There was no doubt that Hefner was the head of the household but he never seemed to be truly a part of his “family.” I always got the feeling that he was a very lonely man. Even when he was in the middle of a crowd, laughing and talking, he seemed to be holding onto his pipe for dear life.
It was as if he curtained off part of himself from the crowd. The more I got to know him, the more unhappy he seemed. He is used constantly. Nobody around him seems to care for Hugh Hefner, the person; they’re all there for the lobster and the caviar and the sight of celebrities.
Sometimes he reminded me of King Midas. He had designed this perfect palace, and he had all these perfect looking people around him, all the sensational music and all the best games, the finest food and drink, and, yet, he could really touch none of it—and none of it could touch him.
Other times he reminded me of that movie,
The Great Gatsby.
Some of the family would stop off on their way to work, buzz for a butler, have some breakfast, then be on their way. These people never brought anything to the Mansion except their bodies. You’d never see anyone bring a bottle of booze or a gift. Oh, no, they’d come to Hefner’s house, eat his food, drink his booze, watch his movie, pick up the chicks he provided; then they’d go home. Most often, they’d never even see their host.
Once, about three o’clock in the morning, when most of us were packing up to go home, Joanie, Hefner’s secretary, came running down the stairs in a panic. She was really schizing out because Hefner had decided to come down and join the party just as everyone else was leaving.
“Oh, will you please stay?” she asked one person. And: “Please, would you mind staying for a while?” And: “Hef will be coming down soon and we should have someone here when he comes down.” And: “Please stay, I think Hef will want to play backgammon. Oh, please stay.”
That whole scene was so sad. Everyone who had been leaving froze and then went back to what they had been doing. When Hefner appeared, wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, holding a Pepsi in his hand, he was greeted by waves of false hilarity, as though the party was still going full blast. There were the smiles and the laughs and the big hellos. And I guess, when all was said and done, that was the price people paid for his hospitality.
And Hefner’s hospitality was impressive, especially to members of the family. The
Playboy
publisher would decide to fly to his Chicago headquarters and many of us just got on his private jet with him and took the trip. If Hefner was staying in Chicago for a couple of weeks, we’d check in with him at the Chicago mansion. Quite a few of the girls who surrounded him seemed able to commute from one mansion to the other.
Coming into the Chicago mansion, Hefner was greeted by a girl named Karen. She struck me as typical of the women in his life. She was a tall, blonde, gorgeous Texan; I was struck by how dazzling she was. Early the next morning a woman said hello to me in the hallway and when I gave her a blank look, she said, “I’m Karen—we met yesterday.” I gave her a second look and had trouble believing it was the same person. She wasn’t wearing makeup and she hadn’t yet put on her wig. Or her glamorous clothes. The best parts of her—and this was typical of the women in Hefner’s life—could be stored in boxes. They were gorgeous, as long as you didn’t look at them too closely. Then you became aware of the plastic; they reminded me of dolls that you dressed up and played with.
Hefner’s bedroom in the Chicago mansion was chaotic. He had a videotape machine set up beside the bed so that he could make tapes of himself in bed. There were spools of eight-millimeter film lying around. And stacks of pages everywhere, the raw material from an upcoming issue of the magazine.
A different kind of person—more intellectual, I guess—seemed to hang around the Chicago mansion. The California crowd was louder, brasher, more free wheeling. In Chicago they were more formal, more uptight. Some of them didn’t even know who I was.
Despite this, Chuck was right at home in the Chicago mansion. He soon discovered that this was where Hefner kept his library of eight-millimeter movies. Each morning during our stay there, Chuck would check out dozens of these films. He made me sit for hours at a time, up to eight hours in a single stretch, watching people have sex with each other, with animals, with whatever else was handy. Chuck couldn’t get enough of that.
What I remember most about the Chicago mansion was a cook named George; he made a Beef Wellington that was not to be believed.
While we were in Chicago, I became aware of a new kind of business possibility, one that wouldn’t require me to do things I didn’t want to do. While there, for example, I met the writer-cartoonist Shel Silverstein and we talked about doing an album of country-and-western songs together. Although Chuck managed to botch that deal, it set me to thinking.
Suddenly we were jetting all over the country. From Los Angeles to Chicago to New York to Florida to Nashville and back to Los Angeles again. This was all part of ending our life in Florida and starting over again in California.
We stopped long enough in New York to make the second movie,
Deep Throat, Part II
. I still don’t understand what that movie was about but I can tell you how it was explained to me. The central figure is a computer working for the CIA and the FBI: The computer is tired of government work and wants to make spaghetti. In the course of the movie, the computer makes love to me. Maybe you can understand why it was never released or, if it was released, why you’ve never heard of it.
Bad as that movie was, it taught me some of the rewards of being a celebrity. They were so anxious to see my name on the billboards that it didn’t much matter what I did in the movie. The result: I didn’t have to do any of the sexual acrobatics that made the first movie such a success. The producers decided that the people who had enjoyed the first film would buy tickets for this one, no matter what was in it.
During the filming of
Deep Throat
,
Part II,
I became friendly with one of my co-stars, Andrea True. Andrea True was very intelligent, a college graduate, and much too smart to be doing what she did for a living. During the making of the film, she got all of the porno actors together and organized them into a union. It might seem silly, but they really needed a union. For most of them, an eight-hour day was a big step up.
One night Chuck invited Andrea over to our hotel room and a scene came down with the three of us; she was into that kind of thing. It was then that she told us she also had her own little business going on the side, and one of her customers was a top executive with a publishing house. He wanted to meet me to talk about a book.
So one evening after we were through shooting, Andrea took us over to the offices of Pinnacle Books in New York. There we met Andrea’s friend, David Zentner. He and Chuck talked for a while and then shook hands on a deal that would give Chuck a large advance—I think it was $40,000—as well as a writer who would do all the actual work.
With all the money coming in and a future that seemed promising, Chuck was confused. It no longer made any sense for me to be a hooker. In fact, that kind of thing might just damage my value as a movie star-celebrity-author-godknows-what.
And this was my first payoff; I had turned my last trick. Oh, Chuck would still tell me what to do and whom to do it with—if he snapped his fingers, I did it—but no longer was he renting my body to the man who drove the soda truck or a manufacturer of farm tools. The payoff would not be twenty or thirty or forty dollars; it would be more power or weird sex or nearness to fame or, sometimes, all of these.
Now I was beginning to see a new escape route. The more well known I became, the more other people came into my life, the less control Chuck would have over me.
seventeen
The money was now streaming in to Chuck, and the source of the stream seemed to be California. We had settled down in a rented beach cottage at Malibu and Chuck had bought a Jaguar. The next thing Chuck did was arrange for our second home, our home away from home, the Playboy Mansion West.
Chuck’s primary goal was to bring Hugh Hefner and myself together sexually. He saw this as the beginning of a great palship. Chuck had this picture of Hefner and himself as arm-in-arm buddies, sharing the sexual wealth of the world, dividing up playmates and bunnies equally. Of course, that never came down. All that did come down were a couple of scenes with Hefner.
Before going down to the pool, Chuck gave me a briefing. It would be all right if I got involved with another woman or with Hefner himself, but if any other man came near me, I was to discourage his advances. Chuck would be right there if I needed help.
The first time we went to orgy night, Hefner didn’t show up. As soon as he realized the publisher was not going to make an appearance, Chuck whisked me away. The following Wednesday we waited again, and this time Hefner came down to the Jacuzzi. As soon as he took off his bathrobe and stepped out into the water, Chuck started pushing me toward him.
Hefner seemed in a playful mood. He was into frolicking around, going from one girl to another like a bee buzzing flowers. He carried a huge bottle of Johnson’s baby oil with him and he was rubbing everyone down with the oil. There were about twelve people in the Jacuzzi and, before long, they were all coated with oil. It got all through my hair and I thought it was a real nuisance.
I could tell that Hefner had mixed feelings about me. He definitely wanted me there in the Jacuzzi but he didn’t seem to want anything to come down between the two of us. I think many men had trouble with the fact that I was the star of
Deep Throat
; they saw the size of the men in the movie and that tended to make them self-conscious. I would say that Hefner felt a definite inhibition.
At any rate, he was in no rush to get to me. He seemed to enjoy moseying around with the other females. Meanwhile, Chuck was afraid that some other male would latch onto me first and he kept pushing me over toward Hefner. Hefner couldn’t ignore it any longer, so he tried to direct me over toward the young girl who was a regular at the mansion.
“Why don’t you go over to Lila?” he said.
Lila needed no urging. She loved to be the center of attention. I still don’t know how old she was, but she looked like a high school girl. So Lila and I got together and put on a little show for the publisher.
Chuck wouldn’t take part in an orgy himself, not as a rule. His whole aim was to bring Hefner and myself together. The reason Chuck wouldn’t take part was that he had sexual problems and he didn’t want them revealed. He was naked in the water but if a girl came over to him and tried to get something started, there’d be no reaction.
What happened was really not my cup of tea. While Lila and I were together, the rest of the orgy-goers stopped what they were doing and formed a circle around us so that they could get a closer look at what was happening. It reminded me of those old Fred Astaire movies where all the other dancers suddenly stopped what they were doing and formed a circle around Fred and Ginger. And then the bystanders started making comments.
For some strange reason, the action was not enough—the audience also wanted sound effects. It was all very humiliating, another embarrassment in an endless string of embarrassments, but the orgy must go on.
Even Chuck contributed his talents to the show. He decided to demonstrate a new trick he had been practicing; this involved putting his entire fist into my body. One of the other men held my body out of the water while Chuck was doing that to me. Then Lila took over for Chuck, doing the same thing with her fist. At this point, everyone there applauded, again just like in one of those old Fred Astaire movies.
Hefner finally got himself aroused enough to approach me. I think he realized that Chuck would give him no peace unless he did something, so he came up behind me and entered me in the backside. That was his big thrill and chill and that was that. When he finished, Hefner disappeared and Chuck and I left soon after that.
I’m not sure what the others at the orgy that night were doing. I didn’t bother looking around much. I’m still that kind of a person—if two people are making love, I look the other way.
That night Chuck was very pleased, very up. I had finally done something right. Now it was inevitable, now he and Hefner would be good buddies and pals. After all, Hef—good old buddy, Hef—had used his woman, hadn’t he? Chuck could hardly wait for the next favor he was going to do for his pal, Hef. He was going to show the publisher something he had always wanted to see: He was going to show him a real live woman making love to a real live dog.
I was glad that the dog was going to be Rufus. I had been able to discourage him in the past, and I felt sure I’d be able to discourage him now.
The night I was supposed to do it, Chuck was very edgy. He was on my case all night long.
“Listen, Babe,” he said. “You better make sure it works out tonight. I told Hef that it’d be no sweat.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Rufus doesn’t seem to want to.”
“Well, tonight, he
better
want to,” he said. “Neither one of you better fuck this up tonight or you’re both gonna wind up in the pound tomorow.”
“All I know is—”
“And all I know is it better fucking work out. If it doesn’t happen right away, just hang in there. Stay with it this time. Tell Hef he shouldn’t be too impatient, it takes time to make it work.”
The scene was set to come down late that night, after a movie and after most of the other guests had gone home. Hefner called Security and told them to post guards at the bathhouse. One of the guards brought Rufus over from the kennel and then he joined a second guard stationed outside the bathhouse.
When we went over there, Hefner was dressed casually, pajamas and bathrobe. Chuck sat down on a large pillow but the publisher remained standing as he talked about “the excitement of this moment.”
Hefner had no way of knowing I was there against my will, no way of realizing that I was Chuck’s prisoner. I know I shouldn’t hold something like this against him, but it was being staged for his benefit—and he was a part of it all. Months later, when a mutual friend told him that Chuck had forced me to do everything I did, he was very upset by it.
“Okay, Linda,” Chuck said. “Take off your clothes.”
I did everything Chuck told me to do. I stripped down and bent over on a carpeted section of the floor and waited for Rufus to come over. When the dog set about positioning himself, that was the moment for me to move. It didn’t take much movement. What I did was just back ever so slightly against the dog. The instant I did that, Rufus backed off.
Nothing happened. And I knew all the time that nothing was going to happen. I did it one time because I had to, because they had a gun. But this time there were no guns. And I would rather take the worst beating in the world than ever let it happen again. So I made sure that nothing happened.
Hefner was very understanding.
“You know,” he said, “Lila’s been having the same problem. We can’t figure it.”
“Just give her some time,” Chuck said. “Linda can work this thing out.”
Chuck was trying desperately to salvage something for his pal, Hef, but nothing was going to work. Rufus kept backing away.
“This is really odd,” Hefner said, “it’s just this way with Lila. You have to wonder why it keeps happening.”
I could have told him why. Instead I tried to muster up an air of disappointment to match his own.
“Well,” he said, finally, “these things happen.”
As we went home that night, I was feeling triumphant. I had managed to eliminate one of the worst threats in my life. And, once again, I had enjoyed a small victory over Chuck Traynor. I think, however, he was beginning to be suspicious. Throughout the ride home that night, he was moody and sullen. Just before we got out of the car, he turned on me.
“It was all your fault!”
Who, me? Of course, he was right. But he won’t know that for sure until he reads these words.