Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma; May 7, 1968), also known as Traci Elizabeth Lords and Tracy Lords, is an American film actress, producer, film director, writer and singer. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic films and Penthouse magazine (she was 15 years old in her first film), later becoming a television and B-movie actress.

Early life

Nora Louise Kuzma was born in Steubenville, Ohio to Louis and Patricia Kuzma (née Briceland). Her stage name is said to be in tribute to Katharine Hepburn's character Tracy Lord from The Philadelphia Story (the same character played by Grace Kelly in High Society), or from the first name of her high school best friend Traci and the last name of her favorite actor from Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord. At twelve, she fled from her abusive alcoholic father to Lawndale, California, with her mother and three sisters.Krajicek, David Traci Lords--The Crime Library, The Crime Library, retrieved June 12, 2006. In 1983, she began attending Redondo Union High School. She eventually had an abortion, which she paid for herself; went through a nervous breakdown, and ran away from home.

Porn career

At age 15, she was living with her mother's ex-boyfriend, Roger. Posing as her stepfather, he helped her respond to classified ads requesting models. Using a fake ID provided by Roger that stated she was 20 rather than 15, she started in the porn industry with Jim South at the World Modeling Agency in Sherman Oaks, under the name Kristie Elizabeth Nussman.

Shortly after, she was modeling for widely distributed adult magazines, most notably Penthouse, in the same September 1984 issue that exposed Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. She quickly ventured into adult movies. Her first movie was What Gets Me Hot!, followed by Those Young Girls and Talk Dirty To Me Part III, all made in the first half of 1984. Lords' youthful appearance and enthusiastic sexual performances propelled her to stardom. By the time she was 18, she had appeared in 100 adult films; however, Lords argued in her autobiography that about 80 of those films were composed from leftover and re-edited footage from the original 20 films that were shot.Lords, Traci Elizabeth. Traci Lords: Underneath It All. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

In May 1986, authorities discovered she had been underage while making pornographic movies and arrested her, as well as the owners of her movie agency and X-Citement Video, Inc. (See United States v. X-Citement Video.) The ensuing prosecution against the agencies cost the pornographic film and distribution industry millions of dollars, as they were obliged by law to remove hundreds of thousands of her videotapes, films and magazines from store shelves to avoid the risk of prosecution for trafficking in child pornography (the legality varies with countries: while it is illegal in France to produce a pornographic film involving an actor under 18, the film remains legal). In her book, Lords suggested hypocrisy on the part of the movie producers and the news media, arguing that the porn industry actually got richer from the publicity of the scandal, even as they complained of losing money after destroying her illegal movies. Lords felt she was also exploited by the reporters, who used censored stills from her unlawful films. Lords herself was never charged with a crime, since as a minor she was unable to give informed consent to perform sex acts on film for money. Instead, the agents and producers who accepted her fake IDs were charged and people affiliated with the films in question experienced legal troubles for years.