The “Smut Glut” Part 3: The Victors and the Vanquished

The depression into which the porn industry had plunged produced at least one good laugh.  Finances had become so bad at Visual Entertainment Productions (VEP) that the company’s in-house bill collector had turned against them   My mob-connected, former boss Tony Romano had staggered into VEP only to find his partner Norm on the floor. ( Passages from SKINFLICKS are in italics.)

According to a VEP saleslady, “Tony came in, drunk as usual, and goes, ‘What’s Nahmy doin’ layin’ dere on da flahr?’ Somebody tells him Ron punched Norm out.  Tony just shrugs and says, ‘Hey dese t’ings happen.’  Then he goes into his office and locks the door.  A couple hours later, his secretary looks in. There’s Tony with his head on his desk, fast asleep.”

With VEP in tatters, my chances of collecting on the $10,000 bounced check they had stuck me with looked slim indeed.  Superior Video’s own money woes were so dire that I actually considered barging into VEP with “Maggie” (my .357 Magnum).  In the porn video business of the late 1980s, “bad paper” had become an epidemic.

So had bankruptcies.  VEP joined such industry giants as Select-Essex and (my former employer) VCX in Chapter Eleven.  Even the “General Motors of Porn,” Caballero Control Corporation, was so deeply in arrears that Adult Video News stopped running its ads.  But emerging from the rubble of fallen leviathans–like small mammals scurrying over the remains of dinosaurs—were niche companies that tapped the limited but steady “specialty” market.

Among their titles were Kinky Midgets, Black Anal, She-Males, The Enema, Foot Worship, Latex Slaves, National Transsexual, Pregnant Mamas, and Anal Nation.  But even good old-fashioned all-American straight sex could be a specialty in the right context.

A popular new genre had lone women taking on groups of men, such as Biff Malibu’s Gang-Bang Girls line.  Agent Jim South complained about girls being offered “a seemingly large amount of money for a day’s work, but on the amount of sex, she’s getting short changed.”  Another genre that allowed dirt-cheap porn-making was the “pro-am” (professional/amateur) hustle, which allowed horny men (the “pros”) to make money screwing new ladies (the “ams”).

Scrawny San Francisco Bay Area porn agent Joe Elliot starred himself in the Joe Elliot’s Girlfriends and Joe Elliot’s College Girls lines.  When a girl answered Elliot’s ads in publications such as The Berkeley Barb, he would give her a quick on-tape interview then proceed to have sex with her.  If a cameraman such as myself wasn’t available, Elliot would lock his camera on a tripod and shoot the sex in one continuous wide-angle shot.

Bespectacled, big-nosed, nerdish-looking Ed Powers ostensibly picked up women in streets and bus stations, then taped himself having sex with them.  Actor/author Jerry Butler wanted to know why every time Powers “picked up” a girl, agent Jim South got $50.  “I DO pick up girls on the street,” Powers protested. “I really do!”

The biggest success in this niche market was cheerfully sleazy John Stagliano, who resembled an anorexic John Travolta.  Starting his Evil Angel Productions in 1988, Stagliano exploited his fascination with the female posterior.  As “Buttman,” he approached women in public, begging them to bare their bottoms before his camera.  With little more than that documentaire shtick and lots of rump-romping sex shot from low, ant’s-eye angles, the Buttman series found a ready audience of males disgruntled with the bland, couples-oriented drift of the overall market.

The “couples market” was a niche in itself. Anthony Spinelli’s Plum Productions, a family affair (wife Roz, son Mitch), adapted well to the age of the micro-budget.  Like haiku, the short stories of H. H. (“Saki”) Munro, and Twilight Zone reruns, their spare, interior dramas appealed to the cerebral end of the market.  Plum’s “one-act morality plays”—as AVN’s Joe Daniels called them—gave couples a springboard for more elevated post-coital conversation than “Was it good for you too?”

A new generation of porn fans discovered—to their delight—the high quality of the 35-millimeter (35mm) films from the 1970s “Golden Age of Porn.”   Reinvigorated, the stumbling 35mm king, Caballero, rose up and purchased Reuben Sturman’s Vidco, creating a 700-title monster.  Caballero head Noel Bloom said, “Catalogue is the strength today.  And now we have…the largest adult video catalogue in the world.”  Another 35mm giant, the over-extended Video Company of America (VCA) roared back to life.  Originally despised as “dupers (video pirates),” VCA’s Russ Hampshire and his menacing, mob-connected partner Walter Gernert had invested their earnings in premium 35’s.  Their new-found success allowed them to pay small creditors like Superior Video.

Superior Video was hemorrhaging money.  My choice: try to ride out the slump in hopes of returning to profitability or sell off rights to my titles and shut down the company.  What finalized my decision was a mistake that could have put me in prison for a long time.

Next post:  Trying to Sell Illegal Pornography in Canada, eh?

Getting It Up the Hard Way: Odd tricks for “getting wood”

A pornographer’s worst nightmare is the actor who can’t get erect.  The moviemaker must then  either shoot  the scene “sim (simulated)” and cut in hardcore close-ups from previous shoots or pay the flaccid actor a “kill fee (a small goodbye payment)” and hire a replacement.  At least the pornographer has options.  But the poor guy who can’t perform suffers a worse fate: no more work.  Men have suffered nervous breakdowns over penis limpus and at least one (Randy Potes—AKA Cal Jammer) has committed suicide.  To continue in a lucrative career, porn studs develop unique ways to get aroused.

(Note: Passages from SKINFLICKS are in italics)

Having a beautiful woman available may not work.  She was every surfer boy’s fantasy: blonde and petite, with breasts that stood out from her tan like scoops of ice cream fallen on smooth sand.  But Gayle Monica’s patient fellatio didn’t “fluff up” her porn-partner husband.  He wasn’t looking at her. (Too familiar?)  Instead he stared at Boobs ‘n Buns magazine. It didn’t help. Then, male star Mike Ranger strolled into the room, sat on the bed and began fondling Gayle.  Her startled husband suddenly became hard.  Lesson: The unexpected can work wonders.

On the same shoot was a guy whom Ranger derisively dubbed “Right Sider.” He had to lie on his right side and masturbate in order to function.  When ready, he’d scramble to get in a few pumps with his female co-star before he lost it, then he’d revert to his right side.

Willem Lowen, Cindy Carver, voyeur in Nixon Mask, from NIGHT MOVES

With big bucks dependent on male performance, the “reliables” hogged all the stud work. (My favorites: Jamie Gillis, Billy Dee, Willem Lowen, Joe Elliot.)  One of the best, the late John Leslie, insisted that his craft was a form of method acting—drawing upon emotions and memories to play a scene.  In one of the first loops I ever shot (in 1977), Leslie demonstrated his “method.”  Ignoring his female co-star, he’d close his eyes and stroke himself up.

A man whose performance depends upon the charms of his partner won’t have a long porn career.  The best men rely on fantasy imagery, ironically doing exactly as the fans who envy their access to porn queens: they’re masturbating.

Billy Dee and Juliet Anderson. PHYSICAL

 

Richard Pacheco learned this lesson during his porn debut, in Candy Stripers.  In an Erotic Film Guide article, he described going limp after seeing Nancy Hoffman grimace from 45 minutes of kneeling on concrete: “People were lying around sleeping, snoring, just plain waiting for me to get it up…Nancy even fell asleep on my thigh…I sat there masturbating myself and praying for the Russians to launch a surprise attack.”  Finally, Pacheco had an inspiration: “I closed my eyes and started all over…I was back on the couch of some rec room with the first girl who ever let me finger her.  I could hear the Kingston Trio on the record player.  There was life in that old memory yet.”  When Pacheco reached his climax, he “heard the cheering of millions.”

The late director Henri Pachard claimed that the best way to treat stud failure was through ridicule. “Point a finger at him and go, ‘Ha ha ha! Look at this wimp! Look at that shriveled little putz!  Guy thinks he’s a stud; he couldn’t get wood in a lumberyard.’
“You get the guy mad, get his blood pumping. Next thing you know it’s ‘wood city.’ Works every time.”

The Pachard theory reportedly worked when Matt Daniels failed during Anthony Spinelli’s The Party.  His screen partner—and real-life girlfriend, Heather Lere—cussed him out and according to witnesses, the agitated actor slapped her butt and proceeded to—in Lere’s term—“spring board.”

The most unusual hard-on aid I’ve ever witnessed was moi !  That’s right: yours truly.  I was working “boom.”  The job is physically taxing. You stand there with arms raised, holding one end of a boom, which is a long pole (“fishpole”) that has a microphone on the other end.  The mike is suspended over the scene, above the camera frame but still close enough to capture crisp dialogue. Holding the pole in position is damn tiring.  I was standing on a chair, near the ceiling, the hottest part of the room.  I was sweating, muscles straining. I had a weird feeling of being watched.  I glanced down and into the eyes of an actor (a known bi-sexual) who was furiously stroking himself. And staring hard at me!  I turned my gaze to the microphone, and froze in position, like a statue. (Literally a “statue of David,” but thankfully with pants.)  The actor was able to perform with his designated actress.

Glad I could help.

Should pornographers have sex with performers?

Breaking my “hands off” policy with Candy Samples at a trade show.

New girls in porn don’t know the limits of their obligations. The late director Anthony Spinelli told me about directing one neophyte’s screen cherry scene. After it was over, she asked him if she was done. “I kept a straight face,” said Spinelli. “And I told her, ‘Not yet.  For new girls it’s a long-standing tradition that the entire crew gets in on the action,’ She ponders this for a moment, then asks, ‘I get extra for that don’t I?’”

Some new girls don’t even get extra.  Sleazy “agents (some named in my book)” have been known to “audition” would-be porn queens by having sex with them.  Many pornographers (mostly newcomers) think, I’m the one paying her to screw. Why shouldn’t I get some? But, as veterans know, giving in to the temptation is bad business.  Why?  Because paid professional sex, even accompanied by genuine orgasms, remains within the safety zone of an acting performance.  But when interpersonal emotions get involved, it’s like treading a minefield.

One of the most difficult scenes I ever directed—recounted in detail in SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry—involved a young woman named Rita who was in a snit over something that had happened between her and my still photographer, Kenny, who was Rita’s agent and lover.  The following dialogue is from SKINFLICKS:
          “Take a picture of me, Kenny,” she said. “NOW!”
          “OK.” Kenny raised his Hasselblad. “Expression, Rita.”  She remained impassive. “Rita…expression…”
           “I gave it to you, Kenny,” she snapped.
           “I didn’t see it, Babe.”
           “I gave it to you and you missed it.”
           “Oh, come on,” Kenny pleaded. “Let’s do it.”
           “No. Wait. I’ll tell you when.”
           Kenny lowered the camera.  Rita shook a long fingernail at him. “No! You keep that camera over your face!”

After participating in the scene like a dental patient facing a root canal, Rita suddenly wanted to have sex—with me!  She wanted to trade a quickie for a multi-speed vibrator she had become fond of.  I turned her down. It wasn’t the first time a porn actress offered me sex and it wouldn’t be the last.  I had a policy of maintaining a “professional distance,” which was not always easy to do.

The gorgeous blonde sexual volcano Lily Marlene, one of my Superior Video favorites, kept invited me over for some fun.  If I hadn’t been engaged at the time, I might have taken her up on the offer. Sex to her was pure recreation without the need for emotional involvement. Her husband, fearing HIV transmission, finally put a stop to her attendance at bachelor parties, where she could exhaust all men present.  Lily did get to me for a few startling moments after the wrap of the Deviations shoot. I was in an office at the nightclub where the climactic scene had been shot. I was making out checks for the huge cast waiting in line outside the door for their pay.  When Lily’s turn came, I was busy with my pen when—under the desk—I felt my pants being unzipped.  For a moment I savored the pleasant sensations Lily was providing. Then the sobering reality of the impatient group outside the door took over and I passed Lily’s check under the desk.

The closest I came to actual sex with a porn star was during a break on the set of Chocolate Cream. It was a hot day and I was relaxing on a couch wearing only shorts. Mauvaise de Noire, a beautiful black woman who was soon to become a major star, was grateful for the starring role I had given her, and I felt lucky to have cast her. Wearing only her birthday suit, she sat down on my lap ready for some extra action. A cameraman offered to shoot close-ups, hiding my face, but I became camera-shy, reflecting that if my fiancée ever saw the footage, she might be able to recognize me from the part that showed.

The weirdest of possible sex offerings I ever encountered came on the set of my appropriately weird outer space video, E.X.  The following passage is from SKINFLICKS:
    After we wrapped, I found out why Gayle hauled Dennis around like excess baggage.  She motioned me to a stairwell, away from the crew packing up the equipment. Like a cop about to frisk a suspect, Gayle leaned Dennis against the rail. Chattering about how well-hung he was, she unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants.  I wondered what this was all about; Dennis didn’t work in porn movies.  Then I recalled how the couple had kept telling me about their exploits swinging with third parties—both male and female.  Gayle alone I might have considered, but I wanted no part of this scene.  To this couple, Gayle’s porn work was part of their elaborate fantasy life.

The line between professional and non-professional sex was best drawn by my future housemate, the late superstar Juliet (“Aunt Peg”) Anderson.  My early business partner Joe Loveland (a pseudonym) had written himself into The Perfect Gift, playing an Arab oil sheik, his face carefully hidden in a burnoose.  He enjoyed his scene with Juliet so much that he proposed an encore in private.  From SKINFLICKS:
          “I never have sexual relations with the producers I work for,” she told him.
          “You had sexual relations with me,” Loveland said.
          “But that was work.”
          Later on, he told me, “I’ve never been so insulted in my whole life!”  I decided that any future business partners would have to be less libidinously involved in the product development process.

If you want to have sex with a porn queen, write yourself into the script and make sure you pay her and that the camera is rolling.

Reply to Willy B Good’s questions of June 21

Hi Willy. I’m glad you are enjoying the book and thanks for your questions. Sorry for being so late in replying, but I’m still learning how to work the technology. Couldn’t get reply box to work, so I finally decided to answer your questions as a new post. (Why didn’t I think of that before?)   Sadly, John Leslie Nuzzo died of a heart attack on December 5, 2010 at age 65. He was a consummate professional. I recall him rushing off to catch up on a TV football game between camera setups, then he’d return to the set erect and ready to proceed.  Directing him was easy, since he was such a fine actor.  He was a bit arrogant but that was no problem.  Women loved him because his expertise made their job so much easier. After a shooting day John loved to share a joint with his best industry buddy, director Anthony Spinelli. Their sharp repartee kept me in stitches.  I thought Boogie Nights was an accurate portrayal of porn’s behind-the-scenes.  The partying in the movie was a bit excessive. Most porn stars of that period lived far more sedate lives.  Burt Reynolds’ portrayal of an archetypical pornographer was so accurate that it gave me chills.  I can’t offer a prognosis about porn’s future because I’ve been away from the business for so long.  Internet piracy can’t be defeated. But popular porn stars can (hopefully) count on their loyal fans to buy their movies before the pirated versions come out.
Thanks again for your kind comments, and in the future I hope to be able to answer your  questions more promptly.    

HOW TO THINK LIKE A PORNOGRAPHER AND WHY YOU SHOULDN’T

Ron Jeremy had a great idea for a sex scene.  As he described it in Hustler:  “I’d like to do a hang-gliding scene in an X-rated film.  I see this great shot of me standing on a hill with my dick sticking straight out, hard as a rock.  Then I take off and start gliding downward.  There’s this gorgeous girl at the bottom of the hill pointing her little butt right at me.  The master shot would look as if I’m going to dive right into her ass at top speed.  But the final shot would cut to a camera zoom of my dick making a safe rear-entry landing right smack in the middle of her pussy.  I’d like to see James Bond do something like that.” (excerpt from  SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry)

As absurd as Jeremy’s scenario sounds, it is indicative of how pornographers think.  In SKINFLICKS, I detail such pornographer’s brainstorms as sex in a vat of spaghetti and in a tub of chocolate; three-somes balancing precariously on toilets; prosthetic penises mounted in unusual places (Paul Norman’s Cyrano and Edward Penishands); scenes featuring octopus tentacles and snorkel cameras; and gang-bangs with one woman taking on up to one hundred men. When I produced E.X., I used my special effects generator to show aliens with three-foot-long members performing double-penetration on Lilly Marlene.

Why do pornographers go to such extremes?  Because they have to.  Psychologist Neil Malamuth of UCLA said, “Our research shows that every time there is a satiation of themes, people to some degree lose their ability to be aroused by it.  Therefore, newer themes are introduced, breaking new taboos.”  The late porn director Alex DeRenzy put it more simply. His biggest problem, he said, was “beating audience boredom.”

Regardless of how resourceful they are, pornographers are stuck with the fact that all sex scenes come down to the same half-dozen positions.  If the chemistry isn’t there, no director, regardless of competence, can make a scene sizzle.  On the other hand, when performers are hot for one another, even the dimmest of directors can end up with a great scene. Being at best skilled documentarians, pornographers hasten to proclaim their uniqueness.  (This was especially true when an avalanche of new titles descended upon the industry during the “smut glut” era of the late 1980s and early ‘90s.)  Thus, Scotty Fox, director of Ass Backwards and My Bare Lady, became porn’s “King of Comedy.”  The late Henri Pachard, famous for staging sex on bathroom fixtures, was dubbed “The King of the Commode.” With Shape Up for Sensational Sex, Gail Palmer declared herself “the Jane Fonda of porno.” The late Anthony Spinelli had no interest in directing sex, which he turned over to cameramen such as myself while he took a nap. Spinelli became famous for the miraculous acting performances he managed to wring out of even the most unmotivated of cast members. At Superior Video, my co-director Joe Farmer and I took pride in making low-budget videos look like more expensive ones (that special effects generator sure helped).

The downside of thinking like a pornographer is when it comes to dominate your outlook—especially when you’re cranking out one sexvid after another.  As veteran pornographer Bill Margold observed in a 1982 Adam magazine interview, “You can only live in a fantasy land just so long before it starts driving you crazy.”  When real life runs counter to that fantasy land, disaster beckons. “Pornographer’s disease” is another name for impotence.  My friend Ace Walker said that after he quit shooting and acting in porn, it took him two months before he could enjoy a normal sex life.  Actor Cal Jammer was not so fortunate. Said to obsess about his erections, he couldn’t recover from bouts of penis limpus. He wasn’t the only failed stud to commit suicide.    

Thinking like a pornographer extends beyond those directly involved in production.  Superior Video’s receptionist Alana told me, “I can’t read Vogue (magazine) without thinking of the commercial possibilities.” She provided the idea behind our video Diary of a Bad Girl.

Bristling with erotic visions, pornographers frequently clash with performers pushed beyond their limits. As actor/director F. M. Bradley said about bombastic little porn impresario Jerome Tanner, “If you can take four cocks at once, Jerry will want five.”

A constant battle in the world of pornography is the often rancorous, push-pull negotiation between porn directors and cast members. After weathering one struggle after another, both sides come to the set prepared to go to war.  But that is the subject of a future blog entry. 
               

FAVORITES WITH WHOM I HAVE WORKED: NINA HARTLEY

This is a blog category for stars I have photographed and/or directed, and also porn directors I have worked for. For each of these people, I will describe my experiences with them in the 70s and 80s, followed by an update.

Nina Hartley, 1980s. 

“That’s my butt!” the new lady announced to the audience admiring her race-horse rump, which filled the projection screen. “How do you like my butt?”

This was no shy ingénue, uneasy about the throng at Juliet Anderson’s premier party for Educating Nina staring into her body crevices.  The star of Juliet’s first effort as a producer was proud of her debut.  (Excerpt from SKINFLICKS: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry.)

Usually, you don’t put a fresh, new woman in a starring role. If the newcomer freezes up, thousands of dollars in production costs could be lost. Most porn actors—both male and female—start out in support roles, sometimes as “nude extras” who perform no actual sex.

But Juliet Anderson, the (late) sex superstar making her producer/director debut in 1984, felt that Nina Hartley was someone special.  At the time, we didn’t know just how special.

I was working as Juliet’s director of photography, fulfilling my part of a trade: In 1982, Juliet had directed my Superior Video, Inc., feature, Physical.  In return, I was to do camerawork for her in the future.  It wasn’t until two years later that Juliet secured the financing for Educating Nina.

That title was ironic:  Nina Hartley turned out to be the educator—the best educator ever to emerge from the sex film industry.  Like Annette Haven, the porn Hall-of-Famer whose career started in the early 70s, Nina used porn acting as a platform to express her views on sex and society.  Nina felt that American sexuality was sick, burdened with guilt, shame and persecution.  She wanted to change that; a Herculean task.   Like Haven, she decried the mating of sex with violence.  In our culture, the term “sex and violence” sounds almost like one word: sexandviolence.  Nina said, “I’d rather have my child watch someone making love, even if it’s a little mechanical, than watching a woman getting decapitated or mutilated.”

Nina had the credentials to teach; she was a registered nurse.  She proudly declared that she had both a husband and a wife. (Nina’s husband, Dave, was a great on-set crew member.)  She became the porn industry’s best spokesperson, appearing on talk shows and other forums, maintaining her dignity and humor while confronting the most virulent of anti-porn agitators.

Nina Hartley

Working on movies in which Nina Hartley appeared—including my own feature video E.X.–I found her to be one of the most upbeat and cheerful performers I’d ever seen, bantering easily with cast and crew.  She once arrived for her scene in a problem-plagued Anthony Spinelli production, and Spinelli’s wife, Roz, exclaimed—as if Nina were a good-luck charm, “Ah! Here she is! The most wonderful woman on this whole shoot has arrived!”

            “I’m not the most wonderful woman here,” Nina replied. “You are. But I’ll take second.”

Nina called herself “a sex industry worker.  I’m a feminist.  I enjoy my work and I don’t feel exploited.  A person who works in a bank and hates it is being exploited.  My job isn’t for everybody.  I’m a bisexual exhibitionist making a good living.”

UPDATE

Over the years (decades!), Nina Hartley has appeared in hundreds of movies, both porn and non-porn.  She has produced her own sex education shows.  Her world-wide fan following has only increased as she has grown older.

A year ago, Nina Hartley underwent surgery to remove a seven pound fibroid tumor (non-cancerous) from her uterus. I’m not surprised that she has recovered completely.  Nina has always been known to take care of her health. What does surprise me is a plea from “Lesley,” on GiveForward.com, for Nina’s fans to contribute funds to help cover the costs of her recovery. I’m glad that Nina’s fans came through. She deserves only the best.  I know she didn’t get into porn with the idea of getting rich, and I hope she is financially comfortable.

The porn industry may not be financially comfortable, especially if the new Los Angeles ordinance requiring porn performers to wear condoms is copied in other parts of the country to which porn production might flee.  Nina Hartley has raised her voice against the new law.  It has long been a truism in the porn industry that safe sex doesn’t sell.  Fans want to live their fantasies vicariously; they don’t want to be reminded of sexually transmitted diseases.  It will be interesting to see what will happen next in the world of porn production.