- Hey folks.
We're trying something a little different
tonight on the show
and I think you're going to like it.
I've already seen it's pretty good.
It goes a little like this.
From a&e this is biography.
- She dazzled us a model.
She shocked us with our politics.
She's had more lives than a bag of alley cats.
For nearly 30 years Nina Van horn.
Has excited, delighted, and entranced us.
And now thanks to the American film academy's
reissue of the 1973 cult film foxy trouble
Nina has again been catapulted into the
periphery of the media spotlight.
Comeback week continues with Nina Van horn,
trouble be thy name.
- I got your number super pimp.
- Hey mama.
I ain't looking for trouble.
- Too bad, 'cause trouble just found you.
Foxy trouble.
- Life wasn't always catsuits and glamor for Nina Van horn.
Long before the fame.
There was a little girl who desperately needed to belong.
Somewhere, anywhere, everywhere.
Abandoned by her biological parents.
Nina was adopted by Abe and dorthy noodleman.
Who found her in a feed trough on their Colby,
Kansas pig farm.
Attached was a note.
It said "simply allergic to bananas."
They named the child Claire.
After an old bond cat they thought had died,
but later resurfaced.
This only added to the confusion of around
the already chaotic noodleman household.
Determined to stand out from the pack.
You Claire never missed an opportunity to perform
at the town's many barn dances.
And hog callings.
Her fresh face look and compulsive show boating
finally paid off in the seventh grade when
she started to pick up local modeling jobs.
As luck would have it
New York talent scout Sammy rivers was passing through
Kansas when his car broke down on the outskirts of Colby.
Sammy used a seed catalog to open his radiator cap.
There on the cover was a young Claire noodleman.
- I couldn't take my eyes off her.
It was a good minute before I realized
I had those third degree burns on my hand.
That my friends is how you know you found a star.
But Claire's father, a strict methodist,
refused to allow his 12 year old daughter to move
to the big city with a stranger.
She would have to wait until she was 14.
- One night I told mama I was going down to the creek
to help the preacher with the baptizing.
But instead I decided to hop a freight train and head east.
Unfortunately the train was headed west.
She ended up in Reno where she got her first taste
of professional show business.
- She got job at the local carnival
running the tilt a whirl.
And then someone noticed she had 11 toes
then she started doing two shows a night in the big tent.
And that made he happy I think.
Tired of low wages and the sexual advances of
the amazing honko Claire finally fond the right train
and a month later she was in the big apple.
- The first thing I did was to change her name.
I wanted something exotic and sophisticated.
So I took Nina from one of those boats Columbus had
and Van horn was this Danish porn star
who lived in my building.
Boom, magic.
With a new name and a new wardrobe
Nina became an overnight modeling sensation.
Her relationship the other models quickly filled the gap
left by the absence of her many brothers and sisters.
Although her new friends were continually amazed
at her lack of refinement.
- A hole bunch of us young models
lived in this one apartment.
And I thought I was unsophisticated,
but this was the first time that,
Nina had even seen an ice cube tray.
But just like back on the farm,
Nina wasn't happy to be one of the crowd.
She needed to breakout.
She wouldn't have to wait long.
It would be a posted that turned Nina Van horn
into a pop culture icon.
- Cheryl tiegs was supposed to do that shoot.
And Nina offered to give her a ride out to the beach.
But when Nina got to Cheryl's house,
she found Cheryl passed out in the garden.
- Well obviously Cheryl couldn't do the job
because her face was swollen from falling down so much.
So Nina rushed off to do it for her.
Nina's a good friend.
- Weeks later when I finally woke up
and learned to eat with a fork again,
I heard rumors that Nina was responsible for my accident.
So I went to see a hypnotist to get my memory back.
Well it didn't work.
But at the time I did recall a separate incident where
she tried to run me over with a moped.
No one really knows what happened in the garden
behind Cheryl tieg's house.
But what is know is Nina Van horn's jungle beach poster
was the biggest seller of 1969.
- It was easy to see why it was a smash.
The photographer had captured what we professionals call
golden moment.
Everything ended together perfectly.
The lighting the subtle shift in colors.
The depth of feel.
Plus you could see a nipple.
Her new found popularity immediately launched her
into all the elusive circles.
She became a regular at
the Kennedy compound in hyannis port.
Yes Nina was living the life she had always wanted.
Surrounded by the rich and powerful,
she was becoming rich and powerful herself.
But something was missing.
She ate for a family of her own.
Fortunately modeling all day
left her evenings free to marry.
In a lot of ways I think Nina was looking
for a kind of husband figure.
- I've been to a lot of weddings in my life.
And most of them have been Nina's.
I think Nina likes getting married more than being married.
Well who doesn't?
I mean I don't.
Still searching for a place to belong,
Nina attached herself to the flower power movement.
Making all the stops along the way.
Haight-ashbury, Woodstock and finally altamont.
- Sociologically speaking.
Altamont was the even that brought closer
if you will to the age of aquarius.
Interesting footnote, it as Nina who told Mick Jagger
to hire the hells angels to do the security.
So one could say that Nina Van horn was the women
who opened the tool box that held the hammer that
drove the nail into the coffin that was the 60's.
The 60's may have been finished,
but Nina was just getting started.
Little did she know she was headed for trouble.
Foxy trouble.
We now return to a&e's biography of Nina Van horn.
As america transitioned from the psychedelic 60's
to the cynical 70's,
Nina Van horn made her own transition.
From top model to movie star.
- Hello sir, may I offer you something to drink?
- Yeah how about a tall class of white chocolate?
- That's not available, until we land.
Anything else?
- Yeah, one order of airplane.
To go.
- Sorry soul brother we don't do take out.
- Damn.
You ain't no stewardess.
You foxy trouble.
- That's the name my mama gave me.
- That's a mighty big gun.
For such a little lady.
- I'm going to have to ask you to return to your seat.
Would anybody else like anything?
- You know it's funny how life imitates art.
Now Nina and I did it for a year after that movie.
But she ended up shooting me for real in
the parking lot of a taco stand.
And I can't recall what we were fighting about.
And I believe that's the last time I saw the bitch.
- I convinced Dean Martin to have the wrap party
for foxy trouble on his houseboat in the Marina.
Nina never left.
She just hung around for the next couple of months.
You know washing boats, telling fish stories.
Then she started saying she was dino's daughter.
Signing her name Nina Martin.
Well she obviously needed help.
So Dean had me and flip Wilson drive her up to oxnard
and leave her at the Navy base.
Dean loved the service.
Nina's spirit was crushed.
And it showed on the set of the sequel to foxy trouble.
A cup full of trouble.
- Five hours and I was shooting at anyone
who's going to hit the street.
Hit the streets.
Streets.
Cut.
Shortly after this take, - huh.
Nina stole the director's Camaro
and fled to Mexico
with gal pal Jerry hall in tow.
There she fell into a coma
and was declared legally dead for eight minutes.
She collapsed in the middle of a bar called
senior frogs.
Luckily I was dating brand f pilot.
Who flew her over the border to San Antonio.
No offense but I have little rule of thumb
where Mexico's concerned.
Dinner table si, operating table no.
I've often asked Nina about that incident.
But she doesn't like to talk about it.
Which is funny because she'll go on and on
about the time she chocked on her beads at mardi gras
and was legally dead for five minutes.
Nina was alive.
But it looked like her movie career was dead.
However, a certain young director thought differently.
Well redford dragged me to this revival theater
to see this movie i'd never heard of called
foxy trouble.
You know he's the world's biggest Bernie Casey fan.
Anyways the seats were uncomfortable,
the popcorn was stale
and the guy next to me had some kind of
a breathing machine or something,
but as soon as Nina strutted out with that big gun
none of that mattered.
I couldn't look and I could not look.
She was beauty traffic accident.
Pollock called in some favors.
And landed Nina the lead in a regional production of
ibsen's a doll's house.
- Sydney begged me to go see Van horn
in some rinky-dink playhouse in la hoya.
Long story short I went, and she stunk.
She was hopped up on everything from cocaine to butane.
After the show she was a little down so
I tried to cheer her up.
Did I marry her the next day?
You bet your ass I did.
- Oh for the first two weeks Bob and I were like
newlyweds.
But then we began to drift apart.
And by the end of the month
we were two very different people.
Once again alone
and looking for some find of family.
Nina sought out an organization that would satisfy her need
for order and a sense of purpose.
The symbionese liberation army.
She was with them during their notorious crime spree.
Until their finally showdown with police
in the streets of south-central Los Angeles.
- Oh in many ways the shootout was very tragic.
Now on the plus side I did get some TV time.
You know an agent saw me
and I started to get a few bookings.
But Nina's chaotic existence over the last two years
had left her in no condition to resume
the pressured filled life of a celebrity.
A fact that became all too clear during an ill fated stint
hosting a local TV morning show.
- It sure is.
The spicer the nicer.
- What you're added even more cayenne pepper.
- Uh you bet.
As they say in old Lebanon,
I never met a cayenne I didn't like.
There we go how's that.
Hmm, boy that looks good.
- What the hell am I doing here?
- Hmm we're making some sauce.
- I used to be somebody.
I hate this show.
- What?
- I hate the midwest.
I hate this kind of stupid food.
I just, I can't do it.
- Alright. - Anymore.
- Well be right back.
- Do you hear me I just can't do it.
- It was the craziest thing.
She kept calling me daddy
and saying it was Christmas morning.
Time for me to die.
Nina Van horn was more than happy
to say goodbye to the 70's.
Unfortunately the 80's lay dead ahead.
We now return to a&e's biography of Nina Van horn.
After her humiliating emotional collapse
on television,
and a brief stay in an upstate New York
recuperation facility,
Nina was determined to find meaning in her life.
She found it in disco.
Manhattan's famous nightclub studio 54
became Nina's new home away from home.
- Studio 54.
54 is life.
Isn't it?
Until one fateful night,
when she was the subject of a random purse check.
Hey Truman soot over.
Alright don't touch my hair.
Bastards.
Not up for more hard time,
Nina cut a deal with prosecutors which lead to the closing
of studio 54 and lengthy jail sentences
for many of her close friends.
- You know when you testify against people
you find out who your real friends are.
Some of those jerks said some pretty hurtful thins about me
as they were being led out of the courtroom.
And I didn't need that kind of static.
You know.
Not then, I mean.
Not when I knew that there were plenty of people on
the west coast who would be damn glad to see me.
- Nina Van horn single handedly broke up the eagles.
She was crashing at Joe Walsh's house.
And he used to bring her to recording sessions.
He didn't want to leave her alone in his house
because, well she would steal things.
In the studio she used to try to sneak in
and play tambourine and do background vocals.
We couldn't get rid of her.
So finally we just said, to hell with it.
Let's all of solo.
Inspired by the eagles and fueled by new over
the counter smart drugs, Nina set out on
a solo singing career of her own.
♪ What's time ♪ what is the time
♪ tic tic toc it's party o'clock
♪ it's quarter to two - wait cut, cut, cut.
Don, the trumpets are flat.
Or sharp.
Can I just, can I get a tab?
- What a nightmare.
She kept fighting me to use more of her voice.
You want to hear her voice?
♪ What's the time ♪ what is the time
♪ tic tic toc it's party o'clock
♪ sweet party you tell me.
Despite dismal reviews and meager sales,
Nina's music did manage to touch a few lives.
- I first hear sweet party time when
I was a teenager in Albany, New York.
I was training for a major local ice skating competition
and as soon as I heard Nina's song, whoa.
I knew I no longer wanted to use the theme from ghostbusters
as my accompanying music.
Of course in my routine, I continue to fight ghosts.
'Cause it was already part of my closer.
And it killed.
Her singing career a hazy memory
and no jobs on the horizon,
Nina disappeared off the pop culture map.
No single moment defined her absence from
the public consciousnesses more succinctly that this one.
On the popular American game show wheel of fortune.
Do you want to solve the puzzle?
- Nina Van
hoon?
- Oh it was horrible I mean, eventually we just had
to stop tap and give the contestants luggage
and send them home.
We had less trouble with the word vichyssoise.
Her back against the wall,
Nina made ends meet by taking a series of low paying
anonymous modeling assignments.
The most humiliating of these was reappearance
on the cover of the catalog that started it all.
Blumgarten's.
Only this time instead of cash.
She was paid in seeds.
Then while playing a mermaid at a boat show,
a chance meeting with an old friend changed her life.
- Sure Nina was a little down on her luck
when I hired her here at blush.
It's a great story actually
I don't remember all the details,
but it's in my autobiography, don't back down.
Now available everywhere.
- She's clearly not a trained journalist like I am
with a masters degree from Columbia.
But she brings a unique perspective
and life experience to blush.
For instance some of the layout we've done.
Models driving cabs in their underwear.
Models going to church in their underwear.
That's pure Nina.
They don't teach you that at Columbia.
Or at Stanford.
Which is where I did my undergraduate work.
Yes the little girl from the sees catalog
had finally blossomed as the successful
and influential fashion editor to blush magazine
top designers continually seek her approval.
And more importantly she found the family
she had always longed for.
So from foundling to farm girl,
to model to actress, to singer, to felon,
and all points between,
Nina Van horn like the cat she was named after
has truly lived nine lives.
- One word to describe Nina.
Timeless.
- Client.
- Gallows-esque.
- Backseat drive.
- Destructive.
No vibrant.
Is there a word that means both those things?
I bet the German have one.
- High strung.
- Bipolar.
- Chinatown.
- Spooky.
- Soulmate, I mean roommate.
- Tall.
- Lover.
- Life continues to be exciting
and unpredictable for Nina Van horn.
Last night at a signing of the new DVD
re-release of foxy trouble,
Nina was reunited with her costar Bernie Casey.
Ironically as they posed for publicity stills,
Nina accidentally shot him in the shoulder with
what she thought was a cigarette lighter.
For biography, I'm Harry Smith.