Porn Valley- I spoke to Monique Parent recently on the Sinsations 3 shoot, www.dusktilldawnentertainment.com. Parent, one of the best known actors in the softcore field, just joined the predominantly all-porn cast. Besides that, one of the interesting footnotes to Parent’s career biog is the fact that she had a part in L.A. Confidential. But she winds up on the cutting room floor, alas.

“Let me guess- you were playing a hooker?” I ask her.

“Imagine that,” says Parent. “I was the hooker that looked like Grace Kelly. It was not a speaking party. I was hired based on the fact that I looked like Grace Kelly. But you don’t see that with the red hair. I got dressed up pretty and hung out on the set and Kevin Spacey walked up to me and said, “You must be playing Grace Kelly.” I said, “yuh-uh-uh-rrrrrrrrrrgh.” Parent mentiones that her hair was lightened for the part and in an updo.

“So Kevin Spacey picked the Grace Kelly-thing out without being coached?”

“Yeah,” says Parent. “This was Kevin Spacey- he’s great. This was my brush with big opportunity and I opened mouth and inserted foot.” According to Parent, she was never told her part was being cut out of the movie- she had to find that out for herself when she went to watch it at the theater.

“I’m sitting there with popcorn,” Parent recalls. “Here it is-it’s the scene. Okay, it’s gone. But it’s a good movie.”

“Who else do you get told you look like among the famous Hollywood spitfires?”

“Frank Sinatra thought that I looked like Ava Gardner,” says Parent. “Which I don’t really think I do, but he thought so and he should know.”

Parent explains that they were casting for a mini-series about Sinatra and he was involved in the casting.

“He selected my photo to read,” Parent says. “It was very early on in my career and I didn’t do a good read. So I didn’t get called back. I was a little overwhelmed by it.” And neither did Parent get to meet Sinatra.

“I don’t really think I look like her,” Parent continues. “But he obviously saw something in my photo that reminded him of her. And since she was gorgeous, I’m taking it. I don’t think it’s true but I’m taking it!” According to Parent, Marcia Gay Hardon got the part in that series and Kate Beckinsdale landed the Gardner part in The Aviator.

“She is stunning,” says Parent who’s received a few other physical comparisons along the way.

“I hear that I look like Courtney Cox,” she says. “Lately I hear that I look like that chick on Desperate Housewives, Marcia Cross. I hear it daily especially when I got my new driver’s license picture.”

“I figure you to look more like Nicolette Sheridan,” I tell her.

“They need to write in a character where, somehow Nicolette Sheridan and Marcia Cross find out they’re related and have a sister in common,” Parent says. “That would be me. That would be perfect.”

Parent, who grew up in San Luis Obispo and moved to Arizona, was a dork in high school, but a good student, though somewhat lazy. She always managed good grades because it came easy for her, she says.

“And I always liked playing dress up,” she remembers. “Kids go to high school wearing jeans every day. I would be in a little Catholic girl outfit one day. And then the next day I’d be in harem pants with scarves trailing. And the next day I’d be in a suit and a hat. I’d be all over the place.” Being this walking variety/fashion show, you’d think guys would have been sniffing up her leg constantly. Not necessarily, says Parent who describes herself as a late bloomer.

“But I looked exactly the same as I do now,” she tells me. “I’ve looked 30 forever. Honestly, I can bring you a photo of me at 12 or 13 years old and people say you look exactly the same. The guys at that age don’t go for women that look 30 or 40. They look for women who look like 16. They want the cheerleader. That’s what they’re attracted to at that age. I looked like a grownup. They didn’t know what to do with me.”

Asked if she used that dubious gift of early maturity to sneak into drinking emporia, Parent says she never tried.

“I guess, because, when I was 17, my boyfriend was 36,” she adds with laugh.

“He thought he was dating a 30 year-old woman until you showed him your driver’s license.”

“He knew,” Parent replies. “I never tried to drink wine so I don’t think they would have carded me. When I did turn 21 I wasn’t carded.” And Parent says she and the 36 year-old guy subsequently had sex. But she didn’t want to get into circumstances of her first time at the age of 14.

“It wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t by choice,” she says, leaving it at that.

“Were you smitten by the 36 year-old guy?”

“I was a little dazzled by the glamour of an older man,” Parent admits. “I don’t even want to be that person again.” According to Parent, they met doing community theater and they just started going out. He was uncomfortable with her age but her parents eventually got comfortable with him. The relationship lasted a couple of years and people never realized the age discrepancy because Parent already looked older.

“You have a background with dancing and ballet- Is that when the theater bug hit you?”

“I was born with it,” says Parent. “I have always enjoyed it. It’s just one of those things. I came out of the womb like that.” In the course of conversation Parent tells me she’s a Scorpio.

“Boy, I don’t want to piss you off,” I tell her.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed any of the scenes where I lose my temper,” she laughs. “It seems to come really easy. I have a moon in Pisces. Cancer rising.”

“You’re really fucked up.”

“I know,” says Parent. Earlier I had asked Parent if she had any Leo in her because Leo women generally have this thing for the obvious, with the long, wild hair and ability to draw attention to themselves.

“I really don’t have much Leo in my charts,” she notes. Parent subsequently went to college to pursue theater and dramatic arts.

“I dabbled in college,” she notes. “I was very impatient to move on with life. I studied dance, singing, voice, acting- all that stuff. But I was only there for a year. Then I moved on.” Parent was 24 when she came back to California and Los Angeles to pursue acting.

“I needed to learn stuff and be in the big city,” she states. “I come from a small town. I didn’t even have head shots printed up.” To make ends meet, Parent was working both retail and waitressing, primarily retail.

“That was boring,” she reflects. Parent says something that’s also very startling. She claims he has never ever been subjected to the casting couch.

“I hear about it all the time,” she says. “I know it happens a lot and I know it happens to men and women- it has not happened with me.” Not even remote funny business like being urged to touch the little part, she swears.

“Which is kind of insulting!” she laughs. “But I think people know that I’m not going to accept it. I’m not going there.” Parent would go to her auditions and dress the part called for in the script.

“If it was a hooker part I would wear something very body conscious,” she says. ” A librarian, I would dress for the character. But it’s kind of insulting that no one ever approached me.” By the same token, the big doors never opened for her, she says frankly.

“So you were always talking to mid-level skeeves.”

“I’m still waiting for it,” she says. Parent thinks that the LA Confidential part may have come from another audition when her picture got passed along. But Parent can’t swear to it. She also thinks she probably had that Grave Kelly Forties or Fifties vibe and someone picked up on that.

“Did anyone ever tell you from a certain angle that you look like Ursala Andress?”

“Nice segue!” laughs Parent. “Smooth.” Parent, in fact, did get cast as Ursula Andress in a movie about James Dean.”It was called James Dean: Race with Destiny,” recalls Parent. “I think it went straight to video. I don’t know if it ever aired. They brought me in for some other part. I guess in 1955 when James Dean and Ursula Andress had their fling, she had very short blond hair. From what I read about their relationship, it was a very narcissistic-thing. They looked alike. But when we think of Ursula Andress we see her from Dr. No coming out of the water. But at that time, she had a different look and she was with James Dean. They had this weird relationship that was all about being in love with themselves.”

“The subtitle of the movie should have been Race to the Mirror.”

“Yeah,” agrees Parent. “The one thing I was very disappointed in, is, I was cast like a day before shooting. I did not have the accent right. I can’t even watch it because the accent’s not right.” For a long time Parent didn’t keep a reel of her appearances but she’s trying to do that now.

“I’m acquiring more things just because some of them are old and hard to find,” she says. “And it would be nice to have.”

“Take me to your first brush with the skin trade,” I urge Parent.

“Growing up as a ballet dancer in the theater you change your clothes wherever,” Parent explains. “If you’ve got a fast turnaround, you step off the stage and you’re behind the wings, you drop it.”

“So if a guy’s looking for action he should find an ex ballet dancer dropping it?”

“If a guy’s looking for action, he should go to ballet class,” Parent advises. “He’d be the only straight guy in there. So I was always very comfortable with nudity, and from the time I was a teenager I started going to a nude beach. I always felt more ridiculous in a bathing suit.” Asked if she finds time to skinny dip, Parent laughs about the ocean being too cold.

“And besides, I’m a little princess,” she says.

“Well, it could be a lake.”

“I’ve done that,” she admits. “So my first acting gig at all, professionally, involved nudity. It was Secret Games- a very quick little scene and I got my SAG card out of it.”

“That was Greg Dark directing that.”

“It was very easy for me,” Parent continues. “Because to me nudity is nothing.” Regarding the SAG card, Parent said she was hired and got her SAG card on her first audition.

“It was really not fair,” she admits. “I’ve known actors who’ve struggled for years. I was very lucky but I think it was my time. If I’d been at it ten years before, I think it still would have been my time.” According to Parent, Dark was always very gentle with her.

“And gentlemanly,” she adds. “It was scary just because I’m waiting to make my entrance behind the door and thinking did they really say action? Let’s just do it and jump in.” The taking off the clothes part was easy for her.

“Nudity is not a sexual thing,” she believes.

When she started in the softcore arena, Parent points out that guys weren’t wearing bags on their balls and women didn’t have band aids.

“Patching was not real common then,” she notes. “I had a scene with another woman and I remember we were lying on our sides facing each other. It was very tame by today’s standards. And she whispered you want to lift your leg up so they can’t see the pubic hair? When I saw the unrated version, I lifted my leg up, you saw a lot more than pubic hair which was not my intention to show. Some people can show it. Great. I don’t judge you. It’s not comfortable for me. You should never cross your own boundary. Since then, that’s why I wear a patch. It’s not about protecting myself from the other actor or anything like that. It’s I don’t want the camera seeing it. I don’t want anyone sneaking anything. If I want to give it, that’s fine. That’s my right but I don’t need anyone sneaking anything.”

Asked how she met Robert Lombard, Parent remembers a guy from her acting class that she was seeing.

“He had a manager and I knew he got a lot of work,” said Parent. “He was getting a lot of auditions. Okay, I’ll meet him and show him a picture. The picture that he showed Robert was him and I at Club Fuck where I was wearing a chain-thing and nothing on my breasts other than a little bit of electrical tape. And Robert went, yeah, I can work with that. So I came in in my little flat shows and my little pants and shirt and socks and very proper. He said this is not the same girl. I looked all demure which was intentionally just to show the contrast. You’ve seen this picture, this is also me. I’m not just one. I’m both and everything in the middle. He’s looking at me, thinking, nah, I can’t work with this. Then he looked at my eyes. Yeah, maybe there’s something there and the rest is history.”

Unlike Jacy Andrews, Parent says she’s never given a thought about crossing over to the hardcore arena. Which is not to say Parent hasn’t been approached by sleazes from the business handing her business cards.

“I’ve had that,” she says. “It’s one of those things that’s private to me and I’d like to keep that private. If these girls are comfortable with it, great. Like I said, you’ve got to do what’s right for you.”

“What do you do to pay the bills in between projects?”

“As little as possible!” Parent laughs. “I have savings that I would live off of for a lot of years. I’m very thrifty and I don’t spend a cent if I don’t have to. I’m so cheap I pinch a penny until it bends. And I was married for a lot of years.” Parent is moving on from that marriage and, fortunately, she says, her acting career has resurrected.

“Thank God,” she says. “I can make money doing conventions- weekends signing autographs.” Parent has never been to a Glamourcon and is still studying the ways and means of convention life.

“I’m now gearing up to re-doing my website,” she mentions. “I’m finally going to have a members section featuring more nudity. For many, many years of my career, even though I was nude on film, I had never been a model. I didn’t get into having my picture taken. Now I do. But I didn’t for a long time. So there was no product. So the whole time these girls were making all this money with these websites, I didn’t have anything. I had head shots. I didn’t have body shots. I didn’t have anything like that. And lately I’ve been doing so much modeling work! It’s so weird that, suddenly, I’m a bikini model. At 40 years of age. Nobody wanted me in a bikini when I was 20. Or even 30. Now at 40 it’s like let’s put her in a bikini- it’s great. It’s very strange.”

As a young girl in Hollywood, Parent tested with Playboy but they weren’t interested in her. Parent ascribes that to the fact that she’s not their type.

“Which, again, has gotten me work- even at Playboy,” she chuckles. “The first time I had an audition at Playboy was something for the Playboy Channel. I remember feeling so silly just walking in the building. There I am with my red hair and pale skin, sundress and cowboy boots. What am I doing here? And Playboy was ready for a change. They said that’s different. How do you get skin that color? You don’t go in the sun, that’s how. An amazing concept, and I think that’s a lot of why I started working so much for Playboy. But I don’t know why they were never interested in me for the magazine. Then , again, this life ain’t over yet.”

“Did you ever date anyone famous?” she’s asked.

“No, I never dated anyone in the business,” says Parent. “I don’t like actors. And I can say that because I’m guilty of all the same things that I don’t like about actors. I don’t like them in me but they’re there. Actors are a little too into themselves and I’m like that as well. You have to be. You have to be very aware of how you look and taking care of yourself and how your makeup is done. I don’t like pretty boys- I never have. I like smart guys. Give me a guy with a dazzling intellect and I am hot.”

“This is going to be the most provocative question of the bunch,” I tell Parent. “But have you ever suntanned?” In a shocked voice, Parent says yes she has and there was a lot of sunburn on top of that.

“But just this last summer I got a tan- I even wore a white bikini,” she says. “I don’t get tan-tan, I get gold. But it was fun. I won’t do it again for quite some time because I can see the damage. I can look at photos and see the little wrinkles. That’s not good.”