Sex Stars of 1987

For a while, it seemed as if the Sex Stars of 1987 would turn out to be a rambunctious bunch of overnight sensations who might never be heard from again. Fortunately, a few experienced veterans came off the side lines to make the year a memorable mix of high-jinks rather (text continued on page 168)Sex Stars(continued from page 149) than an endless display of clumsy amateur enthusiasm.

Sure, it was fun to watch a part-time model undo a Presidential candidate and an ex--church secretary bedevil a preacher and his painted wife, while a White House honey stuffed her shirtwaist full of secrets to protect a new American hero, who wanted only to save the country from communism and pick up leotards for his kids at the panty-hose store.

But trying to get at the truth was just too tiring, as even a Congressional committee discovered. We want our sexual evidence sworn to in the courtroom by a swooning Italian "passion flower" while the wronged soap-opera star glares at her philandering husband. We want married hunks and hunkettes splitting apart amid conflicting press releases. We want porno stars to win elections and reach voting age or, at least, the age of consent. We want stars behind bars. Hallelujah, we got it all--and more. Where to begin? From the standpoint of history, Miami model Donna Rice doubtless caused the most trouble--at least for Democrats--by sailing off with Presidential front runner Gary Hart to the Bahamas and into the headlines. He was forced to quit the race and she tried to paste up a new career from the clippings.

A suspicious nation was prepared for the worst when it turned out that handsome Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had had a tawny aide-de-camp named Fawn Hall (none of these girls is ever named Millicent Feenweather, we notice) helping him at the shredding machine in the Irangate scandal. But he said he was true to wife Betsy--and Fawn, as she fended off a flood of offers that would have let her profit from the experience, also denied fooling around.

Donna was love-struck and Fawn was devoted. But Jessica Hahn said she just wanted to pay her religious respects when she spent time in a hotel room with Jim Bakker, the popular PTL Club televangelist with the Howdy Doody grin. Some seven years later, Hahn revealed that she had been tricked into bed with Bakker. Repenting, Bakker said he had been trying to make his heavily painted, astonishingly eyelashed co-host wife, Tammy, jealous because she was being too friendly with a country singer. The Bakkers said it was all one big misunderstanding but still wound up out of work; their dog's air-conditioned house was auctioned off while they struggled to hang on to several mansions of their own.

Hand in hand through it all, Jim and Tammy were shining examples of marital devotion in public, as were Ollie and Betsy and Gary and his wife, Lee. Alas, Hollywood marriages sometimes aren't equal to the strain. There were Joan Collins and her Swedish younger hubby, Peter Holm, fighting it out in court over his demands for a couple of mil in joint property, plus $80,000 a month to support his manly needs. At a dramatic moment, her lawyer called Romina Danielson, who took the stand in a tight dress to tell all about her love affair with the impoverished plaintiff.

Such a tale Hollywood hasn't heard since the good old days. According to 23year-old Romina, she lived with a kindly elderly millionaire husband who approved of her extramarital flings, including bedding down in the bushes with Peter, who spread petals on her body and called her his Passion Flower.

Part way through her testimony, Romina swooned and collapsed on the witness stand, ripping at her well-filled bodice as if gasping for air. As the court recessed, jaunty Joan stepped past the supine interloper, whose testimony was subsequently dismissed when she failed to reappear for cross-examination. The divorce was granted, but at presstime, Holm was still looking for the 80 grand.

If it ever gets to court, the divorce of Sylvester Stallone and his 24-year-old bride, Brigitte Nielsen, promises to display some provocative witnesses, too, if even a tenth of the gossip can be believed. Although the parties communicated through press releases denying the good stuff, the tabloids were atwitter with all sorts of speculation about Nielsen's ramblings away from Rambo. (For details--and pictures--see Gitte the Great elsewhere in this issue.)

Gary Hart had obviously had enough of such attention by the time he visited Barcelona, shortly after withdrawing from the Presidential race. Scheduled to appear on a Spanish talk show, he ducked out when he discovered that a fellow guest was to be Ilona Staller, newly elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Hart apparently felt that he needed no new exposure with Staller, a porn star who had run for office under her better-known stage name, Cicciolina. In office, she vowed to seek the overturning of various antiporn laws under which she had been prosecuted.

The U.S. porno industry could only look on in envy at Staller's success as it was rocked from the inside out by revelations that tender temptress Traci Lords had been tender, indeed--well under the legal age of 18--when she appeared in hundreds of popular films, tapes and magazines. The products had to be pulled from the shelves and destroyed at painful expense to the industry, and some producers were prosecuted for having done business with her. The law left Traci, now 19, alone, but after the release of a new hardcore video, Traci, I Love You, she announced she was entering a new field with an exercise video, Warm-up to Traci. If the porno purveyors had hung around the L.A. jail long enough, they might have had a good chance of running into a famous face: Sean Penn, who seems to make regular stops at the poky. Already on probation for punching a songwriter at a night club when he suspected that the tunesmith was trying to kiss his wife, Madonna, Penn flared up again on the set of Colors, swinging at an extra for taking a photo of him and co-star Robert Duvall. The judge gave Penn a 60-day sentence, but his little woman was patient and understanding, insisting that her man would have to be a "pacifist or a Buddhist" to ignore the taunts tossed his way. "They bait Sean in ways I can't even tell you," Madonna complained. "They call me obscene names in front of him just to get him to react, but Sean is trying to learn not to take the bait.... I think he will emerge from jail as a better person and as an even greater actor." This was good news for those who had seen the pair together in Shanghai Surprise. Madonna fared little better with her solo outing in Who's That Girl, but her concert tour drew sellout crowds from Tokyo to Paris.

Bruce Willis also wound up at the station house after police were called to quiet a nonstop three-day party at his Hollywood Hills home. According to the cops, the Moonlighting star put up an argument, and he was subsequently arrested for assaulting an officer. Before stardom, Willis had had a reputation for loud all-night parties back home in New York. But boisterous bachelor Bruce had a lot to celebrate, having squired in short order such beauties as Janet Jones, Olivia Brown and Demi Moore.

The mother of new twins with her husband, chiropractor Bruce Oppenheim, Willis' co-star, Cybill Shepherd, says Bruce could never woo her romantically. "I went to a therapist to make sure that kind of guy wouldn't be in my life anymore," she said.

Some of this year's lovely ladies have led pretty rowdy lives of their own. Take Paulina Porizkova (and many wanted to after her layout in our August issue). Known for her teenage adventures in Paris' Latin Quarter, Paulina is now trying to calm down. "My experience tells me that the people who read Dostoievsky usually don't say shit and fuck," she observed. "So I'm not going to say them anymore." Oh, darn.

But some lovelies, such as Theresa Russell, are leery of carrying ladyhood too far. Talking of "smart and elegant" women in London recently, Russell told writer Buck Henry of her occasional aspiration to look like that. According to Russell, Henry responded, "Yeah, but would you want to fuck her?" "All of a sudden," Russell recalled, "I said, 'Oh, no! You mean, I could be like that and nobody would want to fuck me?' I don't think I would like that!"

Still, fashion can be sexy--especially this year, with the return of the miniskirt. While the short skirt infuriated some feminists, such as Betty Friedan, who said it was like "trying to put women into girdles again," others--notably Gloria Steinem--found charm in the garment and actually posed in it for a cheesecaky Vanity Fair feature. Said Steinem, "Women have seized control of what they're wearing. It's more about style, less about fashion."

More and less, less and more; it always goes in cycles. And for all the people who got into trouble, an equal number of Sex Stars remained relatively well behaved. As usual, the good guys were inspired by Vanna White, whose May Playboy pictorial did nothing to mar her clean-cut image; she remained as puzzlingly popular as ever, turning those Wheel of Fortune letters with one hand and cranking out a book and a fitness video with the other.

On balance, although the aberrations draw the most attention, nice, normal lives seem to be in vogue. Corbin Bernsen, who plays a repellent, womanizing divorce lawyer on L.A. Law, pretty well summed up his private life--and those of a lot of people--by noting, "I'm not as promiscuous as my character. My idea of a great date is swinging in a hammock, sipping a margarita with a sunset coming over the aqua-blue sea." Bernsen, incidentally, has kept company with the aforementioned White and with Heather Thomas, great dates in anybody's book.

Former eligible bachelor Mark Harmon played it doubly clean-cut on screen in Summer School and in private life by marrying wholesome Pam Dawber of My Sister Sam. The couple sneaked away for their wedding. Asked why, Pam explained, "Look what happened to Bruce and Julianne Springsteen .... We didn't want a circus, like Sean Penn and Madonna."

Another happy family man is Kevin Costner, suddenly elevated to major stardom by The Untouchables. Married ten years to his college sweetheart, Cindy, with whom he has two daughters, Costner says he's never been a big sex symbol. "Girls don't run after me," he says. "But sometimes guys'll stop me on the street and introduce their girlfriends. They don't seem to be threatened by me, for some weird reason." Our guess is that has changed since the guys have seen Kevin's steamy performance in No Way Out, opposite a startlingly sultry Sean Young.

Even old coals are flaming up again. Melanie Griffith has reported that she and ex-husband Don Johnson are keeping company again, though not exclusively. Melanie was only 14 when she first moved in with Johnson; in 1976, after four years together, they married, but the union lasted less than a year. Former groupie Pamela Des Barres boosts Don's image in her new autobiography, I'm with the Band: "Huge cock," Pamela told her diary. "I'm getting off like I haven't in ages."

Tina Turner found new love with a German recording exec, Erwin Bach, 16 years her junior. "When people first heard about us, they reacted as though he was a teenager," she fumed. "But he's 31 years old, for Chrissakes. How old do you have to get to be a man?"

"I want your sex," former Wham! singer George Michael belted while censors fumed, ignoring the rest of the song's lyrics, which assert that "Sex is natural / Sex is fun / Sex is best when it's one on one." When MTV refused to air the video without editing, Michael protested, "Sex is not a public enemy at the moment; promiscuity is a public enemy, but sex isn't."

Jon Bon Jovi, with his 14-inch locks--some say he has the best hair in rock 'n' roll today--has eschewed some of the music world's excesses of the past, insisting that the kids to whom he appeals don't need to know that much about his private life. Still, they might have wondered about the title of the group's hit Slippery When Wet's having been inspired by two strippers in a shower.

Other heavy-metal workers were relatively calm at home. Nikki Sixx settled down with Vanity, who claimed, "We've kind of tamed each other. At home, Nikki's such a farm boy! He wears granny glasses.... You don't need booze and drugs when you're in love."

Prince, Vanity's former companion, was going strong on an intercontinental tour, crooning to a hot new momma, Cat Glover; but Parisians' eyes were on Sheena Easton, ostensibly in the City of Light to make a video with Prince; rumors had it that her interest in the star was more than musical.

"Safe sex" was the battle cry for the year, leaving Hollywood a bit schizophrenic. Sweet little Lisa Bonet, one of the nicest daughters Bill Cosby could want on television, boiled over on the big screen with Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart, which was cut and recut to get its original X rating changed to an R.

Pretty Alexandra Paul, who almost stole Dragnet in the role of a squeaky-clean virgin, complained that her character was not like her. "I don't think I am a particularly nice person," she commented. "But for some reason, I tend to get cast as the sweet thing." Although she's played girls next door in most of her films, she did get to essay a hooker in Eight Million Ways to Die and liked it. "Playing a whore, I had to be comfortable with my body. It made me explore my sexuality."

Two of the most daring explorers of the year were Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin, who filmed a volcanic sex scene together in The Big Easy. "I think Dennis was a little horrified when I pulled his pants down," Barkin said after shooting the scene. "We hadn't practiced that, and I know he got mad at me. I understand him completely. If, in the middle of a scene, someone just ripped my blouse off, I'd say, 'Excuse me. Cut.'"

Sexy or sedate, many Beautiful People are just busy working. Sonia Braga stars with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia in Moon over Parador and in Robert Redford'sMilagro Beanfield War, due soon. Dolph Lundgren, split from former fiancée Grace Jones, appeals to the kids in Masters of the Universe and to adults as a hired assassin in Red Scorpion.Patrick Swayze, the stud of Dirty Dancing, plays a young man trying to make amends to his father after holding him hostage in Tiger Warsaw.

Sexy--and working plenty--are a slew of Playmates. Shannon Tweed, Playmate of the Year for 1982, appears in Code Name: Vengeance, Steele Justice and Lover Boy.Kathy Shower, Playmate of the Year for 1986, shows her winning form in a film tentatively titled The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck and The Woman Who Loved Too Much.Dona Speir, Miss March 1984, is in Into the Night, Dragnet, Hard Ticket to Hawaii and Picasso Trigger;Hope Marie Carlton, Miss July 1985, in Double Exposure and Slaughterhouse Rock, as well as Hard Ticket to Hawaii and Picasso Trigger;Rebecca Ferratti, Miss June 1986, in The Silent Assassin, Three Amigos, Beverly Hills Cop II, Gor and Outlaw of Gor;Devin De Vasquez, Miss June 1985, in Can't Buy Me Love and House II: The Second Story;Kimberly Evenson, Miss September 1984, in Kidnapped and Kandyland; and Julie McCullough, Miss February 1986, in Big Bad Mama II.

Standing alone was Angelyne, who has been hanging around Hollywood trying to become famous for several years. She finally made it this year by having her form painted in an 85-foot portrait on the side of a building near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. That was it and she was pleased. "I'm the first person in the history of Hollywood to ever become famous for nothing," she boasted.

Timothy Dalton became the latest person to play James Bond, in The Living Daylights, and the first person to delight in doing so with lovely Maryam d'Abo, who won Playboy readers' hearts with a September pictorial. But the blonde with the cute rear end in the movie's poster turned out to be Kathy Stangel, who was paid $500 for a four-hour posing session.

Dalton won a libel suit against an English newspaper that had wrongfully reported he had been fired from the role of 007. But Princess Diana was in no position to sue over endless stories in her country's tabloids about her alleged antics. She finally had enough and protested that "contrary to recent reports in some of our more sensational Sunday newspapers, I have not been drinking. And I am not, I can assure you, about to become an alcoholic."

In the face of such irritations, the mark of a truly veteran and experienced Sex Star is to stay calm no matter what. With a stack of his own libel suits pending against British tabloids, Elton John took an evenhanded view: "I have more writs lying around England than I have hit records lately.... There's nothing they could say about me anymore that would embarrass anybody--except if they said I'd slept with Prince Philip, and that would only embarrass him."

Playboy's Playmates in the Movies

From the beginning, Playboy's Playmates have appeared in movies. Think of Jayne Mansfield and Stella Stevens. This year, though, there's a bumper crop. The eight gatefold girls on these pages have been in more films than we have space to list. Other Playmates are also making cinematic waves: 30th Anniversary Playmate Penny Baker, for example, is Charity in Million Dollar Mystery; Heidi Sorenson is the mayor's best girl in Roxanne; Ava Fabian, in Dragnet, plays Dabney Coleman's companion, Ava; Susan Scott stars in Student Confidential and Pamela Bryant in Tiger Shark; Yuliis Ruval, a.k.a. Lillian Müller, is in Stewardess School. Independent film maker Andy Sidaris features a veritable stock company of Playmates, among them Hope Marie Carlton, Cynthia Brimhall, Patty Duffek, Dona Speir and Roberta Vasquez, in his secret-agent movies Hard Ticket to Hawaii and Picasso Trigger. Catch a Playboy centerfold on the screen soon!