Brenda Venus | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Brenda Venus | |
| Born | |
| Other names | Brenda Gabrielle Venus |
| Occupation(s) | model, writer, actress, filmmaker |
| Years active | 1967–2010 |
Brenda Venus is an American model, writer, actress, and filmmaker. [2]
Brenda Venus | |
|---|---|
| Portrait of Brenda Venus | |
| Born | |
| Other names | Brenda Gabrielle Venus |
| Occupation(s) | model, writer, actress, filmmaker |
| Years active | 1967–2010 |
Brenda Venus is an American model, writer, actress, and filmmaker. [2]
Brenda Gabrielle Venus was born on November 10, 1947 in Biloxi, Mississippi. Venus is of Native American and Sicilian ancestry. [3]
Venus is the author of Secrets of Seduction [4] and Secrets of Seduction for Women [5] [6] and a 2012 novella titled "Twelve Hours". [7] Her books have been translated into 37 languages. [8] Publishers William Morrow and E.P. Dutton sent her on a worldwide publicity tour [9] [10] making various appearances on TV, [11] [12] radio [13] and press interviews. For over six years, starting in 1998, Venus wrote a popular column for Playboy magazine called "Centerfolds on Sex." [14] She also produced, directed, shot and narrated the documentary film Love and Sex in LA with seven Playboy Centerfolds and up-coming actors in LA.
When Venus was a college student, she purchased at auction a book that contained an envelope with the address of famed writer Henry Miller. Venus wrote to Miller and they became pen pals. Eventually Miller became her mentor and Brenda his muse. [15] Miller wrote 1,500 letters that were collected into the 1986 book Dear, Dear Brenda – The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus. [16] [17] [18]
Miller's long-time friend and confidant, fellow novelist and poet Lawrence Durrell wrote in the introduction to Miller's book Dear, Dear Brenda that: "The role of Brenda Venus will keep its interest and importance also as a memorial of his last great attachment--an Ariel to his Prospero... She enabled him to dominate his infirmities and to experience all the Joys of Paradise." [19]
According to writer Ed Millis, "Venus was a source of inspiration to the aging and ailing Miller. Brenda was all of 24 years of age, Henry was 84. She was a beautiful Southern belle, "The Boticelli of Mississippi"—he called her. Henry, the renegade intellectual, the writer, had taken millions of us to the sexy Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn . Now he was sick and slowly recuperating. He needed a lift in spirits... Brenda the Muse breathed life into her mortal charge and gave him reason to live. Miller gave her focus and fine tuning and wrote Venus over 1,500 letters which amounted to four-thousand hand-written pages. She responded in kind for over four years—the last four years of his life. " [20]
Venus appeared in the Clint Eastwood film The Eiger Sanction and several other films. She also appeared as a host/narrator in Love & Sex in LA .
Her movie appearances include:
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Night Fright | 1967 | Sue | |
| An Eye for an Eye | 1973 | Joanie | |
| Foxy Brown | 1974 | Jennifer | |
| The Eiger Sanction | 1975 | George | |
| The Legend of Valentino | 1975 | Constance Carr | TV movie |
| Against a Crooked Sky | 1975 | Ashkea | |
| Swashbuckler | 1976 | Bath Attendant | |
| Joshua | 1976 | Sam's Wife | |
| FM | 1978 | Dolores Deluxe | |
| Deathsport | 1978 | Adriann | |
| 48 Hrs. | 1982 | Hooker | |
| The Avenging | 1982 | Juanita Quintana | (final film role) |
Venus, a play about her life, [21] featured Olympic Gold Medalist Svetlana Khorkina in the title role. The cast also included members of the Bolshoi Ballet . [1] [22]
Brenda has been the subject of several artists besides Henry Miller, including painter Harold Frank, [23] photographer Ken Marcus, and former boxer Gary Dobry. [24]
In the spring of 1997, Venus posed for a celebrity nude pictorial in Playboy Magazine. [25]
She also appeared in Playboy in July 1986. [26] According to the Playboy website:
Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an established author.
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, stream of consciousness, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association, and mysticism. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricorn, and the trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris. He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism, and painted watercolors.
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell.
Marianne Gravatte is an American model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for the October 1982 issue, then as the 1983 Playmate of the Year. Her original pictorial was photographed by Richard Fegley.
Anulka Maria Dziubinska is an English actress and model. She was featured as Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month in May 1973.
The Venus Butterfly is a term used for various sexual techniques, one of which was the subject of the 1988 book The One Hour Orgasm. It was first publicly mentioned in a 1986 episode of the American television drama L.A. Law. However, a technique of the same name appears in the book The Sensuous Woman, which was first published in 1969.
Brenda Jackson is an American novelist who writes contemporary multicultural romance novels. She was the first African-American author to have a novel published as part of the Silhouette Desire line, and has seen many of her novels reach The New York Times and USAToday bestsellers lists. Jackson reached a milestone in her career in October 2013 when she published her 100th novel, becoming the first African American to achieve this milestone.
Cynthia Heimel was an American feminist humorist writer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was a columnist and foremost the author of satirical books known for their unusual titles, aimed at a female readership, as well as a playwright and television writer.
Anne Marie Rodgers is an American writer of romance novels as Anne Marie Winston. Many of her novels have appeared on the USAToday Bestseller lists and she has served as both vice-president and retreat chairman of the Washington Romance Writers.
Susan Braudy is an American author and journalist.
isbn:9780525936015.
isbn:9780525941033.
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