Stars and Fans Turn Out For Serena Book Signing

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Larry Edmunds' bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard doesn't have a lot of room for anything besides its massive collection of Hollywood-oriented books, but that space nearly filled with fans and veteran stars of adult movies Saturday night, there to honor classic adult actress Serena as she discussed her new memoir, Bright Lights, Lonely Nights, recently published by BearManor Bare. After Edmunds himself welcomed Serena back to the store—she'd last been there promoting Jill C. Nelson's Golden Goddesses, in which she and 24 other legendary stars are interviewed—veteran actor and activist William Margold set the stage for Serena's talk by recalling that he'd met the lithe blonde 41 years earlier five blocks away at the building where he worked at the time, 6912 Hollywood Boulevard. "I went downstairs to perform with two women for one of Sam's hardcore shootings, and when I walked in, Serena was there but there was another woman who worked with me, and Serena sort of watched," he recalled. "When it was over, Serena was naked—I don't exactly know why, but she was naked and I guess to take my mind off the woman I was working with, who I didn't particularly care for that much because she had big tits and I don't like big tits, so I was looking at this waif, thinking, 'Oh, this could be a lot of fun,' but I eventually did what I had to do, and when it was over, Serena, without even attempting to put her clothes on, came over and hugged me, and it taught me a lesson which has resonated throughout my entire life: that the adult performer is much more comfortable hugging you than, to be blunt, fucking you. Because they'll use fucking, blunt as possible, to avoid a relationship, but if you hug them and they sense that you want to be their friend, they will learn to trust you, and they have become the most incredible friends I've had in my life." The result of the hug was that Margold and Serena began to treat each other as brother and sister, a relationship that carries through to today—even though the pair have had sex on camera several times, with Margold noting that one of those films is about to be rereleased in its original 3D: 1977's Disco Dolls In Hot Skin. Also, in 2005, Margold inducted Serena into his Legends of Erotica Hall of Fame. Margold then read from the introduction he'd penned to Bright Lights, Lonely Nights, where he described the actress as a "thoughtress" for her vivid imagination, which is represented in the book not just with her prose, but with her poetry and paintings as well. When he finished, he presented Serena with a cute teddy bear as a token of his affection. When it came Serena's turn to speak, she admitted that much of her early life is now a blank to her. "I wrote this book after I'd been in a hospital for a month under a coma, and when I woke up, I had complete amnesia," she stated softly. "That was 2001, and I was strapped to a bed under a suicide watch, but I don't know what happened. I was in a coma, and in order to find my life again, I had to start questioning everything, and these are some memory retrievals, but there's still huge parts of my life I don't remember, and my sister says probably best. "One of the reasons I got myself into the situation of being in a coma was because I'm bipolar," she continued, "and this book is kind of about being bipolar, but that's just one of my personal challenges, and it's also been a personal gift because I can use my bipolarness to become a more and more crazy artist, and I first and foremost think that I'm an artist." She went on to list other famous people who are also bipolar—which inspired Margold to reject that label, calling Serena "an original"—and to recall how adult performers in those days were at the mercy of vice cops, with Serena adding that they had run her out of town, all the way to New York City and eventually San Francisco. But Serena went on to describe her periods of mania and depression, mood swings that didn't abate until she started taking antipsychotic drugs, though Margold opined that it was those mood swings that made her a great actress. Serena then read from a list of her earlier movies, relating details of some of them, including the fact that she'd been in the George C. Scott anti-porn film, Hardcore. "I wasn't actually in the industry that long," she stated, "but I made like a hundred movies and finally what brought an end to that career and that part of my life was AIDS; I got scared, petrified of AIDS, and I saw a lot of it because I lived in San Francisco, and I had to run out and get tested right away because I had gotten it on with John Holmes, and I was afraid because it was rumored that John Holmes had died of AIDS, so I was freaked out. But I'm clean, thank goodness." She went on to describe her time living with the late Jamie Gillis. "He was my beast, and I was his California blonde," she said. "We lived together for two years, and I had so much fun with him, and eventually, we just got hired as a couple, and he didn't fly,  so we would go back and forth from coast to coast, because there were really two communities of X-rated stuff, on the train, and we had a lot of train experiences where we didn't invite people into our little room." In response to questions from the audience, Serena noted that she didn't know she was bipolar while working in the adult industry, but only afterwards, when she'd moved to Florida. "Really, the bipolar problem with me was that it made me very, very sexual, like really almost insatiable, so that was great for the industry and great for me in the industry," she said. "I didn't know that was what was driving me. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 27, I think." She also said that in the process of researching the book, some of her earlier memories had come back, usually triggered by something she was reading or watching. "I can remember my childhood, but basically, the '70s are lost to me, but I can't blame that totally on the coma because I did a lot of drugs; everybody did, so in my drug state, I probably wouldn't have remembered anyway," she said, later noting that her favorites were marijuana, which she still uses, but has given up alcohol and cocaine, which she said was "very prevalent in the industry in the '70s." At that point, Karen Summer asked Serena to read some of her poetry, but she begged off, asking Karen's boyfriend Cat to do the reading, though she did allow, "What I believe myself to be is a poet; I'm a poet woman. I love love; I'm all about love... I am a hippie. "My second book is already under way," she noted later. "It's gonna be an art book, a real art book, a coffee-table hardbound book. It's actually a book that I self-published in 1983 when I worked at the O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco... I rew to know the girls that worked at the theater, and I wrote a book called Backstage Girls about all these little strippers and such that would run around the theater...I did drawings of them, I did photography of them, I wrote about them, just random thoughts about who they were and what I think they were thinking, about them falling off the stage and taking drugs and hairspraying my hair. It sold pretty well when I self-published it, and I made it into an exhibition of the photographs." At that point, the discussion turned to the various formats in which Serena could publish the book, including digitally, which discussion quickly devolved into an impromptu party, with the performers chatting among themselves and posing for photos for the roughly half-dozen industry photographers who were also present—a session which continued even after we left shortly after 9 p.m.. All in all, it was a fun evening; just ask anyone who was present... except perhaps the guy who left early on after repeatedly being shushed for interrupting the guest. Pictured, top row, l-r: Anita Cannibal, Richard Pacheco (Howie Gordon), William Margold, Raven Touchstone, Karen Summer, Kelly Nichols, unknown; bottom row, l-r: Melissa Hill, Serena, Christy Canyon, Ron Jeremy.