In all of the publicity hoopla surrounding the opening of the newly refurbished AMC Mainstreet Theatre, no one seems to be remembering the late Wanda Lust.
Wanda who?
No, not Wanda Lust (this link is seriously NSFW so you many not want to click it), the porn actress who stars in videos like Hooter Nation and The M.I.L.F. Next Door. Another Wanda Lust.
Nearly 30 years ago, Wanda Lust used to dress in a crisp nurses uniform and visit gay bars, where she'd hand out VD information. One night she decided she wanted to see a movie in the theater at 1400 Main Street -- then a four-plex known as the Empire 4. Before leaving the theater that night -- Tuesday, February 19, 1980 -- Wanda Lust was stabbed to death. For years after that date, stories began to circulate that Lust, better known as Stephen L. Jones, was hanging around in the theater. And not in a nurse's outfit.
"She was murdered after a screening of the horror movie The Fog," a friend of mine told me. "It's a movie about these ghostly zombies living in a fog, out to revenge their deaths."
The Kansas City Star's Robert Trussell reviewed The Fog severaldays before the murder and wrote: "This reviewer nervously chewed his
fingers and constantly shifted in his seat, preparing for the next
assault on the screen." Trussell also wrote the February 20 Star story
about the off-screen murder, explaining how 30-year-old Stephen L.
Jones -- there's no reference to his drag persona; his occupation is
listed as a disc jockey at the old Club Midwest gay bathhouse at 19 W.
39th St. -- had argued with three other patrons in the theater who were
talking loudly during the film.
A close friend of Stephen Jones told me, many years ago, that Jones' murder resonated in an already fearful gay community. He heard another local club performer, Lynzi Kay, telling people that Jones hadn't simply shushed the loud trio, but had told them to "shut the fuck up." The male in the group didn't take it very well and waited for Jones to walk toward the theater's side exit, then stabbed him in the chest. Jones was taken to Truman Medical Center and died moments later.
"The gossip in the bars, and this was decades ago, was that they found the punk that killed him out west, in Texas," said my friend. "And he went to jail."
The publicity surrounding the Jones murder, the decay of downtown
Kansas City and all the suburban shopping mall multi-plex cinemas
combined to kill off the Empire, which was finally shuttered for good
in 1985. It was a bittersweet ending for the once-grand downtown movie
palace that had opened as the 3,000-seat Main Street Theatre in 1921.
But beginning May 1, when the AMC Mainstreet Theatre opens in
the restored building, it'll be the first downtown movie theater in
decades (if you don't count the now-razed Old Chelsea porn house in the River Market).
Butif you ever feel tempted to tell a noisy fellow patron to pipe down,
don't be surprised if you feel a cold hand on your shoulder: Wanda Lust
may still be in the house.
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