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This past week I phoned Paul Thomas, former adult performer and film director, also known as PT. I’m heading out to LA shortly and was calling to set up a date with him and his wife. Seeing the two of them when I’m out west is one of my favorite things. It starts sitting together in their backyard under the Los Angeles sun, catching up on what’s been happening since my last visit. Then strolling slowly through the Venice canals as PT pontificates on one thing or another and his wife and I roll our eyes at him, before we end up at a local restaurant lingering over a meal and drinks.

PT’s wife picked up his phone. I said I was calling to make a date with them. She told me she’d found PT dead in their home a few hours earlier. She spoke with disbelief. PT had endured a few health challenges in recent years and apparently had been feeling ill over the past few days, but nobody saw this coming. On the contrary, he’d recently suggested to me that we all take a biking holiday together in the south of France.

PT’s wife said she couldn’t believe she’d never get to speak with him again. I feel the same way. PT and I had a playful relationship from the very start. While some found PT’s arrogance to be a flaw in his character, I always found it endearing – a feature, not a bug. And not because I enjoy egotism – humility is one of my favorite traits. But because with PT, you could put a pin in his balloon of self-importance and it would fast deflate, leaving us both laughing.

I last texted PT a few weeks ago to ask him what he remembered about a director of one of the old adult films he’d acted in. PT wrote back that the director was short and fat and could be overly prescriptive in choreographing the sex scenes. Then he countered saying actually the man was tall and skinny and that he left the performers to direct the scene themselves. Either way, he said, it was too early in the day to be sure, and that he was too sober to think properly about these questions. He wrote, “You know me well enough to know that I’d like to make up all sorts of shit right now because it would make good copy, but I know you don’t want me to stray too far from facts.”

He closed the text saying “We have much to talk about. I’ll leave the light on for you when you next come to California.”

He was one of the true originals: a talented performer, adult film director, husband, father, and my friend. I’m April Hall, and this is a reprise of my interview with PT. 

Please leave the light on for when we meet again.

This podcast is 169 minutes long.

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Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas, or PT as he’s typically known, is one of the iconic names of the adult film industry.

He was born Philip Toubus, and started out as a porn performer for the Mitchell Brothers in mid-1970s San Francisco. Until the last few years, was still in the business as a director.

During the past four decades, PT won every kind of adult award – from Best Actor to Best Director, and was inducted into every Hall of Fame the sex film industry has ever invented.

But there are two aspects to PT’s background that make his presence and success in adult film even more interesting.

First he came from a wealthy family – one that owned household-name businesses like Sara Lee and Jim Beam – and he was brought up in relative luxury.

And secondly, by the time PT started his career in sex films in his mid 20s, he’d already achieved considerable success and fame on stage in musical theater. He’d starred on Broadway in Hair and played the role of Peter in the 1973 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. In fact, he was being groomed by the William Morris Agency in Hollywood for a big career in mainstream television and movies.

So with all the money and success, what motivated PT to move into the newly formed adult industry – a business frowned upon by much of mainstream society, not to mention full of legal and reputational risks for its participants?

It all comes down to a series of questions: Why? Why did he do it, when he had so many alternatives? Why did he stay in the business for so long? And what effect has it had on him? These questions have stayed with PT to this day.

I’ve known PT for years, and we’ve talked about doing an interview for almost as long as I’ve known him. We actually started once, but after over five hours of conversation, we realized that we hadn’t even reached the time he’d started school, so we scrapped the idea.

Recently though we decided to try again, and this time I got PT to agree to a strict format. I would pick ten areas of his life that have shaped him. Ten provocations – in keeping with the biblical theme of his most famous role in Jesus Christ Superstar. I would ask him whatever I liked about these subjects – and nothing would be off the table. We’d cover adult films, both as an actor and as a director, his troubled relationships, his experiences with drugs, his multiple times in jail, and much, much more.

And we’d finally see if we could get closer to answering the question that has plagued PT for so long: why the hell did he go into, and stay in, the adult film industry?

This is the first time PT has told his story. These are the ten provocations of PT.

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Paul Thomas in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

 

Paul Thomas in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

 

 

 

 

 

PT and April Hall

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The post R.I.P. Paul Thomas (1949 – 2025) – Podcast Reprise appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Years ago, I first saw the 1970s adult film Barbara Broadcast (1977) on the big screen, and it made a big impression.

In the film, there’s a scene which shows a man standing behind an industrial kitchen worktable, a shirtless, mustached piece of beefcake that was Wade Nichols. Rugged yet pretty. Lean, toned, and handsome. He looked like the Marlboro man from the distant plains, if that cowboy had inexplicably turned up in New York and started moonlighting as a Manhattan sous-chef. He had the appearance of a man in love, or a rather a man in lust, most likely with himself. He was the perfect embodiment of the era, that made you wonder if you were to look up ‘1970s America’ in the dictionary, there could well be a picture of Wade Nichols there.

I immediately wanted to know more.

It turned out he’d been a prolific actor in many adult films over a four-year period in the late 1970s, much loved and much missed. Slowly over the years, I found other details, but often they were in the form of conflicting rumors.

Though he’d been the leading man in many straight sex films, he was supposedly gay, or maybe bisexual? Some remembered him better as the lead actor of a popular TV soap opera, while others said he was a big disco recording star who’d come close to being one of the original Village People. And then there was the question of how he’d died: it had been reported that he shot himself in 1985, but others insisted he was a victim of AIDS.

I was hooked on finding more. But because it was before the internet age, I had no way of finding out much about him. So, years ago, I started to track down anyone who had known him, from his family, to acquaintances from the New York club, bar, and disco scene, adult film actors and directors, music and television industry friends, and many more, to try and find who he really was. I ended up writing an article for The Rialto Report with the information I learned. But my interest didn’t end then, and I continued to track down, reach out, and contact anyone with memories of him.

This is Wade Nichols’ story –  in podcast form.

This podcast is 50 minutes long.

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Why is that so many of the movies we first saw as teenagers remain important and enduring to us for the rest of our lives? Same thing for the music and books that we discovered back then. And, why does it become rarer that we have that same deep connection to films we discover as we grow older?

Psychologists have suggested it’s because our teen years coincide with the period referred to as “the emergence of the stable and enduring self.” Basically, the thinking is that this period, occurring between the ages of 12 and 22, is the time when you become you. As a result, the experiences that contribute to this process become uncommonly, and disproportionately, important to you throughout the rest of your life. This is because they didn’t just contribute to the development of your self-image; they are part of your self-image. In other words, these experiences and memories become an integral part of your sense of self.

Ok, ok, so much for the theory, but what does that have to do with the life of an adult film actor who died 40 years ago?

The answer is that today’s story is personal. Well, all the stories that I cover are personal in some way, but this one is perhaps even more so than the rest.

When I first saw the 1977 adult film ‘Barbara Broadcast’ as a teenager, I knew nothing about the male lead, Wade Nichols, but he made an impression on my teenage self. I know, I shouldn’t have been in the porn theater in the first place. Wholly inappropriate, too young, etc. and so on. I get it. But I was there, and I watched it. And I liked the film. And yes, just like some of the other films I discovered then, it stayed with me in a strangely meaningful way. It’s part of the reason I wanted to find and tell the stories that I share on The Rialto Report, I think.

It became part of understanding that moment as a teen when I sat wide-eyed in a theater. Perhaps part of the memory that had created that sense of self all those years ago.

*

1. Freeport, NY (1950s):

The first information to know is that ‘Wade Nichols’ was really a fictional character, existing only for the sex film screen. Wade’s real name was Dennis Posa. He was of Italian heritage – a fact that he was proud of. I found out that Dennis’ father originally came from Casamassima, a small town in southern Italy. That was the first surprise to me in this story, because the summer before I saw ‘Barbara Broadcast’ all those years ago, I’d actually visited Casamassima as a young boy. I remember it being a tiny, picturesque place, notable mainly because it was called ‘The Blue Town’. That name dated back to the 1600s when a ship arrived in the nearby port of Bari bringing sailors who’d all been infected with the plague. They came ashore, and all hell broke loose. In a short time over 20,000 locals had died in the epidemic. In response, the most powerful Duke in the town ordered all of the buildings, monuments, and churches to be painted with quicklime mixed with sulphate copper. These chemicals slowed the spread of the plague from infected corpses by accelerating the decomposition of the bodies and thereby reducing the bacteria – and these chemicals were bright blue in color, meaning that the town literally turned blue overnight. It was a story that Dennis would tell over the years – joking that it was ironic that one of the biggest stars of blue movies had, in effect, come from the Blue Town.

After moving to America, Dennis’ father grew up in an Italian neighborhood of the Bronx. He was a popular kid and a small-time rogue, and he ran around with a bunch of minor league hoodlums and gamblers, getting in and out of trouble all the time. He hung out in jazz clubs where his friend, the noted jazz musician Johnny Guarnieri, headlined on piano with his band. Dennis’ mother was dating Johnny’s bass player, but when she met Dennis’ father, it was love at first sight – or something like that. They hooked up and got hitched the following year. Dennis’ father was 26, his mother was 20.

Once he was married, Dennis’ father felt he had to go straight, so the newlywed couple did the sensible thing and moved out to the commuter town of Freeport, NY, thirty miles east of Manhattan, on the south shore of Long Island. They rented an apartment, and his father got a job as a florist, while his mother worked in the children’s section of the local library.  And there they started a family – two boys, Richard and then Dennis, who was born in 1946.

A quick word about Freeport: it was a great place be in the summer, a popular and vibrant spot where people from Manhattan flocked to vacation, but the rest of the year, it was a little different – an anonymous, depressed, forgotten, and empty place – which made it pretty grim for residents.

I tracked down Dennis’ brother, Richard. Richard is a quiet-spoken friendly man, with a bemused but huge affection for his younger brother, and he was happy to share memories of their childhood. He fondly remembered their first years which he described as happy and good. Their father was a good-looking man and he was initially caring towards the boys. After a while though, something snapped: overnight, he seemed to lose interest in the family, and started to disappear for weeks at a time. When he returned, he’d fight with his wife – and sometimes get verbally abusive to the boys too.

It transpired that a big part of his problem was his gambling, and he regularly squandered the money that was meant for the family’s food. Richard remembered that Friday was the weekly food shop day, but often his father would just take the money and not return home. When this happened, it was usually because he’d fallen behind with bookies, and needed the cash to settle his debts.

On one occasion, the family found out that the bookies were threatening to break his legs if he didn’t pay up… so they helped him out and covered the debt for him. But he never paid them back, so the family joked that next time, they were going to be the ones breaking his legs.

Richard remembers that it all seems amusing now, but at the time, it had a destabilizing effect on them. It wasn’t a happy childhood any more, he said, and at times, home life became pretty uncomfortable. Dennis was the more daring of the two, and one time he decided he was going to go through their father’s affairs – where he found $8,000 worth of racing stubs. Bear in mind, in those days their father’s annual salary was only $5,000 a year, so this was a huge amount to be betting. Dennis wanted to confront him, and the brothers discussed it but, in the end, decided against the idea.

The boys weren’t the only ones suffering: the family problems took a toll on the boys’ mother as well. Just when the boys needed her the most, she became agoraphobic and withdrawn, afraid of leaving the apartment.

As a result of all this, neither boy were close to either parent, and initially, they weren’t particularly close to each other either. For a start, the two brothers were very different. Richard was studious, into reading, mathematics, and school work. Dennis liked artistic pursuits, preferring to draw, paint pictures, and make things, developing an interest in carpentry. But physically, there was no getting away from each other. The family apartment was small, and they shared a tiny room throughout their childhood years.

What they did have in common was a passion for their pets, and as kids they always had dogs and cats. Both boys were also keen members of the rifle team in High School – though their love for animals meant they had no interest in hunting.

While I was getting a sense of Dennis, I wanted to understand what he was like as a boy. What was his character like, I asked Richard? Did he have friends, and was he popular? Richard remembered that Dennis was initially quiet socially, but went through a sudden change when he was 13 or 14 – coincidentally when he had his tonsils taken out. Overnight, Dennis came out of his shell, becoming more energetic and outgoing, even something of an extrovert sometimes.

One aspect of Dennis didn’t change however – and that was his taste in music which stayed with him throughout his life. For a kid who came of age during the 1960s, at the tail end of rock n’ roll and amid the onset of Beatlemania, Dennis’s interest was unusual. He inherited his parent’s musical passion – which meant jazz, from traditional forms like Louis Armstrong to newer artists like Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck. “He would spend hours with his head next to the gramophone listening to jazz records,” one school friend remembered.

I asked Richard if he still had any pictures of Dennis from his teen years, and Richard sent me a selection. I was taken aback by what I saw. I was used to seeing Dennis from his adult films, looking sexual and virile, or from his music career where he embodied confident disco chic, or from his time in soap operas where he projected control and confidence. But these teenage black and white pictures were from a different period entirely, and showed someone I didn’t recognize. A geeky teenager with a crew cut, cross-eyed with unfashionable eye glasses, half-smiling self-consciously.

Later, I came across an interview that Dennis gave where he admitted as much: “I wasn’t very attractive as a young kid,” he said. “I was a loner so it was tough.”

I asked Richard about whether Dennis dated. Richard replied: “He didn’t date in High School, but I didn’t think much about it either. It just wasn’t something that we talked about. I do remember he used to look at the pictures of women in Playboy magazines – but that seemed normal… all of the boys did that. I certainly didn’t get a sense that Dennis’ sexuality was different from the rest of the boys.”

And so a geeky jazz-loving, animal-adoring, and gun-collecting Dennis graduated high school in 1964, an initially quiet then outgoing kid, who’d had a difficult home life. His last year book entry read, “Clever, quiet, and profound, Dennis will spread much goodwill abroad as a member of the Peace Corps.”

*

2. Philadelphia (Late 1960s)

Dennis didn’t seem to have a rebellious streak, but he did have a good number of reasons to leave home and start his own life with his own identity. Whatever plans he may have had to join the Peace Corps were abandoned in favor of heading a couple of hours south to Philadelphia to the city’s College of Art where he enrolled in a degree course studying pottery and design. I tracked down several college friends, and they told me that he was a happy and popular member of their circle. Some remembered he dated a couple of girls, taking one of them back to Freeport to meet the family. I was intrigued, and so pressed them on this, but none of them remember much more about his sexuality.

It was while he was a student in Philadelphia, that Dennis became interested in acting. In a later interview, Dennis said it started with a friend who had worked on the Beatles’ films. This person was making an avant-garde, short film called ‘For One Only’, and he wanted Dennis for the lead role. The film was made though apparently never released, but it was a turning point, and Dennis became hooked on acting after that. He started auditioning, one early success being for a 1966 traveling production of Euripides’ ‘The Trojan Women’.

After a couple of years in college in Philly, Dennis dropped out. Friends of his still disagree as to why: some say that it was money issues, others say that he wanted to pursue acting in a more concerted manner. Whatever the reason, over the next couple of years, Dennis appeared in a number of low budget theatrical productions in the area, while sustaining himself by picking up carpentry or construction work. It was the start of the typical life of a struggling actor.

But what of his future adult film career which was still almost ten years away? Were there any signs, any clues as to what was in his future? A few friends recall that when he was short of money, Dennis did nude modeling nude for still-life art classes at the college. I also found an interview where he later claimed that he appeared in a few ‘nudie-cutie loops’ while in Philadelphia. In this interview, Dennis said: “Some guy named Edwards got me into them – for money – good money in those days. I got $60. It was fine. Art students are notoriously poor. They were the old morality stag films… black socks, boxer shorts… but that was not really porno then. A lot of time we just stood and bounced around. There was very little story, no sound, and they were sold under the counter.” It’s a possible story, I suppose, but it seems unlikely given there is little other evidence and we’re talking about 1966 in Philadelphia. Certainly none have ever come to light.

But it was during this period that Dennis told the first of his friends that he thought he was gay. The female friends I spoke to weren’t surprised – though a few of them expressed disappointment: “He was such a gentle, sweet man,” one them, called Sylvia, said. “A lot of us had a secret crush on him, but deep down we always wondered.”

Dennis came out to his mother and father on one of his trips home to Freeport. This is how his brother Richard remembers the occasion: “In 1968, Dennis told our parents about his sexuality. He didn’t tell me at the time – I learned about it from a cousin. I don’t know much about these things, but my impression was that Dennis was bi-sexual.”

I asked Richard how his parents took the news. “Not that well,” he said. “My mother was squeamish about sex anyway, so she didn’t talk about it with anyone. As for my father, he told other people that he was heartbroken. That was difficult for Dennis. So I guess it was difficult for all of them.”

Not long after this, Dennis’ father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He’d been a heavy smoker all his life, and by the time he was in his 40s, he had emphysema and was in bad physical shape. When he became sick, it hit Dennis hard, and he started going back to Freeport every week to see him. His father died shortly afterwards in his mid-50s.

*

3. Move to New York

In 1968, Dennis moved to New York. He took an apartment at 25 East 38th St, which he’d keep for the rest of his life. It was a fifth-floor walk-up, a small rent-controlled place, and he paid $75 a month. It was basically a studio with a skylight and a tiny kitchen. There was a bedroom but Dennis used that as his art studio, and he slept on a pull-out sofa in the main room. It was an old building – when he took up the floorboards to lay down new flooring, he found newspapers that dated back to World War One. It was cramped, but Dennis loved it and was proud of his new space.

Most of all Dennis loved New York – and was in awe of the opportunities it provided. He got into motorcycles, got one of his own, and went everywhere on it… no distance was too short or too long.

But his main priority was to see if he could make it as an actor so he set about auditioning for theater parts. Some of his friends commented that he had talent, but all were in agreement that his temperament was not suited to constant auditions. He hated learning a scene, schlepping across town, delivering it to a group of supercilious theater execs, and then never hearing from them again. One friend commented that he thought Dennis lacked the resilient temperament needed to be a successful actor: “He was a gentle soul, a little vulnerable, and he was easily bruised by setbacks,” he said.

Nevertheless, Dennis persisted, and in 1969, Dennis replied to an ad in the Village Voice for an off-off Broadway play called ‘The Sound of a Different Drummer’ that was looking for actors to take part in ‘a counter-culture experience’. The heading read: “Do you Dig Being Naked in the World? Love Boys Love Girls? Participate in the Ultimate EMBRACE! Get Bread for Doing Your Thing in Our HIT SHOW”. Dennis auditioned and got the part. He claimed later that at first, he had no idea what it was all about and was attracted simply because it was a regular, paid acting gig. This was the era of sexually frank musicals like ‘Hair’ and ‘Oh Calcutta,’ and Dennis embraced the new environment enthusiastically. He appeared in it for several months, but then disaster struck: one night he collapsed onstage and was rushed to hospital with acute appendicitis. This health incident, though not life-threatening, would have a lasting impact on Dennis’ acting career. I spoke to Jon Bletz, a friend of Dennis, who remembered: “It took Dennis some time to recover physically from that, but when he returned to the theater, his part in the play had been given to someone else. Dennis was really upset and discouraged, and so he decided to jack in the whole acting thing. He was already pissed by how much you had to struggle for acting jobs… with little guarantee you were going to get anywhere.”

So Dennis gave up on his thespian dream, and decided it was time to get a full-time 9-5 job. He was hired by Jiffy Simplicity, a company that made dress-making patterns for women.

But the change in his employment wasn’t the only change in Dennis’ life. According to Dennis’ friend, Jon Bletz, after the disappointment of trying to be an actor, for a time, Dennis seemed to become more jaded and cynical. He responded by hitting the New York gay bar scene hard. As Jon expressed it, “It was like “nothing is gonna get in my way now.””

His first favorite bar was The Eagle’s Nest on 22nd St down by the West Side Highway, and Dennis would head over there every night on his motorcycle. The Eagle’s Nest was one of the legendary gay clubs in New York. It had been a longshoreman’s tavern that opened in 1931, but, prompted by the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the sudden growth of the city’s gay culture, the tavern’s owners painted the walls black and converted it into a gay bar in 1970. Not just any gay bar either: The Eagle’s Nest became the most popular gathering point for the leather-clad S&M crowd and biker groups, eventually spawning copycat clubs across the country.

Dennis’ friend, Mark Martinez, remembered the scene well: “The Eagle’s Nest was the best leather bar,” he recalled. “It was isolated in a quiet, dark area by the water, and it reeked of menace and thrill. The place itself was hot and sweaty and exciting. Dennis was there all the time, and I hung with him. He was a beautiful man, and sexually voracious. It was difficult not to love him.”

Another friend, Errol Jones, also remembers Dennis in this period. “For years, I ran into Dennis all over town. He seemed to be at every gay club,” he laughed. “You couldn’t miss him. For a start, he was good looking. And secondly, he was… well… willing and enthusiastic.”

During this time, Dennis also had his first steady male partner. In early 1969, he’d met Skip St James. Dennis was 26 at the time, Skip was in his early 20s. Skip remembers first seeing Dennis in different bars, and he’d just stand there and stare, finding Dennis absolutely beautiful. Skip says that Dennis chased him around for a year or so, but Skip was always with somebody else. And then one day, they finally hooked up, became a couple, and were together for the next four years.

Skip moved into Dennis’ tiny studio apartment on East 38th St – and Skip remembered they weren’t the only people who enjoyed the space… “I remember every Wednesday afternoon, he’d give his apartment to this woman who was married,” he said. “I think she was someone he worked with at Simplicity. Anyway, every week, she’d go there and have sex with her boyfriend. Obviously, we’d have to make ourselves scarce for a couple of hours. But that just seemed very New York back then.”

For the first time, Dennis was in a steady relationship and living with his partner. But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the New York night life – as Skip remembers: “Dennis was very sexual. All the time. Sex was number one for him, and always on his mind.”

Not just that, but friends remember that Dennis was always focused on his physical appearance. Skip recalls: “I remember wearing tackaberry buckles. Dennis insisted on wearing them, and he bought me one. He showed me how you’d hang your keys from left to right. I was new to all this. He was a showman more than anything else.”

Needless to say, their relationship was not exclusive. As Skip remembers, “Dennis insisted it wasn’t exclusive. We had space for other relationships – either individually or together.  He was very into three-ways, orgies, and cruising, and he loved leather bars. He liked to watch too. As far as sex would go, he was not a top. He was a bottom. In fact, his big thing was being on the receiving end – and getting fist-fucked.”

This being the early 1970s, safe sex, well… it wasn’t really a thing. As Mark Martinez says: “Needless to say, Dennis didn’t use condoms. None of us did. Why would you? We expected to live forever.”

Skip confirms this: “Dennis was never safe with sex at all. Once we went to Puerto Rico, and we went to the old part of town where there were all these shacks. I forget what the place is called. It’s supposed to be dangerous. We walked down there. I remember him screwing this Puerto Rican kid in broad daylight.”

Another of Dennis favorite hang-outs was ‘The Barn’, a popular gay bar in the Village at 216 Waverly Place. The Barn was a hub that attracted a large crowd – and it had the added attraction of having back rooms. Skip still remembers ‘The Barn’ scene well: “We’d often go back there, always looking for a three-way.”

Errol Jones again: “I remember seeing him come out from the restrooms in one place that was renowned for glory holes. So I approached him, and he was friendly. I suggested we go back to my place, but he gestured for me to join him in the back of this club. It was an area I rarely went because it was so dark. But he led me back there, and… well, it’s a happy memory.”

For Dennis, it seemed that the only way to get rid of temptation was to yield to it.

*

What I found interesting about Dennis’ early life was the transformation from a quiet, reserved kid on Long Island, happy in his own company and interested in painting and carpentry, to the outgoing, sexually-liberated party guy in Manhattan. But the real paradox with Dennis was that by day, his New York life was still straight and unassuming. Though most of his friends were people from the bar and club scene, everyone else I spoke to was keen to emphasize his gentleness and kindness, and his love of animals.

He still worked as an artist at Simplicity Pattern Company on Madison Avenue, just around the corner from the apartment: it seemed ironic to me that this regular in S&M gay bars spent his days drawing dress patterns for the American housewife. Skip remembers that Dennis was taking his carpentry seriously too, building wall to wall bookshelves and cabinets for their apartment, and spent time drawing with charcoals and painting with oils.

And when he wasn’t trawling the bars – without or without Skip – Dennis could be found at any of New York’s jazz clubs. The 1970s was a vibrant period for jazz in the city, with several legendary venues like Village Vanguard, Birdland, and Blue Note hosting many of the greats in their autumn years as well as new emerging artists. Dennis was a jazz fan boy, always hanging around the stage doors after the shows so that he could meet his idols. His large collection of vintage 78s was growing – his preference was 1920s jazz – and he idolized Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan. He told Skip that he his secret dream was to be a torch singer.

He started collecting antique firearms – particularly black powder guns, which had been the primary type of firearm for centuries before the development of smokeless powder and cartridge-based guns, and flintlock firearms. He became a registered gun owner and kept his collection in a cabinet in his apartment that he built.

Dennis life seemed to be hedonistic and happy, but in the back of his mind, he had unfinished business. He still had the acting bug, and hadn’t completely given up on the idea of performing one day. Sure, he got the occasional part in no-budget off-off Broadway plays, but friends remember that it was generally unsatisfying to him.

From time to time picked up the occasional modeling job, and one such gig was for a popular local gay magazine called ‘Michael’s Thing’ which was a pocket guide to entertainment around town. Ads for bath houses, porn theaters, escorts, and lots of sex… that sort of thing. Dennis appeared in a pictorial on his motorcycle on a bridge over the pool at the Ice Palace at Cherry Grove on Fire Island. His circle of friends loved the mock serious-looking poses, and Dennis took their affectionate ribbing in good humor.

The modeling may seem to be a small part of his life, but according to his friends, it was a little more important to Dennis. And that was because Dennis took his looks very seriously. One friend compared him to Oscar Wilde’s character, Dorian Gray, saying, “We all care what we look like, but Dennis took it to another level. He was obsessed with his appearance and freaked out about getting old.” As Oscar Wilde wrote: “Youth is the only thing worth having.”

Skip agreed, saying, “Dennis’ looks meant everything to him. He had a good body. He was just naturally trim, not muscular by any means. He was Italian so he was hairy. I never even knew until late in our relationship that he used to meticulously trim all his chest hair down. In short, he was insecure, and he could be self-absorbed. I don’t mean that he was shallow. He wasn’t by any means, but he took great care of his appearance, and he could be vain.”

Another friend from the early days, Jon Bletz, remembered, “Dennis never met a mirror that he didn’t like. He was always stopping to look at himself, and ask whether his cheekbones were sharp or if his nose was elegant enough. It was as if he feared that he’d be loved less, or worse still, ignored, if he were to let himself go – so he became obsessive about his looks.”

In 1973, Dennis and Skip split. “We had a good time, but most things come to an end, right?” is how Skip remembers it. “In some ways, I consider him the love of my life, even now.”

Part of the reason for the break up was that Dennis had started a relationship with Joey Alan Phipps. Joey was an aspiring actor and sometime model for gay photo layouts, and was 11 years younger than Dennis.

I found pictures of Joey and was struck by his youthful appearance. Even when he was older, he looked like a perennial teenager, the sort of cheeky, smiling kid you’d see on the Partridge Family TV show.

According to Skip, Joey was a roommate of one their best friends: “Joey was a cute kid, and Dennis’ preference was blond Twinkies,” Skip said. “He did date a young black guy once for a short time, but mainly it was blonde Twinkies. I was a blonde Twinkie. Joey was a blonde Twink.”

Dennis’ friend Mark Martinez remembers the time well: “Dennis was head over heels about Joey,” he recalls. “At first, we all figured it was just a physical thing, but pretty soon, Skip moved out and Joey moved in, and he and Dennis became inseparable.”

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4. Adult Films

In 1974, Dennis decided to quit his day job in the Simplicity office. He was intent on making his living through his carpentry. Friends remember how he was proud of the idea of making a living simply by using his hands. There was something primordial about it, he said. He placed ads in local newspapers and picked up a series of freelance jobs making cabinets, beds, or tables for people furnishing their Manhattan apartments. It wasn’t a huge amount of income, but he was doing what he loved and everyone I spoke to remembers that he seemed genuinely happy.

In reality though, Dennis had two other sources of income – and these were two activities that he kept quiet about.

The first of these was that he’d started posing for photo sets for gay-oriented companies like Target Studio. A few years ago, I tracked down Jim French, an artist, photographer, and publisher, who’s best known for his alter ego, Rip Colt, and his association with Colt Studio that he founded in 1967 which he turned into one of the most successful gay porn companies in the country. Jim also had a sideline painting portraits that were used as album art for Columbia Records, for singers like Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, and Johnny Mathis – and over the years, Dennis had seen Jim at jazz clubs around town, but it wasn’t until he turned up at Jim’s offices to try out for some modeling work that he realized who Jim was.

The audition was a success: Jim was taken by Dennis and offered him work immediately. Jim was older than Dennis – there was a 14 year age difference between them – but their similar interests – jazz, art, design – meant they quickly became friends. Jim told me that they also bonded because he too had worked as an illustrator and artist on Madison Avenue, just like Dennis, except that it’d been a few years earlier and Jim had designed textiles not dress patterns.

Jim remembered: “Dennis was one of my favorite models from the time. Always willing, professional, and easy to work with… and he had a great look. It was easy to take great pictures of him.”

Jim also remembered that Dennis had another way of earning money too: “It was an open secret that Dennis ran a personal ad in the Village Voice,” he said. “I’m not sure of exactly what the ad was for – but it was for services that were sexual in nature.”

The story that Dennis was a sex worker – or more specifically, an escort or prostitute – is something that various people I spoke to remembered. Carter Stevens, an adult film director, who later became close to Dennis, said that he’d described himself as a ‘call-boy’ before he got into films. Jamie Gillis, the adult film actor went further: “He was fag hooker,” laughed Jamie. “He told me plenty of stories about fucking aging queens on the Upper East Side.” And Dennis’ old friend, Mark Martinez, remembers running into Dennis coming out of a restaurant one day with a distinguished older man on his arm – and studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone who might know him. Dennis later told him that the man was a “client” who was “very generous” to him. Then again, several other friends I spoke to insist that Dennis also had clients that were female. Dennis would just joke that it was no big deal, just regular ‘Midnight Cowboy’ kinda work, he said.

In 1975, Dennis appeared in his first adult film, a gay porn movie by the director David Durston called ‘Boy ‘Napped’. For this movie, Dennis adopted the name Wade Nichols, created from his middle name and his father’s first name.

Durston was one of the first people I spoke to about Dennis, and he still remembered him fondly, describing him as a gift to porn films, being great looking and having an incredible body that looked like he worked out every day – even though Dennis’ brother Richard insists that Dennis never really did any sports.

Dennis’ co-star on the film was Jamie Gillis, who was a veteran in the business even back then. Jamie remembered his own beginnings as a period when he’d had performance difficulties, so he was surprised when this newcomer was seemingly so at home on a sex film set: “Dennis told me it was his first experience,” Jamie said. “And it’s not a natural environment. But he was very relaxed. I remember thinking how natural he looked around the other guys in sexual situations. I thought, Here’s a guy who’s not a stranger to having sex in front of an audience… Dennis could perform sexually, and act well.”

It seems that at first Dennis just considered Boy-napped to be just a quick way to make some extra cash, but it was a success and he enjoyed it. He figured this could be an opportunity to make some more money with other films, and perhaps establish his own carpentry studio where he could make custom furniture.

He found the first adult film parts through an agent called Dorothy Palmer, a tough old broad, straight out of central casting, who operated out of a small, cluttered office near the theater district. Dorothy was notorious for not telling her actors that a role being offered was in a pornographic film, instead leaving it for them to find out for themselves when they turned up on set and find they were expected to do a little more than just recite lines. This left a lot of actors with red faces and indignant reactions. That clearly wasn’t a problem for Dennis, and his acting ability, good looks, and sexual reliability quickly made him a hot commodity – and he was soon appearing in films such as Jailbait and Virgin Dreams.

One early admirer was aspiring actor/director David Davidson, who fell for Dennis – much to the annoyance of David’s beard girlfriend, Erica Eaton. Davidson cast Dennis in two of his films, Summer of Laura and Call Me Angel, Sir, in the hope that it would win him favors with the newcomer. The problem was that Erica was also the producer of both films and she wasn’t impressed, which made the shoot of both movies rather problematic. Dennis, calm and unruffled as always, was amused by the love triangle, and enjoyed David’s favors on the side when Erica was away.

Looking at Dennis in these early films is like looking at early silent films, in that directors hadn’t accounted for the fact that he could really act and so typically used him as a physical stereotype. But even so, Dennis shines – smoldering intensity, an immaculate porno ‘stache, and pronounced Fire Island tan-lines.

The men’s magazines sat up and took notice, eager to profile the new star, and wrote breathlessly about visiting him in his beloved midtown apartment.

This from Rustler: “Wade Nichols is special. The handsomest and most talented of this breed of super-men. Perhaps he is the last of the true matinee idols. Right now, he is content, building furniture, traveling and making erotic films. The Clark Gable of Porn was hanging a chandelier when we visited his hand-built (decorated, at least) Manhattan apartment.”

Or how about this from Skin Biz: “Young, energetic, good-looking and bold. He comes to the door wearing a tight work shirt and faded blue jeans with a navy-blue handkerchief flapping from his back left pocket. His Manhattan apartment in a 5-storied brownstone is eclectically hip. The flavor is rustic, offset by a burning wood fireplace, beautifully shuttered windows and cabinets which he made himself. A motorcycle helmet, sitting on the floor, accompanies his Honda 550 garaged down the street. His telephone rings nonstop until he finally hooks it to his answering machine. His name is Wade Nichols, one of today’s swinging 32-year-old bachelors, but with one exception. While most men only dream about their sexual fantasies, this man indulges in them… on screen.”

Dennis was fast becoming a star in straight porn films, which raises the question that is perhaps discussed more than any other when it comes to Dennis – and that is his sexual orientation.

Everything that I had heard about him from friends and contacts – at least since his school days – was that he was exclusively interested in men, and had an active, varied, not to mention voracious sex life on the New York gay scene. Yet when it came to sex work – and this goes for the adult films and his escorting – people who knew him remember that he didn’t seem to have a preference between men or women. Many described him as simply being a gay man who was so sexual that he could perform with anyone. But occasionally, I did speak to someone who disagreed – and one of those was Jim French, the photographer at Colt and Target. “Dennis was this rare phenomenon,” Jim said, “in that he appealed to women just as much as he appealed to men. I always thought he was bi-sexual.”

Fellow actor Jamie Gillis was impressed: “I knew he could act, but I was still surprised to see that he started turning up in straight films after Boy-napped. I figured that he was a guy who wasn’t interested in having sex with women… but he was just as natural in the straight films too.”

Perhaps the most surprised person was Skip, Dennis’ previous partner from the early 1970s: “When I found out that he was making adult films, I was surprised,” Skip remembered. “Not surprised that he was doing porn, but that he was making straight porn… he never had relationships with women. He wasn’t bisexual in any way.”

And then the sex magazines started to come across his gay films and his photo spreads for Target Studio, and they asked him about his orientation. Dennis was smart enough to know that future work as a hetero porn star probably depended on him taking a firm position, so he went out of his way in interviews to deny that there was anything to it: “I’m NOT by nature a guy who fucks guys,” he insisted. “I’m embarrassed by it. I only did it because I got five hundred bucks for two days work.”

By 1977, Dennis adult film career was in full swing, and he was appearing in movies by the more notable New York directors such as Gerard Damiano, Radley Metzger, Carter Stevens, and the Amero brothers.

As his star rose, something else was happening: Dennis’ mainstream acting aspirations seemed to be receding. Perhaps it was because his acting itch was being scratched, but it was unusual: the mythical cross-over from X-rated to regular films was the holy grail to most of the actors in porn. Even today, when I speak to the pioneers from the early years, they still talk about the forlorn hopes they once had that their sex film success might pave the way into a successful TV or feature film career.

Dennis appeared to be different. In interviews, he insisted that he was content making porn, and had no desire to do anything else: “I have no pretensions of becoming a star,” he said. “I already tried legitimate acting and wasn’t making any money. Acting is a tough business. You can spend your whole life going to every casting call and only wind up with small character parts or walk-ons when you’re 80 years old. As an actor in these adult films, I do my best making them good. I’m serious about my work, but not about myself where I believe I’m going to be a star.”

I asked his friends about whether this was true and most agreed, saying that one of the reasons for this was that Dennis was always a person who valued his privacy. He liked that that he was able to be a genuine star in the X-rated world, yet remain unknown outside of it at the same time. The adult film industry at the time was a strange beast: on the one hand, it had its own star system, awards, and media, and you could be idolized and admired in that world. Yet outside of that, it was also relatively anonymous – which was exactly what Dennis wanted.

From speaking to the various people that Dennis knew in the 1970s, it was clear that Dennis liked to compartmentalize the different parts of his life. He had his family, then there were the adult filmmakers and actors, the gay bar and club scene, his music friends in jazz clubs, the antique gun club members, his clients – both for his carpentry work and his escorting, and there was his partner, Joey. He liked having different personas for different people – often contradictory ones: Here was a loner who enjoyed collecting guns by himself, but was the popular center of attention in social gatherings. He was devoted to his partner Joey, but make sex films and did sex work on the side. He was gay, but was a big star in straight sex movies. He was the epitome of cool, but was also an old-fashioned nerd, his favorite films being ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Captain Blood’, and the only music he listened to were 1920s jazz records. And everyone loved him and said he was thoughtful, kind, and gentle, but they also found him enigmatic and wished they could know him better.

Dennis was also afraid of the two worlds colliding, and possibly facing public shame as result. He admitted this in an interview saying, “I have a fear of doing modelling jobs and having them find out a month or two later who I am and what I am doing in this business.”

And then there was his family – his mother and brother who had moved down to live in Richmond, Virginia. Dennis visited them regularly. Richard remembers one visit: “Dennis came down, and asked me whether I’d ever been to the Lee Art Theater, which was the local adult film cinema there. I thought it was a strange question and I wondered why he asked it. Later, he told me he appeared in adult films, and I realized that his films had been playing in that theater and that he’d been on all the posters. My mother found out about it at the same time. I know she wasn’t too happy about it but she just didn’t say anything. That’s what she was like.” Richard had been curious when Dennis told him about the X-rated films, and he asked Dennis how he could have sex in front of other people. Dennis said that the nude modeling that he’d done at art school had got him used to it.

In the meantime, the movies kept getting bigger. In 1978, Dennis starred in the lead role of Armand Weston’s ‘Take Off’. If any sex film can be described as almost autobiographical of its star, perhaps ‘Take Off’ was it. More intricately plotted that most porn features, it is loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ telling the story of Darrin Blue (played by Dennis), a handsome but vain man who is obsessed with remaining eternally young – in his case, by keeping a stag film hidden in his attic. It was a high budget movie involving much of the business’ best talent – both in front of and behind the camera. Dennis received $2,000 for his role, declaring it the biggest, most beautiful porn film ever.

And then there was ‘Barbara Broadcast’ – and the scene that introduced me to Dennis. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll already know what I’m talking about. It’s the restaurant kitchen scene. Two actors – Wade Nichols and the incredible C.J. Laing. No dialogue. No music. And no sex either – at least not for the first, and best, part of the scene. Just the industrial kitchen metal clanging in the stifling heat of a New York restaurant kitchen in summer. A restless and curious woman descends a staircase into the sweaty bowels of the building. She happens upon the kitchen. She wanders among the anonymous cooking staff but is invisible to all of them. And then she sees Him, shirtless and sweaty. She circles him smiling. He spots her, and returns her glance with an incredulous, amused gaze. The only noise is the sound of cooking pots banging against each other. These two are at the center of the universe, oblivious to the irrelevant world that circles them.

She spies a large metal mixing bowl on the floor. An idea flashes across her mind. She laughs, and kicks the bowl, positioning it beneath her parted legs. She looks back at him, giggling manically. He smiles, his eyes narrowing quizzically like the hero of a low-rent spaghetti western. She starts to crouch over the bowl. The realization of what she might be about to do slowly dawns on him.

Years later I spoke to the film’s director, Radley Metzger. He told me he felt dizzy when directing this scene.

In 1978, Dennis traveled to California and Hawaii to appear in one of his last X-rated films, ‘Love You.’ The film was directed by former Hollywood actor and now director, John Derek, perhaps more famous for his marriages to Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and, Bo Derek.

​The film featured a small cast, comprising of just Annette Haven, Leslie Bovee, Eric Edwards, and Dennis.

John’s wife at the time, 22-year-old Bo Derek, was closely involved in the production – and became its biggest cheerleader when it was made: “‘Love You’ is sexy and erotic,” she told newspaper reporters. “The picture has very explicit sex scenes. It shows everything. It’s the first beautiful erotic, hard core film ever made. I showed it to 600 women libbers in a NOW meeting and they liked it. They said it was not degrading to women. The picture is about love, and you don’t play around with that.”

Years later, Eric Edwards’s main memory of the movie was a nude wrestling match between him and Dennis – which he remembers because John Derek insisted they film it again and again. Eric said, “Dennis was a nice guy. Very respectful. We all liked him. But shooting that wrestling scene seemed to last forever, and John Derek seemed fascinated by it. I wondered if he was gay – which seemed unlikely because Bo was there at his side, watching all the time.”

Within a couple of years, Dennis had become one of the biggest stars in the adult industry. He’d earned enough money to make himself self-sufficient, which allowed him to pursue his passions independently. For most people in the adult film industry, this represented success.

What Dennis didn’t know was that it was just the beginning.

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Tune in next time for the concluding part of ‘Wade Nichols: Like an Eagle.’

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The post Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 1: The Early Years – Podcast 152 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

A few years ago, I was researching an article for The Rialto Report when I came across a 1980 radio program from WBAI, a popular New York City station that specialized in progressive and alternative voices at the time. This particular show featured a prostitute named Iris De La Cruz.

Iris wasn’t directly connected to the adult film scene in New York at the time – though she was friends with several of the adult performers – but I knew of her because she wrote for men’s magazines like Cheri, Partner, and Eros. Her monthly columns were an eye-opening account of her life working as a street prostitute, and this edition of the WBAI show was more of the same, with Iris talking about her experiences and then taking questions from callers to the station.

But the reason that I found this show compelling wasn’t just Iris’ connection to the sex business in New York in the 1970s. No, what was startling, jaw-dropping even, was that Iris had brought a guest onto the show, her ten-year-old daughter, Melissa, and was interviewing her in a completely unfiltered way about what she thought of Iris’s street-walking job.

Even for a program from 40 years ago on a counter-cultural station like WBAI, it still makes for a surprising, engrossing, but sometimes jarring, listening experience. In the current age of debate around parental controls, book bans, and school curricula, this frank, public discussion of sex work between a mother and young daughter is an exchange that probably wouldn’t, and couldn’t, happen today.

I listened back to the show several times – and each time, the same questions came into my head. 

Who was Iris De La Cruz, and why did she expose her daughter to a potentially traumatic experience at such a young age

Who was Melissa, her daughter, and what did she make of this – would she even remember it today, or did it actually have any lasting effects?

And then, what happened to this mother and daughter in the years after this show was recorded – after all, Iris would likely be in her 70s today, and Melissa in her 50s.

I wanted to find what happened to both of them.

This is April Hall. And this is Iris and Melissa’s story.

This episode’s running time is 61 minutes.

Many thanks to Melissa De La Cruz for her participation and kindness.

Thank you to Veronica Vera for Scarlet Harlot and Aphrodite Awards photos. Visit Veronica’s site for more on New York’s world of sex work, art, and activism.

We never ask you for money or accept any advertisements for what we do, but if this story means something to you, we’d love it if you went to the Iris House website and considered making a donation, however small. We’re not associated with them in any way, but they do such good work and well… we know that Iris would be grateful to you. Thanks so much.

______________________________________________________________________ Iris De La Cruz

Jean Powell, P.O.N.Y. spokesperson before Iris de la Cruz

Iris defending surge pricing

Prostitutes of New York (P.O.N.Y.) newsletter

Sex worker rights activity Scarlet Harlot protesting down by Wall Street in downtown NYC

Aphrodite Awards hosted by Annie Sprinkle (middle) with Iris de la Cruz to her right

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Excerpts from Iris’ publication Kool AIDS On Ice

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Melissa De La Cruz

The opening of Iris House by Melissa de la Cruz and her grandmother in honor of her mother Iris

Early photo of Melissa and her grandmother, Iris’ mother Beverly Rotter

Iris House carrying Iris’ legacy today

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The post Iris De La Cruz – And Her Daughter Melissa: Street Walking Blues – Podcast 143 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

You’ve probably heard us say this before, but Keisha was a different kind of adult film star.

She entered the business in the same era as the first wave of video girls who dominated the scene in the mid 1980s. Stars like Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon and Traci Lords. She appeared in loops, videos, and feature films, as well as countless magazine covers and layouts. She did phone sex, ran her own fan club, and had a long and successful career traveling the country as a featured dancer.

But for all that, Keisha seemed somehow different from the other performers. For a start she looked Latina, though her unusual name gave away few clues as to her ethnicity. And at different times, she was rumored to be a psychologist, or an escort, and / or was secretly married.

And Keisha stayed in the adult film industry for longer than most of her peers too. She starred in films – on and off – for 20 years, and only stopping in 2007.

So, who was she really? What does she remember about her life in porn, and what is she doing now?

The Rialto Report tracks Keisha down – for stories of Jerry Butler, Nina Hartley, Jim South, Henri Pachard, Edwin and Summer Brown, Megan Leigh, Suze Randall and many more.

This podcast is 103 minutes long.

The musical playlist for this episode can be found on Spotify.

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Keisha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The post Keisha: The Innocence of an Adult Film Star – Podcast 74 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Jeanne Silver is a Rialto Report favorite and her interview with us remains incredibly popular. She was a firm favorite in films and magazines from the moment she arrived in New York in the mid 1970s, appearing in movies such as The Violation of Claudia, Water Power, Desire for Men, and Every Man’s Fantasy.

We looked for Jeanne for almost 10 years before we finally found her. When we did connect, we were worried about her reaction, especially as we’d heard she had a young daughter she was trying to protect. But we found Jeanne to be one of the warmest, kind and open people we’ve ever met. Not only did she agree to share her story with us, but we’ve been lucky enough to become friends with Jeanne. Her daughter Irene even modeled our Rialto Report t-shirts that were available for a limited time.

Jeanne Silver has struggled financially for a time. We previously suggested a fundraiser, but she is fiercely independent and shies from help (even though she’s the first to give it). But recent circumstances have just become too much. Jeanne requires major dental work and faces spinal surgery in the coming months, all without sufficient health insurance. She’s in significant pain but refuses to take drugs even though she feels she may be on the cusp of depression.

In addition to her health issues, Jeanne’s car is no longer operational. Because she lives in a location without adequate public transportation, this means Jeanne is struggling to work. And did we mention what that work is? Jeanne has dedicated her later life to assisting the elderly, helping them with tasks like shopping and doctors’ appointments and house cleaning. And perhaps just as important, Jeanne spends time in conversation with those she helps and listens to their stories – offering them companionship many no longer get. This work includes helping her own mother who Jeanne supplies with groceries from the limited money she earns.

To top this all off, Jeanne is being evicted from her home right as the holidays roll around. With little time and few resources, Jeanne needs to find a new place to live for herself and the adopted pets she cares for and loves dearly.

So, we finally convinced Jeanne to let us and her generous fans help her. When we pushed the topic, Jeanne answered “I hate asking but I’m in a pit and can’t dig myself out on my own this time. I want to be that happy person that I know is buried under this mess. I miss me.”

Please show Jeanne how much she is loved and appreciated. As you know we do not accept advertising on The Rialto Report and never charge for the original content we offer every week. We’ve had many people ask us how they can thank us for the work we do – these fundraisers are the answer. In conjunction with The Golden Age Appreciation Fund, we’ve raised almost $20,000 for people like Sharon Mitchell, Kay Parker, Tom Byron and George Payne – all because of your generosity.

No amount is too small – but as an extra incentive, every donation $40 and above will receive a personalized signed photo from Jeanne. And the donor who gives the most by the end of the fundraiser will receive a signed prosthetic leg previously worn by Jeanne. It’s hard to imagine a better conversation piece in your home!

This fundraiser will remain open until Friday December 1st but please don’t wait. Show your appreciation for Jeanne right now using the Donate link below.

And thank you as always for your generosity. We are so grateful for your willingness to help.

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Jeanne Silver fundraiser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Jeanne Silver: A Fundraiser appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Since the filmmaker Radley Metzger passed away earlier this year, we’ve received a lot of email asking if we have a podcast interview with him.

In the last few years, we recorded several commentaries with Radley in which he spoke about his ‘Henry Paris‘ films in some detail – so instead of going over the same ground, we wanted to do something different.

We decided that, rather than listen to Radley in recent years, when his film career was behind him and he’d had chance to reflect on it, we wanted to go back and hear from him when he was in the middle of making movies, back when the culture and times were so different.

The year we’ve chosen to re-visit is 1971.

This podcast is 53 minutes long.

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Radley Metzger on ‘The Merv Griffin Show’

By 1971, Radley Metzger had already directed and distributed a number of highly successful films, such as Camille 2000 (1969), Carmen Baby (1967), and Therese and Isabelle (1968). But despite this track record, he still wasn’t getting the recognition he deserved as a filmmaker.

His latest film, The Lickerish Quartet (1970), had come out, so he set out to raise his profile, appearing on a number of notable television and radio shows.

One that interested us from the time was a guest appearance on ‘The Merv Griffin Show’ which was one of the most popular late night talk shows of the time. Radley appeared on the show in January 1971 with the actress Eva Gabor. We wanted to include that interview here, but sadly after extensive investigation, the episode appeared to be lost. This is not unusual: It was common practice in the television industry that, after an initial broadcast, the network would erase the tapes so that they could be reused for new programming. It was done as a cost-saving measure as tape was pretty expensive.

We grew hopeful when we learned that several episodes of ‘The Merv Griffin Show’ were recently found in the private collection of Richard Nixon. But apparently, Nixon would only tape TV shows featuring anyone he regarded as an enemy. Which means that unless Tricky Dick thought that Radley Metzger or Eva Gabor were a danger to the country, he’s unlikely to have recorded this particular episode – so it appears to be lost forever. We were able to find still photographs from the episode, and they can be seen below.

While ‘The Merv Griffin Show’ was a dead end, we did find two fascinating and rare 1971 interviews that we’re sharing. The first is an appearance by Radley on ‘AM New York’ – a lighthearted local breakfast TV show on WABC-TV, which served as the genesis for what eventually became ‘Good Morning America’.

The second is a more serious, and antagonistic, interview for a program called ‘The Movies.’ The interviewer is Joseph Gelmis – a film critic for the Long Island newspaper, Newsday. Gelmis was a huge fan of Stanley Kubrik, and had written a book about him called ‘The Film Director as Superstar’ published the previous year.

However Gelmis was known not to have the same admiration for Radley’s work – in fact the rumors were that Gelmis felt that Radley’s films weren’t even serious enough to review, and that he was annoyed at having to give Radley any airtime at all. If this was true, well… it comes across in this sometimes combative interview.

In both interviews, Radley is at times attacked in different ways for the sexual content of his films, and it’s interesting to see how he defends himself. And this was still years before he became Henry Paris and started making hardcore films.

In the podcast, we’ve also interspersed some radio spots from films that Radley made or distributed. These weren’t part of the interviews but add more color from the time.

John Bartholomew Tucker, host of AM New York, interviewing Radley Metzger

 

 

 

Radley Metzger, Merv Griffin, Eva Gabor

 

David R. Reuben – a psychiatrist and self-professed sex expert, Radley Metzger, Merv Griffin

 

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The post Radley Metzger: 1971 – Podcast 73 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

For the last 25 years,  we have interviewed hundreds of people who were connected to the birth of the pornographic film industry in New York – from film directors to actors, theater owners and distributors, and a fair number of cops and politicians too.

We wanted to make sure that the real story of the era was preserved – not just by journalists, academics, filmmakers or fans, but by the people who actually lived and worked in this era. People who took risks. People who did things they were proud of, or may have regretted later. Who were they, what made them get involved, and what happened to them afterwards? Four years ago, we started to share these interviews in a series of podcasts and articles published on The Rialto Report website.

In 2015, we were approached by the producers of an HBO series that was being developed, called The Deuce, and we had a small role working with the show’s writers and researchers.

The Deuce is a semi-fictionalized account of Times Square in 1971 and 1972, telling the interconnecting stories of the people who worked there. There’s the birth of the adult film industry, prostitution and pimps, policing, crime and politics, and much more.

The show is produced by David Simon and George Pelecanos, who had big television hits with ‘The Wire’ and ‘Treme’. It’s centered around real life twins, Steve and Johnny d’Agrosa, who operated out of 42nd Street and become fronts for the Mob. In ‘The Deuce’ they’re called Vincent and Frankie Martino, and both parts are played by James Franco. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Candy, a Times Square sex worker with an entrepreneurial spirit who is drawn into the emerging pornography industry.

On today’s Rialto Report, we speak to three people involved in the making of ‘The Deuce’:

One of the show’s producers, Marc Henry Johnson, who knew the real-life twins who Vincent and Frank were based on, talks about coming up with the original idea for the show;

One of the writers, Megan Abbott, talks about creating the various characters that populate the series;

And Michelle MacLaren, who directed the first and last episodes of the first season, talks about the challenges of recreating 1970s Times Square on location in modern day New York.

‘The Deuce’ premieres on HBO on September 10th 2017, and is currently available on HBO streaming platforms.

This podcast is 56 minutes long.

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The Deuce – Official Trailers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7YMlL8x8GE

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jfpNwCU5JU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The post The Deuce: Behind the Scenes – Podcast 72 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

If you were a male teenager in the mid-1980s, and you rented an X-rated video cassette by director Greg Dark, it’s likely that the song ‘Electrify Me‘ by The Plugz will still send a shiver down your spine.

This was the theme to the Greg Dark’s ‘New Wave Hookers’- starring Ginger Lynn, Jamie Gillis, and an underage Traci Lords.

This film, and others by Dark, offered a radically different vision from most other adult films. Instead of aspiring to mainstream movies, with straightforward plots and conventional actors, Dark’s movies were surreal, MTV-influenced videos, which featured some of the most imaginative and odd sex scenes ever filmed.

And then there was the sex itself: it was often deliberately un-erotic, nightmarish, and racially charged – who could forget seeing the African American performer Sahara’s scene with actors dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan while she listened to gospel music for example? This was porn as surreal, provocative, performance art. It was new, it was shocking, and it was the start of the alt-porn movement.

Behind films like Black Throat, Between the Cheeks, Let Me Tell Ya ‘Bout Black Chicks, and The Devil in Miss Jones –Part 3 and Part 4, were the larger than life Dark Brothers – Greg and Walter Dark. They declared than porn was dead and that they would revolutionize it. They weren’t content with staying behind the camera either. They adopted flashy, white pimp characters, who wore fur coats, arrived at premieres in stretch limos, and flipped off the awaiting cameras.

No one had seen this before, and the mainstream media were quick to pick up on it. Greg Dark was the subject of various profiles. Esquire magazine claimed he was capable of extravagant cruelty and said that he might be the devil. Vanity Fair said that the Dark Brothers’ films were “sacrilege, no apology, hostile pathology, and hoarse gusts of laughter from the jaws of hell….”

So who was the creative force behind these films? And if he was so provocative, how was he one of the only adult filmmakers who went on to achieve success in mainstream film – where he almost single-handedly invented the erotic noir thriller genre, before becoming a much in-demand director of music videos for artists as diverse as Britney Spears, Mandy Moore, Ice Cube, and Snoop Dogg?

Greg Dark doesn’t give a lot of interviews. This is his story.

This podcast is 97 minutes long.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Greg Dark one-sheets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greg Dark music videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk6xFA4iphk

 

 

 

 

*

 

The post Greg Dark: ‘Porn Is Dead. Long Live The Dark Bros.’ – Podcast 71 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The Rialto Report is on vacation this week, so we re-visit one of our most popular podcasts – the story of how we found what happened to Helga Sven, star of 1980s adult films and magazine layouts. We also spoke to a fan of hers who tracked her down and has his own unique story to tell.

Tales of mid-1980s video porn, the Vegas mob, Stalin’s Red Army, John Holmes, child abduction, Frank Sinatra, arson, attempted murder, and Candy Samples – all on this episode of The Rialto Report.

This episode running time is 78 minutes.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

When older actresses started to appear in adult films in the 1980s, I always wondered: How does someone who has never appeared in front of a movie camera suddenly become a pornographic film star at a relatively late age?

I figured they were probably restless housewives looking for glamor and excitement, one last fling before the retirement community beckoned.

Or maybe they were prostitutes, looking to raise their value in the growing market for X-rated videos.

It had to one of the two, right? Boredom or business.

One actress who stood out was Helga Sven. She was a formidable looking blonde with an accent that was as heavy as her chest. She looked like a 50 year old Zsa Zsa Gabor and for a short time in the mid 1980s, she was all over the sex magazines of the era.

She was prolific in films too starring in 30 or so, such as Beyond Taboo (1984) as the incestuous mother, Thrill Street Blues (1985) where she plays a madame, and Anthony Spinelli’s Spectators (1984).

She appeared with industry veterans like John Holmes and Candy Samples, as well as the new breed of video stars like Traci Lords and Tom Byron.

Sometimes she showed up as Helga. Other times it was Ursula. Or Polly. Or Sabrina. In truth even people in the industry knew nothing about her.

She was well-liked however. Jerry Butler described her as a ‘real woman’ in his biography ‘Raw Talent’, saying that there were a lot of girls in this business, but very few women.

And then just as quickly as she appeared, in 1986 she disappeared again.

So where had she come from, and where had she gone?

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one who was wondering. A small but determined cult of Helga started to grow, sharing information about her and trying to work out who she was.

One fan in particular was keen to track her down. His name is Klaus, and this is his story too. He’s been a fan of Helga’s since the first time he set eyes on her in a magazine in a German porn shop in 1984.

And when I say a fan, I mean he’s a fan.

 

Helga Sven photographs:

The post Helga Sven: Her Mystery. And Her Fan. Podcast 21 – Reprise appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Andrea True was a unique character. Here was an adult film star from the early days of the porn film industry who became an international superstar as a disco diva.

She was a rare example of a cross-over – which is uncommon even today – of someone who went on to find success outside of the adult film industry, succeeding where so many others have tried and failed.

But when her music and film career waned, she seemed to disappear.

In the last Rialto Report podcast, I attempted to track her down, and we heard from a number of people from Andrea’s life in music and film – and if you haven’t heard it, I recommend that you listen to that episode first.

When I eventually found Andrea, she was living with a friend, a fellow adult film actress from the 1970s, called Valerie Marron. They were living in Woodstock, two hours or so north of New York City.

I didn’t know if Andrea would welcome being contacted, so when she agreed to be interviewed, in person, and on film, I traveled up to meet her as soon as I could get there.

 

We’re also happy to publish a selection of newspaper articles, one-sheets, and the original Federal Records release of ‘More, More, More’ – and previously unseen photographs taken on tour with Andrea back in 1976 – 1977, courtesy of The Andrea True Connection band member Joey Barbosa.

 

For more information about disco queens, we recommend First Ladies of Disco: 32 Stars Discuss the Era and Their Singing Careers by James Arena – which contains an excellent chapter on Andrea.

This podcast is 46 minutes long.

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Andrea True: The Federal Records single

The original 7″ Federal Records release of ‘More, More, More’ in Jamaica, before Tom Moulton remixed it for the hit US release on Buddah Records.

Vocal A-side:

https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/More-More-More-Vocal.mp3

 

Instrumental A-side:

https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/More-More-More-Instrumental.mp3

 

 

Andrea True: A selection of news articles and adult film artifacts, in chronological order (more or less..)

Ad for Andrea True’s mother’s Silver Plating business (see name at bottom of ad) – January 3rd, 1954

 

Andrea (pictured on bottom row, right side) wins an award as a teenager, Nashville Tennessean – May 14th 1960

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Guardian – October 17th 1975

 

 

Los Angeles Times, June 25th 1976

 

 

 

 

Philadelphia Enquirer – June 10th 1976

 

Courier Post, Camden NJ – June 25th 1976

 

 

Los Angeles Times – July 12th 1976

 

The first iteration of The Andrea True Connection – 1976/77

 

Paris News, TX – July 16th 1976

 

Salina Journal, KS – July 18th 1976

 

Los Angeles Times – July 1976

 

Nashua Telegraph, NH – July 24th 1976

 

TV appearance on the Mike Douglas show, News Journal DE – August 5th 1976

 

Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester NY – September 2nd 1976

 

Greenville News, SC – October 29th 1976

 

 

Poughkeepsie Journal, NY – March 9th 1977

 

Valley Morning Star, TX – April 30th 1977

 

Fort Lauderdale News, FL – May 23rd 1975

 

Cincinnati Enquirer, OH – June 29th 1977

 

Corpus Christi TX – September 21st 1977

 

Indianapolis Star, IN – November 16th 1977

 

 

News Press, Fort Myers, FL – October 15th 1978

 

 

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia – December 3rd 1978

 

 

Billboard – January 16th 1999

 

Ad showing the sale of Andrea’s possessions, West Palm Beach Post FL – October 4th 2004

 

Obituary in the Los Angeles Times, November 25th 2011

 

Obituary in the Baltimore Sun, November 25th 2011

*

The Andrea True Connection on tour

Previously unseen photographs taken on tour with Andrea back in 1976 – 1977, courtesy of The Andrea True Connection band member Joey Barbosa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

The post Andrea True: Her Last Interview – Podcast 70 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In the 1970s, Andrea True was a rarity. She was a porn star that many people had heard of – even if they knew nothing about porn. She belonged to a select group of adult film actors whose names were widely known for a short time: Linda Lovelace, Marilyn Chambers, John Holmes, and yes, Andrea True.

But Andrea’s fame was different. You see, most people hadn’t heard of Andrea because she’d appeared in sex films. They’d heard of her because for a short time she was a successful singer – with one of the biggest hits of the disco era, ‘More, More, More.’

In the discos and nightclubs of 1976, ‘More, More, More’ was part of the soundtrack of an era. You couldn’t escape it. Billboard magazine called it “one of the truly classic club hits of its time.” It was reported that Andrea received two Grammy nominations. She was on television, on tour, on the radio, and on fire.

But what about Andrea’s scandalous past in sex films? Well, rather than hide the fact that she’d had appeared in over 50 X-rated movies, the song seemed to celebrate it. After all, the lyrics referred to performing in front of the cameras. This was not the usual story of someone trying to hide their porno past.

But soon after her music success, Andrea seemed to disappear. And even though she’d had her fifteen minutes of fame, many details about her life were still unknown. Like how did she end up making adult films in New York when she was from Tennessee? How she did end up recording her big hit in Jamaica? And where did she disappear to after her film and recording career ended?

Andrea True died in 2011 – but fifteen years ago, I went looking for her. I spoke to adult film actors like Harry Reems and Jeffrey Hurst, record producers Tom Moulton and Michael Zager, her agent Mitchell Karduna, and band members such as Joe Barbosa.

I wanted to find out more about who she was, and how, for a short time, she became the Queen of Disco.

This is the story of the search for Andrea True.

For more information about the disco queens, we recommend First Ladies of Disco: 32 Stars Discuss the Era and Their Singing Careers by James Arena – which contains an excellent chapter on Andrea.

This podcast is 78 minutes long.

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Andrea True’s first album, ‘More, More, More’ (1976)

 

 

 

Andrea True’s second album, ‘White Witch’ (1978)

 

 

 

Andrea True’s third and final album, ‘War Machine’ (1980)

 

 

*

 

The post ‘More, More, More’: The Search for Andrea True, and the Creation of a Disco Sensation – Podcast 69 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Rhonda Jo Petty has long been a favorite at The Rialto Report. She started out on the West Coast in the late 1970s where film producers capitalized on her resemblance to Farrah Fawcett. One of her best-known roles was in Little Orphan Dusty (1978) with porn icon John Holmes. Then she moved to New York where she appeared in more films, while traveling the country enjoying great success as a feature dancer. In later years she became a cult figure with biker crowds.

However her successful film career masked a very different real life story – one that Rhonda has been understandably reluctant to talk about until recently.

Rhonda recently re-emerged as one of the special guests at the Golden Age of Adult Cinema event at the Cupcake Theater in Los Angeles. Furthermore she has also set up her own website for fans who wish to contact her.

We’re grateful to Rhonda for this candid and moving interview.

This podcast is 92 minutes long.

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April Hall, who interviewed Rhonda Jo Petty for The Rialto Report, writes:

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to memories I can hardly remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

So I completely understand when I interview someone for The Rialto Report – and find that they’re a little hazy on the details of something that may have happened on the set of a film 40 years ago. I know how strange it must seem for decades to pass, and then, out of the blue, they get a call from someone they don’t know, asking questions about intimate events from their past.

So imagine how difficult must it be for someone who’s deliberately tried NOT to recall the events of their youth? Someone perhaps who was pretty traumatized by their life before they entered the adult film industry, and well, making sex films didn’t exactly help life get better.

That’s the case with the adult film actress, Rhonda Jo Petty.

I remember first seeing and hearing about Rhonda in films and magazines when she was still active in the 1980s, and thinking she had everything. She was the blonde California girl who looked like she grew up on a beach and perhaps lived in a West Coast hippy community. She looked young, fresh, and happy. She was even promoted as “the Farrah Fawcett look-alike.”

And as it turns out she WAS a California girl who WAS raised on the coast, though far from being a glamorous diva, Rhonda was a wild child tomboy: She rode horses and motorbikes, and even hung out at Charles Manson’s Spahn Ranch before the infamous murders.

Which brings me back to what she remembers about her life back then. And some of it isn’t pretty.

But here’s the difference with Rhonda: the history of the adult film has been peppered with people who blame the industry for all their problems. They lash out against it, and criticize it for not protecting them from themselves.

This is not the case with Rhonda. She didn’t have an easy time and has difficulty remembering some of it, but she’s clear-eyed when it comes to who she is, what happened, and why it happened. And mostly she’s brave to open up and talk about it to us.

One thing is sure though. She’s a survivor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

The post Rhonda Jo Petty: Happiness is the Truth – Podcast 68 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In one of his first detailed interviews for many years, Tom Byron joins us to look back at one of the most prolific careers in adult film history.

His life story resembles the history of the adult film industry since the beginning of the video age, during which time he’s won just about every kind of adult film award going and is in every Hall of Fame invented by the industry. He’s appeared in literally thousands of films, and he’s directed, produced, and edited hundreds too. He’s weathered the storms of AIDS, obscenity charges, tax indictments, pro-wrestling, drugs, industry controversies, and much more.

So how does he make sense of it all? What does he remember about Traci Lords, John Holmes, Alex de Renzy, Marc Wallice, Ginger Lynn, Jim South, John Stagliano, Patrick Collins and others?

And, now in his 50s, what is he doing today? You may be surprised.

This podcast is 109 minutes long.

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If you’ve followed us for long here at The Rialto Report, you know how much we respect and admire actors like Jamie Gillis, John Leslie, George Payne, and others.

But as a teenager growing up watching their films, I have to admit – I never watched the screen and really identified with them. I never saw myself in their shoes. I never looked at them and thought, hey, that could be me.

And then one actor came along who did look familiar. He looked like us, talked like us, and seemed just like all the teenage kids I knew. It was almost like watching ourselves onscreen. In an adult movie too.

And that was Tom Byron.

He looked like a naïve choirboy virgin who’d watched a golden age porn film in a theater somewhere in Texas, and decided it looked so much fun that he’d climb up onto the screen and join the action. And, as it turns out, that’s almost exactly what happened.

Tom Byron started appearing in adult films in 1982 often showing up in the role of the innocent brother or son who discovers sex. In the years since then his life story resembles the history of the adult film industry since the beginning of the video age. He’s appeared in literally thousands of films, and he’s directed, produced, and edited hundreds too.

He dated Traci Lords when it was revealed that she was underage in one of the biggest scandals ever to hit the adult film industry.

He saw so many come and go, he weathered the AIDS crisis, drugs, tax investigations, and burn out.

He’s had his own film production company several times, including the controversial Extreme Associates which he started with his best friend Rob Black, which featured rough sex and ultimately legal charges for obscenity.

He tried his hand at launching a music career as a singer, and even formed a wrestling company, Xtreme Pro Wrestling.

He saw the industry re-invent itself – several times, and all the time he kept working and making more films. And he still looked like a teenager.

*

In this podcast, Tom refers to the effect that the Frontline documentary, ‘American Porn‘, had on Extreme Associates, the business he owned with Rob Black.

*

The post Tom Byron: A Life Choice – Podcast 67 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Howard Ziehm, the pioneering adult film director, theater owner, author, polymath, and friend of The Rialto Report died last week in California.

Over the years, I visited Howard on several occasions at his beautiful hill-top house in Malibu in California – “It’s the home that porn built”, he would joke. And he was right: Howard had enjoyed a long career making and exhibiting adult films, and in his last years, he enjoyed a happy, comfortable, and well-deserved retirement.

Ten years ago, he even wrote a lengthy autobiography, ‘Take Your Shame and Shove It: My Wild Journey Through the Mysterious Sexual Cosmos’ in which he told the eventful and entertaining story of his life.

The irony was that when I met up with him, we ended up talking about everything except his adult film past: he always wanted to show me his collection of classic cartoons depicting golf scenes – he’d published a book of favorites which featured a foreword by Bob Hope, and I wanted to talk about his experience playing music and managing folk clubs in heyday of the 1960s. Not that Howard was stuck in the past – quite the opposite: he was keen to talk about politics, culture, and technology innovations.

On one of the last times that I saw him, I asked him what he thought about the state of the adult film industry today, and the new developments in AI,   streaming porn, webcams, cam girls, and live interactive sites like Chaturbate. He was enthusiastic: “These instant, intimate interactions are like going back to the beginning of the sex film business,” he said. “Except that now you can enjoy it all in your own home.”

I asked him if he ever logged on to any of these sites.

“Of course, I do!” he laughed. “Every day! Except I don’t like to pay. After everything I’ve done to help create this adult film industry over many decades, after all the risks I took and the court cases I had to fight, I figure… I should get some things for free, right?”

This episode’s running time is 102 minutes.

______________________________________________________________________ Original introduction to the Howard Ziehm podcast

Make no mistakes about it, Howard Ziehm is one of the people who invented the adult film industry.

He was there taking still photos for adult bookstores in the 1960s – when the most you could reveal was a girl in her underwear. He made some of the first color loops – when all you could show was the subject writhing on a mattress by herself.

And then in 1970, as the market finally demanded hardcore, he made the groundbreaking ‘Mona: The Virgin Nymph’.

Time magazine called it the ‘The Jazz Singer’ (1927) of fuck films. Variety called it “the long-awaited link between the stag loops and conventional theatrical fare” and it was listed it their annual Top 50 grossing films – the first pornographic film to feature. And it was the first nationally released 35mm adult feature film to play in actual movie theaters.

In short, it was the blueprint for the 1970s porno chic hits that followed.

Howard went onto make many more adult films over the next decade, including ‘Flesh Gordon’ (1974), a science fiction adventure comedy erotic spoof of the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s.

So who was the mysterious Howard Ziehm behind these films?

Fortunately he’s finally completed his autobiography which The Rialto Report is assisting Howard to publish shortly. And it’s a hell of read. It’s a huge, entertaining, and riveting book that names names, settles scores, and tells truths. It’s also one of the best biographies you’ll read about anyone in the film industry.

And it turns out here was someone who was going to be a theoretical physicist, owned one of the most successful clubs of the 1960s folk scene, worked as a nude model, had a drug running scheme importing marijuana across the border into the US, played guitar in a Los Angeles band called Father Plotsky and the Umbilical Cord – and all that before he ever even thought of making a porn film.

Today we’re joined by Howard Ziehm to talk about his surprising life leading up to the film ‘Flesh Gordon’. It’s quite a ride.

_______________________________________________________________________ ‘The Virgin Runaway’ (1970) (directed by Howard Ziehm)

‘Hollywood Blue’ (1970)

Japanese one sheet for ‘Hollywood Blue’ (1970)

 

 ‘Mona’ (1970)

 ‘Harlot’ (1971)

Newspaper ad for ‘Harlot’ (1971) (using an alternative name)

 

Newspaper ad for ‘Harlot’ (1971) (using an alternative name)

 Beverley Cinema

 

 

The post R.I.P. Howard Ziehm: Mona… (and marijuana, music, and M.I.T.) – Podcast Reprise appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Henri Pachard was one of the most successful adult film directors in America in the 1980s and 1990s – making award-winning films like ‘Babylon Pink’ (1979), ‘The Budding of Brie‘ (1980), and ‘October Silk’ (1980). He worked with the biggest names and won just about every award there was to win in the industry.

But back in the 1960s, Henri Pachard was just Ron Sullivan, and he was a young filmmaker in New York City trying to learn about filmmaking any way he could. He was part of a small group of pioneering and revolutionary filmmakers that helped create the modern day adult film industry. When he started out nudity was still forbidden, and sex was simulated.

The Rialto Report met and spoke with Ron on several occasions before he passed in 2008. He was always great company and happy to talk about the glory days when his 1980s hardcore movies were shot on film, shown in theaters, and scooped up awards.

The last time we interviewed him was just a few months before he died. He’d been fighting a battle with cancer – first jaw, then throat – and so at times, understandably, he found it difficult to talk. But as always he was excited to be looking back at his life.

In our last conversation though, rather than talk about his most successful period, all Ron wanted to do was to go back and remember his early days in New York back in the 1960s when he first discovered filmmaking, when he fell in love with the movie camera, and when he helped create an entire industry. He remembered those days with a mixture of excitement, innocence and even regret. In some ways, he said, they were the best days of his life.

On this Rialto Report, we hear that conversation with Ron Sullivan. But this time, it’s not an interview. This is just Ron Sullivan. In his own words.

Note: Due to the fact parts of the interview may sometimes be difficult to understand due to Ron’s illness, we’re also publishing a transcript of the podcast below. However we still urge you to listen to the podcast to hear the stories in Ron’s own voice.

This episodes run time is 38 minutes.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Background

My attraction to movies… I had no idea why until I turned 40 years old, and went to get new glasses and they told me I needed bifocals, and the reason why was because I have no depth perception. I was born without depth perception. Hence my fascination for a single dimension movie!

My family background was I was brought up in a lower-middle class white neighborhood in Kansas City with and older sister and a younger sister and a younger brother and with loving parents. We never went hungry, we never had any resentments, we never had any fights, and we never had any issues with the opposite sex.

My upbringing was very, very typical. We played football in the streets, we had dogs off leashes, I went to the movies once a week, I watched television late at night. I watched movies on Channel 9 so I could learn about movies when I was 14 and 15. All through the summer, I watched movies. I loved them.

 

Move to New York

I got married in Kansas City and wanted to study some form of show business in either in New York or California. It was a coin toss, and the coin said New York.

We drove out there, my wife and I, and I went into acting and directing in 1962. I got a job in a theater, the Circle in the Square Theatre, in 1962, hanging props and cleaning out the theater, being a Janitor and an usher, and helping actors like George C. Scott. He was a great actor and he was doing a play for us then. And that’s how I got into the entertainment business!

I was hired as an actor in one play, I hated acting, but I wanted to continue with directing and production management. I wanted to get into film and a young composer knew an educational filmmaker. He said, “Would you like to work in movies?” I said “Absolutely.” He said, “This is not feature stories, this is like educational film.” I said, “I don’t care” and I started there in about 1963, working in educational films.

 

Birth of Adult Film

Over the years in this kind of business, I would run into my friends and colleagues who would talk about these adult movies. In those days, we’d called them ‘nudie cuties’.

The adult entertainment business in New York, the ‘nudie cutie’, began with European films. They were terrible movies that nobody wanted. The American rights would get purchased by somebody over here and there would be inserts shot: We’d take a body double and match the costume, match the hair, shoot the back of her head, have her take her clothes off from here to here or something like that, and have hands on their bodies, nothing very suggestive, in fact we kept the bras and the panties on most of the times back then… and so that’s how I got some of my work. We were shooting inserts.

We would be hired to shoot for a day. We’d have some young American girl, who was getting $50 for the day, and she had to do her hair: “I have to do my hair blonde?! Now what do you want me to do? Do you want me to use panties?” And she’d put the panties on, the bra on. “Now what!?”

And the Director would say, “Turn this way and turn this way, now throw your head back… now turn your head.” All because we could cut this in to the main star of this foreign film that was in another language – usually Sweden or something like that.

That’s how the exploitation film began. It all began with a bunch of outlaws and foreign films.

 

Making Films

Eventually it became reasonable and feasible to create and shoot the movie right in New York. We could make ‘em in three days and they were all in black and white. These things were shot on minimal budgets and we would work on the crews.

I would be an assistant cameraman on one movie, a lighting guy on another movie, a production manager on another movie because I said I could do it, and we just sort of moved in that direction because it was quick employment.

We all wanted to be the next Marty Scorsese.

We weren’t paying the people very much money – certainly I didn’t make that much – and we started getting busier and busier and busier. It became an entire cottage industry.

We did it because we wanted to make movies and not do meetings. Meetings were easy to do, but I’d rather be one day on a set then five days in a meeting, anytime. And if I couldn’t direct the movie, then I would production manage the movie or I would be the gaffer. We covered each other and we kept working as much as we could – but we loved it, we loved it so.

There were theaters dedicated to playing these kind of movies every week and there were distributors that were springing up around Midtown.

The Distributors in those days were small companies. So there was like Harold Sugarman, I forget the name of his company. And there was Jerry Balsam of JER films but the interesting one, the one I enjoyed the most, was Sam Lake of Mature films.

The reason I liked Sam Lake the most was he was in the Film Center building, and they had little offices, they had one person helping, typing, and answering the phone, whatever, and they shipped their prints out. He liked to think himself as a pioneer in the Adult entertainment industry

I had done some work; I had made one movie, ‘Lust Weekend’, that helped launch my career. I’d worked at some movies off and on, various productions, and make some money to make a living, but you’re only as good as your last movie – and you shouldn’t wait too long between movies in New York or they’ll forget you in about a week.

 

The Bizarre Ones

So I went to see Sam Lake and he didn’t know me but I had heard of him and I told him I was a student at NYU film school. Martin Scorsese went there, and Brian De Palma, I understand went there. I told him I was doing some research for my paper on the new exploding sex exploitation film in the New York area.

I said “It’s becoming a new industry and I’m using this for my paper and I’d like to know if I could sit around and hang out with you, Mr. Lake, and ask you some questions?”

“Sure kid, whatever you want, come on by anytime.”

So I went there for about a day or two, and then I came in one day and I had something written out and I said, “Mr. Lake, I’ve written a little script here with a title and I want you to just check it out. I want you to make sure I’m on the right track here.”

He said, “Give me the script. ‘The Bizarre Ones’? Where did you get that title?”

I said, “I made it up.”

He said, “That’s a good title. You wanna shoot it?”

“Shoot it? Sure!”

I never went to film school, but if you’re going to con somebody, con their ego. I learned that because somebody emailed me a few years back about getting into my industry as a pornographer.

“What do I have to do, Mr. Henri Pachard, to get into the business?”

I said, “Do what I did kid… lie!” And I meant it, because essentially that’s what launched me. And I made it up but I made them in a way to fire up the man’s career, and to the day he died, he told people that he discovered me. I discovered him!

And from that, I shot three movies for him and started making them more and more and more.

 

Film Collective

We could care less about the sex at that time. We shot it… we had to, but pornography wasn’t our thing. I didn’t get interested in pornography until I became a big time director in porn – and then I started getting interested in porn, real porn. I was never really turned on. I mean that was not our motivation. We wanted to get to it, get it done, get to the next scene, and get to the next movie.

Our whole thing was that if we could move and shoot quickly – like hit and run, real fast – get the job done and shot, then we’d be in position for the next movie.

And the other thing it did for us it kept us networking. Half the time we’d be on the set, there’d be a crew of eight or nine people, and we’d be selling ourselves for the next movie. That’s why it took so long to shoot these things.

We kept expanding in the business. It invited more and more young moviemakers an opportunity to get in and learn the business while getting paid. Sometimes they’d work 18 hour days for $50 dollars to be a cameraman… but they learned. And we were always working with new people, always teaching new people what to do and the faster we learned, the better we could network.

My job was to get it done when I said I could get it done. We had 4 days… or 3 days… whatever we were allowed, and I would make sure we got it done in that amount of time and not get arrested and not get hurt.

We had an accident once with an actress named Mary Lamay. We were shooting a nude scene, and this was a horror movie with blood and sex. It was in color, like 1968, ’69, and we were in this bathroom sitting around. She was in this bathtub talking dialogue or whatever. In those days we had those big quartz lights, hot lights, 1000 watt lights, we put it on top of this glass ceiling on top of the shower. Not a good idea!

Somebody said, “Move that light around so the glass won’t crack and break” so they would move the light around. Well, we were shooting and shooting and shooting and we didn’t move the light around. The glass broke, and came tumbling down on Mary Lamay, and I scooped her up out of the tub. The light was coming down, whoa! So I grabbed her and picked her up. Her leg was bleeding like crazy.

So we got her all stitched up and packed up…

There were no set goals, not on my productions, but our goal was the next movie, the next movie. It would take us maybe a month to organize the picture, to find the locations, to make the phone calls, to have the meetings.

We had one concept because there were more people that didn’t want to do what we did. They wanted nothing to do with it – and it was because of nudity. They didn’t want anything with it that had S.E.X. – ‘mature’ films, for some reason. They thought it would be detrimental to their career. It may have been.

Whenever we started to make a movie, I don’t think we ever sat down and said, “What ingredients do we need to make a good film?” I don’t think we were ever that sophisticated. We knew whoever was putting the money up for the movie, whoever the company was that were distributing it, they already told us what they wanted and they wanted to make sure that this particular girl had a major role in the movie, even though she couldn’t walk and talk and chew gum at the same time… it didn’t matter because he was meeting her at the hotel after work. To us that was all part of the production and we worked with it. We always thought the stories were kind of stupid, whether we wrote ‘em or not, we always thought they were dumb.

 

On Set

But other than that, it went fast. In the black and white days we over-lit everything and did a lot of playing with the lighting and stuff because we had to prove ourselves as great lighting designers. We’d take forever to hang a light. Everybody had to talk about how to do it: “No, that’s how light it, that’s how you hang it.”

We were all new people. We were all trying to learn something and do our best. On the sets I was on, it would take us sometimes six or seven hours to shoot one sex scene. Why? Now we can do it in 25 minutes! First of all, there was, we were lighting with too much light, slow film, too big a crew, too much movie-making mentality, not enough pornography attitude… and too much pubic hair!

Once these kids learned how to shave themselves down, the girls would start shaving more and more of their pubic hair until now they clean it up completely. And it sure helps, it’s a good reflector; you can’t bounce much light off a lot of hair but you can bounce it off a belly pretty good and get it lit up better.

I did this work because it was my chance to pretend I was doing mainstream work. I remember we’d set up to shoot a script and there’d be one scene in there that was for me. That was my showcase, my reel, to show that I could direct and make a good scene. And I’d work that scene, probably overshoot it, but that was for me. We all did that. We all loved that part about ourselves.

I was always nervous as hell if I was the director because I was under pressure – but I was having the most fun. Nobody had more fun than me when we were shooting the movie. The idea was to be able to have the best jokes, and to laugh the best, and do the old corny lines. When the final shot was done, and we were getting close to wrapping for the day, we’d say, “The next shot after this is in my glass!” We’d run off to the bar, the crew and the cast, we’d just hoist ‘em up and drink ‘em down and have fun, laugh… because we got through the day. So it was always a celebration, even at the end of each day. At the end of the movie, we’d have a party to knock your socks off, and a week later we’d be shooting something again.

We were moviemakers. We had succeeded in our lives. We were shooting a movie.

 

Actresses and Nudity

One of the problems we had in our business, which we took care of real fast was finding talent to take their clothes off. Finding talent to perform in these movies was always a challenge for any of us.

They used to say, “Well if the script justifies it, I might consider doing a nude scene”. Ha! “If the script justifies it…!”

These women would work as strippers. In those days stripping was not like it is today and they got a lot of money but not near enough money as we could pay them to do a film. We might pay them $2000 to do five days of work, and they might have to do two sex scenes, or rather pretend to have sex, and this would draw in a lot of very nice looking women.

In the old days we’d hire and pay ‘em $50, $100 a day because they were body doubles. It didn’t matter too much what their face looked like, we never saw it. But as we expanded and started doing our own productions here in the United States in New York, we started having to go after women… models, models that were willing to show their bodies.

I remember the nudity and the sex scenes that we did back then, it was always, it was pretend sex, it wasn’t for real. So yet, there was a moral thing there, so “I don’t know if I want to do a sex scene. I’m willing to take my clothes off, I’m willing to fade to black.” Well, we can’t do that, we have to have 18 minutes of pretending to have sex! But it grew that way, and as we grew… the talent become to grow. They started coming to us in abundance. It got better and better and better, and that’s how Jennifer Welles came along.

I liked her, and I got to know Jennifer Welles…

 

Sexual content

When we shot these movies, we were the most advanced, we were ahead of the curve, ahead of the game, by shooting this kind of blatant sexual behavior, even though it was pretend sex, or softcore sex, or implied sex. Nobody else was doing it – not on television, not anything like it is today, not in the bigger movies. We showed them humping and grinding away, their bare butts, their pubic hair, whatever and the only thing we had to avoid was not showing the genitals, especially the guys because if it was erect, we had to cut that out. So staying off his dick was probably the biggest problem we had!

But was it ever going to go hardcore? Was going to go the way it is today? We had no idea it would. We had no idea.

I mean pornography on film has been around since the days of the silent movies. They’ve always been there, they’ve always been shot in hotel rooms or whatever, always with sleazy people with a camera and a girl and this and that. That’s been around for decades, for a century, a hundred years, almost a hundred years by now. Where we were different was that we were putting the stuff in theaters.

We had to appeal to a mass audience. We put something on the marquee with a sexy title and get customers to stop what their doing and pay $3 and go in at any time, not wait for the opening, and go in and see these girls pretending to have sex. And we were playing them in a standing target, we weren’t running from the law, selling these tapes underground. But they were not hardcore, they were softcore.

The first movie that I actually produced and financed was a movie called ‘Scare Their Pants Off’ and it was shot in black and white with women showing their breasts, things like that. Now what we didn’t have then was pubic hair. One of my shots called for an actor to lift up this fabric off this girl’s body who was laying there on a tomb like she was hypnotized, and as we pull the body off the camera panned with it so she wouldn’t reveal any pubic hair…. Except this girl had a mountain of pubic hair, and we came too slow – and he said, “Oh, we got to cut that out – there’s pubic hair!”

I said, “No we don’t. Leave it in. We’re not ready to sell, just leave it in.”

Sure enough I’m showing the movie to Lee Hessel of Cambist Films and he saw it and he said, “They’re experimenting with the beaver on the coast.”

That’s when I first heard it: “They’re experimenting with the beaver on the coast.”

“The beaver.”

And more often we would push the envelope, trying to get a little hotter, take more risks, they wanted a certain amount of beaver (pubic hair), or a certain amount of pickle (the penis).

The thing about the beaver and the pickle, how did we get words like that? It came from the distributors and their salesman. These guys once they started moving the picture around, it was done by phone, across the country: “Seymour, you got to hear this. The latest movie, I got a lot of beaver and some pickle.”

You couldn’t say you had pubic hair and penises cause you phones could be tapped, things like that, but beaver…

And even the movies the audience knew what that meant. I remember one theater in New York had ‘Beavers On Parade’… they knew what it meant, it was pubic hair! And an all-male movie called ‘The Pickle Factory’. The guys went in like they knew exactly what it meant and all because by selling this stuff over the phone, they were able to describe what was in it!

“What’s in the movie?”

“Well, this movie’s got a lot of beaver. Now you might have to take some of the beaver out.”

We would do that to get ‘em to want the movie. “You might want to check this movie out” – that was to tempt them to see it because we’d want them to play it, willing to take the risk. “You might want to take some of the beaver out with the pickle… but I’ll leave it up to you. So when do you want to print it?” You know? Boom!

As we shot these movies and became more and more aggressive. “I Am Curious Yellow”, the black and white dumb movie from Sweden, where the young lady, while talking to her lover laying down in the weeds, she just casually kissed his penis, while just talking to him, a soft penis. And it got through customs!

Yes, we were pushing the envelope more and more – but there was nowhere else to go. We were making plenty of these movies, but you can’t do the same thing every week. So we’d show a little more beaver. And then came ‘split beaver’. What does that mean? That means full front vagina. That’s not good enough. That was good for a while, there was ‘beaver’ and ‘split beaver’. Now came ‘pink’. What’s that mean? The labia spread open. I had to work these in the titles. ‘Pink beaver’… we all knew what that guy meant. The guy went in and they made it ‘big pickle’, ‘stiff pickle’. After the ‘I Am Curious Yellow’ thing, they were starting to shoot more and more oral sex, explicit oral sex.

We would get these girls who couldn’t get arrested, right? They couldn’t get hired on a movie, they couldn’t get hired as a dancer, they weren’t that pretty, but they were willing to go down and perform fellatio on just about anybody for not too much money, $50, $100, whatever.

“Honey, you wanna suck dick? I’ll give you $100?”

“How many?”

They’d be there, it was tough and they’d be in a hotel room. “Honey you just got to do 3 guys.”

Oral sex! And with that we started shooting movies and pushing the envelope and showing real oral sex. Not pretend, the real deal. Talk about nervous… the guy’s getting a blowjob; he’s going…the girl was…it was fun!

It was the competition for the dollar, to get the theaters filled up, because they had to keep pushing the envelope to get the customers to come back because they’re not going to come back and watch a pair of naked tits forever. They want to see the naked tits do something. They want to see the beaver do something. They just kept pushing the envelope to get the people to come back to the theater because they found out that those people who went to the theater, they came every week. If it was a good movie, they came every week. Now that’s a porno fix. That kind of guy that’s a steady, steady user, that’s a great customer. You want those guys, you don’t want the guy who says, “Honey, let’s go buy ourselves a porno movie for Valentine’s Day”. That’s once a year. I want to market to the guy that’s got to have porn every week. That’s a heavy user and so you got to satisfy those people.

So that’s why we started as outlaws and I never wanted to lose that quality because when it was illegal, when we were outlaws, there were less people in it, there were more risks being taken, there was more unwritten rules. If let’s say, a guy ripped you off several thousand dollars, or he beat you in some kind of a deal, you couldn’t go to the cops, you couldn’t take him to court. The best you could do is make him a partner. But we were outlaws.

We were outlaws, we were breaking the law and we knew it and we didn’t give a shit. We just did it.

 

Legal Issues

But as it got harder and harder, and more and more explicit, the theaters become more of a target. There were more prosecutors in the area that could make a career for themselves by busting a pornographer. It’s no big deal to bust a small time pornographer, what’s the big deal? But to bust a big time pornographer, that’s a big deal. And we were getting some big time pornographers, some of these people were rolling in money, they were bringing it in. A guy that might have $10,000 one day, five years later he has $5,000,000. That’s the target.

The distributor and the exhibitor would get arrested, the movie would get pinched and you’d have to go to court, you could possibly go to jail and pay a lot of fines, so we had Lawyers to defend this stuff, they were a risk.

Wow we had trouble, we’ve changed a bit.

 

Distribution

Making movies in those days… the idea was to get the money back for the distributor.

He’d put the money up, he wanted it back as fast as he could. He said “I want it in a theater on the 10th of two months later.” He’d have it booked, on the title, and that meant we’d have to shoot the movie and then edit the trailer and then get a trailer out to all the theaters saying “Coming Soon” – making sure we had the title, lock that down, and then edit the movie. It would take about a month to edit the movie, to make an 85-minute movie, it would take about a month, with the sound and everything, and get to an optimal track, and you get it mixed in and get release prints done. And in those days, we only make ten prints! We’d wear the sprockets off those things…

But all of that was great for us because it got us right back out shooting again. The whole idea of that, in that time frame, in that period… to be able to be on a movie set was everything. It was one more day of doing what we wanted to do and we were doing it with other people who were doing what we wanted to do and we knew it and oh, we loved it.

We’d go, “What do you mean you’ve been on a shoot?” “Where have you been, I haven’t seen you in a while?” ‘I’ve been shooting a film.” We’d love that. “I’ve been on a set all day?” “Where are you?” “I’m going on location.” We dropped those words. “We’re going to screen the dailies.” Any of those phrases that made us feel that we were part of a bigger world. We did it, we used it.

And a lot of our crews, they would work on our movie and say, “While I’m doing this, I’ve got a legit film coming up. Next week I’m on a legit movie”… meaning they were going to work on a bigger feature in New York, maybe shot in color, maybe a 38 day film, you know, working with a bigger Director, maybe a star, whatever, and a bigger crew… but they never had more fun than with us.

 

Distribpix

The way I would raise the money after doing a budget, I would make it just attractive enough to make the guy feel he was going to get a bargain. Anybody who made these movies, they had to make them cheap enough to think they’re getting a bargain, and make a lot of money: “I’m getting it cheap, I’m gonna make a lot of money”

That was the appeal. A lot of money overnight.

We would get this money from distributors and theater owners, or a distributor who had theaters like Distribpix. Artie Morowitz and Howard Farber, they were good targets, they were producing every week. Every one of us would go there, “Artie, hi – we’ve got a movie to make” and we just brought them to him.

Artie and Howie were the Mecca of adult movies. They started with one movie. One movie. They had to make the ad, they had to cut out the ad, glue it down themselves, a little newspaper ad. One movie, and they made so much money. Then they made another movie. They made so much money. They made two more movies, and that’s how they began. They made money hand over fist. They were the leading distributors in New York. He had the money and we wanted the work.

We wasn’t visualizing making tons of money; we wanted to make films. We weren’t looking at buying a theater, buying a home. We were looking at working and making films. That’s all we wanted, and we could do that on these small budgets.

I would bring in the project. “Here’s the title. Here’s the budget. Here’s what I need” and we’d go.

If they said, “Well, it’s too much money”… “How much money? What are you happy with? I’ll make it for $5,000”… “No problem $5,000.” We did what we had to do, and we kept going and everybody got paid. It was for love of the game, we loved it so.

Also they had an office so you could find them. They would go in the office every morning, if you had to find them, you could get them on the phone. You could do business with them. It might be tough business, but you could do business with them, they were always there.

 

The Mob

A lot of the guys in the game back then, you couldn’t find them. They were in a hotel, they were in a car. You know, it’s hard to get money from a guy who’s on the road, or he’s on the run, but sometimes we had to work that way. I had clients that were living out in their cars. We had that, we had gangsters.

I didn’t go around asking them, “Are you in the mob, Louie?” We didn’t do that. We assumed certain things about certain people by their friends and by their lack of action… they would never really make a phone call or write a letter, they would nod their head and whisper in somebody’s ear and have somebody do something, or they would make arrangements. “We’re going to make arrangements for you to have your money Ron” not “I’m going to write you a check.”

So we had some of that, but it was never really big. Pornography in 8mm hardcore loops, that sort of stuff, that was very much organized. That was quite controlled in most of the big cities by most of the families in the big cities, they had that kind of action. Playing in the theaters was a new thing for them. They weren’t sure they wanted to go that route. Some did, some didn’t. They knew where the money was. They got into our business in the 70s for a while when it started going hardcore because it beginning to compete with their own stuff… the 8mm stuff they were selling under the counter.

So organized crime has always been part of our business as it has been a part of everybody’s business. It gets confusing because not everybody with an Italian name in our business is in organized crime. And then there are those who like to think they are, or like to drop the implication that they just might be, as a way of garnering a little bit more respect. “If they think I’m a mobster, I’ll get more respect…” – that kind of thing.

 

Real name

Everybody changes their name in porn, in the adult business. I wanted to keep my name as Ron Sullivan, which is my real name, and I finally made my first explicit movie called ‘Babylon Pink’ and it looked like its going to do some good business, I was very happy about it. Meanwhile my wife got us into a country club, a Jewish country club, up in White Plains. We were getting ready to take this film to market and she said “Ron, don’t use your real name, we’ll be embarrassed at the club”

I said “Okay”, so I changed my name to Henry Pachard, and then I had to use it over and over again because we did so well at the first movie ‘Babylon Pink’.

Meanwhile I join the Country Club, we got to play golf, and people asked me, “What do you do for a living Ron?”

“Well, I’m in the motion picture business.”

“Oh what kind of motion pictures?”

I said, “I do a lot of adult films”

“Oh well, that’s kind of interesting. Have you heard of this film called ‘Babylon Pink’?”

I said, “Yeah, I own it.”

So that secret didn’t last very long. I had to change my name for less than a month; everyone at the club knew what I did. So I was very popular.

 

Looking back

My urge to make the big film, to write the big script, slowly faded away. They’d have to come to me and say, “Ron, you’ve got to do this with a $20 million budget!” I might not do it. It’s a lot of work to make that kind of movie. I can understand one should do it when you’re younger but when you’re younger, you don’t know anything. So my desire to keep up with Marty Scorsese or to keep up with Brian De Palma or any of these other peers… I wish them well. I don’t want to compete with them. I want to see their movies. I want to be entertained by their stuff.

And now at my age, I want to watch the other people flourish. I’ve won all the awards. I probably won more awards than anybody else except for Paul Thomas has by now. I go to Las Vegas for the Erotica Award show that AVN puts out…when I won my first award, there were less than 300 people at that first show. Now there’s over 5,000 in the place. There are more people today that don’t know me in this business, than know me. At one time, everybody knew me; today there are more people that don’t know me than do know me. It’s all the way it should be.

You can last forever in this business if you want to do it. Where you gonna go? You can’t escape it.

I have no regrets. I probably wish…well I probably…I hurt a lot of women. Probably when I was in my 40s I did a lot… when I was under the influence of cocaine, when I thought I was a big shot. My attitude was no greater than any other guy pornographer back 25 years ago. I’d say whatever I had to say to get her to shoot for me, or to have sex with me, same thing…

A couple of years ago at the awards show in Las Vegas I was inducted into Bill Margold’s Erotica Hall of Fame or something like that, and there were a lot of other women that I had directed. They were brought up on the stage that night; Nina Hartley, Porsche Lynn, Angel Kelly, a lot of them, and I knew all these women. I had directed them. I had known them. And some of them I had known very well. And it was my turn to speak at last, and they had got up and they sort of roasted me and teased me and stuff like that, and then it became my turn to talk. And the first thing I said is that… “I betrayed you, I lied to you, I misrepresented myself to exploit you, I took advantage of you, I ripped you off, I hustled you. But eventually I stopped being afraid of you. I learned to like you and finally love you and I thank you for that.”

We were movie makers. We were shooting a movie. We had succeeded in our lives.

It all changed. We all have changed.

But it got us through the day. It got us through our lives.

Ron Sullivan (aka Henri Pachard) interviewed on film by The Rialto Report

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The post Henri Pachard: When He Was Ron Sullivan – Podcast 66 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The Rialto Report would never presume to express an opinion about the upcoming political elections in the United States. After all, we’re merely a site that seeks to preserve the oral history of early adult films.

However we were interested to note that this summer Donald Trump signed a pledge to give serious consideration to appointing a Presidential Commission to examine the harmful public health impact of pornography on American culture.

Someone who is partially responsible for that impact was Al Goldstein.

Back in the 1970s both Donald Trump and Al were larger than life figures in New York. Trump was making a name for himself as president of the Trump Organization, engaged in projects like developing the Grand Hyatt Hotel next to Grand Central Terminal. Al on the hand had a publishing empire, which included his weekly newspaper Screw and a cable TV show, Midnight Blue.

Midnight Blue was an unlikely but entertaining mix of performances, interviews, and sex ads. The sign-off of the show would always feature Al’s profanity laced rants aimed at any one who made him angry that week. It could be anyone, a celebrity, an airline, or a taxi-driver. These features became affectionately known as the show’s ‘Fuck You Rants.’

But when is came to running for President, Al was actually ahead of Donald. He announced his intention to stand for election in the 2008 race. Among his campaign promises were “Removing the ‘o’ from country” and “Universal AL-Care” which would provide daily government-subsidized oral sex for women and a damn good cigar for men.

As to who would be his running mate, Goldstein said his campaign finances were limited so he’d be willing to trade sex for the vice presidency. His campaign website shortlisted possible candidates which included Jenna Jameson, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, and Larry Flynt.

When I spoke to him at the time, he said he was standing because he hated George but loved bush.

In today’s mini podcast, we listen back to one Midnight Blue rant from the 1970s when the subject of Al’s attention just happened to be Donald Trump.

This episode’s running time is 5 minutes.

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Donald Trump & Al Goldstein

 

 

 

 

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The post Donald Trump by Al Goldstein: An Edifice Complex – Podcast 65 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The 1980s were a tough period for the golden age of adult films.

More and more movies were being made on video, with less care and much less money, and AIDS was becoming a major issue in society.

To make matters worse, President Reagan ordered a comprehensive, and comprehensively biased, investigation into pornography. The so-called Meese Report was published in July 1986 and contained 1,960 pages. It concluded, controversially, that the content of adult films contributed significantly – both to sexual violence and to societal discrimination against women.

So who was behind what was being shown in the movies? Who was writing the scripts that portrayed all manner of perversity?

From the mid 1980s onwards, hundreds of the movies were written by someone called ‘Raven Touchstone’. This person wrote many of the biggest films, featuring the stars of the day such as Ginger Lynn, Barbara Dare, Traci Lords, and Christy Canyon. Films like Blame It On Ginger, Nothing To Hide: Justine, and Skin Hunger. They were so prolific that it seemed impossible that all these scripts could come from just one person.

Who was Raven Touchstone? And what kind of life had they led that enabled them to write so much from their fevered imagination?

It turns out that Raven Touchstone was just one person. And she was a middle-aged, Jewish woman from a sheltered upbringing in the mid-west.

So how did she come to be the grand-dame of adult film scriptwriting? How did she get started and how does she remember working with all of the big names in the industry?

On this episode of The Rialto Report, we start with the legendary adult film actor and director, Paul Thomas, whom Raven wrote some of her best work for.

Then April Hall speaks to Raven Touchstone herself to look back on her unlikely life and career in Raven’s first detailed audio interview.

This episode’s running time is 83 minutes.

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Raven Touchstone

 

Penny Antine (aka Raven Touchstone) in Caprice (1967) (with Doris Day and Richard Harris)

 

 

Raven Touchstone and Ron Sullivan at the 1989 XRCO Awards

 

Raven Touchstone and friend in 1990

 

Alexandra Silk, Raven Touchstone, Kelly Nichols and Keisha

 

Raven Touchstone, Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Hart

 

Raven Touchstone, Veronica Hart and Georgina Spelvin

 

Paul Thomas and April Hall

 

The writer – finally inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2016

 

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The post Raven Touchstone (and Paul Thomas): A Writer’s Tale – Podcast 64 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Tiffany Clark was a memorable performer on the New York adult film scene in the early 1980s, a favorite stripper at the Melody Burlesk, and a ubiquitous presence on the party scene with her husband and fellow actor, Fred Lincoln.

For a time they seemed to be everywhere – from swingers clubs like Plato’s Retreat or fetish venues like Hellfire, to writing, directing and producing their own successful films.

And she was stunning too. A dark-haired beauty who was often featured in the magazines of the day.

The trouble was that for a long time we had no idea where she was or even who she really was.

Then, one day about 10 years ago, we were in Florida to interview an old loop maker from the early 1970s named Sal Sodano. He was an old man in ill-health so we weren’t prepared for the person who opened the front door. The person who greeted us was a beautiful middle-aged blonde woman – who looked suspiciously familiar.

It turned out that she was the person formerly known as Tiffany Clark – who Sal happened to be staying with at the time.

Over the next years we’d go and see Tiffany and her family often, and slowly got to know more about the real person behind Tiffany Clark. And as it turns out, her real life was more dramatic, more surprising than we could ever have imagined.

Tiffany was understandably hesitant to open up and share her story. Finally earlier this year we sat down, and over the course of four meetings, she talked about her life, and how she remembers the exciting, scary and wild times.

It’s a story of love, parties, arrests, drugs, abuse, family, jail, murder and survival.

It’s the story of Tiffany Clark. She’s a remarkable person, and we’re privileged that she shared her story with us.

For more pictures from Tiffany’s life, see here.

This episode’s running time is 121 minutes.

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Tiffany Clark

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Tiffany Clark: No Simple Yes or No – Podcast 63 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Some of the first adult movies that were made in New York in the early 1970s starred an attractive and slender woman with long dark hair. If you hung around long enough to read the credits, you’d see that she was called Tina Russell.

For a short time in the early 1970s, she was the biggest name in adult films. She was the original porn star.

Except that she was unlike other porn stars you may have come across. She looked happy, intelligent, and innocent, like the girl next door. In films she often appeared with her husband Jason, and in interviews she spoke passionately about wanting to make adult films that appealed to everyone. ‘Pretty fuck films’ she called them. She wanted bigger budgets that would allow directors to make artistic statements that would make everyone sit up and take notice.

And then along came the success of ‘Deep Throat‘ (1973) and Linda Lovelace, and Tina Russell was slowly forgotten.

The Rialto Report wanted to find who Tina Russell really was. Why did she make adult films at a time when it was all so new and such a taboo? Where did she come from and what was she like? And whatever happened to her after she left the film industry?

We tracked down people who knew her to find out what really happened to her. Friends, family, filmmakers, and fans. People like Jason Russell, Harry Reems, Andrea True, Fred Lincoln, Marlene Willoughby, Carter Stevens, Ultramax, Tallie Cochrane, John Amero, Ed Seeman, Alex Mann, Jamie Gillis, Georgina Spelvin, Gerard Damiano, Jeffrey Hurst, Tony Richards, Annie Sprinkle, Marty Hodas, Eric Edwards, and more. All of them talk here for the first time about their memories of Tina.

12 years in the making, 25 interviews. The Rialto Report is back.

This is Tina Russell’s story. The lost girl of porn.

For more pictures from Tina Russell’s life, see here.

With special thanks to Julia Knippen for her expert voiceover skills, Shane Brown for his immaculate taste in music, and Something Weird Video for the best selection in golden age films.

This episode’s running time is 107 minutes.

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Tina Russell

 

 

One of Tina’s earliest publicity photos

 

Tina and Jason – at the Nook of Knowledge for the ‘Porno Star’ publicity tour

 

Tina poses with one of her favorite cats, and referred to this as her ‘pussy photo’

 

Tina returned to making loops at the end of her career

 

 

 

The post Tina Russell: Searching for the Lost Girl of Porn – Podcast 62 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Vintage audio interviews with Lisa DeLeeuw, Jamie Gillis, and John Seeman.
Conducted by Richard Pacheco.

Since we started the The Rialto Report, several people have said to us, “Wouldn’t it have been great if you could’ve spoken with these adult film stars back in the golden age itself?”

And sure, it would’ve been fun, but part of what I enjoy about our interviews is precisely the fact that many years, decades even, have passed since these people were making films. So what we hear from them now is something rather different. In other words, how have they chosen to remember the past? And how does it affect them today?

And yet, it would have been good to go back in time and speak to some of the main players. It would have been interesting to interview them when they were in the middle of the industry and dealing with the life that came with it.

And then we found out that the adult film actor Richard Pacheco had done exactly that.

Back in the day, he interviewed fellow actors, directors, and crew members, and taped these conversations that he had with them. Some of the interviews were done on film sets, others were done over the phone, and all are intimate and candid portraits that are unlike any others from the time. These conversations weren’t done by publicists seeking to aggrandize, academics trying to intellectualize, or the mainstream looking to scandalize. These were just candid conversations between people comparing notes, sharing war stories, and considering their place in the changing world of entertainment. They speak honestly, and they’re not selling anything – themselves or their latest film.

I listened to these tapes, and was particularly interested in a series of recorded phone calls that took place almost 30 years ago.

It was 1987, and the early generation of adult film performers were being confronted with a set of issues they hadn’t dealt with before: They were becoming older and replaced by newer, younger performers. AIDS was a now reality. Movies were being shot on video rather than film, which meant plummeting costs and cheaper productions. Money was in short supply for the performers. They had to start thinking of new careers, maybe outside of films. And as they aged, romantic relationships were becoming more important to them, but also more problematic because of their jobs.

This was one of the first generations that had to deal with these issues, and at times there’s a melancholy to the conversations.

On this episode of The Rialto Report we listen back to three conversations:

• Firstly Jamie Gillis, who at the time had just moved back to New York from California, desperate for money.
• Then we hear from Lisa DeLeeuw, who’d started to consider what was coming next in her life.
• Finally we hear from John Seeman, who was looking back at his career and wondering if it was all worth it.

Before we hear the tapes, we also asked Richard Pacheco to tell us what he remembers about each of these three people.

This episode’s running time is 6o minutes.

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Richard Pacheco aka Howie Gordon recently published his memoirs – ‘Hindsight’.

It is an excellent read, but don’t just take our word for it:

“Howie Gordon writes about life as a porn star with more honesty, integrity and humor than any other porn star, ever! You will laugh, cry, and fall in love.
I hope his book gets made into a movie, because it will be a one-of-a-kind
blockbuster.”

Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D.
Internationally Acclaimed Performance Artist
Author of Post Porn Modernist

 

Autographed copies of HINDSIGHT available at www.hindsightbook.com

 

Jamie Gillis on the set of Bad Girls IV

 

 

Lisa De Leeuw on the set of Ten Little Maidens

 

 

Howie with John Seeman

 

 

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The post 1987: Lisa DeLeeuw, Jamie Gillis, John Seeman – Podcast 61 (The Richard Pacheco Tapes) appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Eric Edwards is a true trailblazer of the adult film industry.

He started his adult career in the 1960s and stayed in the business for four decades. He starred in silent loops and narrative features. He moved between acting and directing, softcore and hardcore, and the east and west coast industries.

Since retiring from the business, things haven’t been easy for Eric. He lost his home and has struggled with cancer. But he’s doing better now and living in a modest apartment an hour outside of Los Angeles. Until recently he has shared this home with one of his sons with whom he has split the living expenses.

We recently learned from Eric that his son has to move out and as a result Eric is grappling to make ends meet. He fears losing his apartment and having to live in his tent as he has done in the past when times have been tough.

Eric is arranging to bring in a roommate to help share costs but until that happens, he needs some help so he can keep his home.

This month through the Golden Age Appreciation Fund we are raising money for Eric, and are reprising our 2013 interview with him. We are also pleased to present below a selection of rare photos from Eric’s personal collection.

Please consider donating whatever you can to Eric through the Golden Age Appreciation Fund. The fundraiser will be active until Friday June 24th, 2016 and 100% of the money raised will go directly to Eric.

For every $25 donated we will send you a golden age adult film DVD and an issue of Cinema Sewer magazine (while supplies last).

And the first donation of $150 will receive a limited edition ‘Tit Print’ courtesy of Annie Sprinkle. This comes from the final batch of prints made by Annie and is a true rare collector’s item. Endless thanks to Annie for her generosity to supply us with this work of art for this cause.

Note: due to high international shipping prices, we can only mail the thank you gifts above within the United States.

 

This episode running time is 92 minutes.

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Eric Edwards fundraiser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Eric Edwards: A Fundraiser – Podcast 22 reprise appeared first on The Rialto Report.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Veronica Hart was a natural candidate for show business stardom.

She was born and raised in Las Vegas, and had a natural talent for acting and dancing.

But she was smart and adventurous too, and after graduating college in record quick time, she headed over to Europe where she settled in England. It was the time of Bowie and glam rock – and she wanted to be part of the music scene there.

So she managed a prog rock band, danced in shows, and did some modeling, before suffering a life-changing accident that threatened her growing performing career.

So what happened next, and how did she end up in New York where she became a stripper and live sex show performer in Times Square, before becoming one of the biggest stars in adult film of the early 1980s?

And how did she then go on to be one of the most successful female adult film directors of all time, and still finding time to act in mainstream films like Boogie Nights along the way?

Not a bad career for a woman who defines herself first and foremost as a mother.

The last decade has been a tough one for her, but she’s survived and she’s still active – in fact she’s excited about some important developments in the next stage in her life.

On this podcast, Veronica talks about her life in and out of films, with stories of Boogie Nights, Chuck Vincent, Club 90, Fred Lincoln, Georgina Spelvin, Hellfire Club, Jamie Gillis, Julianne Moore, Leonard Kirtman, Michael Ninn, Paul Thomas Anderson, Rob Black, Roy Stuart, Russ Hampshire, Seka and Suze Randall.

As a bonus Veronica Vera has kindly allowed us to include her article about Veronica Hart’s stage show. It was originally published in Adam magazine in July 1990.

For more of Veronica Vera’s writing, we recommend her blog, and you can also listen to her podcast interview.

This episode’s running time is 111 minutes.

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Veronica Hart, by Veronica Vera

 

Veronica Hart films

Candida Royalle, Shanna McCullough, Veronica Hart

 

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The post Veronica Hart: Hart to Heart – Podcast 60 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Johnnie Keyes was the first black porn star, and from the moment he emerges in Behind the Green Door (1972), dressed in nothing but crotchless tights and an African necklace, nothing was quite the same again.

There may have been more prolific or famous male adult film stars over the last 50 years, but has anyone made a more iconic entrance and statement?

He was paired with Marilyn Chambers – the whiter than white Ivory Snow girl – and their interracial scene broke new ground, striking a blow to a major sexual taboo in U.S. society.

Johnnie featured on and off in adult films for the next decade, but was never defined by the adult film industry – he always seemed to have something else on the go.

So who was the man behind the character – who became the most famous black actor in 1970s adult film?

Now 76, Johnnie speaks to us in a rare interview, remembering his porn films, but also his starring roles in musicals and the theater, his time as a boxer, a singer, and a sex surrogate, and his life in the Army and in Vietnam.

With stories of Behind the Green Door, Candida Royalle, the musical Hair, Desiree Cousteau, Jamie Gillis, Jimi Hendrix, John Holmes, Lesllie Bovee, Marilyn Chambers, the Mitchell brothers, Seka, Serena, Swedish Erotica, Heavenly Desire, Pro-Ball Cheerleaders, and much more…

And a bonus story from the actor Idris Elba.

With special thanks to Margaret Thompson and Bill Margold.

This episode’s running time is 74 minutes.

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Johnnie Keyes films
Behind The Green Door (1972):

 

Johnnie Keyes emerges from ‘Behind The Green Door’

 

 

 

Resurrection Of Eve (1973):

 

 

The Decline and Fall of Lacey Bodine (1975):

 

 

 

SexWorld (1978):

 

 

Heavenly Desire (1979):

 

 

Pro-Ball Cheerleaders (1979):

 

 

 

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Johnnie Keyes, with The Rialto Report’s April Hall

 

The post Johnnie Keyes: The Man Behind The Green Door – Podcast 59 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Last week we presented a selection of pictures personally chosen by Barbara Dare from her collection – and have been amazed by the response.

We received email from so many of you, all eager to know more about the elusive star of the 1980s who vanished from the scene almost 25 years ago.

Barbara was a superstar of the adult industry in the 1980s video era. She started out in New York – where she was a regular at the sex club Plato’s Retreat – before moving to California. There she quickly became one of the leading ladies of porn throughout the late 1980s, starring in over 100 features. She was one of the first contract girls – initially with Essex Video, then with Vivid. She made films with Ginger Lynn, Erica Boyer, Paul Thomas and all the other big stars from the era. She traveled regularly to Europe to make movies there with people like Rocco Siffredi. She retired from film in the early 1990s, opting to travel across the U.S. and Canada where she was a big draw on the dance circuit. There was talk about her moving into the mainstream – with a one-woman show that Sandra Bernhard’s manager was interested in promoting.

And then what happened?

This week Barbara talks candidly to The Rialto Report in her first in-depth interview in decades – it’s a moving, entertaining, and surprising story.

All photos belong to Barbara Dare.

This episode’s running time is 100 minutes.

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Barbara Dare films

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April Hall and Barbara Dare, 2016

 

The post Barbara Dare: A Curious Woman – Podcast 58 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

By the mid 1990s, Dian Hanson could’ve been forgiven for thinking that she’d finally made it – and that nothing was going to derail her career in magazine publishing that had started two decades earlier.

She’d had an improbable and volatile journey, from a troubled upbringing and difficult marriage, to working as a nurse in rural Pennsylvania, before somehow launching an explicit men’s magazine called Puritan for the mob in New York. There followed a succession of writing, publishing, and editing jobs on men’s magazines whose titles eloquently reveal their sexual content: Hooker, Expose’, Partner, Adult Cinema Review, and Juggs, to name a few.

Her greatest triumph was Leg Show magazine – which Dian turned into a high-selling juggernaut. It was a match made in heaven: Dian, long fascinated and deeply compassionate about sexual quirks and fetish, an audience that was crying out for a more intimate connection with their magazine, and a publisher, George Mavety, who gave Dian near-complete creative control.

But then just as everything seemed to be working out perfectly, the internet happened – crippling the sex magazine business. To make matters worse, her employer, George Mavety, died. The good times were suddenly retreating in the rear-view mirror.

In this final episode of the series, Dian talks about what happened next, and how she re-invented herself with Taschen books. It’s a story that includes characters as diverse as Linda Lovelace, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Crumb, transvestite model Kim Christy and transsexual porn star Sulka, Vanessa Del Rio, and many more.

You can listen to the Episode 1 here, Episode 2 here, and Episode 3 here.

This podcast is 52 minutes long.

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Dian in ‘Crumb‘ documentary, 1991

‘

Photo for Crumb portrait

 

R. Crumb portrait

 

Dian standing on Leg Show reader, 1995

 

New York, 2000

 

Dian and Larry Flynt event, 2008

 

With Liz Earls of ‘Days of the Cougar’ book, 2011

 

Explaining porn at Los Angeles Public Library, c. 2012

 

With ‘The Art of Pin Up’, 2015

 

In Dian’s Taschen office in Hollywood, 2018

 

Dian with boyfriend Daniel, Christmas 2019

 

Naomi Campbell party, 2020

 

Onstage with Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Geffen Theater, Los Angeles, 2023

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The post Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 4: The Taschen Years – Podcast 142 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

João Fernandes was adult film’s first true cinematographer.

He started in New York in the 1960s shooting black and white soft-core sexploitation films.

Then he was the man looking down the camera when Deep Throat, Devil in Miss Jones, The Story of Joanna and other groundbreaking Gerard Damiano films were made.

He worked with Doris Wishman, Armand Weston, Jonas Middleton and many others. He was responsible for the visual flair of films like Through The Looking Glass and Take Off.

But his talent and success was a double-edged sword. How could he hope to turn his underground fame in a semi-legal industry into a mainstream career?

After years of struggling, he did find success in Hollywood, working as Director of Photography on Chuck Norris films, shooting movies starring people as diverse as Tony Randall, Tom Berenger and Christopher Lambert, and even directing episodes of the hit TV show Walker, Texas Ranger.

But all the time, he wondered: What would happen if Hollywood found out about his adult film past?

For years he denied his involvement in adult film – even when it eventually seemed to be an open secret. So when Ron Howard’s production company came knocking in 2005, looking for an interview for their documentary, Inside Deep Throat, he continued to resist, still determined to keep his decades old secret.

As a result the man himself has been a mystery. No one knew much about him. How did a Brazilian become porn film’s first visual artist, what does he remember about the notorious and fabled films he worked on, and does he have any regrets?

On this episode of The Rialto Report, the artist also known as Harry Flecks breaks a 50 year silence.

In a special extended interview, we speak to the man himself. Joao Fernandes.

This episode’s running time is 118 minutes.

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João Fernandes

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post João Fernandes: The Artist Formerly Known as Harry Flecks – Podcast 57 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

We recently heard that one of our all-time favorites, golden age actress Miss Sharon Mitchell, has recently been going through a very tough time.

The Rialto Report interviewed Mitch early in 2014 – and heard how she had struggled since the closure of her AIM organization a few years ago.

In recent years she’s lived in a rural area in the country outside of Los Angeles where she has struggled to find work. After several years of looking, Mitch finally found work with a nearby AIDS advisory service this summer, but shortly after she started work there she crashed her motorbike. She was badly hurt in the accident – and the bike was almost a complete write-off.

What made this even worse was that she needed the bike to commute to her job, and Sharon has not been able to afford the cost of the repairs so the bike remains with the repair shop.

Without the bike, Mitch will not be able to stay in work – and she badly needs the income to survive.

This holiday season we’ve joined up with the Golden Age Appreciation Fund to raise money for Mitch. Please visit the site and give whatever you can. It’s so important to Mitch that she can get back to work.

Thanks very much for all your help.

This podcast episode running time is 107 minutes.

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The post Sharon Mitchell – Her Interview Revisited: A Christmas Fundraiser appeared first on The Rialto Report.

April Hall of The Rialto Report writes:

Aaah… Billy Dee. It’s complicated.

I’d wanted to contact him for years. But accurate information about him was just difficult to find.

He was one of my favorite porn actors – who got started in the golden age of adult films in the 1970s and survived into the video era of the 1980s.

I heard he’d served in the armed forces during the Viet Nam years, or that he’d done time in prison for drugs. Some said he’d taught tennis at a nudist camp, but others remembered him having his own successful male stripping group before The Chippendales were famous. People couldn’t even agree on his race – was he black or mixed race?

And some said he’d left adult films to attend Bible College. He’d become a preacher, a Southern fire and brimstone evangelist, who shunned his porn past and wouldn’t welcome anyone asking about it. And so no one had heard of him since then.

I looked for him everywhere and eventually managed to reach him last year. The thing is I didn’t get a reply back from him until just a few weeks ago. It turned out that he was wary about talking about his career in adult films. He explained that when he stopped making films, he made sure that he really disappeared. Even his partner, actress Nikki Knights, didn’t know where he’d gone.

In the end Billy Dee agreed to talk. And it turns out he’s a salesman living in Scotland.

Like I said, it’s complicated.

April Hall interviews Billy Dee in this special extended edition of The Rialto Report.

This episode’s running time is 134 minutes.

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Billy Dee – Yesterday and Today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Billy Dee: Porn Again Christian – Podcast 56 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Candy Samples was one of the true larger than life figures that lit up the early adult industry.

Whether is it was in black and white cheesecake photo sets from the late 1960s, thousands of magazine appearances, and scores of films – from softcore to hardcore, from loops to catfight wrestling shorts.

She had a mischievous, friendly look that stood out from all the other models. She often played the roles of older women that somehow looked like your mother’s naughty friend, exuding a mysterious sex appeal.

And then there were her breasts. With her formidable physique, she looked like an Amazonian queen; fit, tanned and physically invincible. No wonder she was cast as Chief Nellie in the 1974 science fiction spoof Flesh Gordon, or in the 1979 Russ Meyer film Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens.

Her staggering physique made her an instant favorite, and for many years she toured as an exotic dancer. Somehow she just seemed to get better with age. She developed a huge following that endured right through to her retirement in the late 1980s – and continues today.

After she retired, she remained active – writing columns in the 1990s for magazines like Juggs. And she had an online fan club where she would have chat sessions with fans.

About ten years ago she disappeared from public view just as we were getting curious to learn more about her life. What was it like being one of the people who was there at the birth of the adult industry? And how difficult had been to stay there for so long?

The Rialto Report figured that as she’d been active in the industry for almost 40 years it wouldn’t be difficult to find her. We figured wrong.

We looked for the legendary star and made some surprising discoveries.

This episode’s running time is 45 minutes.

The musical playlist for this episode can be found on Spotify.

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Candy Samples recommendations

If you want to see more of Candy, head over to the good folks at Something Weird Video and we recommend the following titles:

Dragon Art Theatre Double Feature Vol. 21 Candy’s Cat House / Candy Get Your Gun
Dragon Art Theatre Double Feature Vol. 69 Sex As You Like It
Dragon Art Theatre Double Feature Vol. 150 Million Dollar Mona
Dragon Art Theatre Double Feature Vol. 163 – The Erotic Director
DragonArt Theatre Double Feature Vol. 200 – Mrs. Harrison
Bucky Beaver’s Vol. 225 XXX Porno Superstars
Bucky Beaver’s Vol. 228 XXX Big Bust Loops
and countless other volumes of Bucky Beaver’s Stags Loops and Peeps!

And for soft core fans:
Ensenada Pick-Up
Is There Sex After Marriage
Love Bocaccio Style
Bucky Beaver’s Double Softies Vol. 3 – Window Of Passion
and many many volumes of Big Bust Loops!

Candy Samples magazine appearances

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Whatever Happened to Candy Samples? – Podcast 55 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Our friend Candida Royalle passed away this week. She was 64.

Candida was a former star of pornographic movies who became a self-styled feminist filmmaker at 30 when she started producing and directing films for her own company, Femme Productions. She defined her work as female-oriented, sensuously explicit cinema as opposed to formulaic hard-core pornographic films that she said degraded women for the pleasure of men.

Candida succumbed to ovarian cancer not long after tracking down the mother who abandoned her as a child and discovering that she had already died of the same disease. At the time of her death, she’d been working on a documentary, While You Were Gone, about the search for her mother.

We were fortunate to get to know her well in recent years, and will miss her happiness, wisdom, sense of fun, and warmth.

In 2014 The Rialto Report interviewed Candida over five separate days. The result was our podcast Candida Royalle: ‘Femme’, Feminism, and a Female Icon which we are pleased to re-present here.

This episode running time is 106 minutes.

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Candida Royalle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Candida Royalle: ‘Femme’, Feminism, and a Female Icon – Podcast 35 reprise appeared first on The Rialto Report.

George McDonald was an adult film star at a time when there were no adult film stars.

He started in the era of short, silent 8mm films and saw first hand the progression to full-length pornographic features within a couple of years.

This was an era of shame and secrecy when no one used their real name – except for George.  And for a time his name was everywhere – he once counted nine theaters showing his films in San Francisco at the same time.

He was in the industry so early that one of his last films was the Mitchell Brothers‘ Behind The Green Door – often cited as one of the first adult films.

So what kind of person ends up being the original porn star?

Maybe not the kind of person you’d think. George McDonald was an all-American boy, high school athlete, good-looking, good grades, good future. He signed up to the Air Force when the Vietnam war was going on. And he had political aspirations too. He was sure he’d be mayor one day.

But along the way he ended up working in porn films, headlining a live sex show in Hawaii where he competed with John Holmes, and living the life no one had ever really lived before.

And then he retired from the industry, and opted for the quiet life. Which in George’s case meant joining filmmaker Alex de Renzy on a drug-smuggling round the world boat trip.

Another time. Another life. Another Rialto Report.

This episode running time is 97 minutes.

The musical playlist for this episode can be found on Spotify.

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George McDonald

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News article about the Marysville ship, that George and Alex de Renzy sailed in

 

Despite the police search, nothing was found – this time…

 

The post George McDonald: The First Adult Film Star – Podcast 54 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The Rialto Report really took off when we tracked Jennifer Welles down for one of our first podcasts. Over two years after its posting, it still remains one of our most popular interviews.

We’ve stayed in touch with Jennifer since we first met her and she continues to be surprised and delighted by the level of interest in her story. While she values her privacy, we’re pleased that she chose to share some of her recent photos with The Rialto Report.

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From our original podcast with Jennifer Welles:

“Whatever happened to” is a question that is often asked in relation to the stars of the golden age. But seriously: whatever happened to Jennifer Welles?

She was one of the rare actresses who started out in 1960s sexploitation before moving into hardcore films in her late 30s often playing the role of a more mature woman.

One moment she was appearing in a string of highly successful films that culminated in the box office smash Inside Jennifer Welles, and then suddenly she was gone.

Formerly close friends and colleagues, and even her ex-husband all told a similar story of how her disappearance was as complete as it was sudden. The story circulated that she had made it clear that no one should attempt to find her.

How could someone whose image had been so prominently splashed across billboards and the pages of magazines have vanished into thin air? Where has she been for the last four decades?

The answers are revealed in this episode of The Rialto Report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos thanks to Oui Click ’em Ink Studios.

 

The post Jennifer Welles: The Lady (Un)Vanishes appeared first on The Rialto Report.

It’s safe to say that Roberta Findlay wasn’t immediately interested when I contacted her for an interview.

In fact I lost count of the number of times she told me to just go away. Actually I do remember. It was 14. Or 15 if you count the time I called her afterwards to thank her for this interview.

That’s not to say I wanted to force her to speak. But I did try and convince her that her career in film is much more important and interesting and pioneering than maybe she thinks it is.

Roberta just shrugged and asked, how is it be possible to be a pioneer for doing something you have very little intention of doing in the first place?

So let’s look at the evidence:

Firstly Roberta had a long career in film spanning several completely different eras: from the 1960s black and white films of her husband Michael Findlay, to the soft core films she made on her own for Alan Shackleton in the early 70s, to the long sequence of hardcore films she made with famed New York music studio owner, Walter Sear, and finally the horror films that she directed in the late 80s.

Secondly she often did almost everything herself – she produced films, wrote the scripts, directed, shot, and edited them. And she distributed them too.

And thirdly she’s a woman. And how many women do you know who’ve been so prolific over several decades in any male-dominated industry?

So yes, Roberta Findlay has had a more important and interesting career than she admits.

And it wasn’t meant to be that way. If her parents had had their wish, she’d have become a concert pianist. And if Roberta had had her way, she would have been a doctor.

So how did she become one of the most prolific directors of sex films?

Is it really true that the negatives for her films have been sealed behind a wall and that no one can get at them?

And why is she so keen on not being interviewed?

These questions and many more on this episode of The Rialto Report.

This episode’s running time is 83 minutes.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________  Roberta Findlay one-sheets and stills:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Roberta Findlay: A Respectable Woman – Podcast 53 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

When we launched the Rialto Report a few years ago, one of the first people we were keen to interview was the actor George Payne.

He was a dramatic and intense on-screen presence in early 1980s New York adult films, often playing mentally unhinged characters. We wanted to know more about the man behind the craziness.

It turns out George is one of the most gentle people you could hope to meet, and we’ve kept in close contact with him ever since.

Sadly George and his wife Diane have recently been going through a difficult time relating to Diane’s battle with cancer, and are having trouble affording health care and housing.

This week we’re teaming up with the Golden Age Appreciation Fund to raise money for George and Diane, and are reprising our 2013 interview with George.

The fundraiser is active until July 17, 2015. 

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George Payne fundraiser

George Payne is one of the most recognizable stars of the golden age of adult film in New York.

After making his debut in Jerry Douglas‘ seminal gay porn film ‘The Back Row‘ (1973), George became a regular on porn sets for the next 20 years. He appeared in some of the genre’s most famous movies – including ‘The Tale of Tiffany Lust‘, ‘Tigresses and Other Man-eaters‘, ‘American Desire‘, ‘Public Affairs‘ and ‘Puss ‘n Boots‘ – working with all the best directors along the way.

He’s perhaps best remembered for his intense and manic portrayals of psychopaths in a series of roughies including ‘The Story of Prunella‘ and ‘Oriental Techniques in Pain and Pleasure‘.

George met his wife Diane over 30 years ago when Diane was a casting agent for mainstream films. They were married shortly afterwards and lived an apartment in Queens. Both worked hard, were reliable, and were well-liked in the film industry.

Ashley West met George in 2005 when he was working as a cleaner at a gym in Queens. Retired from films, George was exercising there every day and keen to develop a fitness video for senior citizens.

Despite his on-screen ‘crazy’ persona, George is one of the most gentle people you could hope to meet. He’s thoughtful, polite and considerate – he never forgets anyone’s birthday – and prefers to inquire about your well-being rather than talk about himself.

In late 2014, unable to afford their rent George and Diane were evicted from their Queens apartment and moved into a shelter. It was a unpleasant experience which became even more difficult when Diane underwent surgery for breast cancer. She required additional medical procedures at the beginning of 2015 and, struggling to pay for Diane’s medication, they moved to Florida where it’s more affordable to live.

Staying with friends before moving to temporary housing, life has remained tough as George stopped working to care for Diane. They are currently seeking more permanent accommodation and are eager to move back to New York, but with their lack of funds options are limited.

The Golden Age Appreciation Fund states: “George Payne, a legend of American adult films who is too proud to ask for help himself, should be the focus of our current fundraising efforts. Our goal is to help George and Diane get back on their feet by raising enough money for a housing deposit, so they can sign a proper lease and secure their immediate future.”

This fundraiser is active through July 17, 2015. Your help spreading the word on our efforts is appreciated and those interested in donating please visit the George Payne fundraiser page.

The post George Payne: Wild Man – Podcast 02 reprise (a Fundraiser) appeared first on The Rialto Report.

When we contacted Sharon Kelly to request a Rialto Report interview with her, we suggested the conversation might take a couple of hours. She wrote back immediately expressing mild surprise that anyone would want to listen to her for that long.

Actually to be more precise she said: “Jesus Christ – two hours?! I wouldn’t listen to George Clooney beg to have sex with me whilst a resurrected John Lennon plays background music especially written for the occasion for that long”.

Well – that’s where we differ. Because Sharon Kelly is one of the rare actresses whose career straddled two very different eras. After dancing in clubs, from the notorious Clermont Lounge in Atlanta to the Classic Cat in Hollywood, she starred in a string of mid 1970s sexploitation films, many produced by Harry Novak. Along the way she also made appearances in Russ Meyer’s Supervixens (1975) and two of the Ilsa women in prison films – and had cameo parts in mainstream films like Hustle (1975) with Burt Reynolds and Shampoo (1975) with Warren Beatty.

She usually played wholesome though naïve girls, and her busty, freckled redhead looks invariably lit up the screen.

Then she abruptly disappeared for several years before reappearing in the 1980s – except this time she was called Colleen Brennan and she was making hardcore films. She won new generation of fans and a string of acting awards before retiring once again.

On this episode, Sharon remembers her two careers in film, her dancing years, softcore, hardcore, marriages, reform schools, phone sex lines, raising a daughter, cocaine, Ron Jeremy at the buffet table of Plato’s Retreat, and stories of Burt Reynolds, Warren Beatty and Roman Polanski.

And how good is it? Almost as good as listening to George Clooney beg to have sex with you while a resurrected John Lennon plays background music especially written for the occasion.

This episode’s running time is 72 minutes.

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Sharon Kelly / Colleen Brennan photographs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1982 Adult Film Association of America’s Erotic Film Awards

 

 

 

The post Sharon Kelly / Colleen Brennan: From Soft to Hard – Podcast 51 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In the first part of ‘Dian Hanson, Chronicles,’ Dian spoke of her upbringing in the northwest United States, an often shocking family life with a difficult and frightening father – who just happened to be the supreme grand master of a sex-magic cult. It was  a difficult childhood that included bullying, sexual assault, and running away from home, culminating in an unhappy marriage to a transvestite which ended after her troubled and abusive husband forced them to put their daughter up for adoption.

One of the few highlights and true interests from her teen years was Dian’s discovery of sexuality and pornography – thanks in part to the work of the psychologist Krafft-Ebbing and the growing permissiveness in the country, as exemplified by the publication of the strangely titillating Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.

In the second episode of our series, we heard how Dian got divorced and moved on with her life by finding work as a nurse in Pennsylvania – despite lacking any formal training – before starting a hardcore magazine, Puritan, with a boyfriend – despite not having had any experience in publishing. Dian liked the sex magazine work much more than she liked her boyfriend, so she ditched him and went on to partner with Peter Wolff, an eccentric veteran of the New York sex publication scene. Together they helmed popular titles such as Partner, Adult Cinema Review, and Oui, and though the pair were alternately and repeatedly feted and then fired, they developed a template for a new type of publication: a men’s magazine that would be guided by the desires of the readers.

Episode 3 is about the 1980s and 1990s – and how Dian’s career continued in the ever-expanding and competitive world of sex publications.

You can listen to the Episode 1 here and Episode 2 here.

This podcast is 51 minutes long.

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Standing on Fakir Musafar, Partner magazine, 1982

 

Dian Hanson, 1982

 

Dian with George Mavety, c. 1988

 

Dian, with Rick Savage, c.1992

 

Leg Show column photo, c. 1994

 

With Juggs managing editor Matthew Licht, 1995

 

Leg Show column photo, c. 1997

 

In Yoxford, England, c. 1997

 

With Rose Bailey, Leg Show

 

Leg Show, 1999

*

The post Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 3: Going Solo – Podcast 141 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Michelle Maren’s life has been eventful, surprising and difficult.

So much so that she has recently finished a documentary, ‘An Autobiography of Michelle Maren’ which she co-directed with award-winning filmmaker, Michel Negroponte. The film is starting to appear in film festivals around the country.

It recounts her troubled beginnings as a victim of abuse and domestic violence. By the age of 17 in 1979, she was homeless, living on the streets of New York, spending her days in Times Square and her nights in flophouses. The next years were a bewildering blur: she won the Miss Big Apple beauty contest and for a while was Tiny Tim’s support act. She worked in a succession of jobs – an increasing number of them in the sex industry, from sexual surrogate, go-go dancer, escort, and as a model in men’s magazines.

And all that was before Michelle even entered the adult film industry. In 1984, she starred in Gerard Damiano’s ‘Deep Throat’ sequel ‘Throat… 12 Years After’ (1984), and had parts in Henri Pachard’s ‘Public Affairs’ (1983), the ‘Flashdance’ adult film spoof ‘Flash Pants’ (1983), and others.

She stopped making films as mental illness and depression threatened to engulf her, and started her journey to recovery. For years lived she lived quietly, privately, virtually cut off from the outside world. Which makes her documentary all the more startling. It’s a remarkably open and brutally honest telling of her story.

On today’s episode, Michelle looks back and remembers her years in New York and her time making adult films.

Brace yourself.

This episode’s running time is 90 minutes.

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Michelle Maren:

Visit Michelle Maren’s blog here

Visit Michelle Maren’s Facebook page here

Visit Michelle Maren’s Google + page here

 

 

Michelle Maren, Miss Big Apple 1981

 

Michelle Maren, Miss Big Apple 1981

 

Michelle Maren, Miss Big Apple 1981

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anco Theatre, 254 West 42nd Street – with Flash Pants picture

 

Anco Theater, New York

 

 

 

 

Michelle Maren today

 

UPDATE: November 2015

Michelle contacted us recently to tell about the New York premiere of her film at NYCDOC. She kindly shared the following pictures with us.

 

 

 

The post Michelle Maren: A Reluctant Star – Podcast 50 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Jim South didn’t act in many adult films, and certainly didn’t take part in any sex scenes.

He didn’t direct, produce, or finance many movies either.

But if you watch any film made in Los Angeles since the mid 1970s, the chances are that Jim South was intimately involved in who you’re actually watching on-screen.

For years his company, World Modeling, supplied talent to the adult film industry. Actresses would converge there from all over the country for a chance to be cast in X-rated films. The agency represented adult stars such as Shauna Grant, Marc Wallice, Ginger Lynn, Savannah, Katie Gold, and Christy Canyon. His office was a hive of activity, always at the center of things. His huge casting calls were legendary, as were the picture books that he meticulously kept with Polaroids of every actress taken on the day they turned up in his office for the first time.

His agency was successful and profitable, but not without controversy. He had to weather all kinds of storms – the police had him under surveillance, he was arrested for pimping and pandering on several occasions, several high profile actresses that he got started in the industry committed suicide, he was charged over the underage Traci Lords scandal, and rivalries with other agencies sometimes spilled into physical violence. Somehow Jim survived. Maybe being an Irish, right wing Republican from Texas had something to do with it.

Over the years the adult film industry changed, people changed, and social networking replaced the old order, but Jim South is still in business. The golden days may have gone but he remains the same. He’s still out there, looking for the next girl, the next breakout star.

He’s one of the last of the original dinosaurs, and this is his story.

This episode running time is 72 minutes.

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Jim South’s World Modeling’s website is here.

Jim South (with actress Lucky Starr)

 

 

The post Jim South: The Last Agent – Podcast 49 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Make no mistakes about it, Howard Ziehm is one of the people who invented the adult film industry.

He was there taking still photos for adult bookstores in the 1960s – when the most you could reveal was a girl in her underwear. He made some of the first color loops – when all you could show was the subject writhing on a mattress by herself.

And then in 1970, as the market finally demanded hardcore, he made the groundbreaking ‘Mona: The Virgin Nymph’.

Time magazine called it the ‘The Jazz Singer’ (1927) of fuck films. Variety called it “the long-awaited link between the stag loops and conventional theatrical fare” and it was listed it their annual Top 50 grossing films – the first pornographic film to feature. And it was the first nationally released 35mm adult feature film to play in actual movie theaters.

In short, it was the blueprint for the 1970s porno chic hits that followed.

Howard went onto make many more adult films over the next decade, including ‘Flesh Gordon’ (1974), a science fiction adventure comedy erotic spoof of the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s.

So who was the mysterious Howard Ziehm behind these films?

Fortunately he’s finally completed his autobiography which The Rialto Report is assisting Howard to publish shortly. And it’s a hell of read. It’s a huge, entertaining, and riveting book that names names, settles scores, and tells truths. It’s also one of the best biographies you’ll read about anyone in the film industry.

And it turns out here was someone who was going to be a theoretical physicist, owned one of the most successful clubs of the 1960s folk scene, worked as a nude model, had a drug running scheme importing marijuana across the border into the US, played guitar in a Los Angeles band called Father Plotsky and the Umbilical Cord – and all that before he ever even thought of making a porn film.

Today we’re joined by Howard Ziehm to talk about his surprising life leading up to the film ‘Flesh Gordon’. It’s quite a ride.

This episode’s running time is 99 minutes.

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For those interested: Howard Ziehm’s soon to be published memoir, “Take Your Shame and Shove It: The bare truth exposed” tells in vivid detail the surreal and picaresque forces that almost prevented Flesh Gordon from being made and the hedonistic bacchanal that followed that quickly found itself being swallowed by a rising tide of drug abuse and mysterious diseases that nearly destroyed the newfound freedom of a world unrestrained by puritan chains.

 

‘The Virgin Runaway’ (1970) (directed by Howard Ziehm)

‘Hollywood Blue’ (1970)

Japanese one sheet for ‘Hollywood Blue’ (1970)

 

 ‘Mona’ (1970)

 ‘Harlot’ (1971)

Newspaper ad for ‘Harlot’ (1971) (using an alternative name)

 

Newspaper ad for ‘Harlot’ (1971) (using an alternative name)

 Beverley Cinema

 

 

The post Howard Ziehm: Mona… (and marijuana, music, and M.I.T.) – Podcast 48 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

For the first time on The Rialto Report, we feature a current day adult film performer. But the twist is that Nina Hartley is also one of the true stars of the golden age, having appeared scores of films since her start in 1984.

By any standards, Nina is a unique person.

The daughter of a socialist blacklisted writer, she was raised in Berkeley, CA and became a registered nurse whilst dancing at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell theater.

For many years she was married in a troubled menage-a-trois arrangement, having both a husband and a wife.

And since 1984 she has acted, directed and produced over 400 films, covering many types of sexuality, and even had a role in the hit mainstream film, ‘Boogie Nights’.

Today Nina is widely respected as a pro-sexuality feminist, and one of most outspoken supporters of the adult industry and free speech issues. Her fights have taken her to speaking to state legislatures, and national TV shows as Oprah.

She is married to Ira Levine, also known as Ernest Greene, legendary BDSM and fetish filmmaker and editor of Hustler’s Taboo Magazine.

And she is still going strong, still speaking out, even appearing as Hillary Clinton in a recent lesbian film.

So how does she remember starting out? How has the industry changed since those early years? And has she really been having a long-running affair with a school friend she first met in high school?

This episode also features Carol Queen, author, editor, and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement, and Nina’s close friend for many years.

(The above image is from the Suze Randall archives).

This episode running time is 101 minutes.

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Nina Hartley

Find more of Nina’s photos, videos and writings on her website.

Nina Hartley & Sharon Mitchell

Nina Hartley & Ernest Greene

 

The post Nina Hartley: The Importance Of Being (With) Earnest – Podcast 47 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

For many people Radley Metzger’s 1976 film ‘The Opening of Misty Beethoven’ was the greatest adult film of all time. It had everything – a witty script, great cast, international locations, and was made by a talented filmmaker.

And it had the enigmatic Constance Money. Hers is one of the iconic roles in the golden age of adult film.

She was an unlikely star; unlike other actresses in the industry, she made very few films – and two of those, she says she appeared in without her consent, when Radley Metzger re-used footage of her that was shot for Misty Beethoven.

So how does she remember the ‘Misty Beethoven’ experience?

The truth isn’t pretty, and she has outspoken and shocking thoughts on the subject.

After ‘Misty Beethoven’, Constance Money continued to surprise. She managed a hunting lodge in Alaska, appeared in a famous Playboy feature – the first X-Rated actress to do so, and featured in the Blake Edwards film ‘10’ with Julie Andrews. She lived with adult film actor, John Leslie, for a number of years, had a complex relationship with Jamie Gillis – her Misty Beethoven co-star, had a son, and made a surprising comeback for one film in the 1980s.

But what happens to your life when you are still remembered for that one film made forty years ago?

On this episode, for the first time Constance Money speaks about her life, in and out of films.

And in another first for the Rialto Report, we also speak to her father. What is his view of what happened?

This episode running time is 81 minutes.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Constance Money photos:

Constance Money Playboy pictorial

 

Constance Money Playboy pictorial

 

Constance Money Atom Video contest

 

Constance Money Playboy pictorial

 

 

Constance Money Playboy pictorial

 

Constance Money Playboy pictorial

 

Constance Money Playboy pictorial

 

 

The post Constance Money: The Re-opening of Misty Beethoven. And her father. – Podcast 46 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

For our first podcast of 2015 we’re reaching back into last year’s archives to honor a legend of adult cinema who is in need of our help: Kay Parker: Many Lives – Podcast 32.

About a month ago together with Jill Nelson and Mark Murray, we set up The Golden Age Appreciation Fund after learning that Kay is experiencing financial difficulties which have forced her out of her home. The goal of the drive is to raise enough money to cover Kay’s first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit. Many of you have already generously donated and for that we thank you.

The drive for Kay will run until this coming Friday, January 9th at midnight. This is a non-profit initiative so 100% of your donation will go directly to Kay – no donation is too small. And feel free to also leave a message for Kay when you donate – we will ensure it is passed on to her

Thanks so much – and Happy New Year!

This episode running time is 100 minutes.

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Kay Parker

Kay Parker is one of the true legends of adult cinema. In a career that started in 1977 and spanned over a decade, she became one of the industry’s most recognizable and best-loved figures. Since her retirement, Kay has dedicated herself to the welfare of others, working as a freelance New Age metaphysical counselor and writing a book about her spiritual experiences.

From her beginnings in war time Birmingham in England, Kay Parker was introduced to the adult film industry in the mid 1970s by playing small non-sexual roles. It was director Anthony Spinelli who talked her into doing her first sex scene in the 1977 film SexWorld, and Kay was soon one of the leading lights of industry. Kay is perhaps best remembered for her role in the original ‘Taboo‘, where she plays the mother role and is partnered with Mike Ranger, who plays her son Paul Scott, in one of the golden age’s most memorable scenes.

Apart from her film roles, Kay also became a prominent spokesperson for the business – appearing on television, college campuses, and in magazines, passionately defending the rights of the filmmakers and the performers. She is remembered with great fondness and respect by all who worked with her, including such luminaries as Seka, Eric Edwards, and Richard Pacheco.

Kay was recently featured in the book ‘Golden Goddesses’ by Jill Nelson (Bear Manor Media), and interviewed for The Rialto Report podcast – where both her appearances received much positive attention proving that she is still remembered and loved by her many fans.

The Golden Age Appreciation Fund would like to highlight Kay’s need, and also make it easy for anyone who wishes to make a donation to her. Together we can help Kay get back into a place of her own. Please donate – every penny donated to Kay will go directly to her.

The Golden Age Appreciation Fund is a non-profit initiative, that was established in 2014 to help raise funds for those formerly associated with the golden age adult film industry. It was set up by Mark Murray, Jill Nelson, and Ashley West.

 

The post Kay Parker: Many Lives – Podcast 32 (reprise) appeared first on The Rialto Report.

When people talk about the early pioneers of adult film in New York, names like Jamie Gillis, Harry Reems and Tina Russell spring to mind. But in January 2013, the industry lost someone who was there at the beginning, and remained there pretty much until his passing – and that’s Fred Lincoln.

Fred was born to a traditional Italian family in 1930s Hells Kitchen, New York. He was smart, but preferred the streets and petty crime to church and school, maybe influenced by family connections to local mobsters. After a time in the marines, Fred tried the quiet life; he settled down, got married and worked at a regular job, but the bright lights of the city were calling. He started acting, and before long became one of the very first adult film performers in loops and early features.

Fred made loops with all the early characters like Sam Menning, Teddy Snyder and Smitty. He starred with Harry Reems in ‘Sex USA‘ (1971), Gerard Damiano’s pre-‘Deep Throat‘ (1972) hit that paved the way for porno chic. He acted regularly before turning his hand to directing and following the industry out to the west coast.

Along the way, he was married seven times, counting adult star Tiffany Clark and porn director Patti Rhodes among his wives. He helped Larry Levenson manage Plato’s Retreat and started the notorious Hellfire Club. He even found time to regularly work in mainstream movies as a stuntman, and to star in one of the most influential horror films of the early 1970s, ‘Last House on the Left‘ (1972).

I wanted to know how Fred remembered the early days of the porn industry when loops were king, porno was chic and New York was the center of it all, so in 2007, I sat down with him to discuss his New York years.

This episode running time is 46 minutes.

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Fred Lincoln – Rare pictures:

Fred Lincoln (right)

 

Fred Lincoln in ‘Millie’s Homecoming‘ (1971)

 

Fred Lincoln in ‘Millie’s Homecoming‘ (1971)

 

Fred Lincoln in ‘The Weirdos and the Oddballs‘ (1971)

 

Fred Lincoln in ‘The Weirdos and the Oddballs‘ (1971)

 

Fred Lincoln (1937-2013)

 

The post Fred Lincoln: The Early Years – Podcast 45 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Hyapatia Lee was always an instantly recognizable figure in the adult films and magazines of the 1980s; she was a strong and striking presence with an unusual Native American persona, which it turned out was more than just a character – Hyapatia is one-quarter Cherokee which was and is a proud part of her heritage.

But her wholesome image masked a troubled life; she grew up raised by her grandmother and thinking that her mother was actually her sister. She suffered abuse and rape, and, in part as a response to these terrible events, developed dissociative identity disorder – commonly referred to as having multiple personalities.

She dreamt of singing and dancing on Broadway – but instead became a stripper and then an actress in adult movies. She was one of the first genuine stars and contract girls – first with Harry Mohney’s Caribbean Films and then with Vivid.

She starred in a string of hugely successful films, including ‘The Ribald Tales of Canterbury’ which she also wrote and was one of the most expensive pornographic movies of the era.

At the same time she had a parallel career as a singer with her own band – and recorded a couple of CDs.

But controversy was never far away, whether it was her continuing mental illness, her marriage to her manager and frequent co-star Bud Lee, or the rumors that she faked her death to leave the industry or to increase merchandise sales.

To set the record straight, she published an autobiography in 2000 – but the Hyapatia Lee story didn’t stop there. In 2013 she appeared under her real name on the reality TV show ‘Gigolos’ as a client for one of the male leads and at the age of 53 engages in an unsimulated sex scene. Today she lives in Colorado growing marijuana and writing for the pro-cannabis magazine ‘High Times’.

On this episode, Hyapatia Lee joins April Hall to look back at her eventful life.

This episode running time is 114 minutes.

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Buy Hyapatia Lee’s autobiography here.

Visit Hyapatia’s website here.

Hyapatia Lee photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Hyapatia Lee: Secrets and Lives – Podcast 44 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Ginger Lynn is an actress, artist, and radio show host.

And in the 1980s, she was an adult film star. One of the biggest. And in some ways, the modern adult film industry started with her.

She began as an actress when adult films were still films – appearing with many of the names that had helped create the industry in the first place – from John Holmes to Jamie Gillis, Harry Reems and John Leslie.

But then as film turned to video, and the lead actresses became contract girls and featured dancers, Ginger Lynn became a superstar and one of the most popular actresses in adult film history.

She marked a new type of performer – she was one of the first contract girls with Vivid Entertainment, and brought a mid 80s rock star glamor to the business.

Ginger was the girl next door… if you happened to live next door to a stunning sex goddess, who had her own line of videos, and dated mainstream figures like Billy Idol, George Clooney and… yes, Charlie Sheen.

Ginger is more modest about herself. When she started out she couldn’t act and she couldn’t dance, she says. She never found herself particularly attractive or even that sexual. She thought she’d only make a couple of films and nobody would notice her.

So how did Ginger Lynn become one of the most recognizable stars of adult film? What does she remember about her time in the business, and how does she remember her fellow stars – like Nina Hartley, Annette Haven or Traci Lords, on whose behalf she was called on to testify against the porn industry?

On this episode of The Rialto Report, Ginger Lynn joins April Hall to look back at a career that has spanned four decades, and shows no signs of slowing down.

This episode running time is 93 minutes.

With thanks to Suze Randall for the use of the first five pictures in this feature.

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Visit Ginger Lynn’s website here.

Listen to Ginger’s radio show here.

See Ginger Lynn auctions here.

See Ginger’s artwork here.

See more of Suze Randall’s photo’s of Ginger here.

Photos of Ginger Lynn:

 

Angel with Ginger Lynn

 

 

 

 

Ginger with Uncle Lou (for more of Lou’s Polaroids, see here)

 

 

The post Ginger Lynn: The Girl Next Door – Podcast 43 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In many respects, Marlene Willoughby was the archetypal 1970s New York adult film actress – which was strange as she is a Polish / Italian Catholic from Detroit.

She arrived in New York as a teenager in 1961 with her mother and older sister – and immediately set about becoming an actress. Her sister led the way singing on Broadway with Buddy Hackett, and Marlene followed with parts in controversial off-off Broadway plays. It was a time when theaters were just starting to experiment with on-stage nudity, and Marlene signed up to act in several of these ground-breaking pieces.

Marlene modeled too – she was tall, dark, and waif-like, and for a time her Audrey Hepburn looks were used across fashion magazines.

But experimental theater and photo shoots didn’t pay extravagantly, and in 1975 Marlene was tempted into the burgeoning world of New York adult films. She never did anything in half measures, and for the next ten years Marlene threw herself into the world of porn – making films, writing magazine columns, posing for photo layouts, organizing film release parties, and speaking out about the industry whenever she got the chance.

And all the time she never gave up on her dream of a mainstream career. She once gave me a videotape of some of her television roles; I watched the compilation of scenes in amazement – seemingly from every New York TV series made in the 1970s and 80s – which featured Marlene walking into shots, delivering one liners, being part of crowd scenes or just standing there in the background. It was delicious to see, like seeing a porn Zelig turning up at every corner.

And then (and how often do we say this?), Marlene retired and disappeared. She left New York and her dreams of being an actress behind, and headed into the wilderness of Alaska.

On this episode of The Rialto Report, Marlene speaks publicly for the first time in decades about her acting, modeling, and adult film career.

Visit Marlene’s fan page on Facebook and YouTube site.

This episode running time is 67 minutes.

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Marlene Willoughby in her first screen appearance, in the Sylvester Stallone thriller ‘No Place To Hide‘ (1970):

 

 

 

 

Marlene, with her sister

 

 

 

 

The post Marlene Willoughby: New York’s Archetypal Porn Star – Podcast 42 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Dian Hanson is a unique figure from the world of men’s magazines in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, a world that overlapped strongly with the adult film business.

Last time, in the first episode of this podcast series, we heard about her surprising, and often shocking, upbringing: a hippie and high school dropout from Seattle, her father was supreme grand master in a sex-magic cult, and a childhood that included being bullied, sexually assaulted, running away from home, even being considered by her parents as a possible partner for a much older friend-of-the family who just happened to be a pedophile.

By 20, Dian had developed a passionate and life-long interest in pornography – thanks to three unlikely sources: the work of psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebbing, the publication of the bizarre Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, and the appearance of the first sex films that had started to be shown in theaters. But paradoxically, by her late teens, Dian found herself a world away from all these stimuli – as an unhappily married wife, pregnant, and living in rural Mississippi.

In this episode, we hear how Dian recovered from that difficult, not to mention tragic, marriage and found her way into the burgeoning men’s magazine business in New York – albeit through an abusive boyfriend. Quick note: Dian asked that we don’t refer to this ex by his given name, but rather call him “he who shall not be named”. Obviously, I respected that choice.

Dian talks about the first magazine she worked on – the mob-financed Puritan – a trailblazing, still legendary publication, that was the first hardcore magazine aimed at the newsstands in America. After that came Dian’s partnership with Peter Wolff – a similarly important character in magazine history. For years, the pair of them tore through a host of New York adult titles leaving a trail of both success and bewildered confusion behind them, as they pioneered the trend for reader-contributed magazines. Along the way, she crossed paths with people like adult film actors Vanessa del Rio, Ron Jeremy, and Marc Stevens, highbrow art-world darlings like Robert Mapplethorpe and Gay Talese, and low level mob bosses like Robert DiBernardo.

You can listen to the previous episode here.

This podcast is 75 minutes long.

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Dian Hanson – In Pictures

Dian with a model, 1979

 

Dian, on her wedding day, 1980

 

Dian with Vanessa del Rio, 1980

 

On a Partner shoot, 1981

 

Dian, 1981

 

With Long Jeanne Silver, Toni Rose, and another in 1981

 

With Lisa DeLeeuw and a mobster, backstage at Show World, 1982

*

The post Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 2: The Peter Wolff Years – Podcast 140 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Suze Randall (above), her husband Humphry Knipe, and her daughter Holly have been one of the most influential families in the adult industry of the last 40 years.

– Suze is a former model, who shot many photographic layouts for Playboy, Hustler, Penthouse and more.

– Humphry directed a series of acclaimed adult films in the mid 1980s, under the name Victor Nye, which starred the likes of Ginger Lynn, Harry Reems and Lisa De Leeuw.

– And Holly is one of the world’s leading adult photographers, who photographs for many sites, including her own, HollyRandall.com, as well as presenting a reality show on Playboy TV.

Together their involvement in the adult industry dates back to the early 1970s when Suze was a midwife nurse in England, who started nude modeling as a way of earning extra money. Within a few years, she was at the heart of the adult magazine industry in Los Angeles, dealing, and often fighting, with the egos of Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, and Bob Guccione.

Then Humphry made films for the notorious Reuben Sturman, including several movies with Traci Lords that were made just before it was revealed that Traci was in fact an underage performer.

Today Holly carries on the family tradition, in an internet age where free content is plentiful and the emphasis is often on quantity rather than quality.

On this episode of The Rialto Report, Ashley West speaks to Suze, Humphry, and Holly, to find out what the adult business was like in the golden age, and how much it has changed today. How profitable was it then – and how profitable is it now? What was it like to shoot the most famous adult film stars of the time? What really went on at the Playboy Mansion, and how crazy was Larry Flynt? And what was it like to wake up one day to the news that all the pictures of your favorite model had to be trashed immediately, and you could face decades locked up in jail?

We’re also pleased to show two collections of photographs; first a selection of images from Suze’s career as a model and photographer, and secondly we’re indebted to Suze.net for allowing us to present a collection of her photographs of golden age adult film stars from the 1980s.

Special thanks to Michael Nirenberg for assisting with this episode.

This episode running time is 67 minutes.

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For more details, please visit the following sites:

Suze Randall’s website

Holly Randall’s website

Holly Randall’s blog

‘Suze: The Girl Who Clicked on Both Sides of the Playboy Camera’ (1977) – Humphry’s original account of Suze’s rise to fame

‘Lies, Love & Porn’ (2010) – Humphry’s novelized account of the Traci Lords scandal

‘Back Issues’ (2014) – Michael Nirenberg’s documentary about Larry Flynt, which features Suze, Humphry and Holly

 

Suze Randall – Her Life In Pictures:

Suze’s modelling shot (early 1970s)

 

Suze in Eric Rohmer’s ‘Chloe in the Afternoon’ (1972)

 

Suze modelling picture (early 1970s)

 

Suze and Humphry arrive in Hollywood

 

Suze shooting Jill de Vries, Playboy Playmate of the Month for October 1975

 

Suze article in Playboy featuring her self-portraits

 

Suze’s self-portrait for Playboy (1976)

 

Suze’s self-portrait for Playboy (1976)

 

‘Suze’ – by Humphry

 

 

Angel and Ginger Lynn in a publicity still for ‘Too Naughty to Say No’ (1985)

 

Suze (right) on the set of ‘Love Bites’ (1985) with Amber Lynn

 

Suze (second from right) and Amber Lynn in the elevator scene from ‘Love Bites’ (1985)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suze and Holly

 

 

Suze Randall photographs of adult film stars:

Ginger Lynn

 

Ginger Lynn

 

Amber Lynn

 

Amber Lynn

 

Raquel Darrian

 

Raquel Darrian

 

Angel

 

Angel

 

Christy Canyon

 

Christy Canyon

 

Savannah

 

Savannah

 

Shauna Grant

 

Shauna Grant

 

The post Suze Randall. And Humphry. And Holly. – Podcast 41 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Shanna McCullough always seemed to be full of contradictions.

She was a golden age adult film actress, yet she was still in the industry until just a few years ago.

She’s an award-winning veteran of 100s of films, but she came from a Christian family and only had a couple of boyfriends before she found herself making her first film.

She’s a glamorous sex symbol and a successful feature dancer for many years across the country, but she’s also a tomboy who worked as an electrician and is happy hiking and studying.

She’s been in the adult film industry for longer than most actresses, but often takes breaks from the the business so that she can go back to school to study and gain additional academic qualifications.

She has always valued her privacy and anonymity – and remains an enigma to her fans, but in the late 1990s she was operating a website giving members 24 hour access to multiple webcams installed in her home.

So what’s the truth – will the real Shanna McCullough stand up?

Today we’re joined by Shanna, who looks back at a 30 year career, working with many of the greats from the industry, including Alex de Renzy, Henri Pachard, Anthony Spinelli, and her pet python, Monty.

This episode running time is 78 minutes.

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Shanna McCullough pictures:

Veronica Hart, Shanna, Candida Royalle

Marilyn Chambers, Shanna, Nina Hartley

Patti Petite, Sharon Mitchell, Nina Hartley, Shanna

Rick Savage, Shanna

Shanna, John Leslie

Jerry Butler, Shanna

Lili Marlene, Shanna

Shanna, Henri Pachard (Ron Sullivan)

The post Shanna McCullough: Like Ginger Exploding – Podcast 40 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Carter Stevens is back in the game! He recently announced his intention to make a comedy called ‘The Squad’. You can find out more details about his project – and learn how you can help raise the funds – here. Please give generously!

In the meantime, we’re re-posting our interview with Carter Stevens – one of The Rialto Report’s earliest podcasts.

This episode running time is 68 minutes.

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From Carter’s Indiegogo site about ‘The Squad’:

“Carter Stevens, one of the most prevalent and beloved directors of the porno-chic era of American adult film making is BACK!

In the days when porno had budgets, stories and characters, Stevens was known for filling his 1970s productions with (and in some cases was even responsible for discovering) some of the most recognizable faces in XXX history! Performers like: Deep Throat’s Harry Reems, Cannibal Holocaust’s Robert Kerman, perv-king Jamie Gillis, juicy earth-goddess Annie Sprinkle, the exotic Miss Vanessa Del Rio, the stunning Serena and SO many more!

Add to that real scripts, plots, production values way above the norm, and budgets that would put Hollywood to shame, and the result was a Carter Stevens Production.

Stevens has also received the lifetime achievement award from the Free Speech Coalition, and many other industry accolades. Then, he doffed his cap to the world of smut, and hung up his assless chaps. But you can’t keep a good man from the Pocono Mountains down, and Stevens is back with something brand new for 2014 – not a hardcore porn movie – but an off-the-wall sex comedy called THE SQUAD!

Set in the offbeat, raunchy and colorful world of the late 1970s porn scene that Carter himself knows so well and helped to cultivate and create, THE SQUAD is a cross between Boogie Nights and Police Academy! The plot finds a small group of undercover Police Officers assigned to infiltrate the porn industry by making a porno film of their own!. Their plan works better than ever expected and THE SQUAD produces the most successful porn film in the history of the genre! Then the mayhem REALLY STARTS!”

The post Carter Stevens: A Porn Renaissance Man – Podcast 07 (reprise) appeared first on The Rialto Report.