The Golden Age of Porn: Grrl Power Behind the Camera

Early Female Porn Directors Had Their Own Reasons.

It should come as no surprise that the majority of female porn director pioneers first spent time taking off their clothing in front of a camera and then having sex with themselves or another person. Or people. After all, we’re talking about a media industry predominantly run by and catering to men. The product was women, and the subject was sex. The fact there were plots and dialogue, at least a few people who could act, and other Golden Age miracles were ironically inspired by censorship laws.

While it’s a common trope that the women who work in the adult entertainment industry are not particularly bright, the facts do not support this. Sure, we all know a sex worker party girl who squanders her money on clothes, booze, drugs, and other pleasures and vanities. Young people aren’t famous for being good with long-term planning, especially when it comes to finances.

Some of the models and actresses of the era had ambitions beyond being known as objects of male desire. Among those women are some who chose to stay within “the industry” and introduce a uniquely female perspective, while others’ work was tangential, blending horror and trashy sexuality in grindhouse and sexploitation flicks. Surprisingly, although 2^nd Wave Feminism was coming of age, it was not embraced by all women who defied the stereotype and took over the directorial role.

Roberta Findlay: Whether Roberta was working alone or with her husband Michael, the result was low-budget exploitation and horror flicks famous for their sleaze and sadism. Their Flesh anthology shot during the 1960s is the notorious couple’s most infamous example. The daughter of Hungarian immigrants who hoped she would become a pianist, Roberta instead married the former seminarian when she was 18. The two collaborated on trashy movies that combined violence and sex even after their divorce in the early 1970s. After Michael died in a grotesque fashion worthy of one of his grade-Z movies, Roberta continued their tradition but also moved into the more now lucrative porn genre.

Although her 1982 The Playgirl included what could be called pro-feminist attitudes, Roberta insists that she has never been a feminist. Unlike many women who spent time in front of the camera, she reports having never experienced sexist treatment. Nonetheless, she released some of her films under a male alias and introduced the dick-softening existence of pregnancy in Angel Number 9. In 1979, Roberta worked with John Holmes on Honeysuckle Rose and the sadly doomed Shauna Grant in the 1983 Glitter.

Evocative titles like Teenage Milkmaid, and The Clamdigger’s Daughter were released in 1974, followed by three more movies before she directed her career-killing film, Shauna: Every Man’s Dream in 1985. Shauna Grant left the industry in disgust and put a bullet through her head in 1984, becoming the first publicized porn death. Roberta’s film was universally panned as the worst example of her bad taste and insensitivity as a person and director. Her final movies during the 1980s saw a return to low-budget but profitable horror and grindhouse. After all, she did it for the money.

Joanna Williams: Only active in front of the camera in 1972, Joanna took control of her content as a director from 1977 to 1983. Like Roberta Findlay, the sex in her porn was often unromantic, promiscuous, consequence-free, readily available, sometimes violent, and sometimes depicted as non-consensual. The 1978 Expensive Tastes featured Joey Silvera and John Leslie as rough characters with a poor understanding of consent, to put it mildly.

For balance, compare that to Little Girls Blue II in 1983, where Herschel Savage and Eric Edwards are randy summer camp counselors who find their match in a bevy of female boarding school students. The film’s predecessor, Little Girls Blue I, was released in 1977 and starred Paul Thomas, who eventually became a legendary director in his own right. The same year, she directed Paul Thomas again, this time with the iconic Annette Haven, in Soft Places. In 1979, Joanna directed the now-famous performers Sharon Kane, Mike Horner, Richard Pacheco, and Dorothy LeMay in Chopstix.

Suze Randall: Ordered into retirement by her children after an unfortunate incident with a horse’s hoof and one of her eyes, Suze is considered by many to be the first real female porn director, in addition to being the first woman staff photographer for both Playboy and Hustler. Additionally, she provided feature layouts for Penthouse. Sick of the low wages of a London nurse, Suze dabbled in fashion modeling in the early 1970s. But it was her hobby of taking sexy photos of her fellow models that put her on the path to fame.

Unlike Roberta Findlay, Suze found that men in the biz hated her for having been on both sides of the camera, something that strongly influenced her more model-focused approach. In 1980, she turned to directing hardcore porn and released Kiss and Tell, the story of a drugged-up radio DJ who encourages his listeners to get down and dirty.

Her Suze’s Centerfolds series included four volumes from 1979 until 1981, and Miss Passion was released in 1984, the same year her popular and plot-thin film Stud Hunters became available. Better known for her excellent visuals and passionate sex scenes than her narratives, Suze has worked with some big names in porn including Debi Diamond, Pippi Anderson, Randy West, and Marc Wallice. Suze is the mother of erotic photographer Holly Randall.

Carol Connors: Even if you haven’t seen the movies Carol appeared in, you’ve heard of some of them. Deep Throat in 1972 opposite Harry Reems, Erotic Adventures of Candy in 1978, and Candy Goes to Hollywood are three of her most famous. Carol kept busy during the 1970s, starring with husband Jack Birch in four films. Resisting the normalizing of porn, she engaged in several outrageous displays and a genital-exposing striptease during the earliest erotic film awards shows.

Her behavior was deemed “unnecessary, unrehearsed, and unauthorized,” by the Adult Film Association of America, which had refused her request to do a nude number for the 1978 awards show. In 1981, Carol directed Desire for Men, which she also appeared in. The following year, she released Consenting Adults. Although nominated for awards, Carol never won any. She retired to parent her daughter, Thora Birch, who later became a mainstream movie and television star. Carol also became a regular introducer on Chuck Barris’s The Gong Show.

Although less famous than many of their male contemporaries, the list of female porn directors extends beyond these four. Bold women including Svetlana, who directed Bad Girls in 1981, Juliet "Aunt Peg" Anderson, who introduced the world to starlet Nina Hartley in 1984 with Educating Nina, and Candida Royalle, who closed out the Golden Age by forming the first explicitly feminist porn company, Femme Productions in 1985.