Interview with April Hunter

"America's Wild Child"

It's Saturday night. I get a call from Hipps on Staten Island. "Sophie, where are you? I thought you were coming to interview April Hunter!" "Oh, yeah, this is her week? I'll be right there!"

I get to the club, I have high fever, can barely walk, I pray that no cop stops me. I drive like I am drunk. I watch the show, write it up, but I am not up for an interview. April and I make a "date" on the phone the Tuesday coming. When I call, at 11 pm, her roadie says "Sorry, Sophie, April is upstairs mourning. She got news that her father died in a plane crash today." Wow, this is horrible. I remember, as if it was on film, what it was like to learn about my parents' death. I don't wish it to anybody, it was like the end of the world.

I decide to give April a week to recover. A real trouper, she sends me a note to remind me of the call, and also to let me know about the memorial service of her dad, how beautiful it was, and how many people loved and admired him.

Tuesday comes, and I forget to call. Then the phone rings. It's April. Jeez, I am unprepared, I don't know what to ask, my tape recorder is not ready, it's on the wrong phone line. I fumble. I miss about five minutes from the beginning of the conversation. Here is the rest of it; I edited it for crispness' sake, but I did not change a bit.



Sophie: When did you start to dance?

April Hunter: A year after high school. We'd never had a whole lot of money. When I finally got money in my pocket, (from dancing. Ed.) I was buying my friends things, I was buying my mom things, buying myself thing and my brother things, whatever anybody wanted. I figured I could make more, so I would treat everybody. I learned how to save money only in the last few years.

Sophie: Who taught you?

April: My dad. He was not happy when I started dancing. I'd lived with my dad in Alabama where I was raised a nice southern girl. My mom lived here. When I was eight I was kind of wild so my mom shipped me off to my dad's.

Sophie: Your name still has a wild sound to it.

April: (Ha-ha) Actually, April is my real name and Hunter is my brother's name. I was so used to hearing Hunter and April, April and Hunter, that I just thought it fit.

Sophie: Did you get your first dancing job in Alabama?

April: No. In Pennsylvania. I came up here, I was sixteen and it a was culture shock to come from there to here. I graduated, worked in the mall for a year and then started dancing.

Sophie: You are quite at home with the pace up here. Is your metabolism high or just your inner pace?

April: Probably just my inner pace. I have to do a lot of cardio (workout Ed.) to keep my metabolism up. I'm not as thin as I would like to be

Sophie: It looks good on you.

April: Thank you. It's funny, women think they should weigh ten pounds less than what men think they should.

Sophie: Well on photographs, yes.

April: Okay, women and their photographers. It's difficult, I tend to photograph thick through the legs and rear.

Sophie: Well you are a thick type. Anyway, I was blown away at the transformation in the dressing room and then on stage and off stage; you have so many faces.

April: I like being on stage. I like my job. I'm lucky to be able to do it. I remember, very vividly, what it was like to have a job, work 50 hours a week and barely make my bills. I quit dancing for a year three or four years ago, moved down to Florida and decided to do something other than dancing. I couldn't make it. I worked three jobs and when winter came they were laying everybody off. I was working at a hair salon, at a gym and I was waitressing.

Sophie: You don't have any learned profession?

April: I went to college for three years. I'm good at typing and I'm good at English.

Sophie: Well, when you set up your web site, those are going to be very important assets.

April: I see that now. I just started to deal with my web-site today. Hey, at least I got to use some brain cells for once. But I do like my job. I love meeting people, I like playing dress up, I like dancing.



Sophie: You seem to have a lot of room for people. I appreciate the way you were with the guys when you did the basketball thing on stage. You seemed like a real person as you were rooting for them. I'm not surprised that you did so well on the personal items sales.

April: It ended up being a great club. I didn't expect it to be. I expected a "New York jaded attitude" and it wasn't there. I like when guys like to play and like to watch the show. Sometimes I go places and people don't even want to pay any attention to what's going on. You could pull both lips up over your head and it doesn't matter, they won't watch. (ha-ha)

Sophie: Then why do they go to a gentlemen's club?

April: I don't know. Why pay those outrageous beer prices if you're not going to be entertained. You could go to a sports bar.

Sophie: Which states are you talking about?

April: Cleveland, Ohio. Certain parts of Florida, like West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

Sophie: Did you take time, when you were off the stage, to see if these people were watching the local girls? I'm curious if it was a reaction to you, if it was a reaction to "feature."

April: I don't know. Sometimes I know it's me. I know I can't please everybody.

Sophie: No. In certain areas you don't have the preferred body type. I don't think that Ft. Lauderdale likes your type.

April: I think in Ft. Lauderdale they like very thin willowy models. Most of my bookings have been down South. I'm now just starting to get hired in New England. I've worked a lot in the Midwest too, like Ohio and Michigan.

Sophie: I think you are going to do well in the North. You have energy and you even look energetic when you don't move. It's very attractive.

April: Thanks. That whole night ended up real good at Hipps. The first night I didn't have time to feel the guys out. By the second night I had more of a concept of what would work.

Sophie: Tell me, if somebody told you that they didn't like you, what would you do? How would you handle that?

April: First I would be upset. Then I'd try to figure out what I can do to make them like me. I'm stuck there for a while, so I might as well make the best of it.

Sophie: So you would recover.

April: Yes, you can't take it personally. I found out that not everyone's going to like me. I am in a club somewhere, trying to put on a show and I am naked, and I am trying to entertain, and some people don't like me. Maybe they resent me for some reason. For the most part I can turn it around and work with it.

Sophie: Have you ever managed to make someone like you who originally didn't like you?

April: Yes. I was in Alabama one time, and there was a bunch of guys from Connecticut or New York in the audience. I had all my stuff up on the pool table, and they came up to me and started looking through everything. They were looking at me like they couldn't believe that I would do this stuff. One guy was pretty much calling me a pig. They were looking through everything and shaking their heads, making little comments to each other. So the next set I went out and wore a business suit like they were wearing. I went out and did my hole set and played up to them and did that whole thing, They came back and bought two magazines and two Polaroids, and they said, "You were great".

So it happens. But for the most part, the guys are good. I meet more inconsiderate people waiting in line for gas or at the grocery store than I do at the strip bars.



April on self-promotion

Sophie: I remember some time ago you were involved in a public debate between porn stars and magazine models about the going fees. I interviewed Vanessa Del Rio about a month ago. The debate came up and she told me that clubs pay for draw, how many people come in just to see the feature.

April: They do. If you are a magazine model, a porn star will kick your butt in draw every time. I've heard though that nowadays you have to be in at least two hundred movies just to get your name out here, because there are so many pretty girls doing this.

Sophie: I don't know the exact situation, but there is this girl Dallas from California, and I used to talk to her through e-mail a lot. She has more than one hundred and thirty videos. I published something that she wrote and it was phenomenal. It was lewd. It was about how she met her husband how they went on to do porno movies. It was written well, and she brought a completely different air to my magazine. Never before has there been a four letter word. But it was written by a woman, so it wasn't like guy talk, which I don't let slip into the magazine. People read it, liked it, but they had no idea who Dallas was. I asked and nobody knew who she was. I went to adult stores and nobody knew and she had made one hundred and thirty movies.

April: I've never heard of her either.

Sophie: You see!

April: I think, unless you came into it in the time that say Vanessa Del Rio did, this is what happens. Did Vanessa come to you for the interview?

Sophie: Yes.

April: Vanessa is smart. A lot of these girls are so lazy. They think that because they've done these movies, they're just going to go to the club and just be great. I've heard of Vanessa Del Rio over and over again. I've never seen her movies, but I've heard of her. But I think a lot of features out there are lazy. They don't bother with promotions. They think someone is going to take care of it, but your agent will not take care of it. It is up to you. Your entire paycheck is up to you.

Sophie: I'll tell you something. I am also a success coach and a consultant. I was talking to this guy who signed up for one of my courses on unlimited wealth. It turned out that he had been waiting all of his life to be invited. He is thirty-eight years old. He has never invited himself to anything that he wanted. And that is an attitude that is way more frequent than one would imagine. Features are no exception. Not every girl takes her career seriously.

April: I don't understand. Why go halfway across the country, and not go the extra mile to make sure it's not in vain. We already have to go and do so much, it's tough with all this travel, you don't know where you're going. I've gone all the way from Georgia to Detroit, and this club in Detroit was a Canadian club, and I was walking off stage with between four and twelve dollars for three shows a night. I wasn't making any money so I was glad I was getting the paycheck. But you never know. That's happened a few times where you just weren't going to make any money. You might as well see if you can bring in as many people as you can.

So what you said about the guy waiting to be invited, you are right. That is a very common attitude. There are so many people out there, so much competition, and so many beautiful girls, the only way you're going to get in the door is if you kick it down, or you get lucky.

Sophie: Well you just have to have that attitude. If you look: Melissa Wolf, you and maybe Vanessa Del Rio; who else is willing to actively promote themselves as a business? Every time Melissa comes to this area, she sends me a card and invites me for breakfast and she sends me a stack of pictures. She makes sure that I write her up, that I publish her pictures.



April on Travel

Sophie: Sorry. Tell me, what it is about travel, that is so appealing?

April: There is a few things. People are so different from one area to another. So one thing is that you become a little more worldly. If you grew up where I grew up, everybody is pretty much the same. I lived on a military base, so there were different people for the most part, but generally everybody I grew up with was middle class white American, that were Christian. You always hear stuff about Blacks or Jewish people, or people from Poland, or whatever, but you never meet any. Through traveling I learned that there is so much more holidays, food, customs, it's different and you learn a little bit from everybody. You go out with different people. You go out with an Italian guy or a Greek guy, or a guy from Ireland and you learn a little bit that way. I've found people in Portland Oregon to be so different than the people in Alabama. I think also, if you go into a strange town and you have to practically live there for six to eight days, you have to find out, on your own, where's the post office, where's the grocery store, where's the gym and what is there to do around here. So it's almost like you have a mini residence in every little town.

Sophie: You develop some life skills.

April: You have to be not afraid to find things. You are going to get lost, and it is stressful. Especially when you have only a certain amount of time before you have to be at work. There is a lot of stress in getting lost, or getting directions. What if you get to town that has nothing in it. You won't be able to go to the gym or grocery store or anything. Or you're flying and you have to rely on everybody to take you somewhere, if you can't rent a car. A lot of girls can't rent cars because you have to be twenty five. So you are depending on one of the bouncers to take you everywhere. If you break a nail and you've got to get it done, you've got to beg someone to take you to a salon. Or you run out of whipped cream for you show you have to see if someone will be nice enough to pick up a couple of cans for or you have to find it yourself. You learn how to work with people or you learn how to do it yourself. You become very independent.

When you live at home, you can always call on your friends or family to pick up the slack, but when you're in the middle of Iowa, it's just you and your roadie. You have to figure things out for yourself so that gives you a different perspective. Traveling is an adventure. It is totally an adventure. You don't know where you're going.

Sophie: So if you don't like adventure then it's bad. That's interesting, because I don't like adventure, and this is the third country that I've lived in.

April: I know that you've lived in two countries, and you travel around to different clubs. What is the second country that you've lived in?

Sophie: Israel. I lived there for three and a half years. You will fall in love with it if you go. It is beautiful. It is so exotic.

April: I am dying to go and just get out of this country and go for maybe four months. and not even work. I have this thing a call my "European fund." I put a little money into it here and there. I just want to go.

Sophie: Go to Italy. There is no place with more beauty and culture than Italy.

April: Yes. And the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Greece.

Sophie: Go to the Netherlands and you won't want to come home. You belong there. Your entire build and your attitude and your colors, you'll fit in hundred percent.

April: That is where my mom is from.

Sophie: It shows. Certain parts of your face are completely Dutch. Your chin, completely Dutch.

April: Plus my height and my build.

Sophie: That is the first country where I didn't want to leave. When I was in England I was eighteen and a family wanted to adopt me. I'm from a communist country, so everybody thought I shouldn't go back. I went back because I knew that my father would go to jail or something. But anyway, I wasn't very fond of the country. I couldn't see myself living there. It was so stiff, and I am anything but stiff.

April: I always wanted to see England when I was a teenager, but then I started reading about it and learning more about it, and I thought, maybe not. One of the great things I love about this job is that I meet so many people that are not from America. I ask them so many things like, "Why are you here? Do you like it? How long have you been here? What are the major differences? Do you miss home?" I get to hear all these cool stories.

Sophie: People must appreciate it so much. So few people are interested.

April: It's got to be hard. I can't even imagine what it's like to leave your country and start over somewhere else. That's got to be so horrible.

Sophie: Actually, it's not that different from going from one state to another and living in a hotel and having to get your nail done (ha-ha) and having to find the grocery store. It's the same thing.

April: People speak another language, the signs are in another language, they drive on the other side of the road.

Sophie: Yes. And nodding means possibly no, possibly yes. Right. You have learned a lot of skills that are necessary to move to another country.

April: I was thinking that everything in this country is built on the fact that everyone can come here. And if you have family members, they're going to want to come here. That's got to be so traumatic to just come to another country. For example, Mexicans, when you hear that there is so much work and money and opportunity, that you'll do anything to get yourself and your family into this country, and to have people treat you like that. I know for fact that if I were Cuban or Mexican I'd do what it took to get here. Especially if things were bad at home. I'd want to move my entire family here, to some place where I knew I could get work and take care of them.

Sophie: Not everybody is as adventurous as you are. I see your point and I see your compassion. It's very nice. And that is your strongest asset, by the way. Compassion and empathy come from the same place. It makes you unique.