Biography
Traci Lords continues to be defined in part by her early notoriety as an underage performer in adult films, yet she later built a legitimate career as an actress and dance-club artist, directing most of her energy toward screen work. Born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7, 1968, in Steubenville, Ohio, she endured a difficult childhood that included molestation by her alcoholic father, a trauma she later recounted in the song "Father's Field." At age fourteen her mother obtained a divorce and relocated the family to Redondo Beach near Los Angeles, but Lords soon left high school, ran away from home, and developed dependencies on alcohol and cocaine. Using forged identification that changed her birth year to 1965, she began nude modeling and appeared in Penthouse in October 1984; that same year she entered adult films and became an immediate sensation, completing between eighty and one hundred titles over the following two years. In 1986 she traveled to France, where on her actual eighteenth birthday she made her only legally permissible adult film, Traci I Love You, retaining the distribution rights for herself. During her absence the FBI, acting on an anonymous tip, searched her apartment and confirmed her real age; distributors and retailers quickly removed the now-illegal videos from circulation, and the adult industry retaliated by blacklisting her for the legal exposure her work had created. After leaving pornography abruptly, Lords trained as an actress and received her first mainstream role in Roger Corman's Not of This Earth in 1988, the sole instance of nudity in her non-adult filmography. Two years later she earned a prominent part in John Waters' Cry Baby, launching a pattern of steady employment. Repeated trips to the United Kingdom in the early 1990s exposed her to the techno and electronica scenes flourishing in London clubs; in 1992 she supplied backing vocals for the Manic Street Preachers' track "Little Baby Nothing," an anti-objectification song on the band's debut album Generation Terrorists. Further high-profile roles followed, among them the 1993 Stephen King miniseries The Tommyknockers, John Waters' 1994 film Serial Mom, and a recurring character on the 1995 series Melrose Place. Also in 1995 Lords released her debut album, 1000 Fires. Rather than delivering the sensual dance-pop associated with Madonna or Samantha Fox, the rhythm-intensive record captured the purer electronic sounds she had encountered in English clubs. She enlisted the Goa trance and techno act Juno Reactor to handle much of the production, with additional contributions from Jesus Jones leader Mike Edwards. Although 1000 Fires received generally favorable notices, Lords has continued to focus on acting and has sustained a consistent career as a B-movie performer.
Albums
