CHILD STARS II

• NAME: The name Traci Lords was adapted from Katherine Hepburn The Philadelphia Story (1940).
• BORN: May 7, 1968
• OCCUPATION: actor, musician
• Lords is a a former pornographic film star who is working to build a mainstream entertainment career.
• She has starred in numerous films and on a number of television programs, including a regular role on Melrose Place.
• Lords is pursuing a musical career. Her first album, 1000 Fires, was released in February, 1995.
• In 1986, not long after her 18th birthday, it was discovered that Lords had made most of her 100-plus adult films while still a minor, some even before she turned sixteen.
• The legal fallout reached as far as the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in 1994, upheld a child pornography law used to convict a distributor who was apprehended distributing tapes featuring Lords.

• Dana Michelle Plato was born in 1964.
• Her biological mother had her when she was sixteen and put her up for adoption. She was adopted by a southern Californian mother who guided her towards acting by age seven.
• She was hired to play the lead in "The Exorcist" but her mother refused to allow her to participate in a horror movie.
• While appearing on "The Gong Show", Dana was spotted by a producer who helped her land the role of Kimberly Drummond, the older sister on television's "Diff'rent Strokes".
• In 1978 she was making an unprecedented salary of 22,000$ per episode.
• Her role was terminated when she became pregnant in real life.
• Attempted to revive her career with a five-page spread in "Playboy" magazine but was unsuccessful.
• She became addicted to cocaine.
• In 1991, she was arrested for armed robbery in Las Vegas after stealing 164$. Legendary Wayne Newton paid her bail bond.
• She served 30 days in jail after forging perscriptions, a direct violation of her probation.
• She began appearing in adult movies and became a lesbian.
• On May 8th, 1999, on the "Howard Stern Show" she denied being a drug-addicted lesbian and stated that she was sober.
• The next day, coroner officials at an Oklahoma trailer park ruled her dead by suicide, as the result of a intentional overdose of Valium and Loritab. She left no note behind.