Lady Chatterley's Stories

Lady Chatterley's Stories is an erotic softcore TV show that aired on Showtime where it continues running in syndication to this day.

Lady Chatterley's Stories
Created byPolly Quennel
StarringShauna O'Brien
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes17
Production
Running time0:25
Release
Original networkShowtime
MRG Entertainment
Original release2000 –
April 21, 2001

Premise

The show featured Shauna O'Brien as Lady Constance Chatterley, a land broker by day and at night a sexual psychiatrist to her friends and exclusive clients inside her secluded mansion. Constance is known for her taste for the sexually exotic and the ability to take an unflinching look into the sex lives of her and her clients and friends. Each episode treats the viewer to a provocative and arousing story punctuated by highly charged erotic sequences.

The series featured other notable softcore stars, including Gabriella Hall, Kim Dawson, Holly Sampson, Veronica Hart, Susan Featherly, and Shannan Leigh.

The show's name appears to be derived from Lady Chatterley's Lover, a controversial novel by D.H. Lawrence published in 1928.

Production

The show was the result of a long line of late-night cable TV erotic series such as Erotic Confessions, Women: Stories of Passion, and Beverly Hills Bordello that emerged in the middle-to-late 1990s which placed an emphasis on women-centered stories where the women were in control and could be sexually independent and become actual experts in the art and science of romance and seduction. These series also served as a virtual training ground and stable, continuous employment for many a B-actress in between their movie roles.

In early 2000, Showtime joined forces with Mainline Releasing Group (more popularly known as MRG Entertainment) to create a 15-episode erotic series to run on late-night weekends.(MRG had produced a similar series, Bedtime Stories, for rival cable channel Cinemax.) Polly Quennel was brought in as executive producer and Rebecca Lord was brought in as director. In an effort to create a totally different lead character than the usual professional sex expert in other series, they decided to utilize the famous lead character from D. H. Lawrence's classic novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover but with a more modern 21st Century, independent, sexually liberated woman.

For this series, however, Lady Chatterley would become a successful real estate broker by day, and a party girl/sex expert/faux counselor by night who would create innovative ways and means to solve her friends' sexual relationship problems....all while getting her field-playing time on her own.

When it came time to cast the pivotal role of Lady Chatterley, a conflict arose between the President of Showtime Networks and the series creators who were supported by some of the lower-level executives at Showtime. Many actresses tried out for the lead role with it coming down to two: Chloe Nicholle, a middle-level hardcore adult actress better known as Chloe with limited experience and even less name recognition in the B-movie/cable TV market; and Shauna O'Brien, January 1992 Penthouse Pet and a 10-year veteran of B-movies.

The Showtime president favored O'Brien because of her impressive qualifications and experience. She also fit into his philosophy of the erotic cable series. The series brass and lower execs favored Nicholle because they thought that she would be more suitable for the pushing of erotic boundaries that they wanted to accomplish. The second group — in direct violation of the president's orders, and while he was away on company business — pulled off a coup-d'état by giving Nicholle the lead role and began filming, production, and promotion of the series. They were able to complete production of the first two episodes; however, this ended when the Showtime president returned from his trip and found out about their actions. Production stopped, Nicholle was fired and O'Brien hired to take over the lead role, taking over the role beginning with the third episode.

Episode list
  1. "A Real Man"
  2. "Does He Have a Brother?"
  3. "Secrets"
  4. "Substance of Desire"
  5. "Fantasy"
  6. "Satisfaction"
  7. "The Manuscript"
  8. "The Wager"
  9. "One Night Stand"
  10. "Passion"
  11. "Switch"
  12. "The Husband"
  13. "A Few Moments in Time"
  14. "Before and After"
  15. "Mystery Lover"
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References
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