This is Season 2 of Svengali – ‘The Chuck Traynor Story: Part 4, The Making of Deep Throat… What Really Happened?’ Previously on Season 1 of Svengali: Chuck Traynor was born in Connecticut in 1937 to a single mother. Raised by his grandparents, he relocated to Florida when he was young, joining the marines when he finished high school. After leaving the service, Chuck married and divorced three times while working on the fringes of the sexploitation film business. In his late 20s, Chuck bought a biker bar in Miami that was a front for prostitution. If that wasn’t enough excitement, he was busted for importing marijuana into Florida from the Caribbean. In 1970, Chuck met Linda Boreman – who would later become Linda Lovelace. After a year of turbulent incidents together, they set off for New York looking for opportunities to make money in the city’s burgeoning sex industry. At first, Chuck sold nude photos of Linda, and then pimped her out privately after she was turned down by the high-end madam Xaviera Hollander. Chuck then found work for them both appearing in explicit sex loops. The first loops were standard fare, but they soon escalated and in one loop, Linda was filmed having sex with a dog, an experience she was to later claim was the lowest point of her life. Then, a turning point of sorts: Linda was working on a loop shoot which was cut short when the filmmaker, a relatively inexperienced director named Gerard Damiano, witnessed Linda’s unique fellatio skills. Gerard decided to create a full-length film around Linda’s party trick. Linda was unsure about the idea, but Chuck was all too happy for the couple to graduate from sex loops to hardcore features. When Gerard Damiano wrote the script for ‘Deep Throat’, he originally called it ‘The Doctor Makes a House Call’. He had no clue his film would go on to become a cultural milestone and one of the most profitable movies ever made. With a handful of sex films already to his name, Gerard thought ‘Deep Throat’ would be just another step to becoming the director he wanted to be in a world where he saw adult and mainstream movie-making converging. Chuck and Linda also had no inkling what lay ahead when they agreed to Linda’s starring role. All they knew was that they were going to make $1,200 for Linda’s participation, a sum that could cover rent for a year in 1972, and that Linda referred to as a “great train robbery.” You can read or listen to the previous episodes here. This episode running time is 50 minutes. ——————————————————————————————————————- 1. Deep Throat: Pre-Production Before we dive into the production and release of ‘Deep Throat’ (1972), it’s helpful to recap the plot of the film. Don’t worry, it won’t take long – I could write it on the back of a napkin. Linda Lovelace, played by Linda Boreman/Traynor, confides to a friend that she’s sexually unsatisfied. Her friend sends Linda to a doctor who identifies the root of Linda’s problem when he finds her clitoris at the bottom of her throat. The doctor hires Linda to take care of men in need of sexual treatment as a therapeutic twofer. One of those patients falls in love with Linda and proposes marriage,