Andrea Marie Truden
(July 26, 1943 – November 7, 2011),
better known by her pseudonym Andrea True, was an American
pornographic actress
A pornographic film actor or actress, pornographic performer, adult entertainer, or porn star is a person who performs sex acts in video that is usually characterized as a pornographic movie. Such videos tend to be made in a number of dist ...
and singer from the
disco
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...
era.
In addition to her given name, she had multiple stage names, including Inger Kissin, Singe Low, Sandra Lips,
Andrea Travis, and Catherine Warren. As a singer, she is best known for the 1976 pop-disco hit "
More, More, More
"More, More, More" is a song written by Gregg Diamond and recorded by American artist Andrea True (credited to her recording project Andrea True Connection). It was released in February 1976 as the first single from her debut album by same nam ...
" (performed as part of her recording project, the Andrea True Connection), which peaked at no. 4 on the
US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and no. 5 on the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
.
Early life
Andrea Marie Truden was born in
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
,
where she attended
St. Cecilia Academy
St. Cecilia Academy is a historic religious building in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S..
History
The building was built on a mansion designed in the Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival architectural style for John F. Erwin and his wife Lavinia R ...
, a
Catholic school
Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syste ...
for girls dedicated to the performing arts.
She studied music at
George Peabody College at
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
.
Her father, Frank, was an engineer, who died when True was 16 years old.
Her mother Anne owned a
silverplating business and was a professional singer, specializing in
polka
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas.
History
Etymology
The term ...
, who recorded her own record and had performed with
Frankie Yankovic
Frank John Yankovic (July 28, 1915 – October 14, 1998) was an American accordion player and polka musician. Known as "America's Polka King", Yankovic was considered the premier artist to play in the Slovenian style during his long career. He ...
's band.
Her parents were immigrants from
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
.
As a child, True studied classical piano
and was given a high rating for her piano audition for St. Cecilia Academy in 1954.
At age 15, she hosted her own television program ''Teen Beat'' for Nashville station
WLAC
WLAC (1510 AM) – branded ''Talkradio 98.3 & 1510'' – is a commercial talk radio radio station licensed to serve Nashville, Tennessee. Owned by iHeartMedia, the station covers the Nashville metropolitan area. The WLAC studios are located ...
.
While a junior at St. Cecilia, True participated in
Junior Achievement
JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide is a global non-profit youth organization founded in 1919 by Horace A. Moses, Theodore Vail, and Winthrop M. Crane. JA works with local businesses, schools, and organizations to deliver experiential learning ...
, serving as vice-president of a TV production enterprise.
In 1960, she received an award for her work from the Radio and Television Council of Middle Tennessee.
In a recorded interview published by ''
The Rialto Report
''The Rialto Report'' is a podcast and article series documenting the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984). It consists of oral history, audio, photo, and documentary archives. It is hosted by Ashley West and April Hall as well as guest contributors ...
'', True stated that she married David L. Wolfe at age 19, leaving college to follow her husband for his academic career, first to Oklahoma and then eventually to New York City in the late 1960s.
Career
True performed in a few pornographic films in Scandinavia in the 1960s and, by the end of the decade, began appearing in American adult films. Her first prominent role was in the film ''Head Nurse'' in 1972.
She also appeared as an extra in non-adult films ''
The Way We Were
''The Way We Were'' is a 1973 American romantic drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. Arthur Laurents wrote both the novel and screenplay based on his college days at Cornell University and his ...
'' and ''
40 Carats''. In 1975, she directed her first pornographic film, ''Once Over Nightly''.
Eventually, she performed in more than fifty
hardcore porn
Hardcore pornography, or hardcore porn, is pornography that features detailed depictions of sexual organs or sexual acts such as vaginal, anal or oral intercourse, fingering, anilingus, ejaculation, and fetish play. The term is in contras ...
films throughout the 1970s and early to mid-1980s in the early New York adult film industry.
During her heyday as a porn actress, around 1975, True was hired by a real estate business in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
to appear in their commercials. While she was working there, the Jamaican government banned asset transfers in response to sanctions imposed by the U.S. after the election of
Michael Manley
Michael Norman Manley (10 December 1924 – 6 March 1997) was a Jamaican politician who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992. Manley championed a democratic socialist program, and has been d ...
, a supporter of
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
. In order to return to the U.S., True would have had to either forfeit her pay or spend the money before she went home.
True, who by this time was trying to break into the music industry, chose to invest the money in recording a demo of "
More, More, More
"More, More, More" is a song written by Gregg Diamond and recorded by American artist Andrea True (credited to her recording project Andrea True Connection). It was released in February 1976 as the first single from her debut album by same nam ...
", a song she had been working on with record producer
Gregg Diamond
Gregory Oliver Diamond (May 4, 1949 – March 14, 1999) was an American pianist, drummer, songwriter, and producer who was active in the jazz and disco music scenes of the 1970s.
Career
Diamond was a member of the backing band for Jobriath, the ...
, her partner in a project called The Andrea True Connection. Remixed by recording engineer
Tom Moulton
Thomas Jerome Moulton (, ; born November 29, 1940) is an American record producer. He experimented with remix in disco music and this led to its wide adoption as a standard practice in the industry. He also invented the breakdown section, and the ...
, "More, More, More" became a favorite in nightclubs. It reached no. 4 on the U.S.
''Billboard'' Hot 100, no. 1 on the U.S. disco chart,
and no. 1 on the national singles chart in Canada. It also peaked at no. 5 in the UK
and no. 9 in Germany.
A full
album with the same title followed, which performed moderately in North America and spawned the second single, "
Party Line", a minor chart hit.
By the time of her singing career, True admitted she was burned out and tired of porn, saying, "I'd rather be a waitress or a typist than make another adult film", and also, "Don't think of me as a porn star any more, think of me as a recording star. I just want to record and perform". She was performing extensively and went on to play around 300 shows within a year from June 1976.
Andrea True Connection came fifth in
ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
's ranking of disco artists of the year.
In early 1977, True released the single "
N.Y., You Got Me Dancing". It became a considerable hit, reaching no. 27 on ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
''s pop chart and no. 4 on the disco chart. In early 1978, she had another hit with "
What's Your Name, What's Your Number
"What's Your Name, What's Your Number" is a disco song written by Bobby Woods and Roger Cook and performed by the Andrea True Connection. It was released in 1977 as the second single from her second album, ''White Witch''.
The song received a ...
", which peaked at no. 56 in the U.S. and no. 34 in the UK.
Both singles were included in her second album, ''
White Witch
Jadis is the main antagonist of '' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' (1950) and ''The Magician's Nephew'' (1955) in C. S. Lewis's series, ''The Chronicles of Narnia''. She is commonly referred to as the White Witch in ''The Lion, the Witch an ...
''. It was a commercial flop and did not chart due to a lack of promotion from Buddah Records as the label was struggling financially at the time.
In 1980, she released her third and final album, ''
War Machine'', promoted by the
anti-war
An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
title song. A more
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
and
new wave-oriented album, it was released only in Europe, but it flopped.
True never returned to adult film industry and for some time performed in clubs in Florida. After that, a growth developed on her
vocal cords
In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speech ...
that required surgery, essentially ending her singing ability.
She did, however, perform two sold out shows at the
Paramount Theater in New York City in 1994, and worked on new music, which eventually never materialised.
True received a renewed burst of publicity in 1999 when the Canadian group
Len
Len or LEN may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Len (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
* Lén, a character from Irish mythology
* Alex Len (born 1993), Ukrainian basketball player
* Mr. Len, American hip hop DJ
*Le ...
sampled
Sample or samples may refer to:
Base meaning
* Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set
* Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal
* Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of so ...
the instrumental break from "More, More, More" in their single "
Steal My Sunshine
"Steal My Sunshine" is a song by Canadian alternative rock band Len from their third studio album, ''You Can't Stop the Bum Rush'' (1999). The song was initially released on the soundtrack to the 1999 crime comedy film '' Go'', which resulted in ...
". Subsequently, True appeared on several
VH1 specials including ''100 Greatest Dance Songs'' in 2000 ("More, More, More" was the no. 45 greatest dance song), ''
Where Are They Now?'' and ''100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders'' (both in 2002), in which she said she wanted to be remembered as a person who "gave people pleasure" — then emphasized the words — "with my music". She also made an appearance in the 2005 documentary movie ''
Inside Deep Throat
''Inside Deep Throat'' is a 2005 American documentary film about the 1972 pornographic film '' Deep Throat'', at the forefront of the Golden Age of Porn, and its effects on American society.
Content
The film discusses how ''Deep Throat'' was d ...
''.
Later years
In her later years, she was reported as working as a counselor for people struggling with
substance abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...
, and as an
astrologer
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
.
"More, More, More" remained a popular song on TV and in movies, and Andrea was eventually able to claim outstanding royalties from the track's usage and sales.
She spent her final years living in
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...
, suffering from declining health.
True died on November 7, 2011, at a hospital in
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany, New York, Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with t ...
. She was 68 years old. The cause was given as
heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...
. In line with her wishes, True's body was
cremated
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
.
Discography
Albums
Singles
Partial filmography
* ''Head Nurse'' (1972)
* ''Meatball'' (1972)
* ''Devil's Due'' (1973)
* ''Madame Zenobia'' (1973)
* ''Deep Throat Part II'' (1974)
* ''Illusions of a Lady'' (1974)
* ''Lady on the Couch'' (1974)
* ''The Chamber Maids'' (1974)
* ''The Seduction of Lynn Carter'' (1974)
* ''French Wives'' (1975)
* ''Hot Channels'' (1975)
* ''Christy'' (1975)
* ''Keep on Truckin'' (1975)
* ''Every Inch a Lady'' (1975)
* ''Once Over Nightly'' (1975; also director)
* ''Millionairess'' (1975)
* ''Erotic Adventures of Little Orphan Sammy'' (1976)
* ''Mash'd'' (1976; also director)
* ''Winter of 1849'' (1976)
* ''Summer Session'' (1978)
* ''Debbie Does Las Vegas'' (1979)
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:True, Andrea
1943 births
2011 deaths
21st-century American women
American dance musicians
American disco singers
American people of Slovenian descent
American pornographic film actresses
American substance abuse counselors
American women pop singers
People from Nashville, Tennessee
Pornographic film actors from Tennessee