Ex-Actress Who Played Three-Breasted Hooker in 'Total Recall' Spills All
There was a lot to love about Total Recall – the 1990 original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, not that cheap 2012 rip-off with Colin Farrell – yet for most who saw it, there’s one image that comes to mind that will forever remain Recall’s can’t-unsee moment: the three-breasted hooker on Mars.
We haven’t heard much from Lycia Naff, the actress who played the extraterrestrially endowed Mary, in recent years. Naff appeared in only five roles post-Recall, all of them one-episode appearances on TV shows (The Flash, the old, that is, Father Dowling Mysteries, Law & Order, Without a Trace and Ghost Whisperer). Her last screen moment came in 2008.
But in perhaps the British media’s greatest coup since revealing what the Raising Arizona baby looks like 27 years later, the Daily Mail not only found Naff, but enlisted her to write a first-person account of her experience on the set of Paul Verhoeven’s actioner and the infamy that followed (the piece is framed in reaction to the Florida hoaxer who claimed she had three breasts this week, but who really needed a reason for it?).
It’s a candid piece, well worth the full read, but if you’ve only got three minutes to spare, here are some of the highlights:
She didn’t know they’d be shown “in the flesh.” It should be noted that none of the breasts were actually real flesh – all were designed by special effects maven Rob Bottin. Naff was under the impression that the faux cleavage would remain under her blouse, that is until “Verhoeven said during one take, ‘Ok Lycia, now open your blouse and show Arnold your wares,’ I literally teared up. I was horrified and shy.”
It took makeup artists 8 hours each day to prepare the prosethetics. Thankfully it was just a bit part.
She made $2,500 for the week-long gig. Verhoeven hired Naff for the role without audition because he knew she could handle the prosthetics after directing and dressing her as a Neanderthal in 1986’s Clan of the Cave Bear.
Naff has a great comeback when asked about her third boob, which is constantly. ”I say, ‘I had it removed. It’s in a jar on my desk.’”
She says Arnold was a flirt. Despite the fact that the actor-turned-governor’s then-wife Maria Shriver was visiting the Mexico City production, Naff remembers Schwarzenegger still tried to charm the ladies on set. “A kindly stunt man warned me that Schwarzenegger may hit on me. This was the guy’s actual warning: ‘He’s already tapped every girl here, so you might be next.’”
Naff quit acting and later became an investigative reporter. “Fame isn’t what it’s cracked up to be,” she says.
The day of her famous scene, Naff had diarrhea all day. And this may well be the point where the tell-all veered into TMI territory.
Photo: Tri-Star
