DIRECTOR:
Paul Henschell
WRITERS:
Alan Austin
Andy Greenspan
APPEARANCES BY:
Colleen Applegate AKA Shauna Grant
Phil Applegate
Karen Applegate
And many others...
The last time I saw this documentary, was when it first aired on the PBS program called FRONTLINE ( that was a long time ago, folks ).
This is the story of Colleen Applegate AKA Shauna Grant, who moved from a wholesome-small-town, to a big-bad-city... Ok, let me make this perfectly clear... Cities are not bad, or good. They're just dirt, with structures built on them. Humans love blaming anything and everything for their stupid choices in life.
I have mixed feelings about Ms. Grant / Ms. Applegate, and everything that happen.
When she was still living in Minnesotta, Colleen overdosed on pills. Her parents felt, that she was NOT trying to commit suicide. They thought she just wanted attention.
There's a tendency to portray her as some sort of innocent victim. Which, she is not.
She was eighteen, NOT eight. She was an adult, and completely responsible for her decisions in life.
I think she fell in love with the money, the superficial adulation, and drugs. She was not unique in that respect.
In my opinion, the only difference between pornography and prostitution is a technicality in the law.
What's the saddest part of this story?... People like her, crash and burn every day.
When I was still living in Southern California, I knew countless imbeciles, that actually believed they would be discovered via porn movies. Which is absolutely absurd, and delusional!
Yes, sometimes important people in the so-called "legit" showbiz world will notice them, but NOT for the reasons they want!
Below are photos, quotes, and some of my thoughts....
QUOTES BY NARRATOR: "This is where the story ends, Palm Springs California. Early in the evening, March 21 1984... A young woman laid thrashing on her bed with a bullet wound through her temple. A rifle laid beside her.
QUOTES BY BRENDA: "There was like two mattresses pushed together... on the bed, there was like a crease, and there was blood going all the way down the crease, but you couldn't see any blood on her"
QUOTES BY DOCTOR: "Her condition was hopeless, she was comatose, and she was going to die"
QUOTES BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL: "This is the weapon that was found at her side"
QUOTES BY NARRATOR: "She was known as Shauna Grant, a star of X-RATED films. Her real name was Colleen.... Colleen Applegate from Farmington Minnesota. She left home when she was eighteen. When she died, she was twenty"
QUOTES BY NARRATOR: "Mike Marcell, Colleen's boyfriend, soon left her and returned to Minnesota. Where he spread the news, that Colleen was involved in pornography. Marcell won't discuss it now. He says he just doesn't care about her"
QUOTES BY BRENDA: "She went back, to go to a friend's wedding, that was one of the girls that hung around with us, and she was kinda worried, the things they were saying, the girl's mother wouldn't let her in, she wouldn't let her in the church"
MY THOUGHTS: The girl's mother had the legal right to allow whomever she wanted into the church. However, her actions speak volumes about the hypocrisy of all these so-called virtuous folks. They think their shit doesn't stink. People in that town were buying the publications that Colleen was appearing in, and yet, they think they're morally superior to her. The folks that live in that "wholesome" town are just as hypocritical and depraved, as the rest of the world.
QUOTES BY NARRATOR: "In that one year, Colleen performed in thirty X-RATED movies. She had an abortion. She contracted Herpes. She performed sex on camera with thirty-seven men"
MY THOUGHTS: Colleen was nominated at the EROTIC FILM AWARDS, and FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA was seated at the same table as Shauna. Folks like him, won't hire people like her, but they don't mind taking advantage of their postion in the so-called "legit film industry" for some good times.
QUOTES BY NARRATOR: "Like Dorothy from Kansas, Colleen found herself in a dangerous forest, but there was no scarecrow along to help her find the way out"
QUOTES BY COLLEEN APPLEGATE ( from an audio recording ): "Maybe adults learn too much, maybe we should all go back to being kids. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be a kid, and keep the honesty, be totally ignorant to hate, and loneliness, and disgust..."
VIDEO INFO
Online
FULLscreen
Color
Region - Not applicable
Company - PBS
NOT rated
Extras - Not applicable
Inserts - Not applicable
OBTAINED AT - YouTube
PRICE - Free
DO I WANT MY MONEY BACK?:
NO!!....
I love this documentary. They do NOT sugar-coat the truth.
Although, they occasionally portray her as some sort of angel, I still recommend you watch this.
I do NOT know if this was ever available on legit VHS, or DVD.
It is available on BOOTLEG VHS, and BOOTLEG DVDs.
I watched it ONLINE via YOUTUBE.
A tv movie based on her life, was made. It was called SHATTERED INNOCENCE, and was your typical bullshit version of "true" events... sanitized for your protection...
An actress named Jonna Lee starred in it.
If I remember correctly, SHATTERED INNOCENCE was available on VHS. However, I can NOT remember the name of the company that made it.
It's now available via MOD-DVD from WARNER BROS ( ARCHIVE COLLECTION ).
I knew Colleen in childhood. I strongly suspect she was molested, probably by an authority figure outside of home. At the time, Catholic children were expected to submit completely to church authority.
ReplyDeleteHarshly judging a total stranger tends to make the judge look less virtuous than the judged.
QUOTE: "Harshly judging a total stranger tends to make the judge look less virtuous than the judged"...
ReplyDeleteI do NOT know who that quote was aimed at, so I'm going to cover all my bases...
IF that quote is referring to the church's behavior, then I agree 100 percent.
However, IF that quote is directed towards me, then you are a HYPOCRITE, because "Harshly judging a total stranger" is what YOU'RE DOING to me.
ALL humans judge, it's part of being HUMAN. We all do it everyday, to everyone we meet ( consciously and subconsciously ).
In my opinion, NOT letting her into that church was one of the most UN-Christian things they could have done.
IF there's a heaven, then I hope she's there, at peace, and happy.....
Everyone is responsible for their decisions in life. Its tragic I know, she could have chosen another path, but she didnt.
ReplyDeleteI know there's a Heaven & I pray she's there.I think deep in her heart she was a good person."She was a decent person in an indecent world" - that's for sure.She was so beautiful.
ReplyDeleteShe knew she was beautiful in high school, and knew she'd look great in make up and lights. She went to Hollywood, and made all the wrong moves, basically. She fell into that trap of drugs, and money for sex on film. At a certain point? She knew... she could never go back to Minnesota. What pushed her over the edge was Jake telling her she had to move out. She knew she would have to do that film for the money, and she didn't want to do that film. So she killed herself. Horrible thing. She killed herself on my 21st birthday when I was in my junior year of college. I've been watching the coverage of her ever since. This is a real life tragedy, and I still am saddened by it..... all these years later.
ReplyDeleteRIP to all pornstars
ReplyDeleteGod wrote for them ages
Real Flower Roazy Amen
I want to clarify my feelings on some things.....
ReplyDeleteI'm NOT against "adult movies".
There was a time, when MANY "adult movies" were exactly that... REAL MOVIES. Those films had SCRIPTS, folks that could actually act, scenes shot on location, and even original music.
I still remember "cable versions" of "adult" films being shown on tv.
Countless "adult" filmmakers, crews, and even the actresses and actors, were simultaneously working in the so-called "mainstream" film industry.
Obviously, they used pseudonyms when working in "adult" films.
Just for the record, some of those folks are now famous... Do your homework, if you want to know who some of them are.
During the eighties, most of the real "adult" movies seemed to disappear quicker than ice cubes in the Nevada desert.
When I wrote, "the only difference between pornography and prostitution is a technicality in the law", I was referring to the way things are NOW.
The folks that made and starred in "adult" movies, during the sixties and seventies, were true CULTURAL REBELS.
Keep in mind, that even so-called "mainstream" movies, such as PROMISES PROMISES ( starring Jayne Mansfield ) were being confiscated and theater employees were being arrested!... Truly absurd!
Freedom of expression would be far LESS FREE, if it wasn't for the battles that were fought and won by the "adult" filmmakers / stars of the sixties and seventies.
She was a really beautiful girl, with dreams and hopes just like.everyone else, And much too innocent to go to Califorina alone (meaning in her head and her heart) SHAME... GOD BLESS
ReplyDeleteI'm looking for a DVD of this Frontline piece. PBS NO longer sales it for some reason. If anyone can help me with a DVD of it I would appriciate it very much. I'm willing to even pay for the DVD if someone has one or can make a gooe quality one..thanks Bobby
ReplyDeleteBobby, "j4hi.com" make DVD-Rs of this film, and other rare flicks.
ReplyDeletej4hi.com/page5/page406/Death_of_a_Porn_Queen_Linda_Lovelace_dvd.html
NOTE - I do NOT own any of their DVDs, so I can NOT tell you if they're worth purchasing.
Suicide....or murder? The spring of 1984 in America was extremely relevant to Coleen's fate, in terms of the political zeitgeist at that particular moment in time....VHS tapes and the then-flourishing home video market brought hardcore pornography out of the shadowy confines of theatres and into the comfort of one's private home for the very first time, and presented Colleen's freshly-scrubbed "Midwestern Catholic good girl-gone bad" prurience to the masses in such a way that it was historically, culturally, and moralistically unprecedented.....which in no small part prompted a vicious backlash by the most extremist and puritanically right wing elements within the Reagan Administration to arrest, legally prosecute, and thoroughly destroy the livelihood and reputation of anyone connected to the adult entertainment industry through the establishment of The Meese Commission. A corrupt and embarrassing failure that legally violated the Constitutional right to freedom of expression, it was a public-relations disaster for both the US Government and Edwin Meese, who later was disgraced by an ethics scandal and quickly discarded as a political liability within the Washington DC power circles of the time.
ReplyDeleteWas Colleen somehow more than just another predictable "all too typical" statistic? Or was she an innocent victim of a later-day witch-hunt, eliminated by secret government decree, a homicide staged to look like a suicide, therefore providing excellent fodder for the then white-hot anti-pornography cause?
Exactly one week after Colleen died, and at the height of The Meese Commission's anti-sex film hysteria, Time Magazine's cover portrayed a cartoon illustration of a cowering and shameful Adam and Eve covering their naked genitalia in horror, with the words "Is Sex Dead in the 80's?" emblazoned across the page. The article inside went on to describe a nation "discarding the values of the single-bars and swinging disco years, refreshingly immune to the too easy-to-see pornography of our time and embracing the more conservative and traditional values of monogamy, marriage, and sexual chastity"
Was Colleen Applegate the "discard" that was so vehemently needed to "sell the pitch"? Does Colleen's restless soul still wander aimlessly through the heavens, as vengeful as the women hung from the ancient trees of Salem, Massachusetts, seeking justice for the crimes of religious
persecution against the sexually free?