I pulled the diva act and tried to own that pay phone. My cell phone had been confiscated, so the pay phone was my only connection to the outside world. So, when anyone else tried to use the phone, I unleashed a shit-storm of anger, screaming, “I’m on the fucking phone! You wait your fucking turn! I’m on the phone! I’ll be done when I’m done! I’ll fucking kill you!”
Making death threats in the psych ward is not exactly the way to prove that you’re not crazy and get released. One day, I even tried to escape. When those buzz-in, locked doors opened, I made a run for it, forcing the orderly to wrestle me to the ground.
When I realized there was no way out unless I played by the rules, I threw the rules in their face. They had been asking me to shower for days and I refused. I was defiant and angry and antiauthority. After days of nagging me to shower, I finally said, “Fuck it. You want me to shower? OK, I’ll shower.” So I stripped off all of my clothes, walked out of my room into the hallway completely naked, and looked at the first nurse who came my way and said, “OK. You want me to shower? Here I am. Where’s the fucking shower?”
As much as this experience was the lowest point of my life, I’m grateful for it. Sometimes you need to go off the rails of the crazy train to get on the right track of your life. And that’s exactly what I did.
CHAPTER I
Idol Worship
How bad do you want what you want? I wanted to be famous and adored so bad it nearly killed me. Well, in all honestly, I nearly killed me. But before we get to that, let me start at the beginning….
In 1986 I was ten years old and my mother had already left us. It was just me, Linda Ann Hopkins, and my dad, David Hopkins, a carefree hippie of English, Dutch, and Irish descent. I was born in Great Falls, Montana, but was living with my dad in Fresno. On a rare father-daughter day out, he took me to a thrift store in town to do some shopping. We were on a budget. As we made our way though the tiny, cramped shop, I saw her hanging on the dusty wall behind some cracked vases and rusty candelabras. It was a beautiful black-and-white photograph of Marilyn Monroe from the Korean USO tour she did in 1954. She was beaming as she posed for hundreds of handsome men in uniform, who in turn were ogling her in all her blond-haired, blue-eyed glory.
Something lit up inside me when I saw that photograph. I thought, “Someday, men are going to look at me that way.”
I couldn’t stop staring at this photo, thinking how much I wanted to be that girl. The girl everyone adores. The girl whom fame made so happy (little did I know what a sad wreck she really was). All I knew about Marilyn at the time was how much I wanted to exude the power that she did. I wanted to be famous like that. I just didn’t know what for yet. I never thought it would be for porn.
Around the same time the Marilyn Monroe photo was burned into my brain, I stumbled across another piece of inspiration. I was home alone one day after school. Dad was still at work. I was usually a good girl; I learned manners and respect for others very early on from both of my parents. Although I had never looked through my father’s things, on this one day my curiosity got the best of me. I had seen my dad hide a stack of Playboy magazines once and was anxious to take a peek inside. I wanted to know what a woman’s body looked like. I was just a young girl—an awkward one at that—and I wanted to compare myself to a full-grown woman. It was a natural fascination. The curiosity to see a naked woman left me searching through my dad’s teak, tapestry-covered dresser, one of his finds from Thailand when he was there during the Vietnam War. I opened the drawer and there was a Playboy with supermodel Paulina Porizkova on the cover. The supermodel and actress was holding back her long, beachy, golden brown hair with a lean, elegant arm and gazing at the camera with her ice blue eyes emanating a fierce self-confidence.
I thought Paulina was the most beautiful woman in the world, and I couldn’t stop staring at her photos in Playboy. I was even more impressed when I learned she’d married Ric Ocasek, the lead singer of the rock band the Cars. She was a rock wife and a beautiful supermodel, and I just idolized her for that. I wanted what she had. It was that Paulina cover that made me want to be in Playboy. From the moment I saw this cover in the summer of 1987, I had a simple quest: be a Playboy model, be married to a rock star, and be rich, famous, and adored.
LOOKING UP TO STARS like Marilyn and Paulina was my escape. My parents separated when I was ten. I didn’t have my mom or dad to talk to, because they fought a lot and were so wrapped up in themselves. So instead I escaped into a fantasy world of supermodels, celebrity, pin-up girls, Playboy Playmates, and rock stars as I flipped through the pages of my dad’s issues of Playboy, Rolling Stone, LIFE, and whatever music or teen magazine I could get my hands on. I thought about what these gorgeous celebrities would be like in person, what it would be like to live their lives and to be as cool and happy as they seemed to be in the pictures. I would daydream about these models, rock stars, and actresses instead of doing my school-work. My grades suffered and I got a lot of notes from the teacher that read “Linda doesn’t apply herself enough.” Fair enough.
I would also rummage through my father’s cassette tapes—he was a rocker—and lust after Jim Morrison. To this day, if I could go back in time and fuck a famous rock star it, would be Jim Morrison. I idolized the Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd—the older bands that my dad was into.
I wouldn’t know until years later, after some therapy, that what I was doing was filling the void left by parents who weren’t there for me. Some kids in tough situations cope with absent parents by overeating, others with being sexually inappropriate (more on this later), others with drugs and alcohol or getting into trouble at school. For me, at age ten, I disappeared into daydreaming about what it would be like to live the lives of those models, rock stars, and celebrities I read about in magazines or saw on television.
I was a big dreamer; it’s all I had at the time. Well, that and my younger sister, Debra, but once my parents split, my sister chose to live with my mother full-time and I chose to live with my father. But Dad wasn’t around much. He did the best he could, but he was working all the time and never home. I was home alone a lot and up until about age twelve, I was a very introverted, insecure, and lonely young girl.
I was not popular with the boys, but that was OK because I wasn’t into boys then. My sister, the cheerleader and volleyball player, was the popular one in school. I was the dorky jock—running cross-country, reading, and hiking were my loves. I got high marks in physical education, but low to below-average marks in other classes at Fresno’s Lincoln Elementary School. My teachers were right—I just didn’t apply myself. I’d rather hole up in my bedroom or the library and read a Nancy Drew novel instead of doing my math homework.
ON MY BOOKSHELF AS A KID:
• Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys Super Sleuths!, by Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. DixonDays with Frog and Toad, by Arnold Lobel
• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Forever, by Judy Blume
• Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love, by Francine Pascal
• Ramona Quimby, Age 8, by Beverly Cleary
• Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry
ON MY BOOKSHELF TODAY: