Ginger Lynn left her home town for the first time at age 19 to visit her ailing grandfather in California. She decided to stay. Lynn managed the Musicland store in Redlands, living in a tiny trailer in one of the worst parts of town.
"I had a normal life, a boyfriend, and a decent job, but I wasn't making enough money, so I answered this ad which I'd looked at for months. It sought attractive female models for work that paid between $150 and $2500 a day. That same day I received an offer to pose for Penthouse. I'd always thought Playboy and Penthouse were neat; they were always around the house because my father read them. They didn't seem wrong. I thought the girls were all pretty and that boys liked these kind of girls. I never imagined I could be one of them. But in the day after I'd been to the agency, I did some test shoots for Penthouse, which were accepted, and I shot for the next 17 days straight for different magazines."
Ten years earlier it might've stopped there, but by the '80s, the magazine and porno industries had overlapped. X-rated films advertised the centerfold status of their leading ladies and sex magazines like High Society advertised the best videos of their models. As good as $150 a day was, after three months, Ginger Lynn wanted to make more money.
"In the beginning you don't want to do any of it. But you get pulled in. Your first photographers are nice good looking men like Ron Vogel. You feel this isn't what I thought. Penthouse is nice, but I don't know if I want to do that magazine Hustler. Hustler was probably the second or third magazine that came to me. I said ok. They took me to a leather store and they bought ropes and spikes and things to pinch. I went home and broke down in tears and called my agent and said "I can't do this." But the more shoots you go on the money keeps coming and you get pulled into it. Things you thought were bad at the beginning seem less bad. I did a layout with another girl, a simulation. Then I did one with a boy. People asked me to do hardcore stills, so I asked my boyfriend what he thought. He said "Let's do it together." So we did."
Ginger soon split from her boyfriend because he couldn't handle her new direction. She considered doing porn videos and talked to some female performers.
"They tell you there are cute guys and you have a script and you're an actress and you make $1000 a day. I figured I'd do it. I got offered a lot of money to go to Hawaii for 14 days. It was hard the first night. I told my leading man I can't do this. But he was a good actor and good with people and he made it easy."
The man was Jerry Butler. Ginger and Jerry worked in several movies together over the next ten days. Jerry remembers seeing Ginger Lynn for the first time.
"Boarding the plane to do Surrender in Paradise in Hawaii, I noticed a pretty blonde wearing little red shoes. One look at Ginger Lynn and I told myself, This is the girl you're going to be with for the rest of your life. She had done only one film before this, a short loop for Suze Randall. Ginger, nervous and shy, sat on her hands through the flight."
Jerry Butler and Ginger Lynn had sex at their hotel and became close. Ginger worried before the shoot for she'd never acted before. She had particular problems with a rape scene in A Little Bit of Hanky Panky. The script called for Jerry to chase Ginger on a motorcycle. Ginger couldn't muster the proper emotion so Jerry played an acting trick on her. According to Ginger, the most important person in her life was her grandfather, who'd recently died. So Butler told Ginger that old people should be left to die. She became angry, and then Jerry gave her the script and said, "Do the scene that way. Ginger and I made love after that. She screamed louder than any girl I've ever been with and she came three times in fifteen minutes. It was pure heaven. I didn't even wash until the next day because I wanted to feel her on me."
Later that night, Jerry, Ginger and Ron Jeremy went to the beach. Ron had his eye on Ginger. Jerry swam out to sea and when he turned around he saw Ginger giving Ron a blowjob. Though he later joined them for a threesome, Jerry felt hurt and ignored Ginger for several days. They later made up and talked about moving in together even though they had only known each other for six days. Jerry left the islands early to work on Taboo 3. A few days later, he bought a small pre-engagement ring, wrapped it in a seven-foot box and then drove to the airport to pick Ginger up. She wasn't on the plane and that was the end of their romantic story.