The Disappearance of Bambi Woods An Anthology of True Crime

By Pete Dove

A collection of True Crime in the porn industrySuch scripts as existed for sleazy flicks such as Debbie Does Dallas were threadbare. Often, they consisted of little more than a hint of dialogue to be improvised in whatever location had been hi-jacked for filming - this was still a time when obscenity laws could see an entire cast and crew apprehended, arrested and tried for acts committed in the face of public decency. It was best not to advertise your whereabouts.For some of the industry's actors and actresses performance was a means to an end. For others, an unfortunate hole into which they fell, headfirst and out of full control. Debbie, the eponymous character of the film, was played by an attractive young star in the making called Bambi Woods. In fact, she wasn't called Bambi Woods...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jun 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201530914

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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF BAMBI WOODS

PETE DOVE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BAMBI WOODS

MECHELE HUGHES

ROBYN LINDHOLM

KILLER SEDUCTRESS

PAMELA SMART

DANIELLE STEWART

MARY WINKLER

TRACEY GRISSOM

TED BUNDY

DAVID CARPENTER

TOY BOX KILLER

A Life Best Forgotten

There are few of us who do not keep at least one skeleton in our cupboard.  Most probably these are the bones of one of many species of indiscretion; there are plenty from which we might choose.  Some skeletons are stored, like a harmless but gaudy fancy dress, to occasionally appear, offering a laugh to present company.  Others are tucked away at the back of the closet, best never seen and, as much as will ever be possible, forgotten by former loved ones. A skeleton more hidden than most might be a history of working in the porn industry.

When we are young, maybe looking to pay our way through college, or fund a lifestyle that our experience does not support our judgement can be swayed.  Looking from a perspective of later life, perhaps when we are married, or have children or we are moving on in our career and our story is very different from when we were nineteen, it is more than understandable that our history might be something we prefer to hide.

A constant lesson offered by schools to kids today is that anything they post on line has the potential to last forever.  In the words of Lady Macbeth, ‘what is done cannot be undone.’  This is true to a lesser extent for the pre internet generation, especially those who engaged in a field of film-making where acting skills were considered far less important than looks (some might argue that this hasn’t changed). An industry where a willingness to participate publicly in acts that, for most, remain sheltered in the privacy of our homes is a prerequisite for dusky stardom.  That genre of film-making is, of course, the porn industry.

The heyday of this particular branch of sub Hollywood was the 1970s, the latter part of that dodgy decade in particular.  And it was during this period that one of the most enduring of pornographic films hit the brown envelopes, back street cinemas and seedy video stores.  That film is today considered a classic of its genre.  Ambiguously named Debbie Does Dallas its (very) thin story line features a girl with a passion for the Dallas Cowboys, and her desire to become a cheerleader for the said team.  In fact, passion and desire feature heavily in the film, but not so much for the football team as for anything in trousers, especially if it sported a straggly moustache.

Such was the notoriety that surrounded the film that the Dallas Cowboys’ Cheerleader team sought legal action against its makers, all of which, of course, added to the general publicity about the production.  By today’s standards its action looks a little tame, certainly given what can be found with a short search online (or sometimes by accident) but nevertheless the film definitely fits into the pornographic mould of the era.

Today many of the ‘stars’ of the movie, both in front of and behind the camera, like to keep their real identities secret.  They were paid little back then for exposing all; a leading porn star might generate $500 a film; the biggest challenge was often ensuring arousal at the appropriate times (not easy in front of a camera and a horde of technicians) and rehearsal was limited in the extreme.

Such scripts as existed for sleazy flicks such as Debbie Does Dallas were threadbare. Often, they consisted of little more than a hint of dialogue to be improvised in whatever location had been hi-jacked for filming – this was still a time when obscenity laws could see an entire cast and crew apprehended, arrested and tried for acts committed in the face of public decency. It was best not to advertise your whereabouts.

For some of the industry’s actors and actresses performance was a means to an end.  For others, an unfortunate hole into which they fell, headfirst and out of full control.  Debbie, the eponymous character of the film, was played by an attractive young star in the making called Bambi Woods.  In fact, she wasn’t called Bambi Woods; anybody aware of this lady’s real name refuses to reveal it and while there is much speculation online, the validity of any claim is open to considerable question.

For the purposes of this piece, the name Bambi Woods will need to suffice.  Her real name may have been, or maybe still is, Debra DeSanto.  Equally it might be Barbara Woodson. 

The uncertainty around the words in this article so far can be excused.  Because, in the mid-1980s, it may have been the case that Bambi died, in lurid circumstances, in a drug and sex fueled orgy of excess.  Or, perhaps she did not.  Although widely reported, her death has never been confirmed.  Certainly, plenty of those who claim to know the real person behind the character are confident that she is still alive.

These days, she might be living in California or Australia; or then again, it could be Des Moines, Iowa. A town that could not (it would seem) offer more of a contrast of life to a former porn actress.  These days, Des Moines is only really known as being the birth place of the writer and traveller Bill Bryson and the geographical centre of those who favor the wearing of baseball caps with ‘John Deere’ proclaimed across their brim.

More concrete information about Bambi is available, however.  She was about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing in (at her prime) at 116 pounds and with measurements of 34 inches (chest), 24 inches (waist) and hips of 33 inches.  Her hair was red blond – apparently naturally so – and this contrasted strikingly with her brown eyes.  Her complexion was pale.  In other words, an astonishingly beautiful young woman.

It seems as though Bambi was born on the 7th of December 1955, making her around twenty-two at the time of Debbie Does Dallas.  Such evidence as exists, and we cannot stress often enough that these facts adhere to that single-syllabled term more tenuously than we might usually consider reliable, suggests that Bambi came from a very middle class background.  Her parents held strong religious convictions, and Bambi attended a strict girls’ Catholic High School in a leafy New Jersey suburb.

It seems as though she was a – genuinely –  well-liked girl with a good sense of humour and a natural social ease.  If ever there was a ‘girl next door’, then Bambi would be the one we would want as our neighbor.  She was a middling academic, one who ticked along without really reaching intellectual heights, and so when it came time to consider college, her grades counted against her.  Bambi’s wish was to study acting or theatre, but no opportunity to do so arose.

When she was 19, Bambi first considered entering a career as a cheerleader; she had the looks, she had the skills and she had the enthusiasm.  What she was lacking was experience.  Her school was the sort that discouraged girls from taking part in anything as lurid as sport or, even more unhealthily, cheerleading.  So despite her wishes, that career was closed to her.  She may well have made an exceptional cheerleader, but in a country where, at that time, girls with toothy charm and blondie good looks might well expect their physical activity to be in this field, there were plenty of women around who could step into a team with little training.

As was the case with many aspiring actresses at this time, and still today, Bambi took whatever work she could get.  Unfortunately, paying the bills meant taking a job in a field unrelated to her chosen career.  She had moved to New York, and began working in a small grocery store.  The closest this came to the bright lights of theatre-land was that the store was located on Broadway.  But money was tight and expenses high, and Bambi soon fell into financial difficulties.  Not serious ones, but she ended up owing some money to a friend; money she could not easily repay.

Then the friend – like so much associated with Bambi Woods  one who remains unnamed - came up with an attractive proposition.  She had heard of some men who were in the film industry.  They maybe did not make the kind of production that Bambi might want to see begin her career, but they were looking for new, nubile blood.  And they paid.  Well.  Bambi was told by her friend that she could expect to earn a thousand dollars a day. 

In fact, this was some way from the truth.  Allegedly, Bambi said later in an interview (and more about the likely veracity of this later) that she earned three hundred and fifty dollars a day.  But this too seems unlikely.  Even though she was the star of the show, the late 1970s were far from a time of equal rights for women. 

One of her co-stars, Herschal Savage (yes, really) was an experienced porn actor.  But even he considered making five hundred dollars for an entire film as a good return.  Bambi was young, in her first job and a woman.  The probability of her earning hundreds of dollars a day seems unlikely.  Filming might only last a few days – the film’s Art Director A. J. Cohen explained that everyone was in constant fear of arrest – but money was tightly controlled.

Indeed, frighteningly so. Because behind much of the porn industry of the 1970s stood the mafia.  The Golden Age of Porn was financed, overwhelmingly, with money as dirty as the scenes being enacted in front of the cameras.  Jim Clark (another alias held by a man whose career has turned more orthodox with time) was director of the film, and he explains that the high ranking Mafioso, Micky Zafarana was the money man behind it.  In fact, Debbie Does Dallas become one of the top five grossing pornographic movies of all time but, as we shall see, Zafarana was not around for long enough to reap the rewards of his seedy investment.

However, the involvement of the Mafia behind the industry is something else to bear in mind when we try to deduce what actually happened to Bambi Woods.  From a contemporary perspective, Savage looks back on the film through a kind of rose tinted nostalgic spectacles, rather like we might think back on ourselves as naughty schoolboys or girls with attitude...but not too much attitude, or too much naughtiness.  He explained that many of the actors went on to become successful in their adult careers, becoming writers, or doctors.

But that tended to be the male actors.  Such was the misogyny of the age that, for a long time, a male porn performer could be regarded with a twinkle, thought of as a lad earning some money and having a good time doing it.  Little regard was held for the many men for whom their descent into the fungal world of the industry was a source of shame and distress.

Yet if male actors were no more than boys being boys, the same could not be said for women in the industry.  Simply, they were little more than whores, women prepared to perform unthinkable acts for the consumption of a leering and (mostly) male audience.  Many, many of the women drawn into this career ended up penniless, drug ridden, and, frequently, dead.  Indeed, that may have been the fate to befall Bambi.

However, back in 1978 such a transparent victim was not the girl who presented herself to Jim Clark.  She went into Clark’s studio to try out for a cheerleader role in the pornographic film Clark was making for Zafarana at the time.  However, when she began to tell her ‘story of woe’ coming back from Dallas the director thought it would make a brilliant film.  Clark was fascinated with both the story and the actress.  Her bubbling personality seemed to fill the room.

Bob Burge was distributor of the film, and indeed worked for many years as a distributor for the porn industry.  He is immediately clear why Bambi proved to be such a hit, and why the film went on to be so successful: ‘Bambi Woods was the girl next door.  She had those cheerleader looks. Sex is the primary seller in the entertainment industry,’ he explained.  Most, although not all, of her fellow actresses could not claim such wholesome innocence.

Clark is credited with giving Bambi her pseudonym.  He claims that the name was chosen with no ulterior meaning.  Bambi is, of course, a sweet deer, and the woman who became her was similarly sweet and innocent appearing.  Deer love woods, and so the surname was attached.

Others, though, suspect that there was more to this.  ‘A deer in the headlights’ is a phrase used to describe somebody or something dazzled and frightened by the circumstances in which they find themselves.  When filming the various sex scenes for the film, the phrase could very easily be applied to Bambi.  She appeared constantly shocked and even, perhaps, afraid of what she was performing in the name of her career and a few bucks.  It could be that she is a better actress than she has been given credit for, and recognised that such vulnerability would be appealing to the men who saw the film.  More likely, she was genuinely disturbed by what she was doing.  Perhaps it was that which made the film so successful.

A decade ago Channel Four produced a documentary about the film Debbie Does Dallas.  Called Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered it features extensive interviews with Clark.  He comes across as a legitimate man, one who did the job he did at a time he did it.  He seems to recognise that boundaries of acceptability are different today, and porn has taken a deeper, more sinister, dive into the backstreets of society.  Despite the Mafia’s involvement, the exploitation of actors, especially women, and the (at best) grey area of the industry’s legality, he views his work as of its time. Like the seventies themselves, it was a touch vulgar, a little tasteless but ultimately harmless fun.

He clearly holds Bambi in deep affection, and will not give any clues about her current whereabouts, or her current – or birth – name.  However, he is sure that she is still alive.  What Clark did not know, however, was that at the time of filming Bambi suffered from a serious drug condition.

It is here that the story takes a deeper and more sinister turn. 

Firstly, there is the legal action taken against the film makers by the Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleaders.  Bob