I Interview My Future Father-In-Law Humphry Knipe, Father Of Holly Randall, And Author Of The Nero Prediction
Traditionally, fathers-in-law interviewed their prospective sons-in-law. But I turned the tables Tuesday (March 21, 2006).
With great exertion, I kept myself from calling him "Dad."
Humphry, 64, phones me back at 11:09 a.m.
Luke: "When did you begin work on this book?"
Humphry: "The early 80s. I started on a Mac Plus computer. I've had other projects in between. I finished it last year."
Luke: "What prompted you to join MySpace?"
Humphry: "Just a joke. The kids in the office, you catch 'em on MySpace. Hmm, obviously you have lots of spare time. Maybe I should find you something to do. The younger girls spend a lot of time on MySpace. I don't have the foggiest idea how to respond to anybody. I have the weirdest people wanting to be my friend."
Luke: "They are my readers. I linked to your MySpace profile."
Humphry: "I'm getting bombarded by the oddest people with not the faintest connection with what I'm about.
"If they are your readers, I will look at them with more respect."
Luke: "You write on Amazon.com that you grew up in a medieval environment in South Africa."
Humphry: "Serfs and so on. You had a whole class of people that belonged to a different caste and it was as though they had different feelings. You couldn't exploit them if you didn't think that. That was the white mentality."
Kaiser Sauze writes me: "So similar to the topics we discussed in the last few weeks. Perhaps the ability to view other humans as such is innate."
Luke: "Do you think things are better in South Africa today?"
Humphry: "Hell yes. I went back last October. My mother, God bless her, is still alive at 87. The mayor of the little town where she lives is a black lady. We are happy with the political situation. It is so much better than Zimbabwe, which is a horrible dictatorship."
Luke: "Isn't crime and rape out of control in South Africa?"
Humphry: "In large cities in particular. Many of the perpetrators aren't even South African. They come flowing down from the north, from Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Angola. In South Africa there's work."
Luke: "What was so puritanical and Calvinist about your background?"
Humphry: "My mother was brought up in the Dutch Reform Church, which is a Calvinistic sect. The whole period I was in South Africa [until 1966], television was banned. I didn't see television until I went to England at age 25."
Luke: "Was that a bad thing?"
Humphry: "It was awful. We really felt deprived. It was thought to be dangerous because it introduced foreign influences. The Afrikaaner apartheid regime wanted the modern world to stay away.
"I imagine that my early interest in porn was that we were never allowed to see anything like that in South Africa. The most risque thing you could see were bikinis.
"Then getting to swinging London in 1966 where you had Page Three topless girls, nude modeling agencies, that was a huge cultural shock."
Luke: "Did you have much sex in South Africa?"
Humphry: "Yes, at university, I managed to get it in a little bit. I worked there for a couple of years as a teacher after graduating. The girls were pretty hot.
"I wasn't into the swinging parties until London."
Luke: "You write: 'Nero seemed to the most 60s of the Roman emperors and, looking back, I probably wanted to recreate that magical time in a historical setting.' What was so magical about the swinging 60s in London?"
Humphry: "There was the feeling that the world was going to change, which of course it didn't. Not much, anyway. There was this feeling of infinite possibility. There was this curious mixture of gangsters, musicians, hipsters, aristocrats, moderns... Everyone was turning on together and you had this feeling of novelty and revelation.
"Are you familiar with Donald Cammell? He directed the 1970 film Performance starring Mick Jagger. Donald was avante garde. He was buddies with Kenneth Anger."
Luke: "Cammell committed suicide in 1996."
Humphry: "I'm going to work him as a character into a new novel.
"There's a new book coming out called Donald Cammell: A Life on the Wild Side. My order has been in on Amazon for months.
"I was just watching a [1998] BBC documentary entitled Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance.
"He was one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He was a naughty boy.
"London in the 60s was libertinism to the point of license. Acid, grass, booze, girls, rock 'n' roll, wild parties, taken to the extreme with the swinging parties. They were some of the funniest and most interesting experiences I've been through.
"I was introduced to it in 1971 with the Wet Dream Festival in Amsterdam. Germaine Greer was there."
Luke: "But it was all a delusion."
Humphry: "It wasn't a delusion. It was experimental and didn't work. Once the yobs started emptying out of the pubs and started busting these psychadelic gatherings, it ruined the whole thing. It only lasted three or four months. I remember being in a club where Pink Floyd was playing in the corner in 1966."
Luke: "This idea that the world was going to change was a delusion."
Humphry: "Yes. It didn't turn out that way. Part of it was the turbulence from the Vietnam War. It was the rock 'n' roll era and peace and love and all that stuff."
Luke: "Why would you want to recreate a magical time that was based upon delusional beliefs?"
Humphry: "It was an awful lot of fun. I know you're asking me about Nero.
"Nero was the first person in history, certainly the first leader, to use soft power. The whole Roman modus operandi was hard power. He was the first guy to use soft power as a diplomatic force.
"What we had was rock 'n' roll. It sped around the globe. I picked it up in South Africa. It was tremendously influential in introducing American values. It was an extremely successful use of soft power. That's what Nero was going for. That was the climax of the Roman empire during that [first] century.
"Nero had this brilliant flash that he could [govern] through converting people to the cause of art and music. We now think of it as delusionary. It was. It was a brilliant flash-forward to what is happening now.
"American culture is a huge force in the Third World. It's only a matter of time before it imposes the other aspects of democracy on the Third World. The music and the culture and the art are the stalking horse."
Luke: "Where do you identify with and admire Nero?"
Humphry: "In his use of soft power. He wasn't a homicidial lunatic as people claim. It was a time of enormous turbulence. You had to kill off your rivals if you were going to survive. He killed off fewer people than his predecessors Claudius and Tiberius.
"Why did certain people rebel at certain times? This comes back to the self-fulfilling prophecy. The stars say that Nero is in a dire situation on April 18, 65 AD when Epaphroditus (my narrator) foils the great conspiracy of Piso.
"When Halley's Comet appeared in 66, Nero was warned by his astrologer that he had to do something to placate the comet. The comet was thought to predict the death of a king. You'd know that at that time your enemies were putting their heads together to knock you off."
Luke: "Do you believe our lives are affected by the stars?"
Humphry: "Absolutely not."
Luke: "Why would you spend ten years of your life studying something you believe to be nonsense?"
Humphry: "It gives you a key that's almost never been used aside from Michael R. Molnar, who wrote 1999's The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi. He and I correspond.
"It's a historical tool. You can do an anthropological study of voodoo without believing in voodoo."
Luke: "Why not spend that time studying something you believe in?"
Humphry: "I just studied astrology to the degree that that proved to be a useful tool. I wondered why certain things in Nero's life happened at that time. Why did he kill his mother? Why did his mother try to kill him?
"The chronological scale is the vertebra of history. You can work out what the astrologer would've been whispering into his client's ear 2,000 years ago. Astrology exceeded every other religion in power and influence. Astrology is an intoxicating mixture of science and religion."
Luke: "Do you see anything good in religion?"
Humphry: "Solace. It cheers people up. It gives them hope."
Luke: "But you don't need that solace?"
Humphry: "Sure I do. Everybody does. It's just an impossibility, something for which absolutely no proof exists."
Luke: "Ultimately, is there objective meaning to life?"
Humphry: "Absolutely. Propagation."
Luke: "What's the point?"
Humphry: "So you live forever, or until the comet comes."
Luke: "So there isn't any ultimate meaning."
Humphry: "By having children, or relatives who have children, you do continue. You are billions of years of old. There's an unbroken stream of life from the beginning to you."
Luke: "Do you see yourself living on in your children?"
Humphry: "Notably, the poor bastards. They'll be carrying some of my strengths and a lot of my weaknesses."
Luke: "Is it fair to say that you hate religion?"
Humphry: "Absolutely not. I don't, for example, hate astrology. I find it interesting that people have these irrational convictions."
Luke: "You love Sam Harris's book The End of Faith. That book is bathed in hatred of religion."
Humphry: "He doesn't like religions that are jihadistic, that are aggressive. To have nuclear weapons in the hands of people who believe that the world has to be destroyed to save it is dangerous."
Luke: "How could you not hate religion when every organized religion of which I am aware says that the industry we work in is evil."
Humphry: "I don't know if you are correct in saying that every religion does so. Do the Hindus believe that? The Buddhists?"
Luke: "We know that the three monotheistic religions do."
Humphry: "Those are just our little religions. There are lots of others. I don't know if the Chinese, isn't that Shintoism? I don't know if they have the same attitude.
"During Greek and Roman culture, you had pornographic drawings in public bathhouses. It's not true to say that every religion hates erotica. Some of those Indian religions have the Kama Sutra and elaborate drawings of erotica."
Luke: "How do you feel about the people who dedicate much of their lives to wanting to put pornographers such as you in jail?"
Humphry says that free speech has always had its enemies, and that pornography is without a doubt a form of free speech. "Even a cartoon can cause a ripple that runs around the world and causes over 100 deaths."
Luke: "There was a time when you pulled Holly aside when she was eight and said, 'Mommy and daddy might be going to jail.'"
Humphry: "That was the Traci Lords thing. Now I'm afraid that our stuff is too vanilla."
Luke: "Would you elaborate on this sentence you wrote: 'I know that Nero would have approved that my wife Suze Randall has gone on to become the world's most successful erotic photographer.'"
Humphry: "Because erotic vignettes were a part of Roman dinner parties, even during the Republican period before Nero. It was usual for the more risque members of the aristocractic society to have a porno show as a highpoint of a dinner party. You bring on the actors and they do their scene and they get applause and some coins thrown at them. This is during Julius Caesar's time long before we get into 'decadent' Nero and Caligula.
"These are the roots of our civilization. We're trying to get there. They had a much more liberal attitude towards sexuality and erotica than we have."
Luke: "How would you feel if a daughter of yours became a porn actress?"
Humphry pauses for five seconds. "Obviously there would be nothing I would try to do to prevent her. I'd prefer to have her at the books studying. It's a short shelf-life. As a result, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody who has any alternative."
Luke: "Would you not be filled with horror?"
Humphry: "I don't think so, otherwise I couldn't be associated with it at all.
"There would be some shock, initially, I'd imagine, if it was suddenly jumped on me, surprise. I would definitely not forbid it. I haven't forbidden anything."
Luke: "How would you feel about one or all of your offspring working in the family business behind the scenes?"
Humphry: "I don't mind at all."
Luke: "What wishes do you have for your kids aside from being happy?"
Humphry: "I can't think of anything better than happiness. Happiness requires a lot of components."
Luke: "Is happiness achievable as a direct objective or is it only achievable as a byproduct of higher pursuits?"
Humphry: "Happiness has so many components..."
Luke: "What price have you paid for your association with pornography? Has it made your life as a writer more difficult?"
Humphry: "Just the opposite. It's given me the free time to write because we've made money. It's been a boon for the writing."
Luke: "Have you encountered a lot of people who take you less seriously because of your association with porn?"
Humphry: "No. They're fascinated by the odd combination of high-grade intellectual pursuits and [porn]. They're confused. They expect pornographers to have gold necklaces and to be sleazy greasy dimwits. They come across a guy who used to be a teacher, whose father was a teacher, whose wife's father was a teacher, a straight background, dabbling in this business."
Luke: "Are there parts of your book you are most happy with and parts you are least happy with?"
Humphry: "I was happy with the whole thing because I was able to rewrite it so many times. A lot of people find it hard to get it. They think it is a book by an astrologer. They don't understand that it is an anti-astrology book, that it shows it up as a false science. It's part of my general religious skepticism. It is preposterous to imbue these planets with human personalities."
Luke: "I saw in the book a metaphor for your own journey. The slave is you."
When I brought this up to Holly, she said her father would hate this theory.
Humphry: "That's certainly insightful. I do identify with Epaphroditus, coming from nowhere and ending up in Hefner's jacuzzi."
Luke: "Many of these porn potentates, such as Hefner and Larry Flynt, remind me of these Roman emperors."
Humphry: "The sybaritic lifestyle. These caesars were military dictators."
Luke: "They also had a court that paid them obeisance. If you betrayed them once, you were out."
Humphry: "They had to do that. There was no secure line of kingship.
"Larry Flynt never set up a court on the scale of Hefner. Hefner was the king. Flynt lives in a small house. We used to go five times a week to Hefner's mansion. There was an open bar 24-hours a day, superb meals served when you want them, the parties, and the famous jacuzzi where things happened. There were Bunnies living on the premises."
Luke: "Do you regret writing the book Suze, which cost you your relationship with Hefner and his mansion?"
Humphry chuckles. "I suppose so."
On New Year's Eve (I guess it was after a few drinks), Humphry and Suze told me that they did not regret the book.
Humphry: "Suze was moving on with her career. The problem with working for Playboy was that they owned everything. We would not be in the financial position we are in now if we had stayed with Playboy.
"Hef's mansion was the most magical party center in America."
Luke: "What do you love and hate about being a part of the porn industry?"
Humphry: "You get to see some beautiful girls. I don't like meeting them because it usually ruins the illusion. As works of art, some of them are fantastic.
"What I hate about it is the sordidness that sometimes comes along with it. The drugs. They ruin themselves. They associate with the wrong people. Some of the producers do things I think are inappropriate and pretty disgusting and probably not healthy. You see girls who are roughed up."
Luke: "Why do you think girls do pornography?"
Humphry: "For the money. They can go from somebody who tosses hamburgers at McDonalds for $5 an hour to somebody making a $1,000 a day."
Luke: "Can you respect someone who has made the choice to star in pornographic movies?"
Humphry: "Absolutely. I think Jenna's great. I used to know her very well. She was frequently a guest here. I liked Traci Lords a lot until I found out she was underage. Veronica Hart. There are a lot of bright girls. Jenna is the postergirl for pornography.A really sweet, really straight girl who put her head together and made something of herself. I don't know how many millions. I think she has a good life."
Luke: "What percentage of women who do this does it turn out to their advantage?"
Humphry: "I'd imagine the stats would be similar to the regular starlet stats in regular Hollywood. Most people just get burnt or don't get anywhere and just collapse. For every Charlize Theron, you have thousands of wannabes who sleep with producers and do prostitution to keep going and in the end they would have to go home with their tails between their legs with some of the best years of their life, when they could've been getting an education, for example, spent on trying to become a movie star."
Luke: "Is pornography just another form of prostitution?"
Humphry: "There's a big difference between prostitution and pornography. Prostitution is disgusting. That is one thing I would be very upset about if one of my kids got into. You just take whatever comes, fat old hairy men, anything. It's very dangerous. It's awful.
"In pornography, you know the guys are going to be presentable and professional and tested and often a fun experience to be with. Prostitution is just about the lowest form unless you are very high-priced hookers, and even they don't have much choice in who they can take on. Any girl in porn will know who she is going to do it with. With us, we ask the girl, 'Who would you like to work with?'"
Luke: "What's the difference between being an 'erotic photographer' and a 'pornographer'?"
Humphry: "Semantics. No difference."
Many of the things Holly told me about her parents they contradicted. Either she isn't seeing them clearly or they are not telling me the truth. Holly believed her parents would be appalled by my memoir. I don't think that would be true.
Holly often tells me that her mother could not accomplish a photo shoot without her. Somehow Suze was doing it for more than 20 years without Holly's help.
Holly doesn't believe her parents business would run without her help. She feels it is her fate to run it. I say she should create her own life separate from her parents and their business.
The happiest time of her life was when she lived in Santa Barbara (prior to 1997) a couple of hours drive from her family and away from their business.
Holly writes me: "I wasn't aware my grandmother was a member of a Calvinist sect! Ridiculous how I have to find out from Luke about my family!"
HollyRandall: i liked your interview
HollyRandall: I KNOW my mom can finish a photoshoot w/out me, she's done
it many times
HollyRandall: i'm just good at dealing with her when she's stressed
HollyRandall: and i don't think my father would be horrified by your memoir
at all
Luke: you wanted to hide it from your parents
HollyRandall: but my mom might be a bit dismayed at parts that involved
her friends
HollyRandall: i'll let my dad read it
Luke: how's your ankle?
HollyRandall: i don't think my mom would anyhow-- just because she isn't
interested in reading much on the business, she prefers books that offer
escapism, i suppose
HollyRandall: very swollen
HollyRandall: so did you like talking to my dad?
Luke: yes, he's easy to talk to
HollyRandall: he's awesome
Luke: it's like talking to you
HollyRandall: when i was a little girl, guys used to make fun of me all
the time and tell me i was ugly
HollyRandall: this one guy in particular used to always say to me, "Holly,
no offense, but you're ugly"
Luke: wow, men haven't done that to you in a long time.
HollyRandall: and on Valentines Day at school i never got any cards or
anything
HollyRandall: so my dad used to always reassure me that when i grew up
there would be "A line of men around the street and I'll have to beat
them off with a stick"
Luke: you became a sexual vixen
HollyRandall: lol not that's not my story
Luke: except they've formed a virtual line in cyberspace
Luke: I want you to beat me off with a stick.
HollyRandall: on Valentine's day, every year my dad would write me a Valentine's
day card, drive across town, and mail it from there
HollyRandall: he wrote lovely things about what a beautiful, smart girl
i was
HollyRandall: and signed them "your secret admirer"
HollyRandall: until i one year, when I was nine, figured out it was him
Luke: when? HollyRandall: i suddenly recognized the writing was his
Luke: That's awfully young to receive romantic gestures.
HollyRandall: they weren't pervy romantic
HollyRandall: they were Valentines day cards for kids, you know?
HollyRandall: YOU didn't do Valentine's cards at that age?
HollyRandall: anyhow the point was that my dad was thoughtful enough to
do something to make me feel loved and special
Luke: No, that stuff was discouraged in my communities.
HollyRandall: and that was better than actually having a "secret admirer"
Amalek writes me: "You've had better. No sparks. And you failed to ask my questions. Your love for Holly's eggs blunted your style."
Kaiser Sauze writes me: "I'll be in LA in the summer. Maybe we can all hook up and have a meal (Johnny Thrust too). It would be a lively chat I should think. For the first five minutes anyway. PS - Holly's paying."
HollyRandall writes: "I knew Kaiser would make a comment about how the whites treated the blacks in SA, and trace it back to me. I love these people who come out of nowhere and go around denouncing people while they hide behind a pseudonym."
Publicist/agent Daniel Metcalf writes:
I greatly enjoyed the interview with Humphry, especially his views on Donald Cammell, one of my favorite directors. I did want to address the issue of organized religion's relationship to sex/porn as the two of you discussed it. While the West's three "mainstream" monotheistic religions are certainly sex-repressive (today, at least), there have been Christian sects throughout the centuries that have encouraged their members to indulge their sexuality in a myriad of forms. The Aegopy practiced free love when Christianity first began, and if research is to be believed, the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit both enjoyed "free love" well into the 1400s.
The U.S. has many religious groups (some Christian-based, some not) that practice open sex. The Oneida Company of New York, which makes gorgeous, highly sought-after silver, follows an interesting "perfectionist" doctrine in which adherents are free (and encouraged) to make love to one another, and have a multitude of partners. The Brotherhood of the New Life, follows similar teachings.
A true product of the 60s/70s, Eckankar simply refrains from passing judgment on matters of sexual morality, leaving all such matters up to the individual (in my opinion, a stance all organizations, religious AND secular, should adopt). The Raelians, as famously publicized, are porn positive to the point of encouraging adherents to hook up for cybersex on the religion's official website (at least this was the case throughout the 90s).
2Cums responds on XPT to Humphry's argument:
"In pornography, you know the guys are going to be presentable and professional and tested and often a fun experience to be with. Prostitution is just about the lowest form unless you are very high-priced hookers, and even they don't have much choice in who they can take on. Any girl in porn will know who she is going to do it with. With us, we ask the girl, 'Who would you like to work with?'"
This is a weak argument. Obviously, Holly's dad never saw Midnight Prowl, American Bukkake or much gonzo to begin with.
I agreee with Amalek's asessment. I was waiting for the Mike Wallace-type questions and they never materialized.
That's The Way I Like It
Vilnia writes:
You are not dating Holly, yet you are talking of marrying her?
I did not like your Dara Horn Interview. I am neutral on the Humphry Knipe interview. I enjoyed the DCypher interview. I enjoyed your banter with Crystal.
You do best in interviews where the subject turns the tables and forces you to confront yourself. It was great why DCypher forced you to admit to being: "...someone who does not live up to his ideals."
Subjects like the Dick Delaware are great.
Leslie writes: "I would guess the average lukeisback reader doesn't give a damn about reading an interview with your future father-in-law but it would be a total different story if it was with your future mother-in-law though. I guess Suze would decline, it wouldn't be good for her business if you'd ask her the good questions."
Holly writes me:
I loved your interview with my dad, though I admit you could have taken it further, but didn't because I asked you to be nice and complementary. I would have loved to hear his reaction to our relationship. I think people are just disappointed because he's a really smart guy and one can't make him look stupid, no matter what the editing. I love my dad, I couldn't ask for a better one. I found it really interesting and I've forwarded it to all my friends.
An ex-porn journalist writes me:
I thought your interview with Holly's dad was great.
I love this part that Holly sent:
HollyRandall: on Valentine's day, every year my dad would write me a Valentine's day card, drive across town, and mail it from there.
I think that belongs in a movie, tell Holly I'm putting that in a script!
Seriously that's one of the most touching things I've read, I hope her dad REALLY did do that. Whatever faults her parents have, that's a pretty cool thing to do for a young girl who is getting stiffed on Valentines. My parents never would have done that for me, not in a million years.
3/20/06
HollyRandall: i fixed up my dad's myspace
page for him
Luke: I have exhaustively researched your father and I am well-prepared.
Luke: Why don't you use the topless photo of your dad? They've disappeared
from his website.
HollyRandall: he probably got teased for it too much
Luke: Why did you change your dad's status from single to married?
HollyRandall: it was by default that way when he set it up i guess, he
didn't know how to edit all that info
Luke: yeah, yeah, if you need to believe that...
Luke: Does your dad ever hit on your female friends?
HollyRandall: nah, he's not creepy
Luke: damn
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if the Jewish lobby is insufficiently powerful
in Washington.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if Negroes are as good at science as Koreans.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if, surrounded as he is by hot young white women,
he dreams of ditching his wife for one of them or at least f--king them.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if porn is good for a marriage.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if people take him less seriously because he is
married to a porner.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump how often he and Suze have sex (ask this for Holly's
sake).
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump how he'd feel about having a Negro for a son in
law.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if he likes George Bush.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump if he ever uses illegal drugs.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump how much he drinks.
Chaim Amalek: Ask Hump how often he writes.
Chaim Amalek: And try to keep it friendly.
Chaim Amalek: You might want to address him as "Dad."
4/15/06
I interview author Humphry Knipe (husband to photographer Suze Randall and father of Holly Randall) about his book The dominant man: The mystique of personality and prestige:
* What are the implications for politics from your book?
HK: Profound. We have to be aware of the pecking order instinct that is wired into us and which makes us such easy prey to authoritarianism, whether religious (Islam) or secular (fascism). As long as we are human we will never be able to shake this thing off.
* How has it stood the test of time? Has new research validated or invalidated it? How so?
HK: Actually, when it was published in 1972 it was still widely held by liberals that the infant mind was tabula rasa - a blank table - on which anything could be written. The instinct theory was discredited by, for example, by Ashley Montagu in his influential "Man and Aggression" which was published in 1973.
The modern view is that we are, in fact, soft wired - we have an inborn propensity to behave in a certain way, but culture can modify that to some extent. However atavistic instinct remains only a heartbeat away. Why? Because it's the tried and true fall back position.
* Are humans just another animal? What distinguishes us from animals?
HK: Of course we are animals, smart animals although maybe not smart enough to deal with the power of destructive technology.
* What about the women? Your book is largely about men. Do women demonstrate status differentials in the same ways as men?
HK: We had a chapter on women but this grew into such a page consuming monster we dropped it. Thought of writing "The Dominant Woman" (I'm married to one, Holly is another). Could have, should have. Would have made me rich and famous by now and getting interviewed by the NY Times!
* What do you think of the book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life?
HK: Regarding The Bell Curve, which I have not read except in reviews: Obviously high intelligence coupled with high dominance (for example Julius Caesar et al) will improve the chances of the assertive individual getting to the top of the heap - although modern American politics indicates that intellectual brilliance is not essential for the highest political office - "people skills" is the must.
Brilliant but shy back room boys have the brains but not the extroversion, assertion, executive demeanor, charisma or whatever the latest buzz word is, to get into the executive office. The beta may be a tyrant to the gamma, delta and epsilons, but he (or she) goes mysteriously shy in the company of an alpha.
4/17/06
I email Holly's dad Mr Knipe:
I was telling Holly today that one of her photos reminded me of that infamous Hustler cover of a woman being fed into a meatgrinder. She said you came up with that cover.
In retrospect, are you proud or ashamed of that cover? What were you thinking? What were the circumstances? Did you say it as a joke and someone (who?) ran with it?
Humphry replies:
It was my idea, yes. Bruce David told me that Larry was looking for a cover to illustrate the idea that Hustler would no longer "hang women up women like pieces of meat."
He invited me to come up with an idea. Into my ever vivid imagination popped this image (I'm a leg man, you see). It was published as the Hustler June 1978 cover (attached). Irony almost a sweet as Swift's "A Modest Proposal."
A lot of women didn't get the joke - hordes of them milled around outside the Hustler offices with posters deploring it. My 15 minutes of infamy!
Holly's mom Suze Randall has been nominated for a FAME Best Director award, even though she hasn't directed a movie since the 1980s. Isn't America a great country?
5/10/06
Holly's Dad Humphry Knipe Wins Independent Publisher Book Award For Best Historical Fiction For His Recent Novel The Nero Prediction
HollyRandall: hey my dad won that award!
HollyRandall: out of 1000 nominated
HollyRandall: he gets his own booth and is going to be signing copies
HollyRandall: i'm so excited for him!
I email Humph my congratulations. "Holly's very excited." He replies:
Me too.
I know everyone always says this, but I never expected to win except so deep down you'd need a mine shaft to get there. After making a fool of myself stuttering out my acceptance speech on the evening of Friday 19, I will be manning my publisher's booth at on Saturday and Sunday. Booth 3261 in case any of your readers are there.
Of course I will afterwards, as an anointed author, not be associating with bloggers any more so this is my last post.
5/26/06
I read Jenna's book a few months ago (it took me about eight hours). I read Suze's 1978 book Friday in two hours.
They have more in common than in what separates them. They both fit snugly into the porn star biography bracket.
The major differences:
* Jenna is porn's biggest star of all time. Suze is porn's biggest photographer of all time but the book stops before Suze's photography career blasts off. Suze needs a sequel.
* Cultural. Suze's book is laugh-at-the-pain British while Jenna's is Oprah-style American. There's not as much introspection and confession in Suze's work. Suze's book is a fun easy read with large sections for the wanker crowd. Jenna's book is a more challenging read and is about five times as long. She's more open about her life.
Suze's book is a laugh. Jenna bleeds.
* Generational. Suze's book was published when just being in porn was a big deal. Jenna's book comes out of an older, more accepted, industry. Suze came of age when swinging was a political statement. Few people today think of porn and swinging as part of a philosophy.
* Success. Jenna's book was a bestseller.
Suze Randall's 1978 autobiography was written by her husband Humphry Knipe.
It gives me a special thrill to read something that Holly has withheld from me for so long (about the only thing she's withheld from me):
Everything started with a tiny advertisement in a London hippy newspaper called International Times: "Attractive girls wanted for nude modelling. No experience needed. Make up to 100 pounds a day."
I was...a dedicated young nurse at St. George's, the famous London teaching hospital...
...I'd met Humphry Knipe two months previously at the dinner party given in honor of my twenty-second birthday by six roommates, all nurses at St. George's... Tall, athletic, with dark hair parted down the middle, he had a bizarre, almost devilish air about him. His gaze was unusually direct and lingering, a particularly attractive quality in men. He was also a struggling author, and as impoverished as I was. I fell instantly under his spell, and my life was destined to be profoundly changed by this man who had written a book called The Dominant Man.
Humphry had taken a few [nude] pictures of me...
...Otto Kadulka...was a Jewish writer from Budapest, Hungary...but had been forced to flee when the uprising of 1956 failed. Now he was a publisher...
[Showing Suze various photos of his nude models, Otto] leaned over the desk and whispered, "She used to suck me off under dis desk whenever she came to see me."
"Oh, really!" I said...
Ben complimented me on my figure, which cheered me up so much I immediately got into the swing of posing. ...What fun it was to be the undisputed center of attention, to hear a constant stream of flattering comments from the photographer, to have all that film used up on me!
Ben advises her to get some prints off Otto and show them to nude talent agent Vicky Porter.
Otto pays her 17 pounds for her 8.5 hours of posing.
Nude models were regarded as little better than prostitutes.
...A pin-up model, like a virgin in times past, loses most of her value once she's been done.
After a few months, I was modeling quite regularly and on paper I was making three to four times as much as I was as a night nurse. But except for the very rare cash job, I wasn't actually taking home anything. I had to wait for Vicky to get paid, while the photographers had to wait to b paid by the advertising agency, who had to wait for the client. The poor model...often had to wait six months or more...
Desperate for money, Suze talks to Humphry (who earns 120 pounds a month teaching language in the mornings) about having sex with an old man for 50 pounds. He's amused. "It'll make a great anecdote in your memoirs," he tells her.
She got smashed and the sex was all over with the fat man in five minutes.
Suze says this was her only brush with prostitution.
...[A] pinup girl is...often broke, is unashamed about nudity, and who has such an attractive body that people are prepared to pay to see it. This means that for seven sweet years, from eighteen to twenty-five, she lives continually in a state of temptation. There's the photographer who promises to make her into a star if she'll go to dinner with him. There's the business type with a secret yen for pimping who says he'll be her manager if she'll spend the weekend with him in the country talking it over. Then, of course, there's the aging married man, often more honest, who offers presents or money, and no one need ever know, if the girl will spend a couple of hours with him in a hotel room. Of course, a few girls get to like the life of a high-class call girl.
I'm annoyed by the number of "of course" expressions. If something is "of course," you should just say what it is. The book's wordy, with too many "quites" and other fillers.
Two photographers turned Suze's career around -- David Hurn and Michael Boys. She got a new agent -- Doris Lester - and got paid quicker.
Very quickly I became Doris's star girl, which meant I lost more than anyone else when she killed herself [a year after meeting Suze].
...I'd always promised myself that if I were ever lucky enough to make it, I would never lose touch with my old friends like wicked people in fiction always do. Now I began to realize how difficult that was. I was learning the first cruel lesson of success. It didn't seem to me that with my expensive hairdos, professional makeup and fashionable clothes, I was becoming more glamorous. It seemed that my nursing friends were becoming more shabby and unkempt. It wasn't that I rammed my success down their throats, either. The problem was that they had plenty of opportunities to pay me compliments: they'd seen pictures of me in newspapers and magazines. But I really had to wrack my brains for something flattering to say about them. Also, I'd always thought that friends would applaud my success and listen eagerly while I talked about. That was so, at first. Soon, however, one unforgettable day over lunch at Miss Selfridge, a look of envy began to creep into even my closest friend's eyes as she sat listening, chin propped up by her forearm, to me blabbinb on about a modeling assignment in the south of France. It was then I realized I was on my own, that my friends of nursing days lived in another world, and that each month the gap between my world and theirs became more difficult to cross.
...On top of the financial strain was the problem of learning to live with failure. Much of my week was spent walking the streets with my modeling portfolio, going from casting to casting.
Suze spent $1000 for a Nikon camera. After six months of depression, she picked it up and learned photography, often from the men who photographed her.
She became known as "rebel cameragirl Suze," and she rode the women's lib movement to success.
I had the best gimmick in the business: a sexy girl taking pictures of sexy girls.
I also had an important secret weapon: Humphry, the power behind my throne. He was always there to kick around moneymaking ideas.
The models trusted Suze in a way they wouldn't trust a male photographer. They shot for her on spec, meaning they only got paid when she did.
Suze shot her first spread for a top Italian fashion magazine by sleeping with its old lecherous art director Sergio.
About a bisexual model, Suze says: "Alan's got a big cock and I'm a sucker for that."
"Has Humphry got a big one?"
"Yes, as long as your arm. You'll have to check it out when he gets back."
The book transitions into a Penthouse magazine-style sex scene between Suze and her model Soapy.
"You weren't lying. You do love it up the ass," Suze murmured.
After two years of photography, she sold a centerfold e and began to make good money.
I decided that [Inga, the blonde Norwegian beauty] would have to stay with me -- if I could get Humphry to agree. I'd tell him that I'd have her prancing naked in front of the camera from morning till night, and that would inspire his writing.
Suze met Alexander Wallace III, the head of Playboy's British operation. They became friendly. Suze secured a job shooting for American Playboy. She flew to Chicago with model Inga Andersson to stay with Hef.
To my private grief, Inga's room turned out to be noticeably larger than mine. In London she'd been my protege. I was the star sex photographer with articles about mei n the newspapers. She was just another model. Now the tables were turning. In Bunnyland the Playmate is queen. But I was determined not to be pushed into the background.
..."This is Christie Hefner," said Lenn [Fuller]. Immediately I realized that this was Hef's twenty-one-year-old daughter. Cautious of the girls who flocked around her father, she gave me a single, searching look, then pretended I didn't exist. "And have you met Mike Irving?; he works for Oui magazine?" Mike was tall, gawky with buck teeth, thinning grey hair, and a jovial manner.
"You're a photographer? Fantastic. Come up and see us at Oui sometime<" enthused Mike.
"Oui is a male chauvinist rag!" Christie interjected. She pointed out a cartoon in the magazine of an ass with tits tattooed onto it. "Now just look at this," she rattled on, "don't you agree this degrades women?"
I listened, highly amused, to Christie (who was later that year to join Playboy as Hefner's "special assistant") sending up Bunnyland... Eventually I got tired of hovering in the background listening to feminist prattle, and smiling mysteriously, I moved on. (pg. 95)
...Hef was one of the pallbearers at [Bobbie Arnstein's funeral], wearing a black yarmulke because Bobbie had been a Jew.
"Wow!" was all he had time to say as I proceeded to treat [James's] cock like a lolly, which, unlike a lolly, got warmer and bigger every time I licked it.
I boasted to Wes how I'd sucked off James and Andy.
"Here, I'll show you what I did," I volunteered.
...[W]hen it came to sex, I wanted to be the slave.
"Usually I only fancy men who dominate me," I explained with a sigh.
...The day after the orgy shooting Ed Kerr drew me aside and informed me with a smirk that I'd better go see a doctor because Andy, the assistant I'd sucked off, was being treated for the clap.
...I spent a lot of time sitting in the hall, pretending I was reading The Dominant Man, convinced someone important would ask me about the book. Wrong. On one occasion I purposely left the manuscript of Humphry's latest book next to the bowl of fruit in the great hall. I imagined that Hef's eyes, which seemed to miss nothing, would light on the title, The Divine Madness, and he would sit up reading it all night. But to my mortification it was tidied away by a butler and I had to recover it from the kitchen!
I carried a paperback edition of The Dominant Man around with me continually during those few days that Hef was in Chicago, and I was still carrying it in the morning he was due to fly back to Los Angeles.
[Suze calls Humph in London.] "I've given The Dominant Man to Hefner and now I'm going to give The Divine Madness to Normal Mailer," I told him.
..."No need for you to talk about dominance," [Norman Mailer said to Suze]. "You've got balls enough for the both of us."
..."Has success brought you more sex?" was my next one.
..."I'm the easiest lay in town," I giggled. "I'm not looking for romance but I'm game for almost anything."
..."Who wants to go anywhere with a ballbuster like Suze?" Percy [Goldstein] complained.
...[Hef] loves spending time brooding over articles about himself, and I've been told that he often whiles away the lonely early-morning hours watching videotapes of the now-defunct TV show "Playboy After Dark" which he hosted. I myself have seen him watch an old documentary about himself, sitting alone in the screening room, looking like a sleeping beauty sealed off from the world in a rose garden of nostalgia.
...Humphry often complained to me that for the first few months every visit [to the Playboy mansion] was an ordeal, that he used to break out in a cold sweat every time Hef condescended to exchange remarks with him.
"I've been ignored, cold-shouldered, and cut off more times by the entourage during a single night at the Mansion than the rest of my life put together," he told me more than once.
...But while doing my special version of the Charleston that September night, every now and then flashing a sexual lightning bolt, for perhaps five minutes I felt I was at the center of the world. Eclipsed stars stared, beauties gawked, caught off balance between delight and disapproval. Tongues froze, feet stopped. I was all the girls who'd ever danced on a table. I was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. I was a fantasy of sex and success come true. I was sexess.
...Always I felt the pressure to perform, to shock, and amaze.
"I never f--- my models unless they make the first move," [says Suze].
Hef, as usual, was torn between his love of publicity and his need for privacy.
John writes: "I'd like to know how Suze was involved with David Hurn? Did he do pin up stuff? he has a reputation as a serious docu photographer. Also like to know if she knew Colin Osman he was a pin up photographer, publisher and co-editor of Creative Camera, the only really serious photographic magazine in the UK at that time."
Suze was a fashion model as well as a nude model. She did fashion photography for David Hurn.
I interview Humphry Knipe by email:
>I'm reading Suze. It says you are prodigiously hung. True?
Was, although it's all relative.
> What happened to your book, The Divine Madness?
Still unfinished. The title comes from Plato.
>What was it about?
"Madness and genius are close allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide"(Forgot who said that.)
The book focuses on manic depressive poets, writers and prophets. The thesis is that periods of "divine" inspiration are often episodes of mania. It's a new look at the old madness/genius debate focusing on bipolars. I think you qualify.
As far as "Suze" goes the first sex scene (girl/girl) is fiction (the publisher's idea). The rest, unfortunately, is true.
>How did you feel about Suze having to sleep with people to get a layout published etc? Did that not fill you with rage?
I don't remember her sleeping with anybody for anything except personal gratification - she's not that sort of person. Except a threesome with Hefner but that was more a lark - you know "going to bed with history" and all that.
>The book says she had to sleep with this Italian guy Sergio to get a photo spread in a fashion magazine...and when you guys were broke, she had to sleep with some old fat guy for 50 pounds (arranged by Doris).
Ah yea, Sergio and the fat guy, forgotten about that. Didn't know either. I kind of her encouraged her on the second incident - when she told me a girlfriend had a trick going in Mayfair I said why not, try anything once - seemed kind of kinky at the time (this was the anything-goes 60's, after all). I think prostitution is pretty sad - much worse than porn. At least in porn you usually get to choose your partner and you don't get any fat hairy guys. Except Ron Jeremy.
Pushing My Luck With Holly Randall, Jenna Jameson
5/17/06
I don't like to ask people for things aside from interviews, but my new friend Cam pushed me to put together my best work for a book. There are chapters on Jenna and Holly.
I got Holly to give me some pictures which she emailed me in .tif format.
Once I'd gotten my photos, I risked overstepping my boundaries.
To give the following context, remember that Jenna said in her autobiography that Suze exploited her.
Holly, the eldest child, is hyper-protective of her family. I remember five months ago, after she read my memoir, she was convinced that I was out to destroy the industry (that she dare not show it to her parents) and that she couldn't have any part of that and she was exhausted from all the flak she took from being associated with me...
HollyRandall: did you get all the files you needed?
Luke: umm, do you have one of jenna j?
HollyRandall: oh crap
HollyRandall: why don't you get one from her?
HollyRandall: mine are so old
Luke: ok
HollyRandall: seriously she looks nothing like how she looks now
HollyRandall: in what we've shot of her
Luke: ok
HollyRandall: it was all pre-chin job
HollyRandall: hey have you heard of this new Mark Spiegler girl, Sasha
Gray?
HollyRandall: i'm surprised there isn't a post about her on XPT, she's
all the rage
Luke: yeah, i did a story on her 2 weeks ago
Luke: did you meet her?
HollyRandall: we shot her
Luke: is she ok?
Luke: serious?
Luke: ER?
HollyRandall: hahah very funny
Luke: she's the new Maya
Hills [the last 18-year old Holly was excited about because she was
doing porn and was beautiful yet she had her life together and Holly said
she was going to have this terrific porn-enhanced future, that porn was
a stepping stone to greatness for her, and I said to myself, oh please]
HollyRandall: oh please don't go there
Luke: Jenna replies: Depends on what your going to write about me…lol
J
Luke: I knew she's say that.
HollyRandall: yeah well maybe she should think about what she writes about
other people too
Luke: may i quote that? [garble]
HollyRandall: what the hell is that?
HollyRandall: sanskrit?
Luke: I was trying to say, may I quote that? the type went screwey
Luke: you don't know ancient middle eastern languages
Luke: I could never stand your ignorance!
I reply to Jenna:
I did an interview yesterday with Max magazine from France and I said that you had always treated me very nicely, even when I had stuff in my column that was mean. That you understood my job better than any porn star. But yeah, I'm going to revisit that dramatic '99 roadie interview and your response with Nikki Tyler so I understand if you don't want to send along a picture.
Jenna responds: "OY VEY.
"In response to Holly’s barb -- I understand being protective of your mom. But I spoke the truth. Period. I was 18 and knew NOTHING about the industry. I would expect someone with your mother experience and the fact that she is a woman, to be less of a shark. Sorry, I tend to speak my mind."
Holly is like a mother bear looking after her cubs, only her cubs are her parents (in addition to her siblings and her friends).
"Totally understandable."
Former Hustler magazine Editor Allan MacDonell painted the same view of Suze as Jenna and Tera Patrick.
Let's be real folks. Porn is all about pimps and hos (I don't exempt myself from this critique). If you're in the biz, you're either a pimp or a ho. If you're a pimp (photographer), you try to squeeze as much as possible from the talent and pay them as little as possible. If you're a ho, you try to get as much money as possible for as little effort as possible.
Any other approach to porn doesn't last, so it doesn't matter. The only reason to be in this business is money (and attention and immortality). There's no nobility in producing porn. All you do is exploit the basest human emotions by preying on the weak and getting them to do things that will forever hurt them and those who care about them. To make or do porn is to wreak havoc on the vulnerable (I've wreaked plenty of havoc on the vulnerable through my gossipmongering so I am not saying I am better than the people I write about). See what happened to that teacher Tericka Dye (ex-porn star Rikki Andersin) who can never hold her head up in polite society again (without an extraordinary amount of fortitude and accomplishment on her part and unusual forgiveness by those around her).
A friend of mine who is a pornographer responded to Rikki's plight thus: "I've sold a lot of copies of Wet Cum Shots 6 that she stars in. I doubt she'll be able to get a job anywhere. She may as well just set up a webcam and just masturbate online for Steamray."
Yay for porn and for the way it empowers women!
See what happened to Brandy Alexandre and her job at Forest Lawn.
Jenna's book was gentle on the industry. She was far tougher on herself than on porn. That girl went through hell (much of it, after she was 18, of her own creation).
I haven't read Suze's book Suze (written by her husband Humphry and published in 1977) but from all indications (Suze and Humph were kicked out of the Playboy circle because of it and suffered other indignities) Jenna was no more harsh towards her early employer and friend Suze than Suze was to her early employer and friend Hugh Hefner.
The big difference is that Jenna's book was a bestseller and Suze's wasn't. Jenna became a mainstream celebrity. Suze didn't.
On page 180, Allan MacDonell writes about Suze Randall:
Randi Dench had spawned her ambitions during London's swinging '60s and had flirted and f---ed at the fringes of '70s celebrity. Her autobiography, long out of print, had named names and dimensions. Dench's blab-all tome had alienated her men's-sophisticate benefactors, and she'd been reduced to shooting for magazines lesser than Hustler. I complimented Randi on her test shots and warned her not to bug Eleanor about a perceived increase in bra size. Dench, mindful of her reputation for bawdy exuberance, had immediately accosted Eleanor in an open workplace and bellowed, "Come on, Eleanor baby, don't be bashful. Show us those new tits!" This act had been cited as proof that I had created a hostile, sexually harassing atmosphere.
I knew something about how Randi's attentions must have made Eleanor feel. About a year and a half earlier, we had all three scouted prospective models at a world series of exotic dancers in Toronto, Canada. Randi had been drinking heavily, in her defense, but I had not, and her continual groping of my crotch and struggling to unbuckle my trousers while in crowded coffee shops had caused me no small amount of awkward emotions, much to Eleanor's delight.
On page 239, Allan writes:
All the skin photographers I met reinforced the prejudice that theirs, more than any other, is a craft of deception. The girls are fooled into believing they are receiving free money. The viewer is duped into believing the photographer has captured the girl in a moment of ecstasy. One photo shoot visit too many ruins the illusions. Afterward, you look at a "nude glamour" shot, and you see a strained expression held for the duration of a camera click. If you are not careful, your cynicism penetrates beyond the illusions of the photo layouts, and nothing in real life seems authentic anymore.
Kami Andrews writes me: "I've felt that so many times and not had the words for it. I wish I could express myself like that."
On page 101 of her book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, Jenna Jameson begins:
...And because Suze was a woman and spoke in a charming British accent, she could get away with saying things that I would have wanted to strangle most guys for.
...To keep all of my body in focus and in the light, I had to bend and contort into all sorts of unnatural positions that were supposed to look effortless, just as I had at my shoot with Julia [Parton]. But this time, I had to hold the positions much longer and wait for them to meter the light, take a Polaroid, and check the light again before they even started shooting. I was so out of shape from my unhealthy lifestyle that my knees would suddenly start knocking during a pose or my lower back would spasm when I arched it for too long. But I knew that if I moved even an inch, they'd be pissed because they would have to remeter the light; and all the other girls, who were posing so effortlessly, would be annoyed. I really wanted to please Suze, so I was willing to hold my knees over my head for twenty minutes straight, until my spine felt like it was going to snap.
...We had no permits to shoot there, so Suze blocked us from the beach dwellers with big white sheets. For the shoot, she wanted us to pour oil on each other. As we were doing that, she asked Erin to pour some directly on my ding-ding. I pulled back.
"I'd rather not do that," I said. "It'll get infected."
"Fine," Suze sighed.
...Though she is a great person and a talented photographer, Suze, I soon realized, is also a shark. Her specialty is naive young girls -- much like myself -- who are so happy to have a modeling opportunity that they'll do anything. Once she sank her teeth into me, she didn't let go. She shot me until I was half dead.
The pay was three hundred dollars a day, but sometimes she'd cram three different photo shoots into a day. And I had no idea how much she was getting paid for the photos or how many magazines she was selling them to. I was only supposed to be in L.A. for two days, but she kept me for a week, shooting nonstop.
...But I began to feel like Suze was taking advantage of me. My pictures appeared in every sex ad and foreign nudie magazine imaginable. And since I'd signed away the rights, she was raking in all the money. Whenever I asked her for a few chromes for a promo shot or to make a modeling book, she'd refuse. I'd ask her instead to shoot an extra roll for me at our next session instead, and she'd say she couldn't. She made her living off enthusiastic new girls like myself, and I understood that and was grateful to her for making me an international cover girl. But there was a bigger problem -- she was stringing me along, telling me that each shoot we did just might be a centerfold in Penthouse. However, nothing we did ever appeared there, and that had been my dream from day one. And with every picture of mine that was published somewhere else, my chances of ever being a Penthouse Pet plummeted lower and lower.
So I added Suze to my mental shitlist of people I could not trust and decided to stop working with her. (pg. 172)
Last October, Holly called me spewing with rage over this passage by Tera Patrick in the book Naked Ambition: Women Who Are Changing Pornography:
I lived at Suze Randall's home for a while, and while she wasn't busy hitting on me she was getting me published in every magazine imaginable. In retrospect, she probably paid for tha thouse off the pictures she shot of me...
Holly gave me my copy of the book Naked Ambition. She inscribed it: "To Luke - For your reading pleasure and assured scathing criticism. Love [I can't read the name but I assume it is Holly]."
Holly noted her mom was in her fifties when she met Tera and unlikely to hit on her. And that Tera's pictures would pay for no more than a few square feet of her parents Malibu ranch.
HollyRandall: I just can't believe she blamed my mom for not getting
into Penthouse-- that's what made me mad
HollyRandall: it just makes no sense-- if she was such a shark then why
wouldn't she want to sell Jenna to a magazine that would pay her the most
amount of money?
HollyRandall: why would my mom deliberately keep her out of Penthouse?
HollyRandall: it was the fact that Bob [Guccione] didn't like Jenna's
look at the time, and that's the final word-- my mom did everything she
could to get Jenna in Penthouse
HollyRandall: it was the Penthouse accusation that pissed me off, because
it was totally untrue
HollyRandall: look no one is on Jenna's level, and i admire her for getting
where she is
HollyRandall: but whether or not she was aware of the Penthouse issue,
the fact is that it's not true, and it's in print forever and everyone
who reads that will think the wrong thing about my mom
HollyRandall: I'm glad she understands I'm protective of my family, I'm
sure in my situation she'd feel the same way
Jenna didn't blame Suze for not getting into Penthouse. She blamed Suze for leading her along, telling her that this next shoot just might get her into Penthouse. Jenna blamed Suze for taking advantage of her naivety. Jenna blamed Suze for leading her on.
Holly takes after her mother. She's generous and charming but makes a lot of promises that she not only does not keep, but claims to have no memory of ever making. Some of this trait is probably endemic to photographers who prey on the dreams of models.
As Holly told me after one of my protestations of love, "I need someone more stable than you and you need someone more stable than me."
5/31/06
Suze And Jealousy
I email Suze Randall's husband and Holly's dad Humphry Knipe: "How come you and Suze weren't racked by jealousy during your swinging youth while so many seem susceptible to that green-eyed monster?"
Humphry replies: "She was jealous all right - poured a bucket of cold over me one time when I was doing it with one of her girlfriends. Quite a shock. I encouraged her in her philanderings - believed it would build character, which it did."
Luke: "That is hilarious. But seriously, how does philandering build character?"
Humphry replies: "Got her to meet a better class of person, of course."
Interview With Nero
"What about your mother?" I asked, eyeing him as he caressed a bundle of asparagus before gently laying that in the cart as well. "Did you really sleep with her?"
He gave me a look that sent shivers to my shoes. "Absolutely not! Didn't kick my pregnant wife in the stomach either or allow myself to be sodomized by my barman. Those were all roles I played. Periander, you know, tyrant of Corinth, he's the one who kicked his pregnant wife. Played him a lot. Oedipus slept with his mother, that was another one of my favorites. I played female parts too, there were some wonderful ones and I'm really good at weeping. That's where the silly story about the barman comes from."