Traci lords pictures and Biography
But it was the film 'Cry Baby' directed by John Waters which paved a clear path for Lords career. She became a known face amongst renowned directors. She performed the role wonderfully, and was later caste with performers like Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop and Ricki Lake. After this film got to the theaters Lords was offered to make her appearance as a guest star in TV series such as 'MacGyver', 'Wiseguy', 'Superforce', 'Married with Children'.
Her other most important TV works were in 'Profiler', 'Melrose Place' where she played Rikki, a leader and 'Roseanne'.
Lords is also well known for her appearance in TV miniseries 'Stephen King's 'The Tommyknockers'' where she played a woman overtaken by an unknown force.
She was also caste in movies like 'As Good As Dead' and 'Intent to Kill'. Her other feature films include 'Serial Mom', 'Virtuosity', 'A Time to Die', 'The Nutty Nut'. She produced 'Extramarital' where she also starred as a lead role. Her next couple of movies includes 'Boogie Boy', 'Blade' and 'The Killing Club'.
Lords then went on to pose for celebrity calendars and posters, which she also helped in designing. When she has time off from her hectic schedule she enjoys tennis, swimming, hiking and boxing. Traci thinks that these are good ways to stay fit and get a good workout. She also likes gardening and improving on her music.
She also finds enough time for 'Children of the Night', a charitable organization which helps keeping the under aged children and teens from staying in the streets of Hollywood.
She was born with the legal name of Nora Louise Kuzma, also known as Traci Elizabeth Lords. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic films and Penthouse magazine (she was 15 years old in her first film), but has now made the transition into more mainstream acting roles.
Nora Louise Kuzma was born in Steubenville, Ohio to Louis and Patricia Kuzma (born name Briceland). 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 twelve she fled from her abusive, alcoholic father to Lawndale, California, with her mother and three sisters. Later, while attending Redondo Union High School which she entered in 1983, she had an abortion which she paid by herself and after having a nervous breakdown, ran away from home. While living with her mother's ex-boyfriend, who posed as her stepfather, she used a friend'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 at the age of fifteen, starting with Jim South at the World Modeling Agency in Sherman Oaks, while assuming the name Kristie Elizabeth Nussman.
Shortly after, she was modelling for widely distributed adult magazines, most notably Penthouse, in the same September 1984 issue that exposed Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. She quickly became one of the most popular starlets in town, and by now ventured into adult movies. Her first being "What Gets Me Hot!" followed by "Those Young Girls", both made in the first half of 1984. Lords' youthful appearance and enthusiastic sexual performances propelled her to stardom and she is considered by many to be one of the first porn queens. By the time she was 18, she'd appeared in 100 adult films. (According to Lords in her autobiography, however, approx. 80 of those films were composed from leftover and re-edited footage from the original 20 films that were shot.)
But in 1986, federal authorities discovered she was underage while making movies and they arrested her, as well as the owners of her movie agency and X-citement Video, Inc. See United States v. X-Citement Video. The ensuing prosecution against the agencies cost the pornographic film and distribution industry millions as they were obliged by law to remove hundreds of thousands of her videotapes, films and magazines from store shelves to avoid the risk of prosecution for trafficking child pornography. (In her book, Lords suggested hypocrisy on the part of the porn movie producers, writing that they did get richer from the scandal's publicity as they complained of losing a lot of money.) Lords herself was never charged, since as a minor she was unable to give informed 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 legally available in the United States. Perhaps ironically, this is also the only film of hers that she has ownership of. This has led to unsubstantiated claims that it was Lords herself who tipped off the authorities. The presiding theory behind this was that she waited until she made one film when she was of age because she knew all her others would be pulled off the market immediately. Traci, I Love You was in fact a huge hit after the truth came out. While many duped associates in the porn industry believe or point to this theory, nothing has ever been proven to back it up. Lords opposes this belief in her autobiography, writing that she knew nothing of people's real names or who produced which film and did not provide such information to the FBI. In parts of Europe and other regions where the minimum legal age for involvement in pornographic films is lower, Lords' films and images in a variety of formats are still legally available.
The controversy still sparks debate. Government prosecutors declared that Lords was a victim of a manipulative industry, maintaining she was drugged and made to do nonconsensual acts. But industry insiders, like Ron Jeremy, Ginger Lynn and Tom Byron, 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, and ultimately made it her legal name. She stated that she isn't trying to hide from her past.
The Justice Department was forced to drop all charges when it was revealed that the fake ID which Lords had used to dupe the pornographic film industry was a U.S. passport in the name of Traci Lords - the government had been duped, and any defendant would simply have been able to hide behind the government's error.
A new beginning
Leaving her porn past behind her, Lords moved into mainstream films. She has played roles in a number of B-movies. At 18, Lords began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and soon after, starred in a remake of Roger Corman's cult favorite Not of This Earth. Then in 1990, Lords' mainstream career was legitimized when she was added to the cast that included Johnny Depp, Ricki Lake, and even Iggy Pop, in John Waters' Cry Baby, playing the role of Wanda Woodward. Other movies on her resume include Blade, Extramarital, Black Mask 2: City of Angels, and Chump Change, the latter of which won her a Best Actress Award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.
In addition to movies, Lords has also made many appearances in various TV shows, including Married... with Children, MacGyver, Highlander, Tales from the Crypt, Hercules, Gilmore Girls, and Will & Grace among others, along with recurring roles in Profiler, Roseanne, and Melrose Place. From late in 2000 to 2001, Traci Lords appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola produced sci-fi series First Wave, playing "Jordan Radcliffe", the newest member of a group called Raven Nation that combats extraterrestrial aliens.
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, Lords made her solo debut, in collaboration with Juno Reactor and Jesus Jones' Mike Edwards, called 1000 Fires. The album was a hit with critics and club audiences. The Juno Reactor-produced first single "Control" proved a smash, reaching a peak of #2 on the Billboard Dance Charts. "Fallen Angel", the second single off the album, earned a lot of attention because one of its remixes ("Honeymoon Stitch Mix") was produced and remixed by Chad Smith and Dave Navarro, with a strong indie and "alterna-chick" sound. The lavishly-produced video for "Fallen Angel" was directed by Stéphane Sednaoui, who had also directed such high-profile videos as the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away", and Madonna's "Fever". Lords' music isn't a mindless dancefloor affair; she marries highly addictive beats and sonic landscapes to personal lyrics. "Father's Field", from 1000 Fires, may be the best example, in which a very suffocating musical framework gives place to a harrowing, personal account of sexual molestation as a child. After a couple of years of musical silence, Lords returned to the music scene in 2004 with a new, independently-produced recording, the double A-side "Sunshine".
In 2003 she published her autobiography, Traci Lords: Underneath It All (ISBN 0-060-508-205), which made the New York Times bestseller list. In December, 2003, Traci wrote and directed a short film with Fox Searchlab entitled Sweet Pea, released and shown at film festivals in 2005. Loosely inspired by an experience recounted in her autobiography, it's about a teenage girl who finds herself doubting everything in her life (God, family, etc.) after being raped by her boyfriend.
(End of diaryscape Traci lords pictures Biography) - 1677
| Traci Lords Biography - Copyright © 2006 by SoftVirgins.com - All rights reserved |
| The biography text written for this page is original content and is protected by copyright law and may not be duplicated, transferred, or used on any website or in other medium for any reason without expressed written permission from the publishers of the SoftVirgins.com website. |