Lisa Be – My First Day at Show World, 1979

Whatever your first day at work was like, it probably wasn’t like Lisa Be‘s first day at Show World.

Lisa Be was a popular adult film star in New York the late 1970s through the mid 1980s, appearing in films such as A Scent of Heather (1980), Centerfold Fever (1981), Debbie Does Dallas Part II (1981), and The Erotic World of Angel Cash (1982).

During that time, she also appeared frequently in performances at Show World and the Melody Burlesk.

The Rialto Report recently asked Lisa about her eventful start working at Show World, and we’re grateful that she has shared her memories here.

You can read about Lisa and her relationship with fellow porn actor, Ron Hudd, in her article Ron and Lisa – A Love Story.

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Lisa Be – My First Day at Show World

I awoke at 11 o’clock, the morning after the day before. My deep sleep was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was an ex-lover, a woman with whom I’d been close for a fleeting time before we accepted that it was never going to work out for us.

She walked in and sat down on my sofa. I showed her the $323 that I’d left on the table. I’d never held that much money in my life. I was still speechless.

I told her everything that had happened.

She listened intently, incredulously. Then she said to me, “I thought you were going to tell me this was the worst thing you’d ever experienced in your life.”

“No,” I said. “No second thoughts, no regrets. I became a different person last night.”

*

The summer of 1979 had been painful for me. I was 26, and when you’re young and your life is upside down, you sometimes take big risks.

Firstly, there was my love life. I’d maintained two romantic relationships simultaneously for the previous four years. Both affairs were failing, and whatever it took to deal with them wasn’t working anymore. The sex was unsatisfying, the emotional fallout was damaging, and the failure was exhausting.

Then there was my work as an artist. I’d been a life model for seven years largely because it amounted to free instruction: I’d pose for classes, listen to the instructor instruct, look at the artists’ interpretations of the way I looked, and hear the critique of their work afterwards. I loved the experience, until suddenly I didn’t. Overnight I found it impossible to sit still in class. Perhaps my restless ennui was related to the fact I’d just completed a year of training in classical figure drawing. I’d learned about anatomy, capturing a figure in Renaissance terracotta red chalk, but it left me wanting to create something radically different. Drawing had become too technical, too controlled, and I felt constrained. I wanted to render a figure in a more creative way. I was suddenly desperate to break out. I needed a new venue to express myself.

As a temporary measure to give me breathing space, I took a nine-to-five job down on Wall Street, responding to letters from investors who wanted to know where their dividends were. I hated it, and I was going crazy.

I was having a hard time in every way.

Artwork, by Lisa

*

That summer, I ran into a school friend who’d become an independent filmmaker. She gave me a copy of American Photographer magazine which I skimmed and I saw an article about a photographer, Joyce Baronio. Joyce had been taking photographs of strippers, porn stars, burlesque dancers, and sex show workers in the Times Square area of New York. Much of her work, including portraits of Sharon Mitchell, Joey Silvera, Candida Royalle and Vanessa Del Rio, would be published the following year in her book, ‘42nd Street Studio.’

The photographs were striking, unusual, subtle, and accomplished. They were surprising too: I’d been used to seeing sex workers portrayed, if at all, in unflattering ways that emphasized their sexuality through a seedy, depressing lens. These black and white pictures revealed the theatrical elegance of the subjects: “I simply thought of the performers as people and I wanted to see what would happen if I shot them in bright natural sunlight, literally in a new light,” Joyce was quoted as saying.

Joey Silvera, by Joyce Baronio

My friend noticed my interest in the article, and said she knew Joyce – and could give me her phone number if I was interested in knowing more. I wasn’t a performer or sex worker, but I was curious about what would happen if I posed for her. So I got in touch.

I lived in the Village and Joyce lived on 15th St so one night after work, I put on my jogging clothes and dropped by to meet her. She was friendly though noticeably surprised by my appearance, telling me that every person that had come to pose for her had been dressed fashionably or like a sexual object. She later told me that I’d seemed the most unlikely person she could imagine photographing. Her husband, Richard, was equally bewildered: “How are you going to photograph that girl? She’s so formal and asexual,” he said.

I was unconcerned. I’d always posed nude and no artist had ever given a damn about how I presented myself: I could have been dressed in rags for all they cared. They were only interested in me when I took my clothes off. In those days, people seemed to judge you more by how you dressed: the previous year, I’d been wearing my painting studio clothes, ill-fitting togs completely covered with paint. When I ran to get coffee, a young guy looked at me and said, “You must be women’s liberation, right?”

Joyce was undeterred, so we arranged for me to pose for her.

*

Joyce’s studio was in the Show World Center building, the city’s largest sex emporium, at 669 Eighth Avenue.

Known as ‘The McDonalds of Sex,’ it occupied the first four stories of a twelve-story building, encompassing 22,000 square feet of retail space with live sex shows, X-rated films, peep booths, and all manner of products for sale.

Joyce worked in a room on the eighth floor. The beauty of the space was its simplicity. It had plain, bright, white walls and long crank-open windows, and nothing else. Joyce said that the stark shadows and the way they fell on the subjects were a key part of the composition and the atmosphere of her photographs.

I posed for Joyce three times. The photographs from the first two sittings were discarded, probably because I looked too innocent to be a subject for her series of portraits. For the third sitting, I brought some long-stemmed roses and posed nude holding them against my body in different ways. It worked, and Joyce was pleased with the result.

Joyce explained that all of her models came directly in from Show World, posing for her before or after their work shift. Coming from the straight world, I was the exception. I was intrigued by that. I asked her about what she knew about Show World.

“They have a live sex show, booth girls, and strippers too,” she said.

I asked, ” Do you think I could get a job here?”

She hesitated, before saying, “They’d love to have you working there.”

I asked, “Why?”

She said, “Because you have big breasts, because you’re white, and because you look so clean. Most of the girls who work there look exhausted, like burnt out junkies. And the majority of them are black or brown.”

My mind was racing. I remember thinking, should I do this? I reasoned that my life was going so badly that maybe I had nothing to lose. If it didn’t work out, I could always walk out. I still had my office job.

I asked Joyce for the name of someone in Show World I could contact. She later told me she had reservations about helping me get a job because she didn’t want me to be another one of the casualties.

It was Monday October 15th, 1979.

Lisa, by Joyce Baronio

*

Show World was a well-oiled machine run by a rag-tag bunch of men who operated the various levels, hired all the performers, retail staff, and tech workers, provided security, and banked the large sums of cash that flowed into the business each day. At the top of the management chain was Ron Martin, a dark, foreboding, and manipulative presence, who’d also been immortalized in a photograph by Joyce. Ron was aggressive, horny, and prone to firing staff on a whim – before re-hiring them if he needed them, which he invariably did. He was all-powerful, and if he had to take advantage of anyone who stood in his way, then he wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Fortunately for those who worked at Show World, Ron was assisted by a more pleasant lieutenant, Ed, a gentle, black guy. He played good cop to Ron’s bad cop, softened his exploitative edge, and made life more bearable for the staff.

Joyce suggested I speak to Ed, so the next day, I went to see him in the suite of offices which were on the same floor as Joyce’s studio. I found Ed to be a friendly, open guy who was compassionate, reasonable, and receptive.

Ed interviewed me. None of his questions were particularly demanding, but he was at pains to emphasize one particular point – which he repeated to me over and again as if his life depended on it: “There is no penetration here. You must only pretend that you’re having sex.” I could tell it was a speech he told every person who sat in front of him, and that it was intended more for undercover cops who were looking to bust any illegal activity.

Eventually Ed appeared satisfied, and told me I could start the next day, Wednesday, but that I needed lingerie.

Like what, I asked?

“You need a pair of panties. You need a bra. You need to put them on so you can take them off,” he said.

I went to a lingerie store in the Village with doubts clouding my thoughts: What am I doing? Should I be doing this? Why am I doing this? I didn’t have the answers, except that I knew I had to go ahead and see what happened.

The following evening when I was supposed to start work, I went to Joyce’s studio first. She was chatting with a woman who told me that she was a performer in X-rated films. I’d never met a person who’d been in a porno. The whole idea was new to me. Joyce remarked that I seemed particularly nervous.

Lisa

*

Eleven years earlier, in 1968, when I was 15, my mother and a friend of hers took me to a theater on 66th St and Broadway to see a movie. It unexpectedly turned out to be an R-rated sex film.

It was an absurd experience: the dialogue was ridiculous, as was the acting, and it was immediately obvious that we were watching a masturbation movie. When we got to the point where the protagonist, a woman, dropped to her knees and pressed her face against the guy’s (fully-clothed) crotch, my extremely prudish mother, whom I loved very much, said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Even as a teenager, I found nothing naughty or titillating about the film. It was obvious to me that it was intended for a male audience who couldn’t create their own masturbation fantasies and who were desperate for some kind of stimulation. And however vulgar and silly it may have looked, I accepted it as part of this new grown-up world that I was entering.

My parents were very anti-porn. My father was a communist who thought that pornography was a validation of a woman’s second-class citizenship, that it was pure patriarchy. My mother had a liberal ‘Women against Pornography’ reaction. But even though I was immersed in the age of the sexual revolution, I didn’t think that porn was representative of the era: I recognized that it was for men for a particular purpose – and felt that people should be more tolerant of that.

By the late 1970s, the world had changed even more, and every woman in New York who walked through Times Square was used to seeing sex film marquees and explicit pictures outside of the adult theaters. It was a world that I wasn’t part of, but I also had no moral judgment about it: it was just part of the way the world was.

It was none of my business.

*

My first night working at Show World was October 17th, 1979.

After seeing Joyce in her studio, I went downstairs and found the first-floor manager, a Chinese guy named Jackson, and told him I was reporting to work.

I quickly became familiar with the layout of Show World: the basement, called the Ultra Burlesque theater, which had started as a stripper’s joint, was where the hetero show with a man and woman took place. The ground floor was the entrance to the sex emporium where you could buy dildos, men’s magazines, and the like. The second floor was reserved for the booth girls – small compartments which allowed men to drop a quarter and see a girl strip. The third floor – where I was headed – was the live lesbian sex show. Floors four, five, six, and seven were rented out to unrelated businesses. And Ron, together with Ed, had offices on the eighth floor.

Jackson directed me to the dressing room on the third floor where I met a 23-year-old woman named Tiki who was to be my partner that night. I was fortunate because Tiki was the person who often trained people for shows at Show World. Ron assigned newcomers to work with her because she was patient and kind at walking first-timers through what they were supposed to do on – and off – stage.

And Tiki was a character. She was black as night, short, flat-chested, and although she wasn’t pretty, men loved her because she was such an actress and extremely slutty. She’d posed for Joyce dressed in a maid’s costume with a white something on her head, lifting her skirt up as if she was exposing herself. Tiki was theatrical, flamboyant, and talented.

That night was my breaking-in session. This meant breaking down all the taboos that you knew so you could be successful as a sexual performer. Taboos like: you’re not supposed to be nude in front of strange men. You’re not supposed to act in an overtly seductive and hypersexual manner. You’re not supposed to feel comfortable posturing yourself in such a way that will cause men to masturbate to your image. And you’re definitely not supposed to show your vagina. You have to learn to override all the conventions of what you’ve been told are the right things to do.

Every woman in the sex business has a version of her breaking-in night.

Tiki

*

When Tiki took me out on stage in front of the audience for the first time, I was trembling.

When the music started blaring, I walked out and saw that every seat was occupied. She touched me, simulating arousal, and quietly talked me through the moves saying, “Now do this,” or “Now do that.” All the time, I was shaking.

Unlike the live sex show in the Ultra Burlesque theater which had a couch for the performers to writhe on, the live sex show on the second floor just took place on a bare stage with a few assorted props. Each show was meant to be half an hour long, but in reality, they lasted about 22 minutes.

After the first show, Tiki went through the audience for tips. I followed her, trying to mimic what she was doing. One young man said to me, “I can see you don’t like to do it, do you?” I felt devastated. My confidence was shaken. Once again, I thought, can I really do this?

After two more shows that evening, the crowd thinned down which made me marginally less self-conscious. By now, I knew what Tiki was going to ask me to do which made our act feel more natural. In the third show, a young Puerto Rican appeared. He sat in the front row and started speaking to me in Hispanized English: “You’re beautiful, baby. You’re beautiful. Take it off. I want to see. Come on now. You’re gorgeous.” I looked at him. He was young, handsome, and sexually attractive, not in the least bit menacing or threatening. He was looking at me in awestruck wonder as he told me what he wanted to see. It was a revelation. I started to loosen up and get into the role I was playing.

Tiki picked up on the change in me.

By the fourth show, she wasn’t having to lead me or deal with me trembling anymore. I was following her without being frightened. She said to me, “Are you into this now? When I get close to you now, I can feel you are aroused. Are you bi?”

I said, “Yes. Are you?”

She said, “Oh yeah, I’ve had a few lady friends.”

We laughed, and that seemed to break the ice.

Then Tiki said to me, “Girl, when I first saw you, I thought you were a spy. You’re so different from all the other girls. I was sure you were a cop about to bust me…”

I laughed and said, “I knew that was what you were thinking.”

Tiki said, “I was so scared of you, and you were so scared of me, and we were so scared of each other!”

*

Between shows, I had to go into a little tech booth to change the tapes for the music. I was changing the tape, not completely naked but bra-less and just wearing my panties, when a man appeared. He was wearing a thousand-dollar suit, expensive watch, and smart shoes. He walked into the booth and, with a smart look on his face, reached over and touched my breasts.

I stared back and said to him, “No cash, no candy.”

He gave me the classic, “Do you know who I am?”

My eyes flashed at him glaring, “Don’t try to take advantage of me like that again.”

He smiled, turned around, and left the room.

As I got to know other people that first day, I learned that the man was Ritchie Basciano, Show World’s mob-connected owner. He’d heard there was a brand new broken-in sex kitten in the lesbian show, and he came by to have a look and a feel.

Ritchie lived on the top floor of the same building, in a luxury condo equipped with a gym and expansive views of the city. He’d show up in the Show World premises from time to time – always immaculately-dressed and full of self-importance – but mostly, he left the day-to-day running of the business to Ron, whom he compensated generously.

I wasn’t eager to date a gangster. I’d heard what happens to the girlfriends of gangsters and was not anxious to be one.

Ritchie never approached me again.

Ritchie Basciano

*

For the last show of that first night, Ron and his friend, David, showed up in the audience.

Ron had a Swedish wife he lived with over on Sutton Place. She didn’t know what he did for a living. She knew he worked at Show World, but had no clue what he actually did there. If he got home at four o’clock in the morning, he’d sell her a story about working with gangsters and needing to protect her from what he was doing. In return, she lived in a beautiful apartment on the east side and didn’t have to work. She knew not to ask any questions and accepted her lot happily.

At the end of that night, I was in the dressing room and Ron came in, flattering me, saying, “You’re just how I like a woman to look.”

Then he asked, “How about you come for a drink afterwards with me and David?”

I agreed. I didn’t feel forced, or that that it was something I had to do. I’d been through so many states of mind that day – from feeling frightened, to getting broken in, going through six hours of being in front of strange men, being buck naked, simulating sex, and getting used to it all. The boss wanting me to go for a nightcap with him was the least of my worries.

Ron offered me some cocaine. I accepted. It gave me a jolt. It was my first experience and it felt wonderful.

When I first heard about drugs as a teen in the 1960s, they tried to tell us that marijuana was just as dangerous as all the other drugs – so when we found out that was obviously not true, it gave us the courage, or the presumption, to try other ones without any fear. This was not a great idea. That first night of cocaine use was to prove the seed of a problem with cocaine I had for decades.

I set off with Ron and David, walking down towards a high-end hotel on the east side.

I felt stronger and more confident than I had for a long time.

Ron Martin, by Joyce Baronio

*

The suite we went to was on a high floor. David put on a Bob Marley and the Wailers record while I admired the view. Then Ron started to fondle me to the beat of the music. I said to him, “Honey, if you want to spend the night with me, it’s going to cost you 100 bucks.”

I had never said anything remotely like that before, though I admit, the thought had occurred to me. A year earlier, when I was an artist’s model and struggling to make ends meet, I’d fantasized briefly about being a prostitute. It had a certain logic: I was promiscuous, needed money to survive, and was not in a committed relationship.

Ron looked surprised and said, “Oh, yeah? Maybe we’ll have a party with David – and I’ll give you two bills.”

He turned to David and said, “Hey, I don’t have any cash on me. Do you have two bills for her?” As I was counting those 20s, I became aware of the song that was playing: Bob Marley singing ‘Lively Up Yourself.’

“Lively up yourself and don’t be no drag.”

I’d never had that much cash in my hand. In that moment, I felt something change in me. As if I was leaving the straight world and becoming something ‘other.’

“Lively up yourself and don’t say no.
Lively up yourself, ’cause I said so.”

I took off my clothes. Ron started directing me. I remember saying, “I don’t have any birth control. Don’t come in me.” There was no response, so I said it again. Ron said, “We got it. Don’t say it again.”

We arranged ourselves on the bed. Ron was taking me from behind and David was in front. I looked out of the window at the city again, and I felt myself sink into a new role in an organic way that I had never thought possible.

“Can you imagine her at a party?” Ron said.

David replied, “She is a party.”

Ron smiled and asked me, “Wanna work a poker game next week and make five bills?”

“Sure,” I said.

*

It was five o’clock in the morning when I got home.

I didn’t go to bed right away. Instead I did what I always did: I took out my diary and then I did a painting of myself. I wrote a few pages about what it felt like to have just become a prostitute.

*

When my ex-lover woke me later in the morning, I counted out the $323 I had earned the night before.

$60 for the live sex show. The fact that it was my first day meant I’d been paid on the spot.

$63 in tips from the audience.

$200 from Ron and David.

I showed it to her, and told her everything.

Everything in my life that would come after – the dancing, live sex shows, relationships, adult films, drugs, and johns – was a result of that one night. It was a punctuation mark in my life. I was just beginning.

*

Postscript:

Years earlier, I’d had an affair with a corporate executive who was married.

After my experience with Ron and David, I went to see him and asked if he’d like to become a client. He said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not married anymore.” I found his reaction very funny.

We talked for a couple of hours, and I asked him if he knew other men who may be interested. He looked crestfallen, before eventually asking, “Lisa, did you ask me to be your client as a form of revenge?”

He said he respected my choices but asked me if I’d consider getting therapy. He told me his former wife had trained as a social worker with a woman who had unique background, and that she may be helpful to me. He suggested I contact her.

That was Linda Hirsch.

Linda Hirsch had been a teenage junkie and prostitute who worked the streets of Harlem while she was going to City College. She’d turn a trick on the streets of Harlem, get a shot of dope, change her clothes, and go to class. She lived this schizophrenic existence until overdosing one night, and ending up in the hospital. After that, she wound up finishing college and going to social work school clean.

She told me when I was her patient that she’d worked with 200 sex professionals and about 12 trans women. There was a police captain who sent her some of the streetwalkers which a certain precinct kept repeatedly arresting to see if professional intervention could change their lives.

For the next few years, I continued to be a sex worker in its various forms, and Linda became a powerful force in my life. In time, I recommended her to Candida Royalle, then Annie Sprinkle, Marc Stevens, Gloria Leonard and others, all of whom became her valued clients.

*

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