Wednesday, November 30, 2011

11.30.11 Hero of the Day: Andrea True




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ALL THIS WEEK, CHUCK69.COM WILL HONOR NOTHING BUT HEROES!
TODAY'S SPECIAL HERO OF THE DAY IS....

Name: Andrea Marie Truden
Age: deceased
Occupation: porn star-turned pop singer
Last Seen: Kingston, NY
Awarded For: being quite possibly, the smartest porn star ever


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The world of pornographic movies is a bitch.

Most actresses in the adult film industry disappear into the abyss when they get older and retire. Many want to quit the biz while they're young, and finding mainstream success ends up being a bitch.

Very few beat the odds, and one of them was Andrea True.

Born in Nashville as Andrea Marie Truden, she attended an all-girls Catholic school and graduated in 1961. She moved to New York, hoping to break into the movies. She did get a few meager-paying walk-ons, but nothing special. However, in 1972, the hardcore porn business exploded when films such as Deep ThroatBeyond the Green Door and The Devil in Miss Jones became mainstream hits and proved that there was an audience for watching real sex on the silver screen. Andrea took a chance, and under assumed names like Singe Low and Inger Kissin, she became a heavyweight in the world of X-rated film.

By the mid-70's, Andrea - who shortened her last name to True to not embarrass her family - was burned out having sex on screen. So, when other well-paying jobs came available, she took them. In 1975, she was asked by a real estate company in Jamaica to appear in several commercials. She accepted, and after she did the ads and was paid, she was looking forward to returning to the U.S. Problem was, there was a coup and no money was to leave the island.

And this, my friends, is why True might have been the smartest porn star ever.

One of her best friends was a record producer named Gregg Diamond. She asked him to come to Jamaica with a song and she would use her commercial money to finance the track. The two recorded the song in a studio on the island and came back to the states hoping that a record company would be interested in her life-saving investment.

It worked many-fold.

Buddah Records released the song in late 1976 only to discos. Because of positive listener response, the song was released as a single and radio stations. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard Top 100 singles chart and also did very well internationally.

That song, of course, was "More, More, More".


True and her fictional band The Andrea True Connection did have one more pop hit, "N.Y. You Got Me Dancing", which went to #27 on the Billboard pop charts in 1977. In all, she recorded three albums, but after the failure of her third album, the rock-leaning War Machine in 1980, True learned that a goiter in her vocal chords had to be operated on, destroying her singing career. True reluctantly returned to porn, but that ended because she was pushing 40. The rest of her life was private, working as a psychic reader and living off the royalty checks of "More More More". However, in 1999, her checks got bigger when Canadian alternative popsters Len scored a hit with "Steal My Sunshine", sampling its bridge.

Sadly, Andrea True passed away on November 7 at the age of 68 from heart failure at a hospital in Kingston, NY, about 60 miles east of Albany. She had no survivors. Her remains were cremated per her wishes. News of her death weren't made until Thanksgiving and made very little buzz on the web, at least from my perspective.

Many work in the adult entertainment industry, but few like Andrea could trade in the penis for a microphone. Many look at those who bare all in front of the camera and worse as skanks, sluts and whores. It's a reputation destroyer. But Andrea beat the odds, at least for a few years in the 1970's. Heck, even conservative Adult Contemporary stations played the song; it peaked at #23 on that respective chart.

True, I hate disco with an immense passion, but "More More More" is a noted exception since there's a great story behind it, and it's sung by a porn star. A SMART porn star who didn't allow a political crisis slow her down. She hopefully died with a few bucks in her pocket, although alone.

Sometimes, we want more, but we'll never have enough.
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