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 an B-actresses 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.
Read more about this topic: Lady Chatterly's Stories
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