In a previous article, I introduced you to Georgina
Spelvin –the Devil in Miss Jones
star. From the feedback I received, I
gather there are quite a few Cinema Retro readers out there who not only long
for the days of mainstream classic cinema –but classic porn as well. As your wish is our command, you’re about to
meet another icon of porn’s “Golden Age†–Juliet Anderson. She may not sound as familiar to some of you
as Georgina or Marilyn Chambers, but to her many devoted fans throughout
the world she was incomparable. Whether
billed as Juliet Anderson or her often used screen persona “Aunt Pegâ€, here was a mature, sexy and sensual woman who
could take on the best studs and the best beauties in the business - and  enjoy the sex just as much as any of us who were eagerly
watching her. With her short, swept back blonde hair and her trademark black
stockings, garter belt and neck scarf, Juliet was the most seductive, teasing
temptress to ever grace the adult screen.Â
Her orgasms were real, evidenced by that wicked smile on her face, every
time she was about to devour that particularly lucky guy or gal. Her energy was electrifying and explosive.
Juliet knew what her fans wanted and delivered it every time. She never gave a bad performance and
consequently saved many a lackluster movie with her wild improvisational and
comedic style. Miss Anderson wasn’t just in control –she took control, as her
various directors discovered early on. She knew how to get the action going,
making up dialogue and bits of business on the spot. We’ve all heard a lot of dirty talking in
porn movies –but no one could do it sexier and sincerer than our Juliet.Â
She’s the kind of “Aunt†that many of us in our
misspent youth, always lusted for. Juliet was the oldest actress to enter the
business, which in those days was still a small cottage industry financed by
mobsters, dentists and others who would rather not reveal their real
names. In the early 1970’s, adult films
like Deep Throat, Devil in Miss Jones and Behind the Green Door had kicked the door in as far as acceptance and censorship were concerned. The adult bookstore, peepshow arcade and
movie theatre were now a part of the urban landscape throughout the
country. The term “porn chic†was on
everyone’s lips thanks to the so-called “In Crowd†and even the monologues on
Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Showâ€.Â
Hollywood stars were watching X-rated movies alongside the usual men
with raincoats on their laps. However by 1978, the “chic†part of porn was
wearing a bit tawdry with the “In Crowdâ€, but certainly not with the “raincoat
crowdâ€. Business was booming, adult
films were still being shot on film, even with Panavision cameras in some
cases. There was at least the pretense of
a story or plot to all the screwing going on up on the big screen. The mob family “wise guys†couldn’t believe
their luck. For mere peanuts, they could
find so many beautiful people willing to have sex  on film, without incurring those bothersome  health or pension benefits let alone
residuals. Whilst Hollywood was going through the usual rollercoaster ride of
box-office profits, the porn moguls couldn’t count all their money quick
enough.
Tripping down memory lane- in Juliet's inimitable style.
And so it was into this world, that a bright
intelligent, almost forty-year old beautiful blonde named Juliet Anderson found
herself, answering an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle that read- “Attractive
women over 18 wanted for soft-core sex show.Â
Lots of fun, short hours, good pay.â€Â
Her journey to San Francisco was not a direct or easy one from Burbank,
where she was born and raised. She had
already experienced the world both physically and sexually. But before she was
about to take this first big step on the wild side as it were, she first
reflected back to her childhood days.Â
Juliet grew up as she likes to say “in the days before smog and
NBC.â€Â Her father was a prominent jazz
musician who played with some of the biggest bands of the day, whilst her mother
was a content and devoted wife. They had a wonderful marriage and enjoyed
fabulous sex, as Juliet also likes to say.Â
With all the industry folk who would visit the house, Juliet was already
catching the showbiz bug. However by
then, she had inherited a condition from her father that made her allergic and
violently ill to such things as ammonia, perfumes and smoke. Juliet also suffers
from Crohn’s disease and manic depression.Â
For a time, she was laid-up in bed for years as a child, with doctors
not knowing then what they do now.
So Juliet answered the ad and went down to this small
50-seat  “lust house†called The
Screening Room in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.  On arriving for the job interview, she was
informed that owner Alex de Renzy was a busy film maker and he would have to approve
her hiring. She was also told not to mention her age to him, because 39 was
considered over-the-hill for a novice entering adult films.. De Renzy rose to
fame in the porn community as a pioneer.Â
In 1969, he went to Denmark and produced a documentary which he titled Censorship in Denmark. It showed everything that was going on with
pornography there and included explicit hard-core scenes along with the standard
travelogue shots and in-the-street interviews.Â
Needless to say, when he released it here before anyone ever heard of Deep Throat, it grossed over $2 million on
a $15,000 budget and threw the door open for hotter stuff to come. The New York Times named him the Cecil B. De
Mille of erotic film. Unaware of de Renzy or his reputation, Juliet finally met
him and he was so impressed by her beauty and intelligence, he offered her a
part in a film he was currently shooting called Pretty Peaches. On reading
the script, she was blown away (pardon the pun) by the fact that it was all
about hard-core sex. As sexual as Juliet
was at this time, she was totally naïve to the whole X-rated scene. But De Renzy convinced her of his sincerity
and she agreed to a small part that paid $200, which believe it or not, was
actually over scale at that time. Â The
stars were Deborah Clearbranch or rather Desiree Cousteau to her fans and
screen stud John Leslie. I’ll skip the
plot and just say that Juliet’s role was that of the Scandinavian house maid. Her screen debut was to be  a lesbian encounter. Now Juliet had never even been so inclined
before, but like any good budding actress, she said “I can do that!â€- and went
about proving it with gusto. Even after
the director yelled “Cut!â€, she was still enjoying her duties. When John Leslie joined them on the bed,
Juliet had already proven she was a star in the making –literally. Also evident to everyone on the set, was that
when Juliet had an orgasm, she wasn’t faking it as is so often the case.
Sex for Juliet, right from the beginning, has been a
relief from the pain that has been with her all her life. I mentioned that Juliet is not just beautiful
but intelligent, a sensitive intellect with a fiercely independent and dominant
personality. Long before it became fashionable, Juliet was already into yoga,
meditation and good health. She says, “For
the first time in my life when I had an orgasm, I felt shivers of pleasure
coursing through my whole body… Later I
learned that endorphins, natural pain inhibitors, are released during good sex. At that moment, however, all I cared about
was that I floated free of pain. I was
astonished, ecstatic and an immediate convert to the healing aspects of
guilt-free sex.â€Â Juliet learned and
conditioned herself to master her sexuality and her spirituality.Â
As an adult performer, Juliet’s brief movie career
spanned from 1978 through 1984. She was
lucky enough to start out when porn was still being shot on film and with good
budgets, though she did have to supply her own wardrobe, even if he was mostly
naughty underwear. She made
approximately seventy movies or “loopsâ€.Â
The term “loopsâ€, referring to short twelve-minute sex scenes that would
play primarily in the peep booths of adult bookstores and movie arcades. To see
the whole scene, you’d have to keep feeding in coins, as the 8mm film spool
would only advance every two minutes.Â
Talk about early pay-per-view, or should I say play-per-view... Most  movies that played the larger adult venues
like the Pussycat Theater were made up of nothing but loops that sometimes had
some fresh footage added. It was in one
of these loops shot for the Swedish
Erotica series that Juliet would make porn history. She had developed a character for herself as
a movie producer who is just as eager to enjoy the advantages of the “casting
couch†as any man. So when the director asked what name she liked to call this
persona, she just replied Peggy. With
that, the scene has Peggy introducing her niece played by Sharon Kane to her
friend, the legendary John Holmes. “Oh
Aunt Pegâ€, it’s so big.â€Â When Sharon
uttered those words, Juliet’s alto-ego was born. On the subject of working with “the legendâ€,
Juliet is no fan of John Holmes. Not
only was it just his over-sized penis, but his over-sized attitude on the set.
Always the professional though, you’d never know it from her performance. Working with Sharon Kane was a total joy -they
had chemistry that would see them together in movies like Inside Desiree Cousteau, Vista
Valley PTA and Hot Lunch. As for her leading men, I thought she was at
her best with John Leslie, especially in Talk
Dirty to Me. A porn classic take on
Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men from Sam
Weston aka Anthony Spinelli, the story finds Juliet as “Helen the Realtorâ€
encountering Leslie as a squatter in a home she was trying to sell to a guy who
shyly refused her sexual advances. Â Leslie
makes his move on Juliet on the staircase. Juliet’s seduction of the client,
who gets frightened off, is illustrative of her innate seductive personality
and wit. In 40’s film-noir Dixie Ray Hollywood Star, Juliet really
displays her “oral skills†on John and later the buxom Lisa De Leeuw. Spinelli’s Reel People anticipates the amateur porn trend to come and shows
Juliet as a phone sex operator who not only turns on her phone client, but an
amateur lady that the director conveniently arranged to be in the room. Other
porn stars had careers with hundreds of titles, but none has as many classics
as Juliet. Just watch her in action with
Kay Parker in the Taboo series, Marilyn
Chambers in Insatiable and the
numerous films with Seka and other contemporary sex queens.Â
As for studs, John Leslie was by far her favorite, but Mike
Horner, Mike Ranger and Jamie Gillis
were other  “big†talents she enjoyed. Her most famous titles as Aunt Peg were
movies made up of loops like Aunt Peg,
Aunt Peg’s Fulfillment and Aunt Peg
Goes Hollywood. They all gave her star billing and a chance to really show
just how much she enjoyed what she was doing, as it certainly wasn’t the money
that motivated her.
At the same time as Juliet was wowing everyone on
screen, she developed a one woman erotic stage show that she took on the
road. As the movie work only gave her a
small income, Juliet created the roles of Helen the housewife, Suzie the
secretary, Chris the cook, Cassie the carpenter with Elaine the executive being
her favorite. Her act  combined sex and comedy, allowing her to
connect directly with her audience. From
what people tell me, they were live shows that would even arouse passion in
the dead. Unlike those who pass for for
porn stars today, Juliet could do it all and do it with class. She wasn’t too proud to take on other duties
behind-the-camera either, whether it was helping to scout locations, taking
stills, building sets and anything else required. In 1981, she directed The King's Ladies with Sharon Mitchell, Holly McCall and Mai Lin. It was well received and would see her
directing again.
Of course Juliet had a whole different life before
entering the sexual arena. A straight A
student in school, she worked at the phone company to fund college. In 1960, she moved to Japan to join her
American lover who was in the US Navy. They married, but the relationship,
although passionate, was short-lived.Â
Juliet studied the Asian culture and literature, whilst teaching
conversational English in Hayama and Tokyo.Â
By 1963, she moved back to the States and had a variety of jobs in
Florida, including a non-nude role in a very low budget exploitation flick The Beast That Killed Women. Yes –it is available on DVD and its worth
seeing -but only for Juliet’s screen debut before porn. After that, she travelled the world again,
from Mexico to Italy, Spain and Greece, where she had what she describes as
“the most powerful and transformative love affair of my life.â€Â In Finland she became a top radio producer
for the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation as well as tried her hand at photo
journalism. She continued teaching English wherever she went. Finally in 1978, she returned home and
settled into a post “flower power†San Francisco. It was a depressing time for
her both mentally and financially, let alone sexually. She complained that
the abundance of out-of-the-closet gay
men ensured that “I couldn’t get laid no matter how hard I tried.â€Â Well –she’s certainly made up for that since
then.
In 1984, one of the deciding factors for Juliet leaving
adult movies was the bad experiences she had after directing and producing, as
well as starring in, Educating Nina. The film is an absolute gem even if it was
shot on video, which had recently become the trend. The scene which has Juliet taking on both
Lili Marlene and Dan T.Mann is as hot as it gets. The video also marks the adult film debut of
Nina Hartley, who was discovered by Juliet.Â
Unfortunately, Juliet discovered that being a female pioneer in an male
dominated profession was nerve-wracking. In a bad business deal, Juliet was
screwed over by her distributor and her production was re-edited, leaving her
financially and emotionally stressed. It
took time for her to recover and to regain her confidence again.
The original MILF is still a head-turner today.
Adult movies had changed for the worse in the ensuing
years, not just in terms of shooting on tape, but the “fun†or “artistic†part
had gone out of them. It was fast
becoming big business and Juliet didn’t like what she saw. Not being one to dwell on the past, she moved
on with her life and enrolled in school to learn massage therapy. She had found
her calling –her teachings and experience lead her to develop Tender Loving
Touch. “My nature as a highly sensitive
person makes me extremely intuitive. I
pick up things when I’m around people, especially if I can put my body next to
them, especially skin on skin.â€Â And she
does it exactly that, a gift for soothing and caressing the body and the mind that
is a total joy. It’s an erotic
meditation that has seen her build an impressive client base. In 1998, Juliet re-entered the adult entertainment
world by producing and directing Ageless
Desire, only this time the sex was focused on real couples, over-50,
showing that they could enjoy good sex too.Â
Available on Amazon, it is well crafted, with Juliet and her partner at
the time seen on-screen as one of the three couples depicted. It received high praise from sex educators
and fans alike. Juliet Anderson has also
been well honored, if not financially compensated by the adult industry. In 1996, she was inducted into the “Erotic
Legends Hall of Fame.â€Â Then in 1999, she
won the “X-rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 was
presented with the “Lifetime Achievement Actress Award†by the Free Speech
Coalition. And in 2007, she received an
honorary doctorate in sexology by the Institute for Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality. Nina Hartley is still working
– proof that Juliet knew how to recognize talent in other performers. Indeed, I
recommend a visit to her website to find out the latest news on this veteran
star. As she approaches her
seventy-first birthday, she is still absolutely stunning, only now her hair
color is a striking silver blonde instead of just blonde. I’m proud to call her a dear friend and as
the producer of two compilations of her adult movies, I say again –for Juliet
Anderson, Sex Is No Act. Â Her sexual
presence on film and video is not dated, as it has matured with her. Digital re-mastering has given her work an
illuminating brilliance and a clarity, which has new generations of fans both
men and women cheering. She is every bit a classic star as anyone in the Golden
Age of Hollywood ever was. Â Today Juliet
lives a quiet, private and happy life, with time for her “Tender Loving Touchâ€
work. Although she lives alone, she
enjoys the company of her four furry pussies (as in cats), who give her a warmth
and serenity that she takes great comfort in.Â
Living in Berkeley, she takes full advantage of the local arts and
theatre scene and is glad she gave up TV long before the digital era. Juliet “Aunt Peg†Anderson, will always be
remembered for her seductive and sinfully delicious adult persona. But as you’ve seen here, there’s a whole lot
more to this fascinating woman beyond the sexual imagery – yet her legacy is
based on giving “reel†thrills to those who may have lacked real thrills.   For the inadequate, the introverted and the
infirm, let alone all the rest of us, Juliet is the kind of aunt that we can
all relate to -and love!
Click here to order the Ageless Desire DVD on AmazonÂ