Bilateral Warp’s Flashback Interview: Ginger Lynn
A warning beforehand: Some of the material in this Ginger Lynn interview is NSFW. Because of that, I would recommend you be at least 18 to read this.
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I’m old enough to have come of age with the mom-and-pop video store. I can recall spending lots of time in there, taking a look at all the films that were available for rent (and later sale as they started shutting down). I first ventured into the adult section when I was 18, and that’s how I became familiar with my next interview subject, Ginger Lynn.
I became intrigued by not only her adult film work, but her mainstream work as well. I won an eBay auction from her in 2012, and that’s when I first started speaking to her. It took me almost 2 years to land an interview with her, but on March 2nd, a dream came true for me when I had the chance to do an interview with Ginger Lynn. The conversation was one of the highlights of my life, and I hope you all enjoy it as well.
Without further ado, here’s my interview with Ginger Lynn!
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Johnny: Can you hear me?
Ginger: I can hear you just fine.
Johnny: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak to me.
Ginger: The pleasure is mine. Not a problem, sweetheart.
Johnny: This is truly an honor. As I typed in an introduction, I’ve been a fan of yours’ ever since I was a teenager. That’s when I was first able to go behind the curtain at the local video store and check out the adult section.
Ginger: They had swinging doors or they had curtains you had to go through. It was the back room. It was where all the good stuff was. Oh, absolutely I remember those days. Video stores were huge. Now the Internet has changed all of that, but those days are always going to have a special place in my heart. I’m glad that we grew up together.
Johnny: I would like to start off with the two questions I always ask my interview subjects. Number one: What were your pop-cultural likes growing up, like favorite movies and music?
Ginger: “Gilligan’s Island” was one of my favorite TV shows. I always giggle because my name is Ginger. The funny thing is I was never a fan of Ginger. I was always a fan of Mary Ann, of Dawn Wells, but because Ginger and I had the same name, I had a crush on Ginger just because of the name. As far as music goes, I was a huge. huge Led Zeppelin fan. Robert Plant was my idol growing up. I wanted to have the opportunity to meet him someday, and I actually did. I was at a concert, probably 20 years ago, and it wasn’t Led Zeppelin. It was just Robert Plant. One of the roadies recognized me…I was up in the front row. He brought me backstage and I had the opportunity to meet my idol, although it wasn’t the story I had hoped I would be telling later on. When he shook my hand, we were introduced together, and instead of saying something nice, he said “Oh, is that the hand that you jerk cocks off with?”, and it blew my whole growing up fantasy. I felt like I was going to cry…Not that it wasn’t the correct hand. It’s just that, being such a big fan, I was hoping for “it’s nice to meet you”. He did invite me back to his room. I did not go.
Johnny: Pardon me if I stumble over my words. I sometimes get nervous when doing these interviews.
Ginger: That’s alright.
Johnny: To my next question: What were your high school days like?
Ginger: You know I grew up in Rockford, Illinois. I was a very good student, although I didn’t make it to many of my classes. I was also the girl that hung out in the alley and smoked pot with all of the stoners. I went to a lot of concerts. I went to pretty much any and every concert that was available in either Chicago or Rockford, Illinois. I had the same boyfriend for the entire four years of high school, and I was kind of shy. I wore high-tops, Converse tennis shoes and concert T-shirts every day. I was not one of the popular girls, but I had my group of close friends. I had 2 or 3 girlfriends that were my best friends, and then I had my boyfriend that I was with every day. He carried my books to all of my classes. He lived right down the street, and I thought he was going to be the one at the time. He was my first puppy love.
Johnny: If I may, I’d like to go on to my next question, which is this: Before you entered adult filmmaking, you were a figure model. Forgive my naivete, but is figure modeling like posing nude for sculptors and painters?
Ginger: When I answered the ad in the newspaper, it said “figure modeling wanted-500 to 5,000 dollars per day”. I had no idea what that was, but I assumed it was nude modeling, based upon the photo that was in the newspaper, so figure modeling was just posing for men’s magazines and photographers that would use your photos for art projects and advertisements. I did a lot of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mag3bDKQ9w
Johnny: Okay. Since your adult filmography has been so expansive, I’d like to choose a couple of random movies from that filmography and ask for your favorite memories of them, kind of like the AV Club’s Random Roles, starting with this one: You played multiple roles in “The World According To Ginger”. What was that like?
Ginger: “The World According To Ginger” was one of those films that was fun because I got to back into time and play different characters. I got to go back to Adam and Eve. I got to go back to the days of the harem. It was a lot of work, all of the changes, and I had a wonderful time being able to portray and pretend that I was somebody else from another period of time. I’m a pretty lucky girl when it comes to films. I was in the golden era of filmmaking, where the first 69 films I made…Of those 69, well over half were shot in film. That was back when you were able to create actual characters. I didn’t go in and play Ginger Lynn. I played the genie. I played all the characters from different periods of time. One of my favorite films was a film called “Trashy Lady”, which was a period piece that took place in the 20s or 30s. The clothes I got to wear, the characters that I got to play…The films were so well made back then, and it was a pleasure.
Johnny: I’ve sampled quite a few of them on the Movie Monster website, and they definitely did have a unique look to them. Speaking of which: Last year, I helped you locate a copy of one of your favorite movies to work on, “Pleasure Hunt”. Of all the movies from your first stint in adult film, what made this so special?
Ginger: Well, first of all, I want to thank you so much for digging that up. That was really sweet and kind of you. “The Pleasure Hunt”, parts 1 and 2, were films that I was able to shoot in San Francisco, and the director just made each of the characters, each of the scenes, so unique and so wonderful. They were kind of ahead of their time. He got into some things that were not normal at that period in time. The Dark Brothers were the only people that were really doing films that were really out there, and Bob Wolfe, the director of the “Pleasure Hunt” films…His cinematography, the characters that he created for me, the lead up to all of these sex scenes. There’s a scene in one of them where there’s a giant circle that I’m tied up to. My arms are spread, my legs are spread, and there’s men standing around. They spin the wheel to see who gets to have me. It wasn’t just “you walk in and deliver a pizza”. Bob Wolfe went out of his way to make each and every scene unique and extremely sexual and sensual.
Johnny: I actually purchased a copy for myself after the copy I purchased for you, and that was definitely a scorcher.
Ginger: Wasn’t it fabulous?…And I looked fantastic in everything. They had fabulous make-up. They bought in the best make-up artists. They cast me with people I was interested in working with, that I really wanted to work with. It was just fantastic. It was an experience…I have done over 100 films at this point, and those two really stood out and stand out in my mind. I want to thank you once again for sending me a copy.
Johnny: Oh, no problem. My next question: The first of your adult films that I saw was “Club Ginger”. You were regularly getting your name in the titles of your movies. How did that feel?
Ginger: You know, it was fabulous. When I signed the contract, I was the very first adult contract star ever, and one of the things they wanted to do was…They were making sure that Vivid became a household brand name, and at that point in time, Ginger Lynn was a name that was on the rise. I’d come into the industry when it went from having to go to a movie theater and watch the film on the big screen to being able to being able to watch a film in your home. VCRs came out just about the time that Ginger Lynn movies came out, and so Vivid made, in my opinion, a very wise choice of putting my name in all the titles. It not only created a name for them, but it helped to perpetuate my name and it was a pretty good feeling. One of the titles that stood in my mind, and is the name of the radio show I host today…I host a radio show on skidrowstudios.com, and the name of the show is the same as one of my film titles back then, which was “Blame It On Ginger”.
Johnny: I’ll be asking you about that later in the interview, but I actually did see that video as well, but the VHS copy I had of it…A lot of the language was muted.
Ginger: Oh, really.
Johnny: I mean, it’s like large passages of dialogue were eliminated for some reason.
Ginger: You know, there are so many adult films put out nowadays. When I started, there were maybe 10 movies made per month, and that was a lot. When there was a movie being made, everybody knew about it, and everybody wanted to be in it. I was fortunate enough just to be chosen to be in at least one, if not more, of each of those films.
Johnny: Onto my next question: You were in both the original “New Wave Hookers” and “New Wave Hookers 6”. What would you say was the main difference between the Dark Brothers and the much-missed Antonio Pasolini?
Ginger: The Dark Brothers were exactly as their names imply. They were very dark. They were wonderful to work for, but they weren’t high-energy, “let’s do this”, “let’s do that”. They had their scenes pre-conceived. They knew what they wanted. They knew what they were going to do, and they cast each character, each scene in the movie. Each character had one scene. In the original film, “New Wave Hookers”, I had the one infamous scene with Tom Byron and…The name of the other actor always eludes me. I can’t remember who it is. I want to say Steve somebody, but it doesn’t stand out in my mind. (Note from Johnny: According to the IAFD, it’s Steve Powers). In the original “New Wave Hookers”, I have one scene. It’s a double penetration, which at that point in time was a big deal. The girls next door, the nice girls, the girls who looked like me, didn’t do double penetrations. They were more vanilla, and so I think I stood out in that movie because of the double penetration. My favorite, most-quoted line out of that movie is “Boys, boys, boys”. People will come up and say “Say that line for me. Say ‘Boys, boys, boys'”. In “New Wave Hookers 6”, I am the lead character. I have 3 sex scenes in it. There are 2 things I had never done before on film. What I had to do was just go above and beyond, and I wasn’t competing with anybody. I did “New Wave Hookers 6” thirteen years after I did the original, and so I really had to outdo myself. I do a double-vag in that movie, which I will never ever do again in my life. I’ve seen girls do it. They make it look wonderful and sexy. For me, it was not a pleasant experience and I would never do it again. The 2nd thing I did on film, which was the only time I’d ever done it, and it was quite by accident, was squirting. I really outdid myself.
Johnny: My next question: In 2009, you collaborated with Nina Hartley on “When Ginger Met Nina 1”. You had done several movies together before this. What did this film have that your previous collaborations didn’t?
Ginger: Nina and I appeared in several films together during the beginning of my career, during that 2 year, 3 month period, but we never actually had the opportunity to have sex together. In the film “Ten Little Maidens”, we had a scene where Nina fucks me with a daikon radish, but we never actually get to have sex. I can’t remember all the titles of the different movies we were both in, but we would be in an orgy scene together. We would be in the movie together, but we never actually had sex. When we were approached by Triangle Films to do our first girl/girl together, it was the first time. We waited 26 years to have a scene together, and when we first went into it, I thought “Okay, I have never been with Nina. I am just going to take control and be the one that’s in charge, and I’m gonna make her have the best sex scene ever. I’m going to be in control. I’m going to fuck her up, in a good way”. It was funny because Nina, having waited so long as well and us being such good friends, Nina had the same idea. It’s one of those scenes with the person in charge, the dom and the sub. We swap and switch throughout the entire scene. It was worth waiting for. It was fabulous.
Johnny: It definitely was. To move on to my next question: I think that you’ve always looked great from the 80s to 2014. Many of the talents of 80s pop culture, whether mainstream or adult, tend to look back at the 80s and make fun of the fashions, make-up and hairstyles of the decade, and when it comes to adult films, they often make fun of the grooming as well. I don’t see anything to make fun with them. Why do you think so many people do?
Ginger: Back in the 80s, it was such a wonderful time for hair and make-up. Everyone had the giant hair, the very heavy-handed make-up. The clothes were wonderfully slutty. Underwear didn’t match. Everyone had pubic hair. In the films made today, it’s a much more stylized, sleek look. The girls all have the straight, perfect hair, and the make-up can go from absolutely none whatsoever to full-on glamour make-up. I think the biggest change is the lack of pubic hair, and that’s what I would personally make fun of. I believe that a woman should be a woman and that pubic hair…I don’t want to see a full-on Amazon bush down there, but I think pubic hair, in the right amount, is sexy. I think it belongs there. I think that the women who go without it, who shave completely, although it may look sexy, I think it’s way too pre-pubescent for me, and that’s what I make fun of. That and the “sticks with tits”. There’s so many women nowadays that have gone away from the natural look. We all had natural titties back then. There were very few of us who had any implants. I’m old-fashioned. I like a woman to look like a woman. I want you to be feminine and soft and beautiful, and when you’ve got these giant basketballs attached to your chest, I think it’s a joke.
Johnny: I can definitely agree with you on that one. Even though I’m only 31 years old, I tend to find myself tending to be drawn more to the 80s’ adult films.
Ginger: There was an innocence about films in the 80s, and the reason that most women, if not all of them, back at that point in time, got into the industry was because they wanted to. They enjoyed it. There was no big amounts of money to be made. There was no fame…There was no fortune. The women who were in it, as well as the men, did it because they really enjoyed it. It was an almost rebellious time. It was against the law to be filming, so we were outlaws to some, which added a different element of excitement.
Johnny: It definitely did. Moving on into your mainstream work, I have some questions about that. You were in most of the “Vice Academy” movies. What were your favorite memories of those films?
Ginger: I had a blast doing the “Vice Academy” series. The funniest memory I’m going to go with is this. In the films, Holly and Didi, which is Linnea’s (Quigley) character, they were arch-enemies. They didn’t get along, although they had to work together as undercover cops. We were always fighting in the film, and I think one of my favorite scenes ever was Linnea and I getting into one of these “Batman” fights. We were literally rolling across the ground. We just got into this huge, wonderful chick fight, and everybody loves a chick fight. I think that my favorite memories were Linnea and I laughing and making fun and joking and being friends off-camera, and then, as soon as the cameras roll, we’d turn into two girls who hated each other. In real life, it’s not that way. I just had her on my radio show last week, and it was just a wonderful, wonderful memory lane to go down.
Johnny: Definitely. Speaking of “Vice Academy”, you were credited in the first three, but not in the 5th and 6th ones, at least according to the IMDB. Why was that?
Ginger: Well, I actually filmed parts one and two. I did a small stint in part three, and the director, Rick Sloane, thought it would be beneficial to his five or six films. It would help his titles to have my name in the film, so I did not actually perform in them. He just reused old footage of me from the original first and second “Vice Academy”s in order to promote his films a little bit more.
Johnny: Oh, I see.
Ginger: The budgets on the “Vice Academy” films were extremely low, and in all honesty, I did not get along that well. He had a very special way of directing, and a very low budget. I remember one scene we were shooting at his home. I went to use the restroom, and the toilet wouldn’t flush. I went and said “There’s a problem. The toilets aren’t working”, and he said “Oh, I turn the water off when we’re filming to save money”. That’s how cheap he was. There was no water to flush the toilet when we shot at his house.
Johnny: That wasn’t the only mainstream comedy you did around that time. You made an appearance in the 1989 Blaked Edwards comedy “Skin Deep”, but you’re not credited for it on the IMDB. Why aren’t you credited?
Ginger: You know, I don’t know. I went on that film. I wanted to meet Blake Edwards and I wanted to meet John Ritter. I was still in the adult film industry. I had created my own resume that I changed the titles on. For example, I was in the film “The Poonies”, while on my resume, I wrote “The Goonies”. I was in the film “Blame It On Ginger”. In my actual resume, I wrote “Blame It On Rio”. I changed the titles of my adult movies back to the original titles of the mainstream movies, knowing that I would get caught, but it caught people’s attention. I went onto the film “Skin Deep” as an extra, just so that I could meet Blake Edwards and John Ritter. It turns out someone recognized me in the crowd of extras. The next thing I know, I’m in a Nolan Ryan gown, and we shot two scenes that did not make it into the movie. There’s one where I’m in a bar with John Ritter and we’re just flirting. That scene never made it into the actual film, but I do give Blake and John credit for that. Because of what they did, I was able to be Taft-Harley’d and I got my SAG card from working on that film.
Johnny: I actually noticed that Edwards, later in his career, would sometimes cast actresses of the adult persuasion in bit parts in his movies. I know that Annette Haven had a cameo in “10”. I know that Colleen Brennan played newscaster Tammy Taylor in “S.O.B”, and according to Teri Weigel’s website, she had a bit part in “Sunset”, but she wasn’t credited for it, either.
Ginger: I’m not sure. I was told by Blake Edwards that his wife, Julie Andrews, was a big fan of mine and that they would watch my films. I don’t know if that’s true or not. It’s what Blake said to me, and I’m going to guess that Blake was a big fan of the adult film industry. Going by the different actresses that he hired over the years in his films, they were all small parts, but I think he was just a big fan of the industry.
Johnny: Very interesting. To move on to my next question: In the late 80s, you did some work for Cannon Films on their Party Girls line of re-releases of their sex comedies, doing intros in the same manner that Michael Dudikoff did for Cannon’s action movies. What do you recall the most about Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus?
Ginger: I don’t recall anything. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I have no recollection, no memories of that whatsoever.
Johnny: I can Tweet you an example of what I’m talking about later, once we’re done with the interview.
Ginger: Yeah, that would be fabulous. I’ve done so many projects. I’ve been such a lucky girl throughout my career that whatever that one is, for some reason, does not stand out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Z6RHB71Ew
Johnny: Well, let me try this. You played Crystal on several episodes of the early 90s series “Super Force”. That was one of your first sci-fi works. What drew you to it?
Ginger: At that point in time, I was looking to do as many mainstream projects as possible. I had begun studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse with Milton Katselas, and I went on a lot of auditions. When I was cast as Crystal in “Super Force”, it was one of the highlights of my career. It was a mainstream television show, shown on Saturday mornings. It was geared towards a younger audience, and it kind of gave me some credibility in the mainstream Hollywood arena. I had a blast doing it. I got to play the leading man’s ex-girlfriend, who was a ditzy blonde. It was just a blast to film. My co-stars were all wonderful. It was a blast to work on. It was a lot of fun. The lasting memory I have is: I collect antique coins. I collect coins that are unusual, and one of the things they offered to employees only of Universal Studios was an “E.T” coin. It was a gold coin with E.T on the cover. They were numbered. They were limited edition, and only available to the cast and crew of the projects that were shot at Universal Studios, and their employees. That’s the one memory that I take with me.
Johnny: Speaking of sci-fi, you played Rachel Coriolis in several of the mid-90s “Wing Commander” games. What was your favorite part of those games?
Ginger: I loved playing Rachel Coriolis in the “Wing Commander” series. I got to be the weapons load-out officer, so when you’re playing the game, any time that you go into battle, you have to come to me. We shot a lot of it, not everything, but most of it was on green screen. My favorite memory was my grandmother came down to the set one day, and we were shooting something with green screen. My grandmother walked in front of the camera not knowing, and the entire cast and crew was laughing at my grandmother because all you could see was the top half of her body walking around on set. Malcolm McDowell was wonderful to work with, but very grabby with his hands. Mark Hammill…Not my favorite actor to work with. Tom Wilson was fabulous. The director, Chris Roberts, fantastic. I would work with him again in a heartbeat. The disappointment that I had working on “Wing Commander” was when they finally decided to make it into a Hollywood movie, they made the mistake of not hiring the original cast and crew. People who get attached and addicted to a game, they want to see the characters they’re familiar with. They want to see Rachel Coriolis. They want to see Mark Hammill. They want to see John Rhys-Davies. They want to see all of the original characters, and instead they hired “Hollywood actors”, which I think destroyed the popularity of the film.
Johnny: Definitely. I read that the only reason a lot of people went to see “Wing Commander” was because there was a trailer for “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” in front of it.
Ginger: Yes.
Johnny: Moving on, you played Amber Synn on two episodes of the short-lived Fox drama “Skin”. Do you think that a TV show about the adult industry would’ve worked better on premium cable, or do you think the show was able to pull it off on network television?
Ginger: I was cast in 8 out of the 13 first episodes. We filmed 5, not 2. They’re very, very difficult to find, and I think what happened was: It was not long after “NYPD Blue”. I filmed that, and it was the first time an actor showed his ass on television, and it was Dennis Franz. It was a big time for changes in mainstream network television. I think when the series “Skin” came out, I don’t know if the public was completely ready for it. Also, we were up against 3 new shows that came out that season. We were up against “2 And A Half Men”, as well as James Caan in “Las Vegas”, so at the time, I think we had 7 to 10,000 viewers per episode, which, if it had gone to a cable network, it would’ve been huge and much better, but cable wasn’t as popular at that point in time as network television. It was a transitional period for the industry. I think if they had waited a couple of more years, it would’ve done very well. You had just an amazing cast. Olivia Wilde was in it. She played the young Juliet to the main character’s Romeo. I think they had a lot going on. They had two families, the pornographer and then, I can’t remember what Ron Silver’s character was, but there were so many wonderful things that were coming up. I knew what was going on in the cast, and had the series continued, you would’ve found out that my child did not belong to the porn producer, but was actually Ron Silver’s, who played, I’m pretty sure, the mayor of the town. It was his child. I had so many wonderful things coming up with my character that, unfortunately, never came to be, but I still have my bar of soap from the set. They made “Skin” soap.
Johnny: To go back to movies, you played Fanny in “The Devil’s Rejects”. I saw that movie, and even though your part was small, it was very memorable. How did you get involved in that movie?
Ginger: Well, I had an audition. Rob Zombie was a fan of mine. I went in for the audition just like everyone else did. I was originally cast as one of the two women from the couples in the hotel room where everybody gets killed. The one woman who makes it away and has her face torn off? That was the character that I was originally cast. Unfortunately, a week or so before we began to film, I’m a martial artist and I tore my ACL and MCL out, fighting in my left knee. There was no way I could play a character with a cast from my thigh down to my ankle and run away and get away from Captain Spaulding and Baby. They wrote the character in for me to play, Fanny. It was a small role, but it was one of the most memorable roles in the film. I get to kill Sid Haig. I get to kill Captain Spaulding in that scene.
Johnny: Speaking of heavy metal, I thought you gave an excellent performance in the video for Metallica’s “Turn The Page”.
Ginger: Aaaahhh!
Johnny: While I don’t care for a lot of 90s music, I do think it was a tremendously well-done work, both musically and visually. You definitely showed your dramatic skills in that video, and it’s proclaimed as one of the best videos of the 90s. How did it feel to be part of such a classic video?
Ginger: You know, when they originally asked me to be in the video, I turned the role down, and I turned the role down for about 3 months. I was in a hotel lobby, this was before cell phones, in Waco, Texas, when the front desk person came up to me and said “You’ve got a phone call”. It was my agent, and he said the director, Jonas Akerlund, was in town, was in Los Angeles. I was on my way back from Waco to L.A, and he begged me “Please, please, please, just go in and meet with Jonas”. At that point in time, I didn’t want to be your average B-movie bimbo, somebody who’s bouncing around naked in the video. I thought it was too gratuitous, and I had no interest in it whatsoever, but I agreed to meet with the director. I said, “As long as you’re comfortable with me coming in with no make-up and wearing overalls, my hair’s in a ponytail, I’ve got my son, I’ve got my nanny, I’ve got my bodyguard, I’ve got my entire entourage…I will stop by the set tomorrow. I will meet with Jonas, but I want you to know that I don’t want the role”. I went in and I sat down with the director, with Jonas Akerlund, and he told me a story that just, it touched me so deeply. Jonas used to be someone who put on circuses in Sweden. They were similar to Cirque Du Soleil, but his dream was always to be a mainstream Hollywood director. He wanted to do films. He wanted to do music videos, and he decided to make a change, and to “turn the page”, and to go for it. It really hit home with me, after having done adult for so long. Just as Jonas loved doing the circuses, I loved doing adult films, but it was time for me to move on and do something different. I found that our personal lives, and the characters that we had portrayed prior to going into mainstream, were so similar that I just felt a kinship to Jonas, and when I left there, I wanted that role more than anything I’d ever wanted. I got the phone call the next day from the casting director. Now, remember, they’d been trying to get me for three months to do this role, and the casting director said to me, “Well, Jonas absolutely loves you, but you’re too thin and you look too good”. I had to beg, plead, borrow and steal to get that role. What I had to do was I ate ice cream and nachos for two weeks straight, I put ten pounds on, and they had to use a sort of spirit glue or some kind of a gum, a make-up technique, to put circles under my eyes, and to make me look older. I was able to pull it off, and it was one of the biggest honors that I’ve ever done. If I had to say there was something that I’m the most proud of that I’ve done in my mainstream career, I’m going to put “Turn The Page” right up there. I was also concerned with the fact that they were doing a cover of one of my favorite Bob Seger songs, and I thought “Oh, they’re gonna bastardize it. It’ll just become awful”, and they did such an amazing job. The entire video, the song, the way that they played it, and also, Jonas made it into a short film, which won several different awards at film festivals. It’s at the top of my list of things I’m proud of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A84oM1LTqto
Ginger” Another project that I was down to the wire for was the film “Casino”, and I waited months and months. It was between me and Sharon Stone for that final role, and…Was it Scorcese?
Johnny: Yes, it was.
Ginger: Yeah, it was Scorcese, and Scorcese wanted me. Everyone wanted me. The studio wasn’t comfortable. They weren’t secure enough to put an adult actress in such a main role in a film, but I was getting cards from my father, little kitty cats hanging from the tree branches saying “Hang in there”. It wasn’t “Yes, you have the role. No, you don’t have the role”. It’s “you’re in the running for the role. It’s between you and someone else”. They didn’t tell me it was Sharon Stone until the film actually came out. When I did the audition, the character’s name was not Ginger. Scorcese changed the name of the character to Ginger after my auditions and my screen tests, so that was the closest I’ve ever gotten to a huge mainstream film. I will say that I’ve got something else in the works. I can’t tell you who it is or what it is, but it’s big, it’s big, it’s big! We’re just waiting for the final…It’s not whether or not I have the role, it’s just when we’re going to be going into pre-production, so I’ve got something wonderful coming up that, hopefully, will change my entire career.
Johnny: Sounds good. Another question I have is this: The thing I admire about you the most, more than anything you’ve done in either adult or mainstream film, is the fact that you survived a battle with cervical cancer. What did battling that demon mean for your life?
Ginger: You know, we all go through things. My mother had a double mastectomy. My sister had breast cancer, and then another type at another point in time. When you come across a battle like that, you have two choices: You can just give in, or you can fight. I have too many wonderful things to go through in my life to give up on anything. It was a very trying time in my life. I battled it, I won, and I have been cancer-free and healthy since 2005.
Johnny: That’s fantastic. I’m sorry if I get a little nervous here. It’s just that I’m a very easy-going guy, but the one thing that really pisses me off is cancer. I lost my mom to it…Well, multiple myeloma, to be specific, and so many of my favorite entertainers have died from it in all its’ forms. It takes a lot to get me angry nowadays, but cancer in all its’ forms is the one thing that does it.
Ginger: Yeah. It’s an ugly, awful, awful disease, and hopefully, there’ll be a cure in the near future, if there isn’t one already that’s being held back by whoever holds things back…The FDA, to be specific. I’m not saying that people who don’t make it through could have, but I believe that in my case, attitude, my family, and the fact that I never give up on anything, “No” is not a word that’s in my vocabulary.
Johnny: Something to be admired. On a lighter note, you’ve done both adult and mainstream material. What’s the one talent you have that you haven’t been able to show off yet?
Ginger: I don’t know if I have any talents that I haven’t shown off yet. I know that growing up, the talent I wish I had, what I always wanted to be growing up was a rock-and-roll star. I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to play guitar. I wanted to be up on that stage, entertaining audiences. My dad says I sound like a cat scratching his butt on a naily board. That’s the extent of my singing talent, so the one talent that I haven’t shown, and that’s only because I don’t have it is my singing talent.
Johnny: Actually, you did perform the theme to the 1991 movie “Fantasy World”, and I think you did a very good job with it, and if you’re nervous about your singing, you know, you could always try karaoke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t04a5AiGrwk
Ginger: I’ve done karaoke, and they boo me off the stage, baby. I’m bad. The problem with me is I think I can sing, but in reality, I cannot sing….Unless I’m in the shower. If I could do everything in the shower, I’d probably have gold records all over my house.
Johnny: On another tack, as alluded to earlier, you recently launched your radio show, “Blame It On Ginger”, after you left SiriusXM’s Vivid Radio. Many of your fellow adult film stars are co-hosts during the week, or have done or will be doing interviews. Is there any chance that your fellow adult film legend and former co-host Christy Canyon will reunite with you on your new show, or are there contractual issues preventing that?
Ginger: I was on the radio for over a dozen years, and when Manwin lost the contracts, they were beat out by Vivid Video. There’s always choices to make, and I’m finding that, more and more, if I can get something for free…With the exclusion of adult movies, I think that people who make the movies, you should go out and buy the, I’m not a big fan of FreeOnes and all of the free sites that are out there. When it comes to radio, you know, Howard Stern made the big choice. He went over from terrestrial radio to satellite radio and made a huge change, and everybody followed, and it was a huge big deal. What’s happening today is that radio doesn’t have to be paid for anymore. You can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, and I think that satellite has a lot more restrictions than I’m able or comfortable living with. I want “Blame It On Ginger”. I want skidrowstudios.com to be a place where I have the ability, where I have the freedom to express myself in any way, shape or form that I want to. I can do that on Internet radio. I’ll say, as far as today goes, I have no intention whatsoever of switching back to satellite radio, especially Vivid Video. That’s just not where I want to be. My show is much more entertaining. My show goes to places where no other show goes, and I don’t have the restrictions that are laid down by satellite or terrestrial radio. I get to be myself, and that’s the reason that my shows are so popular. It’s because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You know that there’s no one going to be telling me that I can’t do something. I take it to the limits. I take it absolutely to the limits. Yesterday, I ran around. We had a wonderful company by the name of Crystal Delights who design butt plugs. They’re beautiful glass plugs. They have different designs on the end. The one that I wore yesterday, I was able to put this into my body on this show, and I actually wore it home, was a wolf tail. I had a wolf tail hanging out of my booty. One of my other guests had a little pink crystal one with a kitty cat on the end hanging out of her’s, and then another co-host of mine, one of the characters on my show, went home with…Basically, the butt plug went in his butt and then he had, maybe, a 12-to-14 inch long beautiful blonde ponytail hanging out of his butt, so we walked around downtown Los Angeles with our tails hanging out, and rode home in the car for an hour-and-a-half with our tails hanging out, came home and walked around the house wiggling, and I can do that. If I were on satellite radio, I could not be able to do that. They would not allow that, and in all honesty, I like having a wolf tail in my butt. I can play the game “Will My Pussy Melt This?”. I can play the game “What’s Up Ginger’s Ass?”. I can splosh in food. I can make out with my guests. I can have sex with my guests. I can do anything I want, and that’s the beauty of “Blame It On Ginger”.
Johnny: Definitely.
Ginger: Threw you off there, didn’t I?
Johnny: Well, in a good way. It’s definitely entertaining. My next question: This is a bit of personal story leading up to the question. In the late 90s, my family took a trip to Walt Disney World. When me and my brother got off Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, we walked past Ron Jeremy, who we were familiar with from Comedy Central programming. That leads me to ask: Where was the most unusual place that you’ve been recognized at?
Ginger: I get recognized a lot in public places. I get recognized at airports, shopping malls, Disneyland. I went to Disneyland. It’s one of my favorite places to go ever, and my boyfriend took me there for my birthday the year before last. We’re standing in line to get in, and you’re showing your little ticket, and you walk through the turnstile, and they go through your bags. I had taken my backpack off. I’m standing there, and the guy in front of me has got his camera out, and he’s taking photos of me while I’m going through my bag at Disneyland. In a lot of places I get recognized, people will come over and say hello. I’m very lucky in the fact that the type of fans that different adult film stars have seem to depend upon their personality. I was just talking with Jasmin St. Clair the other day, and her fans are hardcore biker tough guys, just really rough kind of guys, and the kinds of scenes that she did were rough and wild. I was the girl next door who did naughty things, but made them seem okay, and my fans are respectful. They’re kind. I can think of, on one hand, the amount of times anyone has come up and said anything out of line. The one that comes to mind: I was at a restaurant, and it was one of those places where they serve the giant cups of coffee. The bowls are giant, and I was on a first date with someone. The waiter came over to me and he goes “I love the way that you suck cock”. It was the end of my coffee and also the end of my date. That’s very rare. I don’t think he meant it in a derogatory way, but the words that came out of his mouth were just unacceptable, and that happens on a very, very rare occasion. That’s the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head. I attract the type of people that I have portrayed on film, and the bottom line is I’m a pretty nice girl.
Johnny: You’ve definitely been very nice. I’ve really been enjoying this interview so far. My next question is: To return to the matter of adult movies, you did parodies in the 80s like “Beverly Hills Cox”, “Blame It On Ginger” and “The Poonies”. Did you ever hear feedback about these spoofs from the people who worked on, respectively, “Beverly Hills Cop”, “Blame It On Rio” and “The Goonies”?
Ginger: I met Eddie Murphy at The Comedy Store, and he was a fan. He thought it was funny that I did “Beverly Hills Cox”. He did a movie called “The Golden Child”, and if you watch it, in the very beginning of the film, Eddie Murphy is standing in front of a newsstand with a cover of a magazine with me on it, the cover of a Club Magazine, so I think Eddie was not only not upset about the fact that we did “Beverly Hills Cox”, but somewhat of a fan. I never heard anything from “Blame It On Rio”, but I met Corey Feldman at the Comedy Store. Again, that was a big hangout in the 80s for adult film stars as well as comedians. They seem to go hand-in-hand. Corey bought me 3 of the original coins from “The Goonies” that I got to keep. We had fake ones when we shot the box cover of “The Poonies”, but I have 3 of the actual coins from “The Goonies”. I think a lot of mainstream actors love to watch porn, and I don’t think they’re upset by the parodies. If anything, it’s a little bit of a thrill for them to let them know that somebody has copied their film, especially when it was me.
Johnny: I have to admit, sometimes ideas have crossed my mind. For example, I was thinking that, a couple of years ago, there could’ve been a parody of “Siskel And Ebert”, only having instead of Roger Ebert, Ginger Ebert and instead of Gene Siskel, Gianna Siskel, and have her played by Gianna Michaels.
Ginger: You know, the thing about parodies is today, a parody is a big deal. That’s the big movie that they make, and 99 percent of the things that are made today, they are not parodies. They are just gonzo films, so when someone takes the time and the effort and the energy to put together a parody, I love them. I think they do a really good job. Unfortunately, the stars of them, they put all of the money into the production value, and I’ve spoken to quite a few of the talent out there that have been cast in them. They’re thrilled to be in it, but they work 18-20 hour days, and they are paid very little, so it’s rare that an adult film star will be overly excited about being in a parody because they’re not going to make much money. It’s going to help to promote their career, but it’s definitely not one where they’re going to take home a paycheck that’s going to cover their rent or their mortgage.
Johnny: This leads me into my final question. This is the question that I end every interview with. If you could go back to your youth with the knowledge that you have now, would you do anything differently?
Ginger: No, I would not. The only thing I would’ve done differently is, I want to say, save a little bit more money, but I was the girl that, when I made a film, I made myself a prize or a gift or something special I would do afterwards. Let’s say I did a big film. I would fly to Australia and spend two weeks there enjoying myself. I took a lot of vacations. I’ve been one that’s saved enough, and I’ve purchased homes over the years. I say I would’ve saved more money, but I would’ve missed out on so many opportunities. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the world. I’ve been to Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Japan, China, Australia, the Fiji Islands, Hawaii. I’ve been to almost every place that I wanted to visit, with the exception of Greece and Egypt, and those are still on my list. My life has been good. It’s been wonderful. I’m very, very happy with it. I’m going to stick with all the choices that I’ve made.
Johnny: That’s very cool, and this entire interview has been very cool. I said it at the beginning of the interview, and I’ll say it again: It has been a tremendous honor to speak to you. I’ve been a fan of your’s for a long time.
Ginger: Thank you.
Johnny: To speak to you, honestly, this has been a dream come true for me.
Ginger: Aww.
Johnny: I’ve had three dream interview subjects…You, Sherri Stoner, a cartoon writer who’s been my biggest influence as a writer, and anybody who’s won an Academy Award, and today, a dream came true for me by speaking to you.
Ginger: Oh, you are so kind and so sweet, and it has been an absolute pleasure. I truly appreciate that. If you don’t mind, I’d like to do a shameless plug here for one other business that I’ve got going.
Johnny: Sure.
Ginger: One of the things that I found when I stopped making adult movies was over those first two-and-a-half years, I made 69 films. I’m one of those girls that saves everything. I used to sell my things on one of the auction sites, and then they made it so that you could not sell any intimate items. I thought, well, I’ve saved all of these things. I know that there are other women who have. You wear something in an adult film, you wear it once, maybe twice, and you really can’t wear it again. You can’t recycle your lingerie that many times without fans noticing. I designed and created a website called GingerLynnAuctions.com, which is a free website for anyone to post and sell any of their personal intimate lingerie items, as well as just your clothing. I’ve had people sell their awards that they’ve won on it, and it’s not just meant for the girls in the adult film industry, it’s meant for anyone who wants to sell their personal items. It’s my way of giving back, and making sure that, especially the women in the adult industry, when they decide to quit, they’ve got another source of income, and I do it, as I said, for free. I make my money by…I shoot a lot of the girls. They come over, and I’ll shoot them in their personal lingerie, but for the most part, I’m hoping, and enjoying all of the women that post their own personal items, and men as well, at GingerLynnAuctions.com.
Johnny: I’ll definitely be sure to mention that.
Ginger: I appreciate that. My radio show is on skidrowstudios.com. You can watch it, and you can listen for free. It is not available on iTunes anymore. We were too hot for iTunes. We got kicked off, so we are at skidrowstudios.com.
Johnny: I’ll be sure to mention that.
Ginger: Wonderful.
Johnny: Once more, I want to extend a tremendous thank you, and I hope that you have a fantastic day.
Ginger: I wish you all the best. It was a wonderful interview. Thank you so much, and I’m really glad that we were able to do this.
Johnny: Absolutely. Thank you very much, and I’ll speak to you on Twitter.
Ginger: Okay. Thank you so much.
Caps: You’re very welcome.
Ginger: Have a great weekend.
Caps: You, too. Bye!
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Again, those links, if you’re 18 or older are http://www.GingerLynnAuctions.com/ (Ginger’s auction site) and http://www.skidrowstudios.com/ (The home of Ginger’s radio show “Blame It On Ginger”).
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Coming soon: My interview with J.J Cohen.