Chapter 42

Savannah Smiled?

Shannon Wilsey—Los Angeles

Shannon Michelle Wilsey was born on October 9, 1970, in Mission Viejo, California, and she was raised in Texas and Southern California. She grew into a wholesome-looking, beautiful young woman with a penchant for rock musicians and hard drugs. A loner super groupie who slept with rock’s royalty, she would become known to the world as the beautiful blonde porn star Savannah.

Shannon liked being around the wild rock scene of Hollywood and liked the wild rock ‘n’ roll men even better. She moved in with Gregg Allman, singer and keyboardist for the legendary southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band when she was nineteen years old. Allman, a notorious drug user himself, kicked Shannon out of his house two years later, allegedly because of her drug use. Their twenty-three-year age difference probably added to the strain of the relationship.

Allman introduced Shannon to the elite Los Angeles party scene, where there was always a silver bowl of grade A cocaine nearby, a never-ending supply of booze, and crazy sexcapades out in the open, like in a barnyard. Shannon had affairs with high-profile rock stars like Axl Rose and Slash of Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe front man Vince Neil, Van Halen singer David Lee Roth, punk rocker Billy Idol, and rapper-turned actor-Mark Wahlberg.

Without her sugar daddy Allman, Shannon found herself in need of money. She first posed naked for a magazine and soon afterward signed an exclusive contract with pornographic film company Vivid Entertainment. Shannon took the stage name Savannah, after her favorite film, Savannah Smiles. A natural blonde with flawless features, she is considered to have been one of the most beautiful women in porn. Between 1991 and 1994, she performed in more than eighty pornographic films.

With her newfound stardom, Savannah became a demanding diva on the set, often arriving late or failing to show up for shoots. She often showed up wasted, delaying the shoot and costing the producers money. Performance-wise, she was known as a cold fish who put little effort into her “acting.” One inside joke among the male performers was that the best thing about screwing Savannah was when the director called “Cut!” As Savannah’s fame grew, she made quips and comments about her rock star conquests to the press. She assigned their lovemaking skills a rating from one to ten, and she discussed their various likes and dislikes. This embarrassed more than a few macho rock stars.

Savannah’s ego and heroin use got the best of her, and she was fired from Vivid Entertainment. With her reputation preceding her, she found that the industry was not interested in her anymore. A rejection from Hustler magazine for a photo spread damaged her heroin-saturated sense of self-worth. Around this time, her boyfriend, comedian Pauly Shore, broke up with her over her cocaine and heroin addiction.

Depressed, heartbroken, and owing the Internal Revenue Service back taxes, Savannah was booked into a high-paying exotic dancing show at a gentlemen’s club in New York by her manager, Nancy Pera. Such a lucrative gig was just what she needed to help pay off the IRS.

On July 11, 1991, a few hours before she was to leave for New York, a loaded Savannah crashed her Corvette near her rented home in the Hollywood Hills. Her face was cut and bleeding and she had broken her nose.

Savannah telephoned Pera and hysterically told her what had happened. Her East Coast show would have to be canceled, and she would lose the desperately needed income. Even more terrifying to her, she would need plastic surgery for her damaged face, with no guarantee that she would be the same again. Pera told her that she would be over to see Savannah in minutes.

Pera arrived at the home at 3802 Multiview Drive in Universal City, only to find the police and EMTs already there. A friend had found Savannah lying in the garage, bleeding from a bullet wound to the head, and called for an ambulance. Savannah apparently missed shooting herself in the temple, hitting the top of her skull instead. She was put on life support for several hours before her estranged father allowed doctors to pull the plug on her.

Fewer than fifty people attended her funeral.