“The actress everybody wants to fuck”: Theresa Russell and Sondra Locke (Erotic 90’s, Part 3)

An enigmatic sex symbol dating back to the 70s, Theresa Russell made a play for Hollywood stardom in the late 80s and early 90s, making a number of films about the sexual commodification and role playing. Ken Russell’s Whore was marketed as a gritty answer to Pretty Woman, showing the “truth” about Los Angeles street prostitution. In Impulse, a neo-noir romance in which Russell plays an undercover cop posing as a sex working in a hopelessly corrupt LAPD, Russell was directed by Sondra Locke, longtime girlfriend and co-star of Clint Eastwood. When Eastwood dumped Locke while she was directing the movie, she fought back, instigating a series of lawsuits that revealed that Eastwood and his studio had conspired against her.

(00:00) Did Pretty Woman Glamorize Prostitution?

(07:07) “The mouth of a sailor and street smarts to match”

(14:17) “The thinking man’s sex symbol”

(21:26) Impulse and the Fantasy of Losing Control

(31:26) Sondra and Clint in the 1970s

(36:35) “Go find a house you love and I'll buy it for you.”

(45:26) Palimony and Fraud Suits

(56:26) “There’s no hooker in the world who’d give a man his money back.”

(01:11:55) “The whole theme of the movie is the reason for the NC-17”