The Devil Made Me Do It

A memoir by Georgina Spelvin

Erotic Icon of the Seventies

Web: http://www.georginasworld.com

Georgina Spelvin, star of the iconic film, The Devil in Miss Jones has written her memoir. The poignant, funny and extremely bawdy romp of around 300 pages proffers vivid anecdotes from the time surrounding the making of this classic film and her life in general.

From the itinerant oil fields of East Texas of her ballet-dancing childhood, Spelvin takes us to the glamour of New York's legendary Latin Quarter tapping the boards as a diminutive chorine replete with top-heavy feathered headdress; through to obtaining the lead role in Broadway's Pajama Game that launched Shirley MacLaine's career. Her dancing stint led to producing multi-media for JC Penney and living in a commune in the Manhattan meat packing district with serious documentary filmmakers ready to change the world.

What is now film history followed. Needing to fund this co-op spawned Spelvin's infamous erotic performances. Her memoir reveals among many funny moments produced a very singular epiphany: the instant when she first realizes she is working in a hard-core porn film. Then, sadly, she documents her problems with alcoholism and working in cheap strip joints.

The Devil Made Me Do It is a brutally honest book but not one filled with recriminations. It discusses with measured detachment the costs of the choices she made. It documents failed relationships, alcohol addiction and sexual confusion.

In the end she decided to leave that life behind but not with some conversion experience nor with condemning those she left behind - this book is no apology. Spelvin has never regretted the work she did, or falling into this strange yet erotically expanded world. It was a world where her movie and her legacy became rather historic both in terms of film and politics. Indeed The Devil in Miss Jones became a model for many sexual rebels.

Unlike so many porn stars, Spelvin has opted to write the book herself and hence it has a far more realistic turn of phrase that those produced by ghostwriters and written to a formula. Spelvin is a very skilled writer, creating a real page-turner that goes far beyond porn sets of the '70s and offering all sorts of reflections on life, sexuality and entertainment.

While blunt and straight to the point, it is also a book exploring love and relationships. It is a truly entertaining and exciting read and one you will not want to put down until the very last paragraph.

Spelvin is currently at work on the sequel, Going Down in Flames, due out in 2009.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.3 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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