Plot
In 1970, 21-year-old Linda Susan Boreman is living with her parents in Davie, Florida, having moved from New York City. While out dancing one night with her best friend Patsy, Linda attracts the attention of a man named Chuck Traynor and the two soon develop a relationship after a vulnerable Linda reveals to him that she has a strained relationship with her parents. The strain was caused because Linda had earlier given birth to a son out-of-wedlock and her domineering mother Dorothy had tricked her into putting the baby up for adoption.
Chuck, much older than Linda, begins teaching her how to perform sexual acts, which she is initially thrilled about. After breaking curfew one night, Linda is berated by Dorothy, forcing Linda to move out so she can live with Chuck, later marrying him. During a party, Linda watches one of Chuck's homemade pornographic films for the first time and tells him that "good girls don't do that stuff".
Six months later, Linda bails Chuck out of jail for facilitating prostitution, although he claims to have had little knowledge of what went on in the parking lot behind his bar. Desperate for money, he persuades Linda to become a pornographic actress. By 1972, Linda begins working on a film, Deep Throat, in which she uses her new stage name "Linda Lovelace".
The film becomes a huge success, making over $30,000 at the box office in its first week. After it becomes a worldwide phenomenon, Linda is interviewed by a variety of print and radio reporters and becomes the subject of late-night television humor. Her life is seen as exciting and glamorous, and Linda poses nude, and attends parties, weekly.
During a private screening in Los Angeles, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner convinces Linda that she has the potential to be more than a pornographic actress. However, Chuck's violent and cruel nature is gradually exposed and Linda's life is revealed not to be as perfect as it seems. Chuck seemingly chokes Linda during sex, refusing to stop when she asks, and later forces her into prostitution at gunpoint.
A battered Linda soon visits her parents seeking to move back in. Despite telling them of Chuck's dominating abuse towards her, Dorothy encourages Linda to endure her ordeal as their religion forbids divorce. When learning that Linda has been discussing a new salary with the film's director, Gerard Damiano, without telling him, an enraged Chuck punishes her by making Linda shower in freezing cold water.
Years after Deep Throat's success, Chuck tries to persuade Linda to do another pornographic film. When Linda refuses, a now sadistic Chuck takes her to a "party" where Linda is gang raped. Her attempts to escape result in Chuck sleeping on top of Linda, almost suffocating her.
The following day, Linda secretly meets with Anthony Romano, telling him she wants out of the pornography industry and also revealing the abuse inflicted on her by Chuck. Disgusted, Romano has her checked into a private hotel while he and his bodyguards attack Chuck for abusing Linda and for the $25,000 he owes.
Six years later, Linda marries Larry Marchiano, moves to Long Island and has a young son. Linda later takes a polygraph test before publishing her autobiography Ordeal, which details years of Chuck's physical and sexual abuse, as well as his stealing all of her earnings. Linda appears on Donahue, and her distraught parents break down in tears while watching her. A few days later, the Marchianos travel to Florida for Linda to reconcile with her parents.
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