She was the biggest star in adult entertainment before tragically ending her own life at 23.
Shannon Wilsey, best known by her stage name Savannah, took the industry by storm in the early ’90s.
At the height of her fame, she dated a slew of actors and rock stars, starred in mainstream films, was chauffeured around in limousines and was treated like an A-lister on the set of her X-rated movies.
By 1994, when Savannah killed herself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, she was broke, battling drugs, and in despair that she would never work again following a car accident that damaged her face.
She grew up in a broken home to a teenage mother and a father who didn’t claim her as his own, and was molested as a child.
By 16, she was doing drugs and was in a relationship with ’70s rocker Gregg Allman – who was 40 at the time.
She traveled around the country with the thrice-married crooner on his tour bus and even appeared in some of his music videos.
‘She liked the fact that he bought her expensive things that we never could,’ her mother Pam Longoria told E!’s True Hollywood Story.
Shannon Wilsey aka Savannah was the biggest star in adult entertainment before tragically ending her own life at 23
According to her uncle, Savannah started doing heroin at this time and would even have it mailed to her house when she wasn’t on the road with Allman.
The rocker eventually split with the teenager once she turned 18 and she moved back to California to get her young life in order.
She started taking classes to finish high school and began doing topless modelling and competing in bikini contests.
Bouncing back from Allman, Savannah found love with another rock star, guitarist Billy Sheehan, who was 17 years her senior.
In 1990, she was arrested and charged with a DUI, and just weeks later, she totaled Sheehan’s Corvette, which ended their relationship.
By 19, she had joined the porn industry and was on the fast track to fame and fortune.
She reportedly showed up two hours late to film her first adult movie, a girl-on-girl flick titled No Boys Allowed, and demanded heroin on set.
When the crew refused to provide her with illegal drugs, she settled for Valium to get her through the scene.
Savannah took the industry by storm in the early ’90s and even managed to crossover into mainstream fame
Savannah’s movies all became best sellers and she quickly established herself as the most popular star in porn
Despite being in the adult industry, Savannah rubbed shoulders with mainstream stars like Mark Wahlberg
She developed a serious cocaine addiction and fell into a new relationship with fellow porn star Jeanna Fine.
Around the same time, she started being pimped out to porn producers.
‘Once a week they would come in a limo and pick her up and she had to do certain things,’ photographer Micky Ray told E!.
‘She had to do favors. The way I understood it, she just got in the car and went for a ride… Once or twice she came back and she had tears in her eyes.’
In 1991, Savannah signed with Vivid Video, which was the biggest company in the adult industry at the time.
With Vivid behind her, Savannah quickly became the biggest star in porn.
‘She was the most popular girl that we had under contract,’ Vivid CEO Steven Hirsch said.
‘We were certainly guaranteed that her sales would be higher than any other girl that we’d had under contract at that time.’
She started dating a string of famous faces, including Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil, actor Pauly Shore, and allegedly Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, although he has denied it.
‘She was beautiful, I loved everything about her,’ Neil gushed.
‘Gorgeous, great in bed. There’s nothing she wouldn’t try or do,’ he continued.
Savannah fell in love with the Motley Crue rocker, but he had other ideas when it came to their future together.
‘I think she thought that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but I was going through a divorce at the time and I think she maybe thought it was a little more serious than it was,’ he said flippantly.
By age 16, Savannah was doing drugs and was in a relationship with ’70s rocker Gregg Allman – who was 40 at the time
Savannah fell in love with Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil, but he later described her as a ‘partying buddy’ rather than a serious girlfriend
Describing Savannah as a ‘partying buddy’ instead of a potential wife, Neil dumped the heartbroken blonde.
She moved on with comedian Shore, who was at the height of his fame thanks to his VJ gig on MTV.
Not afraid to flaunt their romance publicly, Shore took Savannah as his date to the 1991 MTV VMAs and even introduced her to his family.
As Savannah’s fame and bank account grew, so did her ego.
She leased a lavish house in the Hollywood hills, bought a Corvette and a wardrobe full of designer clothes, and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Mark Wahlberg and David Lee Roth.
But the star became increasingly difficult to work with, often showing up late for shoots and sometimes completely abandoning work gigs at a moment’s notice to go party instead.
Like a Hollywood diva, Savannah had a long list of demands on set, from her own makeup artist to wine in her dressing room.
‘I often say she was a spoiled, Hollywood brat,’ porn director Paul Thomas previously said.
‘She could be very inconsiderate and very loud in her inconsiderateness,’ he added.
When she won Best New Starlet at the 1992 AVN Awards – known as the Oscars of porn – Savannah, seemingly intoxicated, said during her acceptance speech: ‘I know a lot of you don’t like me, but that’s tough. I got my award.’
Savannah moved on with comedian Pauly Shore, who was at the height of his fame thanks to his VJ gig on MTV
Not afraid to flaunt their romance publicly, Shore took Savannah as his date to the 1991 MTV VMAs and even introduced her to his family
Like a Hollywood diva, Savannah had a long list of demands on set, from her own makeup artist to wine in her dressing room
Despite her attitude, some in the industry defended her behavior.
‘She was very discriminated against because she was so big and didn’t take any shit from anyone,’ her manager Nancy Pera told the Los Angeles Times.
‘She made big money. She knew her value.’
Despite becoming one of the industry’s highest-paid stars, Savannah’s bank account couldn’t keep up with her exorbitant spending habits and out of control drug problem.
Her fame was already starting to dwindle by 1994 and future superstars like Jenna Jameson were beginning to enter the industry.
Depressed after being dumped by another rocker and owing money to the IRS, Savannah booked herself for a nude dancing spot at a club called Lace.
At the time, feature dancing at nightclubs was one of the most lucrative gigs for porn stars – and Savannah was hoping to bank $5,000 a night stripping at Lace.
The gig was supposed to bail Savannah out of the financial hole she was in, but in typical fashion, she spent the weekend partying.
At 2am, she crashed her Corvette into a white picket fence on her way home and broke her nose.
In a frantic call to her manager, Savannah wailed, ‘I’ve just had a horrible car accident. I broke my nose. It’s bleeding really bad and I’ve hit my head. You have to take me to the hospital.’
When Pera arrived, she found Savannah lying in a pool of blood in her garage next to a handgun.
Describing the horrific scene, Pera said, ‘It looked like she had a big flower on the side of her head.’
The death was ruled a suicide, with Los Angeles Police Detective Mike Coffey saying at the time, ‘She was not happy with her life as a whole, everything in her life.’
Both Pera and the LA police believe that Savannah, at the end of her rope, may have deemed her car accident as the final straw in a series of bad events.
With her face injured from the crash, she would be unable to attend her lucrative club gig at a time when she desperately needed the money.
In one of her final conversations with mom Pam, Savannah expressed that she wanted to leave the porn industry behind but was afraid that ‘nobody would accept her’ in mainstream society.
The coroner’s toxicology analysis that she had been drinking and using cocaine on the night of her car accident.
The report also stated that ‘financial troubles and prior molestation complaints’ had contributed to her suicide.
‘She was a very unhappy person at the end,’ her former boss Hirsch told E!.
‘I think she felt like she was losing it all. She was losing her career, she was getting older, and she felt that this was the best way that she could handle it.’
