Congratulations to Jeanne Silver

 

 

Thanks to the Internet, my life can sometimes seem very surreal. My wife and I have, over the past few years, become cyber-friends with a lovely woman about our age named Jeanne Silver. Well, that’s not her real name. But that’s the name I knew her by when I first encountered her back when I was 18 years old, in a magazine called CHERI. Long Jeanne Silver! She either chose the name or it was chosen for her to exploit the fact that she was—and is—missing her left foot and a portion of her left leg due to a birth defect and an amputation in childhood. 

   Jeannie has a well-deserved reputation of being the sweetest, most caring women you will ever meet. I heard that even before we encountered her ourselves. But I hear she can also still summon the hell raiser she once was when the need arises. Above all things, she is a caretaker. If you are her friend, she is in your corner or, more often than not, pushing YOU back into your corner so she can protect you. 

 

But a little more than four decades ago, she was adrift, ending up in New York City a long way from her Arizona roots. I’m not going to say she fell in with a bad crowd, because she doesn’t really seem to see it that way. In fact, she fell in with a crowd that became very much a chosen extended family through the years, a family where so many of them still stay in touch with her via Facebook. 

 

 

If you haven’t guessed, Jeanne Silver was an adult actress in what is thought of now as the Golden Age of adult films—just after the “Porno Chic” era and just prior to home video completely changing the industry. With less than 20 films, the one that she is best known for is the self-titled, LONG JEANNE SILVER, a controversial 1977 release designed to both introduce her to the industry while also exploiting what made her different. Online newspaper archives show that the picture ran in a number of major cities for nearly a full decade, giving her a unique, long-lasting name notoriety other adult film stars usually never had!

 

But movies weren’t all Jeanne Silver did. She also modeled for a number of adult magazines of the day and even wrote a mostly serious column in one about sex and disabilities. 

 

In the decades since she left the adult film industry she has led a life just as interesting, even though it wasn’t all captured on film. A couple years back, though, Jeanne Silver did actually return to film, this time in a brief but meaty role in a horror film entitled CLOWNADO! She gave the best performance in the picture. 

  All of which is by way of introduction to the fact that today it was announced that Long Jeanne Silver, some 35 years after putting it all behind her, has been named to the ADULT VIDEO NEWS Hall of Fame, considered the highest honor that can be bestowed on members of the industry.

 

The adult film industry is, itself, thoroughly fascinating with its underground, outlaw aura, but looking deeper, it turns out there were some genuinely talented, if often troubled, people who banded together both behind and in front of the screen to create something that’s lasted, something that has in fact grown in stature over time. 

Me, I viewed that world from a distance, but my friend Jean lived it, in all its aspects, good and bad, and today, finally, with the AVN Hall of Fame announcement, I hope she sees that all the stupid, crazy, wild stuff she went through back then actually meant something to a lot of people. It still does, and she still does.