress. He takes the kids to their mother's grave
Speaker 4: regularly at first, and then stops thinking about The loss
Speaker 4: is too much for any of them.
Speaker 7: People don't want to be around death and grief. It's
Speaker 7: one of those things a person has to go through
Speaker 7: on their own.
Speaker 4: From that moment on, Jenna's father is haunted by his
Speaker 4: love for Judy, left with only memories and photos of
Speaker 4: his beautiful, vibrant wife and their two children together as
Speaker 4: living souvenir.
Speaker 3: I just remember being so incredibly confused, you know, I
Speaker 3: wasn't diapers. I was just a little kid, and to
Speaker 3: have your mother ripped away from you that way devastated
Speaker 3: me and changed the whole course of my life.
Speaker 7: That woman was my life. There was nobody else in
Speaker 7: the world for me, and I have never been able
Speaker 7: to recover from that loss. Never you spend the rest
Speaker 7: of your life just searching.
Speaker 4: A few years later, five year old Jenna and seven
Speaker 4: year old Tony looked like the children of the Corn,
Speaker 4: with matching shaggy blonde mops of hair. Tony wears a
Speaker 4: Superman logo T shirt and Jenna wears little ski jackets,
Speaker 4: primary color shirts and pinafore dresses. She's a naturally rambunctious kid,
Speaker 4: a fearless tomboy who likes to test her own limits
Speaker 4: by doing cannonballs into the local pool.
Speaker 3: I remember the pool incident. This was a turning point
Speaker 3: in my life. I would just go so far to
Speaker 3: get everyone's attention. I would do anything it took.
Speaker 1: Jenna always threw caution to the wind.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I would just go out in the middle of the
Speaker 7: pool and try to coax my son into diving into
Speaker 7: the pool, and Jenna would be standing next to him
Speaker 7: in her diapers just watching me, and instead of my
Speaker 7: son diving in courageously, Jenna would.
Speaker 4: There's a picture of five year old Jenna in midair.
Speaker 4: She vaults into the pool, looking equal parts terrified and excited.
Speaker 4: This sets the pattern for the rest of her life.
Speaker 4: If Jenna wants to do something, she's gonna do it,
Speaker 4: especially if it scares her and makes other people stare.
Speaker 3: I used to sit on my bed and gaze out
Speaker 3: the window at the stars and think someday I'm going
Speaker 3: to be a star.
Speaker 4: When Jenna World returns, Jenna finds her first true love dance.
Speaker 4: Oh my God, Welcome back to Jena World. In nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy nine, Jenna starts taking dance classes at fern Adare
Speaker 4: Conservatory of the Arts in Las Vegas. Knowing that her
Speaker 4: mom was a showgirl, Jenna wants to start dancing too.
Speaker 4: Dance classes offer a euphoric escape from her grief. She
Speaker 4: can dance for hours and hours without getting tired. Larry
Speaker 4: decides to pursue his own dream too, becomes a cop,
Speaker 4: which makes him feel like he's in charge in a
Speaker 4: world that has robbed him of control. Going on the
Speaker 4: beat also gives him a convenient reason not to be
Speaker 4: around his kids, who look like his deceased wife.
Speaker 7: I quit a lucrative career for the NBC station to
Speaker 7: become a policeman. I went to Night County, Nevada, which
Speaker 7: is just north of Las Vegas, and got a job
Speaker 7: as the graveyard deputy.
Speaker 4: Larry's old employers in the Italian mafia don't look too
Speaker 4: kindly on the cops and definitely don't approve of Larry
Speaker 4: switching teams to the other side of the law. As
Speaker 4: a graveyard shift cop, Larry busts local whorehouses, stepping into
Speaker 4: ongoing wars between rival wardellos run by the mob. The
Speaker 4: mobsters start sending him messages to stay far the fuck
Speaker 4: away from their businesses.
Speaker 1: One of the mob guys picked up Jenna after school
Speaker 1: in a yellow school bus.
Speaker 7: He let all the.
Speaker 1: Other kids off and kept Jenna on the bus. He
Speaker 1: drove just with her for miles and miles. The deputies
Speaker 1: in the Sheriff's department chased him, and finally the bus
Speaker 1: pulled over and got Jenna.
Speaker 4: Gangsters in a nice car pull up on Tony at
Speaker 4: school pickup, saying his dad said to get in. Tony
Speaker 4: bolts off into the desert and hides there until dark.
Speaker 4: The kids start going to school with a police escort.
Speaker 4: They're paranoid at home too, where the phones are likely
Speaker 4: being tapped. Their father is both their protector and the
Speaker 4: one who put them in this danger. He tells Jenna
Speaker 4: not to look out the windows, afraid she might get sniped,
Speaker 4: but Dad's mostly not around to comfort them because he's
Speaker 4: out patrolling. Instead, they get a revolving door of dubiously
Speaker 4: qualified babysitters. Larry decides what he needs is a maternally
Speaker 4: inclined new wife to cook, clean and raise these goddamn kids. Instead,
Speaker 4: he gets Marjorie, an old coworker from the TV station
Speaker 4: who's always had a thing for him. She's a former
Speaker 4: model whose looks favor Marlena Dietrich. He takes her out
Speaker 4: on a few dates and then proposes while he marries
Speaker 4: her for the free child care. Marjorie is worse than
Speaker 4: the bad babysitters. She backhands the kids for backtalk. She
Speaker 4: doesn't feed them, but buys luxurious treats for herself, like
Speaker 4: yo play yogurt. The kids subsists on a diet of
Speaker 4: cheese sandwiches made by their dad and Jenna's attempts to
Speaker 4: cook pasta in a microwave.
Speaker 3: Marjorie was awful. It was like the evil stepmom. She
Speaker 3: was always angry with us, maybe because we were left
Speaker 3: over from Dad's other life before her.
Speaker 4: Marjorie throws a pot of hot coffee at the kids,
Speaker 4: but when confronted, plays dumb to their dad. Frustrate and malnourished,
Speaker 4: the kids call up Grandma and tell her they're starving
Speaker 4: at home. Grandma is not much better at taking care
Speaker 4: of young kids herself. She's an alcoholic who drinks a
Speaker 4: big glass of bourbon each night and passes out. She
Speaker 4: doesn't cook either, but her kitchen is stocked with microwave
Speaker 4: meals and pudding cups. The kids tell dad they're at
Speaker 4: grandma's now. They eat her reserves of Hostess cherry pies
Speaker 4: and wear her satin nightgowns to bed. Larry takes a
Speaker 4: job offer in Florida. He wants to get himself and
Speaker 4: his kids the fuck out of Vegas stat They load
Speaker 4: up in his brown Pontiac Firebird and speed down to
Speaker 4: Panama City. They enroll in a new school fenced off
Speaker 4: with barbed wire. Larry gets a forty thousand dollars a
Speaker 4: year job as a Florida cop, and Marjorie works as
Speaker 4: a dispatcher. They're both hardly around because they work so much,
Speaker 4: leaving the children with no supervision and lots of freedom
Speaker 4: to get into lots of trouble. At their new apartment complex,
Speaker 4: Tony and Jenna are lash key kids. An upstairs neighbor
Speaker 4: who calls himself Charlie Daniels and wears a cowboy hat
Speaker 4: makes Jenna mayonnaise sandwiches. While this could be creepy, it
Speaker 4: is thankfully an innocent kindness from a man who sees
Speaker 4: that the kids downstairs are neglected. Jenna also has a
Speaker 4: protector in Tony, who beats up kids at school that
Speaker 4: bullier try to touch her until he gets expelled for
Speaker 4: punching out a teacher. When Marjorie is at home, she
Speaker 4: mainly screams and slams doors. She slaps Jenna and spanks
Speaker 4: her for perceived disrespect. She also mocks Tony for having asthma.
Speaker 4: Most of the time, she just ignores the kids to
Speaker 4: lay out back and sunbathe naked. She's awful to them
Speaker 4: when their father isn't around, which is most of the time.
Speaker 4: Jenna craves real motherly love and care. The Masoli family's
Speaker 4: increasing sense of paranoia has followed them all the way
Speaker 4: down to Florida. Tony keeps a gun his dad gave
Speaker 4: him under his pillow and gives Jenna a butterfly knife.
Speaker 4: Like any older sibling, Tony is both Jenna's bodyguard and
Speaker 4: sometimes her bully. He puts her on a bike and
Speaker 4: shoves it down a steep hill. They sneak into other
Speaker 4: apartments in a game they call Ninja, running around wreaking
Speaker 4: havoc with throwing stars and samurai swords. One time, Tony
Speaker 4: flings a throwing star at Jenna and it gets stuck
Speaker 4: in her head. Not very deeply, but it's in there.
Speaker 4: Jenna covers for him and tells their dad she bumped
Speaker 4: her head. The kids have a sibling pact of shared silence.
Speaker 4: Tony gets into an altercation where a kid starts choking
Speaker 4: him out. Jenna knows he has asthma and runs over
Speaker 4: to save him. Like any good short kid, she jumps
Speaker 4: on his attacker like a spider monkey and starts hammering
Speaker 4: him in the spine with the handle end of her
Speaker 4: butterfly knife. At home, Jenna cries all the time because
Speaker 4: she's so miserable, but her stepmom never comes in to
Speaker 4: comfort her. Tony and Jenna tell their father he has
Speaker 4: to choose a side, Marjorie or them. He picks the kids.
Speaker 4: Larry lays down the lod dinner that night. Marjorie doesn't
Speaker 4: take it well and stomps around destroying stuff.
Speaker 3: For all his problems, it was reassuring to know that
Speaker 3: he was, in his own strange way in our corner
Speaker 3: if we ever really needed him.
Speaker 4: His second marriage had been a ploy for instant stability,
Speaker 4: but Marjorie only caused more chaos. Even though she hates Marjorie,
Speaker 4: Jenna still feels guilty and wishes it all played out
Speaker 4: differently somehow. When Jenna is ten and Tony is thirteen,
Speaker 4: the kids are sent back to Nevada for another stin
Speaker 4: at Grandma's house until Larry can move back. Then the
Speaker 4: Mizsoli family moves again to Boulder City, Nevada. Larry is
Speaker 4: chasing police work, but also making it so the kids
Speaker 4: can never settle in or build friendships. They're forced to
Speaker 4: give away the family dogs because the new building won't
Speaker 4: allow pets in her mainly unstable life. Jenna's ballet and
Speaker 4: dance classes provide one reliable source of happiness, so Jenna
Speaker 4: puts all her energy there. She becomes fixated on obtaining
Speaker 4: toe shoes so that she can learn to dance on point.
Speaker 4: She scavenges a used pair that aren't ballerina pink but
Speaker 4: jet black. The point shoes provide a template. When Jenna
Speaker 4: wants something, she'll figure out a way to make it hers.
Speaker 3: I went into this very gowky stage. I was very thin,
Speaker 3: my head was really big, my teeth were really messed up.
Speaker 3: I wore glasses, I had races. I remember in school
Speaker 3: gym class looking at all the other girls who were
Speaker 3: already shapely, and I looked like I was in third grade.
Speaker 4: Jenna starts seventh grade in Boulder City with glasses, a
Speaker 4: prince valiant haircut, and hand me downs. She wants to
Speaker 4: fit in and be popular, but can't afford new clothes
Speaker 4: or other trendy stuff. In a classic Dolly Parton's Coat
Speaker 4: of Many Colors situation, she tries to convert her grandmother's
Speaker 4: old clothes into something cooler looking with a sewing machine,
Speaker 4: but it doesn't work. At school poo, She's shy and introverted.
Speaker 4: Being very short and small doesn't help her feel or
Speaker 4: look any less young. She finally makes friends in a
Speaker 4: cheerleading class, but they don't like that she's way better
Speaker 4: at cheerleading than they are, so they start icing her out.
Speaker 3: I had experience with dance and gymnastics, so I was
Speaker 3: super good and they weren't. So they pretty much ganged
Speaker 3: up on me and decided they weren't going to be
Speaker 3: my friends anymore. They wouldn't talk to me and would
Speaker 3: go out of their way to make me feel foolish.
Speaker 3: I went through about three months of being completely alone
Speaker 3: at school. I had to eat lunch by myself. A
Speaker 3: lot of the time. I would skip lunch and leave
Speaker 3: school grounds to read a book.
Speaker 4: She ends up quitting cheerleading to win her friends back.
Speaker 4: Classic junior high situation, kill or be killed. Jenna and
Speaker 4: Tony get another new stepmom, Vivian, one of their father's
Speaker 4: student at the Carson City Police Academy. Vivian is better
Speaker 4: than Marjorie. She actually feeds them too, making them sandwiches
Speaker 4: for school lunches, but Jenna is so stressed out at
Speaker 4: school she stops eating, hiding her uneaten lunches in her
Speaker 4: locker until it smells so rank she gets in trouble.
Speaker 4: Vivian even listens to Jenna and defends her to Larry
Speaker 4: when Jenna wants to start shaving her legs to fit
Speaker 4: in with the mature teenage girls all around her. But
Speaker 4: Jenna's guard is still up and Tony is against new
Speaker 4: stepmoms on principle. It's probably for the best, because Vivian
Speaker 4: and Larry start getting into screaming fights, and stepmom number
Speaker 4: two is out the door fast, putting Jenna back on
Speaker 4: her quest for a maternal figure to mentor her into
Speaker 4: her burgeoning womanhood. As teen hood approaches, Jenna still looks
Speaker 4: like a kid. She grows her hair out and starts
Speaker 4: bleaching it. Flat chested, but starts wearing a bra. She
Speaker 4: gets her first crush on a guy named Sesar. After
Speaker 4: four months of playground love, Seyesar comes over to her place.
Speaker 4: Jenna has no idea how to behave around a guy
Speaker 4: who's interested in her. She clams up while they sit
Speaker 4: on some steps, nervous her dad will come out, and
Speaker 4: nervous he won't. Seesar slides his arm around her and
Speaker 4: starts frenching her Jenna is disgusted by his tongue in
Speaker 4: her mouth. Maybe she's not ready, or maybe she's just
Speaker 4: not that into him. Her grandmother interrupts and Jenna pleads
Speaker 4: with her not to tell Larry. She never sees Cesar
Speaker 4: again because her road dog family pick up and move
Speaker 4: for dad's new girlfriend, who lives in Elko, Nevada. In Elko,
Speaker 4: Jenna picks cheerleading back up and thrives.
Speaker 3: That's how I started to get a little bit popular
Speaker 3: for the first time in my life. Then I started
Speaker 3: doing pad because one of the popular girls did them.
Speaker 3: I was like, I can shred these people.
Speaker 4: Jenna's love of being on stage and competitive streak makes
Speaker 4: her un natural for beauty pageants, but there's something else
Speaker 4: motivating her, a huge chip on her shoulder about being
Speaker 4: lower class and where that places her in the femininity sweepstakes.
Speaker 4: Other pageant girls have momagers who support them emotionally and financially,
Speaker 4: and live out their own dreams through their daughters. Jenna's
Speaker 4: dad has neither time nor the inclination to be a
Speaker 4: pageant dad. But if Jenna wants something, she's going to
Speaker 4: get it. So to raise money, she has a bake
Speaker 4: sale and her brother and dad sell off some guns.
Speaker 4: She makes two K, which only covers the pageant entry fee.
Speaker 4: Other girls have dance coaches, but Jenna does it all herself.
Speaker 4: She choreographs an original tap routine to the Village People's
Speaker 4: hit song about maritime life in the Navy.
Speaker 3: I was always trying to outdo myself. I felt like
Speaker 3: I had to prove myself constantly because I felt alone, lonely,
Speaker 3: and I wanted everyone to love me.
Speaker 4: Jenna loves winning. She'll enter any competition, especially if there's
Speaker 4: prize money at stake. While she's still shy at heart,
Speaker 4: whenever she gets on stage, she transforms into a confident performer.
Speaker 4: She has a chin length blonde, flip red lipstick, a
Speaker 4: red satin young mismodeling sash, and a matching red sweatshirt.
Speaker 4: She wins the Elko pageant's overall title and advances to
Speaker 4: a state pageant, where she competes against two hundred girls
Speaker 4: and wins Best Interview and most Photogenic. She gets accepted
Speaker 4: to nationals in Arkansas and has to raise more money
Speaker 4: for the entry fee. She washes cars and convinces a
Speaker 4: local luxury car dealership to give her one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty dollars.
Speaker 3: I would strap my banner to myself, put my crown on,
Speaker 3: and I would walk the streets of Las Vegas asking
Speaker 3: for sponsorship. I would go into the car dealerships begging,
Speaker 3: please just sponsor me.
Speaker 4: Hustling people out of their money comes easily to her.
Speaker 4: All her nervousness and insecurity dissipates when it's showtime. It's
Speaker 4: like she's playing a character who's self assured. The more
Speaker 4: often she switches over into performance mode, the more fearless
Speaker 4: she becomes. She's finding a way to integrate the version
Speaker 4: of herself who can involve dauntlessly into swimming pools as
Speaker 4: a child with the girl who feels invisible to others
Speaker 4: and can barely speak up at school. Jenna gets over
Speaker 4: her beauty pageant bug quickly as soon as she realizes
Speaker 4: it's a scam, depart her from money that she could
Speaker 4: be rustling up for other purposes. Larry uproots his family
Speaker 4: yet again and moves them all back to Las Vegas.
Speaker 4: Jenna decides she wants to be popular at school this
Speaker 4: time around, while her social anxiety is still so bad
Speaker 4: that she throws up in the bathroom every day. Something
Speaker 4: else happens in nineteen eighty nine, when Jenna Masoli turns fifteen, all.
Speaker 3: Of a sudden, boom, my boobs got huge. I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't even tell you. I weighed ninety pounds and
Speaker 3: I had like a C D cup, which is very
Speaker 3: strange for a little girl. So I remember walking into
Speaker 3: my first day of class my sophomore year, and I
Speaker 3: wore a tight shirt, no bra, just because I wanted
Speaker 3: to like throw it in everybody's face. And I remember
Speaker 3: everyone looking at me going, Oh my god, what happened
Speaker 3: to Jenna? Next Time?
Speaker 4: On episode two of Jena World, learning from Las Vegas Showgirls,
Speaker 4: Jenna tries to become a showgirl like her mother, gets
Speaker 4: a job at a strip club and works her way
Speaker 4: up to top earner. This will get her drafted into
Speaker 4: pornography and take her on a journey from Las Vegas
Speaker 4: to Los Angeles. All this and more next time on
Speaker 4: Jenna World. Jenna World is an iHeartRadio production executive produced
Speaker 4: by Anna Hosnier and Becca Ramos, supervising, produced by Bei Wang,
Speaker 4: produced by Victor Wright, script editing by Jonathan Mills, engineered
Speaker 4: by Graham Gibson, and edited by Rory Gagan. Today's episode
Speaker 4: of Jenna World featured Laurence ser Video as Jenna Jamison,
Speaker 4: Miles Gray as Kid Rock, Max Silvestri as Roco Safreddi
Speaker 4: Correina Longworth as Mina Hartley, Paul Sheer as Larry, Joe
Speaker 4: Mandy as Frank Sinatra Junior, and Wyatt Faar as Tony Massly.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Honey, h