Traci Lords (Traci Elizabeth Lords) is an American actress, singer, model, producer, writer, and director who made her debut with “What Gets Me Hot!.” She was born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7th, 1968, in Steubenville, Ohio, United States of America.
Traci began her career in the AV industry in 1984 before she even turned 16 and became one of the most sought-after AV actresses of the 1980s during her career. She has been featured as an actor in over a hundred films, and her works include Blade, Excision, and Cry-Baby. Traci worked with film studios like Dreamland Entertainment, Leisure Time Entertainment, and Traci Lords Company. She co-starred with other AV actresses like Jacqueline Lorians and Christy Canyon.
Bio
| Name | Traci Lords |
| Birth Name | Nora Louise Kuzma |
| Alternate Names | Traci Elizabeth Lords, Tracy Lords |
| Nick Name | Traci |
| Gender | Female |
| Profession | AV Actress, Singer, Model, Director and Author |
| Years Active | 1984 - 1987 (AV Industry) 1988 - Present (Mainstream Industry) |
| Personal Life | |
| Date of Birth | 7 May 1968 |
| Age (as in 2023) | 55 |
| Zodiac | Taurus |
| Place of Birth | Steubenville, Ohio, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Mixed |
| Religion | Christian |
| Almameter | Redondo Union High School |
| Physical Stats & More | |
| Height (approx) | in feet inches - 5 '7" in centimeters - 170 cm in meters - 1.7 m |
| Weight | in kilograms - 59 kg in pounds - 130 lbs |
| Measurements | 36C-25-36 |
| Shoe Size | 8 |
| Hair Color | Brown |
| Eye Color | Brown |
| Tattoo(s) | No |
| Piercings | No |
| Family, Relationship & More | |
| Parents | Father: Louis Kuzma Mother Patricia Kuzma |
| Sibling(s) | Lorraine Kuzma (Elder Sister), Rachel Kuzma (Younger Sister), Grace Kuzma (Younger Sister) |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Husband / Boyfriend | Brook Yeaton (m. 1990-1995), Ryan Granger (m. 1999-2000), Jeff Gruenewald (m. 2002) |
| Affairs | Stewart Dell, Ken Wahl. |
| Net Worth (approx) | $ 5-7 Million |
| Awards | 2014 - Indie Series Awards - Best Guest Star (Nominated) |
| Social Media | |
| Traci Lords | |
| @thetracilords | |
| Traci Lords | |
Tracis’s father, Louis Kuzma, was born in West Virginia of Czech, Slovak, and Ukrainian descent. Her mother, Patricia Louise (Briceland), has English, Scottish, and German ancestry. Her dad was a steelworker, her mom a housewife, and Nora Louise was the second of four daughters. Talking about her abused and struggling childhood, Traci said:
“My father was an alcoholic, and my parents split up when I was very young. My mother moved us to California when I was 12 years old, and it was a tremendous shock for me. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, it’s my fault my parents split up, and my father’s an alcoholic because of me.’ “
She continued, “I was the first girl in my fourth-grade class to have breasts, and we’re talking breasts. Overnight. With such attributes comes male attention, like it or not. The boys all thought I was a wh@re because I was very well endowed – I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. I was 10 years old, walking around with a ponytail being checked out by 17-year-olds. In California, things got worse; the boys in Ohio were running around pulling bra straps, and the boys in California were into Jack Daniels and coke.“
Traci Lords had to move with her divorced mother and three sisters to Los Angeles at age 12. With a rarely seen mother, she started working and going to school to get her college degree. Having no child support from her dad, insecurities about her looks, and a need for peer acceptance, Lords, then 14, turned to drugs.
While staying at the house of her mother’s boyfriend, Roger, he groomed her into modeling without clothes at age 15, then AV movies a year later. As she is an incredibly developed and full-figured girl by then, she easily duped photographers, producers, and directors (with the help of a false birth certificate and driver’s license).
Her stage name is a combination of Traci (from a former school friend) and Lords in honor of her favorite male actor, Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O (1968)). She appeared in nearly 100 videos and got hooked on drugs, all before she turned 18. She left the business in 1986, began taking acting lessons, and cleaned up her lifestyle. She has carved out a hard-earned and legitimate career in the mainstream media to make sure that despite her sordid past, perhaps someday she would be associated with something more respectable.
Ronald Kantor and Rupert McNee, and modeling agent James Souter Jr., who hired her in 1984 for “Those Young Girls,” were unaware that Lords was only 16. She acted in around 80 X-rated films and videos, had featured in a Penthouse centerfold nearly a year earlier, and had produced a driver’s license indicating she was over 18.
When the FBI found out about it, there was a court trial, and they made the producers remove all her videos as she was underage during the shooting of those videos. So, they were illegal to rent or buy, and video stores around the country rushed to remove them.
Later, she filmed ‘I Love You’ (1987), which was filmed in Paris, France, on her 18th birthday, and she tried to control the distribution rights. Many people believed she did that selfishly so she could be the only one to profit from her career. The big people in the AV industry made a tacit agreement never to promote Traci or talk about her, as they felt she betrayed the industry that had been the source of her fame in the first place.
So, Lords enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, where she studied method acting with the intention of becoming a mainstream actress. She made her mainstream screen debut when she was 19 in a leading role in “Not of This Earth.”
After enduring alleged sexual and physical abuse in her childhood, Lords tried to gain her financial independence through a career in the AV industry. She quickly became one of the best-known and most highly-paid adult film stars in the world.
Later, Traci Lords acted in film and TV, she’s done modeling, made music, and wrote books and a short film, which she also directed. She’s also created a fashion line and still finds time to work as an activist for causes that are dear to her.
In 1995, Lords branched out from her acting career and recorded her debut album, 1000 Fires. It was a huge success, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs Charts, and was included in the soundtrack to the film ‘Mortal Kombat’ (1995), which was eventually certified double platinum by the ‘Recording Industry Association of America’ (RIAA).
She commented about her music career: “I have contributed music over the years, also to soundtracks, and I’ve definitely thought about doing more music, but it’s always taken the second position in my career. I don’t have a band. I do everything. So, I don’t know if that will happen again. Until I can make the kind of follow-up records I want to make, I don’t know that I will. But you never know.”
Traci said that her motto is, “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise. And it still is. But my past keeps me humble. It doesn’t matter how much great stuff I have. The world people can be mean. There are all kinds of ways to attack women. I’m constantly reminding myself that while those things can still hurt, you just have to brush it off your shoulders because it doesn’t mean anything.“
She’s even been baptized by John Waters, who said, “I would have never cast her in ‘Cry-Baby’ if she didn’t have talent. Nobody looks like her; she can make fun of herself, and I’ve never minded a woman with a past. Especially a past she’s overcome.”
Frank Konigsberg, an executive producer of ‘The Tommyknockers’ who cast Traci as a vampish, small-town postmistress, said: “She’s not intimidated by things that ordinarily inhibit people; she’s kind of fearless. I think she has lost roles in other films {because of her image}.”
To which the actress quickly responded by saying: “I’ve lost so many roles that had nothing to do with talent; it had to do with a producer. Or a producer’s wife. I’m seen as a threat.”
Some Interesting Factors About Traci Lords
- Traci was almost cast as the female lead in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Casino’ (1995) but lost out to Sharon Stone.
- She has more than 143k followers on her Facebook page and around 130k followers on Instagram. She is also on Twitter and has amassed over 80k followers there.
- A bra worn by Traci (from her relationship with ex-fiancé John Enos III) was sold at auction on eBay for $80.00 in April 2007.
- Traci has written her autobiography under the title “Traci Lords: Underneath It All.”
- She was Penthouse Pet of the Month in September 1984.
- She got pregnant when she was only 14 and went in for an abortion without her mother’s knowledge.
- Her major success in mainstream cinema came in 1990 with the musical comedy, ‘Cry-Baby.’ She then moved to London and began modeling for fashion designers like Thierry Mugler.
- She was awarded ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for True Crime NYC at the Spike Video Game Awards 2005.
- She mentioned that John Waters is my daddy in her Twitter bio. She has her own store/website, tracilords.com, and has her own brand called “Pinup Girl Clothing,” in which most of the costumes are designed by Laura Byrnes.
- Traci wanted to quit the industry at the age of 17 but was roped in by her boyfriend, Stuart Dell, with whom she started the ‘Traci Lords Company’ and produced a couple of AV films.
- She signed a modeling contract for ‘Muscle & Fitness’ magazine under her actual name, Nora Kuzma, during the initial days of her career. She also released her fitness video titled ‘Warm Up with Traci.’
- Tracy Lords has been married three times. Her current husband, Jeff Gruenewald (aka Jeff Lee), is a union ironworker.
