Traci Lords Newsletter
Sign-up to receive daily news on Traci Lords by email.
Traci Lords Filmography
Source:
Theiapolis
Traci Lords Resources
Table of Content
Traci Lords: Career
Traci Elizabeth Lords was born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7 1968, in Steubenville, Ohio. She made her stage name by combining the first name of her high school best friend, Traci, and the last name of her favorite actor from Hawaii Five-O,
Jack Lord. At fifteen she fled from her abusive, alcoholic father to Lawndale, California with her mother and three sisters. Later, while attending Redondo Union High School, she ran away from home and had an abortion. While living with a forty-something boyfriend posing as her stepfather, she used a friend's sister's birth certificate and a fake driver's license indicating that she was twenty-two years of age to fake her way into the porn industry, starting with Jim South's World Modeling Agency. She quickly became one of the most popular starlets in town and is considered by many to be one of the first porn queens. By the time she was 18, she'd appeared in one hundred and seven adult films. She even modeled for widely distributed adult magazines, such as Penthouse, in the same September 1984 issue that exposed Miss America 1984,
Vanessa Williams. But in 1986, federal authorities discovered she was underage while making movies and they arrested the owners of her movie agency and X-citement Video, Inc. See United States v. X-Citement Video.
The ensuing prosecution cost the pornographic film and distribution industry millions as they were obligated by law to pull her videotapes and magazines from store shelves. Adult book and video stores needed to pull hundreds of thousands of her videos and films from their shelves to avoid the serious accusations of trafficking child pornography. The case gave government prosecutors a high profile, unequivocal violation of the law to use in prosecuting the pornographers and distributors associated with Lords' films as effectively as possible. Lords herself was never charged, since as a minor she was unable to give legal consent to perform sex acts on film for money. Instead, the agents and producers who accepted her fake IDs were charged and people affiliated with the films in question experienced legal troubles for years. Only one of her films, Traci, I Love You was actually produced after her eighteenth birthday, and is the only one of her films commonly and legally available in the United States. In parts of Europe and other regions where the minimum legal age for involvement in pornographic films is lower, Lords' films are still available, and they are commonplace on the Internet.
The controversy still sparks debate. Government prosecutors declared that Lords was a victim of a manipulative industry, while Lords has claimed that she was drugged and made to do things she did not want to do. But industry insiders, like Ron Jeremy and Ginger Lynn, as well as boyfriends say they never saw her use drugs and that she was fully aware of her actions even if, as a minor, she could not legally consent. While Lords decries the pornographic film industry, she continues to use the stage name she gave herself as a minor.
Lords has since moved into mainstream films and television with some success. She has played roles in a number of B-movies. Some of her more notable films include Not of this Earth (1988),
John Waters's Cry Baby
, (1990) and Blade, (1998).
Lords also appeared in continuing roles in several television series, including Married with Children (1987),
Roseanne (1988), Melrose Place (1992), and Profiler (1996), with single appearances in MacGyver (1985), Highlander (1992), Tales from the Crypt (1989), and Hercules (1995), among others.
In the 1990s, Lords began developing a career as a singer performing vocals for Manic Street Preachers on the single "Little Baby Nothing", and also appearing in the music videos of other performers and groups. In 1995 Traci made her solo debut, in colaboration with Juno Reactor, called "1000 Fires". She has since become an active gay rights advocate.
In 2003 she published a book, '.
-
Acting credits >>
Table of Content
Latest Film News
See Also:
