Token Gestures: Lindas 8MM Canon

Before Linda Lovelace appeared in Deep Throat, she appeared in a series of 8mm stag films. Six of the loops were filmed over a three-week period in New York in December 1971; the final two were shot in a Jersey City, New Jersey, hotel room after Deep Throat was finished in early 1972. Her co-star for most of her stag films, appearing in M 65-66, M 81-82, Piss Orgy and Dog 1, was an actor known at the time as Rob Everett, who went on to become adult-industry legend Eric Edwards. (He's pictured in the still from Dog 1, below.) In addition to being Lindas first loop, M 65-66 was also the first video work done by Edwards; he humorously credits Linda as being the woman who brought him into porn. Lindas co-star in the Untitled loop is the notorious Chuck Traynor, who was featured in M 65-66 as well.

The profile accompanying Lindas photo layout Say Ah! in the April 1973 issue of Playboy magazine puts the number of loops she made at nine, possibly taking into account a scene she and Harry Reems supposedly shot before they worked together in Deep Throat (Linda later claimed that she hadnt worked with Reems before Deep Throat). Its most likely that Linda made eight loops which, because they were sometimes broken up and sold in two parts, would account for, as Chuck Traynor once put it, as many as 10 to 15 films. In addition to the seven loops shown below, there is an additional, different bestiality film called Dog Fucker that Eric Edwards doesnt appear in and which isnt pictured.