Last Words For Julie Ellis

They come and they go, don't they? The porn starlet's career is fleeting, a few months on average. The ones that stick around only do so for a few years then it's all over. If you want to think of someone who's career has lasted decades—and who isn't Nina Hartley—you'll be here all day trying to get a list long enough to fill a carpool.

They are temporary and fleeting and ephemeral. They are disposable. We take it for granted that another one will come to fill her place and if she's done only a movie or two, did you even really know she was there in the first place?

While they worked, no one really asked who they were, what went wrong—or right—in their life to bring them here. What drug habits? What belief in liberation? When they disappear, no one asks where they've gone. If they've died, no one eulogizes them.

Last week, I found out that Julie Ellis died. Overdose. About 6 months ago.

Scour the internet and you won't find a word of it anywhere. I heard about it from someone who'd worked with her. And something in me says that her relationship with her folks wasn't the greatest. If they do know about it, it's probably kept on the low. Julie Ellis probably doesn't have an obituary.

And this is one instance. Porn Valley and the internet most likely abounds with stories of these unsung starlets who've spent a minute or two under the bright lights never to be heard from again. Who've suffered silent deaths long ago, or worse.

I feel a sadness. I can't do more than I can. The only thing I can do for now is eulogize.

It seems to me, Julie Ellis, that you got into porn because you really needed the money. How else would you explain a progression from naughty cheerleader pictures to IR gangbang, with nothing in between?

I don't hold that against you; life is hard. You do what you have to do. In fact, I take back the mean shit I said about you.

I'm still fairly young so I can't pretend to know what life's about. I say though that the universal desire is to be remembered. I mean that's the unifying trait behind every portrait painted, every mountain climbed, every office filled, every child created. We all die alone. That's bad enough. But our biggest fear is for our memory to go with us.

I never got to know the real Julie Ellis, or even Julie Ellis' real name. What I know is from Blacks on Blondes and a weird lesbian threesome that involved a gas mask. I can only imagine who you were, a sweet girl who got caught up in life. I hope, if you get another go at this, that life will be kinder to you. And I promise to keep your memory alive and never forget you.

Amen.