Svengali - The Chuck Traynor Story: Part 1, In the Beginning - Podcast 118

When Linda Lovelace divorced Chuck Traynor, she shared troubling details about their former relationship: Chuck was her pimp, her abuser, her tormentor. The stories involved beatings, guns, and imprisonment.

And then Chuck married Marilyn Chambers - the other most famous porn star of the decade. Her experience of Chuck differed greatly from Linda’s. She spoke well of him and stayed married to him for years.

So who was the enigmatic Chuck Traynor? And how did he come to play such an outsized role in the adult industry - and by extension, in pop culture at large? There’s never been a detailed investigation into Chuck’s life. He never told his own story before he died 20 years ago.

Over the past years, The Rialto Report contacted just about everyone who knew Chuck. What emerges is a story more far complex and interesting than anything imagined - it’s a tale of family intrigue, drug smuggling, nudist films, biker bars, tax fraud, political insurgency, illegal porn loops, and, of course, Deep Throat.

So was Chuck a misunderstood hustler? An opportunistic conman? Or a devious Svengali exercising a controlling influence over people in his orbit for his sinister purposes?

This is Part One of the untold story of Chuck Traynor.