photos: Alan Mercer Lighting & styling: Eric Venturo
Lulu Roman is an animated, joyful personality, who is naturally upbeat. Our photo session was easy and fun thanks to her warm and gracious manner. Eric Venturo and I enjoyed working with this good natured artist. She wasn't always this woman. After enduring and surviving a rough childhood and a ten year drug addiction, she has proven herself to be a winner with a successful Gospel music career. Prior to this she was, among other things, a stripper for the infamous Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas, and a regular cast member of the long running TV show 'Hee Haw.' Lulu was inducted into the Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999 along with Andy Griffith, Barbara Mandrell, and Loretta Lynn. Not bad for a former hippie kid.
AM: Hello Lulu. I think anyone who knows a little about you knows you have had a notorious life.
LR: Yes they do!
AM: Weren't you a go-go dancer?
LR: I worked in the strip joints for Jack Ruby.
AM: Tell me about that.
LR: He had already gone to jail by then but he had interest in a couple of clubs in downtown Dallas and I worked there first.
AM: How old were you then?
LR: I was nineteen and twenty.
AM: Did you have any moral issues about stripping?
LR: No. I was the flasher. I was a hippie kid so I didn't care.
AM: You were quite a bit heavier then weren't you?
LR: Oh yeah I was 320 lbs. back then. I got all the way up to 380 before I started losing weight.
AM: Can you tell me about your childhood?
LR: I was born in a home for unwed mothers. A couple of years later I was dropped off in an orphans home in Dallas. That's where I spent my childhood because they didn't adopt fat kids.
AM: How long did you stay there?
LR: I got to stay until I graduated. It was not the happiest times. At any given time there was 800 to 1000 kids in that place. All they wanted to do was herd us around and keep us in order. If you were not in order you got beaten pretty good.
EV: How did they punish you?
LR: To punish us they would take strips of linoleum and whack you on the hands with them. They did all sorts of strange things.
EV: That sounds like Catholic school.
LR: No kidding. It was Baptist. I've blocked out so many years of that because my little fat heart was so broken and so wounded. I just started to get mad. By the time I got out of that place I was really pissed off. They sent us to public school the last three years I was there. When I was 16 years old I learned how to do drugs. By the time I got out I was already a drug addict.
AM: What type of drugs were you doing?
LR: Speed mostly. I smoked a lot of dope. I got arrested twice for procession. I just got an expungement. I was pardoned a while back but I didn't know you had to have them expunged to get them off your record. I just got the paper work last week. It has all been obliterated off the records.
AM: That is great and so deserving. You say you were pissed off and I wonder how could you not be bitter?
LR: I was a broken, wounded soul. I was so mad.
AM: How long was this before Hee Haw?
LR: I had my experience with the Lord in 1973 so from 1964 to 1973 was a wild time. I was a hippie kid who was not into Country music. I was listening to Jimi Hendryx and Grand Funk Railroad. I ate acid and ran around in water fountains. My vocabulary was pretty bad. I did a lot of things that I made bad choices about, but I was so angry I didn't realize it. I was by myself. I didn't think anyone would ever take care of me.
EV: How did you react to people back then?
LR: If you got too close I wanted you out of my space. I had tire chains and I would wrap them around my wrists. I was a mean mama. I was a tough broad.
AM: How did you change so dramatically?
LR: I'll tell you what I discovered. If you have no concept of what love is on any degree you have no fear because there is nothing to lose... and that's where I lived. In 1973 my oldest son Damon was born addicted to drugs and they came and told me he was going to die. That was the first time I thought about a higher calling. I was in no place to fold my hands together and pray (in a meek child voice) 'Dear God Will you help me?' No I was more (in a gruff deep voice) 'Yo Dude if you are real I will make a deal with you.' I said if you give me my kid I won't do anything except what you want me to do. I've since discovered that God has a plan for us. I've been walking with the Lord for 36 years.
AM: But you did not believe in God when your first son was born?
LR: That never crossed my mind for one second back then. I thought if there is a God I don't care anything about him because he threw me away. I never had a Momma, or a Daddy, or a brother, or sister, or a room of my own, or a puppy. I don't remember even having a doll. I just remember being the fat kid . People were just insane to me because I was the outcast.
AM: Do you have more children?
LR: Yes I have two sons and my youngest got married on April 15. I said to him, 'You got married on Tax day.'
EV: At least he will always remember his anniversary.
LR: That's what he said. This way he wouldn't forget.
AM: When did you realize that you had humor?
LR: I think I knew that from a real early age because it became a security blanket for me. I used to get in trouble all the time at the orphanage and I realized I could make people laugh with me. I know that humor is an innate ability that God puts in some people and I think I got it because of my upbringing. It's always been a part of who I am.
AM: How did you get an audition for Hee Haw?
LR: I met Buck Owens working in those nightclubs honey. He fell in love with my girlfriend and I had a fling with one of his band members. Honey I set that boy free. He was in love with me.
AM: Didn't you get fired from Hee Haw?
LR: They never really said I was fired. The producer Sam, who is like my father, said the cast is worried the sponsors are going to take our show off the air because you have been busted twice.
EV: Did Buck Owens stand up for you?
LR: Buck Owens is the one who got me on the show but he was mad and said get her out of here. They decided to put me off to the side and not use me as much. Nobody ever said, 'You are fired.' I was off for a whole season and the whole time I was off Sam took care of me. He paid my bills and went to the courts with me. I was in his custody.
AM: Is that how you got back on Hee Haw?
LR: About a year later I came back to California and went to the Hee Haw office and I was drug free so they let me back on the show. The producers told me I could sing my Gospel music as long as I didn't sing about Jesus. They were Jewish and didn't want that. I got a truck load of songs honey that say Lord and Savior so it wasn't a problem.
AM: Have you noticed your audiences in Gospel music increasing over the last 36 years?
LR: Oh yes. It's been a good ride. It really has. I really believe that I was born to do what I am doing now. I am supposed to sing and tell people my story. People need to know that there is hope. They need to know that God is real and he WILL take care of you if you let him take care of you. You have to make the choice and say OK I believe in you, so do it. Take care of me. Do it. People often think to themselves that they have done way too much bad and that God will never accept them.
AM: Do you think you have released your past?
LR: Yes I do. Most of the time.
AM: How did you process all of this?
LR: When I moved to Nashville in 1991 I was being counseled by a few real good people. What I realized was that I was going to have to make a choice to forgive. It took me years to get this done. I had to go all the way back and forgive that family for giving me away. I had to forgive God for letting it happen. I had to forgive myself for all the stupid choices I made. But I found out something really remarkable.
AM: What was that?
LR: When you make a choice to forgive that person who so mortally wounded you, that person no longer defines who you are. There are so many people walking around out there that are so mortally wounded because they have been so abused. For years I woke up every morning and would say OK God I choose to forgive today, but I wouldn't feel it. I just kept saying over and over again I choose to forgive, I choose to forgive and then one day you wake up and it is gone.
AM: It sounds like you had to make a concentrated effort.
LR: Yes I did have stay concentrated on it.
AM: Forgiveness isn't about the other person is it?
LR: No it all has to do with you. If you don't learn to forgive it will eat you up. Anger and resentment make you sick. I tell people that I am now so good at it I can almost forgive people on the spot.
AM: So you minister to people now.
LR: Yes that's what I do. I sing and tell them my story. I let them ask me questions.
EV: It's been a pleasure to get to know you Miss Lulu. You are a true Phoenix rising out of the ashes.
LR: Thank you very much.
AM: What an important person you are to be such a healer. I always knew that I would love you.
LR: Thank you, I love you too. It's just in the last three or four years that I am allowing myself to really feel the love from other people. Society taught me to hate myself because I was fat. Since I've lost the weight and people are still around, I am learning to be loved.
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