PHOTOS OF CULT STAR TAKEN 30 YEARS AGO
Published 14th February 2012
By Dan Frost
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NUDE photos of a US horror movie actress have gone on display for the first time at a South London gallery to help fund her trip to the UK.
Deborah Voorhees, who starred in the raunchy Friday The 13th Part 5, had the photos taken when she was 19 and considering a career as a Playboy model.
She had a change of heart and locked the photos away. Now, more than three decades later, the 50-year-old is selling limited edition prints at the Misty Moon Gallery at the Ladywell Tavern in Ladywell.
Deborah is now an acting coach and independent film-maker, and hopes the money from the sales will fund a trip to the UK in May, when she will premiere her directorial debut at the gallery.
Speaking to the South London Press from her home in New Mexico, she said: “I was 19 and I had started acting, but I was also working as a Playboy Bunny at the Playboy Club in Dallas.
“A few people had suggested that I should do a centrefold, so I had some photos taken and sent them off to the Playboy office in Chicago.”
Playboy was smitten with the sexy Texan, so flew her out to Chicago for a test shoot.
But, after discussing it with her agent, Deborah decided not to go any further with the porn empire.
She said: “Hollywood is a funny place. On the one hand, nudity is fine, but if you do too much then you can get typecast. “Because there was quite a lot of nudity required of my role in Friday The 13th, we basically felt there had to be a choice between doing that and the centrefold.”
After a string of roles in film and TV, including Dallas and Days Of Our Lives, passionate Shakespeare fan Deborah became a high school English literature teacher.
But when the conservative Texan school board found out about her steamy turn in Friday The 13th, judgement was swift and harsh.
She said: “When I started teaching, I never imagined that Friday The 13th would come back to haunt me. But a few kids actually recognised me from the film.”
“As soon as that happened it just spread like crazy. Texas is right in the middle of the Bible Belt, so I literally had ministers at the pulpit accusing me of being a satanist, saying I was morally bankrupt and so on.”
The devastated starlet was banned from teaching in Texas – but refused to apologise for her past. Instead, she decided to embrace it – by going public with the racy photos from her youth.
She said: “I just thought, ‘I need to turn this around, from something hurtful into something positive’. “I’m proud of what I have done and I want to celebrate it.”
Deborah had heard of the Misty Moon Gallery because of its relationship with Adrienne King – the Friday The 13th star-turned- artist who exhibits paintings there.
So she got in touch with owner Stuart Morriss, a big horror fan, who was only too happy to build bridges with another slasher movie pin-up.
Deborah will screen her new film, Billy Shakespeare, at the gallery from May 21 to 28.
She will also hold a four-day acting workshop during this period.
Deborah’s erotic photos will be exhibited at Misty Moon’s Valentine’s exhibition at the pub in Ladywell Road, from February 23 to March 4.
