Traci Lords

Traci Lords Pornstar Actress - Born May 7, 1968 in Steubenville, Ohio, USA

Birth Name Nora Louise Kuzma

Height 5' 7" (1.7 m)

Mini Bio (1) Traci Lords is a study of a determined and complex woman with a very controversial background. She was born and raised in Ohio as Nora Louise Kuzma, to Patricia Louise (Kuzma) and Louis Kuzma. She moved with her divorced mother and three sisters to Los Angeles at age 12. While staying at the house of her mother's boyfriend, Roger, she began nude modeling at age 15, then adult films a year later.

An incredibly developed, full-figured girl, she easily duped photographers, producers and directors (with the help of a false birth certificate and driver's license). Her stage name is a combination of Traci, from a former school friend, and Lords, in honor of her favorite male actor, Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O (1968)). She later owned a white Persian cat named Mr. Steve McGarrett, the name of the character Lord played on the show. Traci made somewhere between 80 and 100 X-rated movies (some consisted mostly of leftover footage from previous shoots) between 1984 and 1986.

In May 1986 she was arrested by FBI agents when it was discovered she was underage, which meant that any films with her in them were illegal to rent or buy, and video stores around the country rushed to remove them. The only legal porn movie Traci made was Traci, I Love You (1987), which was filmed in Paris, France, on her 18th birthday. Since she controlled distribution rights, many people believed she orchestrated the revelation herself so she could be the only one to profit from her X-rated career. Many within the adult film industry made a tacit agreement to never promote Traci or talk about her, as they felt she betrayed the industry that had had been the source of her fame in the first place. The federal government tried to prosecute the producers of the movie Those Young Girls (1984), the first adult film Traci appeared in, for child pornography. However, the case fell apart when the government admitted that it, too, had been duped when Lords traveled to Europe to shoot Traci, I Love You (1987) on a fake passport. After her exile from adult films, she began to resurrect her life and fulfill her lifelong ambition to star in "mainstream" films.

In 1987 she enrolled in the Lee Strasberg acting school, began voice lessons and built on her natural acting talents. Her first mainstream "break" came in Not of This Earth (1988), a remake of the classic Roger Corman sci-fi film from the 1950s. It was the last time that Traci would bare her breasts for the camera.

Throughout the 1990's her hard work got her a reputation as a reliable and respected actress, in addition to being a singer and an advocate for gay rights. Her recurring role in early 1995 as a sneering sociopath, Rikki, on Melrose Place (1992) was critically acclaimed and landed her more roles in other movies, playing villains and psychotic characters. In the latter half of the 1990s she appeared in several B movies that went straight to video and/or cable in lead, minor or cameo roles. She even guest-starred in a number of TV shows ranging from Married... with Children (1987), Roseanne (1988), MacGyver (1985) and Nash Bridges (1996).

She has always despised being referred to as "an ex-porn star", and resents the fact that a celebrity like Tim Allen can be forgiven by Hollywood for past transgressions (he was convicted and served prison time selling drugs while he was in college) but she still to this day bears the stigma of her porn years. It's probably the fantasy of the underage girl who fooled an entire industry, and, at the height of her career, was unquestionably the most popular actress with fans and filmmakers alike.

Some of her most notable TV work was as a regular on season 2 of Profiler (1996) from 1997 to 1998 in playing the schizo-sicko serial killer Sharon Lesher, as well as the tough heroine Jordan Radcliffe during the last season of the sci-fi series First Wave (1998) from 2000 to 2001. She most recently has written her autobiography, published in 2003, and even tried her hand in writing and directing a short film which would lead her to another career as a writer-director of independent films.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Shapster

Jeff Gruenewald (23 February 2002 - present) 1 child M1. Joseph Gunnar Lee

Ryan Granger (26 June 1999 - 1 February 2000) divorced

Brook Yeaton (29 September 1990 - 1 January 1996) divorced

Lee, Joseph Gunnar

Briceland, Patricia Louise

Kuzma, Louis

Kuzma, Rachel (sibling)

Kuzma, Grace (sibling)

Kuzma, Lorraine (sibling)

"Traci" comes from her girlfriend's name, "Lords" from Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O (1968)).

She was the centerfold model for the same issue of Penthouse Magazine that "exposed" Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. Because she was underage, it was illegal to own or trade that issue unless the pictorial of Ms. Lords was removed.

She was Penthouse Pet of the Month in September 1984.

She had her name legally changed to Traci Elizabeth Lords.

Her husband, Jeff Gruenewald (aka Jeff Lee), is a union ironworker.

Her father, Louis Kuzma, was born in West Virginia, of Czech, Slovak, and Ukrainian descent. Her mother, Patricia Louise (Briceland), has English, Scottish, and German ancestry.

She has 1st KYU in Bujinkan Ninjutsu.

She is easily the most successful of former porn stars to make a transition to mainstream movies.

She contributed vocals to the Manic Street Preachers song "Little Baby Nothing," from the Welsh group's "Generation Terrorists" album in 1992, and released as a single in November of that year. The song is about the sexual exploitation of a woman and singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield said that "we needed somebody, a symbol, a person that could actually symbolize the lyrics and justify them to a certain degree. Traci was more than happy to do it. She saw the lyrics, and she had an immediate affinity with them. It was definitely easy to incorporate her personality into the lyrics. We just wanted a symbol for it, and I think she was a great symbol." Traci said that "I listened to the tape and really identified with the character in the song...this young girl who's been exploited and abused by men all her life."

A bra worn by Traci (from her relationship with ex-fiancé John Enos III) sold at auction on eBay for $80.00 in April, 2007.

Son, Joseph Gunnar Lee, born October 2007. He weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces.

She was almost cast as the female lead in Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995), but lost out to Sharon Stone.

In April 1992, she appeared as one of the celebrity models in a charity fashion show staged by Thierry Mugler to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.

John Tierney introduced her to future husband, Jeff Gruenewald.

In 2005 she was Best Supporting Actress for True Crime NYC at the Spike Video Game Awards.

In 2012 she was Best Actress- Excision- Festival de Terror de Molins de Rei.

In August 2005, she was in Los Feliz, California.

She is the subject of the song "Come Back Traci" by Sloppy Seconds.

She attended Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California. A fellow student was Brandy Ledford.

After Not of This Earth (1988) established her in mainstream movies , Lords appeared in other films.

She is from from the same town in Ohio as singer and actor Dean Martin.

According to her biography she was romantically involved with Ken Wahl.

Personal Quotes (9)

[asked about her role as Jordan Radcliffe on First Wave (1998)] I jokingly refer to it as the DKNY Militia because she always looks great. When she's battling the aliens, she's always got the best leather pants on.

My parents never got along. It was a very ugly scene to be a part of.

[about her porn career] No one put a gun to my head and said "you have to do this."

[about her porn career] I was really young, I was really stupid about some things.

I hate the phrase "former porn queen." That part of my life was a long time ago. Think of something else to call me... I'm successful in spite of my past, not because of it.

[about porn industry] You know, I can tell you from my personal experience that I've never met a happy porn star.

[about what drove her to porn industry] My damage drove me into porn. I mean, I was a little girl. And I had like all of this stuff. I'd been raped. I'd been molested. I'd been abused. I was messed up. And I was angry. And the same thing that later helped me to change my life when I was 18 and out of that world that helped me to get sober and helped me to gather the courage to go and do the work I needed to do, to look at some things in my life that were so ugly.

[about her first time at an X-rated set] Yeah, it was scary. It was very scary. I was really young, and I was really inexperienced sexually.

[About her porn career] It was never about sex or an obsession with sex or a need for sex or anything. It was about drug addiction. For me, all porn ever was was drugs. I had no inhibitions or morality or sense of anything. All I cared about was getting high. It was always about drug addiction.

Not of This Earth (1988) $3,000 /week