I was lying in bed at Steven’s apartment the night the E! Cannes special premiered. I was overwhelmed watching it. It was the first time I had accomplished anything in my adult life that didn’t involve taking off my clothes. Without even trying that hard, unlike most of the people I saw in L.A., I was on national TV. I didn’t feel like society’s dirty little secret anymore. And to be perfectly honest, I was completely enamored with the sight of my own image on television.
“Oh my God,” I kept telling Steven, “I actually look like a real star.”
Finally, he turned to me and, with derision in his voice, said, “Why do you keep saying you are a star?”
Instantly, something clicked in me.
“You selfish bastard,” I muttered. I stood up, put on my clothes, left his apartment, and never saw him again. Whether I was being shallow or not, it was one of the proudest moments of my life and he was shitting on it. I couldn’t have people around me like that anymore. I was the only person I would allow to hold me back. Nobody else.
After Cannes, my career seemed unstoppable. Every month, a new movie of mine hit the stands. And the buzz just grew louder. At every awards show —Nightmoves, XRCO FOXE— I took the top honors. It seemed as though I was on every page of AVN, which had nominated my movies in almost every category at their awards show, the most respected in the business, and even asked me to host the ceremony that year.
I knew just who I wanted to bring as my date: my father. He had left Reading, and would sporadically call me from parts unknown. He rarely gave me the phone number of where he was, and I didn’t ask. I still had no idea what kind of trouble he was in, but if the cops ever came knocking on my door, I knew I was better off without his contact information. Besides, he never seemed to call to ask me how I was doing. It was all about him: where he was and how he needed money for moving costs.
So when he called from yet another payphone somewhere in this great land of ours, I invited him to the awards show. Despite everything, I wanted my father to see me win. I wanted him to know that I was no longer a little girl who couldn’t take care of herself. I wanted him to see that I was successful and respected and admired. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to care. And perhaps I also felt that his approval would set in stone that I had made the right decision getting into adult movies.
In the intervening years, I had talked to Tony every few months, which was much more than I had talked to my dad. When we were kids, Tony and I were so incredibly close. We’d talk to each other all day, compete against each other in burping contests, and live in a world of our own invention. But as my life filled with work and he focused on being a good husband and father, we grew apart. Every time we talked, we simply exchanged facts: His son, Gage, had started walking; Selena had just undergone a hysterectomy; he was bartending at TGIF’s; our grandmother had recovered from her double mastectomy, but now had throat cancer and was having an artificial esophagus put in. It was uncomfortable to speak to Tony. Everything we said seemed devoid of genuine emotion and sincerity, so I talked to him less and less. Even if it was partly my fault, because I had unfairly transferred some of my hostility for my father onto him, it hurt me so much. After all, I owed my only happy childhood memories to him.
Before my father’s pending arrival and the awards show, I kept myself as busy as I could so I didn’t have to think about them. I wasn’t too worried about whether I would win, though of course it would be nice to show off for my dad. I just didn’t want to look pathetic and undeserving as a host. I felt a tremendous amount of pressure (which was probably mostly in my mind) to impress everyone. I wanted to be funny, relaxed, charismatic. I didn’t want to embarrass myself and Wicked. To this day, I still put pressure on myself to be the person that everyone wants and expects me to be.
I bought a shimmering silver midriff-exposing five-thousand-dollar outfit that I felt was befitting of a star. And I hired a makeup artist and a hairdresser, who spent six hours sticking in extensions and spritzing my hair into some kind of futuristic ponytail. In retrospect, I looked like a cross between Barbara Eden and a disco ball.
When we arrived, they whisked my dad and me backstage. The first award they announced was Best Sex Scene. And next thing I knew, the tuna eater and I were on stage accepting it. As I left the dais, the show producer pushed me back into the spotlight. I had to introduce the next presenters, who came out and announced the next award: Starlet of the Year. While they were doing that, I took the opportunity to go to the bathroom. I was up against some hard-core talent, and there was no way I was going to win.
When they called my name, I sprinted back onstage. I was overwhelmed, hugging the presenters with unwashed hands. I remembered seeing Savannah’s acceptance speech. Everyone in the industry resented her success, so she walked onstage and spoke two words: “fuck you.” For a fleeting moment, I thought about doing that, too, just because so many of the girls sitting in the audience had been so catty with me. But I chose to accept the award with dignity, and thanked Steve and Joy.
By the end of the show, everyone must have been sick of seeing me onstage. Blue Movie won Best Film of the Year, Best Editing, and Best Director, and I won for Best Boy-Girl Scene and Best Actress, which meant the most to me. Starlet of the Year was just an award for a pretty new thing, but Best Actress meant I had talent —at least in relation to everybody else. No one had swept the top awards like that in the history of the show.
Everyone kept joking around that it was the Year of Jenna. My arrogant speech to Steve Orenstein was turning into prophecy. Backstage, I overheard a couple of the other girls talking. “Oh, isn’t it so funny?” one said. “They pick her to host, and she wins all the awards.”
“I wonder how many guys she had to blow,” the other said.
In reality, I had won because I’d busted my ass. In one year, between Howard Stern and the E! Channel, I was opening doors that no one before me had. And even though they were just speaking out of jealousy, it hurt —and it still hurts when I hear people pissing on the work I’ve done.
As I sat there at the end of the night with all my awards in my lap, my head was spinning. I had come through for everyone. And just like the pageants, I had done it for myself. My dad only came to see the end result.
But this time I didn’t mind. Even though I had invited him there expressly to get his approval, I realized that I didn’t need his praise or his involvement. The success instilled a measure of confidence in me; I was finally on my way to truly being independent. It was a turning point in my relationship with my father, because in that moment I didn’t expect him to be anything more than what he was: a guy who loved me but didn’t know how to show it. Sure, he’d never learned how to be a father. But there was more to it than that. When he said how much I looked like my mother when I went onstage, I had a moment of complete clarity: it hurt him to get close to me, because I reminded him too much of the wife he had loved and lost.
After the ceremony I was too tired to celebrate. I went back to my room, shut the door, and cried. “My life is at a fucking peak,” I thought. “There’s nowhere to go from here but down.”
A strange sort of arrogance took hold of me after all the accolades. I began to think I was smarter than everybody around me, which may have been true but didn’t give me any excuse to act that way. On set, I acted as if I were the only one who knew what it took to sell movies. I knew what kind of sex to have, whom I had to work with, and how many scenes I needed to be in. And if anyone disagreed with me, I’d pull rank. I realized all I had to do was threaten to quit the movie or sic Steve Orenstein on a director, and he’d do whatever I wanted. When you are twenty-one and have the kind of power I did, you enjoy brandishing it.
But after watching me for a while from the sidelines, Steve pulled me aside. “You have to understand, Jenna,” he said. “You are in the spotlight. You are the spokesperson for this industry. A lot of people look up to you, so you have to watch what you say. I’m not asking you to change the person that you are, but just think before you talk.”
I suppose the last thing one would expect on becoming a porn star is a lecture on how to be a role model, but that’s exactly what Steve Orenstein gave me. And he was right. I’m already doing something that can put women in a bad light, I realized, so it’s particularly important to hold myself to a higher standard of behavior than other women.
With Larry Flynt.
The opportunity to live up to that resolution came days later. After the AVN Awards and all the mainstream exposure, everyone wanted to interview me, even people who had passed on the offer before. One of them was Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw magazine, who was writing for Penthouse at the time. Joy set up something after the awards show, and Goldstein came by to introduce himself. He’s an obese, greasy, slovenly man, and was very touchy-feely with both of us. When he discussed the interview, he seemed to be dropping hints about going on a date or getting sexual favors from me in exchange for the article. He didn’t say it explicitly, but it’s the feeling that Joy and I got. As he walked away, Joy and I looked at each other and said, “No way.” If any journalist makes me feel uncomfortable or shows any disrespect, I’ll cancel the interview. In this business, you get to see all the double standards that women are held to in society, and it is important to keep from perpetuating them. One way is by refusing to allow anyone to disrespect you.
Goldstein never forgave us for canceling the interview. And so I made my first enemy in the business. He published a screed against Joy and me on the front page of Screw, accusing us of practically every offense imaginable —and a few that were unimaginable. He even attacked my family. That was a turning point because up until then, I could do no wrong. I was the golden girl of the industry. When I read that story, I was heartbroken. I wanted to give up and quit the business.
It went beyond just Al Goldstein. I had become the main attraction in this whole circus, and it was taking a much bigger toll on my life than I realized.