Christy Canyon: The Mr. Skin Interview - Part One!

Hi, Christy! It's amazing to see you in the flesh after doing the Road to Christy Canyon blog. I just started the blog just to have fun.
They are fun.

And I did a lot of pictures of me and I got a lot of fans, and lot of people were really interested in the interview and they were really excited about it.
Good! I'm so glad that it all worked out. It was perfect. Well, go ahead, start with whatever you want to ask.

Let's talk about the guy who got you started in the business when he pulled up to the store where you worked in his Trans Am.
Yeah, like the total Smokey and the Bandit, except it was white, you know, with a T-top, and in the '80s that was the fuckin' car to have! He was like the coolest and he was so cute and young and blond and tan; it was just so flashy.

And it took you, what, three weeks to call?
Yeah, because when he said "figure modeling," I really was so truly na? that I thought he meant hands and legs. I didn't think of pussy and tits, you know. And then he showed me a Hustler that he was in and I thought, Oh my God! Really, I couldn't do that!

But really it didn't seem bad. It was in the '80s, where like layouts were really cool, and like now, the new millennium era, it's so different. You would never get away with doing a layout like the layouts we did in the '80s where the guy was like really close and the tongue was out but there was no actual touching. And now they're like pissing on people and like fisting and stuff!

How nervous were you that first shoot?
Shooting photos was not nerve racking. I was really comfortable with that, but I was stiff, just because I didn't know what I was doing. I would give like the big old cheesy smile and they were like, "No, you don't want to show that many teeth. Do like 'Ah, ee, oooh,' like really do the vowels." It was just me and the photographer, all day, and the makeup artist.

That part was really actually fun. It was when I did my first film that I got totally freaked out just because it was like I'd only been with like four guys. I hadn't had that much sex when I was eighteen, and it was just really scary for me.

You know--having sex in a bed with another couple was something I hadn't done at eighteen. I had never seen anyone having sex right next to me. It wasn't a great set. It was for Swedish Erotica. I remember one of the producers was fucking one of the girls in the bathroom. It was real porny.

At eighteen I would have freaked out and run out of there immediately.
I really wanted to, but I was really broke. I thought, It's no big deal; it's not like I haven't had sex before, and you know, I could use the money and I don't want to make the agent mad at me if I leave here because what if he doesn't want to hire me or send me out. There were so many dynamics going on in my head at once, just so much happening.

You did that shoot and told your agent that you wanted to quit, but he said that you were committed to two more shoots at $1200 a day.
And that was so much. Even now that's a lot. And it was straight sex. It was a boy-girl scene, it wasn't anal. I hate to keep referring to how times have changed now, but on our radio show here at Playboy, we have a lot of the new adult stars and they say, "Yeah, my first scene was a gang-bang where I got choked." I thank my lucky stars that I was in it when I was. It's just such a different field now.

But when I showed up for the second photo shoot, it was a whole different vibe. It was Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn (Picture: 1 - 2), and catering service and Peter North. It was with all really young, pretty, and handsome people. Sorry, Ron Jeremy--Ron was the first guy I had sex with on film (in the Swedish Erotica film). I love Ron!

I think my second scene that I ever did on film was with Ginger Lynn and Jamie Gillis. And Ginger was, oh my God, so cute! And I'd never had sex with a girl and I always wanted to know what it was like and she was just so sweet. It's amazing how it just turned my whole look around from being on that second set.

So then you went on and did more.
Yeah--more and more, I started in September 1984 and I quit in April 1985 and I think every month I was doing an average of twenty-eight sex scenes. I'd work like twenty-eight days out of the month 'cause it was the boom of porn. It was the beginning. This was when movies went from the Pussycat Theater to your home with these like $89 tapes and there were like maybe like a dozen usable girls every day: Amber Lynn (Picture: 1), Ginger Lynn, Portia Lynn, Christy Canyon, Traci Lords. There weren't that many girls and every day we would just work.

There were fewer guys, too.
Yeah, there were like maybe six. Tom Byron, Peter North, Ron Jeremy, Marc Wallice.

I would assume it was a lot harder for men.
It was then, but now with Viagra they cheat.

That works I guess.

It does, but then it backfires. Last year I directed a porn film and for two days this one guy on Viagra couldn't come. After the three positions and the head, forty-five minutes later, I'm thinking, Dude, call us when you're ready! It had to be something. It just wouldn't go down.

You need the money shot.

Exactly! And that poor girl! It was Sunny Lane. She was trying to do everything to get this guy off. I would have been out of there like five minutes after he couldn't pop his load.

Did you always have orgasms on film?
Like ninety percent of the time. There were some times when you were just in such a horrible position... there was one sex scene where the guy had me hoisted on a sink and he's fucking me but I could feel the nozzle of the sink like going right into my lower back. Not comfortable.

In Christy in the Wild, I was having sex with John Dough on a car. Oh John Dough--God rest your soul. Anyway, I was sitting on top of him and it was like one hundred degrees and he had a broken leg, so I could only do cowgirl and, to me, it just wasn't comfortable after twenty minutes.

So there were times and there were probably ten sex scenes that I can think of that I just didn't like the position, the air conditioning was off, we were outside or in one or two cases where I just so wasn't attracted to the guy, that kind of thing.

So after you quit in 1985, you worked for your father.
That was fun for a while. And I was so burned out. And then I was like, Oh, fuck, what did I just get into? What did I just do with my life; now I'm fucking on film? It's not that I ever regretted it, but I just mentally needed a break.

Having sex on film for so many days, I was really turned off by sex to a certain degree. The first time I had sex in private, after only doing it on film for so long, it was kind of surreal. I had my leg high in the air and I had heels on. The guy was like, What are you doing with heels on?

[Both laughing] That's what I normally do!
Mentally, I was thinking, The camera's got to get the right angle. So it really started messing with my personal life. That's why when I came back in 1989, it was so great to be under contract, because I only did like one film every two months.

Yes, and everybody wanted you.
I just got lucky. I feel very lucky in this business and all these years later I'm still milkin' the cow.

And you should! If I thought the way I think now back when I was eighteen, I would have gone into porn. But when I was that age, I thought I was going to be a fashion designer.
See, you had goals. I didn't. I was kicked out. I was like what the fuck am I going to do for money? I had two jobs.

My co-host Ginger on Playboy radio disagrees with me, but I think everyone that gets into adult entertainment has some kind of chip on their shoulder. For some reason or another.

Like, they were abused in some way. I was never sexually abused, but just a lot of marriages and everyone's got a fucking story. I'm so not "sob-storying" here, but I was looking for approval.

And I think if you have somewhat of a healthy background, you don't want to get naked in front of the camera. I did it for approval. And some of the girls I know had some rocky pasts. I don't know anyone that said, "God, I had the best upbringing!" There's always a glitch in there if you dig deep enough, which I think everyone has a certain amount that got into porn. So you had some goal.

But you never portray yourself as a victim.
I can't stand it when people carry these victimized grudges for years. We were talking about Traci earlier, and every interview I read she was so negative about the business, and it is what it is. You know you did it, Traci, and you're still using that name even thought it's not your God-given name.

Well, I think that everything that she has now is because of what she did as a porn star.
Of course.

The scandal was the best PR anybody could have asked for.
She was just another pretty face. And she's not that good of an actress. She was a total one trick pony. I'm mean, she's cute and she's beautiful, but she's no Shakespearian actress. I just think it's so important to take responsibility for your own actions.

Yeah, and I don't think Traci did that in her book at all. She brushes off the porn industry.
All twenty pages about the porn industry? I couldn't care less about that TV pilot she did from the '80s.

Traci talks about how boring she is, and she doesn't talk a lot about the drugs she did. You were very honest about the drugs. I thought that was great. I've had issues with cocaine, so reading your story was cool.
And it was fun! I'm so glad I had a little run when I was younger. And yet, like now I couldn't imagine ever doing it. But I even look back at that and think, Wow! I was so young and it was kind of fun!

I don't even drink anymore. I mean I have habits, like I love coffee and smoke cigarettes, but I'm so in fear of losing control. I think I went the opposite way, and now that I have a daughter I so don't want to drink. I don't want her to be like, "Why is my mommy like this?" and wonder "Why is mommy kissing that strange man?" I was a real loosey-goosey drunk too. So I just don't really do anything. I'm just very boring that way. I just don't anymore.

So when did you start going to school, was it after you went back to porn?Yes, I enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Downtown L.A. in 1989. I graduated in 1991. And it was great.

I started off in Fashion Design and I realized that I can't cut straight and I can't sew! I just couldn't sew to save my life, but I was really good at the business end of it, and one of my teachers said, "You know, Christy, I think you might want to get into the marketing end of it. The design part isn't working for you."

When I was in design my biggest problem was that I couldn't do me. Because I have the same body you do, big, small, big. And I do have a small back. I have no idea what my bra size is. I know I'm a double D but I can go anywhere from a 34 to a 38.
Wow, see I'm pretty true 36 double D.

Well, I go to Target to buy my bras. I don't go to Victoria's Secret.
They don't have good bras at Victoria's Secret.

They don't?
This sounds so cheesy, but my fans will send me Victoria's Secret gift cards for my birthday or Christmas. So I always go there and use them, but the bras don't last long. They do for like sixty days and then they're like just thrashed.

Big boobs are hard.
Sometimes I just go to Macy's and get some good expensive ones. Bra shopping for me is no fun. You see the really cute ones in like 36C and you can't get them because they don't make them bigger.

I know. I have cute bras, but I plop right out of them, so I wear them for pretty party night, you know, where they won't be on for very long. Like when I'm going to take my clothes off in five minutes.
Exactly.

END OF PART ONE …