We’ve always loved Pat Barrington at The Rialto Report.

She had a short career in films in the 1960s, as well as being a dancer and model. Over a five-year period she made memorable appearances in films by Russ Meyer, Ed Wood, Bill Rotsler, Ed De Priest and Harry Novak. She appeared on television in the series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and in the film Marlowe (1969) with James Garner.

She was one of the most statuesque of all performers with strong and dominant good looks – but somehow managed to look different every time you saw her. She could be dark haired, a redhead, or a bleached blonde. She could look seductive, matronly, playful, or innocent. She had great screen presence without being a great actor.

And we could never find out anything about her.

So who was the real Pat Barrington?

Over 45 years after her last film role, her story can finally be told.

It’s a tale of sexploitation films, a serial killer, go-go dancing, Hollywood, Sam Fuller, glamor modeling, Lenny Bruce, Robert Mitchum, and much more.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Pat Barrington: Prologue (2015)

Robert and I are sat in the yard and we’re sweating bullets. It’s Florida in May, and even the dogs are too hot to sit outside.

We’re surrounded by a mass of papers that Robert found recently in his closet. It’s an overwhelming collection. Hundreds of photos, letters, calendars, address books, notes, contracts, business cards, and legal documents. The earliest items are from the 1930s, the most recent are from 2014. Many of the items are in poor condition, damaged by heat, humidity and rodents. It all belonged to Robert’s partner, Camille.

It’s unlikely that anyone has ever seen most of this collection. Robert hasn’t seen many of these items, and only found them after Camille passed away.

Camille had been a popular stripper, model, and actress in the 1960s. She had a short career in the public eye, but ever since she made her last appearance in front of a movie camera in 1969, she became mysterious and elusive. I tried to track her down for years but no one seemed to know much about her. Old movie friends remembered her beauty, professionalism, and screen presence, but drew a blank when asked where she came from or where she went. I stopped counting the number of different names she had and the conflicting birth dates she used. It’s as if she didn’t want to be remembered, recognized or re-discovered. But if so, why did she hold onto this huge collection of personal items? Some of it is of historical interest, much of it is trivial, but it’s all fascinating. Together it adds up to the story of her life.

Sifting through it all isn’t easy for Robert. Camille died recently, in September 2014. Looking through the photos brings back memories, and her absence is still painful.

I wondered if she ever talked about her past to anyone?

She told some people once, Robert admits. But their reaction ranged from incredulity to ridicule at the idea that she’d once starred in films. Camille was upset that people found the idea so unbelievable, so she didn’t bring it up after that. She just kept it to herself.

I ask Robert what Camille might think if she could see us leafing through these piles of her photos.

“She wouldn’t be too happy”, he smiles. “She was private, and there was a lot in her life she wanted to keep to herself.”

“So are we doing the right thing by telling her story?” I ask.

1.     Beginnings (1939 – 1956)

Camille was born Patricia Annette Bray in Charlotte, NC on October 16th 1939.

Her mother, Willie Jo Bray, fooled around with a local man, Claude Weidenhause, and became pregnant at 16. Claude was 29 and according to reports it was a scandal. By the time Patty was born, Claude was long gone. She never met her birth father but forever romanticized the idea of him. She never stopped asking people about him and followed his life as a horse trainer from a distance.

Predictably Willie Jo struggled to make ends meet. She worked as a machinist and when Patty was two, they moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she married Eugene Lee Barringer. For a time life was good, and Patty had the father she wanted. She took his name, was happy, and did well in school. But the marriage was short-lived, and by the time Patty was a teenager, Willie Jo and her had moved again and they were living in Hyattsville, Maryland. Patty’s 1956 school book from Northwestern High School shows a picture of her smiling shyly, bearing a new surname, Patty Gossett.

Willie Jo had married again – this time to an abusive, ex-marine with post traumatic stress syndrome and a steel plate in his head. Any hopes of a stable home life were gone as her new stepfather started abusing Patty. Her relationship with Willie Jo was already fraught, and this pushed it over the edge. Unable to share what was going on with her mother, Patty left home after her sophomore year in school and never went back.

2.     The Mobster and the Serial Killer (1957 – 1961)

Patty had been popular in school, but had few friends outside. Her closest ally was an Italian American she hung out with called Bob. Bob had moved to Baltimore, and encouraged her to move there too, where they started dating. He was involved in the local numbers racket, an illegal inner-city lottery where a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those drawn randomly the following day. Bob employed Patty as a runner, carrying the money and betting slips between the neighborhood bars where bets were placed and Bob’s headquarters.

Their romance didn’t last long but Bob remained in her life for the next 50 years. He was connected and this would prove useful to get Patty out of sticky situations in the future. Bob the mobster became her guardian angel, a quick phone call to him would fix problems with any nuisance that she had. She referred to him affectionately as ‘that guy’.

Keen to get some stability into her life, Patty got married for the first time in the late 1950s, but rather than make things better, it was a disaster from the start. Verbal abuse turned into physical violence. Bob wouldn’t help as he and his associates wouldn’t intervene in domestic conflict, so she packed up and moved out without leaving a forwarding address.

Patty needed a source of income, so Bob fixed her up as an exotic dancer in Baltimore. The money offered was good and would make her independent for the first time – but she was crippled by nerves at the idea of dancing in front of a crowd of men. She had few options though, so gave herself the stage name ‘Vivian Storm’ and went to work. The first time was tough, and it didn’t get any easier. The only way she could calm her nerves enough to perform was to drink beforehand.

Socially Patty was happier. She was gregarious, outgoing and happy go lucky, mixing with the new people she came across in her new life. As Vivian Storm she started dancing in Washington, D.C. too and became friends with celebrities, politicians, club owners, artists and musicians.

One jazz musician caught her eye; Melvin Rees was a good-looking and talented saxophone, piano, and clarinet player. He was well known around the D.C. area, playing at the most prestigious local jazz clubs. Patty and Melvin hit it off and she moved into his Hyattsville, Maryland pad in 1959. She was still married and carrying her husband’s name, Routt, so she adopted Melvin’s name and started to refer to herself as ‘Pat Rees’ to avoid unwanted gossip.

Their relationship worked well. They supported each other, working nights and meeting back at home in the early hours. Melvin was quiet and attentive, his only vice being the amphetamines he’d take to keep himself awake all night when playing in the clubs. After the abuse at the hands of her stepfather and in her failed marriage, Pat was finally in a good relationship with an equal and caring partner.

Or so she thought.

Melvin Rees and Pat

In 1960, Melvin took a temporary job working at a piano shop in West Memphis, Arkansas. Pat moved south with him dancing at local clubs in town there. Then one day they were woken by cops who arrested Melvin on suspicion of murder.

The charges related back to June 1957, when a woman called Margaret Harold had been shot and killed while out for a drive with her boyfriend near Annapolis, Maryland. The boyfriend had escaped on foot and called police, only to return to find Margaret’s body had been raped in death.

Then early in 1959, the Jacksons, a family of four, was driving home along a dirt road in Virginia, when they were forced to stop and abducted at gunpoint. Their bodies were found months later, the mother’s body had been brutally raped.

Investigators believed that the same killer had committed both sets of murders. Sensing a serial killer story, the media jumped on the story of the ‘The Sex Beast’. Tips began to pour in, and although most of them were worthless, one pointed authorities towards Melvin Rees. FBI agents searched Melvin and Pat’s Hyattsville home, and found a .38 gun inside Melvin’s instrument case.

More damning however was a newspaper article in amongst Norman’s affairs. It was about the murder of the Jacksons. Attached to it was a note in Melvin’s handwriting in which he described his crimes in detail. Detectives then found evidence that linked him to the sexually-motivated slayings of four other young women in the Maryland area as well.

Pat was in a tailspin. She refused to believe that Melvin had anything to do with the crimes. He was a gentle, loving man who’d never laid a finger on her. She was joined by Melvin’s parents, and together they mounted an impassioned public defense.

In February 1961, Melvin was tried and convicted for the murder of Margaret Harold. Pat was devastated. She had seen the evidence like everyone else, and despite his adamant denials, the case against him was a compelling one.

Seven months later, in September 1961, he stood trial for the murders of the Jackson family, and this time Pat was called to testify. Hearing Pat remember this experience in later years, it was clear that it was a life-changing event for her. Her faith in Melvin was beginning to crack. She was conflicted, exhausted, and bewildered. She still claimed she knew nothing about his crimes. There had been no tell-tale signs, no clues that he had a violent, murderous streak. Terrified of betraying him and condemning him to the electric chair, Pat collapsed mentally and had a nervous breakdown.

She did her best on the stand, but Melvin was convicted again and sentenced to death.

Devastated, Pat never saw him again. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1972, and he continued to protest his innocence until 1985 when he gave a tell-all interview finally admitting his crimes. He died in prison from heart failure in 1995.

As for Pat, the events of 1960/61 had changed her forever.  She was now a frightened, nervous woman, unable to trust people in the same way again.

3.     Hollywood (1962 – 1965)

For months after the trial, Pat’s nerves were frayed. She feared for her sanity if she stayed in Baltimore. Bob, her old mobster friend, suggested a fresh break and a move out to Los Angeles. He told her that dancing was more lucrative there. She’d make better money, and with her good looks, there was always the chance she could try out for movie parts.

Pat, setting off for Hollywood (c. 1962)

So she headed for Hollywood, changed her name back to Pat Barringer after her first step father, got herself a dancing agent, and started getting gigs around town. She billed herself as ‘Tasha – the Topless Belly Dancer’ and was hired at The Classic Cat, the largest, most prestigious joint in town. The place was run by Alan Wells, a flamboyant and benevolent impresario, who’d turned it into a fashionable celebrity and musician hangout. The best dancers in L.A. all passed through there at one time, including future Russ Meyer favorites, Haji, Kitten Natividad and Sharon Kelly. Pat had breast enlargement surgery which made her even more voluptuous and arresting as a dancer.

Flyer for the Classic Cat, with Pat featured top right

Alan worked the girls hard at the Cat, but that was fine with Pat who wanted to fill her time and avoid dealing emotionally with the events of Baltimore. She also knew she was young and wanted to make hay while the sun was shining, and so found time to do modeling work as well. She formed a productive relationship with photographer Pete Chiodo, who provided her with an extensive portfolio of headshots and full figure poses. She put together a resume which described her as being 5’2” and 102 pounds, and altered her birth year from 1939 to 1941 – the first of several times she’d change the date.

She shopped her resume around, and was soon as busy during the day as she was at night. She featured in many commercial layouts as well as men’s magazine spreads, often calling herself ‘Vivian Gregg’. In March 1964, she was the centerfold of the first issue of Millionaire magazine, launched to compete with Playboy. The various work paid well and Pat was making enough money to invest in land in northern California.

For a short time Pat tried dancing in Las Vegas – but with disastrous consequences. She later claimed that she was  kidnapped with a group of other dancers. They’d been drugged with roofies after work one night, and then injected with heroin while they were unconscious. The intention was to make them dependent on smack and then force them into prostitution. She’d heard rumors about this from other girls, but she thought the tales were urban myths. Pat hightailed it back to Los Angeles and steered clear of Vegas after that.

On the surface her personal life appeared settled when she returned to L.A. She loved animals and had a small dog to which she became devoted. She often took the dog along with her on modeling jobs, and many of her modeling photos feature the dog alongside her.

Inside though she battled with the demons from her past. She found it difficult to form lasting relationships, so she dated casually and avoided any meaningful attachments. She preferred to spend her evenings being hired to accompany celebrities to red carpet events, such as openings or premieres, providing some glamorous eye candy for the paparazzi. Partly because of the nocturnal lifestyle and partly because of her inner struggles, her drinking increased. She was more accustomed to being on stage now, but Pat still needed to drink before dancing each night to overcome her nerves.

Some of her short-lived relationships were with well-known figures. She dated Lenny Bruce on and off, his free speech views jiving with her increasingly libertarian views. She danced in Hawaii for a while where she became close to actor Robert Mitchum.

Pat, with Robert Mitchum, Hawaii (mid 1960s)

She had a longer relationship with film director Samuel Fuller. They met at a party – he was 27 years older and had been divorced for a few years. Pat was drawn to his strength and single-mindedness, and remembered his obsession with his wartime memories as an infantryman in Europe in World War Two. He spoke incessantly about his desire to bring this experience to the big screen, and he outlined ideas that would eventually form the basis of his film The Big Red One (1980).

Sam ignited her interest in film so she started to audition for parts wherever she could find them.

4.     Films (1965 – 1969)

In 1965, Classic Cat owner Alan Wells recommended that Pat speak to nudie film director Russ Meyer. Meyer was filming a series of color shorts of ‘buxotic’ strippers that he intended linking together into a feature length pseudo documentary to be called Mondo Topless (1966). Pat appeared in several sequences – including a memorable dance climbing up a telephone tower.

In later years, she remembered little of the experience, other than Meyer had got her a SAG card in return for her part in the film. Her SAG card remained one of her proudest possessions for the rest of her life. It also raised her hopes that she could make it as a serious actor.

Pat, in ‘Mondo Topless’ (1966)

Around the same time, Pat went to a casting call for a low budget erotic horror film, Orgy of the Dead (1965). She was met by Ed Wood who was looking for an actress for the lead role. The fact that she had no acting experience was of little concern to Ed, who hired her immediately. The film was directed by Stephen C. Apostolof, under the alias A. C. Stephen, from a screenplay adapted by Wood himself. Not that there was much storyline; the film was five minutes of plot, and eighty-five minutes of striptease sequences.

Pat liked Ed Wood, though she felt pity for him at the same time. He seemed earnest and harmless, and it was clear that it was easy to take advantage of him. She saw first hand that he was incapable of standing up for himself, and as a result was often ripped off by those around him.

In Orgy of the Dead Pat played the role of a red-haired woman forced to watch dead spirits dance for the Emperor of the Night (played by Criswell from Ed Wood’s earlier Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)). She was also one of the ten striptease performances – as a blond Gold Girl (inspired by Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger) – which her red-headed character watches dance.

Pat, on set of ‘Orgy of the Dead’ (1965)

On the set of Orgy of the Dead, Pat met Bob Caramico, the film’s cinematographer. They had a whirlwind romance and were briefly married. Bob was well meaning and wanted someone he could take care of. Bob offered her a life of leisure but after the Melvin disaster the idea of losing the independence she’d built up in California frightened Pat. She’d become used to men showering her with gifts, offering her the world, but she wasn’t a gold digger and wasn’t interested in men for their money. She interpreted Bob’s care as being over-protective, and so she walked out and left him.

Pat continued to seek acting work to supplement her dancing and modeling. Sam Fuller encouraged her to create a new identity for her acting career and recommended that she change her name. ‘Pat Barringer’ didn’t sound like a star. He gave her the name ‘Camille Grant’ – after his favorite operetta ‘Camille’, and his military hero, Ulysses S. Grant. Pat liked the new name, and though she would sporadically use ‘Pat Barringer’ (or the variant ‘Pat Barrington’) for films, she eventually changed her name legally to Camille Grant.

By now she was getting different offers of film work, and in November 1966 she appeared on television in an episode of the TV series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. where she performed her exotic dance act.

Camille’s next role was the lead in Bill Rotsler’s Agony of Love (1966), playing a neglected housewife who turns to prostitution, not for the money or the thrills, but just to feel loved and desired. It was the first time she worked with Rotsler and producer Harry Novak, and it proved to be one of her strongest performances.

Camille would work for Bill Rotsler several more times, including the successful films The Girl with the Hungry Eyes (1967), Lila (1968), and Shannon’s Women (1969). Her relationship with both Bill and Harry Novak was cordial but not over-friendly. Though only a decade or so older than her, they felt like a completely different generation. Camille was caught up in the vibrant music and club scene of the time, and they seemed an anachronism. She liked acting and dancing, but the simulated sex scenes could make her feel uncomfortable. Being physically intimate in the years after Melvin, especially in front of a room of men filming her, was difficult. Worse still were the lesbian scenes that these guys were always pushing.

She felt more at home with filmmakers like Ed De Priest. Ed shot her in a large number of underground, avant-garde films with his partner Paul Hunt. He went on to work with her in the feature films All the Way Down (1968), Blow the Man Down (1968), and Hedonistic Pleasures (1969). Ed found her to be easy-going and professional, though he remembered a soundman who had a fling with her complained about the number of pets she kept in her apartment.

In the late 1960s, Camille met a singer named Romeo (top left in photo). He was in a hippy psychedelic band with his brother called Recurring Love Habit. They had a record contract with Buddah Records and big things were expected. It was an easy relationship for them both. Monogamy wasn’t required and neither demanded much of the other. They were a good-looking couple, and enjoyed living life in the nightclubs of L.A. Money wasn’t a problem either and Camille was doing well enough to buy more land – this time in Jamaica.

She continued to appear in low budget films, but she increasingly saw them as a way into the big time. She hawked her photos around every agency and went on hundreds of auditions to try and break into the mainstream, but with little success. She was too ethnic looking, too voluptuous, or had appeared in too many sexploitation films she was told. Worst of all, she was now older than the other actresses she was up against. Her confidence was rocked. Dancing, acting, and modeling were all she knew. All three depended on her looking young. She struggled with feelings of rejection, and it only got worse as she approached her 30th birthday.

In an effort to roll back the years and compete with the younger women, she opted for plastic surgery. She had money in the bank and this was the last roll of the dice. She found a surgeon in Beverley Hills who assured discretion, and she had a breast lift, lip injections, and an eye job. It was a high end place; once she saw Elvis Presley leaving quietly through the back door as she was going in.

Then she had a break. She was given a part in Marlowe (1969), a big budget adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel starring James Garner. Sure she was given the usual part of a dancer, but this time it was a character with dialogue that was integral to the story. Convinced it could be her breakthrough, Camille worked hard to make her part as memorable as possible – only to learn that her role was subsequently cut from the final edit.

Her disappointment was tempered by an offer from a French studio to go to Paris and star in a series of films under contract for them. It was exactly what she wanted – except that she wanted it in Hollywood. The fact that it was in France would take her away from Romeo. She’d fallen for him and didn’t want to be apart. She agonized over the decision, but eventually turned it down. She regretted it for the rest of her life.

She was disillusioned with the film industry. Auditions were yielding little, and she felt that her acting career was going nowhere. The only roles she was being offered were increasingly sexual parts in low budget films. Camille decided she’d had enough, and abruptly stopped acting.

Romeo’s music career hadn’t taken off either, so Camille was increasingly providing for him as well. At least she still had the lucrative dancing income. But with her dreams of Hollywood stardom dashed, the allure of Los Angeles was waning too. In 1970, Camille packed many of her belongings into storage in L.A. and together with Romeo, they left the City of Angels and moved to New Jersey.

5.     Back on the East Coast (1970 – 1984)

Camille and Romeo settled in Fairview, New Jersey. Initially the idea was for Romeo to pursue his music and for Camille to waitress. She got a bartending license in 1971 but money soon became an issue and they decided that Camille should return to exotic dancing in the clubs. She registered her act as ‘Princess Jajah’ with the American Guild of Variety Artists, and headed to New York to get an agent.

She hooked up with the Mambo-Hy agency, run by Mambo Hy himself – in reality Hyman Balick, an aging former dancer in the bungalow colonies of the old Jewish Catskills. He belonged to the old school, and believed that the dancing girls he represented were artists and should resist disrobing for modern audiences. Not that he was completely old-fashioned; away from the agency he was also a cross dresser, something that he admitted to very few people.

Mambo Hy got Camille work up and down the East Coast. Her act consisted of anything from a Middle Eastern belly dancing act to occasional topless go-go dancing. Her life had come full circle. She was back dancing in some of the same clubs in Washington, DC in which she’d started out over a decade before. Bob the mobster was still around, still helping her if she ever needed an introduction.

It wasn’t an easy life, and much of it was on the road. Occasionally she’d consider a desk job, but she had no formal training doing anything else so the dancing money was always more attractive. And that was important given that Romeo’s music career wasn’t paying the bills and they were both living off Camille’s earnings.

Camille, as Princess Jajah, New Jersey, 1971

When Mambo died in 1974, Camille moved to Joe Williams’ Artists Entertainment of America, another established New York agent who kept her busy with a steady stream of work in the tri-state area. She started doing more topless work as more clubs opened demanding dancers who would bare their breasts.

There was the occasional house call as well. Like the time she was sent on a gig to a Staten Island mansion. She was given no names but instructed to just turn up and perform her act for a group of Italian gentlemen. The men turned out to be respectful and friendly enough though Camille remembered the house owner as being more infatuated with his Hispanic maid than with Camille’s show. A few months later, after seeing a television program about the mob, Camille suddenly recognized the house and the owner. She’d danced for Paul Castellano, the reclusive mobster also known as ‘The Howard Hughes of the Mob’ who headed up the Gambino crime family in New York, the nation’s largest Cosa Nostra family at the time. She read later that Castellano had been having an affair with his live-in maid even though his wife Nina was also living there.

Camille, appearing as Yajah

Camille continued to drink heavily and picked up a couple of DUIs. It was common practice for the dancers to mix with customers and they’d earn commissions on alcohol sales, which was especially lucrative if you could coax the purchase of a bottle of spirits.

By 1980, Camille was living in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.  She was 41, and still a dancer. She’d been with Romeo 11 years, but the romance had gone off the boil. That year she met Robert, an engaging and entertaining kid of 26. Robert found Camille to be intelligent, witty and interesting. They hit it off straight away. At first Robert would creep into her house to avoid Romeo’s attentions, but soon they started dating openly and within months they moved in together in Bergenfield, New Jersey.

Robert soon noticed that she was pretty nervy. Little things would set her off. She seemed over-sensitized to what was going on around her such as noises and light. Sometimes she was worried that someone was watching her. Robert also noticed that she smoked incessantly and popped Xanax to calm herself down. He sensed that her insecurity was made worse by her fear that her looks were fading with age.

Camille gradually told Robert stories about her California years, but he didn’t push it. Sometimes she even spoke about Melvin and his trial, and how profoundly the experience had affected her. She talked about how something irreversible had happened at that time, like a switch being flicked inside her. It was clear to Robert that many of her current fears stemmed from that experience.

After moving in with Robert, Camille continued to dance, though she told him not to go along to the clubs to see her. She said that the club managers were nervous when partners turn up to see their wives or girlfriends, so Robert stayed away.

Anyway he was tiring of New Jersey and longed for a warmer climate. Camille needed a fresh start too he thought, and he figured a change would be good for them both. Eventually he convinced Camille to move to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and they re-located in 1984.

6.     Fort Lauderdale (1984 – 2014)

Camille wanted to go back to New Jersey as soon as she arrive in Florida but Robert convinced her to stay. He didn’t seek employment for the first years, but Camille wanted to go back to work – and dancing was the only life she’d ever known. She made a 90-minute audio cassette of her music and her old friend Bob the mobster set up her up at clubs in the Fort Lauderdale area.

The trouble was that times had changed in the business. Camille had always considered herself to be an exotic performer rather than a stripper, a dancer first and foremost, a latter day Isadora Duncan. She had her own costumes and carefully choreographed routines. But unlike New York and New Jersey, Florida’s clubs were completely nude, and the girls were expected to writhe more than dance, spread their legs wide, and be aggressively sexual. Camille noticed that the girls shaved their pubic areas to reveal more of themselves to the customers, and this increased the tips they got.

Camille, early 1980s

This shocked Camille. She hadn’t realized it would be like this until she stepped inside her first Florida club. She was used to spending time perfecting her dance moves and getting costumes ready. Robert gently told her not to waste her time; the men were just there to see her nude. She was approaching 50, and though she was still the same shape and size as she’d always been, she was now competing with girls less than half her age. She found a plastic surgeon and had few more procedures, and went back to work.

The clubs were a far cry from places like the Classic Cat. She now appeared as ‘Yvette’, and worked at places like the Lost Caboose, the Centerfield and Jiggles – where she befriended a dancer who was a breast cancer survivor who’d just had her left breast removed, so she kept one half of her bikini top on.

The club owners were a new breed too, interested only in maintaining a production line of younger, fresher talent. Occasionally it got too much for Camille and she’d pick fights with them, which invariably ended with another call to Bob the mobster. He’d smooth things over so she could go back to work.

Bob, ‘the mobster’

Despite the hardships and the fact that she was usually the oldest dancer in a club by a country mile, Camille developed a following. She had fans that were devoted to her. One fan sketched her over and over whilst she danced. He presented her with the artwork each night.

Other times her experiences were much darker. One New Year’s Eve, she finished dancing at Centerfield out by Fort Lauderdale airport and was looking for a taxi. She’d been drinking heavily and was picked up by a car full of men who raped her. Robert asked her if she wanted to go to the cops. She admitted she’d been too drunk to remember anything about the men who’d abducted her. If she reported the assault, she’d have to re-live it all over again, and face jaded and amused skepticism about being an aging drunk stripper wandering around the streets after midnight. She let it go.

Camille, with Robert

Drinking heavily was still a way of life, and she picked up another DUI conviction. Robert and her were also doing cocaine, which was a drain on their finances. She defaulted on the payments for her California storage unit, and lost many of her old belongings. To make ends meet she sold the land in Jamaica and northern California, but most of the proceeds went on cocaine and gold bracelets.

More than anything however, Robert was worried about her smoking. He’d got hold of some of her films and noticed that she smoked in many of them. He badgered her about it, telling her that it would kill her unless she stopped. Camille tried half-heartedly but usually just replied that it was one of her biggest pleasures. She did it to calm her nerves was her refrain.

Most of the time Robert and Camille were happy though, and would spend their time walking on the beach or seeing movies at the local theater. Once Robert manage to persuade her to go to an audition for a big film that was shooting in Miami. The audition ended abruptly when she was told the producers weren’t interested in her. Apparently her Florida tan had made her look “too Cuban, and not American enough”. It was the same old story, it seemed.

Surprisingly, and to Robert’s mild annoyance, Romeo had followed them down to Florida. Robert was ticked off. He thought that Romeo had lived off Camille for too long, but Camille was always generous and kind-hearted to people, and remained available to offer a compassionate shoulder to her ex.

Camille continued dancing into her 50s, only being forced to retire when a disagreement with the management at the Lost Caboose in 1990 led to her being banned from appearing there. This time even Bob the mobster couldn’t help her. For someone who feared aging and who was so self-conscious, it had been a long stretch in an unforgiving line of work. She’d lived off her looks for a long time, and now it was unnerving not to have to draw attention to herself.

After she retired from dancing, she became a telemarketer selling subscriptions to magazines like TV Guide. She was good with people and outgoing, and this time didn’t have to be in front of people physically. She was successful at the job, but it didn’t pay well and had long hours so she eventually left.

In 1995, she saw herself on the cover of Cult Movies magazine. She bought a copy (she remembered the shop assistant doing a double take when she approached him to buy it). It contained an interview with William Rotsler and Harry Novak. The pair were asked about Pat Barrington and responded with jokey, disparaging comments about her acting ability. Camille was hurt. She’d helped them make good money on several films, so couldn’t they be more gracious thirty years later?

Robert suggested she join the fan convention circuit and make personal appearances, where she could give her own side of the story. It could be a source of revenue for them. It was too late for that: Camille refused flat out to consider the idea. The idea of going out and being in front of people all over again disturbed her.

By now she’d become increasingly private, paranoid even, and had installed window coverings in their house to prevent people from seeing inside. She was a firm believer in the second amendment and had a gun license, and started to keep guns in the house.

Even though she wasn’t performing Camille still had a tough time getting older. She had the occasional plastic surgery when she could afford it, minor procedures to cheat the aging process. Sometimes she would dress up fancy just to go shopping. One day a shopper walked into a glass door as he watched her enter a CVS store. That tickled her. In 2008, she wore a dress with a plunging neckline to go and vote in the presidential elections. She turned people’s heads. One voter said ‘I’ll vote for you any day’ which made her smile.

Occasionally she’d even be encouraged to pull out her old costumes and perform a belly-dance routine at an old people home or a local Middle Eastern restaurant, but she always resisted Robert’s suggestion to do it more regularly.

Camille and Robert socialized occasionally but she’d started spending more of her time searching for a deeper meaning in her life. Her love for animals was as strong as ever, and she rode horses and helped local animal rescue groups. She also became interested in more esoteric ideas. She started to read Tarot cards, experimented with witchcraft, and tried Black Mass. She started complaining of bad vibes that she sensed in a room. She spoke about paranormal experiences and believed that UFOs had abducted her. She was now taking Xanax by the handful and her mental state was suffering. She became a hoarder – jewelry, clothes, records (she loved Janis Joplin and the Stones) – and the house became stuffed with her possessions.

Her physical health suffered too, and she had part of her nose removed. Shortly after the surgery she overheard a group of teenage girls in a supermarket comment about how strange she looked, which wounded her all over again and resurfaced old fears.

She’d been in denial about her health for many years – and did everything to avoid doctors. But in the summer of 2014, she had such such severe pain that she went to the Emergency Room. The pain had started in her chest but had spread to her back and then her stomach. Doctors checked her over and found that lung cancer had spread throughout her body. She was given two weeks to live.

She didn’t even make it that long. Five days later she was in such pain, the doctors administered a large dose of methadone. Her last words to Robert was that she was afraid. She died at 12.30am that night.

The funeral home notice was brief. It stated only “Camille Grant, 74, of Fort Lauderdale, FL, passed away September 1, 2014. Camille was an actress and dancer. She will be greatly missed.”

Epilogue

Robert didn’t have many calls to make. He found a phone number for Bob the mobster and left a message informing him of Camille’s passing. He let Romeo know too.

As if her passing wasn’t difficult enough, Robert had to vacate their home as the lease had been in Camille’s name and was due to expire. He went through their possessions and threw a lot out, but then came across her large collection of photos and papers.

He also kept her last voicemails, and played me one of them. It was Camille sounding tired at the end of a day, and telling him to take care. She said she was coming home soon.

I asked Robert if there had been any kind of memorial service, any event to commemorate her life?

Robert said no, nothing of that kind.

But then he added, “Perhaps this is her memorial. This is her tribute. This story you’re going to write, this will finally reach the people who cared about her”.

The post Whatever Happened to Pat Barrington?
Movies, Murder, and Dance 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. Please consider helping out and donating through the Golden Age Appreciation Fund.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

School’s out for Summer.

It’s end of semester for The Rialto Report, and as we head into a short break we were privileged to receive honorary Doctor of Arts degrees this past week from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.

The Institute was started by and continues under the operation of Ted McIlvenna, a pioneer for sexual rights and education and head of one of the world’s largest collections of erotic and pornographic art and materials. The Institute has many notable graduates including the women of Club 90 (Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Vera, Candida Royalle, Veronica Hart and Gloria Leonard), Sharon Mitchell, Carol Queen and Betty Dodson.

To mark the occasion, we gave a presentation titled ‘Aural Sex: Preserving personal histories from the early golden age of adult film‘ as part of the Wardell B. Pomeroy Lecture Series. This talk was followed by a party at the Institute, attended by a number of friends of The Rialto Report including C.J. Laing, Richard Pacheco, Serena, George McDonald, Ken Scudder, Paul Johnson, Luc Wylder and Alexandra Silk. Here are some photos from the celebration we hope you enjoy.

We’re off on vacation for a few weeks before returning with many more new podcasts, interviews, profiles and archival collections to share.

Happy holidays.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Photos from the after party at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality

C.J. Laing

C.J. Laing

Photographer Paul Johnson meets former actor and model Ken Scudder for the first time in 35 years

Paul Johnson and Ken Scudder

Luc Wylder and Alexandra Silk

April Hall, Super Rescue Dog Zen, Luc Wylder, Alexandra Silk

April Hall and Serena

April Hall and Serena

Richard Pacheco and George McDonald from Behind the Green Door (1972)

Ken Scudder and Richard Pacheco

C.J. Laing and Richard Pacheco

Serena and Ted McIlvenna

Ted McIlvenna, founder of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality

The post The Rialto Report honored at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The Rialto Report is on holiday this week, but we wanted to share a previously unseen portrait of actor and writer Spalding Gray that photographer Joyce Baronio gave to us.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Spalding Gray

Spalding Gray was known for his autobiographical monologues and his association with the New York experimental theater company, The Wooster Group, which he co-founded in 1977. His experience as a bit player in The Killing Fields (1984) was translated into an OBIE-award winning one-person show and then into the film Swimming to Cambodia (1987), directed by Jonathan Demme.

This photo was taken at Show World around 1977 by photographer Joyce Baronio, author of the photo essay book, 42nd Street Studio. Gray was working there part time writing ads for them and also short scenarios that the strippers would enact on stage.

In the mid 1970s Gray also appeared in a number of pornographic films. In interviews and writings, he referred variously to having appeared in Candy Lips (1976), The Farmer’s Daughters (1976), Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976), Maraschino Cherry (1978), and Little Orphan Dusty (1978).

Gray later wrote an essay called ‘The Farmer’s Daughters’ in which he described the experience of not being able to sustain his erection for the shoot on the film:

I was beginning to experience my limpness as The Great Refusal, but all of this was at the expense of the production. But, fuck it, I thought, someone always has to pay. There is no place in this world that doesn’t cost someone something.

The director had a new idea. It would be a new configuration. Rick would fuck Alice while she sucked me off… The director was right, something about this configuration worked. I closed my eyes and stretched back over the bed as I gave myself to this new found pleasure… In order to avoid premature ejaculation I ran the gamut of images, and at the same time, was careful not to choose an image so traumatic that it would lead to discouragement and disengagement…

I pictured starving bloated children in Africa. I watched God in his heaven stumble like a drunken Bowery bum over his orange crate furniture. I saw Sissy Spacek with a wicked case of intestinal flu. And, for one terrifying second, I had a black webbing vision of cancer of the prostate. In short, I saw the end of the world as we have known it pass before my eyes, and breaking through these images I heard the director’s voice as he strode above me, ‘Make sounds, move around more, make it look like you like it. Moan, moan, goddamn it, make some sound.

In a separate journal entry at the time of this encounter, Gray wrote:

I break down on the porno set because director gives me a hard time. I have tears.

Spalding Gray died in New York City, of an apparent suicide in 2004. Steven Soderbergh made a 2010 documentary film about Spalding Gray’s life entitled And Everything Is Going Fine.

For more photographs from Show World, and an interview with the photographer Joyce Baronio, please visit our feature here.

The post Spalding Gray – At Show World, New York (1977) appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The Rialto Report is on vacation this week, but when ‘Radio’ Ray Wells got in touch with us to ask if we’d like to showcase some of his scrapbooks – how could we say no?

Ray was an actor on hundreds of west coast adult film sets in the 1970s and 80s, usually in small parts and working with people like Joey Silvera, Annette Haven, Desiree West, Paul Thomas, and Clair Dia.

His scrapbooks contain all sorts of oddities; Instamatic photos from sets, invitations to premieres, Polaroid audition snaps, even a typed set of instructions for actors appearing in an adult film. Most of these items haven’t seen the light of day for over 30 years so their quality is variable, but they offer a fascinating glimpse of the industry through the eyes of an insider.

We’re grateful to Ray for sharing this collection, and hope that you enjoy it too.

Note: All captions on the photos are from Ray Wells. Any added contributions are gratefully received at info@TheRialtoReport.com

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Ray Wells

After getting a degree in business in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ray Wells moved to San Francisco in 1970 living in a commune at 1911 – 1915 Divisadero St. He remembers spending most of his time dropping acid and fantasizing about being hired as a sexual performer.

One day he was was hitchhiking and was picked up a pretty blonde called Connie Di Angelo. Connie turned out to be one of the top madames in San Francisco. She and Ray became friends and he would hang out at her brothel, meeting the various women who worked for her. Ray told Connie about his fantasy of being paid for sex, and she recommended speaking to Clair Dia, a model and actress who’d been appearing in some of the first X-rated movies in the city.

Clair hooked Ray up with photographer Paul Johnson, and Ray was soon working regularly as a nude model with Paul and other photographers in the business. Soon Ray was making 8mm loops with shooters like Sam Menning and Irv Carsten, and he eventually crossed paths with John Seeman, an actor who was also the go-between for filmmakers coming up from Los Angeles to San Francisco to shoot porn films. John found acting work for Ray with luminaries such as Ted Paramore, Carlos Tobalina, Bob Vosse, and Bobby Hollander.

The money from the films paid the rent, and Ray supplemented it by selling weed, playing the harmonica in a garage band, and organizing music for parties. Ray had been to broadcasting school because he wanted to work in radio eventually; it never worked out but it earned him the nickname ‘Radio Ray’.

Then in 1979, Ray moved to Los Angeles. John Seeman suggested that the agent Jim South would get him work out of the World Modelling offices. Ray met Jim and found X-rated acting gigs plentiful. In fact he’d hang around the offices so often that he eventually started working there as well. He’d answer phones, set up appointments, and take Polaroids of the aspiring actors. It was Ray who was there when future stars like Traci Lords and Shauna Grant showed up for the first time.

When I showed Ray a list of the women he worked with together with photos of them, he fell silent in amazement. “Is this really possible?” he asked incredulously.

“It seems like another life. A lifetime ago. I just can’t believe that I had sex with all these beautiful women. I’m almost 70 now. What a crazy life.”

Kristine Heller, Joey Silvera

Joey Silvera, Desiree West, Kristine Heller

Annette Haven, Paul Thomas, Desiree West, Dashile Miguele

Ken Scudder, Annette Haven

Annette Haven, Clair Dia

Edwin Brown

Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas

John Holmes, Desiree West

Ray Wells on set, at the Space Retreat

View from the Space Retreat set

Candida Royalle (lying) at the Space Retreat set

Actress Sandy Pinney‘s wedding

Actress Sandy Pinney‘s wedding

Photographer Paul Johnson at Sandy Pinney‘s wedding

Instructions for actors – issued by Aventura Motion Pictures

Mitchell brother

Annette Haven (in mask), Tyler Reynolds (in profile)

Annette Haven

Polaroids from Jim South‘s World Modeling

Polaroids from Jim South‘s World Modeling

Ray Wells, in one of his last modeling shoots

Your photographer, Ray Wells

The post ‘Radio’ Ray Wells:
An Actor Looks Back appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In 1972, Alfred Sole, a first time filmmaker, made an X-rated film called ‘Deep Sleep’.

He didn’t know much about adult films or the industry, so he shot it in his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey and using a cast and crew made up of friends and family members.

This meant that the local lawyer, banker, policeman, high school teachers, funeral home director, the mayor’s wife, even Alfred’s wife and his mother were part of the film-making group. It seemed like everyone in Paterson knew someone who was involved in the making of ‘Deep Sleep’.

And so predictably when it came out it was a smash hit in New Jersey, with long lines of people breaking box office records trying to get into the theaters to see it.

But not everyone was impressed. And what followed was one of the most remarkable and notorious prosecutions of an adult film in American history. First the filmmakers were indicted on a state basis under an ancient anti-fornication statute, and then on a federal level for interstate transportation of pornography. Suddenly Alfred Sole found himself at the center of a storm. He was under attack both from the law and from everyone who’d helped him make the film in the first place.

On this Rialto Report, the people involved speak out for the first time in 40 years. We speak to –

Alfred Sole, Deep Sleep’s director

Kim Pope, Deep Sleep actress

Joseph Friedman, Deep Sleep cinematographer

Butch Taylor, Deep Sleep’s soundtrack composer

John Niccollai, Assistant District Prosecutor

This episode’s running time is 69 minutes.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Deep Sleep (1972) – Stills

Kim Pope (aka Mary Canary), Anthony De Marco (aka Anthony Dema)

Kim Pope, Anthony De Marco drive past the Bishop’s residence

Kim Pope, Anthony De Marco, with the whip taken in evidence

Great Falls, Paterson NJ

Willard Butts looks on

Jamie Gillis, in hammock

Marc Stevens, Cindy West

The Maharishi

Deep Sleep – Press Coverage

The post ‘Deep Sleep’ (1972): Deep, Deep Trouble
Podcast 52 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

When George McDonald starred in the legendary golden age adult film Behind the Green Door (1972), he was already a veteran of the San Francisco skin flick scene. In fact, his film career was almost over; he estimates that he’d already made almost 50 film appearances by then, and he retired from acting soon after.

But Behind the Green Door remains his most famous film. It features Marilyn Chambers, who became a mainstream celebrity as a result, and was one of the first hardcore films widely released in the United States. It was adapted from an anonymous short story of the same title, which had been circulated illicitly for decades by means of carbon copies.

The film tells the story of wealthy San Francisco socialite, Gloria Saunders (Chambers), who is taken against her will to an elite North Beach sex club and loved “as she’s never been loved before” in front of a large group of people. She is saved by Barry Clark (McDonald) who runs from the audience onto the stage and carries Gloria off through the green door.

So what went on behind the scenes of the film?

The Rialto Report recently found that in 1975 George wrote an autobiography, ‘A Pound of Flesh’, in which he describes his film-making career in detail. The book was never published, which is a shame because it’s a wonderful time capsule of his memories written in a groovy-hippy style.

A few years back, Robert De Niro heard about George and his story and they spent the afternoon together discussing George’s film career – with a view to a possible biopic though nothing came if it.

Earlier this summer, we visited George McDonald in California. He lives only a few blocks away from where the opening scenes of Behind the Green Door were shot.

He shared his manuscript with us, and we’re greatly indebted to him to be able to share the chapter concerning the making of Behind the Green Door.

Notes: No changes have been made to the text, though a few explanatory notes have been added.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

‘Behind The Green Door’
Chapter excerpt from ‘ A Pound of Flesh’ – the unpublished memoir of George McDonald

Pre-production planning on Behind The Green Door had been going on for several months before I got a call from Jack telling me that the Mitchell Brothers and Cine-7 productions were preparing to cast for the film.

For months I had been told that I would get one of the leading roles. I was given special attention in the casting as a final payoff for the other eighteen films that I had labored through for the Mitchell Brothers. In fact Behind The Green Door was my 48th film, 46 I had done in one year.

Jack had told me that there had been a really great response to the ad in the Chronicle. But when I showed up at a little get together at Stage A for all of the people who were to be in the film to meet one another, I was a bit disappointed. There were a lot of new faces milling about, but none of them looked any different than the other people who had been in the previous Mitchell Brothers‘ films. No one had any special looks, bearing or character that made me think they were any more professional than anyone else I had worked with before. The entire crowd, in a word, looked mediocre. In fact, once I started talking to some of them, I realized that hardly anyone there had any acting experience whatsoever. I even recognized a few old pros, including one girl who had been in Powder Burns some time before.

There were quite a few long-hairs, but a strange variety at that. One was a lawyer, one was a railroad engineer, another was a musician and another was a junior advertising executive, but no actors.

One fellow who was playing one of the leads was a guy named Yank. Yank was in his middle forties and was a junk man by profession. He had learned acting during the depression as part of a federally sponsored work program. He had been involved in the theatre in New York. But now, about all he did was standup comedy for hospital benefits. He had a lot of great one liners in his act about his wife, his mother-in-law, and all the other standard recipients of a stand up comic’s barbs.

I’d met a few people in the group who had some acting experience, but nothing you could put down on a resume’. There was one cat whose most noticeable achievement was that he had been the stand-in for Al Pacino when Francis Ford Coppola had re-shot a scene for the The Godfather up in Ross. The rest had done lightweight stage work, or had been extras in crowd scenes for some major motion pictures that had been shot in San Francisco.

Probably the biggest name in the film was Ben Davidson. Ben was not an actor either, but an all pro defensive end for the Oakland Raiders. He had agreed to do a cameo appearance, but keep all his clothes on.

Jack had contacted Ben about a year before when he, Jack, was working for Alex de Renzy. At that time Alex had an idea for a straight film and had gotten together with Ben to talk about playing the lead. That film never got off the ground but Jack talked to Ben about being in a porno. Ben thought it might be a laugh and agreed to be in the film.

Behind The Green Door marked the first time in the industry that we were given contracts, something we had been talking about for a long time. I guess the real reason for the get-together that day was to have us all there at one time to sign our contracts. If everyone was there at one time, they could be hustled through faster, everyone could be talked to at one time, and there would be a lot less questions to answer.

When it came time for us to talk about contracts, they told us about another new idea they had worked out. They were going to pay everyone more money than they had ever been payed before for working in a porno, but the major portion of the money would be deferred for six months. Even the extras would be paid a minimum of a hundred dollars a day but 75% of the money would be deferred. It was a nice idea but in the end it proved to be a monster headache. Most of the people were in the film for the bread. Few of the people had any other source of income and waiting six months for their money was a long time. About two weeks after the finish of Green Door, the phones started ringing and people were asking if there was any way they could have their money.

Another reason for having everyone sign a contract was that it committed them for the length of the film. Before you were never sure that if someone said they would be there that a week later they would be there. At least by signing a contract they had a legal and moral obligation to be there for the start and the finish of the film. A problem in the porno industry is that if you give people a chance to think about it, they’ll often have second thoughts and back out. Before, if you got someone to agree to be in a fuck film, they were on such a short production schedule that the producers would probably use the person that day or on the next. Even when they got into features the shooting schedules were usually limited to about a week. Shooting on Behind The Green Door was scheduled to last for four weeks.

The only question that I had about the contracts was, how can you say that it’s legally binding and that you have to show up – when the act you’re showing up to perform is illegal. I really don’t think the contract would have held up in court. If anything, it might have meant trouble for the producers of the film because it was evidence that they had conspired to commit an act of oral copulation. Conspiracy to commit an act or oral copulation is also a felony. A friend of mine, Lloyd Downton, had already done a year for conspiracy to commit oral copulation on circumstantial evidence.

I was standing around the office while Jack was explaining the contracts to the rest of the performers and, as yet, hadn’t been told what I’d be getting for my part in the Behind The Green Door. Over the last couple of months, Jim and Art had been telling me that money from Green Door would be more than I’d ever gotten before. Finally Jim walked over to me and said, “Let’s go in the other room and talk about your contract.” (Special preference for the star.)

As we walked into the room I was thinking that Jim would probably offer me five hundred since the most I’d ever gotten from Cine-7 was three hundred and fifty, but I was all set to ask for a thousand.

I sat down on one of the desks and looked at Jim who was leaning against the window. He said, “Two things. I’m going to have you sign two contracts. Ahhh, we’re going to give you a flat rate for the film, we’re paying everyone else by the day, but for you and Marilyn we’re going to pay a flat rate. Marilyn, whom you haven’t met yet, is going to be your co-star, and we’re going to pay you both the same thing. How’s two thousand dollars, five hundred up front and the rest deferred for six months? And two per cent of the film?”

He waited about two seconds for me to think about it then started in again, “You’ll like the part…” Didn’t even give me time to react to the money offer. A minute later though, he came back to the money and asked me if it sounded okay. All I could say was, “Waaaaah, two thousand dollars… two grand, Alright!” I was bouncing around, skipping, shaking his hand, and I said, “yeah, it sounds great!” I thought finally I had crested the hill. I didn’t realize that when Behind The Green Door played that it would be grossing two thousand dollars a day.

Now, I had been wearing a pair of shoes that I’d bought at the Salvation Army four months before. Every morning that I got up and put them on, I had to think about when I walked into the Salvation Army and picked those shoes out. Dull hush puppies. So I said, “I need some money right now.” Jim said, “We’ll give you two hundred and fifty right now, and two hundred and fifty when you finish the film.” Far out.

I took the two hundred and fifty dollars and went out and bought a brand new pair of cowboy boots, some new Levis and a new Levi jacket. I felt like a new man.

Before we started production I went through a little bit of trauma… Jim wanted me to cut my hair. I suffer from a Sampson complex. The part I was going to play was that of a young junior advertising executive. So the Saturday before we started shooting, I showed up at Stage A to meet the hairdresser, John. Before he could cut it off though I had to take him back to his apartment to get his scissors. John had a Marine-boot haircut, black satin pants with diamond sequins, a see-through Indian shirt, about forty silver bracelets on his arm and two earrings in one ear. We were driving along and he suddenly turned to me and said, “Well, are you bi or gay?” John, that’s the worst approach man… I mean at least give me an option.

I said, “Neither, I’m straight.” That term, straight, always bugged me a little. I mean to be hip is cool, but where is straight at? Rhetoric always twists my head. Hippies laugh at the straights. But a heterosexual hippie says he’s straight… so then am I laughing at myself? So I cop-out and say, “…but it doesn’t bother me.”

John cut my hair the way that I wanted it, which was long but neat. Jim walked over and took a look at it and I said, ”Well, what do you think?” He said that it was alright but I could tell that it wasn’t what he wanted. For two grand I figured I could make the sacrifice so I turned to John and said, “Just cut it all off, man,” which is exactly what he did. One look in the mirror though and I went into instant depression.

The same day I got my hair cut I met my leading lady and the star of Behind The Green Door, Marilyn Chambers. First impression of Marilyn was that she was pretty and wholesome looking. I could tell after talking with her for a few minutes that she was totally into the film. She also loved to drink beer and smoke marijuana. Even first thing in the morning when everyone else was struggling over coffee she would have a can of beer in her hand. Since we all smoked dope on the set, it wasn’t unusual that she was into marijuana. There also seemed to be more cocaine around than ever before, but there was more money available and Jack, who was casting director, had great coke connections.

Marilyn seemed more professional than any other girl that I had worked with in any prior films. She had been in a film that was shot on the East Coast called Together, an X-rated quasi-documentary about sensual encounter groups. She had also done some straight modeling (she’s the girl on the cover of the Ivory Snow box). Marilyn also had walk on parts in a few Hollywood films, The Owl and the Pussy Cat for one.

On the first day’s shooting we had a 6:30 A.M. make-up call. For the first time we had a hair stylist and a makeup girl on the set every morning. Both of these individuals were being paid one hundred dollars a day for doing hair and makeup. More than I made for most of the films that I had been in in the early days.

The Mitchell Brothers were even starting to think about wardrobe. For my part, Jim and his wife bought me a two hundred and fifty dollar outfit so that I would at least look like the part I was supposed to be playing, the junior ad man. The only bummer was that the clothes they bought me were so straight that I knew I’d never get a chance to use them after the filming… blue double-breasted blazer, gray slacks, cardigan shirt, red, white and blue tie.

For the first day of shooting we were scheduled to shoot on location at the Alta Mira Hotel, a plush resort hotel in the hills above Sausalito. For the first time we were going to shoot an exterior scene without having to leave the engine running. In the old days few people would let you use their place of business if they knew you were shooting a porno. So, we would drive up to the spot we wanted to use, leave the engine running, and get into position. The cameraman would jump out and shoot the scene, then we would all pile back into the car and roar off. It was almost like an armed robbery rather than movie location shooting.

The actors and actresses were ushered into a suite that had been rented for the day, and the crew, which numbered about ten people for this production, went over to the lobby to set up. For once, we didn’t have to hang around the set getting burned out and nervous by all the confusion, another good change.

When it was time for us on the set, we walked into a scene that looked like it was straight out of Hollywood. Technicians running around, make-up people, script girls, still cameramen, and production assistants. For a moment I really felt like I was a star, at least an actor.

The old Alta Mira restaurant and hotel (2015) – now a drug rehab center

We shot a scene of Marilyn checking into the hotel and also a scene where I see Marilyn for the first time as I’m walking through the lobby. They were relatively simple scenes and in the old days would have taken only a few minutes to shoot, but they wanted this one to be right and so it took several hours before Art said we had finally gotten what we needed. Art was the director of this one, and Jim was acting as producer. Benton was still doing sound and Fontana was still chief cameraman. They had hired a professional lighting man.

During one of the breaks in the shooting an old lady who was staying at the hotel came up to me and asked what the name of the movie was. When I told her it was called Behind The Green Door, she said, “What kind of movie is it?” I told her it was a mystery. She smiled and said, “Oh, thank you. I’m going to tell all my friends I saw them shooting the Behind The Green Door.” I hope she didn’t tell too many of them, or she’s going to have a bit of explaining to do.

Other people would walk by and see the makeup girl straightening up my make-up and they would whisper to one another, trying to figure out who I was. I was in my glory!

We were scheduled to shoot at the Alta Mira for two days, but the next morning I got a call to hold off, that we wouldn’t be shooting out there that day. I asked why we wouldn’t be shooting, Jack said that they wanted to wait and look at the rushes before they went any further. I decided that I’d like to see the rushes too, so I went on over to Stage A.

When I got there it was like walking into a morgue. All the technicians were standing around pointing at each other and shaking their heads. I assumed that they had already seen the rushes. I stood back out of the way and Jim came up and said that they were going to take another look at the rushes if I wanted to watch. I wish that I hadn’t. If I’d had any doubts that Behind The Green Door was going to make it, I had even more after I saw the rushes. The film was as bad as ever. In fact it was worse because this time they were using a new type of film and they hadn’t lighted properly for the scenes. None of the film was useable.

After a short conference, they decided to shut down production for a few days and see if they couldn’t straighten out a few of their problems. They finally solved the problem by changing the film and using the old type that both Jon (Fontana) the cameraman and Bucky the lighting man, were used to. They also fired one of their production assistants rand Jim took over the directing from Art.

The sex in Behind The Green Door was limited to a Busby Berkley orgy and a single one-on-one with Marilyn and myself.

The plot of the Behind The Green Door was basically that Marilyn was ripped off from her hotel room and taken to a private club where she was taken on stage and made to perform a sexual act with six girls, then six guys, then a solo with a black cat, then with everyone at one time, including three guys who are on trapezes. I’ve taken Yank to the club because I’m supposed to be entertaining him for my firm as an out of town client. As the action increases, the audience, numbering about fifteen, gets so turned on that they start getting it on. The whole thing turns into a giant free for for all with everyone fucking and sucking everyone else. As soon as Marilyn walks out onto the stage I realize that I recognize her from the hotel. Knowing that this club kidnaps its victims, I wait for a chance to rescue her. When all bedlam breaks loose I run up on the stage, scoop her up and run through the green door with her. Then there is a scene of Marilyn and I getting it on.

After several weeks of shooting the preliminaries, we had to break for a week while Jim and Art were in court over Reckless Claudia. When there was finally a break in the trial, they assembled everyone in the cast and got ready for the big scene.

On the morning of the big scene, we all had to show up at 7:00 A.M. for costume and make-up. Even though there were more than thirty people in the scene they somehow managed to get everyone made up and in costume in only a couple of hours.

Stage A had been turned into a fancy club with huge hanging drapes, Persian carpets and large overstuffed couches facing a stage. Above the stage were three trapezes and at the back was the ominous Green Door.

Since this particular scene was the meat of the Behind The Green Door and certainly the most complicated in terms of numbers of people and action involved, they shot most of the hard-core stage action with Marilyn the week before. Today they were going to run through the scenes where Marilyn is first brought out on stage. Then the scene where she is made love to by the six women and the scene where she is made love to by everyone at one time (the audience excluded). As they ran through these scenes, they would shoot some quick audience reaction shots then get on to the real action, the one-on-one with the ‘stud’, and the free for all orgy.

Since it was such a freak scene, there probably should have been a closed set. But there were almost as many spectators as there were participants. It was such a mob scene, thirty performers, about twelve technicians, and assistants, that another twenty gawkers didn’t really matter.

We all got into our positions and Jim gave us a brief run down on what he wanted. The scene with Marilyn and the six girls went quickly. This was the warm-up act for the headliner, Johnny Keyes. The solo ‘stud’ performance.

They’d dressed the male stage performers in white tights with crotch cut out. In this scene, the six girls were holding Marilyn down on a big pillow in the middle of the stage with a big spotlight centered on her. The house lights went down and the spotlight moved back to the green door. It opened and out stepped Johnny Keyes. Johnny is a black cat. He’s an ex-amateur lightweight Champion of the World and a professional actor. He had been in Hair and a few other stage plays, but this was his first porno.

Johnny came out from behind the green door the first time in his slow deliberate dancer’s step, claw necklace and heavy eye makeup on, but something about the scene didn’t look right… soft dick. Jim called for “CUT,” and said, “Would one of you chicks give him a hand, we’ve got to get him up before he walks out.” So Kandi (Johnson), one of the six girls onstage, jumped up and escorted him behind the door. We all waited for a few minutes then Kandi came running out and got back into her position. Jim yelled, “Action” and this time Johnny walked out with a hard-on shooting straight out. It certainly looked more impressive than before.

Johnny walked slowly around and faced Marilyn, then went right down and started giving her head. After a few minutes of this, they cut while one of the chicks got him hard again for the insertion. Pretty heavy. I mean to have to stand there while the spotlight is on you and fifty people watch while you try to get it up. But Johnny didn’t have any trouble and got it right up. From there he put on an all-time great performance in
the missionary position… so good in fact that when it was over I stood up and gave him a standing ovation.

We took another break they got ready for the next scene which was the mondo bizarro of all sex scenes, From the ceiling they dropped down three trapezes. They brought out five more guys, put three on the trapeze which forms sort of square around Marilyn, put one more underneath her, and put another in there just copping feels. Along with that they put the six girls around her. Marilyn was sitting upright on top of one guy with his dick in her, one cat and six other chicks caressing and licking her, jacking off the two guys on the trapezes on either side of her, and sucking off the guy in the middle. It’s a monster for everyone concerned, but they didn’t have to worry about getting everyone up for the scene because they had already shot the hard core insertion shots earlier. Just keeping one guy up can be a problem in this case it would have been a nightmare.

While all of this action was taking place on stage, Jim walked through the audience and told everyone to start masturbating. Now, I’m not going to do that man. You can’t pay me enough money man to sit there and jack off in front of you. I copped out by pulling my shirttail out and covering my lap, sticking my hand underneath, and paying no attention to anyone else.

They started off the orgy by having the girls attack the guys, which isn’t a bad idea for a change. Since I was supposedly one of the stars, I got two girls, I was laying down on the floor with one girl going down on me and another sitting on my face. I just kicked back and tried not to be too noticeable, because with everything else going on around me I figured they’d get plenty of action and I didn’t really dig the position I was in.

Before I had a chance to get too far into it, Jim stopped the action and said, “Alright George. I want you to push these two chicks off, pull on your pants, run up and grab Marilyn and take her out the door.” I figured, well that’s groovy. I can kick back and watch everyone else this time.

On action, I pushed the two girls off, grabbed my pants and managed to get one leg in them, hopped across the stage, picked up Marilyn in a hero’s sweep, and as I ran through the, door, I was in such a hurry that I banged her head into it… “CUT”. Let’s try it again but this time take it a little easier with the star.”

After we ran through the scene again, Marilyn and I walked back into the shadows and watched everyone else watch everyone getting it on. I had seen group orgies before, but I’d never gotten to watch other people watch an orgy, and they certainly were more interesting. The most notable performance of the day was put in by Johnny Keyes, who, before the day was over, had gotten it on with five different chicks. At one point, I saw
him up on stage fucking one chick from behind dog style while she was going down on another chick. That cat certainly had a lot of endurance. They could have used the out-takes and done another feature on just Johnny’s performance that day.

The morning that Marilyn and I were finally going to do our solo scene, I knew that she had already been through a lot and so I tried my best to remain mellow and at the same time to mellow her out. I was still going into each sexual scene with a lot of hangups, but I felt that since this one might be the last that I would try to be in control. I figured if I could control my own neurosis then perhaps Marilyn and I would be able to just get into it and enjoy it.

They wanted to shoot our scene and then put special effects behind it, which meant that we both had to be made up from head to foot. Every square inch of our bodies is going to be covered with makeup. They were also going to shoot us against a black back drop. With all that makeup, I knew it was going to be a bummer. Under the lights, you sweat a lot, plus with a hard surface, with any movement at all, you’re going to rub off makeup. So you have to constantly have your makeup touched up.

When it came time to start the action, Marilyn and I were really into each other so it started off really well. The mood of everyone involved was very professional. We just did the scenes and there was no bullshit. The crew and I threw one liners at each other, but this time we laughed because they were just good natured jabs, whereas before I used to get uptight. The only problem was that Marilyn kept complaining that she was getting sore… I guess after what she had been through prior to this. So we took a Vaseline break.

After the break Jim said, “Alright, we’re going to go in for the closeup. Now I’ve got a hard on and I’m inserted with Marilyn on top, when all of a sudden I felt this cold wet sponge on my balls, and the makeup girl is saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry darling, but I’ve just got to touch this one spot up.” “Great… just let me know when you’re done.” I don’t know if you’ve ever had a cold wet sponge slapped against your balls unexpectedly, but, it certainly has the opposite effect of an aphrodisiac. About all you can do is laugh and hug your partner a little tighter.

We got through the fucking, but I couldn’t get off for the climax. I guess I had become to hung up over it by that time. So, we just faked it and then it was over. Almost.

We had been fucking for over an hour and to not get off will make you a little edgy, so I turned to Marilyn and said, “Come on, let’s go take a shower.”

We went upstairs to the shower, locked the door, turned on the water and proceeded to finish what we had started downstairs… It was really far out because I had worked with girls that soon as the director said cut they were already in their pants with their hand out for the check. I was really high and I wanted to get off, but I didn’t want to get off in front of the crew, Marilyn made sure that I didn’t leave Stage A discontented.

The Behind The Green Door premiered several months later at the O’Farrell Theatre. For the premiere, the Mitchell Brothers threw a large party at the theatre. There were about four hundred people jammed into the lobby of the theatre including the cast, their friends, the press, and radio and television people. I went with my roommate Smokey, who ate a bunch of clear-lite acid before we left, Fat Larry the lawyer, and my girlfriend at the time, Gunilla, a blond nursing student from Sweden.

The film was late arriving from the lab where they had been putting the last minute touches on the sound track. By the time the film finally arrived everyone was thoroughly wasted on champagne and joints of marijuana wrapped in green papers that were passed out to the crowd.

Smokey and Larry were down on their hands and knees asking people to move so they could find something they had dropped on the floor. I asked them what they were looking for and Smokey said he thought he had dropped a joint on the floor. I said, “Get up man, you just smoked it.” As he got up off the floor he said, “Oh yeah. I guess I’m pretty spaced.” He certainly wasn’t alone in that crowd.

When the film finally arrived everyone piled into the theatre to watch it but for some reason I couldn’t go inside. Even when a pretty San Francisco socialite came over to me and asked if I would sit with her. I had to turn her down.

I sat alone in the bobby while the movie played. I wanted to leave but at the same time I wanted to hear what my friends thought of the film. From the noise and reaction inside the theatre I could tell that the people were digging the film.

When the Green Door premiere was over my friends said they liked it even though they didn’t understand it. The reason that the press and the audience had a little trouble understanding the plot was that Vince, the projectionist, was in such a hurry to get the film on the screen that he spliced the last reel into the middle and the middle reel onto the end.

If that mistake wasn’t enough to confuse everyone, the plot itself was. When Jim took over the directing from his brother Art, he demanded a re-write of the script, changing several people’s characters. I was changed from a junior ad-man to a truck driver. Since they didn’t have enough money to completely re-shoot the beginning of the film they had to use film that had been shot from both scripts. The result was the best of two beginnings, none of which was explained to the audience. I guess it didn’t really matter though since hardly anyone said anything in the film by the time it was finished. I had about two lines, Johnny had no lines, and Marilyn, the star of the film, had no lines. Well at least the photography was pretty.

The next day I went back to the theatre to see the film when there were less people around that I knew, or knew me. I was sitting in the theatre with Marilyn and Ray Taliaferro, a TV interviewer from Channel 4. The film had only played for a few minutes when I felt myself getting sick. I excused myself, went outside to the fresh air, got in my car and split. I guess I was disappointed. I don’t know what I had expected. I knew that Green Door would be my last film and I guess I wanted it to be perfect.

Eighty thousand people saw Behind The Green Door in San Francisco alone. At its peak I was being recognized two and three times a day on the street. I guess I changed my attitude about the film when I realized that it had accomplished what they had set out to do… that is, to make a film that would attract people who had never been to a porny before.

The two percent residual that I had laughed at in the beginning was almost my sole means of support during the year that I worked on this book.

When I was in Singapore recently I was talking to the only American tourist that I met while I was there and in the middle of the conversation he stopped, stared at me for a moment, and said, “Hey, you’re the guy that was in Green Door. Say, do you remember that little red-headed chick that was in the scene where…”

I guess that means something.

George McDonald, back at the scene of the crime (2015), with April Hall

The post ‘Behind The Green Door’ (1972): The Unpublished Story
By George McDonald appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Alex de Renzy‘s Pretty Peaches (1978) was one of the first adult films we ever saw – and one of the very best of the golden age.

It was shot in the summer of 1978 – and we’ve always been curious to know more about the places where the film was shot… the truck stop which opens the film, the old west gambling town where the wedding takes place, the spacious house where Hugh (John Leslie) and his maid (Juliet Anderson) live – and most of all, that public restroom – the scene of one of the most remarkable scenes in the history of X-rated cinema, the enema administered to Peaches (Desiree Cousteau).

This summer, 37 years after Pretty Peaches was filmed, The Rialto Report went on a road trip to see if any of the original locations were still left – and found that sometimes nothing changes.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Pretty Peaches

Pretty Peaches stars Desiree Cousteau as Peaches, described as “a daffy carefree female who cheerfully plunges through life without any worries.” In the film, she has a car accident after attending the wedding of her father (John Leslie) and is rendered unconscious. Two men find and take advantage of her, before offering to help her when it becomes apparent that she has amnesia. Peaches resolves to keep smiling through all the silly schemes and circumstances they come up with.

The movie likely was influenced by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg‘s Candy, itself a homage to Voltaire‘s Candide.

Cousteau received the Adult Film Association of America Best Actress award in 1978 for her performance in the movie.

Gas station from opening scene

Pretty Peaches opens with a scene at a gas station – just a half a mile from De Renzy’s home in Novato, CA.

Pretty Peaches – opening scene

Rossi’s Deli, Novato, CA in 2015

The gas station scene in ‘Pretty Peaches’

The gas station scene in ‘Pretty Peaches’

Desiree Cousteau in the opening scene of ‘Pretty Peaches’

Desiree Cousteau in the opening scene of ‘Pretty Peaches’

Rossi’s Deli, Novato, CA in 2015

Old West gambling town

Virginia City in Nevada was the location for the town where the wedding at the beginning of Pretty Peaches takes place. De Renzy had used the area before – notably in his western Powder Burns (1971).

The town sprang up as a boom town with the 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver deposit discovery in the United States, and numerous mines were opened. At the city’s peak of population in the mid-1860s, it had an estimated 25,000 residents. The mines’ output declined after 1878, and the city declined. As of 2010 Census the population of Virginia City was about 855.

Panoramic view of Virginia City, NV from ‘Pretty Peaches’

Virginia City, NV in 2015

N C Street, Virginia City, NV from ‘Pretty Peaches’

N C Street, Virginia City, NV in recent times

Casino and Wedding Chapel

The Silver Queen in Virginia City, Nevada was used in Nevada to film Hugh’s (John Leslie) wedding scenes.

The saloon was built in the 1870s and offers a bar, slots, a wedding chapel and a second floor of hotel guest rooms – which are all supposedly haunted by local ghosts.

The wedding room is in the back of the saloon, and is where the pop duo Captain and Tennille got hitched on November 11, 1975.

The Silver Queen herself can be seen in the form of a 15-ft. tall and 8-ft. wide painting of a lady in an evening gown decorated with 3,261 “Morgan” silver dollars minted in Carson City. Her belt is fashioned from 28 twenty-dollar gold pieces, and her choker and bracelets are made from dimes.

John Leslie outside of the Silver Queen, Virginia City, NV

Desiree Cousteau outside of the Silver Queen, Virginia City, NV

Silver Queen, Virginia City, NV in recent times

Silver Queen, Virginia City, NV in recent times

John Leslie and Flower in the wedding chapel, Silver Queen

Desiree Cousteau in the wedding chapel, Silver Queen

The Silver Queen wedding chapel in recent times

John Leslie and Flower at the Silver Queen bar

Silver Queen bartender from Pretty Peaches

Silver Queen bar in recent times

Flower and Desiree Cousteau in the Silver Queen

Pretty Peaches and the Doctor

The scenes where Peaches is accosted by the doctor were all shot at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre.

Dating from 1931, it is recognized as one of the finest remaining examples of Art Deco design in the United States. After its initial brief blaze of “movie palace” glory in the 1930’s, this remarkable auditorium suffered three decades of neglect and decline until its rescue by the Oakland Symphony, the City of Oakland and numerous private donors. The building was purchased by the Board of Directors of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra Association in 1972. A painstaking and authentic restoration was completed in 1973 and the theatre was entered in the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1975 the City of Oakland, the present owner, assumed ownership from the Oakland Symphony Orchestra Association.

The Paramount Theater, Oakland, CA – which hosts the legend (not Kim Kardashian)

Desiree Cousteau descends to the lower level of the Paramount Theater in Oakland

The Paramount Theater in 2015

Desiree Cousteau in the lower level of the Paramount Theater in Oakland

Desiree Cousteau in the lower level of the Paramount Theater in Oakland

The Paramount Theater in 2015

The Paramount Theater in 2015

Desiree Cousteau and the doctor in the men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater

Desiree Cousteau and the doctor in the men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater

Men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater in 2015

Desiree Cousteau and the doctor in the men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater

Desiree Cousteau and the doctor in the men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater

Men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater in 2015

Desiree Cousteau and the doctor in the men’s restrooms of the Paramount Theater

The Rialto Report risks life and limb taking pictures of men at the urinals for ‘research’ purposes

Inexplicably no mention of ‘Pretty Peaches’

Hugh’s house

De Renzy shot many of the interiors at his home in Novato, CA.

The house often featured in his films; he lived there from the early 1970s to his passing in 2001.

John Leslie arrives home to be greeted by Juliet Anderson

The front door of Alex de Renzy’s former home in 2014

Inside the home, John Leslie and Flower are greeted by Juliet Anderson

Inside the front door of Alex de Renzy’s former home in 2014

The Screening Room

Alex de Renzy showed many of his films at his theater, the Screening Room at 220 Jones Street in San Francisco.

This converted storefront opened around 1967 as one of the first theaters in San Francisco that showed hardcore porn. Initially, the program would consist of 16mm silent loops with a record providing musical accompaniment, but eventually 16mm full-length features would take off.

In 1968 De Renzy exhibited what was the first full-length hard porn feature, a “documentary” called “Pornography in Denmark: A New Approach”. This feature, premiered here, grossed $25,000 in its first week in exhibition (It would eventually gross over $2 million.)

The success of this theater would lead to De Renzy operating other theaters in San Francisco for a time: North Beach Movie (another storefront theater), Presidio (converting this neighborhood art theater into a porn house), Centre (a Market Street second-run house converted into hard porn), and briefly the Regal on Market Street. The Mitchell Brothers started their O’Farrell Theater after seeing how successful the Screening Room was doing.

Around 2010 it became a sex club named the Power Exchange.

The site of Alex de Renzy’s Screening Room in 2015

The site of Alex de Renzy’s Screening Room in 2015

The post Adult film locations 3:
‘Pretty Peaches’ (1978) 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 Russ Meyer was casting the lead for his ground-breaking film ‘Lorna‘ (1964), he knew exactly what he wanted. In the words of the movie’s publicity, ‘Lorna‘ was “a wanton of unparalleled emotion… unrestrained earthiness… and destined to set a new standard of voluptuous beauty.” In short ‘Lorna’ was “a woman too much for one man.”

In Lorna Maitland, Russ found his star. She was a voluptuous California dancer with pneumatic measurements of 42D-22-36 who perfectly embodied the sexually unsatisfied young wife whose unrestrained lust triggers violence in a small town.

‘Lorna‘ was a major success for Meyer despite being prosecuted for obscenity in several states, and set the template for his future films – two of which also starred Lorna Maitland.

But rather than become a star, Lorna disappeared abruptly. So what happened to Lorna Maitland, and where is she today?

The Rialto Report tracked down her family, her friends, and her first manager to tell her story.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Lorna Maitland: Her Story

When we meet the eponymous star of Russ Meyer’s 1964 film Lorna, it’s clear that she’s being suffocated by her small-town married life. Her husband Jim loves her but can’t satisfy her need for passion. Her bucolic surroundings are picturesque but offer none of the excitement she craves.

And in many ways the role of Lorna was a perfect match for its star, Lorna Maitland, but one that almost didn’t come to pass…

Beginnings

Lorna Maitland was born Barbara Ann Popejoy on November 19, 1943 in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her sister remembers Barbara as being whip-smart even as a young girl. And if old family photos tell even half the story, Barbara was a natural born entertainer from an early age.

When she was seven years old, Barbara’s parents moved the family to Norman, Oklahoma, a city twenty miles south of downtown Oklahoma City. Norman was a fraction the size of Los Angeles, and a world away from its bright lights. It wasn’t without its charms but the only excitement came from its geographical location within Tornado Alley, the most tornado-prone area in the world. For a young girl like Barbara who longed to be an actress and entertainer, Norman was a million miles from where she wanted to be.

Barbara tried to fit in, seeking out friends and joining the school cheerleading squad as she entered her teenage years, but ultimately she thought Norman stifled her and wouldn’t let her achieve her dreams. She wasn’t prepared to give those dreams up, so in 1959 at the age of 16, Barbara left home.

Say Hello to Hollywood

After leaving Oklahoma, some accounts have Barbara heading to New York to model for Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship department store. She soon wound up in Reno, Nevada where she found work with a dance troupe known as the Delta Queens. The Queens performed at the Harolds Club, part of a nightly variety show in the club’s famous 7th floor Fun Room. Barbara had a reasonable singing voice, and was part of the show that presented the music and color of the historic riverboat days in a review called ‘Riverboat Follies’.

Her engagement in Reno was short lived; the staid routine soon bored Barbara and she grew restless again. She’d grown up fast since leaving home and in 1960 at the age of 17, she decided she was ready to pursue her dreams of Hollywood stardom in Los Angeles.

She found lodging at a small boarding house for aspiring actresses and joined the legion of hopefuls on the audition circuit. To make ends meet she danced in many of the growing number of go-go clubs that were becoming popular in the early 1960s.

In 1962, one audition led her to the door of entertainment producer and promoter Clancy Grass III. Grass had been in the business for over a decade and had recently found success promoting recordings by the Paris Sisters. The Sisters were a musical trio managed by legendary record producer, publisher, and record label owner, Lester Sill. Sill was well-connected and was assisted in his work by up-and-coming music industry associates, Lee Hazelwood and Phil Spector.

Grass had fallen for Albeth, one of the Paris sisters, and smelt a money-making opportunity to create his own version of the trio that he could manage by himself. He knew a talented singer called Jim Bailey, and so decided that he’d work up an act with Jim as the male lead – accompanied by a trio of beautiful female backup singers.

Grass put a call out for women vocalists, and held auditions with his partner Steve Roland. Barbara Popejoy was one of the hopeful respondents who answered the call. Grass clearly remembers Barbara’s audition to this day, recalling that “she wasn’t the greatest singer, but she was truly gorgeous.” That was good enough for Grass, and Barbara was offered a role in the backup trio.

For months, Grass worked with the group paying for rehearsal sessions to develop the act. He’d seen the success of the Paris Sisters so he figured it was worth the time and effort to get it right, but in the end Grass had to admit defeat. Despite his connections in the music industry, this group just wasn’t going anywhere, so as summer approached he decided to dissolve the group, and focus his efforts on just being an agent.

Meeting Russ Meyer

Barbara returned to dancing, modeling and auditioning. Even though the singing act had been dismantled, Grass had faith in her, and Barbara still had an agreement with Grass naming him her sole representative.

In 1963, Barbara saw an ad in the August 6th edition of Daily Variety looking for a “voluptuous girl” to the play the lead in an independently produced motion picture. She turned to Grass and asked for advice.

The director behind the ad was Russ Meyer, who up until that point had made a handful of nudist films. His first – The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959) – had been the first American “above ground” movie since the pre-Code early sound era to show female nudity without the pretext of naturism. It was hugely successful costing $24,000 but grossing more than $1,500,000, and popularized the nudie cutie genre.

The movie Barbara saw advertised was Meyer’s eighth and marked a radical departure in style. It was his first rural gothic film with a dramatic storyline. In the words of author and fellow director William Rotsler, “it established the formula that made him rich and famous, the formula of people filmed at top hate, top lust, and top heavy.” It would be the first time Meyer shot on 35mm, and was supported by a ten day shooting schedule and a $37,000 budget – the largest he’d ever worked with. Meyer called his new film, ‘Lorna’.

Today, Grass says he remembers agreeing with Barbara that he’d visit Meyer armed with her publicity photos, and push her for the lead role. However he only vaguely recalls meeting Russ Meyer and is keen to downplay any involvement in a sexually exploitative affair like ‘Lorna’.

What neither Barbara nor Grass knew was that the role advertised had in fact already been cast. As Russ Meyer admits in his autobiography ‘A Clean Breast’, the part had originally been offered to Maria Andre, an actress from Russ Meyer’s 1963 film ‘Heavenly Bodies!’ Maria had auditioned and read well, but Russ had noted a big drawback: Her breasts were not nearly as prominent as he wanted. Desperate to have this important requirement fulfilled, he continued looking for his leading lady.

The casting call drew 132 aspiring actresses but none seemed to have the acting ability combined with the outlandish physical proportions that Meyer craved. With the production schedule fast approaching, time was running out so Meyer reluctantly started rehearsals with Maria Andre.

According to ‘A Clean Breast’, Russ’ wife and business partner Eve revealed a secret to him at the last moment. At the casting call, Eve had noticed an attractive, well-endowed young lady by the name Barbara Pope among the auditioning actresses. Her manager, Grass, had sidled up to Eve pressing a selection of naked Polaroids of Barbara into Eve’s hand to reinforce his client’s talents; Eve now presented those photos to her husband. She’d kept this from Russ until now for fear of encouraging any more of his marital indiscretions.

Barbara herself remembered the casting call:

“I didn’t feel as though I was right for the part. When we went for the interview I was dressed with a rather secretarial… and I didn’t get too much of a reaction from (Russ). I guess (Russ had) seen quite a few lovely girls. But my manager is very persistent and he felt I had a good chance in getting the picture. So he insisted on taking some pictures of me that reveal just a little bit more of my physical attributes you might say.”

Today Grass refutes this – and denies ever passing around nude Polaroids. Whatever the truth, as soon as Meyer set eyes on Barbara, a rush of relief passed over him. He’d finally found his leading lady for ‘Lorna’.

Meyer asked screenwriter and actor Jim Griffith to contact Maria Andre with news of her dismissal. The request vexed Griffith, who questioned the ethics of a last minute switch, but Meyer set him straight in his inimitable style:

“Fuck your rosy ethics and a great deal more… I’ve got to live with ‘Lorna’ for a lot of years. Now pay off Miss Andre… I suggest a thousand… paint me as you wish. I’m your prick heavy. Eve will provide a check.

And (get) this giant-titted mama over to your joint to begin rehearsing. I don’t give a damn if she can’t even pronounce her own name. This girl IS Lorna!”

Barbara called Glass to tell him that she had the role, and it proved to be the last time they would ever speak. Glass went on to produce more music as well as a number of television shows and films. A year or so later after their last conversation, he heard that Barbara had been admitted to a mental hospital but never knew if that was true.

The Birth of Lorna Maitland

As much as Russ liked Barbara for the part of ‘Lorna’, he soon found started to find fault. For a start he hated her strange name, so he re-christened her Lorna Maitland. He’d once been in love with an attractive secretary called Lorna, and he liked the name Maitland because it sounded upscale, striking a nice contrast with the character’s small town roots.

What Meyer did like about Lorna however could be summarized simply; her gravity-defying breasts. The truth was that in the spring of 1963, Barbara had become pregnant by a boyfriend, which had the effect of enhancing her already impressive chest.

Or in the words of Meyer himself:

 “After a couple of beats, Miss Joy reflecting on the character’s crass shortchange job the night before angrily throws free the thin covers, revealing a proud, pointy bosom of truly heroic proportions rising up to hove. No. Heaving-to, swinging to a three-quarter’s view. Astounding! Truly. Whatever the position, her large conical ‘challengers’ retaining the same stimulating configuration even whilst registering the critical apex of the chick’s 180-dgree rotation. At once, bending over. Voila! The right pregnant nipple touching/caressing the lady’s kneecap!!! Fuck yes, the kneecap!!! With the be-nippled breast, yes, even while impacting, retaining its wondrously groovy size and shape!!!!! Meyer grunts the only polite, appropriate term he dares: Box Office!”

Meyer always claimed he knew his star was pregnant, but it didn’t matter to him. Barbara had the style and the breasts, and that was all that mattered.

‘Lorna’ began shooting in September 1963 in the small town of Walnut Grove, California. Meyer chose the location carefully, knowing it would contribute greatly to the look he was aiming for. He wanted to style the film after Italian melodramas created by directors like Vittorio De Sica that starred buxom beauties like Gina Lollobrigida.

Meyer remembers Barbara showing up to the set on the first day having traveled by public transport, a five-hour trip north from Los Angeles. Meyer had asked her to come up a few days before the rest of the crew. He wanted to shoot the film’s pivotal nude bathing scene with as few people gawking as possible. But according to Barbara in an interview at the time, Meyer needn’t have worried:

“No one seemed to be any different than they were when I was dressed. I was working and as far as I thought, everyone else was thinking the same thing, you know? I found no reaction from anyone.

I enjoyed that scene [nude bathing in the lake] quite a bit cause it gave me an opportunity to show another part of this Lorna character. I enjoyed that because I like to bring variety into anything. I think it’s the spice of life – and the spice of Lorna.”

A few days later the rest of the crew arrived – and tensions were already evident between Meyer and Barbara. “She did a number on my head. She wasn’t going to be pushed around,” remembered Meyer. Meyer later admitted that Barbara was the one star that “absolutely hated [my] guts”. Somehow they made it through shooting, and by early 1964, Meyer had completed post-production and was ready to screen his film.

‘Lorna’ – The Reception

Meyer arranged for the first screening of ‘Lorna’ at the Monica Theater in Hollywood for potential distributors. He continued with similar screenings in cities such as Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Boston and New York. He even arranged a showing at the Playboy Mansion, attended by both Hugh Heffner and Barbara herself.

The film had it’s official premiere at the Art Theater Guild’s Kiva Theater in Scottsdale, Arizona shortly after. The theater’s creative manager Les Natali crafted a suitably over-the-top advertising campaign:

Without artistic surrender…without compromise, without question nor apology, an incredibly sensual motion picture was made. ‘Lorna’.

The story of a woman… men will love, women will understand.

‘Lorna’ is more than a woman’s name. ‘Lorna’ is more than a motion picture. ‘Lorna’ is a brutal scrutinization of the important realities of power, prophesy, freedom and justice in our society against a background of violence and lust where simplicity is only a façade.

Meyer re-inforced the marketing of the ‘Lorna’ in his own words, saying that in making the film, he “attempted to bring life down to the basic essentials, to show the human condition as it really is or as it can be and to depict rather than to imply.”

Many reviewers had a positive reaction to ‘Lorna’. Film critic John Wasserman described the film in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“A simple, homey tale of murder, lust, adultery and sadism all balancing precariously on Lorna Maitland’s huge, quivering bosoms. But all is not well…her husband’s accomplishments in the hearty game of bedroom diversions are not what they might be and Lorna…like any other red-blooded American girl with an 86-inch chest…considers some literature in a plain brown wrapper…Lorna often utilizes a wardrobe of absolutely nothing…and it should be pointed out that this alone is worth the price of admission…”

In the aftermath of the film’s release, Barbara was laid low with the birth of the baby boy she’d been carrying during the filming of ‘Lorna’. Shortly after the baby was born, Barbara put it up for adoption leaving her free to continue pursuing her professional dreams.

After ‘Lorna’

‘Lorna’ proved to be a great success for Meyer, earning a very respectable profit and setting the mold for many of his signature films. Meyer invited Barbara to play the extravagant hooker Clara Belle in his next movie, ‘Mudhoney’ (1965), but this time the film was a financial failure. Meyer partly blamed Barbara for the film’s lack of success, holding her post-pregnancy cleavage responsible. Meyer’s blunt assessment? “Her tits had kind of gone south.”

But 1965 was fortunate for Barbara on another front. She met a handsome and talented musician by the name of Benn Rocco and the two quickly fell in love. Benn was a member of a doo-wop style acapella group, ‘Danny and the Memories’, but times were changing and doo-wop was quickly being edged out by rock and roll.  Sensing the change and hoping for greater success, the group decided to head to San Francisco – the epicenter of the counter-culture movement. When Benn asked Barbara to join him, she turned away from her Hollywood dreams and headed north to accompany him.

When they arrived in San Francisco, Barbara and some of the other band girlfriends began topless dancing to support themselves and their boyfriends. The band quickly shed the name Danny and the Memories and became ‘Psyrcle’, a play on the psychedelic movement. The change in the group wasn’t just musical. The guys began smoking a lot of marijuana and dropping acid regularly; their girlfriends – including Barbara – soon found themselves doing the same.

The band’s drug use became prodigious but they got it together to record a single. They found a local musician, the future funk superstar Sly Stone, to produce it and titled the track ‘Baby, Don’t Do That’. Barbara and Benn had gotten married in the summer of 1966, and Barbara offered to bankroll the single with the money she had in the bank from ‘Lorna’. Released by Lorna Records, the record made the rounds but was ultimately a flop.

Demoralized by the lack of success, Psyrcle went on a hiatus. Frustrated by the band’s lack of drive, Benn quit shortly after the record’s release. Psyrcle regrouped shortly afterwards and eventually became Crazy Horse, Neil Young‘s backing band. Benn remembers, “Our association with drugs was the demise of our (original) group, no question about it”.

Another victim of the drug culture that had enveloped the band was Barbara herself. Seemingly an acid casualty, Barbara had started to become more and more detached from the world around her. This had a detrimental effect on her ability to pursue her acting career and take advantage of any momentum developed by the success of ‘Lorna’.  When she received a call from a major Hollywood studio with an offer to make two movies a year for seven years, it barely registered. The drugs had sapped her ambition and she turned the offer down. That contract went instead to the actress Angie Dickinson.

By this time, old footage of Barbara had appeared in a couple of other films: Russ Meyer re-used some 35mm Kodachrome test footage that he’d shot of her whilst making ‘Lorna’ in his 1966 film ‘Mondo Topless’. Similarly Texan director Dale Berry had shot a sequence of a bikini-clad Barbara dancing in a club in 1965 which he added to his 1967 film ‘Hip Hot and 21’. But outside of these appearances, Barbara would never appear in front of a movie camera again. Her dreams of Hollywood stardom were relegated to the past.

After Fame

In 1967, Barbara and Benn welcomed son Beniamino into the world, and seven years later, they had a daughter Gina. But despite the arrival of two children and the love she shared with her husband, Barbara’s mental state was deteriorating. She suffered from psychotic episodes which Benn attributes to her LSD use.

Barbara began to spend periods of time in mental health institutions to deal with her psychosis. Daughter Gina’s few memories of her mother in those years are of repeated breakdowns. There were occasional good times in between when Barbara would sipped Tab diet soda and smoke cigarettes whilst telling her daughter about the glamour of places she’d been like Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

By the time Gina was six years old, Benn decided that even though he loved Barbara he had to divorce her for the well being of the children. The 1980 split triggered another psychotic episode, which landed Barbara in an institution.

When she was released, she began a pattern of behavior that she would continue for years. Barbara would hitchhike across the country, taking on different names and personalities and sometimes briefly moving in with men she met along the way.

She lived in Montana for a period with a man and his daughter until she called her parents in 1986 to say she was bored and wanted to come home. Gina was twleve at the time and remembers Barbara coming to visit her and her brother. Gina remembers being shocked by how rough her mother looked. There were bizarre aspects to Barbara’s behavior as well, such as her insistence that she was a best friend of the singer, Madonna.

Gina last spoke with her mother in 1989. Barbara had been back in a mental institution after she had called her parents for help and was now in low income housing living near them. Gina had called her grandparents with terrible news to share – her brother Beniamino had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Barbara’s parents didn’t want Gina to convey the news to her mother as they feared it would trigger another psychotic episode. Gina promised not to say anything about her brother when they put her mother on the phone. When they started speaking, Barbara didn’t even appear to be clear who Gina was. When she finally remembered, she thought Gina was many years older than her actual age. They hung up after a brief exchange.

Gina heard through extended family that her mother had another psychotic episode in 1991 after being taken off her medication to remove her teeth. She tried reaching her grandparents for information but they stopped returning her calls. Since then, neither Gina nor her father Benn has had any news of Barbara.

Epilogue

Barbara’s whereabouts today are not known.

Gina would love to know what has happened to her mother in the intervening years. Is Barbara alive? Is she safe? Is she sane? Information has been scarce.

Gina spoke briefly with Russ Meyer in 2000. Meyer shared his memories of Barbara with Gina, describing his Lorna as a little wild, a little promiscuous and a little nutty. He did remember that Barbara had a baby boy as they were in the middle of post-production for ‘Lorna’ but did not know what happened to Gina’s half brother who had been given up for adoption. And he had no idea what became of Barbara since they last saw each other in the late 1960s. He sent Gina his films that starred her mother and a note wishing her well.

Several years ago Gina and her Aunt Rosina – Benn Rocco’s sister – were discussing their admiration for the so-called ‘Long Island Medium’, Theresa Caputo. Caputo promoted a national network of mediums across the country so Gina and her aunt organized a gathering to see if they could learn anything about Barbara’s fate. At $300 per attendee it was an expensive undertaking but both women felt it would be worth it. At one point during the gathering the medium told the attendees that there was a woman going by the name Barb or Barbie standing behind the ghost of her grandfather. Gina still isn’t sure if she can believe it but she finds solace in thinking that her mother is no longer suffering.

The Rialto Report has long been keen to find Barbara. We found evidence of her living on and off in low income housing in Las Vegas up to 2007. More worryingly we also found a spate of arrest records for her for public disturbance offenses in Orange and Santa Monica counties, California from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. The last of these is from 2008. And then the trail goes cold.

Wherever Barbara is, we hope she is at peace. And that on some level she recognizes the contributions she’s made to the cultural history we value.

Do you have any information on Barbara Popejoy / Lorna Maitland? If so, we’d love to hear from you at info@therialtoreport.com

The post Whatever Happened to Lorna Maitland?
Her Beauty, Tragedy and Mystery 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.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

She picked up a hat and danced lightly around the room.
I took her picture as she laughed.
“I feel young when I dance”, she said.

Farewell our friend and sunshine.

Candida Royalle (1950-2015)

The post Candida Royalle
1950-2015 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.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Candida Royalle

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

The Rialto Report set out this summer to look for one of the more mythical locations in adult film history: the house and countryside that were used for the filming of The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974).

The trouble was we didn’t have many leads. Over the last decade we’ve interviewed just about everybody related to the two films – from the director Gerard Damiano, to cast members Harry Reems, Georgina Spelvin, Levi Richards, Patrick L. Farrelly, Darby Lloyd Raines, Eric Edwards, Kim Pope, and many crew members too – but no one could pinpoint the exact location of the property.

We were told by some that the house was an hour’s drive from New York – though others thought it was half a day away. Some said it was in upstate New York, but others insisted it was in rural Pennsylvania.

We set out to see what we could find.

________________________________________________________________________________________

The Apple-Packing Plant

Back in late 1971, Harry Reems had every reason to be happy. He was finding regular acting work in off-Broadway theater productions, and though they didn’t pay much, he was far from being a starving actor. He’d been working steadily in adult films during the previous year and the work showed no signs of slowing down.

From ‘Here Comes Harry Reems!’, Harry Reems (1975):

Late 1971 was the high noon of the business. Everybody was getting into the act. You could stand on a street corner in Times Square waiting for the traffic lights to change and ask a stranger, “How’s the new film going?”

Almost never would anyone say, “What film?”

Anyone who wanted work could find it. You had the luxury of turning down three, four or five jobs a day.

What a summer, autumn, and early winter it was!

Harry Reems – thespian

Away from the film sets, Harry mixed with a crowd of actors, artists, and writers. In September 1971, he met a friend who was to play an important role in his life.

From ‘Here Comes Harry Reems!’, Harry Reems (1975):

In the street in front of my home I met a guy selling antiques off a truck.

Bruce is a sensitive, talented artist, sculptor, and designer. We soon became tight friends. Bruce had a house in Pennsylvania that used to be an apple-packing plant. In time it became like a second home to me.

This property was the location for the shooting of both The Devil in Miss Jones and Memories Within Miss Aggie.

When we met Harry in the years before his passing, he still spoke with great happiness about the weekends spent out at the house in Pennsylvania. Harry, Bruce and a motley assortment of artists, actors, and girlfriends would bundle into vans and head there most weekends.

He remembered the property as being near the brow of a hill in Milanville – a village 120 miles from Manhattan, located along the Delaware River and the New York state border, but he had no recollection of the house’s exact address, and over the years he’d lost contact with Bruce too.

Harry remembered the house as being sizable – though completely lacking in luxuries. Guests would bring blankets and crash in any of the rooms for the duration of their stay. They would all cook together, before heading for the local tavern, The Black Horse, for raucous drinks into the night.

He recalled that the New York visitors were popular with locals, and in the summer their days were often spent cavorting down the Delaware River using inflated inner tubes as makeshift rafts. Harry described those days as among the happiest of his life.

Harry (second from left) and friends

*

The Devil in Miss Jones (1973)

In late 1972, Gerard Damiano asked Harry if he knew of a location where they could film the director’s follow-up to Deep Throat – to be called The Devil in Miss Jones. Harry had been hired as the production manager for the film, and immediately suggested the apple-packing plant in Pennsylvania. Damiano liked the idea. There was only one problem. The location was in the middle of nowhere – which presented logistical problems. For a start they’d needed a cook, and it fell to Harry to find one. He decided to approach a recent acquaintance, Georgina Spelvin.

From ‘Here Comes Harry Reems!’, Harry Reems (1975):

One late October day I was carving pumpkins in my New York apartment. I invited over a woman whom I had met a couple of days earlier at one of the casting sessions for The Devil in Miss Jones. She had made it plain she didn’t much like this end of the acting business. She had been on Broadway and off-Broadway plays and thought of herself as legitimate.

“Listen,” I said, “we’re cast and set to go. We haven’t got a thing to offer you. But we’re going to be up there in the boondocks. Miles away from restaurants or hotels or any kind of catering services. How’d you like to come and cook for us?”

“I’d love it,” she said.

She dug carving pumpkins. I dug her.

Georgina Spelvin (Miss Jones) and Harry Reems (The Teacher)

In our 2007 interview with Harry, he remembered The Devil in Miss Jones shoot as being a difficult one. The lead actress that Damiano had hired had second thoughts about making a porn film, and so Georgina was given the role of Miss Jones – in addition to her responsibilities as cook.

The Rialto Report tracked down the original lead actress, Ronne, and she confirmed that she’d originally been given the role but claimed she turned it down due to dental problems in the run up to the shoot.

As for Georgina, she remembered the trip to the country location in her memoir:

From ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’, Georgina Spelvin (2006):

Late in the afternoon we pull up before a looming nineteenth-century barn-like structure. It stands in majestic isolation on a slight knoll. The last quarter of the trip had been through towering trees sporting vivid fall colors. The only sign of civilization seen for a half-hour or more, a small roadhouse tucked in amongst the abundant foliage.

John Clemens (Abaca) and Georgina Spelvin (Miss Jones)

Another actor who found the location striking was Marc Stevens.

From ‘10 1/2’’, Marc Stevens (1975):

Harry lined up an old converted apple factory in the Pocono Mountains as a set. It was exquisitely lovely in the Poconos… late fall with a delicate fog in the orchard and gorgeous sunsets. The countryside was right out of an old English painting, with adorable cows and sheep.

The shoot was longer than normal for an adult film at the time, and this created it’s own set of problems. It was the almost winter in late 1972, and the apple-packing plant was difficult to heat at that time of the year. Bruce had plans to re-model it, but that was difficult on a sculptor’s wages.

From ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’, Georgina Spelvin (2006):

The huge barn of a building was in the early stages of a remodel meant to turn it into a residence. The owners had run low on funds, and the work had halted a bit short of habitability. A single line of electricity powered a huge refrigerator in a partitioned-off corner. An extension cord ran from the lone outlet to a bulb dangling above a long table near a modern range. The only other resident light was a fixture over the basin in the small bathroom on the other side of the huge room. In it was also a tub and toilet. (Whew!) That was about it for modern conveniences.

Georgina Spelvin (Miss Jones) and Harry Reems (The Teacher)

The house may have lacked comfort, but spirits remained high. As soon as the shooting was finished each day, Harry remembered taking the entire crew to his regular drinking hole, The Black Horse, each night. By now he was well known to the locals and counted many of them as personal friends.

From ‘10 1/2’’, Marc Stevens (1975):

The townspeople we met at the local bar regarded us as a mixture of mugger and Martian due to our non-farm credentials. At least they allowed us to drink on their premises. No – I can never be facetious about the tranquil beauty of the area, and the niceness of its inhabitants.

*

Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974)

A year after the filming of The Devil in Miss Jones, Gerry Damiano called Harry again. He wanted Harry to be the production manager of his next film Memories Within Miss Aggie – and he was keen to return to the same location.

From ‘Here Comes Harry Reems!’, Harry Reems (1975):

The village of Milanville, Pennsylvania may yet become the Rural Porno Film Capital of the United States.

Memories Within Miss Aggie, like The Devil in Miss Jones, was shot there at my friend Bruce’s farmhouse, the ex-apple packing plant.

As if we didn’t have enough things already dividing us in America, the presence of pornmaking in Milanville has split the community down the middle.

Unsophisticated as the area may be, it has some real porn fans who take pride in Milanville’s new “industry.” They’d love to be up in that ‘sin factory’ on the hill while the cameras are rolling.

Deborah Ashira (Miss Aggie)

Many of the same crew descended upon the house again to start filing the next opus from the Deep Throat director.

The film’s plot concerns an aging Miss Aggie (Deborah Ashira) describing a series of youthful sensual experiences to a companion Richard (Patrick L. Farrelly) in a wintry farmhouse. Aggie changes in each memory, where she is played by a different actress, including Kim Pope, Darby Lloyd Raines, and Mary Stuart. The film’s dark tone and surprise ending were unusual for the genre and era.

Interviewed in 2007, Harry remembered that the crew for Aggie was considerably bigger than it had been for Miss Jones. He also recalled one of the locals he was close to, Rolf Beck, who he hired as an additional production manager.  Rolf even had a small part in the film.

From ‘Here Comes Harry Reems!’, Harry Reems (1975):

Rolf is a man of many talents. But I think he’d chuck them all if he thought he had a future as a porn actor. He really eats up the whole scene.

Rolf is also gifted with a sense of the macabre. That’s what gave us the notion to cast him as the gravedigger in Aggie.

Memories within Miss Aggie used more external locations than The Devil in Miss Jones, including scenes on a snow-covered bridge, and a surprising scene in a picturesque church.

Deborah Ashira (Miss Aggie) and Patrick L. Farrelly (Richard)

From ‘Here Comes Harry Reems!’, Harry Reems (1975):

In Aggie, there is a scene that was shot in a tiny church, few miles from Milanville.

The Conklin Hill Church hadn’t been ‘in service’ for years. But there were still those who remembered it well and still loved it, as we soon learned. One of them was a seventy five year old woman who had been baptized, confirmed, and married there, as had all her children. A widow for many years, she still lived in the neighborhood and still mourned the closing of the church.

This gentle lady couldn’t have been more thrilled to learn that her church figured in a scene in “a major motion picture.” When Aggie opened in nearby Monticello, she hired one of the boys from the neighboring farms to drive her there so she could see the movie.

She saw her beloved church, all right. But she saw a lot else she didn’t like one bit.

*

Summer 2015

We were running out of leads to find the location of the apple-packing plant.

We searched for Harry’s old friend Bruce, the owner of the house, but found that he’d passed away a number of years earlier after immigrating to Australia.

As a last resort we looked up Harry’s old friend Rolf, the gravedigger in Miss Aggie. To our surprise we found he still lives in Milanville, and was happy to remember the heady days of the early 1970s when he would clown around with Harry and his friends at weekends, and help out the visiting group of New York pornographers.

Even better he offered to take us on a tour of the area, and show us all the locations of the two films that were shot there.

Sadly he told us that most of the apple-packing complex of buildings had been destroyed in a fire shortly after the filming of Memories Within Miss Aggie. The fire had been started by a faulty heating furnace and had quickly spread across the property. Many of the buildings had cork structures and they didn’t stand a chance. No one was hurt but locals remembered the fire burning for days on end.

The original house has been rebuilt, though the original outhouses are still there. Rolf still remembers the parties that Harry and Bruce held at the house. It hadn’t been used for packing apples for many years when it was used in The Devil in Miss Jones but the smell of apples still lingered strongly.

Deborah Ashira (Miss Aggie) at the side of the property

The rebuilt side of the property

Mary Stuart (Aggie II) and Harry Reems (Richard II)

Eric Edwards (Richard I) in Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974)

Skinners Falls – Milanville Bridge

Kim Pope (Aggie I) and Eric Edwards (Richard I)

Skinners Falls – Milanville Bridge

John Clemens (Abaca) and Georgina Spelvin (Miss Jones)

The field next to the property used for The Devil and Miss Jones externals

The Black Horse bar, where cast and crew socialized at night – now abandoned

Deborah Ashira (Miss Aggie) at the Conklin Hill church

Conklin Hill church

Conklin Hill church in Memories within Miss Aggie

Conklin Hill church

Patrick L. Farrelly (Richard) and Deborah Ashira (Miss Aggie)

Rolf Beck (Gravedigger) makes a fleeting appearance in Memories Within Miss Aggie

Rolf Beck (Gravedigger) reprises his role in Memories Within Miss Aggie

A gravedigger looks back

*

Epilogue – One more location

The Devil and Miss Jones opens with a view from her window. Does anyone recognize the Manhattan Avenue and cross street?

*

To read Harry Reems autobiography, please visit here.

The post Adult film locations 4:
In search of Miss Aggie, The Devil and Miss Jones appeared first on The Rialto Report.

When we interviewed Howard Ziehm earlier this year about his pivotal role in the birth of the west coast adult film industry, we were excited to learn that he’d been working on an autobiography, Take Your Shame And Shove It: My Wild Journey Through The Mysterious Sexual Cosmos – which is published this week as an eBook.

Weighing in at 614 pages, it’s a wild and fun ride, a remarkable account of a wild and raucous life that is well-written, raunchy and informative.

Howard describes the story as follows:

In the 40’s nakedness was deemed to be shameful and sex to be ineffable and kept that way with antiquated puritanical laws. “Take Your Shame and Shove It: A wild journey through the mysterious sexual cosmos,” follows my life as I struggled to find sense in a world of twisted sexual hypocrisy. It is a story that reads like quirky offbeat fiction, yet is all fact. My life went from a sheltered mid-western god fearing child to the maker of Flesh Gordon, passing through MIT, the Berkeley folk scene and a stint as a picaresque drug smuggler in the process followed by a life of hedonistic pleasure only ended by incurable diseases and the scourge of cocaine. It may shock or offend, but will not bore.

You can buy your copy here.

We’re proud to present an abridged extract telling the untold story behind the east coast ‘Pastry Films’ Howard made in the mid-1970s – namely Honey Pie (1976), Sweet Cakes (1976) (as Hans Johnson), and Hot Cookies (1977) (as Albert Wilder).

________________________________________________________________________________________

Still believing that the Supreme Court would liberalize censorship laws affecting adults, I would waste the next two years trying to raise money for ‘Mata Hari.’ It was a true story that could blend hardcore sex with a serious plot: Mata Hari, the French spy, accused of soliciting secrets from high-ranking military men while she entertained them in her bed, only to be caught and convicted, some thought falsely, was executed by firing squad.

Walter Cichy, working with me as co-producer, got busy developing a screenplay. Not about to put myself on the financial brink again, I began looking for investors. Sy Katz did his share by pitching the project to some of his clients, but I was soon to learn that raising money was much more difficult than I had expected. Once seen as a pornographer, always a pornographer. It was ingrained in the American psyche that producing sex oriented movies was not serious art. When Bernie Goldhirsh remarked that ‘Flesh Gordon’ wasn’t his kind of movie and a girl at a party stormed away after I mentioned that I made ‘Flesh Gordon’ saying “Oh that porno thing,” I became reticent to even bring it up unless I was sure the listener was open minded enough to deal with it.

Of course the fact that I walked around town in see thru pants or sexy shorts, which I knew excited many girls and rewarded me accordingly, didn’t make investors flock to my side. It was sex or money and I chose sex. Getting ‘Mata Hari’ off the ground eventually proved to be a waste of my time and money and I shelved it as an idle fantasy. I knew sex, not drama.

There was no need for panic. Unlike most motion pictures that have a brief window of exposure, ‘Flesh Gordon’ kept growing. Peter Locke averred that if we could get the film re-rated to an R, its earning power would increase multifold. There were still many states, most notably in the Bible Belt, that wouldn’t touch anything rated beyond an R. Thanks to (policemen) Martin and Brust, there was no hardcore footage left in ‘Flesh Gordon’ and only a few scenes had nudity, so with a few minor cuts we should be able to have an R rated film.

Peter submitted it to the MPAA review board and asked them for a detailed list of the footage they found offensive. The descriptions they described in the list they returned were surprising pointed, almost pornographic and definitely funny:  “Reel 2…eighty-five feet…nude humping, Reel 2…flash of phony erect penis, girl bouncing up and down, Reel 5…Flesh attempts to remove stone from girl’s vagina,” and on and on.  After snipping out all of the “too naughty for American eyes” footage, we were left with a seventy-one minute R-rated film that could play thousands of theatres around the country, including drive-ins.

Jim Buckley had finished his porn film and now had time to help promote Flesh Gordon. He suggested it would be funny and good publicity to get the MPAA’s prurient list of cuts published – and so did Gallery Magazine. In their 1975 January issue, they not only printed the entire MPAA report, but also spoofed it with a three-page comic book satire.

The R rating did indeed rejuvenate ‘Flesh Gordon.’  It was free to play almost everywhere in the country and more money then ever rolled in. To be expected, a lot didn’t roll in because it was so easy to steal. Theatres could turn in fudged numbers or hold a print for an extra week without it being detected. A rumor had it that one sub in the southeast claimed he had stolen enough money to retire for life. There was no way of knowing how much I had been cheated out of, but even so, considering that theatre tickets went for two dollars or less, Graffitti’s four million dollar share of the profits was pretty damn good.

*

I was now living comfortably and getting plenty of sex. I didn’t have a need to become super rich, it wasn’t my style. Freedom was the most important thing to me and with my money concerns taken care of and if John Van de Kamp won the upcoming election for the office of L.A.’s District Attorney and kept his promise to drop pornography cases currently on the books, it was possible my legal concerns would finally be over as well.

And when Peter Locke suggested that he, Barry Cahn and I form a company to produce porn features, it was the opportunity I had been waiting for.  He would produce, I would direct and co-produce when needed, and he and Barry would take care of the distribution. They would take care of the things I hated to do and I would be back in my element with the sluts I loved. Equally important, wearing hot pants would not be a problem.

I only had one condition. I was not interested in making one or two day-wonders any more. Directing the same repetitive sex acts over and over was more than I could bear. I only wanted to make films that were well made and unique. Drawing inspiration from how the burlesque shows that I had so enjoyed at the Old Howard were structured, I suggested that each film have four different sex scenes that catered to the various fantasies, each with different performers. It would be like watching different strippers do their acts. If you didn’t like one of the girls or her act, there was the promise that you might like the next girl and her act. The scenes would be tied together by a central erotic theme. If we only made one film a year, so be it. They were in agreement and we became, at Peter’s suggestion, Dog Eat Dog Films.

Peter wasn’t one to waste time and we were soon in production. I wrote a script based on the classic Faustian theme of making a deal with the devil.  The Angel of Death makes an appearance while a young couple is in the midst of making love. He tells them he envies their enjoyment of sex, something he hasn’t experienced in five hundred years, but unfortunately has arrived to take them to the other side. Their pleas appear to be falling on deaf ears until they entice him with a deal. If they can tell him some stories that gets him aroused, he will let them live. He agrees and each story is visualized on film as they tell it.

I flew to New York with my camera equipment and was picked up at the airport by the limo Peter had arranged for and taken to his apartment on the Upper West Side. I liked his style. He had already cast the respected porn star Jamie Gillis and a beautiful newcomer, C.J. Laing, to play the young couple facing death.

After an early dinner at a nearby steakhouse, we worked into the evening tightening up the script. The next morning, while Peter continued to line up cast and locations, I went out shopping for trashy panties and lingerie to be used in the various scenes. Because on my previous trips to New York, I had already located shops that sold bedroom attire for sluts. Since my shopping was finished by noon, I had time to check out a rumor that the strippers at the Harmony Burlesque Theatre, just off Broadway on 49th Street, were allowing their pussies to be fondled for a buck. If the rumor was true, I wanted to get there when the theatre opened at noon, to be sure to get a good seat. It didn’t hurt to have an aroused libido when I began the shoot the next day. The rumor was true and I spent the rest of the afternoon fingering pussies of all shapes, colors and sizes.

We shot the seduction of the devil at Peter’s apartment. C.J. was stunning and playful; allowing me a few licks of her pussy before we began shooting. The scene went well – Jamie, formerly a professional actor doing his lines without a hitch – and ended with him vigorously fucking C.J. from behind, culminating with his iconic butt slapping treatment during the money shot.

Over the next few days, we shot a lesbian scene that starred Candy Love, a black stripper from Baltimore, who had a ‘ten’ body and a shaved pussy, which she allowed the Baltimore burlesque show patrons to penetrate with a dildo, a flasher scene in Central Park, a Lolita scene that starred an eighteen year old cutie named Jenny Lane who was leaving the city the next day to work in a whorehouse at a resort in upstate New York where she would be making $25 a trick, and an S&M scene starring doe-eyed Sue Rowan as a French maid working for two austere dominatrix lesbians. For failing to clean a spec of dirt off the carpet, she is punished by being strapped to a table with her legs pulled behind her head and then fucked by, Bruno, the lesbian’s Aryan slave.

Both Peter and I were convinced the scene was a winner and as Sue was wiping off he asked her:

“That was a pretty hot S&M scene, wasn’t it?”

We were both surprised by her answer:

“It was OK, but it wasn’t very real.”

It turned out that she was into S&M in her private life and participated on a regular basis in threesomes with a black guy and his girl friend. Peter, always the producer, wanted to know if she and her friends might be interested in doing a scene for us in our next picture.  She said they might and agreed to look into it and get back to us with an answer.

The next morning, Peter arranged for a limo to take me and my equipment to Kennedy Airport so I could return to L.A. with it and the film which I had just shot for editing. Six weeks later the job was finished and I suggested calling the film ‘Sexteen’ with a tag line claiming “8 Never Before Seen Erotic Beauties.” Still nervous about using my own name, I took the alias, Lynn Metz, as my credit. Our $40,000 investment was a solid success on the porn circuit, grossing over $700,000.

*

While in L.A. editing ‘Sexteen’, Reb Sawitz invited me to have lunch with him at a sidewalk café on Melrose, called the Melting Pot. He said he had someone he wanted me to meet. The tall, beautiful strawberry blond he had brought with him was as juicy as the half-pound cheeseburger I was devouring. As we talked, I could see Serena was a very bright young woman who wanted to make a career for herself in the porn industry. I was flattered when she said how much she admired my work and a bit shocked that any of the models actually knew of my work. I was still a bit slow to realize that porn was being accepted as an art and a chance to work for a good director was a way for a girl to advance her career. Liberal minded girls were beginning to recognize that if they were pretty and knew how to fuck on screen, they could be very successful in the industry. Even thought the mega salaries were a decade away, it was possible for a girl to make better money working in porn films than they could by sitting in an office typing all day where they would be hit upon by the male bosses or employees. In porn a girl would know what she was in for and if she was in the mood, have a lot more fun besides. I didn’t hesitate to tell her that I would use her in my next film.

Serena

That happened quicker than I expected. Shortly after ‘Sexteen’ was released, Peter called from New York to say that Sue Rowan’s S&M friends had agreed to let us shoot them doing their thing as long as they got to write the script for the scene. He also mentioned that Jennifer Welles, a gorgeous B movie actress, was willing to do a hardcore sex scene if we wrote a part for her into our next movie.  He told me she was a glamorous blonde with big breasts and a chorus girl face. Porn had mostly featured young girls, the kind men felt they could dominate, but horny older woman, who knew everything about sex and how to dominate men, were quickly finding their way into the adult film business. Using Jennifer in our next picture would be a real plus.

Jennifer Welles

I told him about Serena and about an idea I had to use her in a lesbian scene and an idea for a sex act that I had seen in a layout in my favorite Swedish porn magazine, Erotica, that showed a girl taking two dicks in her pussy at the same time and then one in her pussy while the other penetrated her ass. If we could find a beautiful girl willing to do a similar act, we would have something sensational that would guarantee mention around the porn circuit. He got back to me a few days later to say that he had a girl who was willing to do the double penetration scene. Her name was Terri Hall, and because she had recently dropped out of the New York Ballet Company so she could pursue a career in porn, she was getting a lot of press.

Terri Hall

We both agreed that I should come back to New York as quickly as possible to begin our new production. I would shoot all but the Serena scene in New York, which I would shoot when I returned to California. I hastily wrote a script that had two writers for a men’s magazine pitching ideas to its editor. Al Goldstein offered to play the role of the editor and let us shoot the scene in his office at Screw, all he wanted for pay was a blowjob.

Peter was in an effusive mood when I arrived Saturday evening. To get our next film off to a good start, he took me to a whorehouse that he had previously frequented, but when we walked in unannounced and began to check out the girls, the establishment freaked out. The proprietor – probably a mafia guy – realized we hadn’t called in to make an appointment and fearing that we might be the vice, quickly escorted us out the front door. Evidently, New York sex wasn’t as open as it appeared in the ads that ran in Screw magazine and “vice” still had to be done on the sly. When we got back to Peter’s apartment, he called an out call service that ran an ad in Screw magazine and asked for a couple of girls to be sent over. When they arrived, at 3AM, I was near comatose and could only manage a half-hearted orgasm. Moments after she left I was fast asleep.

On Monday morning we met with Al Goldstein at the Screw office to talk about his upcoming role and blowjob. After going over a few minor details, Al showed me an article he was going to run in the upcoming issue of Screw, about a nearby bar on 8th Avenue that was allowing patrons to eat the dancer’s pussy for a dollar. The bar was only three blocks away and he suggested that the three of us pay them a visit for a pussy lunch.

It was a little past noon, and the small neighborhood bar surprisingly only had a few patrons eating pussy when we arrived.  The oval shaped race-track like bar, served as a stage where the girls could saunter around soliciting customers. One of the girls knew Al from when he had dropped in to do the article and joined us as we watched a cute little honey get eaten out on the far side. She allowed the patron about a minute for a buck and when he declined further service, she casually pulled her g-string back up and came our way.

*

Al Goldstein had a face that always looked like it needed a shave, but that, and the fact that he needed to shed a bunch of pounds, didn’t seem to be a problem the next day for the girl under the desk who had been hired to suck his dick during his scene as an editor. Peter had told her that she was being hired as a performer and her role was to suck Al’s dick under the desk, but we actually had no plans to film her, it was just a ruse to get Al his blowjob. Staying in character, he gave no indication how much he was enjoying himself as he listened to Arlana Blue, a cheeky New York sexpot, and Bobby Astyr, who were playing the roles of the magazine writers pitching him ideas. When I finished shooting Al’s scene, the girl under the desk either didn’t hear cut or was just enjoying herself, because when Al got up to walk away, she crawled out from beneath the desk with his dick still in her mouth. She seemed disappointed when I told her the scene was finished and offered herself to any of us who wanted to fuck her. I was just too busy to oblige, but if I had known it was soon-to-be megastar, Annie Sprinkle, I would have definitely found the time.

Annie Sprinkle

Jennifer Welles was even sexier than Peter had described. The scene I had written for her played on a mother son fantasy, an older woman seducing a young virgin boy. I lit the scene with soft light and used a soft focus filter to make it ethereal. She and Sammy Teen, the stage name for the actor who would be seduced by her, gave a gentle and believable performance that would stand in sharp contrast to the one that was to follow, the S&M scene by Sue Rowan’s friends.

Mel White was a tall articulate African American, who, like me, liked to wear hot pants. The other member of their threesome was Mary Stuart, an attractive, but intense brunette in her mid to late twenties. The script that Mel had written was based on the sexual ritual they routinely performed in their private lives. Mel would direct, all I had to do was film the action. It was to be staged in a small windowless room with black walls at their apartment. Hooks, chains and other bondage paraphernalia were already securely attached to the walls. I knew once the halogen lights were turned on, the room would become stifling hot and anything but convenient for filming. Mel mentioned that normally they would not have sex during an S&M session, but as a concession to what we were about, they would do so.

I moved quickly around the room. Using the fact that the wide angle 10mm lens had a wide depth of field, I could kneel next to Mary’s face to shoot a close up of the contortions on her face and then race back by the door to catch a wide shot of the whole scene.

Mary’s eyes had rolled back into her head. Only the whites were showing as she made a last concerted effort to pull the clamps free.  She reminded me of a zombie in “Nights of the Living Dead.” But then one of the clamps mercifully broke free.  Her look quickly morphs to one of satisfaction and accomplishment. Mel quickly grabs the chain and tugs it until the clamp on the other nipple breaks free.

A smile appears on Mary’s soaking wet face. Her ordeal is over and she shows no signs to indicate that she did not enjoy every minute of it.  The three hug as Mary thanks them for her wonderful sexual experience.

I had to remind myself that this was not theatrical and Peter, who had been standing outside the open doorway, was left mouth agape and speechless. Hard to believe it was their normal sex routine. I was sweating profusely from shooting the all hand-held scene. The intensity didn’t allow for any breaks, so I was dying of thirst and probably dropped ten pounds. When I joined Peter outside the room, he had a smile on his face. He knew we had just filmed a classic. A few months later, when Richard Corliss reviewed the picture for Playboy magazine, he advised that the more squeamish might want to retire to the theatre’s lobby until the scene was over.

*

Deep Throat had already established how Americans would flock to a porn film that showed acts previously not believed possible. Missionary sex, i.e. that which met with approval from the church, was not exciting. The multi penetration scene that I was about to shoot with ballerina Terri Hall would be. We filmed the scene at a rustic vacation home in Woodstock. The script called for Terri to be left alone with two handsome young workers her husband had hired to chop wood.  The sight of their shirtless bodies glistening in the sun is enough to cause her to run upstairs to the house’s small attic and masturbate as she watches them toil in the yard below. I shot the scene of her massaging her cunt from the floor to get full benefit of the sensuality of her long well toned legs.

Fantasizing about bizarre sex acts is much easier than actually performing them, especially while being filmed. One of my studs had difficulty sharing Terri’s pussy with the other, Rocky Millstone. It took leaving the room repeatedly to allow him and Terri to get going before Rocky, who could get erect on command, and I could come back in and he could slide his cock into Terri so I could quickly shoot some footage before he went soft again. Terri, who enjoyed having multiple cocks inside of her, did her part by ad-libbing lines expressing her pleasure: “a cock in my cunt and one in my ass” and “two cocks in my cunt.” They gave me the cutaways I could use while doing the editing to make the scene look much more fluid than it actually was.

We spent the night at the cottage so Terri could be dropped off at the set of another film that she had been cast for that was also shooting in Woodstock. You can imagine how stunned I was, when Terri who was sitting on my lap as we were taking her to her next gig, told me she was going to be working on a film produced by Bill Osco – an X-rated ‘Alice in Wonderland’ musical.  I was still reticent to put my name on an X-rated film, but Bill didn’t have that problem since he had never been charged. He was now piggybacking his fame as co-producer of ‘Flesh Gordon’ and had wisely hired a competent director, Bud Townsend, and a Playboy cover girl, Kristine DeBell, to be his star. When finished, it would be wildly successful. I had to hand it to him. It was time for me to get over him.

Peter and Barry flew out to San Francisco to be on the set when I shot my recent discovery, Serena, in a lesbian scene. She would be working with one of Alex DeRenzy’s favorites, Sharon Thorpe, a very pretty practicing lesbian. Sharon, in the role of a ballet teacher, convinces Serena to stay after class for a baby oil massage. The two ladies slithering over each others golden bodies was hot. Porn reviewers, Jim Holliday and Bill Margold, would both describe the performance as the best lesbian scene ever. Jim and Artie Mitchell had helped us out by sending us a few girls to be extras in the Serena scene. Afterwards, we headed over to the O’Farrell Theatre. It was the talk of the town. Jim was in an effusive mood when we arrived and brought out the Uzi he had just purchased on the underground market. I had little interest in their assault weapon, but was totally impressed with the club they had put together. It combined the best raunch of New York and Copenhagen under one roof. A twenty-dollar ticket got you an all day pass where you could watch strippers perform in the main room, called New York Live, where after dancing, they circulated through the room to offer lap dances for a dollar or grind their bodies against you if you were leaning against a side wall. More extreme stimulation was offered in the Copenhagen room where girls did themselves with dildos inches from your face and the Ultra room where the girls worked in a circular peep show room and if a patron paid for the little window to rise, a tip would allow you to fondle her tits and pussy. I knew I would return by myself in the near future, but a bizarre quirk in my personality made me feel embarrassed to tell that to anyone.

We named the film ‘Honey Pie’ and I used the alias, Hans Johnson. For the one sheet, Peter hired a top notch New York photographer to shoot Jennifer Welles in a pose reminiscent of the famous Marylyn Monroe playboy calendar pose. It was a knock out. ‘Honey Pie’ had something sweet for everyone and grossed many times our $60,000 budget.

*

My financial success had blinded me to the fact that I was caught in my own bubble, one that I had no interest, or need for that matter, to break out of. Peter had previously asked me what I wanted to be in the film business and if I would be interested in joining him to make more serious films. I was unclear if my future was as a director, cinematographer, producer or what have you. Peter had no such confusion. While I was doing nothing constructive, he knew he wanted to be a mainstream producer and had already made inroads to know some of the promising New York talent. Wes Craven had made a low budget horror film called ‘Last House on the Left’ (1972) and despite the film’s acclaim, had yet to get another project going. It was originally intended to be a hardcore porn film, but its potential as a horror film was so overwhelming, that its distributor decided to dump the hardcore and go for the fright-night crowd. To encourage and build his relationship with Wes, Peter was already producing a porn film with him to eventually be called, ‘Angela, The Fireworks Woman.’ I declined Peter’s offer, mostly because I valued my freedom and didn’t want to be under anyone’s control.  There had been no reason to think that Peter wasn’t going to be successful and it was patently clear that my relationship with him was on a per film basis.

Meanwhile, I had another taboo-busting idea for a Dog Eat Dog Film that would cause a sensation if we could produce it: two identical twin sisters having lesbian sex with each other. It had been almost a half-year since the release of ‘Honey Pie’ and I called Peter to toss my idea at him. Despite his involvement with Wes, he liked my idea and got back to me two weeks later to tell me that two identical twin sisters had just come to New York who were willing to do hardcore lesbian sex. They would do everything from finger fucking to pussy sucking. We both agreed they should be shot immediately before they changed their minds or left town. Wes had done some comedy writing for Peter’s new wife, Liz Torres, and he suggested we let him do the dialogue. I was fine with that but still wanted to keep the structure of the story under my control and quickly put together an outline that detailed the sex acts and set ups that I wanted to use, and sent it to Peter so Wes could get started.

I was in New York a week later, just as Peter was wrapping up Wes’ film. He showed me the rough cut which impressed me more for its cinematic qualities than its eroticism. A scene with a guy clubbing someone with a large fish was notable. Being that Jennifer Welles was such a big hit in ‘Honey Pie,’ we decided to cast her again, this time as a reporter interviewing a famous men’s magazine photographer. During the interview, the photographer describes his favorite layouts. By the end of the interview she is so aroused that she can’t resist disrobing and offering herself to him. It was a simple idea for a way to hook four porn loops together, which is why the films I would do with Dog Eat Dog, would eventually become known as ‘loop carriers.’

The twins, Brooke and Taylor Young, were set to shoot for us the day after I got into town. Their scene would be a parody of the famous Double Mint chewing gum commercials where two twin sisters promote the gum and its tag line: “Double your pleasure, chew Double Mint Gum.” Our story began with a behind the scene look where the girls are in the midst of the advertising photo session. Wes agreed to take the role of the photographer, which did not require nudity or sex. Because the girls find the photographer to be attractive, they play coy and disrupt the flow of the session. But he is all business and they return home frustrated with no other option but to relieve their pent-up passion by making love to each other. I opted to forego my usual trashy cheesecake style and dressed the girls in soft beige colored panties, bras and stockings. Using slow hand held pan shots down their torsos allowed me to get the maximum exploitation of their sensual lithe bodies.  When it came to the sex, they had no qualms about kissing each other and sucking on each other’s tits and pussies. It was obvious to me that it was not their first time.

Brooke and Taylor Young

The next day was Saturday and I spent the morning picking up props for a teenager scene staring, Jeannie Dalton, a cherubic and cute little spitfire, that I was going to shoot on Monday. After buying a pair of saddle shoes, ankle sox, short plaid skirt and an assortment of sex toys, including a large cucumber, I dashed over to the Harmony theatre to catch the afternoon show.  The place was packed and I soon saw why. For a buck, the dancers were getting down on their backs and sliding up to the edge of the stage with their legs spread so the guys in the front row could suck on their cunts. The New York vice had closed down the little bar Goldstein had taken me to – the owner was none to happy that the story in Screw had alerted the cops to what was going on – but evidently the Harmony had some kind of insider clout and was allowing them to get away with the same raunchy entertainment. Most of the girls were reasonably attractive and I spent the rest of the day gash gorging, hooking back up with Peter in the early evening. Deep-seated shame that I couldn’t dislodge from my psyche, prevented me from telling him what a glorious day I had just had. Then again, keeping my private indulgences to myself actually made them more exciting.

After eating pussy all weekend at the Harmony, I was in high erotic spirits when I went back to work on Monday to shoot Jeanie playing the role of a young high school student. While walking home after school with Billy, a male classmate who is in her sex education class, she discovers that not only is he a virgin, but also doesn’t know how girls can masturbate. Since her parents are still at work, she offers to bring him home and show him how its done.

In an interview with Playboy, Jeanie mentioned that she enjoyed doing the scene, although she could have done without the large cucumber, which she described as painful. Most men are unaware that female porn actresses are not wont to complain, and willingly endure a lot of pain for the sake of giving a good performance, large cucumbers and anal as examples. Jeannie Dalton certainly did that and I considered her scene one of my best.

Before shooting the Jennifer Welles’ scene, I had a day off and headed over to the Harmony thinking I would be lapping on cunts all day. When the first dancer came out from behind the curtain, I put a dollar on the edge of the stage to lure her my way and no sooner did she have her legs spread wide and her g-string pulled to the side, when the near hysterical manager came running from the rear of the theatre waving his arms for her to stop. He nervously made it clear that pussy eating was not allowed during weekdays. To my great disappointment, the Harmony had some deal working with the New York vice that allowed for pussy eating only during the weekends. The day wasn’t a total waste. He made it clear that finger fucking was still permissible, but only during a lap dance and not on the stage.

My stay in New York ended after shooting Jennifer Welles, who did her best to make a hot scene with Ras Kean, who was playing the role of the famous photographer. He arrived late to the set because his cab had been in a bad accident. He was shaken enough that it took him several hours to keep a hard on long enough to make a convincing scene. I hoped that when I got to the editing room, I would be able to do some magic to make it work.

A Civil War parody provided a setting to attack another social taboo – interracial sex. Serena and a beautiful black girl named Desiree West would be the stars in a civil war scene where Johnny, a rebel soldier, played by Serena’s new husband, a stoner named Thomas, returns on horse from a recent battle. It was mind boggling to me why Serena had married such an uninspiring doper, but she would now only work with him in porn scenes. He arrived on the set after staying up all night getting high and after repeated failed attempts to get a boner, I had to reschedule the scene for the next day. It took place in a stable, where Serena and her pretty black maid, reward her lover with a romp in the hay. Desiree was by far the prettiest black girl doing porn and I was fortunate enough to be able to go down on her the previous day when Thomas couldn’t get a hard on. She had a big fan club, including my rock star friend, John Mayall.

Desiree West

The final vignette would be one of my all time favorites. Peter and Barry had again joined my crew and me in San Francisco to assist in the production of an oriental bondage scene starring Linda Wong. None of us had previously met her, having booked her on a recommendation from the Mitchell brothers. After we drove to her apartment to meet her, all I could say to myself was: “Wow.” Beautiful Asian women are the most erotic on the planet and she was all of that. As we were all still ogling she suggested, since her role was to play a hooker, that we take a tour of Oakland’s McArthur Street currently a beehive of scantily clad street walkers prying their trade both day and night. It would give her some inspiration on how to play the part.

Linda Wong

McArthur Street was not quite as good as the Rue St Denis, but not bad for America. We were at least on the way to catching up. As we drove around the block several times to admire the girls, a homely honey stood to the side in hot pants pulled on so tight that her slit bulged out. Paris had introduced me to the street hooker bug and so far, because of American laws, satisfying that fantasy had not been possible. I promised myself I would find my way back to McArthur Street before returning to L.A.

Renting a room on the first floor of the luxurious Myako Hotel, located on Post Street just south of Van Ness, provided us a set at little cost. Its décor was perfect and even included a sauna. Knowing the hotel would never allow a porn film to be shot on its premises, we were forced to surreptitiously move all of our equipment, piece by piece, into the room the day before we filmed.

After Peter, Barry and my crew had a 6AM breakfast at a café on Van Ness, we were back in the hotel room shooting Linda’s scene where her ‘john,’ played by Ken Scudder, asks for some ‘kinky’ sex.  She has no objections and he has her lie down on a thin bamboo cushion placed on the floor so he can bind her ankles to a bamboo pole.

While uttering ad-libbed lines that make him sound like a harmless pervert, Ken begins by using a Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator to gently stimulate the inside of her thighs with low frequency vibrations.

I had studied Oriental rope binding techniques from several of the Oriental Bondage magazines I had in my private collection and understood that it was essential that the various wraps had to be made with clean thick white ropes and meticulously wound so no overlapping spaces appeared between each winding. The effect was to make it clear that the female had willingly subjected herself to be tied up, showing that the eroticism was mutually agreeable and not psychotic torture or rape.

The confined space made her face and body perspire and restricted me to using a 10mm lens. I judiciously took advantage of its wide angle and deep depth of field, by placing it right next to the base of Ken’s penis, so I could capture Linda’s face. The frantic joy she shows made it the best blowjob scene of my career.

Peter and Barry returned to New York and I had (Walter) Cichy and Rogers drive the Graffitti van back to L.A., so I could remain in Frisco for an extra day.  I couldn’t get Linda’s hot dick-sucking face out of my mind and fantasized, after she agreed to let me take her out for dinner the next night, that I would soon be inside her.

The evening didn’t go as planned.  The window table at a Sausalito restaurant overlooking the bay, wasn’t romantic enough to overcome the dull and uninspiring conversation I was able to provide, possibly, because all I could think of was how beautiful she was and how good it was going to feel once I was inside her. I came off like a nerd. When I drove her home, she declined to invite me up to her place, giving me the suspect excuse that she was living with someone and it wouldn’t be cool. Right!

I had become quite skilful as an erotic editor and cut all the scenes in the film so they worked to perfection, including the one with Ras Kean and Jennifer Welles. There was not even a hint of the struggle that took place to get the scene shot. Following up on the pastry theme, we called the film ‘Sweet Cakes’ and again gave it the byline “Featuring Many Never Before Seen Erotic Beauties.” The gay incest scene with Brooke and Taylor Young was the talk of the “adult” town and Dog Eat Dog had its third hit in a row.

*

Even though we were twenty miles north of Santa Monica, there were always beautiful girls stopping by. Penthouse Pet, Helen Lang, a raven-haired Latino beauty with dark flashing eyes, danced with (my wife) Judy at The Ball. She had been coming by the house from time to time, sometimes with a male friend and sometimes by herself. By some sixth sense that I had no clue from where it came, I knew that she liked to be spanked and after I took her by the arm on one of her visits, and bent her across my knee, all the time telling her what a naughty girl she had been, to administer a few firm harmless swats to her behind, we became good friends. Because I was the only one who recognized her need for discipline, she expected and was delighted when I accommodated her with a spanking when she visited.  On occasion, she would offer me a blowjob if we were in my car together, but our relationship was more akin to that of a father and daughter – a very naughty daughter.

Helen Lang

In the early spring of 1977, she came up to the house mid-week with Earl Miller; the photographer who had shot the Penthouse layout of her that appeared in July of 1976 that earned her Pet of The Month. Earl was always looking for locations to shoot at and her description of our house and the last Halloween party had peaked his interest. It would turn out that we had a lot in common.

We both had gone to college in Boston; he at Tufts and I at MIT. He had been taking pre-med and like me, dropped out of school and came to Los Angeles. Like me, his obsession with sexy women led to a career in the adult entertainment business. By the time he left that day, we had become quite friendly and I told him to feel free to stop by on any Sunday afternoon when we spent time with friends around the pool.

The following Sunday he accepted my offer and came by with his girl friend, a quiet but stunning Penthouse Pet, named Vikki. We spent the afternoon smoking grass and playing eight ball in the grotto room. Earl liked to analyze each shot to find its fullest potential and a game that would normally take five or ten minutes, took a half hour. I would come to realize that his patience was what made him such a good photographer.

When he returned the following week, he not only came with Vikki, but also with another Penthouse Pet, Moira Weiss, her husband Barry and an eighteen year-old sister named Duane. The sexual energy at the house was already high, but it was about to explode big time.

The sisters, like my wife, were from conservative New Hampshire, which I now knew meant that they were probably anything but. Both were baby-faced, Moira very cute with freckles and Duane with a body that still carried some baby fat. Renowned photographer Ron Raffaelli, Jimi Hendrix’s personal photographer, had shot Moira in a hardcore lesbian layout for Puritan Magazine. In it she makes love with a beautiful eighteen-year old girl named Valerie.  Her innocent face belied her willingness to embark on sexual adventures. I would eventually learn that while still in high school, her fantasy was to move to Boston as soon as she graduated so she could become a street hooker, working the beat in front of the State theatre at the south end of the ‘war zone.’ She gave up her street walker fantasy when she met Barry Weiss, who, as the black-sheep son of renowned composer George Weiss, famed for his many all time classics such as “What a Wonderful Life” and “Lullaby of Birdland,” was as wild and unusual as she was.

While I sat with Earl and Barry under an umbrella to shade us from the sun, Barry explained that, inspired by the French soft-core porn film ‘Emmanuelle,’ (1974) he and the sisters had formed a sexual fantasy cult that he had named, ‘The Magic Theatre.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. A few other people had dropped by to hang around the pool and I had lost sight of the sisters who had wondered off. I was in the midst of sharing a joint with Earl and Barry, who after exhaling the deep toke he had just taken, looked at me with an elfin like smile and nodded with his head for Earl and me to take a look towards the pool. The two sisters were sitting on the wide steps that led into its shallow end and taking turns eating each other out. Barry remarked nonchalantly: “that is so cool.” ‘The Magic Theatre’ was indeed spellbinding.

Word quickly spread that weekends at Howard and Judy’s house were hot, and not because of the sun. More guests began to stop by.

*

While my iron was still in the fire with ‘Dog Eat Dog,’ I suggested we make another ‘pastry film.’ To find new talent and give it a non-American ambiance, I told him I wanted to shoot a few scenes in Europe. We had made a lot of money together and both Peter and Barry green-lighted the proposal.

An idea borrowed from a photo layout I had seen in an issue of the Swedish porn magazine, Eros, was to be the foundation of the loop carrier script. It would have a Rod Serling ‘Twilight Zone’ twist. A man browsing in a used bookstore is invited by the stores elderly owner to join him in a back room to see something very unusual. Thinking he is about to see illegal pornography, he accepts the offer. But upon entering the dimly lit room, he discovers that he has entered a small art gallery with several gilded framed paintings of handsome young couples hanging on the wall. At the far side of the room is an exotically attired statuesque woman kneeling on a small stage where she is masturbating with a two foot long silver pole.  As the man is transfixed on what he is seeing, a strange aura suddenly envelops the room that causes the man to begin to hallucinate that the paintings are coming to life.

I had intended for one of the paintings to be a scene with a French whore on the Rue St Denis. Walter and I would fly there so we could shoot the sexy looking girls working their trade. Afterwards we would drive to Denmark to shoot a scene or two with some Danish porn actresses.

The Rue St. Denis idea fell flat on its ass immediately. When the girls recognized that we were trying to surreptitiously photograph them as we drove down the rue, all hell broke out. Walter was driving and I was in the back seat with the camera peeking out from the back window of the car we had rented. The rue, jammed with horn dogs eyeing the girls, was moving slowly. I hadn’t rolled fifteen seconds of film when one of them noticed what I was up to and screamed “FOTOGRAPHIE! FOTOGRAPHIE!, FOTOGRAPHIE!”  Like little bunnies diving into their hutches, every girl ran with practiced efficiency for cover down any alley or doorway they could find. Because of the narrowness of the street and the fact that it was jammed with cars, there was no way for us to make a quick exit.  I rolled up the back window, hoping the hooker’s panic would subside, but as we slowly edged down the rue, the screams of rage continued. I was afraid that pimps would emerge from the shadows and beat the shit out of us or worse – take my ten thousand dollar camera.  I told Walter we had to get the fuck out of there, but the gator, who didn’t like to give in to anything, tried to convince me that we should give it another try. I would hear none of it.  As soon as we reached Rue Réaumur, I told him to take a right turn and get us the fuck away. We had escaped unscathed and still had our camera. So much for the Rue St Denis shot.

We split Paris the next morning and headed for Copenhagen where Barry Cahn had arranged for me to meet with Berth Milton, the publisher of the Swedish porn magazine, ‘Private.’ He had graciously agreed to give me some inroads to his talent.

On the way we made a stop in Hamburg, the German seaport city renown for it’s brothels and prostitutes. Maybe I could get the footage I was looking for there. Once we checked into a hotel, I left Walter in the room to call his new wife, Vikki, to convince her that he was being a good boy, while I wondered down to the Bunderstag to see what the famed German sex market offered.  When I couldn’t find a single working girl on the street, I began to think that I was in the wrong area. But just as I was about to leave, I spotted a sign in the middle of the block that advertised a live sex show. The entry to the club was an open portal framed by red lights, the international symbol for sexual entertainment.

After pushing back a black curtain to take a peek inside, I was disappointed to find that there were no girls performing on the small stage at the back of the sparsely lit room and was about to leave when a plump girl grabbed my arm and ushered me into the darkness to a table near the stage. Before I could say Jackie Robinson, I was asked to buy the two of us a drink, which was understood not to be a request, but a demand. Against my better judgment, I obliged.

The equivalent of forty bucks in German Marks, got me two watered down drinks and the privilege of suffering through several minutes of inane conversation with my new plump friend. Since no entertainment had come to the stage, I was again about to leave when a stocky German emcee appeared on stage and called for us to give a big hand for ‘Nadine.’ I gave ‘Big Benaldo’ a few squeezes to alert him that he was about to be aroused. But the sight of Nadine quickly put that idea to rest. She was a thirty-some-year-old with stringy bleach blond hair and a small potbelly. After sitting down on a wooden chair that faced the audience, she pulled up her dress, pushed her pelvis forward and spread her legs to reveal her hairy snatch. With a look of ennui on her face, she proceeded to insert a run-of-the-mill dildo up her vaginal canal. For all the excitement she showed, she could have been shoveling coal.  I pitied the poor dildo.

Then came the big finale. A scratchy LP provided a bit of fanfare music as the emcee welcomed ‘Mr. X’ to the stage. He was a barrel-bodied, balding German, wearing a silver mask over his eyes. If anyone could be less appealing than Nadine; it was he. I surmised the mask was to keep his reputation in the community safe from calumny. When the emcee announced: “Duh Nadine will now fuck duh Mr. X, I couldn’t imagine who else would want to fuck either one of them, so resigning myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to get my rocks off, and not wanting to risk having the repulsive vision of “Mr. X fucking duh Nadine“ churning in my head for the next month, I scooted out of the place and rejoined the Gator at the hotel. He was fast asleep; an indication that he had convinced his nervous wife that he was not straying.

*

A short trip on the Autobahn, where eighty miles per hour is considered slow, found us in Copenhagen, the city where the sexual revolution had begun. The moisture in the air and the eternal dusk due to its proximity to the Arctic Circle, made the city seem bleak and did nothing to lift my spirits from the fiascoes I had recently experienced in Paris and Hamburg. It had been said that the reason Scandinavians are so sexual is because living in that kind of atmosphere leaves nothing else to do but fuck.

The Regency hotel was located in the town center and within sight of Old Town and the Tivoli, the cities famous amusement park. Walter, as usual, began by calling his wife and as usual I went out looking for pussy. A brochure in the hotel lobby led me to a club located in a nearby upscale business area. When I peeked in, I saw two beautiful girls on the stage and a sign that said the cover charge was a hundred-dollars. I peeked right out. I preferred cheap sluts, not high priced prima donnas. There was no street action that I could see and I began to fear that the entire European trip was going to be a waste.

It almost was. The sun which finally set at 11PM but came back up four hours later at 3AM, made sleeping difficult. Until we could meet with Milton, Walter and I took a walk around the area. As Americans, it was hard to feel comfortable. Anti war posters were everywhere. One bookstore had its entire front window plastered with Nixon War Criminal posters and a slew of books supporting that contention.

Milton greeted us with typical Scandinavian coolness. He was happy to help us out, but almost all of the girls I had seen in his magazines were no longer available. I had decided that shooting sex scenes in Europe would expose me to having the footage confiscated by American customs when I returned, so I told Milton I was looking for a couple of girls who would be willing to fly to LA and work for me there. He recommended two girls that he thought would be right for me.

The first, a Lithuanian girl named Barbo, turned out to be an expensive disaster. After paying for a round trip ticket for her to fly to the States, she wasn’t off the plane for a half-hour before she was telling me what she wouldn’t do and because I had failed to check out her body while in Copenhagen, I discovered when she went outside to tan herself by the pool, it had deteriorated to the point of being unattractive. I cut my losses by sending her back the next day on the first plane available.

Milton’s top photographer was to introduce me to the second girl the next morning at a local coffee shop. The stunning young blond he brought along made my pulse rise. I had seen her in several hardcore layouts in Private magazine; one with American porn model, Eric Edwards, playing the role of a priest receiving a blowjob. Her name was Anna Magle. When she told me that she had just turned eighteen, I realized, since her layout had been published two years earlier, that she had been doing porn since she was sixteen. She was obviously a wild girl.

Anna Nagle

At one point, the conversation turned to a discussion about a Pakistani girl that I had asked Milton about when I was at his office. It made him very upset and any discussion of her ended quickly. The reason was a very tragic story.  She was not only Milton’s favorite model, but also his lover. During a weekend sojourn in his Rolls Royce to northern Sweden, an argument had erupted and in a rage, he had shoved her out of the car while it was still moving. Her arm became tangled in the door and was so severely mangled that it had to be amputated.

After the thought of that depressing story subsided, I told Anna I would like to use her in my film. She was happy with the same offer I had given Barbo, so I told her to make arrangements to get a visa and I would send her a ticket in a few weeks. She was very excited about coming to the States and even invited Walter and I to join her at a local disco later that evening. It would be the beginning of a life long friendship and the start of an incredible adventure for her.

Deciding not to shoot in Europe had been wise.  When we landed in Los Angeles, Walter and I were made to wait in a holding room while the U.S. customs searched my camera for contraband. If I had brought film back, more than likely, it would have been confiscated. After two hours, I was given back my equipment and we were released. In Europe we had crossed multiple borders without the slightest problem. Things were not so easy in the “land of the free.”

Anna’s scene was with newcomer Joey Silvera. It was hot so I was surprised to hear her tell me the next day that she wasn’t turned on to him. She was going to remain in the States for three weeks and would be staying in my guesthouse. I wanted to fuck her in the worst way, but sensed that if I moved too fast it would blow my chances. I recognized that she had different standards for ‘free sex’ and ‘paid sex.’ Paid sex was a job and free sex was for enjoyment. I had lots of time. By the third week, my inclination had proved to be correct and we became good friends, sexually and otherwise.

When I saw her off at the airport, it was doubtful that I would ever see her again, so it came as a complete surprise when she called a month later to tell me she was back in L.A. Even more surprising, was that she was now married to an American citizen and had plans to become a citizen herself. While in the lobby of the L.A. International airport, two middle-aged Iranian-Americans, Keon and Cyrus, sat nearby, waiting to board the same flight. Cyrus, nudged his friend, Keon:  “Get a load of the one sitting over there.” Though not physically dashing, he made up for any shortcomings with high-energy, resourcefulness and self-confidence. He went to the boarding counter and arranged for his seat to be changed so that he could sit next to Anna during the long transatlantic flight.  By the time they landed in Denmark, he had fallen in love with her and being that she had already fallen in love with the United States, was able to get her to agree to marry him for one year, the time required to be granted a permanent green card. Much to my joy, she told me she would not be living with him during the year and would be available to date me if I liked.

Judy and I had already agreed to make Saturday night our independent night out on the town. Anna was too independent minded be become anyone’s mistress, and I wasn’t looking for one, but the relationship we would have was even better; sex and friendship without commitment. It came at good time. My sex life with Judy was hitting the seven-year mark and the excitement was beginning to wane. The fact that Judy and Anna got along well, made adjusting to that, even easier.

Anna Nagle

*

Before traveling to Europe, I had already shot a very exciting scene with Gail Lawrence, whose stage name was Abigail Clayton. She was a strikingly beautiful blond who played the role of a socialite who asks her date to sit up front with the limo driver and watch while she is driven around town and picks up strangers to have sex with her in the back seat. Gail had flown down from San Francisco with her husband and new born child to take the role and as we drove to our first location, she told me a story that was most amusing and indicative of the times.

Abigail Clayton

As she suckled her newborn child on her still lactating breast, she told me that a few months prior, she knew she was about to appear in a pictorial feature in Playboy magazine called; ‘The Girls of Porn.’ It was creating a dilemma for her. Her folks were conservative Easterners – her father a successful doctor – and she knew that after the magazine came out it was only a matter of time before it was brought to their attention. Their daughter would be exposed as a porn star. To mitigate their shock, she began hinting that there was something she had to tell them.  This went on for some time without her revealing what it was.  But a week before the issue of Playboy was to hit the street, she called them to break the news and fess up about what she had to tell them. Rather than the gasps of dismay that she had expected, she got a huge sigh of relief. “Oh my god, we’re so happy to hear that. We thought you had joined the SLA (the group who had kidnapped Patty Hearst) or something like that.” Just being a porn star was no longer shameful.

Mercy Lamont had been pining to have sex with Judy for well over a year. In fact, a lot of girls had crushes on Judy. After practically begging me to shoot a scene of the two of them making love, I agreed after Judy, though not overtly bisexual, agreed I staged an antebellum picnic where they join a gentleman for a picnic in the countryside. After he over-imbibes and passes out, the girls are left with no other option but to entertain themselves. When I got home after the shoot, I caught hell from Judy. Part of the love making routine I staged called for her to be on her hands and knees with Mercy’s head laying between her legs. I then had Mercy take a bottle of wine and reach up so she could pour some over Judy’s butt crack and let it run down across her pussy and into her mouth. It was hot and painful. I had no clue that the wine made her sensitive skin burn like hell.

When Peter and Barry paid a visit to Mickey Zaffarano, a no-necked grey haired capo in the Bonanno family who once had done a solid stretch in the joint, to work out a deal for our new film, ‘Hot Cookies,’ to play in one of the adult theatres he controlled in Manhattan, it would not go well. His office was in Times Square above the ‘Playland Emporium’, a facility where I had enjoyed good experiences when I had previously stopped in for some peep show fun. Peter and Barry wanted a deal where we would earn a percentage of the gross; New York was a large source of our potential profit. But Mickey didn’t see it that way. He wasn’t willing to consider any kind of revenue sharing deal and only willing to offer a flat fee; in essence, his deal would remove the lucrative New York market from our earnings potential. As Peter told me later, when he cut into Mickey’s spiel to make a counterpoint, Mickey just glared at him and spoke slowly with a mobster like cadence:

“When I talk…. ……you don’t talk………. Understand?!”

We got around his obstinacy by four-walling a theatre in Manhattan, where thanks to a strong word-of-mouth, ‘Hot Cookies’ wound up doing very well. But the scenario in Zaffarano’s office was a harbinger of where the theatrical porn business was headed. The freewheeling days were coming to an end! Each of the Dog Eat Dog films took up to three weeks to shoot and a couple of months to edit. If pictures didn’t make a profit, there would be no money to produce another one. The days of big budget porn could not survive under Zaffarano’s formula. He was too stupid to see that he was cutting his own throat.

*

The post The ‘Pastry Films’ (1976-77):
The Untold Story by Howard Ziehm appeared first on The Rialto Report.

When Wes Craven passed away earlier this week, obituaries rightly praised him for his long and successful career making horror films, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and the Scream franchise.

Some articles mentioned that he had started out working on a number of New York adult films in the 1970s – both in front of and behind the camera. When The Rialto Report spoke to Wes, he spoke briefly about his involvement in films such as It Happened in Hollywood (1973) and The Fireworks Woman (1975). In last week’s Rialto Report, Howard Ziehm recalled how Craven wrote the first draft of the script for his incestuous twins film, Sweet Cakes (1976), and Craven appeared in the film as a photographer.

But recently in a conversation with Radley Metzger, we came across the above release form for The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) – which had the working title ‘Society’. It was for an acting part for a character called ‘Michal’.

R.I.P. Wes Craven, alumnus of the early New York adult film scene.

The post Wes Craven… in ‘The Opening of Misty Beethoven’ (1976)? appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In 1956, Jean de Berg published the classic sadomasochistic erotic novel, The Image.

In 1975, Radley Metzger adapted the book for his film The Image.

This week Jean de Berg and Radley Metzger met for the first time, and The Rialto Report was there to capture the moment.

________________________________________________________________________________________

This week saw a rare appearance in New York by Catherine Robbe-Grillet (née Rstakian; born 24 September 1930) – a French theatre and cinema actress, photographer, and writer who has published sadomasochistic writings under the pseudonyms Jean de Berg and Jeanne de Berg.

The Observer reported on the event:

France’s most notorious dominatrix rarely comes to the U.S. She doesn’t speak much English, and she’s 85. However, Catherine Robbe-Grillet—who is also the widow of one of 20th century France’s most famous novelists, Alain Robbe-Grillet—did make one of her rare American appearances in New York this week.

Ms. Robbe-Grillet these days spends most of her time between a chateau in Burgundy and an apartment in Paris. In both locales she spends some of her time choreographing elaborate S&M rituals—which do include things like whipping, if you’re only concerned with the prurient stuff—for the many men and women who submit themselves to her. Not the least of which, is her err, primary “submissive,” Beverly Charpentier, a 51-year old woman who pledged her life to serving Ms. Robbe-Grillet about a decade ago.

Ms. Charpentier generally attends to Ms. Robbe-Grillet wherever she goes, so she of course appeared with her at the Alliance Francaise last Wednesday to speak with author Toni Bentley about the couple’s unusual relationship.

“How many submissives do you have at the moment?” was one of the first questions Ms. Bentley posed. Ms. Robbe-Grillet, who, despite her age, is sharp as a tack, paused for a long while. Then she began to smile. She has no idea; there are too many.

“There are people for whom I am an absolute,” she eventually said, after some contemplation. “Then there are others [for whom] it’s a passing thing.” Meaning, in addition to her entirely dedicated partner (we say partner for lack of a more precise term; there is no equality there, to be sure), she has, she said, six other women who have pledged to do as she bids. Others come through for more brief sessions with her.

Just what do those sessions entail, you ask? Well, no one on Wednesday had quite the nerve to ask that question directly. But we did see parts of a documentary shot for Swedish television that documents some of the rituals in which Ms. Robbe-Grillet and her adherents partake. Men and women, some in various states of undress, are forced to dance, are forced to eat raw egg off a mirror, are made to act like barnyard animals. In one cut of the film, a man and a woman on all fours are being used as human candle stands, supporting large candelabras on their lower backs. They are pretty clearly suffering some kind of physical anguish, but also seem, somehow, to be having a sort of ecstatic experience.

So what animates Ms. Robbe-Grillet? She doesn’t know and doesn’t care.

“I have no need to understand where my desires come from,” she said.

From left: Beverly Charpentier, Catherine Robbe-Grillet and Toni Bentley. (Photo: Courtesy FIAF, photo by Michael George)

Toni Bentley’s excellent article on Catherine Robbe-Grillet is here.

And for a more hysterical read, here’s the Daily Mail version.

From left: Beverly Charpentier, Radley Metzger

The post Radley Metzger – and The Image (1975) 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.

________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

In the beginning there was San Francisco.

From the start, the smut capital of America did things differently. In the late 1960s, a small group of maverick filmmakers living there pushed back the barriers and pioneered the hardcore pornographic film industry.

A select few went even further and opened their own theaters to show their films, vertically integrating their business model thereby reducing their dependence on the old-school distribution model.

These included Alex de Renzy and his Screening Room, and Artie and Jim Mitchell and their O’Farrell Theatre. They had a clear vision of what they could achieve if they made films their way – and stood up to the authorities in the process. And they were businessmen, and were aware of the potential financial benefits if they were successful.

But whilst the careers of de Renzy and the Mitchell brothers have been well documented, there was a third group of independent pornographers / exhibitors in San Francisco – and their vision was every bit as vital and important.

Lowell Pickett and Arlene Elster formed an unlikely alliance, but together they created a model based on a more pure and idealistic aesthetic; they wanted to spread sexual freedom as well as earn a living.

Their objective was to deliver a new wave of artistic and creative pornography, and so they formed a production company – Leo Productions, and opened a theater – the Sutter Cinema, to deliver this dream.

In this Rialto Report, Lowell Pickett and Arlene Elster are interviewed for the first time for the same feature, and remember the heady days of their partnership. Their story illustrates what hard-core cinema could have been if the films had been more allied to the aspirations of the sexual revolution.

This is the first of a two-part feature.

(The above picture of Lowell Pickett is courtesy of James Fee).

________________________________________________________________________________________

1. Upbringing

Lowell Pickett:

I was born in Cincinnati in 1934. My father was a bookie for horse races, and my mother ran the family farm.

When I turned 18, I volunteered for the draft because I wanted to get the G.I. Bill.  The Korean War was over at that time, and everything was winding down. I was stationed north of Chicago at a place called Fort Sheridan. I was a chaplain’s assistant. I got involved in theater in the Army, some improvisational pieces, and a production of ‘Stalag 17’. I also picked up still photography.

When I was 21 I got into the University of Chicago, and I went there for three years. I really wanted to be a writer and got accepted as an English major. I soon found out that studying English had nothing to do with writing, so I ended up driving a cab for a couple of years. It was a good idea: I was employed, and driving a cab had much more to do with writing than studying English.

This was the 1950s and dating was tough. We didn’t actually get around to fucking, but we did a lot of oral sex, that kind of thing. I was involved with a girl who was a painter. She wouldn’t go all the way, but she would experiment. I ended up getting married to her but it only lasted for a short time.

She got me interested in painting. I started painting with oils. It wasn’t fine art; it was more abstract and figurative expressionism. That’s how I ended up at the Art Institute in San Francisco.

Arlene Elster:

I was born in 1941 in Port Arthur, TX. As a teenager I was best friends with Janis Joplin. We were in high school together. It was such a different time then. We were so naïve compared with all that came after. This was really the 1950s.

Janis and I saw ourselves as outcasts. We weren’t friends with the mainstream gals that won homecoming queen and things like that. Anyway, I went on and became pretty straight; I went to the University of Texas and graduated with a medical technician license. Then after a bad relationship, I moved to San Francisco.

Arlene Elster (c.1970)

*

2. San Francisco

Lowell Pickett:

I studied at the Art Institute in San Francisco for a couple of years and became somewhat of a painter and a photographer. I also ended up becoming head of Buildings and Grounds there. I didn’t do much of the grounds keeping work myself. I ran the work crew; I had a staff of about 20 kids, mostly students that worked part-time. They did the actual cleaning and maintenance.

I left the Art Institute in 1963 when the faculty found out I’d taken pictures of a couple fucking in the school library. So we parted ways.

I think my first interest in depictions of sex may have come from my grandmother. She had a copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. She also had nudist magazines around; I do remember those very vividly. All the pubic areas were brushed out. She used to receive the magazines in the mail concealed in plain brown wrappers. I think that might have piqued my early interest.

I ended up doing a lot of nude photography. I was sort of surprised at the number of girls who were willing to pose for the pictures. But then I read a book called ‘The Dud Avocado’ in which a character says, “There isn’t a girl in the world who won’t take off her clothes if she thinks it’s for the sake of art.” That stuck in my mind. After that I just asked girls I met socially if they wanted to pose saying that they were nude art portraits, and most agreed straight away.

The very first photos, like the ones I took at the Art Institute library, I kept for myself. But later I started selling them to some of the bookstores in San Francisco.

Arlene Elster:

When I got to San Francisco I got a regular straight job doing laboratory work in a research facility. I also did some volunteer work at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic.

The Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic opened in June 1967 as a response to the medical needs of thousands of young people who descended upon San Francisco during the Summer of Love. The Clinic still operates in San Francisco today and continues to serve those without adequate health insurance.

Lowell Pickett:

In 1967, a girl I knew fell sick so I took her to a place called Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic that had just opened.

It was utter chaos there so I volunteered to help out. I spent about a year working there as a fundraiser and organizing the administrative side. The clinic was run by a guy named Dr. David Smith.

Arlene was a volunteer there – and that’s where we first met. She had a medical degree. Not as a doctor, but as a laboratory worker. We went out for a beer. She said, “If I gave you a penny, would you take off your clothes?” I said, “An offer like that I can’t refuse.” I ended up spending the night at her place, and she got evicted a couple days later because of the amount of noise that we made. The neighbors must have been listening at the wall.

Arlene had been married before she came to California, and she was already engaged to someone else when I met her. Her boyfriend showed up one weekend while she was staying with me. That led to big problems between them. She kept talking about getting married to him. That was around the time the movie The Graduate was out – where Dustin Hoffman rescues the girl from her wedding so we joked about that.

She soon broke off the engagement and we moved in together not long after that. We had an open relationship.

Arlene Elster:

Lowell took me to Art Institute parties and it was interesting. I got to meet some compelling people there. He introduced me to cultural ideas that I hadn’t been aware of. He was really a catalyst in my life.

For a time we both continued working at the Haight Ashbury Medical Clinic. It was the height of the sexual revolution, and the clinic was such an important and interesting place to work.

It was a long way from my upbringing in Texas. I’d lost touch with almost everyone from back home. Except for Janis. Janis was now at the height of her fame – and she sometimes needed medical assistance so she came to the clinic because she knew me.

Lowell Pickett:

I got to know Janis Joplin because she came into the clinic a couple times. One time Janis came in for a pregnancy test. And then she wanted to get an abortion.

At the time, it wasn’t legal in California but I had a connection to a doctor who told me about a facility in Mexico, so I was able to help her out.

After a while I stopped working at the medical center. I’d started to get more involved in the sexual revolution and I wanted to participate more actively.

*

3. The Sexual Freedom League

Lowell Pickett:

When I first met Arlene, she was very shy. She got more assertive as she became more experienced in the world. We started going to the parties arranged by the Sexual Freedom League.

Jefferson Poland founded the Sexual Freedom League (SFL) (“a political group for sexual issues”) in New York City with Leo Koch in 1963. He then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and focused his organizing efforts at the University of California, Berkeley. Poland founded various chapters, including ones in the East Bay, San Francisco, Berkeley and San Diego.

The SFL encouraged political activism using similar tactics to civil rights groups – leafleting, picketing, and civil disobedience. It also organized revolutionary nude parties, which were thinly disguised sex orgies.

Poland was skilled at obtaining publicity for his new movement. He legally changed his name to ‘Jefferson Fuck Poland’ to raise public awareness. He made national news in August 1965 with the ‘Nude Wade-In’ he led at Aquatic Park, a public beach in San Francisco. This event was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and Time.

Lowell Pickett:

Jefferson Poland was a character. I thought he’d die young. I remember him pretty well.

Arlene Elster:

Jefferson Poland… he was the guy behind it all! I liked Jefferson. I haven’t seen him in forever, he moved to southern California I think.

Through Lowell I met Margo Rila and Frank Esposito, who were also prominent in the Sexual Freedom League. I was suddenly associating with those guys, and it was a big change for a girl from Port Arthur.

The Sexual Freedom League was liberating. It had a big effect on me. Lowell and I got involved in the party scene that the Sexual Freedom League organized.

Sexual Freedom League flyer (c.1970) for upcoming parties

Lowell Pickett:

These parties were very influential in terms of changing the way that we, and others, thought about sex. The problem was that the SFL parties were strict. For example they didn’t permit alcohol. That was one of the reasons we started organizing our own parties, which were much better.

I had a Victorian house in San Francisco, not gigantic or anything, but we ended up having free-form parties and orgies there that people found interesting.  We did things differently. I had all these costumes and pieces of fabrics. When people came in, they were sent away to change into costumes. At SFL parties, everybody waited around to see who was going to be the first one to take off their clothes, so my idea was to get them out of their own clothes straight away. They would change into anything from a piece of ribbon to a bed sheet. No one had ever done anything like that before. Everyone was completely blown away by it.

We would generally hop in bed as soon as people got changed. At the more successful parties, I ended up having sex with six women. I thought that was doing pretty good in those days.

Another aspect that people loved about our orgies was the food we provided. The only mistake we made was an orgy we had once which had the theme ‘Moloch and his Harem’. I decided not to have any utensils around so everyone had to use their fingers… Nobody liked that, so I was left with about five gallons of yogurt.

We didn’t charge people to come to the parties but we might have taken small contributions, that kind of thing.

By November 1969, Jefferson Poland felt that the leadership of the Sexual Freedom League was becoming too “bourgeois”, so he founded the Psychedelic Venus Church (PVC), as an offshoot of the SFL. The Psychedelic Venus Church became the epicenter of some of the most radical and performative sexual experimentation of the era. Lowell and Arlene were both members.

The sacrament of the Psychedelic Venus Church was marijuana and at each meeting, after lighting up, a woman was chosen to be Venus. At the beginning of services, she was placed on an altar, candles were lit on each side of her, and her vulva was smeared with honey. Each of the males (and some women if so inclined) at the meeting licked the woman’s vulva in order to honor the goddess Venus. Then the orgy began in earnest. At one ‘ceremony’, sex radicals gathered in a warehouse in which a woman wearing nothing but a winged helmet was hoisted by crane into the air and then landed safely to have sex with multiple onlookers.

The by-laws of the Psychedelic Venus Church (1971)

Arlene Elster:

The Psychedelic Venus Church was crazy, nutty fun. It was also innocent by today’s standards. All of the sexuality was totally innocent compared to what came later.

There were kind of the two factions of people. One faction created rules on how you do it… sort of “this is what you do and this is what you don’t do.” The other faction was uncontrolled in any way. I always subscribed to the first group, the consensual group. No drunkenness, no heavy business… no intoxication. At least no heavy intoxication.

Marijuana was our sacrament at the Psychedelic Venus Church. But it wasn’t let’s get drunk and stoned to the point of unconsciousness. It wasn’t like that. I was actually a reverend in the PVC… whatever that meant! We had get-togethers at my house, and I organized them.

Despite what it seems, I thought we were pretty straight people that were just part of the sexual revolution kind of a thing. Why not? This was healthy sex. What could be wrong with it and what’s unhealthy about it? In fact, it’s pretty healthy!

*

4. Loops

Lowell Pickett:

I’d been taking pictures of nude girls all this time, and then I started making sex loops. This would be in about 1967. The way that I got started was talking to the people at the Roxie on 16th Street, and they said they bought loops for $50 dollars. Unprocessed loops. I’d seen a few of them there so I said, “I can do as well as that.”

Arlene Elster:

Lowell asked to borrow $100 from me to make a loop film so I agreed, and he paid me back. A 16mm loop, 10 minutes, of a girl taking her clothes off. Sort of like a striptease but on film.

I was in my 20s and I thought, naively, this is what they’re just going to do forever. They’re never going to show hardcore sex. But eventually they showed the girls spreading their legs and showing their genitals… and then even more. I was shocked!

Arlene Elster (1971)

Arlene Elster:

Lowell sold the film in the can, by which I mean it was undeveloped. Forget editing, it was not even developed. Completely undeveloped. The loop plots were shot in sequence so they just had to take out the camera stops, the black frames, from when we stopped the camera.

So I started making these loop films with Lowell. We distributed them all ourselves… Lowell and I just went to these theaters where these people bought this stuff.

Lowell Pickett:

In the beginning, Arlene and I sold the loops to places like the Roxie and the Peerless. They insisted on buying the film unprocessed. That way, they knew there were no other copies.

Arlene and I made the loops together, and she ended up filming some of them. For example she ended up directing all the gay stuff we did. I met a couple of guys that were operating a male prostitution ring and they provided some male models, and Arlene developed story-lines for those.

Arlene Elster:

We also hired young filmmakers to make loops for us. We always said, “Think of the loops like a haiku. We need to show this or that, and then a depiction of a sex act. Other than that, you’ve got free range to do what you can do with the film.” That’s why it was really a fabulous, fabulous challenge for filmmakers.

And we got some pretty interesting films. I’m really sorry that I didn’t keep any copies. They were really fab. Creative. Fun. Amateur, totally amateur, but fun.

Lowell Pickett:

When we needed girls for the loops, there was a paper called the Berkeley Barb, an underground newspaper that we sometimes advertised in. But often Arlene would walk down the Haight in San Francisco and literally just ask girls on the street if they wanted to appear in a movie. Most girls agreed straight away. You have to imagine that the streets in those days were very busy. Most of the girls were only making a couple of dollars an hour working in a mall or some place. This was a much better deal. Most of them seemed to have no compunction about doing it.

At that point, we weren’t asking them to have sex in front of the camera – just spreading their legs and simulating something. In those days, everybody had pubic hair. Lots of it. I did get a number of the girls to shave, just because I thought it would be easier for the viewer to be able to see more of what they wanted to see.

Sometime Arlene and I used to appear in our films too. I did a couple of POV (point-of-view) films. I would operate the camera holding it up to my face and shooting down.

Leo Productions advertising next to the Sexual Freedom League in the Berkeley Barb (1970)

Arlene Elster:

We’d had all the experience organizing the SFL and the PVC parties, the costumes, the themes, and so on. So it really wasn’t a big leap to make the loops.

There weren’t many others making these films at the time. Lowell knew this guy that did light shows for all the rock concerts. He was named Jerry Abrams. Jerry was making sex loops at the time. He was one of the first in San Francisco to start making them. I got to know Jerry although I never cared for him. I didn’t care for the way he filmed, and I didn’t care for any of his attitude. He would never have been a friend of mine.

Lowell Pickett:

It was great era. It was long before AIDS. Everything was just very free and casual. We were out just about every night, either at a party or bar.

*

5. The Birth of Leo Productions

Lowell Pickett:

After a while we decided to form our own production company, Leo Productions. I always thought that there should be great films that could be viewed by couples. Films that dealt with feelings and relationships, as well as sex.

I wanted to start making full-length films. I also wanted to be as financially independent as possible so I made sure I had my own equipment from the start. Two Arriflex cameras. We had our own editing equipment too. We shot on 16mm.

I didn’t like the way that the older generation of 35mm filmmakers mixed sex with violence. These guys were making some really nasty films, like ones set in a Nazi camp. I saw us as being a new generation. We were attracting young, sexually adventurous people to see our films, and we invited them to make films with us. It was all part of the sexual revolution. We hoped that our films would lead to a new art form.

Arlene Elster:

When Lowell and I formed Leo Productions, we used film students from San Francisco State University and other colleges. We wanted to appeal to an audience of adults, heterosexual adults. We felt we had a healthy attitude towards sex because we were in the Sexual Freedom League and all of this stuff. Right? Morally and ethically I’m thinking this is where it’s at. Copenhagen was happening and Amsterdam too at that time. And we were there at the heart of this new sexual movement. We were art house. We saw ourselves as erotic art for adults. That was our thing. We were different. And people could see that the films we made were different.

From The Sunday Oregonian, November 15th, 1970:

The models are young and attractive, even beautiful. The photography, while generally only functional, is technically good, as is the lighting. In films by two girl film makers, the imagery is downright beautiful. The films are still of uneven quality, but it is obvious that people with genuine talent are making erotic films, not for the basement but for the general public. One, a re-telling of the medieval Mattie Groves story, was filmed by a girl in dark colors, mostly red. The film, quite simply, was beautiful.

Arlene Elster (from The Sunday Oregonian, November 15th, 1970):

Three years ago we sold our films by the foot. Now we’re doing something very different.

Lowell Pickett:

Most of the films that Leo Productions made didn’t have any other financial backers. I came up with the money myself. Basically I’d make money from one movie and some of that money would go into the next movie.

I learned pretty quickly how to make sex films without risking too much money. For example we’d do the sex scenes first so we knew we had them in the can. Then we could do the story lines. This was important in case anybody had to be replaced.

You see – people would often disappear after you started making a film. I remember the police questioned us about the Weather Underground (the radical left-wing organization). Apparently the Weather Underground had been recommending that activists get work with us if they got into financial difficulties! It was easy cash for them and there was no need for documentation.

We tried to work with many different actors to keep the films fresh – but we found that some actors were more reliable than others. George McDonald was a good example. We could always trust him.

George McDonald (from his unpublished autobiography ‘A Pound of Flesh’ (1975)):

I’d heard good things about Leo Productions. They were part of the new long-haired, turned-on, sensualist film makers, as opposed to the dirty old man, carny types that had been flourishing in the Tenderloin.

I called them from a number in the back of the Barb. A secretary told me that I would have to come down for an interview, and gave me an address on Hayes Street. The address on Hayes turned out to be a Victorian house across the street from a concrete slab black housing project. The doorway was covered with a wrought iron steel gate. Next to the door was a lion head doorknocker and a sign saying PLEASE USE DOORKNOCKER. I stuck my arm through the gate. But, what they don’t tell you is that there’s a one hundred and twenty five pound black German shepherd that goes crazy at the sound of the knocker, and he’s hiding behind the partially opened front door.

I gave a few raps on the knocker and the next instant… whoom… this monster wolf was pouncing on my arm. You don’t have much time to pull out, especially with my slow reflexes. I finally pulled my arm free as two guys came rushing out and pulled the dog off.

Arlene Elster:

The personal relationship that Lowell and I had was short lived. I lived with him for maybe a year. When we started out I found him to be an interesting, cultural person but then he became less so. He introduced me to art film, these things, but after a while I realized that wasn’t really him. He preferred the sexual side of things.

Lowell Pickett:

I was motivated by the money – but also the sexual freedom and the excitement. I thought the films could be improved so I was interested in doing that too. Our loops had a little more story than the others. I thought that if the girls were really getting off, the excitement would come across on the film. I always thought there was a great future in films for couples to be able to watch sex films together in their bedroom. It turns out this idea was too far ahead of its time.

*

6. Arlene Elster and The Sutter Cinema

Arlene Elster:

I knew this guy called Bruce Davis through distributing our loops. He had H & B Adult Bookstore in San Francisco. He developed some problems; he did pills, and he was wanted for tax evasion, so he disappeared off to Hawaii. Before he left he had taken a lease on a theater. The location had formerly been a nightclub called The Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City was a Chinese nightclub and cabaret in business from the late 1930s to the late 1950s, on the second floor of 363 Sutter Street (the former space is now renumbered 369 Sutter Street) between Chinatown and Union Square.

It featured Asian American singers, dancers, chorus lines, magicians, strippers, and musicians. It was popular with military personnel who were transiting through San Francisco during World War II.

Arlene Elster:

The Forbidden City was an upstairs location. There was a stage for can-can dancers and big round tables. It was a pretty upscale place. Lots of well known people had frequented the club over the years. I have pictures of Ronald Reagan there for example. At some point there was a fire and it was closed.

Bruce Davis took it over and re-opened it as a burlesque theater, with striptease dancers on stage. This was in the early to mid 1960s I guess. There were a few theaters of that kind at the time… like the Roxy, the Victoria and then later there was de Renzy’s theater. After a while Bruce started showing film, loops, of strippers. Single girls taking off their clothes looking sexy at the camera. Lowell and I sold them our loops to show.

Lowell Pickett:

As we were deciding to make these new type of films, Arlene and I wanted a new type of theater to show them. A couple’s theater.

Arlene Elster:

Lowell and I thought it would be good to take over the lease of Bruce’s theater and to turn it into a cinema where we could show Leo Productions films. So we did. We called it the Sutter Cinema.

The Sutter Cinema opened in May 1970 with a self-avowed mission to show quality pornographic movies. Or as Arlene put it, “films that consisted of more than a penis going into a vagina”. It charged $5 per person, but only $7 for man-woman couple. Servicemen in uniform and those over 65 were admitted for $3.

A still from Freebie and the Bean (1974) showing the Sutter Cinema

From ‘Sex Films in San Francisco Reach Plateau of Legitimacy’, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1970:

(The Sutter Cinema) is located in an almost fashionable part of the city, as opposed to the stale sweat and down-and-out-on-the-Bowery sleaziness of similar houses in other cities. A pleasant woman called Arlene Elster, a veteran director of erotica, sells tickets, makes small talk and in general replaces the air of embarrassment that usually hangs over these places with a feeling of downright hominess.

From ‘The Porn Capital of America’, New York Times, January 3, 1971:

(Sutter Cinema) is clean and thickly carpeted, with handsome erotic drawings mounted on its gold-painted walls and a large tank of tropical fish in the lobby; free coffee and doughnuts are dispensed during viewing hours from 8am to midnight.

Arlene Elster (in The Sunday Oregonian, November 15th, 1970):

We are trying to create as dignified an image as we can. We feel that there is nothing wrong with watching sex films. We don’t feel there should be any shame attached to it. But we also realize that we are in a minority with this opinion. This is one of the reasons our ads are understated. We want to be totally honest but we don’t want to push anything at anyone. We have no pictures outside the theater, for example. You have to know what we’re showing before you even come up the stairs. And at the top, before you go in, there is a sign warning you that our films show explicit sexual relations. There’s no way to put it without making it sound like a come-on but we are being honest. I’m not trying to offend anyone, I don’t want anyone to be upset or disturbed. We’re offering a specific type of film for people who want it, and we hope others will stay away.

Arlene Elster:

We appealed to a different audience than the other theaters. We really tried hard to focus on sensual, respectful sex films for discerning people, for couples, for the curious and adventurous. We offered a reduced rate for couples. We also had grand openings for new films.

As Arlene started to become more involved with the running of the cinema, tensions increased in her relationship with Lowell, which eventually came to a head.

Arlene Elster:

At some point I got disgusted about not having any control over the films that were being made. I did not like that at all. That annoyed me. Some of the films that were coming out from Leo Productions were disgusting to me. So I formed a coup.

We had incorporated Leo Productions so I got the other people on the board together and I said, “Lowell: You take all the film and I’ll take all the theater, and we’ll see you later.” See ya later alligator.

So Lowell continued to make films – which the Sutter Cinema showed.

From the start the Sutter Cinema was different from other adult film theaters. This was because Arlene was different from other adult film operators in San Francisco – such as the Mitchell Brothers and Alex de Renzy. She wanted to run a commercially viable operation but she was also strongly sex-positive – long before the term had been coined.

Arlene Elster:

I was a business woman and I wanted to earn a living my way. But I also saw the opportunity to share the ideas of the Sexual Freedom League. I remember saying that the times in which we lived not only allowed but required films like ours.

I only showed films that fit the criteria I was looking for. For example it was important to show that women possessed sexual desires just like men. Female orgasms need to be shown just as much as male orgasms.

I was at the cinema every day. I was very hands-on. That was important to me. I hired, I fired. I had a bookkeeper that did the payroll. I had an assistant. I dealt with the lawyer – which become a full time job in itself when the busts started.

I was also in charge of getting ads into the newspapers. We had graphic artists create the posters and ads, but I was always involved. I would sometimes sketch out the artwork and then give it to the graphic artist and say, “Will you do this?” I’ve still got a scrapbook of the ads that were in the newspaper because those were so fabulous.

Our advertising campaigns reflected our different approach. The Chronicle newspaper took our ads. One of them said “Bring your loved one, we’d like to turn you on.” We even featured Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry in the ad text.

Genesis of a newspaper ad

Lowell Pickett:

At the time there was a strong crossover with the underground filmmakers and the counter-cultural comic artists in San Francisco – people like Robert Crumb, Roger Brand and Roger May. They were interested in our work, and we liked what they were doing so it was natural that we would be drawn to work together.

Arlene Elster:

We got these comic artists to draw ads for us that we could use in newspapers, magazines, flyers – all to entice people to come to the cinema by demonstrating that we were different from other porno houses. I was proud of that artwork. It captured the times and what we were trying to achieve.

Lowell Pickett:

The cinema definitely was different from the other porno houses in town. Arlene had a different clientele altogether. In fact there were a number of girls that were in the films that brought their mothers or family members to see them when we were showing them at the Sutter Cinema.

The Sutter Cinema proved to be a success – and particularly popular with Japanese visitors. In 1964 the Japanese government had lifted travel restrictions and from the early 1970s, Japanese tourists and investors arrived in San Francisco in large numbers. They preferred to frequent more discreet, up-market theaters and therefore found the Sutter – with its promise of “the best in pornographic entertainment” and “the most comfortable seats” – particularly attractive.

Arlene Elster:

Artie and Jim Mitchell opened their O’Farrell Theater around the same time as my theater… was it before or after? I can’t remember who opened their theater first. I knew the Mitchell Brothers. I went to see them in their theater and went up to their office at times. But I never hung out with them. I didn’t do the drugs they were doing. We weren’t friendly in that kind of a way. We were just doing our own things more or less parallel but not together.

The problem was that Artie and Jim Mitchell started showing better quality films and they also started showing hardcore as well. They showed the sex more graphically.

So what did we have to do the next week? We had to follow. We had to. It wasn’t something I wanted to do but there it was. I didn’t care for that. At the Sutter there was never any weird sex in the films. There was never any sadism, never anybody hurt, there was never any non-consensual sex. I wanted the films to be better than that.

Another group that I wasn’t happy with was that the lesbian community, the women’s community. They didn’t like me running the theater. They didn’t like that at all. This was not liberating to them. I definitely wasn’t part of the sisterhood.

Arlene also handled distribution of the Leo Production films in the early days – through Zephyr Distributing Company – a company she ran from the office at the Sutter Cinema.

Zephyr distributed Leo films by packaging them into individual ‘shows’ that contained over 90 minutes of entertainment. Each show contained a combination of feature-length and short films, and Arlene had a brochure that outlined the details for each one.

The Sutter Cinema largely stuck to its vision of showing more couple’s oriented films, and also exhibited gay porn films. Several significant adult films were premiered at the Sutter, as were other Leo productions.

One of the early Leo successes was the film ‘Straight Banana’.

*

7. ‘Straight Banana’ (1970)

Lowell Pickett:

Straight Banana was an early film. It was a 40 minute film if I remember. I produced it but didn’t direct it.

Straight Banana was written and directed by Ferd Eggan (using the name Ferd Ambidexter), a bisexual junkie, who’d been a civil rights worker in the South in the early 1960s. He was active in the Gay Liberation Front in Chicago before moving to San Francisco.

Lowell Pickett:

It was one of the first sex features with a real narrative, but I can’t remember much about the story. I know we used the plot for another film afterwards. We also used an underground comic artist to do a lot of the illustrations for the ads.

Despite Straight Banana having been termed a ‘missing film’ in current years, the Rialto Report has recently viewed a 70 minute version. Shot in Sausalito in 1969 and released in 1970, it is subtitled ‘The Story of Bonnie and Hyde’, and is the story of a nymphomaniac who meets an exhibitionist. It’s a creative and humorous madcap romp, and features entertaining artwork by Roger Brand. It also features a sexual encounter between the film’s star Grinda Pupic and a coke bottle.

A selection of slides from the comic book version of ‘Straight Banana’ (1970)

Lowell Pickett:

Ferd directed the film but he used Leo crew-members and Leo equipment to actually film it, as he wasn’t an experienced filmmaker.

Development of the ‘Straight Banana’ ad campaign

The writer Gary Indiana moved into the commune where Ferd lived when he was directing Straight Banana. According to Indiana, Ferd was the scene’s charismatic bisexual ringmaster who “shot smack more as a fashion statement than to quell an actual addiction.”

Gary Indiana (from ‘I Can Give You Anything But Love’ (2015)):

One of the stars of Straight Banana was a tall bisexual Nebraskan refugee often billed as Mr. Johnny Raw, or plain Johnny Raw, whose penis was a minor celebrity in the Bay Area. He referred to the creeps who bought tickets to his films as “the fans”, and believed that he was actually a movie star. He was boastful, stupid, pathetically narcissistic, and sad, but such a deluded asshole it was impossible to feel sorry for him.

Lowell Pickett:

Then there was a girl called Mary Smith in the film. I don’t know what name she used in the credits. She came over to interview at my house and it turned out she was a pre-med student at Berkeley. She ended up doing several films for us. She had quite a story. She got hooked on heroin, got busted and did some jail time. When she came out she went to law school at UCLA, graduated near the top of her class, and became a pretty successful lawyer but ended up committing suicide.

The female star of Straight Banana was a girl who worked a lot for Leo Productions. She used the name ‘Grinda Pupic’ (aka ‘Grenda Pupik’). She was certainly one the brighter, more interesting women that was around at that time.

‘Grinda Pupic’

*

8. Who was ‘Grinda Pupic’?

‘Grinda Pupic’ real name was Bonnie and she came from St Louis, where she excelled in high school – winning a National Merit scholarship. Despite her academic prowess, she dropped out and became a fixture in the Gaslight Square area of town, famed for being a meeting area for the bohemian and hippie generations.

She clashed frequently with her mother, and when she got pregnant at 19 in 1967 she moved out to San Francisco. She didn’t tell her parents of her pregnancy, and gave up her son for adoption. It remained a secret until an article in the San Francisco Examiner came out in August 1967. Bonnie was on the cover of the paper (with a slightly modified last name) and profiled as the ‘Hippie Woman’. Friends of her parents were vacationing in San Francisco when it came out and sent the newspaper to the family rabbi who then told Bonnie’s parents.

She settled in the Haight-Ashbury area where she enrolled in nursing school. To pay for tuition and make ends meet she started work at the Hip Job Co-op – a charity set up to find work for the influx of teenage hippie runaways that were turning up in San Francisco at the time.

The Mitchell Brothers would often visit the Co-Op, knowing that they’d find large numbers of lost, young people willing to appear in their films in return for a small cash payment. Bonnie was one such person. She was young, attractive and needed the money. The fact that the work was relatively anonymous, and that she was rebelling against her mother made it even more attractive as a quick way to make a few bucks. She found beaver loop work with them, as well as nude modeling jobs that ended up in men’s magazines. And after getting to know the Mitchells, she started referring talent to them too.

Gary Indiana (from ‘I Can Give You Anything But Love’ (2015)):

(Bonnie was) a relentlessly sultry, ebulliently secular Jew. (Her) sang-froid enabled her to resume her side of the argument about local zoning laws between takes, while the bone-hard penis of a costar remained planted in her lady parts. Among friends and co-workers she exuded a generally misleading maternal solicitude. Bonnie was awfully nice and surprisingly tough.

In her spare time she was a popular and carefree spirit. She hung out with an eclectic crowd including the photo-journalist, Clay Geerdes, comedians, and underground graphic comic artists such as Robert Crumb and Roger Brand. She had great confidence and liked performing – both for art purposes and as a personal challenge. She appeared in a number of San Francisco song and dance groups such as Les Nickelettes and the Pointless Sisters.

When loops turned to feature length pornographic films, Bonnie made several – including a number for Leo Productions. She hid behind a number of assumed names, including ‘Grinda Pupic’ – Pupic being the Yiddish name for belly button. Straight Banana featured one of her starring roles.

Lowell Pickett:

Bonnie was good in Straight Banana and was probably one of the main reasons for its success, and people liked the film a great deal. Jay Fineberg of the Pussycat chain of theaters was one of the people that thought it was great and offered to buy it.

*

9. Lowell Pickett and Leo Productions – The Filmmaking Collective

Lowell Pickett:

At this stage I was the sole owner of Leo Productions. I knew everything that was going on, all the films that were going on. One of the first feature length films I made was Oona (1970), which featured Ming Toy Epstein and Lilla Allen.

Oona was a good film. We got a good cast together from people who answered an ad we placed in the Berkeley Barb. We held auditions so that we could find actors who could improvise and deliver lines convincingly.

We shot some of the externals in front of the famous Half Note jazz club and the Harding Theater on Divisadero Street. It turned out well, and we made good money from it.

Apart from making his own films, Lowell used aspiring young filmmakers to make films under the Leo Productions name. The fact that Leo had their own equipment also made Lowell popular with other aspiring filmmakers. He would sometimes rent out his equipment to them in exchange for money, a producer credit, or even sexual favors.

Arlene Elster (in The Sunday Oregonian, November 15th, 1970):

(Leo Productions) are constantly looking for new film makers. A lot of young film makers try and get their start in erotic films, then they go on to other things. (Leo Productions) take all the risk with the new film maker. (Leo Productions) supply all the film equipment, even the models, for a 10 minute test film. If the film maker can do it, then he goes to work for us. A film maker with any talent or experience who has a good idea really has nothing to lose. We take in a lot of money, but we pay out a lot.

Lowell Pickett:

Steve Howe worked for us; he was a film student in San Francisco. He directed a few Leo Productions. Others that made films for us included Charles Webb and Walter Csisery.

I got to know the other San Francisco-based filmmakers, but out of all of them I was most close to the Mitchell Brothers. I met Earl Shagley through the Mitchells, and he ended up directing for Leo Productions as well.

Leo Productions was never that big. I had a secretary and I had two guys helping out. That was it. Harold Adler had office space in my house on Hayes Street for a while. He was one of the first agents in San Francisco. He got me a number of people to appear in the films. He was running ads and things. We were good friends.

I also wanted women to make films for us. We had a substantial number of women did that. One of these was Carel Rowe.

Carel Rowe hailed from Arizona and had moved to San Francisco in the summer of 1961. There she met Frank Werber, manager of the highly successful Kingston Trio. After a whirlwind romance that summer, Carel married Werber, and she went on to write ‘Cast Your Fate To The Wind‘ an American jazz standard and 1960s anthem with Vince Guaraldi. It won a Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition in 1963.

Lowell Pickett:

We met Carel in the late 1960s when she came to a modeling call or something like that. She was involved with the American Film Institute or something in Los Angeles. She came to teach at San Francisco State and a number of other places. She had an interesting background, including writing a hugely successful song at the time. She directed a few films for us.

*

Coming soon in Part 2 of this feature… The First International Erotic Film Festival, Mary Rexroth, ‘Cozy Cool’, the birth of realty television with ‘The Continuing Story of Carel and Ferd’ (1970-1975), the mob move in, obscenity busts, many more films, and all the rest.

*

*

The post Leo Productions and the Sutter Cinema:
The Untold Story of Lowell Pickett and Arlene Elster (Part 1) appeared first on The Rialto Report.