Traci Lords (Celebrity In Spotlight)

Traci Lords also known as Traci Elizabeth Lords and Tracy Lords, is an American film actress, producer, film director, writer and singer. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic films and Penthouse magazine (she was around 16 years old in her first film), later becoming a television and B-movie actress.

Her stage name is said to be in tribute to Katharine Hepburn's character Tracy Lord from The Philadelphia Story or from the first name of her high school best friend Traci; and the last name of her favorite actor from Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord. At twelve she fled from her abusive, alcoholic father to Lawndale, California, with her mother and three sisters.In 1983 she began Redondo Union High School; had an abortion which she paid for by herself; underwent a nervous breakdown; and ran away from home. While living with her mother's ex-boyfriend, who posed as her stepfather, she used a friend's birth certificate to obtain a driver's license indicating that she was twenty-two years of age, and faked her way into the porn industry at the age of fifteen. She started in the porn industry with Jim South at the World Modeling Agency in Sherman Oaks, while assuming the name Kristie Elizabeth Nussman.

Shortly after, she was modeling for widely distributed adult magazines, most notably Penthouse, in the same September 1984 issue that exposed Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. She quickly ventured into adult movies. Her first movie was "What Gets Me Hot!" followed by "Those Young Girls" and "Talk Dirty To Me Part III", all made in the first half of 1984. Lords' youthful appearance and enthusiastic sexual performances propelled her to stardom. By the time she was 18, Lords had appeared in 100 adult films. Lords argued in her autobiography, however, that approximately 80 of those films were composed from leftover and re-edited footage from the original 20 films that were shot.

Lords moved into mainstream films, and has appeared in a number of B-movies. At 18, Lords began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and soon after, starred in a remake of Roger Corman's cult favorite Not of This Earth. Then in 1990, she was added to the cast that included Johnny Depp, Ricki Lake, and Iggy Pop, in John Waters' Cry-Baby, playing the role of Wanda Woodward. Other movies on her resume include Blade, Extramarital, Black Mask 2: City of Masks, and Chump Change. The latter won her a Best Actress Award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.