Christy Canyon once remarked that Traci Lords’ autobiography “could have been fabulous except that she was lying throughout the whole thing.”
And that’s perhaps the best assessment of a book that’s totally suspect in its coy story telling from beginning to end. In it, Lords, who celebrates a birthday May 7, skillfully paints herself as a victim. Yet in her actions as Porno’s biggest name at the time, Lords deploys cunning and opportunity in breaking the law- first by obtaining phony IDS [to better help her get employment she says] then later by throwing up her hands to innocence when she’s busted by the cops.
Lords, at 15, began working underage in the adult industry but disputes in her book the notion that she tipped off the authorities to gain immunity from prosecution while profiting from her one legal movie, Traci I Love You.
To understand that Lords is being a little less than forthright, one only has to look at the DOP of Traci I Love You. It was May 8, 1986- exactly one day after Lords turned 18. Amazing coincidence.
It was that same month, authorities just happened to discover Lords was underage, and they arrested her upon her return from Paris where she made that movie with the help of her boyfriend Stuart Dell who she keeps referring to as “Scott” in her book.
In the course of events, Ruby Gottesman of X-Citement Video, Van Nuys took the fall as the lone criminal conviction in the Lords case.
Gottesman appealed, arguing that the language of the law was confusing.
Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court upheld Gottesman’s conviction of selling more than 100 Traci Lords videotapes to an undercover Los Angeles policeman in 1986 and 1987.
In June 1986, Gottesman was visited by Los Angeles Police Officer Steven Takeshita and FBI Agent Nellie Magdaloyo. They posed as pornography retailers who wanted to buy videos from him.
They made several more visits that year, culminating in Gottesman sending Lords videos to Hawaii in early 1987. In the course of the investigation, they testified that Gottesman gave admission of prior knowledge that Lords was underage during the making of those movies.
Gottesman was sentenced to a year in prison and his company was fined $100,000.
But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Gottesman’s conviction in 1992. The decision was subsequently appealed to the United States Supreme Court. On November 29, 1994 with a majority of 7-2, the Court ruled to reverse the decision of the Ninth Circuit by upholding the lower court’s findings of guilt.
Gottesman was released from jail June 27, 1997. After getting out of prison, Gottesman was no more than a shadow of his former self as far as his status in the industry was concerned.
And he recently retired from the industry, having moved to Florida. His last few years were spent as a consultant to CDi, then to Robert Hill Releasing.
Tracey Adams, who often accompanied Gottesman to industry functions, told me a pretty creepy story. But it was only after I had told her a funny one about what I had seen in Atlantic City involving Ruby. This was an incident that occurred while the East Coast Video Show used to be held there in the city by the sea.
Lou Peraino’s [of Deep Throat fame] son, Lou Jr. and I were having a drink in the back of the exhibit area.
Ruby came up to him while we were sitting there. Ruby wanted to talk to Lou Jr., but Lou Jr. snaps at him.
Like a Chinaman yelling at a laundry customer, Lou screams at Ruby: “You go, Ruby. You go NOW. Go, Ruby, Go.”
Upon which Ruby skulks away like a cocker spaniel who’s just been whacked on the ass for peeing the floor.
I ask Lou saying I know it’s none of my business but what was that all about? Lou tells me how Ruby supposedly screwed his old man out of $50,000 and never offered to pay it back. There was more said, but I can’t say it. Put it that way.
Adams remembered the time she walked through X-Citement Video and saw tags hanging on the wall.
“One of them was a really cool picture of a woman from behind, sitting,” continues Adams.
“It was a really cool piece of art and I admired it. I asked Ruby why is everything tagged? He goes the FBI came in and tagged everything. So he takes this picture off the wall and gives it to me.”
“And he had this Mercedes when his son disappeared,” Adams goes on to say.
[Gottesman’s son had been murdered.]
“And we would go up on Mulholland Drive, and we’d go off roading into the deep, weirdest areas of woods and fields in this car- real slow. You know what we were doing? We were looking for his son’s body. It was the creepiest thing- this car was so low to the ground and we’d be off roading.
“We get to this truck where this man is laying across the hood with a shotgun laying across his stomach. Inside the cab of the truck were two little kids. And I said Ruby just put it in reverse. This is just too weird, and it’s too weird that we’re looking for your son’s body. This was around Christmas time and Ruby was going through his son’s house.
“Eventually his son’s body was found in the back of a Cadillac that had been rented and found abandoned up on Mulholland. It was a drug deal gone awry and they killed him in the middle of this deal then shoved him in the back of his Cadillac and left him on Mulholland.
“There was a Cadillac place in Beverly Hills where he had rented the car,” Adams goes on to say.
“Once it was found it was impounded and returned to the dealer. The way I heard it from Ruby, the owner opened the trunk, saw the body but because it was a peak, peak, peak rental time, he closed it and acted as if he had never seen it. It stayed there for almost a week. And we had wickedly cold weather so it preserved the body. Ruby said can you believe that bastard left my son’s body in the car?”
“I really felt sorry for Ruby,” says Adams. “He wanted me to be there, hang out and babysit him. But I had to go to Europe a lot. Financially, I could not say no to these jobs. I could not put my career on hold.”