Charles William Rotsler (1926–1997) was an award-winning artist and science fiction author.

Bill was also involved in the burgeoning adult film industry from the late 1950s, first as a stills photographer on the set of adult films, and later when he wrote, directed, or acted in over 20 adult films during his career with Boxoffice International Pictures,

In 1966, he created Adam Film Quarterly, later called Adam Film World, one of the earliest magazines to provide commentary on pornographic films. He wrote hundreds of articles using a plethora of pseudonyms including ‘Shannon Carse’, ‘Cord Heller’, ‘Clay McCord’, and ‘Merrill Dakota’ – sometimes even interviewing himself. He also wrote the seminal book, Contemporary Erotic Cinema in 1973.

But this series of articles is not about Bill Rotsler. It’s about a group of friends of his. Four friends. Four women, to be more specific, who at various times lived with him, and featured in his films, photographs, and magazines. Their lives intersected in his house, as they played their parts in helping establish the adult film industry in Los Angeles.

He called this group, ‘The Gruesome Foursome.’

The Rialto Report tracked down each of the four to hear about their lives. This is the first part. The story of Kathie Hilton. (And Gerard Broulard too.)

———————————————————————————————————

One performer I’d always wanted to speak to was Kathie Hilton.

Kathie was one of the most prolific actors in the early west coast adult industry. Her career started in the late 1960s, and over the next five years she appeared in over 80 features as well as many loops, shorts, and men’s magazines too.

But whenever I came across anyone who’d known her, they told me that she’d died in 1974 – shot by a boyfriend. Some mentioned a suicide pact. It had been big headlines in the newspapers at the time.

A contemporary of Kathie’s was the foreign-sounding X-rated film actor Gerard Broulard – when I tracked him down ten years ago, I was surprised to find out that Kathie was still alive and that they were, in fact, living together.

Gerard was suspicious at first. As strange as it seems, he thought I was a law enforcement officer, perhaps preparing a case against them about their involvement in adult films four decades previously.

I persuaded him otherwise, and eventually interviewed both Kathie and Gerard separately over a number of years.

This is their story.

*

1. Beginnings

Kathie Hilton:

Kathie Hilton isn’t my birthname. I was born Lorna Margaret Fern in 1947.

Gerard Broulard:

When I think about it, it seems incredible that Kathie and I ever met. We were both from families that traveled around the world. But somehow, we did meet. And I’m so grateful that we did.

Kathie:

My father was English. He went to work on the railroads in India after the Second World War, and he met an Indian girl. They got married in India, and my sister and I were born there.

Gerard:

I was born in 1944. My family was from Normandy, France, but my parents wanted to travel. We moved to England twice when I was small, first from the ages of 4 to 5, then from 8 to 9. Over the next few years, we lived in seven countries, including Tahiti and the Bahamas.

It was good for me: I developed an outgoing personality and I learned to speak French, English, German, and Italian fluently.

Kathie:

When my parents left India, they moved to the U.K. before settling in Edmonton, Canada. That’s where I spent my childhood.

Gerard:

My mother left my father when they were living in the Bahamas because he was so tough. In short, my mom was a sweetheart, but my father could be a monster.

He took the break-up badly. I remember him saying, “Your mother is a whore. If you see her in the street, spit in her face.” He was badly hurt.

So my father moved to Hollywood, CA, and took me and my brother with him.

Kathie:

My parents were strict, very restrictive. Especially sexually.

Because of that I grew up pretty uptight. Shy and ashamed even. Always self-conscious. I wasn’t allowed to date or go out with boys.

I had a sister and brother, but I didn’t always get along with them.

Kathie Hilton

Gerard:

I went to church when I was a kid. I was an altar boy. My father insisted that I go to mass every Sunday, even though he didn’t come along. I asked him why, and he said he was too tired after working all week long.

Kathie:

My sister said I was ugly. She said I had yellow skin and narrow eyes, and looked like a Chinese girl. It affected my self-confidence.

Gerard:

I always thought my life would be interesting, so I kept a diary from when I was 4. I never threw any out. I still have them all.

Gerard Broulard

Kathie:

My parents were distant. I guess no different from many families back then. I retreated into books and read about different worlds. I decided I wanted to travel as soon as I could afford it.

Gerard:

My father, Joseph Broulard, was a famous chef. He was credited as being the man who brought French fine cuisine to Los Angeles. He ran the most famous and glamorous restaurants in the city for many years, places like the Macambo, Dino’s, and Au Petit Jean. Ask anyone who was around L.A. in the 1950s through to the 1980s, they may remember him. He owned La Grange in Westwood, and part-owned L’Ermitage.

As for my mother, after she left my father, she said she would never marry a French chef again. Then she did. A man named Paul Quaiud, the total opposite of my Dad – fair, gentle, funny, smart. They lived in a small country in central America for a while.

Eventually my mother and Paul moved to Los Angeles, and all was forgiven.

Kathie:

I did pretty well in school but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. None of us girls did. There were no expectations for women to have careers at that time, so we all ended up drifting, lacking in direction.

Gerard:

My father wanted me to be a top chef like him. He was old-fashioned, and wanted to hand down the career that he’d developed. I was too wild for that, and the chef’s apprenticeship felt like too much hard work!

So I clashed with my father. He was difficult: he was still telling him what to do when I was in my 50s.

My brother, Manuel, was more sensible. He became a chef, and worked at many prestigious places – the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon was one of his.

But when I was young, that life wasn’t for me.

Kathie:

I was a teen when my brother Tony became unwell. My parents were superstitious, and someone told them that if they changed our family name, we could start everything again – and Tony would be cured as a result. So we became the ‘Hilton’ family, and I became ‘Kathie Hilton.’

But Tony never got better.

Gerard:

Gerard Broulard was my birthname, but I changed it when I got US citizenship. I chose ‘Lee Page Blackmore’.

How did I choose those names? My father used to call me, ‘Le General’, and General Lee was one of the generals I admired. And I loved music, so I chose ‘Page’ after Jimmy Page, and ‘Blackmore’ because of Richie Blackmore from Deep Purple.

I still used my French name when I wanted to remain anonymous.

Kathie:

I graduated high school, but there was no thought of me going to college. I did a few part-time jobs in Edmonton to start saving money.

Gerard:

I did jobs here and there in Los Angeles. Just enough to earn money to take care of myself. It was the mid-1960s, I loved music, and I was in the right place. It was a great time to be alive, and I took advantage of all the opportunities I had.

Kathie:

Eventually I built up enough confidence, and a little money, to move out of my parents’ place.

My girlfriend and I decided to cross over into the U.S. and try living in Seattle. We crashed with some people we met there.

I got work as a keypunch operator, and slowly I started coming out of my shell.

*

2. Entertainment

Gerard:

I was good-looking and outgoing; I wasn’t shy. I decided I wanted a career in the entertainment business. I had head shots made up and started looking for acting work.

In 1968, I was picked to appear in the TV show, The Dating Game, and I won it. That gave me the performing bug.

Kathie:

I gave birth to a son and a daughter in Seattle. I gave them up for adoption. I didn’t have any stability at that time, so I didn’t feel like I had any other option. It was sad but it was the best thing I could do for them.

Gerard:

I told a crew member on ‘The Dating Game’ that I wanted to act. He suggested I consider performing in adult films. This crew guy supplemented his work on the TV show with work on X-rated movie sets. He said it was a great way of getting experience, and making some money.

He gave me the number of a film director who was looking for male talent. It sounded interesting so I contacted this guy, and he put me in his next film.

Kathie:

After a couple of years, my girlfriend and I got bored with our jobs in Seattle, so we moved to Los Angeles. At first, we found it difficult to survive there. Los Angeles was more expensive, and there seemed to be less office work.

We lived in a communal house that was cheap, but there was no privacy and there were a lot of people coming and going all the time.

Gerard:

The director told me that these films were very tame. There was plenty of nudity, but no real sex was going on. It sounded fine to me.

Kathie:

A friend suggested that I try and find money as a model. I was shocked. I’d become a little more confident in my body, but I never thought anyone would find me attractive, let alone pay me to model.

I saw an ad in the Los Angeles Times for an agency called Pretty Girl International. It was on Sunset Blvd, and operated by a man called Dick James. A real sweet guy. He was a paternal figure who looked after the girls on his books.

He took a photo and my details, and said that he’d contact me when jobs came in.

I was so nervous about it that I didn’t return Dick’s calls. Instead, I went back to Seattle and did my old job for a while to earn some more money!

Gerard:

The first film I did was easy. It was directed by a guy with a Mexican or Italian name. He did a lot of movies.

I was given a script on the day of the shoot. Or rather, I was given a couple of pages of dialogue. The director told me I had to get it right first time, because film stock was expensive and he didn’t want to do retakes.

Kathie:

I wanted to live in Los Angeles so I left Seattle and came back, and contacted Pretty Girl again. Dick offered me jobs as a topless waitress. That was quite common at the time, believe it or not! I turned those job offers down. I knew that wasn’t for me.

Then I was offered a few photo shoots. Mainly topless, some nude. These were for men’s magazines. I never knew what the titles were. I never even saw the photos.

Gerard:

My first film experience was fine. It wasn’t Hollywood, but it was fine. A pretty girl; good money. That was good enough for me.

Kathie:

After a couple of months of magazine shoots, I had more money than I ever had before. And the work was fine. It was all anonymous, just me and a photographer, and easy to do. I convinced myself that my poses were sexy and attractive, but one day I was in a store, and I saw a picture of myself of the cover of a magazine. I was so disappointed. I just looked thoughtful and pensive!

Kathie:

One day, Dick called and said: “How do feel about making a film? An adult film?”

I couldn’t imagine that anyone I knew would ever see these X-rated movies, so I said yes.

Gerard:

I first met Kathie on a nudie film set. It was in 1968 or ’69. It was my second film; it was her first.

I’d heard my scene was with a girl who was half-Indian. My first question was, “Dot or feather?”

Kathie and Gerard, Fisherman’s Luck (1970)

Kathie:

I had no idea what to expect that first time on a movie set. Everything was completely new, and it was all intimidating. It was very different from a photo shoot.

Gerard:

It was a waterfront scene. I walked in and saw Kathie there. She was daydreaming, staring at the water. She looked up and we started talking. We got along fairly well. She was shy, and looked down at her feet a lot.

Kathie:

I didn’t know his intentions, I didn’t know if he was just sizing me up. Like I said, I lacked confidence…

Gerard:

She seemed a little afraid, so I offered to give her a ride home. She told me she lived with a bunch of people who she liked, but they made a lot of noise, did drugs, and she wanted some privacy. Not that she was a saint. We all smoked marijuana, but this was a little too much for her.

I offered for her to come and stay with me – I had a two-room apartment near the beach.

Kathie:

He wasn’t pushy, and he seemed intelligent and gentle. He was good-looking too. I agreed to move into his home on condition that there were no strings attached!

Gerard:

She told me that her real name was Lorna. I liked that more than ‘Kathie.’ We both loved the book Lorna Doone as kids.

Just try saying it: Lorna. It’s a sensual name that you can’t rush, right? It rolls over your tongue and lips. I asked if I could call her Lorna, and from then on, I did.

Kathie:

My independence was important to me, and Gerard respected that. We communicated naturally, and went to the movie theater or restaurants together, and became close. We had a sweet relationship as friends, lovers. We hung out a lot.

Gerard:

Kathie was an amazing person. She was kind-hearted, generous, and hard-working. Everybody who knew her fell in love with her. It was impossible not to. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever met.  She was a magnificent woman.

We didn’t become lovers straight away. Then we had sex a few times, but I didn’t push it. I didn’t want anything to risk our friendship. That was something special.

Kathie:

When I started making films, I did fewer magazine shoots. I did several ‘beaver’ films too. They were short films where you writhed and parted your legs. I didn’t like them: they were boring to do.

Gerard:

Kathie was more in demand than me. That was the nature of the business: girls are the important commodity, so she worked more than me.

Kathie:

There were soft and hardcore films. We tried to keep working in the softcore world. Sometimes a girl would do softcore… then she would slowly move into making hardcore films. I did it the other way round: one of the first that I did was a hardcore loop. I gave a guy head, I think. I tried not to do any more after that.

Kathie (with blonde wig) and Gerard, in Little Women get Ahead (1970)

Gerard:

As a rule, I didn’t do hardcore. Maybe once or twice only.

I recorded everything I did in my diary. The names of everyone that I worked with. The names of the films. The locations. What I did that day. Even what I ate.

I encouraged Kathie to do the same, so we both scribbled all our life’s details in our diaries at the end of each day. And sometimes there were a lot of people on set!

Kathie, Gerard, and others

Kathie:

The borderline between soft and hard was minimal. Sometimes on a softcore shoot, you had sex with each other, but the director just filmed it so that you didn’t see what was actually going on. It was more to do with the camera angles rather than the nature of the sexual activity. Plus my long hair came in handy… because it could fall in front of my face and censor a scene intentionally.

Gerard:

The softcore films were legal. The hardcore ones weren’t. At least, that what we were told. So that was another reason we didn’t want to get too involved in the explicit sex ones. We didn’t want to get arrested!

On occasion, the softcore film sets were busted anyway because the cops just wanted to shut it all down. Sometimes it got serious: I remember I was shot at once! We were down in San Pedro shooting on wharf, and the FBI came at us, shooting and shouting. Scary. I could’ve been killed. We claimed we were making a student film – which was the standard line if you were busted – and no charges were brought. But that wasn’t funny.

Kathie:

The group of people making the films was small, and they were like a family.

One of the filmmakers was Bill Rotsler. He was a writer, an artist, an intellectual… a businessman. He was a little older that the rest of us, and was like a father figure to us all. His house was a center of activity, socially and creatively. It was always a place to hang out and meet.

Bill took care of everyone – he offered advice if we needed it, and he made sure that he cast us in his films or his magazines. He paid us well, but most importantly he was a good man.

He had four girls that he liked most – and I was one of them: he called us ‘The Gruesome Foursome.’

Bill Rotsler, in Street Of A Thousand Pleasures (1972)

Gerard:

Everyone knew everyone in that scene. It was a small group.

My favorite from the people we worked with was Uschi Digart.

Uschi was very sexy. What a woman! She had a separate job in the art world that was mysterious, but she did nude photo shoots and sex movies for fun.

Uschi Digart

Kathie:

I made many good friends making films.

Uschi of course. Judy Angel was sweet. Terri Johnson and Sandy Dempsey were always around, and fun to be with.

Malta was a beautiful blonde sweet girl from New York, who I felt had escaped from her family for similar reasons to me.

Jane Tsentas was a close friend for a time. Around 1970/71, it felt that we turned up every week to make the same film.

Gerard:

The scene revolved around the women. And Bill Rostler, of course.

I knew some of the guys. John Dullaghan was a good actor. He was from New York, and had been on stage for years, but somehow ended up in Los Angeles. He was a few years older than us, so he had all the ‘older man’ roles. I keep seeing him on TV shows and in films now, so he was one of the few who made a serious career out of it.

And we all knew John Holmes. He wasn’t really part of our group, but he was a character. A simple guy, but pleasant.

Kathie:

It seemed that girls like Rene Bond came onto the scene a little later. I got to know Rene well. I can give you plenty of information about her.

The first generation of actors tended to be laid back, interested in the whole experience and in broadening their horizons, and just having a good time. Rene was sweet but she had her eye on the prize. She knew she could become a star and make money. She had a different level of self-awareness, as well as a better understating of the commercial opportunities that this business could create. That didn’t really occur to the rest of us.

Rene Bond

Gerard:

Occasionally I did some regular acting work. I did a play in Europe called ‘Minus One’ in Munich, Bonn, Strasbourg, Paris, and London. I got paid extra $10 per hour because I did translation work for the production.

Kathie:

I got on well with Rene Bond’s boyfriend Ric Lutz. We made a few films together and always had a ball. We made a documentary about sex films (RR: Porno Mondo.) It wasn’t a real documentary, but we pretended to be rude to the interviewer. That was fun…

Gerard:

Getting mainstream acting parts was rare. And it never happened with Kathie. Once you made sex films no one would touch you.

Kathie:

Actually, I did get a few roles in bigger films. I was in The Female Bunch with Lon Chaney Jr. The problem was that whenever I was hired for a straight movie, it was only to do a nude scene in these productions.

Kathie and Heidi Frolick

Gerard:

We lived on Ridpath Drive in Laurel Canyon. A place with a huge swimming pool. We had big parties there, and everyone from different walks of life came over. No one ever wore clothes – except my mother. My mother would come with her husband, Paul – and she was the only one who remained clothed.

Kathie:

The films, the photo shoots, the lifestyle… it was a liberating experience, especially after my strict upbringing. But that was the era too. The sexual revolution gave us permission to experiment… and we did.

‘Clothed Spectators Few at Nude Pageant,’ Dayton Daily News, August 14th, 1972:

Petite Kathie Hilton triumphed in the four contest categories – personality, poise, facial beauty and, in the words of the pageant organizer, “How well stacked they were” – to capture this year’s crown.

The 5-foot-4 ½ inch Los Angeles brunette was awarded a $1,000 first prize and given something for more inhibited events: a tailor-made bikini to fit her 36-26-35 figure.

Kathie:

(Laughs) I forgot about that! I was a member of a nudist group at the Treehouse Fun Ranch.

I was ‘Miss Cosmos 1972’! That beauty pageant was just a spur-of-the-moment event, but I made a few personal appearances after it. I had started to dance in clubs, and I was in demand because of the newspaper coverage of the contest.

Gerard:

It was a golden period. I suppose we thought it would always be like that… freedom, good health, and living a carefree life.

Kathie:

I kept making movies, but the business had changed in the short few years since I started. Now you actually had to have sex. Some friends, like Rene Bond and Marie Arnold, had fewer problems with that. Others, like Uschi and me, preferred to not do it. We wanted to have normal, healthy relationships with men, and we were worried about how that would affect us.

So I did other things like bondage photo shoots. The bondage photographs looked terrifying but in actual fact they were the easiest to shoot. I had so much fun doing them, and often couldn’t stop laughing.

Gerard:

I was in Mona: The Virgin Nymph (1970) which I read was one of the first hardcore films to be distributed and released in theaters. That was a shock to me. Learning that these films were suddenly being shown all around the country in neighborhood cinemas? You know? Up until then, everything had been anonymous and secret. Now it was all blown open.

Kathie:

I become more aware of being recognized. The films were being advertised in newspapers, and our faces were on the posters. I didn’t want this to come back and bite me later in life.

Sometimes I wore a blonde wig to try and disguise myself.

It had gone from being a counter-cultural experience to being a business, and it felt different.

Blonde Kathie and Gerard

*

3. The Shooting

Kathie:

I enjoyed living with Gerard, but eventually I wanted something more private. A place of my own.

Gerard:

I had a lot of friends who were always stopping by: French people, hippies, actors, cooks. Kathie didn’t frown upon them, but she wanted her independence and some quiet. She found a place and moved out. We stayed best friends. I would talk with her all the time.

Kathie:

I didn’t want to lose Gerard as a friend, but I wanted to see other people.

Gerard:

I didn’t have many serious relationships after Kathie moved out. Just one-night stands. We were open about it with each other. The real infidelity lies in hiding the infidelity – so we had an open relationship.

Kathie would date guys, and when she found someone she really liked, she’d invite me to meet them.

Kathie:

I met this guy named Grover Moran. He was a manager for a San Francisco bank. He was 20 years older than me, and pretty intense, but he was kind and thoughtful. I invited him to stay with me for a few days. He took me out to restaurants and shops. He even bought me a Volkswagen.

Gerard:

Kathie called me to tell me that she wanted to meet her new boyfriend. I’d moved into a little two-bedroom house in Santa Monica, so they came over to my place Then a few days later, she invited me to lunch with them again.

I normally liked her guys, but there was something wrong with Grover. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I tried to not let it affect my friendship with her.

Kathie:

The relationship with Grover became serious quite quickly. More quickly than I expected. Or wanted. But I put that down to his age.

Gerard:

In 1974, early one morning I got a call from a hospital. A nurse asked if I knew a Kathie Hilton. They told me she’d been shot in the head and was fighting for her life in hospital.

Kathie:

I was asleep in bed in my apartment. Grover was next to me. It was the middle of the night, and I was awoken by a bang. It was like something had hit me across the forehead. Really hard.

I went to the bathroom, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw my face was covered in blood all the way from my hairline down to my chin.

I felt weak, faint, and confused, so I went back to the bedroom, and tried to wake Grover. I couldn’t rouse him so I called 911.

Gerard:

Apparently, this guy had put to the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. Then he shot himself.

That 911 call saved her life. The medics arrived and found Kathie collapsed.

Kathie:

We were taken to hospital, and they performed surgery on us both.

The bullet was still in my head. Surgeons removed most of it, but some of it was lodged in my brain. The doctors were afraid of paralyzing me, so they removed what they could and left some parts of it in my head.

Gerard:

I rushed into the hospital to see her. It was terrible. She didn’t look good at all. She was covered in head bandages. She’d come out of surgery and I never thought she would survive. But she was smiling.

Kathie:

I needed several major surgeries on my face and head which left scars – especially on my forehead.

Gerard:

Grover didn’t survive. The newspaper articles said he was being treated for wounds but he died of his injuries.

It turned out that this freak had a wife and three kids, but he was broke. He was not a bank manager, but a bank teller. He’d lied all the way through their relationship.

He wanted them to be together forever. So he shot them both.

Kathie:

I read later that the police told the media that it had been a suicide pact between and Grover and myself. After that, most of the people I’d known thought I was dead.

Gerard:

It was a horrible time. There were rumors that Kathie had shot herself, or that she’d died. Everyone was saying something different.

Kathie:

The bullet fragments that were left in my head caused me to have violent seizures that continue to this day. I have no warning of when these attacks will occur, and they are debilitating. I take a cocktail of drugs like Lamotrigine to help me deal, but as my brain has changed shape over the years, the seizures have got worse and are difficult to control.

Gerard:

Kathie’s seizures are scary. Her head shakes uncontrollably for 2 to 5 minutes before things return to normal. It was manageable with drugs initially. But she got worse.

Needless to say, Kathie never complains. That isn’t her nature.

Kathie:

Eventually I was released from hospital, but I couldn’t live by myself because of the seizures. So I went to live with Gerard.

Gerard:

I became Kathie’s carer. She came to live with me in my duplex in Santa Monica. We lived there for six months before moving to our own place.

Kathie:

We got back together as a couple. We had an open relationship. I didn’t want Gerard to feel that he had to be exclusive to me – especially after I was injured and disfigured.

Gerard:

We took it slowly because Kathie was still finding her way back to some kind of normality. Besides I was always a little scared of sex after that in case it would cause a seizure!

Kathie:

It was difficult to adjust to the fact that my life wouldn’t be the same again. But I was lucky to have Gerard.

Gerard:

She slowly got a little better, and started doing small activities like vacuuming and cleaning

I had a regular job as a cook, so she didn’t need to work. I told her not to worry, to concentrate on herself.

We tried to sue Grover Moran’s family but that didn’t go far.

*

4. Life After

Kathie:

I wanted to go back to work to make money. I didn’t feel useful. I couldn’t model or make films, so that world drifted away from me, and I lost contact with all my old friends.

I went to school to learn secretarial and administrative skills – typing, filing, shorthand.

Gerard:

Kathie worked for many companies: she was the administrative assistant for the head of the stock market in the city. Wherever she worked, they loved her. She was good at her job, and she was sweet, pretty and polite.

The problem was that she was let go all the time because of her seizures. The employers understood the problem, but they just couldn’t deal with the lack of reliability.

Kathie:

I tried many jobs, including being a massage therapist in Santa Monica, but sadly none lasted long because of my health.

Gerard:

I was lucky to have regular work. I had left the film business a couple of years before Kathie, and I had gone to work at Le Quai restaurant in Los Angeles. Then I met a French couple, Andre and his wife, who owned Chez Andre restaurant. I bought the restaurant and changed the name to Wild Oscar’s.

Kathie:

We formed our own business. We supplied restaurants and parties with food. We had a store as well. The businesses were called Lobo Products, because I called Gerard my wolf, and Grizzly Products because he loved bears, and his mom called him ‘Grizzly.’

Gerard:

It was good to finally work together after all the years as a couple. Her health was still variable, but at least she wasn’t working for people who would fire her. Kathie made incredible gift baskets which sold well because everyone loved them.

Occasionally I had to travel and was away from the city. When this happened, our friends would organize checks on her several times each day to make sure she was ok.

Kathie:

One day, when we were living in Laurel Canyon, we returned from shopping to find a letter on our front porch. It was from the two children that I had put up for adoption over twenty years earlier. The note said that they were visiting L.A., and that they’d return later that day.

A few hours later, they came and met us. We went to a restaurant together. One was 19 and other one was 21.

Gerard:

The kids visited a few times. They got to know my mom who was living with us.

On one occasion, Kathie was taking her daughter to the airport, and she didn’t return home. I called the hospital, and learned she’d had a seizure while she was on the freeway, and had had a bad crash.

She recovered. But she was forbidden from driving after that.

Kathie:

Eventually I had the urge to move back to Canada. My family were still there, and I had friends there.

So we packed up and left L.A. Before we left, we finally got married.

Gerard:

The main reason for getting hitched was that we wanted to ensure that we’d be able to share health benefits – and that was becoming more important with Kathie’s health. Kathie was not a U.S. citizen.

We didn’t have a big wedding. Her health was more important to me.

We didn’t really care if we got married or not. We were best friends and that was all that mattered. We had often told people we were married anyway.

Kathie:

After the wedding, we went to live in Port Angeles in Washington State while we prepared the immigration documents. Port Angeles overlooks Vancouver and Victoria in Canada, it’s just across the water, so it was convenient for us.

Gerard:

We visited Edmonton, Victoria, and other cities as we prepared to move there. But it was difficult for me to move to Canada from an immigration perspective.

Kathie:

We even bought a house in Canada, but it was expensive, and in the end, we gave up on the idea of moving back, so we decided to live in Port Angeles.

Gerard:

We moved to Port Angeles in 2008. I didn’t enjoy it. It was a far cry from Los Angeles.

Kathie went to get a job, and when she was there, she fell to the ground with a seizure. I told the official that it wasn’t a problem. But they didn’t want to risk hiring her.

Kathie:

Not long after we moved, I was diagnosed with cancer.

Gerard:

After years of ill-health, it was terrible news. We got caregivers for her and made sure she had everything she needed.

Soon after, she went into to a rehab center. I visited every day. She was there for five years.

*

Kathie died in June 2015 at Crestwood Rehabilitation Center. She was 66.

She donated her body to scientific research through The Willed Body Program University of Washington in Seattle.

*

Gerard:

I was madly in love with Kathie. I still am. I miss her every day. I was her best friend, and it’s hard to deal with the loss of your best friend. We knew each other so well.

She was an amazing person, always willing to help everyone, always willing to work, always funny. We had hundreds of secrets, thousands of little ways. She was an angel. She stood up to me, but allowed me to be myself too.

I called her Lorna until the end. Except when I called her Schnooky.

Now I’m all alone in a big house. I don’t fit in here. I miss L.A. It would mean the world for me to move back there.

I’m a little lost sometimes.

*

In 2018, Gerard collapsed at home and was taken to hospital. After a few months, he was moved to a nursing home in Port Angeles.

Thanks to close friends, he was able to relocate to Los Angeles for the last six months of his life, where he lived in a nursing home.

Gerard died in July 2019.

Apart from a few personal effects which were saved by friends, the diaries he spoke about keeping throughout his life, together with Kathie’s diaries, were all lost after his passing.

*

Gerard:

I won’t tell you everything, because I always like to hold something back for myself. But everything that I tell you is completely true. You have my word.

It’s been a wonderful life.

*

Kathie (left) and Gerard (right)

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The post Bill Rotsler’s Gruesome Foursome – Part 1: The Ballad of Kathie and Gerard appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Charles William Rotsler (1926–1997) was an award-winning artist and science fiction author.

Bill was also involved in the burgeoning adult film industry starting in the late 1950s, first as a stills photographer on the set of adult films, and later when he wrote, directed, or acted in over 20 adult films during his career with Boxoffice International Pictures,

In 1966, he created Adam Film Quarterly, later called Adam Film World, one of the earliest magazines to provide commentary on pornographic films. He wrote hundreds of articles using a plethora of pseudonyms including ‘Shannon Carse’, ‘Cord Heller’, ‘Clay McCord’, and ‘Merrill Dakota’ – sometimes even interviewing himself. He also wrote the seminal book, Contemporary Erotic Cinema in 1973.

But this series of articles is not about Bill Rotsler. It’s about a group of friends of his. Four friends. Four women, to be more specific, who at various times lived with him, and featured in his films, photographs, and magazines. Their lives intersected in his house, as they played their parts in helping establish the adult film industry in Los Angeles.

He called this group, ‘The Gruesome Foursome.’

The Rialto Report tracked down each of the four to hear about their lives. This is the second part: the story of Malta. Malta stood out in the late 1960s: a smart, beautiful presence in magazine after magazine. And she appeared in films too, working with Ed Wood, Chris Warfield, and many others. And then in 1972, she left Los Angeles overnight and never returned to modeling or films again. This is her story.

You can read Part 1, the story of Kathie Hilton  and Gerard Broulard here.

Malta

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1. Beginnings

What was your reaction when I first got in touch with you?

Shocked! I had no idea that our little films had achieved minor cult status. I never would have thought that anyone would be interested in the bits of cinematic fluff that we had so much fun making in the late ’60’s and the ’70s.  They were called ‘sexploitation’ movies back then, or sometimes ‘soft core.’

I haven’t thought of those days in years. What a trip! (Can you tell I was a ’60’s hippie?!)

Where do you hail from?

I’m from Northport, Long Island, NY.

I moved out to California to go to college – and escape my family.

What was your relationship like with your parents?

It was inconsistent. My father was typically right wing for his generation, so I didn’t speak to them sometimes for a couple of years at a time. My mother was a Smith College graduate.

What did you do when you arrived in California?

I drove out from New York in my ’66 Mustang. I went to Pomona College, which is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. I was a theater major – I did some directing, especially theater in the round, as well as scene design. In fact, I did stage plays through to the 1970s. I still have the press notices, photos, resumes.

Did you graduate?

I dropped out after freshman year, though I returned to UCLA in 1968-69.

What were the late 1960s like in Southern California?

It was a wonderful period. We were experimenting and it was fun. The culture, the art – it was all stimulating.

I went to ‘love-ins’ – which were gatherings where people meditated, tripped on acid, or had sex. In fact, I met my first husband at a ‘love-in’. It was the first ‘be-in’. He was a college professor from Pomona who taught philosophy. I was 18 or 19 at the time – and innocent, while he was twelve years older with a family. But we were both hippies and we got along.

My father forced us to get married because I was under 21. In fact, my husband wasn’t legally divorced at the time, but records weren’t computerized in those days, so they couldn’t check!

We pretended we weren’t married anyway because it wasn’t fashionable to admit that in those days.

What did you do for work when you weren’t at college?

I worked as a sales girl in the JW Robinson department store earning minimum wage which was $1.65 an hour. That was about $50 per week. It was difficult being on your feet all day. We weren’t allowed to sit down, or even lean against a wall.

My husband and I were living in an apartment in Venice for $85 per month. I began looking for work – though it wasn’t because we were poor, as my husband made a decent living. I guess I was looking for something to do.

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2. Modeling

How did the modeling work come about?

I met Hal Guthu through a girlfriend who lived next door. She only worked with him for a short time: she wasn’t notable as a model – except for her large chest! – but she connected me with Hal.

Hal was my first agent, a total sweetheart of a man and quite the opposite of what you might think an agent would be like. He was like an uncle, and took care of his girls.

What kind of modeling did you do?

It was topless or nude, though there was no pubic hair display. It went one step further than Playboy at the time. Sometimes I would pose with guys for men’s magazines – the main ones were Knight and Adam.

What did your husband think of the modeling?

He was against it. But I earned $50 a day so it was much more than I earned as a sales girl.

How long were you married?

We were married for 3½ years and then we drifted apart. We settled on an amicable divorce, with our new partners being our witnesses.

By this stage, you were living in Los Angeles?

Yes, I moved in with Bill Rotsler. He had a place in the Hollywood Hills on Hollyridge Drive.

I met Bill through modelling jobs that Hal Guthu got for me. Bill was a photographer, writer, artist, and much more. He’d started out as a cameraman shooting loops and stags.

Paul Turner was Bill’s photography assistant, and one of his best friends. Paul and I got married.

What was Paul’s background?

Paul had been an aerospace engineer for Rockwell. He got divorced, dropped out, and moved to Hollywood. There he grew his hair, wore purple bell bottoms, and moved in with Bill. He and Bill were best friends for a while. Then he became Bill’s assistant, and a good photographer too!

Paul and I hit it off immediately. It was easy in those days, it was like shaking hands: “You’re cute, let’s go to bed!”

Bill and Paul invited me to live with them – frankly I think they needed a cook and a housekeeper, which was ok with me. I was good at that stuff. I became their live-in model, which was perfect for two photographers.

Bill Rotsler and Paul Turner, 1966 (Photo by Len Moffatt)

Did you continue to do a lot of modeling with them?

Yes, a lot. I did so much work with them that I soon became over-exposed as a model! But my connection with Bill meant that I could stretch my career longer. I changed my model name several times so that I could keep working.

What name did you use at that time?

Malta. After all these years, I can’t remember why I chose that name.

I also used the name ‘Olivia’ a few times because my middle name is ‘Oliver.’

“I have absolutely no recollection of this, nor what the snake was…!”

You seemed to find a lot of work as a model.

Yes. After a while I went to work with Pretty Girl International which was run by Dick James.

My all-time favorite photos were a series that Bill, Paul and I did in Big Sur on one of our road trips up the coast to San Francisco – probably going to a science fiction convention. There was a whole series of them that Bill took from a cliff. I had the whole series, which was very artsy.

Malta, at Big Sur

You look statuesque in the pictures on the beach.

Statuesque? I was only 5’2” then, and now I’m 5’1” – so I’m not nearly as statuesque as I might appear!

What was it like living with Bill and Paul?

Bill’s extended circle of friends became my off-screen ‘family’. He also had a daughter, a young teenager. He was an accomplished science fiction writer, and he and Paul were active in that community. We probably hung out more with that group more with than the magazine/model/film world. We went to all the Sci-Fi conventions together.

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3. Films

Who was in the group of friends from the film world?

My closest and dearest friends were Uschi and Marie (Arnold/Aronoff). Uschi was around the house a lot. She was an intelligent, educated woman, who spoke many languages. She was half-Swiss, half Swedish, and had worked as a teacher and translator. She had an English husband who was a jazz drummer. She’d come over to the U.S. on a visa based on her education, but it was difficult for them to stay so they hatched plots with Bill. One of the schemes they considered was getting Bill to marry Uschi so that she could stay.

Bill adored Uschi. He always said that Uschi was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.

Uschi was a superstar of the films at the time, a really big star. Uschi once told me that she was recognized by a customs official in Hong Kong, despite the fact that the name on her passport is completely different.

Malta and Uschi

Another friend was Kathie Hilton. Kathy was tall, slim, and looked like Cher. I remember going to a party at their house near ours, on Ridpath in Laurel Canyon. It was winter, rather chilly, and they had a huge inflatable dome over the heated pool, with red lights. There were about 50 naked people of every description – and steam everywhere! It was like a scene out of Dante… and it wasn’t even a movie set!

Years later, there was a scandal when Kathie was shot in the head by a boyfriend. She recovered but it affected her for years. I’m sorry I lost touch with her after I left L.A.

Bill called us ‘The Gruesome Foursome’.

Who else do you remember from that scene?

Earl Marshall was a set designer, very talented.

Chris Warfield, aka Billy Thornberg, was producer, director, and screenwriter for a number of films. He was a good friend. He produced films like Pinocchio. He was a sweet guy, a lovely person.

I remember Earl talking to Chris one day as he was preoccupied about the scenery for a movie we were making. Chris reassured him, saying, “Relax, if the audience is looking at the scenery, we’re all in trouble.”

I also remember working with John Holmes when he was just starting out. I did a loop with him. He’d just arrived from the mid-west, and wore tight shorts. He didn’t have a clue. He was like a cowboy, innocent, and a complete rookie.

I don’t recall much about Rene Bond.

Vincene Wallace was a sweet person. She dated Bill. He had a thing for redheads, and she was a natural redhead.

Vincene Wallace

At what stage did you switch to making films?

In 1970. Bill had started moving on to bigger budget films which were shot over several days. These films were all softcore.

What movies stood out for you?

The Godson (1971). The Exotic Dreams of Casanova (1971). Pinocchio (1971). The Godson was the best film I did. I liked to act, even if I took my clothes off.

What do you remember about ‘The Godson’?

I remember Marie’s excellent acting job. I think it was the first time any of us realized what a good actress she was.

The border guard was Bill’s dear friend Mitch Evans (RR: aka James Brand.) Mitch was Rita Hayworth’s nephew. He’d been around Hollywood for all his life and had many great stories to tell. He went by different names, but his legal name was Evan Hayworth.

Mitch Evans

Mitch was an excellent actor and showed up in a lot of Bill’s films – usually with his clothes on.  I never understood why he didn’t make it big. He was a Jack of all trades too – he did lights, camera… he even took his clothes off for modeling if needed.

Mitch was on the Sci-Fi scene as well and he came to live with us when he was between homes.

Keith Erickson played Don Rocco, the godfather. He was a really fine performer, and another old friend of Bill’s. He was a SAG actor, and so never appeared using his real name.

Uschi had no lines in the film – because she was a member of SAG and it was a non-union movie, that was the way around the rules.

Did the Bill’s dual worlds of science fiction and adult film cross over much?

Harlan Ellison was a famous science fiction writer – and another of Bill’s old friends. Bill used Harlan’s house for most of the interior shots for ‘The Godson’. That’s Harlan behind a faceful of breasts in the scene that cuts back and forth among three or four couples. I think that was his payment for using the house!

Harlan Ellison, and (right) in ‘The Godson’

Bill is also one of those couples: he’s the one with the gorgeous black girl, Debbie McGuire, with his face buried in another pair. I recognized the blue ruffled shirt he used to wear.

Bill Rotsler, hiding in ‘The Godson’ (1971)

What was your impression of ‘The Godson’, and the other films I sent you recently, when you re-watched them?

I hadn’t seen any of these movies since the openings!

Other than the ridiculous sex scenes, I was impressed by the quality of the camera work, editing, and writing.  Bill was responsible for the editing and writing, and I recall that ‘The Godson’ was his attempt at a more ‘serious’ film, closer to the mainstream.  He had just started to get serious about writing science fiction at the time.

Malta and Jason Yukon in ‘The Godson’ (1971)

What did you think of yourself in ‘The Godson’?

I didn’t even realize I was in it! Suddenly there I was! I really don’t remember doing that scene – but what else is new?  And God – was I ever really that thin?!

I wasn’t given a screen credit, and that was probably for the same reason that Uschi couldn’t speak in the films – I was also a member of SAG by then. It was one of the last sexploitation films that I did, before I started doing only ‘straight’ films and stage work.

By the way, I noticed the car in the border scene with Mitch – it was my ’66 Mustang, that I’d driven out to California from New York!

Which films did you enjoy most?

I enjoyed the ones that were shot entirely on a soundstage. No grungy, hot or cold outdoor locations. And beautiful costumes like in ‘Casanova.’  Also, our whole merry crew was involved in these films, either in front or behind the camera – Bill, Paul, Earl Marshall, Uschi, Marie, Kathy, which was always fun.

What do you remember about ‘Casanova’?

I remembered it as a costume piece, sort of like “Pinocchio,” and was totally surprised to realize that the whole thing seems to revolve around a party. I have no recollection of making that movie at all, I’m afraid.  I was able to identify the ubiquitous Mitch Evans (or whatever name he was using then) as the gay cowboy in the pink mask.

How about ‘Pinocchio’?

That was truly a joyous romp for everyone involved – I think you can see it in the performances.  What surprised me was the almost total lack of sex scenes, with two exceptions (one of them with a wooden statue!). All of Pinocchio’s encounters are comic and don’t really show anything. I don’t see how an adult movie like that ever made any money – all production value, no sex!

What do you remember about the film’s star, Alex Roman?

Seeing Alex Roman again was really sad:  shortly after we wrapped, he died in a freak accident while on a boat off Catalina. He dove down to check on a snagged anchor and never surfaced – I don’t remember what the cause was, but it was a tragedy. He wasn’t that different from his character – truly innocent and nice, as well as being a pretty good actor, and, of course, drop-dead gorgeous. Everyone was saying that he had a future in Hollywood.

Everyone who worked on ‘Pinocchio’ was at the funeral. And his parents, who were Greek, invited everyone to their small house for a Greek feast afterwards. Such a tragedy – that was the only film he ever made, to my knowledge.

Alex Roman

I’m intrigued by the fact that many of the films were so costume-heavy!

Those negligees we’re wearing in ‘Pinocchio’ were so tacky. I could have designed something so much better for all three of us. My ‘costume’ was my own red bra and bikini with eyelet edging sewn on it. I caught a half-second glimpse of the purple velvet gown I made for the orgy scene, but couldn’t see that much of the green velvet I made for Vincene Wallace. I made one for Debbie, too, but don’t remember what color it was. That was a total waste of the costume budget!

And you wore a wig too…

That God-awful short wig was a major bone of contention between Corey Allen, the director, and me. He insisted that I wear it (it wasn’t even a good one), even though I had waist-length hair the same color – and it made my nose look as big as Pinocchio’s! He also put Debbie Osborne in that hideous black wig, even though she had lovely red hair. Vincene was the only one who escaped a wig, maybe because she had gorgeous red hair, although I think that’s a hairpiece on top.

Some of the scenes were quite athletic…

The scene where the three of us are left in the wake of Pinocchio’s initial erotic rampage was one of the most physically challenging scenes I ever did. In order to have me supposedly hanging from the chandelier (how the hell could anyone have sex in that position?!), I had to hang from an off-camera trapeze-type bar. Between takes, a grip was assigned to hold my head up, or I would have passed out. As I recall, it was more than a few takes.

In the big orgy scene, Pinocchio’s famous organ was actually a 4×4, as it had to support several people, and filming was something of a technical challenge to maneuver around it. Both party scenes took days to film.

Do you remember about any of the other people involved in ‘Pinocchio’?

It was a welcome change to work with professionals such as Karen Smith, and the actor who played Jojo, who stole the movie without ever taking his clothes off.

Dyanne Thorne, the Fairy Godmother, was an old friend of Bill Rotsler’s, and was a famous figure model. I don’t remember anything about Monica Gayle, although she comes across as a good actress.

Chris Warfield is one of the party guests – he’s wearing a military uniform, and there were several other cameos by behind-the-scenes people. Earl Marshall’s set was the best thing he ever did – it took up half a large soundstage – and I remember Paul working until 2am with him many nights to get it finished.

And you worked with Ed Wood too?

I worked with Ed Wood on one movie that I remember. I can’t remember the name of it. Ed was sweet, but strange.

The film was short. It was about witchcraft which was very popular back then. In the last scene, he has a coven of witches in a circle. Just before we started the sequence, Ed came out from behind the camera, put on a dress, and he got in the circle with us! He had someone else shoot the scene. He was a God-awful woman.

We had no idea who he was at the time. We just thought he was a strange man. It was only later when he became a cult figure that I realized that was him.

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4. After Films

When did you leave the modeling and film scene?

I left Los Angeles in 1972. Paul and split up amicably, and we were both seeing other people. In fact, all four of us tried living together, but I didn’t get along with Paul’s new girlfriend so that didn’t last.

I was a trained dancer, and I did some nude dancing in clubs – not stripping or go-go dancing, I dislike those terms – but dancing without clothes.

Then I was cast to appear in a political satire in Honolulu called ‘The Dirtiest Show in Town.’ It was a low budget version of ‘Oh Calcutta’. So in 1972, I went to live in Hawaii with my boyfriend – I’d loved the place since a childhood vacation there.

The venue for the play was The Forbidden City, which was owned by Jack Cione. Jack was known as the ‘Sin King of Honolulu’, which made him sound like a gangster. The truth couldn’t have been more different as Jack was a sweet and innocent guy, and his wife came in to take care of all the girls.

When the play finished its run, Jack offered dancing jobs to the girls. He owned a nightclub called The Dunes. I worked the lunchtime shift there. It came to end eventually because you couldn’t dance there forever: clients wanted new girls eventually.

So I danced in Anchorage, Japan, and Hawaii, with mixed results. Anchorage was a God-awful experience as a dancer. Then I was in Japan on a two-week tour as an exotic dancer. When I was in Japan, I realized that the locals had difficulty pronouncing the name ‘Malta’ – so I chose ‘Misty’ to make it easier. But they ended up pronouncing it ‘Mizzi’. You can’t win!

When I returned to Hawaii, I danced at clubs on Maui because the money was good. I enjoyed it because I liked dancing and I liked the costumes. I was a seamstress and I always traveled with my sewing machine. I was still making money for taking my clothes off though.

Did you return to Los Angeles much after that?

Actually, I moved back to Los Angeles, and got back together with Paul. We got married, and I became a successful jewelry appraiser in Los Angeles – one of the highest rated ones in the city. Eventually Paul and I got divorced again. He passed away in 2019.

Malta, with ex-husband Paul Turner (Photo by Mike Glyer)

How does it feel looking back on your time modeling and making films?

It is such an ego trip – probably putting my spiritual development back several steps! Oh well… I can deal with that in the next lifetime.

All of it was a lot of fun, and I’ve never done anything of which I was ashamed. You’re right about the ‘innocence’ of that time. I’ve often thought the same thing, when seeing what has become the norm in the media since.

And to think that all this took place in the space of 2-3 years. Looking back, it seems like 10 at least.

I still have dreams about Bill Rotsler from time to time. He was the most unforgettable character.

It was an interesting and happy time in my life. I was never bored. I’ve been happily single for many years now, and I have no regrets.

Malta, with ex-husband Paul Turner (Photo by Mike Glyer)

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The post Bill Rotsler’s Gruesome Foursome – Part 2: Malta’s Story appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In 1979, the fourth year of High Society, the magazine pushed towards the mainstream, profiling clothed stars like Linda Ronstadt and Roger Daltrey – and nude celebrities including Lindsay Wagner and Farrah Fawcett.

But in 1980, the publication was re-balancing it’s focus. While it still profiled mainstream names like Margot Kidder and Marilu Henner, it brought back more adult industry talent – stars like Serena, Desiree Cousteau, Rhonda Jo Petty, and Kelly Nichols.

You can read the previous four years of High Society here: 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979.

Fully digitized copies of each magazine from 1980 can be found below. You can find The Rialto Report’s growing collection of digitized resources by choosing Library in our site menu. 

Click on the covers below to access the full magazines. Due to the fact that the magazines are scanned in high definition, allow time for each page to load. If you are viewing on a phone, view in landscape orientation.

Magazines are fully searchable; use the icon displayed in each magazine to search by keyword.

Publications are being shared here purely for the purpose of research. They should not to be used or reproduced for any commercial gain.

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High Society: The Complete 1980 Issues

January 1980 (Vol 4, No. 8)

Contents:

–Plasmatics feature –Margot Kidder interview and pictorial -Columns by Gloria Leonard, Lesllie Bovee, and others –Serena interview and pictorial -Leading ladies of porn calendar -Older women and younger men -Reader fantasy of the month -Assorted nude model pictorials

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February 1980 (Vol 4, No. 9)

Contents:

-High Society ‘jizz poll’ winners –Bianca interview and pictorial -Columns by Annette Haven, Marlene Willoughby and others –Laura Antonelli profile and pictorial –Desiree Cousteau profile and pictorial -Lights, Camera, Action: a couple making porn films -Reader fantasy of the month -Assorted nude model pictorials

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March 1980 (Vol 4, No. 10)

Contents:

–Laurien Dominique interview and pictorial –Kelly Nichols gift guide and pictorial -Columns by Arcadia Lake, Marco Vassi, and others -Atlantic City’s Hardcore Hardsell –Gloria Leonard cartoon -Reader fantasy of the month -Assorted nude model pictorials

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April 1980 (Vol 4, No. 11)

Contents:

– Xaviera Hollander profile –Kelly Nichols gift guide and pictorial -Columns by Jill Monro, Tanqueray, and others –Samantha Fox interview and pictorial –Gloria Leonard cartoon –Marilu Henner profile -Reader fantasy of the month -Assorted nude model pictorials

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May 1980 (Vol 4, No. 12)

Contents:

–Arcadia Lake/Eric Edwards pictorial -Columns by Toni Rose and others –Candida Royalle interview and pictorial –Gloria Leonard pictorial and cartoon -Erotic adventures in San Quentin -Assorted nude model pictorials

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June 1980 (Vol 5, No. 1)

Contents:

–Chris Rush interview -Columns by Veri Knotty and others -Gloria Leonard visits the Chicken Ranch –Kelly Nichols interview and pictorial –Gloria Leonard cartoon -Hollywood nudes including Dyan Cannon, Angie Dickinson, and Pam Grier -Assorted nude model pictorials

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July 1980 (Vol 5, No. 2)

Contents:

–Muhammed Ali interview -Shooting Chuck Vincent‘s Lady is a Tramp -Columns by Samantha Fox, Bobby Astyr, and others -Gloria Leonard cartoon –Adrienne Barbeau profile and pictorial -Sex life of a suburban housewife –Rhonda Jo Petty interview and pictorial -Assorted nude model pictorials

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August 1980 (Vol 5, No. 3)

Contents:

–Millie Jackson interview -Gloria Leonard covers Miami nightlife -Columns by Michelle Peters and others –Seka interview & pictorial –Jayne Mansfield profile and pictorial -Tara Alexandar interview and pictorial -Assorted nude model pictorials

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September 1980 (Vol 5, No. 4)

Contents:

-Carrying on at Cannes -Columns by Candida Royalle, Sandie Suarez, and others -Profile of software on television –Diane Keaton profile and pictorial –Hillary Summers interview and pictorial -Gloria Leonard cartoon -Assorted nude model pictorials

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October 1980 (Vol 5, No. 5)

Contents:

–Paula Klaw: The First Lady of Bondage -Columns by Tami Roche and others –Phaedra Grant interview and pictorial -Kink quiz –Valerie Perrine profile and pictorial -Reviews: Insatiable, Angie, Pink Champagne -Reader fantasy of the month -Assorted nude model pictorials

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November 1980 (Vol 5, No. 6)

Contents:

-The real story behind the Dog Day Afternoon robbery -Columns by Lorie Armbrust and others –Merle Michaels interview and pictorial –Angie Dickinson profile and pictorial –Nancy Allen pictorial -Miss Nude Playhouse -Reviews: The Lady is a Tramp, Pink Ladies, Taboo, Vista Valley PTA -Reader fantasy of the month -Assorted nude model pictorials

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December 1980 (Vol 5, No. 7)

Contents:

-Wild and crazy guys from the Crazy Horse Saloon -Gloria Leonard and John Holmes pictorial -Columns by Iris De La Cruz and others -Gloria Leonard cartoon –Ali MacGraw profile and pictorial -Reviews: Starship Eros, Games Women Play -Reader fantasy of the month –Lisa de Leeuw interview and pictorial -Assorted nude model pictorials

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The post High Society in 1980 – Balancing Mainstream and XXX appeared first on The Rialto Report.

We’re pleased to announce that Ashley West and April Hall of The Rialto Report are Consultant Producers of a new television series – Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer – premiering on Netflix on Wednesday 29^th December at 12am PST.

The series will be available to watch here.

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Oscar-nominated and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger returns to direct season two of Crime Scene, the acclaimed Netflix documentary series that unpacks the ways in which certain locations aid and abet criminal activity.

Season two begins as firemen respond to a call at a seedy hotel in the middle of Times Square in December 1979. What they discover among the smoke and ash shocks even the most seasoned NYC homicide detectives, triggering a hunt for a vicious serial killer who preyed upon sex workers operating within Times Square’s then-booming, anything-goes sex industry.

The three-part series takes viewers deep into the investigation, detailing the social and systemic forces at play in a near-lawless area that allowed multiple horrific crimes to go unnoticed for too long. A wide range of subjects are profiled to bring the era to life, from Times Square denizens to beat cops to the daughter of New York’s self-proclaimed porno king. With exclusive access to Jennifer Weiss, the daughter of one of the victims, the series also underscores her efforts to identify others who have remained Jane Does, lost to an infamous, long-gone time and place.

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The post ‘Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer’ – New TV Series appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Somehow June Mack was a footnote in her own life.

She was a footnote in film history after she appeared in a Russ Meyer film, Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens. A footnote for her family who forgot she existed. A footnote in L.A., the jaded city where she’d re-invented herself. And a footnote in a shooting that left her dead.

It seems strange. June Mack was big, black, and beautiful. So why did she end up just a footnote?

She died in 1984. Many accounts of her murder still linger on message boards in dusty corners of cyberspace. Each tries to figure out how and why she died. Jimmy McDonough in his biography of Russ Meyer wrote: “June was murdered when a drug dealer was going to shoot her boyfriend. She stood in front of the guy to protect him, and took the bullet.”

Sounds heroic. Sounds like something that her film character, Junkyard Sal, might have done. But was it true?

Other reports say she was the target of gangland hit, someone wanted her wiped out. Or was her death just an accident? Bad place, bad time. Bad outcome.

I went to looking for an answer. A key that would unlock the truth behind the mystery. Maybe the clue was somewhere in her short life. Maybe the way she lived would reveal the way she died.

Not many people were talking. Many were dead, others had long disappeared. And some just don’t like the sound of their own voice.

June lived in the shadows. A film noir world, inhabited by a cast of misfits, gangsters, and lowlifes, where no one played it straight. You turn over her rock, and you uncover all kinds of stories: from drug deals, sex work, and hit men, to soldiers of fortune, bent bodyguards, video-taped orgies, and movie deals. Throw in the Columbian mob, poisoned cocktails, the pornographer Larry Flynt, the producer of ‘The Godfather’ Robert Evans, even the stars from 1970s hit TV shows ‘Sanford and Son’ and ‘Welcome Back, Kotter.’

But at the end of day, it boiled down to this: Who killed June Mack?

And then a second question: who really killed June Mack?

June Mack

———————————————————————————————————————–

May 3, 1984. Los Angeles. It’s 10.30 in the evening, but it’s hotter than a whorehouse on nickel night.

June Mack descends the steps of a friend’s building. It’s on the 6800 block of Sepulveda Boulevard in Van Nuys. The street is dark with something more than night, but she is impossible to miss. Lacquered curly black wig, wild print dress, tan leather jacket, impossibly high heels. An arresting spectacle even in the dense shadows between the street lights.

A friend, Christian Pierce, is next to her. They walk up the sidewalk, north of Vanowen St. They pass a car with shaded side windows. They pass a man leaning against the hood. A driver sits inside. June and Christian make no eye contact with either of them. As they walk past the car, the standing man says something. June turns to look at him. Christian turns to look at June. The rest takes place in slow motion. Christian sees June recognize the man. Christian sees June panic. Christian sees June bolt.

Christian shouts at the man: “What do you want?” Gunshot cracks through the humid air. Christian grabs his stomach. He falls backwards. More shots ring out. June is hit from behind. She collapses on the street. Blood stains her clothing and spills on the sidewalk. The driver yells for the shooter to hurry, but the gunman has other ideas. He empties his weapon into June’s twisted body. He kicks both victims. Then he gets into the car. The vehicle speeds away into the night.

June’s friend in the apartment building has heard the shots. She goes outside. She sees the claret aftermath, and calls the police. She stands near her motionless friends. She waits for the cop car to arrive.

Medics show up first. Christian has been shot in the stomach. He’s alive. June has been shot in the head, the face, the back, and the chest. She’s dead.

*

“No women, no kids. That’s the rules,” says Leon in the film ‘The Professional.’

Hollywood’s view of a contract killer is bullshit. The real world has no qualms. If you have money, you can buy death. Anyone’s death.

But did someone want June Mack dead, or was her death an accident? In the days after the hit, facts were noted. There just weren’t enough of them. June was African-American. She’d had enough plastic surgery that it was anyone’s guess whether she was closer to 20 or 50. Turned out she was 29. Heavy-set if you’re being polite. 250 pounds if you own a set of scales.

The cops paid a visit to her fancy pad in West Hollywood. Judging by the furs and finery, she’d had money to burn. Kinky too. Slinky skivvies stuffed into closets next to dominatrix duds. Leather, whips, and handcuffs.

Her friend, Christian Pierce, was 24. Lived in Encino. His ordinariness compensated for June’s flamboyance. Unremarkable in every way, except he was as gay as a picnic basket, and devoted to June like a lovesick puppy.

There were two eye witnesses to the hit. They agreed the shooter was a white male, 30s, dark hair. He escaped in a Mustang convertible driven by an accomplice. Nothing was left behind, except for June’s wig and the killer’s empty cartridges scattered near her body.

Clues were in short supply. Detectives thought they recognized the signs of a contract killing. Meticulous planning. Cold-blooded execution. Swift and anonymous escape. No mess, no fuss. Just the lifeless targets left behind.

Christian disagreed. This was no gun for hire. No anonymous hitman. June knew who clipped her. Christian had seen that in her eyes.

But investigations, like most things in life, depend upon degrees of motivation. In the hierarchy of incentives, celebrity cases win gold. They are investigated quickly and thoroughly. Next come rich people, attractive or glamorous victims. They get a cursory concern. But anything less than that and a nickel will just get you a cup of coffee. Newspapers lose interest even faster than cops. The murder of a black woman didn’t raise an eyebrow in next day’s Times.

It was an open and shut case. The killer had opened it, now everyone wanted to shut it. June lacked the pizzazz to fast track her own murder enquiry.

Unless you did more than scratch the surface. Unless you went deep.

Then you’d find there was plenty more to June Mack’s back-story.

*

June Mack was June Cassandra Mincher. Born in Louisiana in January 1955. Eighth child in a family of dirt-poor, hardscrabble, ex-sharecroppers. Food was always in short supply. Love and affection were non-existent. June grew up ignored and forgotten. She retreated to a fantasy world. Took refuge in TV re-runs of old movies. Harlow. Lombard. Monroe. Vampy, trampy blondes. Women with smooth skin and pointed noses. A southern black girl didn’t have the luxury of idols that looked like her.

Then June hit puberty. She got curves, got noticed, and got options. Suddenly life happened. No more hopping tables at the local Hi-D-Ho. She got attention and exploited it. She parlayed it into cash the most old-fashioned way. She took control on the vinyl tuck and roll, pleasing the light-skinned boys she barely even knowed. Her new found power bought a one-way greyhound ticket out of the south. Double time. As fast as shit through a goose.

She had one destination in mind. Hollywoodland. Home of the movie princesses she loved. She grabbed a lease on a small apartment and a part-time job as a nurse. She sprung for a new wardrobe. A different kind of clothing. Attire that would get noticed. She placed an ad in the underground newspaper. “Sexy Black & Indian. 56-26-42. Private Apt. Come Worship My Body. Call Raven. Generous Men Only.” She took clients. The bucks rolled in before the first month’s rent was due.

But June had greater ambition than being a part time nurse, part time sex worker, full time dreamer. She wanted to be someone. She wanted a whole new identity. Several of them in fact. At one point, she had at least 33 aliases. June Mack was just one.

Her face and body had to change. Not just for the johns, but to erase every detail from where she came. She spent $20k on cosmetic surgery. Quacks pumped silicone into her face, hips, cheeks. She bought a pointed nose just like her idols, and a chin to match. She expanded her chest to a blouse-busting 66 inches.

The new June emerged. She stood out in any company. To misquote Chandler: From 30 feet away, she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked she should be seen from 30 feet away. Her new appearance surprised even those who’d never seen her before. June Mack had killed off little June Cassandra Mincher. She still depended on men for money, but now she wrote the rules of her own game.

June gave up nursing, and built a loyal list of regulars to share her bed. She was no twopenny upright. She offered it all. Bondage, domination, humiliation, cuckolding. Even straight sex. Her physical size meant she was a niche attraction, but specialty pays, and some of her appreciators were free-handed high-rollers. She raked in their satisfaction. She upgraded her joint. She bought a lavender Rolls Royce, a Mercedes Benz, and convertible hot wheels. She carried $12k in cash, rolled up and stashed under her wig.

*

In the City of Angels, fake showbiz promise is never far away. In 1978, film director, Russ Meyer, was casting.

Russ believed films should run like express trains. His obsessions spilled into his camera lens. Large-breasted amazons, engaged in dark sexual vengeance. The female Übermensch. Nothing was obscene providing it was done in bad taste, and June matched his voluptuous aesthetic. Russ and June were a cinematic marriage made in heaven.

His latest ode to aggressive womanhood was ‘Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens.’ He saw June’s ad in the L.A. Free Press, and dispatched his scriptwriter Roger Ebert to investigate. Russ’ love for big breasts was well-known, but Ebert’s fetish for large black women was on the down low.

Ebert met June in a dive bar. Russ’ version of their summit meeting was oft-repeated.

“June described her whole act to Ebert. And Roger turned white.

June finally said, “Okay, what do you want from me?”

Roger replied, “Everything except the shit and the piss, please.”

June got the movie role. In truth, there was no one that could stop her. It wasn’t the lead, but there are no small acting parts, only small actors. And June was no small actor. She already embodied Junkyard Sal, owner of a truck cemetery at the end of the earth. Every woman is meant to pop in a Russ Meyer film. June just pops more. Her enhanced corpulence defeats the corrugated iron and rusting steel around her. A true superhero long before corporate Marvel imposters.

She opens onscreen lying on a blood-red silk bed. Nude except for a blood-red feather boa. Vantablack incarnate. A man either side attempts to please her. As inconsequential as two flies on a buffet table. Coupling follows coupling as sure as emasculation follows emasculation. Men are crushed by her unappeasable appetite. A 69 voodoo ends in a 23 skidoo.

June liked Russ: “A genius. He made me feel secure. I had to thrash around in garbage and grass, but I knew he would make me look good. I didn’t mind the garbage, but I’m allergic to grass.”

Russ Meyer and June Mack

June’s wrecking ball presence was immortalized by the film. She milked it while it lasted. Turned up at the premiere. Gave interviews. Posed for wide-angle pics snapped by incredulous lenses. Said she wanted to work with Mel Brooks or Andy Warhol. She had fun for a time. She was the briefest of stars. The film came and went. None of it led to more movie work.

June graduated to large-breast magazines. Scoop. Juggs. High Society (‘Tit Queens from Around the World,’ screamed one headline.) She had a following. Limited for sure, but a following. “I attract a lot of doctors. I guess to students of the body, I’m a new kind of textbook,” she explained.

Slowly her in-person sex work waned. Father Time caught up with Mother Nature. She adapted, did phone sex. Her purring tones consummated anonymous dates from a safe distance. June was content. She’d kept her nose clean, banked well, and paid her taxes. She was already comfortable beyond her Louisiana childhood dreams.

She was a big character with an intimidating presence. A hard shell with a soft center, and she had friends to match. She got on best with the dispossessed. Those who lived in the shadows and margins. Street hookers, sexual hustlers, gay porn actors, transsexuals. She understood their desire to re-invent. To them, she was a friend, a mother figure, an advocate, a fag hag. She liked being needed. She occasionally called herself Junkyard Sal. Just like the old days. It made her feel important again.

And then Greg called.

*

Gregory Alan Cavalli was a rich, white boy.

His grandmother was Mary Bowles, partner in a prominent Beverly Hills real estate investment firm. Bowles and Associates. Greg’s father, Richard, worked at Bowles, and owned business interests all over town. Like a military-surplus store in Santa Monica which he ran as a part-time plaything. The family did well. The family wanted it to stay that way.

Greg had silver spoons hanging out of his entitled mouth. He had dark hair and a mustache. He was 21 but looked older. He was a gym rat. He lacked interest in the family investment business. The only number he targeted was his bench press PB. He was a ‘roid head. Prone to bro rage. Socially awkward at the best of times. He hung around fellow bodybuilders. He was uncomfortable around women, but hormones raged and his desires craved release.

In Summer 1983, Greg responded to June’s ad for aural sex: ‘Sexy Goddess, Long Black Hair, Pretty Face. Call Me. Let’s Talk.’ A blurred old photo was printed next to the text.

They spoke. June said she was Pam Rogers. A slender fox who understood his issues. She sweet-talked his ego and trash-talked his enemies. Greg fell for her hard. Four months of phone conversations followed. They spoke for hours each day. Why not? Greg could pay, and June could whisper.

Greg believed he was in love. He forgot the first rule in sex work: he was buying a fantasy. Schoolboy mistake number one. He mistook the voice of a sex worker for his soulmate. He sent her love letters. Pictures of himself in body-builder poses. He asked to meet her in person.

June was too smart for that. She politely declined. Greg insisted. Greg was used to getting what he wanted. Just because he wanted it. Greg asked again. June firmly declined. Greg turned up at her apartment. Schoolboy mistake number two.

June didn’t answer the doorbell. Greg broke down her door. He stood in front of her for the first time. She wasn’t the tall goddess with luxurious curls that he’d expected from photos. She was 5’ 7”, 250 pounds, with close-cropped hair. He flipped. He slapped her around.

Next day Greg called her. To tell June not to call him again. If she contacted him, he would make her pay. And then he kept calling her. To tell her not to call.

Sometimes June didn’t answer. Greg left messages. Sometimes June did answer, and let her best friend, Robin Taylor, listen in. Robin was a transsexual porn actress, a biological male who’d crossed the point of no return. They called themselves sisters. They shared everything.

Robin remembers Greg threatened to kill June if she didn’t leave him alone. The calls scared Robin, but they angered June. Robin told June to report him to the cops. Robin told June to change her number. Neither idea made sense to June. She was a black girl from Louisiana and a sex worker in Los Angeles. That package deal cuts no slack with the cops.

June had a better idea. What would Junkyard Sal do? Spectacular revenge probably. So June fought back. She bombarded Cavalli, his father, his grandmother Madame Bowles, and other relatives, with calls of her own.

What happened next depends on which dog you back in this fight. A Rorschach test of sexual sympathies.

Listen to Greg and the Cavalli clan, and you’d hear that in November 1983, Greg’s car was firebombed. You’d hear that in February 1984, Daddy Cavalli’s Santa Monica military surplus store was torched. You’d hear the family was harassed at every turn.

Listen to June, and you’d hear she did nothing. You’d hear she was arrested repeatedly on chicken shit charges. You’d hear she was banged up overnight in city jail while time-wasting paperwork was prepared. You’d hear she was humiliated in court as a deranged harpy.

But both sides would tell you the same conclusion: the cops dropped every charge against June, every time. Insufficient evidence, they shrugged. See you next time.

Who was truthful and who lied? Were crimes being faked to frame her and fuck her over. Or was Junkyard Sal an elusive one-woman revenge mission who took on the rich family and the fuzz.

The story continued.

Greg claimed he had to move to Phoenix. He had no choice, he said. He had to hide from June. But phone records show that he still called June from Arizona.

Greg’s old man claimed he had to buy a defense for the family. $200k for six private security guards. He had no choice, he said. They had to get protection from June.

A few days later, June was beaten in her home by two meatheads. Body-builder types, she said. She’d been with a client at the time. He got battered as well for good measure.

Now June was fighting more than a family.

*

Where do you buy protection in Tinseltown?

The Cavalli goons came from a Studio City firm. A. Michael Pascal & Associates. Named for Arthur Michael Pascal who ran the low-rent show. Claimed to be a former CIA agent, ex-mercenary. He accepted spook jobs, hired freelance heavies, did work no one else would touch. Protection contracts. Messy vehicle repossessions. Detective services for scared people with too much money. Pascal’s reputation was mean and violent. He kept a large black cabinet in his office where he stored weapons that he passed out to his men when he gave them assignments.

All jobs were legit, of course. Except when they weren’t. Some jobs were both. Like the work Pascal’s guys did for Larry Flynt.

Larry Flynt produced Hustler magazine, porn videos, and misogyny. His empire was a vehicle for sex, though sex hardly interested him. What made Larry hard was fighting for free speech. Which he did by publishing shock and offense, and seeing who objected. He provoked the establishment into reacting, and then beat them up in court. He fought for First Amendment precedents by being an asshole. Mostly he won. Occasionally he lost. Like in 1978, when he was shot by a religious nut. The result was spinal paralysis, a wheelchair, and a life of pain. That changed Flynt. Not his desire to shock, but the need to protect himself.

Larry Flynt

After the shooting, Flynt wanted a head of security. He didn’t trust anyone outside his inner circle. He hired his brother-in-law, William Rider, a former narcotics officer, as his private security agent. Rider hired Pascal Associates. Pascal hired a team to protect the king of sleaze. Four strong-armers to intimidate and threaten anyone who crossed Flynt.

Pascal was discrete. He asked Rider no questions. Pascal listened though. And Rider talked a lot. Rider told Pascal that Flynt had ordered four murders. Two of the hits were publishing rivals. Playboy’s Hugh Hefner, and Penthouse’s Bob Guccione. A third was Walter Annenberg, tight buddy of President Reagan. The fourth target was improbable. Frank Sinatra. That’s life, that’s what all the people say.

Pascal suggested a hitman to Rider. Mitchell Livingston WerBell III. 65 years old. A legendary soldier of fortune, arms dealer, paramilitary trainer. Old school rogue. A resume that included killing agents in China on behalf of the US government. He’d got paid for his Eastern success in sacks of opium.

Rider took Pascal’s advice and hired WerBell to kill the four. Rider told Pascal they invited WerBell to Flynt’s Los Angeles home in November 1983. Rider told Pascal they gave WerBell a $1 million check to snuff out the targets. The check was signed by Flynt himself. Dumb move. Carelessness had crossed into stupidity. Flynt and Rider realized their mistake. They changed their minds. They canceled the check. Now WerBell had to be their target. They wanted Werbell quiet.

Within weeks, Werbell was dead. A heart attack, declared UCLA Medical Center. Pascal heard different. Rider told Pascal that Werbell had cordially been invited to a cocktail party at Flynt’s place. Rider told Pascal that Flynt and his brother-in-law poured six ounces of digoxin into WerBell’s drink. A powerful heart relaxant. Rider told Pascal that no heart survives that.

The story of Flynt’s scheme emerged. Hit the tabloids. “Flynt is sick,” Guccione said. “His body is dead from the neck down because of the attempted assassination. It sounds to me as if he’s dead from the neck up as well.”

Flynt and Rider denied involvement. The story blew over. But Flynt’s paranoia remained. Now he wanted a personal bodyguard. Pascal had a pool of charmless, ruthless brutes. Flynt needed the most charmless, ruthless brute on offer.

Pascal sent him Bill Mentzer.

William Molony Mentzer, 39. He lived quietly in Canoga Park. There was nothing else quiet about him. Law enforcement connected him to a string of unsolved murders and beatings. Conspiracy nuts to this day link him to Charles Manson, the Son of Sam cult, and the Frisco Zodiac Killer. He inhabited a wasted rocker look, with an effeminate twist. Think Queef Richards.

Mentzer had been Pascal’s anti-Semitic go-to thug for years. No job was too strange, too difficult, too risky. He was a crack planner, but even better at execution. Pascal liked that Mentzer never delegated the details, the brutalities. It gave Mentzer pleasure to inflict the hurt himself. Rider gave Mentzer a gun. A .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol with a silencer. Mentzer now worked for Rider and Larry Flynt.

Mentzer had a colorful private life too. His on/off lover was Karen DeLayne Jacobs. Everyone called her Laney. Mid-thirties. A real head-turner. A dollar sign where most women have a heart. Laney was an eternal hustler. Right now, her hustle was cocaine. And right now she was in the right place at the right time. In the early ’80s, shifting cocaine in La-La Land was as easy as selling hot dogs at a ballpark. Her supply came by car from Miami. 10 kilos every six weeks. She sold it to Hollywood A-listers, and every load netted her a quarter of a million. Those kinds of bills brought risks. Laney needed muscle. She leant on Bill Mentzer.

Mentzer was in demand. Larry Flynt needed protection. Laney needed protection. And then Pascal had a new job for him: the Cavalli family needed protection from June Mack.

Mentzer tripled-teamed them. He took care of the Porn King. He took care of the Coke Queen. Now he took on the ex-sex film star and jilted hooker.

Mentzer liked to start his jobs with a bang. He took his right-hand man, Robert Lowe, and paid June a visit. Pistol-whipped her. And roughed up the clown she was entertaining in her crib too.

A few weeks later, June was killed.

William Mentzer

*

Detectives tell you if they don’t have a suspect or arrest within 48 hours, chances of solving the case are cut in half. So they get creative. Desperate even. Their early theory was that June was a pre-op transexual who’d been killed by a client when he uncovered her male genitalia. No matter June didn’t even have a disco stick.

LAPD homicide detectives interviewed June’s friends. June’s sister from another mister, porn actress Robin Taylor, coughed up stories of the threats. “I knew she’d been targeted for rough treatment, but I never believed it would result in murder.”

Then Greg Cavalli’s name came up.

Sleuths at the precinct perked up. They printed photos of Greg, showed them to the scant witnesses. Both agreed. Cavalli was the driver of the getaway car. Probably. But investigators couldn’t identify the gunman, and without the gunman they had no killer. So the investigation stalled. Then it was shelved. It stayed shelved for a year.

In 1985, the case was reopened by two new investigators. An anonymous tip. Someone said that Greg’s grandmother was involved. Partner in a Beverly Hills investment firm grandmother. Pillar of the business community grandmother. Hirer of six bodyguards from A. Michael Pascal & Associates to shield them from Junkyard Sal grandmother.

The detectives got the names of the six bodyguards on the Cavalli job. They located four. Brought them in for questioning. They were duds. Nothing useful came of the interviews. All four were released without charge. The cops lost interest in the bodyguard angle. They figured once you’ve interviewed four hoods, you’ve interviewed them all. The only two they couldn’t locate were Bill Mentzer and his compadre, Robert Lowe.

The investigation moved on. The detectives were fixated on Greg. He had motive. He had patterns of threatening behavior. And he was ID’d in the Mustang the night of the murder. Ok, so what if they didn’t know who the hitman was? They had enough dirt on Greg to make it stick.

In December 1985, prosecutors announced the arrest and trial of Greg Cavalli.

*

June 1986. Van Nuys Superior Court. A three-week jury trial began. Greg Cavalli faced two charges. Murder and attempted murder.

The Deputy D.A. said Greg drove the car. Two witnesses had eyeballed him behind the wheel outside the apartment building. He was talking with the man with the handgun. They described Greg. Bulging muscles, facial hair. Problem was Greg had changed his physique since he’d been hiding in Arizona. Gone were the days of dead lifts and squats. He’d lost 50 pounds, and the gangster ‘stache too. It was like the Charles Atlas story in reverse. Greg had become the skinny weakling. In court, he cut a puny, apologetic, jury-sympathetic profile.

The prosecution’s case got worse. On cross-exam, their first witness was exposed as a coke addict with poor vision. He admitted he wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses the night of the murder. And when he was high and without his specs, he struggled to see beyond the end of his arm.

His version of events got worse when his roommate hit the stand. The roommate said that the witness had found out Greg’s grandmother was made of green, and had decided he wanted a piece. The roommate said the witness had tried to change his testimony to extort some money from Greg’s grandmother. The roommate said: “He bragged to me and everyone he knew that he was going to come away from this with a lot of cash, and live the good life from then on.” There was no evidence that the witness had received any payout, but by now he was as unreliable as a priest at a cub scout jamboree. It damaged the prosecution’s case. Strike one.

The second witness said he could identify the shooter but not the driver. Or was it the driver but not the shooter? Hell, he wasn’t sure. He was asked about his ties to Eddie Nash. L.A. nightclub owner, notorious felon, convicted drug dealer. Remember the Wonderland murders? Yeah, that Eddie Nash. Strike two.

Robin Taylor showed up. She was a character witness for June. Given she was also a transsexual porn actress, perhaps her testimony wasn’t the wisest idea. Spent more time being asked about her biological sex and gender than answering questions about the victim. Eventually she told the jury about June’s work as a prostitute. It paid for cars and furs and plastic surgery. Robin said June was real good at it. The prosecution wrapped. Better to quit while they were behind.

The defense opened on the offense. Instead of defending Greg, they attacked June. An aggressive tactic given that June was not on trial. She was a “love-crazed prostitute who tormented the victim after he rejected her.” Many people would have had a motive to kill her, they reasoned.

Greg’s defense attorney targeted on June’s career choice: “(Sex work) is not just a business, unsavory in and of itself, but it carries with it an entire social world that she lived in. Sort of the dark underside of Los Angeles society. An underside populated by people who deal in narcotics, theft, and violence.” Translation: If June Mack was a hooker, then her murder was death by natural causes. Nothing unusual to see here. Move on.

Greg testified. The first call to June was the biggest mistake in his life, he said. “I was revulsed. I was cruelly disappointed by the actual person I saw. I rejected her sexual advances.”

A detective testified that Greg only met June twice, and they never had sex. After that, June was alleged to have run a campaign of harassment against him, his father, grandmother, and relatives. Her calls were threatening. They ridiculed Greg, derided him as a fag. Greg’s attorneys evidenced the police complaints.

The defense continued the attack. June had sent Greg’s body-building pictures back to him with his head cut off, they said. It terrified the family.

It all added up to a messy he-said, she-said. Except that he-said was in court, and she-said was dead and unable to respond.

The trial ended.

Juries in murder cases adjourn for an average of seven days. Sometimes over two weeks. On June 19, 1986, this jury returned in 26 minutes.

They said Gregory Alan Cavalli was not guilty on both charges.

Greg broke down in tears. His family erupted in joy. Greg made a statement. He’d been unemployable since the murder. Living in fear for his life, just like he’d once lived in fear of June. He was angry and bitter that he was ever prosecuted. He was just pleased it was all over.

The jury foreman released a statement. Said they’d had no option but to acquit. The prosecution witnesses lacked credibility. A transexual porn star. A short-sighted coke addict. A lowlife gangster. Are you kidding? Was this Candid Camera? Was the prosecution trying to insult their intelligence?

The court proceedings hadn’t resolved anything. June’s murder case was shelved, again. Junkyard Sal was still in limbo. She’d been dead two years.

It was time to do more than scratch the surface of this story. It was time to go deeper.

*

*

The post Murder Noir: Who Killed June Mack? Who Really Killed June Mack? – Part 1: Podcast 114 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

June Mack was dead. And no one was on the hook for her murder.

Somehow being shot by Russ Meyer made her almost-famous, but being shot by a mystery killer made her almost-forgotten.

She’d come to Tinseltown to escape. To start a new life – and she’d been a movie star, bared her charms in magazines, and shared her body in nightly schemes. She made money, bought cars, and lived in clover.

But then June Mack crossed paths with Greg Cavalli.

The normal story of boy meets girl. If boy meets girl when he buys phone sex. Then boy falls in love with girl over the phone. Before boy goes to girl’s house and finds there’s more to her than he expected. Much more. And then girl is shot dead.

But Greg was officially not guilty. He’d been fingered by the cops for June’s murder, and put on trial. He got off. And it wasn’t even close.

So if Greg didn’t kill June, who did?

Sometimes to get to the heart of a story, you have to look at the outsides, the characters around the edges.

People like Arthur Michael Pascal, who ran a shady L.A. security company, a collection of hitmen for hire. 

Or William Rider, Larry Flynt’s head of security, who used Pascal’s guys to protect the porn king, and eliminate anyone who got in their way.

People like Bill Mentzer, the hitman who worked for Pascal, who was hired to protect Greg Cavalli and his family from supposed threats like June Mack.

And there was Laney, Bill Mentzer’s girlfriend who dealt cocaine to the stars – who also needed protection.

They were all connected to June in different ways. Someone must know the truth. The truth about who killed June Mack.

Who really killed June Mack.

This podcast is 45 minutes long.

June Mack

———————————————————————————————————————–

Whether Greg Cavalli was guilty or not didn’t amount to a hill of beans. He couldn’t be tried for the same crime twice.

“Never,” said LAPD brass. “He’s been tried once. That’s it. He’s a free man. Forever.”

So the Cavalli family retreated. Big money is big power, and big power gets used wrong. That’s the system. They’d won the game. There was no need to stay on the stage.

Other players had less luck in the aftermath of the trial. Christian Pierce, June’s devoted follower who’d been with her when she was shot, died of AIDS. June’s transexual friend, Robin Taylor, disappeared, swallowed up by the lonely streets.

Arthur Michael Pascal, owner of the security company that had hired William Mentzer and Robert Lowe to tackle June Mack, retired his business. His health was poor. Dirty schemes earn more than straight job income streams, but they lower your life expectancy too. Pascal had had enough.

Then there was William Rider, Larry Flynt’s head of security, who’d hired Pascal and Bill Mentzer to protect Flynt. Rider had got into a scrap with the porn king himself. Their beef was over John DeLorean, the car magnate. Maker of the ‘Back to the Future’ sportscar. DeLorean had been charged with cocaine trafficking. 55 pounds of it. That’s $24 million of profit. Or big trouble if you get caught. And DeLorean had just got caught.

But it was government entrapment. DeLorean had been framed. The coke scheme was a sting put together by Feds anxious to take down the auto king. DeLorean had only one person who could help him. Larry Flynt had the proof that would clear him. It consisted of hours of video tapes shot by federal agents. The tapes showed Feds blackmailing DeLorean in interrogation rooms. The tapes showed Feds threatening to kill DeLorean’s daughter. The tapes showed Feds telling DeLorean he had to proceed with their drug deal or else they’d nail him. Trouble was Flynt had acquired these tapes illegally, stealing them from government offices. Which meant Flynt was in trouble too now.

Flynt refused to reveal how he got his hands on them. It was a freedom of speech thing, he said. He was locked up for contempt of court. So Flynt hatched a plan. He told his loyal lieutenant Bill Rider to lie for him under oath. Just tell the judge the tapes were leaked by an FBI mole. Then they’d all be out of the soup.

Turned out Rider wasn’t that loyal. Rider refused to go along.

Flynt was mad. Flynt fired Rider. Flynt went further. Did everything he could to ruin Rider. Publicly said Rider raped his daughter. Privately said he’d kill Rider. Rider had balls. Rider responded. He filed a harassment suit against the sex magazine peddler. And the jury found Flynt guilty of malice and oppression. The jury awarded Rider $8.6 million. The prosecution attorneys agreed: “It’s unheard of for an employee to be harassed in this way after he’s been terminated.” Rider had lifted big money from Flynt’s bank account. Now he could afford to pick and choose his gigs. Now he could afford to go straight.

So who else is left in the June Mack quagmire? Just Bill Mentzer. His contract as Flynt’s bodyguard had ended. His contract as the Cavalli family’s muscle had ended, now that June was dead. He took a part-time gig driving limos but his hands were still full. The reason was his girlfriend, Laney: coke-dealing, star-fucking, wheeler-dealing, Karen DeLayne Jacobs.

And there was more to Laney than met the eye.

Laney

*

Every noir needs a femme fatale. A mysterious, beautiful, seductive woman. Charms that ensnare lovers into deadly traps. A blonde that makes a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. And Laney had it all in spades. She was a smooth, shiny girl. Hardboiled, with cold eyes like strange sins.

She first turned up in L.A. in October 1982. Said she was originally from Florida. Not true, like much of what she said. She actually was a southern belle from Alabama. But Sweet Home, it wasn’t. In the late ‘70s, she packed a case in the Southern state, stuck her thumb in the air, and hitched a high tail ride to Miami. Never looked back.

By day, she worked at a massage parlor. After dark, she hung out at South Beach night clubs. She liked snow-pure cocaine, vintage Dom Perignon, and cozying up to the fast crowd. An expensive lifestyle, sure, but she had generous boyfriends to spoil her whims. Husbands followed too. Almost too many to count. Fact is Karen DeLayne Jacobs-Gonzales-Goodman-Suquet-Ferreira-Amer did well. And she hadn’t even hit 35.

A pretty party girl gets noticed pretty quickly. She turned the head of Cuban-born, Milan Bellechasses. Silk-shirted, gold-chained, smooth-talking Milan Bellechasses. Said he was a building contractor. He was, but that was a front. Milan was the biggest coke dealer in town. And because that town was Miami, he could print his own Benny Franklins. Before long, Laney began selling Milan’s drugs out of her pink boudoir.

Laney recognized an opportunity. She offered to expand Milan’s business. Open a West Coast branch for him. He’d ship the white rock cross-country, and she’d find rich movie people to buy it. She’d keep half the take, and Milan could trouser the rest without lifting a finger. Everyone’s a winner, baby. That’s the truth.

So Laney moved to California. Bought a Sherman Oaks pad, and rented a Hollywood condo. The former to live in with her newborn son. The latter for sex. A new girl in town needs to build meaningful relationships, you know?

Laney ingratiated herself with the L.A. city gentry. Hypocritical politicians. Self-destructive actors. Jaded studio heads. They all bought her high-grade silk-smooth powder. Service with a southern smile. Laney raked in the green. Some nights she took out the stacks of bills from her home safe. Sat cross-legged on the floor and just stared at them, a beaming smile across her face. It gave her a warm feeling.

Laney’s success bought better quality clients. Guys with real names. Names like ex-film producer Robert Evans. Evans was a has-been. Once he’d been a will-be, but that was long ago. Bob had headed production at Paramount. Bob had engineered hits like Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Godfather. Bob had married Ali McGraw. Seductive man, seductive life. Then it imploded. All good things come to an end, and by the early ‘80s, Bob was an industry joke who hadn’t had a hit in years. His life consisted of coke and fucking. But hey, Laney liked coke and fucking, so they were a good match.

In truth, Laney and Evans shared more than a bed and blow. Evans shared comeback dreams and rebound schemes. Laney listened. Evans told Laney he had a movie ticket back to the top. A script called The Cotton Club. A musical set in the famous Harlem speakeasy of the Prohibition era. Francis Ford Coppola, his old Godfather brother in arms, was onboard to direct. Evans just needed to make the damn thing. For that he needed funding. $50 million of it. But who backs a has-been jonesing for nose-candy?

Bottom-feeder Laney sparked into life. She knew a mess of wealthy men in town. Their unlimited fortunes needed investing, just like their inexhaustible egos needed adoration. She could make the connections. She could be legit. She could be a big shot. She could be a movie producer.

Laney told Bob she already had a money man in mind. Evans said Attagirl.

Robert Evans

*

Roy Radin was the ugly kid who never got invited to the prom. He just watched from the sidelines. But he knew you don’t get mad, you get even, and Roy Radin made sure he got both.

He was an abrasive, balding Jewish New Yorker with dreams of Hollywood fame. His numbers were a mixed bag: A millionaire family background. 33-years-old. 275 pounds. Blood pressure approaching 180/110. A personal fortune in the bank. $3,000 a week cocaine habit.

Laney liked big numbers, so they became tight.

Roy Radin

Radin had started making money early. At 17, he produced ‘The Roy Radin Variety Show’. Old-fashioned vaudeville revue that toured midwestern cities. A typical night offered Joey Bishop or Frank Gorshin as MC. A magician, two acrobats, a unicyclist, the Roy Radin Orchestra, and a trained dog were on offer. And most nights, the dog got the most love.

The official story: the shows were fundraisers. Police benevolent societies. Local firefighter groups. Big crowds turned up to support their underpaid, uniformed heroes. At midnight, Radin cut the do-gooders a check from the proceeds. Job done, he moved to the next town and the next show.

The unofficial story: the check Radin cut was minimal. A pitiful proportion of the evening’s profits. Roy banked the rest, and built a personal fortune. Job done, he moved to the next town and the next show. By 20, Radin was rich.

How much money did Radin make? He lived in a 72-room waterfront mansion on Long Island, NY. The biggest in the Hamptons, people said. A private jet. Fleet of cars and 26 people on staff. The prom king and queen could suck his dick.

In 1980, he mis-stepped. A party at his place. He invited Melonie Haller. 23 years old. A promising career ahead of her as an actress and model. She’d starred in Welcome Back, Kotter, extra’d in The French Connection, and undressed in Playboy. At dawn next day, she was found wandering the local LIRR station. Dazed, confused, and half-nude. When she woke up, said she’d been drugged and gang-raped at gunpoint during an S&M orgy. Said Radin had videotaped it.

Radin denied it. Pled guilty to illegal possession of a gun. Fined $1,000 and put on probation. The case was in the rear view mirror, and The Roy Radin Show was back on the road. As for Melonie Haller, she hasn’t been heard from since.

Melonie Haller

When Radin traveled to L.A. he was one of Laney’s best coke clients. He had more money than most studio heads in town. So Laney called Radin about Bob Evans. If Radin was serious about producing movies, she had the guy for him. In April ’83, Radin met with Evans. They hit it off. Radin was a high-speed, fast-talker with connections. Evans was interested. Radin had a Puerto Rican banker with ties to the territorial governor. The Boricuas were willing to put up $35 million as long as the film was shot in Puerto Rico. Good enough, said Evans. Let’s do it.

Radin, Laney and Bob Evans met at Evans’ townhouse in New York to ink the deal. Radin and Evans would each take 45% of the new production company. The banker got the remaining 10%. Everyone was happy. Except for Laney. What the fuck? She’d introduced Radin to Evans. Nothing would’ve happened without her. So where was her share? She demanded half of Radin’s piece. Evans sided with Laney. They’d knocked boots, and that equated to a degree of loyalty.

Radin disagreed. He laughed Laney out of the negotiation. Made her a final offer. A finder’s fee. A flat $50,000. Take it or leave it.

The femme fatale was spurned. And when she was spurned, she turned to someone who could do something about it. Her boyfriend, protector, enforcer.

Bill Mentzer.

Bill Mentzer

*

It was mid 1983. Bill Mentzer had stopped protecting Larry Flynt. Mentzer had started protecting the Cavalli family from June Mack. But Bill could walk and chew gum at the same time. He agreed to help Laney as well as keep an eye on Junkyard Sal.

Laney had another reason to be mad. Someone had stolen 10 kilos of cocaine from her fuck pad. Plus $270,000 in cash. There were no signs of a break-in. The thief was someone who had access to her apartment. Someone she knew. She suspected the low-life driver who shipped her stash across country every six weeks. He’d gone missing since her merch had been lifted.

She screamed at Mentzer. Find the truth, toot sweet. Laney had good reason to be worried. She was on the hook for the drugs to Milan Bellechasses in Miami. Milan was on the hook to the Columbians. And the Columbians didn’t trifle around, so Milan was holding her personally responsible. Without the coke to convert into dollars, Laney was at the dead end of a one-way street. Some mad Mexi-mullets were looking for her to come good.

Mentzer went to work. He looked for the drug courier-driver. When he checked the driver’s phone records, he made a breakthrough. Told Laney he traced the driver’s calls back a hotel suite in Beverly Hills. The owner of the suite: Roy Radin. Mentzer said it proved Radin was in on the theft. Laney was unsurprised. Radin was a rat.

So Mentzer did what he did best. He threatened Radin, this time via anonymous phone calls. Warned Radin to given the coke and cash back. Warned Radin to back out of ‘The Cotton Club’ deal. Radin claimed ignorance, and tried to ignore the calls.

Mentzer told Laney they had to confront Radin directly if they wanted the coke back. Radin had avoided Laney for weeks because of the Evans movie. So Laney called Radin in New York. She demanded a share of the movie. Became more belligerent. She told Radin she knew he’d stolen the missing drugs and money too. Radin became angry and hung up.

The fights unnerved Bob Evans. He’d soured on Radin, and had cold feet on the Puerto Rico money. He withdrew from the $35 million deal. He was used to Hollyweird. But this perturbed him.

A plan was hatched to deal with Radin. Who was the architect? Laney, Mentzer, or Bob Evans? No one was saying, but this is how it played out on May 13^th, 1983.

Radin traveled to L.A. to see his friend, the actor Red Buttons. Laney called Radin. Suggested a dinner date to discuss the movie deal, and clear the air. La Scala, a fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills. Radin accepted.

But Radin was spooked by the anonymous telephone calls and threats. He called a coke buddy, Demond Wilson. One time Son in Sanford and Son. Radin had a weird feeling, he said. He asked Wilson to follow him to the restaurant. Bring a gun. Don’t be afraid to use it if needed. Radin gave Wilson $150 for dinner.

Demond Wilson (back), with Redd Foxx in ‘Sanford and Son’

Laney picked up Radin at his hotel in her black Cadillac limousine. She was as sleek as always. Dressed to kill, you could say. A long, tight silver gown. Radin wore an ill-fitting three-piece suit from his local large man’s store.

Laney’s limousine pulled away from the hotel. A black Cadillac carrying Bill Mentzer and his sidekick Robert Lowe pulled in behind it. Demond Wilson followed in his Mercedes. A motorcade of mistrust.

Demond Wilson was nervous. He took a hit of coke, made things worse, and lost the convoy on Sunset. Fuck it, he thought. He took a short cut. Arrived at La Scala first. Waited for Radin to arrive. Gun sat in his lap.

Before the restaurant, Laney’s limo turned onto a side street. Mentzer’s Cadillac followed. Laney got out of the limo. Mentzer and Robert Lowe got in. They sat in the back seat. Radin was flanked. Mentzer jammed the barrel of his pistol into Radin’s mouth. The limo driver took them to Caswell Canyon, a remote desert area, 65 miles north of Los Angeles. At La Scala, Demond Wilson kept eating and waiting.

In the desert darkness, Mentzer ordered Radin out of the car. He shot Radin in the head thirteen times. Was going to be twenty-six, but Mentzer took pity. He figured that at least he shared one Testament with this Semite. Mentzer put a stick of dynamite in Radin’s lifeless mouth. Blew up his face so his corpse couldn’t be identified.

Next day, Radin was reported missing. Laney was interviewed. She gave nothing away.

Radin’s decapitated corpse lay undiscovered for a month. It was eventually found by a beekeeper. It had shrunken to 69 pounds.

*

Bill Mentzer was emboldened by the Radin hit.

He went after June Mack with a vengeance. An experiment in intimidation. After beating her up, Mentzer wired a bomb under her car but it failed to detonate. Made frequent calls to her home number. Posed as a phone sex client. Took pleasure in abusing her. For these earnest efforts, he drew a regular paycheck from the Cavalli bank account.

And then June was killed. She was shot a year after Roy Radin’s murder. Both cases stumped the cops.

Bob Evans was a suspect in the Radin homicide. He holed up in his mansion and refused to come out. He’d found new financing for ‘The Cotton Club’ flick. Two brothers who ran a Vegas casino. It proved to be a lavish production, starring Richard Gere and directed by Coppola. The irony was Coppola and Evans had a bitter falling out before production started, and so Evans was off the film. Evans’ return to the Hollywood summit was canceled. ‘The Cotton Club’ hit cinemas in 1984. It was ignored, a dismal flop.

After the Radin hit, Laney drifted apart from Bill Mentzer. They’d served each other’s purposes. Laney sold her house in Sherman Oaks, moved back to Florida with her son. She met a new guy. A tall, handsome businessman named Larry Greenberger. They married in Vegas. Laney wrote on the marriage license that it was the second time she’d gotten hitched. Laney was still playing games. It was her sixth, at least.

Both Laney and Larry had pasts selling drugs. Both said they wanted a quieter life. They settled in quaint Okeechobee, FL. They invested in real estate, worked on the house, and spent winters skiing in Colorado. Like a normal married couple.

Laney opened the Center for Plastic Surgery. She attracted vain Floridians wanting lifts, tucks, and implants. She made money by referring them to a sketchy clinic in Mexico.

She still got into the occasional mess. When she did, a call to ex-boyfriend Bill Mentzer did the trick. Bill could fix most scrapes. On one occasion, Mentzer shook down one of Laney’s enemies. He exacted compensation by pulling a gold Rolex from the victim’s wrist and the keys to his $100,000 Ferrari from his pocket.

Laney was doing well, but her new husband Larry had changed. Friends said it started when he hooked up with Laney. Became less trusting and more paranoid. He darkened his Mercedes windows. Carried a loaded gun. His new house had an electronic gate, automatic floodlights, and a tall fence topped with barbed wire. He seemed to live in fear.

Meanwhile Laney met a 21-year-old kid from Pennsylvania at real-estate school. Terry Squillante. She invited him to live with Larry and her. Friends thought it strange. After securing your house like a bank in the Bronx, why did Larry let a complete stranger move in?

One night, Laney went to bed early. She said she was awakened by a single gunshot. She found Larry on the front porch. Slumped in his favorite chair. A .44-caliber Magnum in his hand. A bullet hole in his head. His bathrobe was soaked in blood, his eyes were still wide open. Horrified by what he had seen in his last moment of life. No one could understand why a man as fortunate as Larry Greenberger would want to kill himself.

In the autopsy, the medical examiner said the powder burn around the bullet wound was too wide for a point-blank shooting. Further, there were no grains of gunpowder on Larry, indicating the gun had been fired from a distance greater than the length of his own arm. Plus he’d been shot from the left side. The pistol was found in his right hand.

“It turns out,” said the medical examiner, “we have a homicide rigged to look like a suicide.”

The state attorney went further. “The possibilities are that someone inside the house killed Larry Greenberger – or someone came in from the outside. We found no evidence that anyone came from outside. That leaves only the two adults who were inside the house.” Neither Laney nor Terry Squillante were talking. The murder investigation sputtered, stalled, and went nowhere.

A few weeks later, grieving widow Laney found a seventh husband. The kid. Terry Squillante.

*

June Mack’s murder investigation had flatlined too.

The lack of leads was exceeded only by the lack of interest. Witnesses and acquaintances had evaporated. Forensics had uncovered nada. The case was consigned to the trashcan of history.

June Mack

At least Radin’s murder was sexier. He was a well-known victim. Robert Evans was an even better-known suspect. Throw in a movie deal, drugs, rumors of a mob hit. Now you had a story. But that investigation was moribund too. It languished in cold case purgatory. Nothing changed from one year to the next.

Radin’s killer, William Mentzer, was drifting sideways. Without a pornographer, coke-dealing girlfriend, or rich family to protect, he turned to running drugs. He shared an apartment in the Valley with Robert Lowe. The same Robert Lowe who helped him with the Radin snuff. The same Robert Lowe who bullied June Mack with him.

Mentzer and Lowe shipped dope into LAX from Laney’s new base in Florida. Laney said they were reckless. It was safer to drive it cross country, she said. Mentzer and Lowe ignored her to their cost. Sure enough, impatience beat caution, and there was a price to pay. In 1987, Mentzer and Lowe got busted. Feds intercepted two kilos of white on the airport carousel. Feds got a warrant and searched Mentzer and Lowe’s joint.

They made two discoveries.

Car registration papers. For a black Cadillac limousine. The significant detail was in the small print. The contract date. The same date Roy Radin disappeared. The same date Laney picked Radin up at his hotel in a black Cadillac limousine.

Also, a photograph. It showed Mentzer and an unknown man standing in the desert. Looked like the exact location where Radin’s body was found.

The two discoveries didn’t add up to a smoking gun, but it was clear to the Feds that Mentzer and Radin had their fingerprints all over the Radin case. Homicide detectives took notice. But who was the unidentified man in the picture? One of the Feds recognized the mystery person.

William Rider.

Rider’s life had been a long trip down a one-way street. From being Larry Flynt’s friend, to Larry Flynt’s brother-in-law, to Larry Flynt’s head of security, to Larry Flynt’s enemy number one. When Rider refused to lie under oath for Flynt in the DeLorean case, no one expected him to survive. But Rider shocked them. He walked away with millions from Larry Flynt’s savings, and left town.

Money enables a new perspective on life. Rider had started living high on the hog in Ohio. Sheriff’s deputies called him about the photograph in the desert. And sure enough, Rider had a new perspective on life.

Did Rider know Bill Mentzer and Robert Lowe, they asked? Sure, he said. He’d hired them as protection for Flynt.

Did Rider learn anything interesting from Mentzer and Lowe, they asked? Sure, he said. He’d had many interesting conversations with them.

Did Rider want to cough up details? Not so fast, he said. He had money, but he had enemies too. He was afraid of Flynt. Afraid of Mentzer. He had a family. So Feds offered him protection, and dough as a sweetener. Rider relented.

Rider unloaded. He told them that the picture was taken near Magic Mountain. The same place where Radin’s bones were discovered. It became such a common spot to dump bodies that L.A. hitmen had to find a new location. Magic Mountain was full.

Then Rider told them that years earlier he’d had a conversation with Robert Lowe. They’d been doing a security job in Texas. Lowe was drinking heavily and let his guard down. Told Rider about the Radin murder. Laney ordered it, he said. So Mentzer and him had kidnapped Radin in a black Cadillac limousine. Took him to Caswell Canyon. Mentzer embroidered his body with bullets. Pushed a stick of dynamite down his throat. Lit the fuse. Lowe had to walk away because he couldn’t watch. Job done. End of story.

Except that Lowe kept talking to Rider.

There was another murder. A black transvestite. Or drag queen. Or tranny. Who the fuck cared? Size of an Orca whale. Mentzer and him called her ‘The Thing.’ They harassed and abused her. For weeks. For fun. Then they got the sign to ice her. They fumbled a bomb attempt. Put a home-made explosive device under her car. It fizzled without a bang. Decided to do it the old-fashioned way instead.

The hit took place on Sepulveda Blvd in the Valley. Lowe said he drove the getaway vehicle. It was Mentzer who shot ‘The Thing’ several times. Mentzer also shot the victim’s companion. A faggy guy who never left her side, but the queer survived.

Job done. End of story.

*

The answers had fallen into the cop’s laps. They’d solved two unsolvable murders overnight. Mentzer and Lowe had killed June Mack and Roy Radin.

Rider’s stories rang true but the cops needed substance. They needed evidence that would be credible in court. More than just drunken bullshitting hearsay from years ago.

Rider remembered he’d lent a gun to Mentzer. A .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol with a silencer. Rider said Mentzer had given it back to him. Rider gave it to the investigators. They matched the gun to the slugs that killed June Mack. Rider had unwittingly supplied the murder weapon to the killers. Now Rider was involved too.

Rider made a deal. He agreed to go undercover and meet with Mentzer and Lowe. He’d wear a wire and secretly tape the conversations.

In May 1988, Rider met with Lowe at a bar in Frederick, MD. Lowe repeated the story of his role in both killings.

Two months later, Rider met Mentzer in Los Angeles. Mentzer blabbed. Called Radin ‘The Fat Scumbag.’ Admitted the whole Radin shanghai. Took credit for filling Radin with lead. Said he was paid a “lot of money” by Laney for the job.

Mentzer yakked about the June Mack affair too. He’d broken into June’s apartment and pistol whipped her. He’d used hollow-point bullets to kill her thinking – wrongly – they’d be impossible to trace to the weapon. He’d returned to June’s murder scene later the same night so he could see what the police were doing.

It was the proof that the cops had waited years for.

October 2^nd, 1988. SWAT teams moved in. Bill Mentzer and Robert Lowe were arrested and charged with Roy Radin’s 1983 slaying, and June Mack’s killing in 1984. The same moment, Okeechobee cops arrested Laney Jacobs for the Radin job. She waived extradition, and was transported to the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in Los Angeles.

June’s murder case showed up in court first. It should’ve been her vindication, her shining revenge, but truth is, her moment of truth was already lost in the scramble for attention, overshadowed by the headline-grabbing detail of ‘The Cotton Club’ murder. Overshadowed by every other two-bit misdeed in the big city. It barely warranted a mention in the newspapers or TV. On the rare occasion June was referenced, she was just billed as a 250-pound prostitute. Or a black harasser. Even at the culmination of her own personal movie, June Mack couldn’t get a decent credit.

Mentzer was found guilty of murdering June. Sentenced to life. Mentzer testified against Lowe, the driver of the getaway car. Lowe was acquitted. The public gaze moved on.

The Radin case started. The wheels of justice turned, but they were rusty. The whole spectacle took three years to adjudicate. Prelims, motion hearings, and jury selection ate up months.

September 4, 1990. The Radin jury trial finally kicked off. All the defendants were tried together, so mud flew in all directions. The tabloids ate it up.

Prosecutors had a simple version: Laney ordered the Radin hit because he threatened to cut her out of ‘The Cotton Club’ deal, and had stolen cocaine and money from her house.

William Rider was the star witness. Said the Radin murder was a plot cooked up by Robert Evans and Laney. Testified that Mentzer told him that Robert Evans paid for the murder. Rider passed a polygraph test.

Arthur Michael Pascal, owner of the security business that had hired Mentzer and Lowe to tackle June Mack, fought back. Pascal said Rider was full of shit and a murderer himself. Rider had told him that he and Larry Flynt had poisoned soldier of fortune Mitchell WerBell III in 1983. Poured a powerful heart relaxant into WerBell’s cocktail shortly before he died of a heart attack. Pascal visited Mitchell WerBell on his deathbed. WerBell said, “The bastards got me… they put something in the drink.” Pascal asked, “Who got you?” Werbell said it was Rider and Flynt.

Laney’s turn. Testified she was a drug dealer, but blamed the killing of Radin on others. She was an unwitting pawn in a game played out by three of her lovers: Milan Bellechasses, Robert Evans, and Mentzer. Milan wanted revenge for his stolen drugs and money. Evans wanted revenge for the failed ‘Cotton Club’ deal. Mentzer… was just fucking crazy. She’d done everything she could to diffuse tensions, she said. She’d tried to settle her differences with Radin by taking him to dinner. Said she was ordered by Mentzer to get out of the limousine which she shared with Radin the night of the murder.

Laney said she didn’t learn Radin’s fate until Mentzer told her the next day. She thought it was only a kidnap to find out who was behind the theft of the cocaine. Learning Radin was dead, Laney said she became upset but didn’t call the police: ″I was involved in drug dealing and I was afraid to.″

Mentzer refused to testify. He requested that his case be severed from the others. His request was denied.

William Mentzer and Laney in court

Robert Lowe took the stand. Since confessing to Rider, he’d come up with an alibi. Family members and friends testified that he was in Maryland on the night of the murder. His former wife testified that he liked his booze, and was inclined to invent shit when he was drunk. He was a loud-mouth she said, but not a killer.

The trial drew to a close, but this was Hollywood, so other entertainment punctuated the proceedings. A bailiff in a neighboring courtroom accidentally fired his gun. People dove for cover. The rumor was that Laney was shooting her way out of the courthouse. Actor Demond Wilson, a prodigious cokehead, turned up to say he’d found God. Roy Radin’s former assistant was led out of court when he showed up drunk on the day he was to testify.

What about Robert Evans? He repeatedly invoked the Fifth. He feared his testimony could incriminate himself, he said. At the same time, he also claimed he knew nothing of Radin’s murder. A strange contradiction to some.

July 7^th, 1991. The jury returned. Mentzer was convicted of first-degree murder. Laney and Lowe were convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping. They all received automatic life sentences without possibility of parole. In Mentzer’s case, the jury also found that he killed Radin for financial gain. That opened the possibility of death in the gas chamber. That threat was eventually dropped.

Two years later, there was a postscript to June’s case. In October 1993, Arthur Michael Pascal was back in court. He was accused of setting June’s slaying into motion. After all, he’d been hired by the Cavalli family to protect them from her. And he’d hired Mentzer and Lowe who’d killed her. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office described Pascal as the middleman responsible for June’s killing.

Pascal was 56 but didn’t look a day under 80. He turned up in court handcuffed to a wheelchair, nearly blind from diabetes, and pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter charges. He faced a maximum term of 11 years in prison.

The legal wheels slowed to a halt. Justice is messy and dishonest. Questions remained about both murders. But one question remained above the others.

If Mentzer and Lowe murdered June Mack, who ordered her death? In other words, who really killed June Mack?

*

LAPD investigators didn’t discuss whom they considered suspects. In fact, they didn’t appear remotely interested.

Was it Mentzer and Lowe acting by themselves? Was it Pascal who made the decision? Or was it the Cavalli family who ordered the hit?

A possible clue appeared in a summary of the investigation filed with L.A. Superior Court. An informant was quoted as saying one of the suspects told him that when June Mack started bothering a wealthy Italian family, “the grandmother contracted the hit.”

The Cavalli family attorney identified the grandmother as Mary Bowles, Greg Cavalli’s grandmother. The Beverly Hills investment executive and matriarch of the Cavalli family. The attorney claimed he was shocked. “There’s no other grandmother with a part in this case,” he said.

When asked if she had anything to do with the June’s killing, he said: “It’s absurd, it’s crazy, it’s absolutely impossible. It’s beyond my conception that anyone in the Cavalli family would have anything to do with anything illegal, let alone a murder. They are gentle, refined people with an excellent reputation. I’ve never seen a finer or more decent family. They went through an ordeal that no family should have to face. They are, in every way, the real victims in this case.”

Privately detectives admitted they’d fucked up. Greg Cavalli had not been the getaway driver. He wasn’t even present the night of the killing. They’d been wrong to put him on trial. The D.A. said, “I don’t even want to speculate on Gregory Cavalli’s role. He’s been acquitted now.” He reiterated that Greg could never be re-tried for the same crime.

So Greg moved back to Southern California, and has never spoken out about the case. His grandmother, Mary Bowles, died in 2006 at 93 years of age, taking any secrets with her.

And since then, nothing. A TV episode of L.A. Forensics told the story of June Mack’s murder in a tabloid fashion in 2007. It was cheap, tacky, and featured no new information. The names of all involved were changed. Except for June. Somehow she was still the unprotected one.

The final resolution of her case seems abandoned to the mists of time.

Today William Mentzer and Robert Lowe serve their life terms in top security jails. Arthur Michael Pascal died years ago. Larry Flynt beat expectations, and died in 2021. The Cavalli family kept their silence.

Laney is 73 and still held in the California Institution for Women. Last year, her supporters started a campaign for her release. They described her as elderly and disabled. A devout Christian, who deserves freedom after 32 years in prison. They started an online petition. Last time I checked it had 350 signatures. No one was ever arrested for the murder of her husband, Larry.

And then there’s June Mack.

Junkyard Sal lives on in Russ Meyer’s flickering images. She’s a caricature, sure. But an empowered, strong, black woman too. And there weren’t many of those on the screen in 1979. Still aren’t. Which makes June’s death even more tragic.

Politicians, ugly buildings, and hookers all get respectable if they last long enough. But not June Mack. Her childhood was neglected. Her murder was swallowed up by a higher profile killing. Her court case was ignored. And throughout it all, her character, appearance, and lifestyle were trashed to serve someone else’s story.

And somehow, we still don’t know who killed June Mack. Who really killed June Mack.

Forget it, June. It’s Chinatown.

*

The post Murder Noir: Who Killed June Mack? Who Really Killed June Mack? – Part 2: Podcast 115 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Last week a new docu-drama premiered on Netflix. It’s called Crime Scene – Times Square – and we were pleased to be Producers on it.

The show examines how the environment in New York’s Times Square in the late 1970s and early 1980s – a nearly-lawless area rife with drugs and sex work – made it possible for one man to commit, and nearly get away with, unthinkable acts of violence.

Many of the characters interviewed for the show have appeared as subjects of Rialto Report podcast interviews – people such as the filmmaker Larry Revene, adult film actress and writer Veronica Vera, and sex show performer Joseph Stryker.

And then there’s Marty Hodas, the self-proclaimed Porno King of New York. Perhaps more than anyone else, Marty was responsible for the change in Times Square that took place from the 1960s, when the area descended into such a dangerous area. It was Marty who introduced sexual peep shows into the area, and then ran an empire of bookstores, adult theaters, and massage parlors.

I first came across Marty when I read articles in the newspapers from the early 1970s. The sex trade may have been illegal back then, but Marty didn’t hide – in fact, he enjoyed the publicity and regularly appeared on the covers of newspaper and on interview shows.

A few years ago, I got hold of a number for Marty and called him. I said I’d love to meet him – and hear about the old days. He invited me over to his apartment and served me a feast of pastrami, shrimp, and cheeses.

And he talked.

This is Marty’s story – and the story of Times Square.

This podcast is 54 minutes long.

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A Rialto Report dinner with Jamie Gillis, Marty Hodas, and Larry Revene

*

The post ‘Crime Scene – Times Square’: The Life of Marty Hodas – Podcast 38 (reprise) appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The pioneering adult film, Deep Throat, was shot 50 years ago today.

The scene was south Florida, and it was Super Bowl Sunday, January 16th, 1972. The local Miami Dolphins were playing, and so the streets of the city were deserted, meaning it was a perfect time to make a film when you didn’t exactly want to draw attention to what you were doing.

The filmmakers were a group of New Yorkers who’d made the 1,300-mile trip south to film an explicit sex film. Nothing special was expected. After all, this was a time when no one was sure quite just how legal this was.

It was a reasonably ambitious production for the standards of an X-rated shoot. This film had a plot, a script, its own musical soundtrack, and was being made by a crew who had some experience. The film’s budget was rumored to have come from the mob, but given that it was enough for them to travel down to Florida for the week in the middle of a cold New York winter, who needed to ask questions?

What happened next is history: ‘Deep Throat’ was the porn film that went mainstream. It became a genuine sensation, one of the most profitable films – of any kind – ever made, costing a few thousand dollars and bringing in a whopping three hundred million, five hundred million, six hundred million dollars. You take your pick. No one knows for sure.

But ‘Deep Throat’ was more than just a runaway financial success. It had a genuine cultural impact, responsible for ushering in the era known as “porno chic,” middle-class respectable types getting hardcore about hardcore. For a short while, you couldn’t escape it. The New York Times featured long articles about it, Johnny Carson and Bob Hope made jokes about it, and the crowds of people who lined up to buy tickets included Truman Capote and Jackie Kennedy Onassis. When the Watergate story broke, the biggest political scandal of the 20th century, it seemed normal that one of the protagonists was given a nickname taken from the film’s title.

Not bad for a film about a sexually frustrated woman, whose psychiatrist discovers that her clitoris is located in her throat, and so offers to help hone her oral sex skills.

So who was responsible for this hugely successful and influential film? The answer surprised many back in 1972.

It all came down to one man, Gerard Damiano, the film’s director. But he wasn’t the type of person you might expect to be making a porn film.

Gerard Damiano (right) with David Davidson

He was no counter-cultural rebel like many who were throwing themselves into sex films at the time. Gerard was raised as a Catholic, and was a family man with a wife and two children.

He wasn’t a mobster like other Italians in the business either. Gerard ran a beauty salon in Queens.

And he wasn’t a sleazy, sex-obsessed smut hound. Gerard was an aspiring filmmaker, albeit with little formal training and no contacts in the mainstream film industry.

In short, Gerard Damiano was an unlikely pioneer.

Given that, how did ‘Deep Throat’ ever get made? Despite its popularity, many questions still remain fifty years later.

In this unpublished interview conducted shortly before Gerard passed away in 2008, he speaks about his life before ‘Deep Throat’ – as well as his experience making ‘Deep Throat’. He talks about the truth behind where the money for the film came from, as well as the claim from Linda Lovelace that she was forced to perform in it.

This is how Gerard Damiano remembered the whole experience decades after it took place.

This podcast is 50 minutes long.

*

The post Deep Throat @ 50: Gerard Damiano – The Director: Podcast 116 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Charles William Rotsler (1926–1997) was an award-winning artist and science fiction author.

Bill was also involved in the burgeoning adult film industry starting in the late 1950s, first as a stills photographer on the set of adult films, and later when he wrote, directed, or acted in over 20 adult films during his career with Boxoffice International Pictures,

In 1966, he created Adam Film Quarterly, later called Adam Film World, one of the earliest magazines to provide commentary on pornographic films. He wrote hundreds of articles using a plethora of pseudonyms including ‘Shannon Carse’, ‘Cord Heller’, ‘Clay McCord’, and ‘Merrill Dakota’ – sometimes even interviewing himself. He also wrote the seminal book, Contemporary Erotic Cinema in 1973.

But this series of articles is not about Bill Rotsler. It’s about a group of friends of his. Four friends. Four women, to be more specific, who at various times lived with him, and featured in his films, photographs, and magazines. Their lives intersected in his house, as they played their parts in helping establish the adult film industry in Los Angeles.

He called this group, ‘The Gruesome Foursome.’

The Rialto Report tracked down each of the four to hear about their lives. This is the third part: Uschi Digard.

The interview is taken from our podcast with Uschi. We have added additional information taken from lengthier conversations we have had with Uschi over the years.

All photographs are taken by Bunny Yeager, and are courtesy of Grapefruit Moon Gallery.

You can read Part 1, the story of Kathie Hilton  (and Gerard Broulard) here , and Part 2, Malta’s story here. 

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Uschi Digard

Uschi Digard always seemed to be larger than life. She was an indestructible, formidable, pinup beauty who was emblematic of the sexual revolution in California. From the late 1960s through to the early 1980s, she was in hundreds of magazine spreads, had many issues dedicated to her, and appeared in countless softcore films, too. Her Amazonian features and natural good looks meant she was always in demand as she proved popular with fans. Or in the words of director Russ Meyer, her close friend and frequent collaborator, “She was a buxom cantilevered barracuda who was a Trojan at work.”

Russ was a man’s man, a World War II veteran, and a tough task master, and in Uschi he met his match and found the perfect foil. The combination of her sex appeal with her own sentimental tireless work ethic resulted in a close friendship that lasted decades. But for someone with such a larger than life presence, Uschi was also elusive and deeply private. Her face and body may have been all over the magazines, but her own voice was notably absent. Throughout her long career as a nude model and actress, she revealed everything, but revealed nothing. She rarely gave interviews, and the scant biographical information that was published was often fabricated. It was said that she was an interpreter of the United Nations. She came from Sweden. She had a perfume line that was big in Asia. And if her published birthdate is to be believed, then she recently celebrated her 70th birthday. All this is false. And as it turns out, the wealth of untrue information bothers Uschi herself as well.

The trouble is how do you correct so many misconceptions without drawing attention to yourself? How do you go public, but stay private?

*

1.     Childhood

I suspect the theme of our conversation today is going to be the rumors and misinformation that have circulated over the years, which I’m hoping we can set the record straight. So let me start with one right at the beginning. There’s been much conjecture about where you’ve come from. I’ve seen references to Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, and my favorite is Bismarck, North Dakota. So where were you actually born?

Actually born in Switzerland, but lived in all those countries, apart from Bismarck, North Dakota.

I don’t want to be indiscreet and ask your birthdate, but there is a birthdate that’s widely quoted as being August the 15th, the 1948.

Totally wrong. Couldn’t be wronger.

Well, let’s leave the mystery there. What was the nationality of your family?

Swiss French.

Did you have a big family?

Yeah. I was the youngest by eight years.

How did that shape your character?

It kind of made me think more like an adult and be more independent. And I always did my own ship. I remember when I was little – and things didn’t go the way I want – I would move out temporarily. I had two neighbors that would put me up. So if my mother rubbed me the wrong way, I would have a little bag and I’d pack it and I’d move next door. Just wherever the smells were better.

How did everyone treat you?

I always got treated as an adult because my siblings were adults practically when I was born. They treated me like one of them, and I appreciated it. So I never got treated like a little kid, and I loved it and I respected them for it.

What kind of school did you go?

I went to boarding school for many, many, many years with nuns. They were like convent nuns.

How strict was this convent school?

Very strict. We didn’t go home at night. We could only go home three times a year for holidays. We were never allowed anywhere. If we went for walks, it would be two by two with a nun in the middle and a nun in front. And we slept in huge dormitories in kind of tent like surroundings and no privacy whatsoever. And I hated it. To me, it was like prison.

How did that shape your feelings about religion?

Made me realize that (religion) wasn’t anything I ever wanted to do, that religion was a very personal thing and nobody should be forced to go to church three times a day or be forced to believe in a doctrine and find their own way. So it strengthened me actually, because it made me start to think about what I thought about life and God. So it was good for me.

Given that it was very strict, how did you react against that? What was your outlet?

Oh, I read a lot. We had a library there in the boarding school, and I must have read every book in that library and then realized that I couldn’t stand any translated book. So my ambition was to learn languages so I wouldn’t have to read anything that was translated. And I did that.

Did you actually start learning foreign languages when you were at school?

Yeah. I started with Italian. See, because of being brought up in Switzerland, we have three national languages, Italian, French and German. Before you can even attempt to take English, you have to learn those three languages. So I got fluent in Italian, German, and French – and then proceeded from there.

If you were in a convent environment, did this mean your contact with the opposite sex was restricted as well? Did you meet many boys?

None. Oh, no. None. Absolutely nothing. No. We were just girls.

How did that impact you in terms of not having boyfriends?

Well, I was a virgin, so it was no big deal.

When you lived back in home environments, were your parents quite strict about that side of things?

Yeah. Very, very religious.

And I presume that the prevailing standards of the time as well were quite restrictive.

That’s right. Yeah.

You always had a really healthy outdoor image in a lot of the later photographs that were taken of you. Does that fit in with your upbringing as well? Were you a very outdoorsy type?

Yeah. I skied. From the minute I started to walk, I skied. I became a pretty good skier, swam every summer, and just loved outdoor life.

Were you a confident child?

Very much so. Yeah. And pretty much set in my ways from a very early age. I knew what I liked and I knew what I didn’t like. I loved reading. Reading, reading, reading, and skiing. Yeah. Those were my two loves, reading and skiing.

What sort of reading did you like?

Spiritual, like Hermann Hesse type stuff, and a lot of biographies.

And what didn’t you like?

I didn’t like gossip and I didn’t like name conversations. So I kind of steered away from people that were boring or gossipy or liars, and went in my own direction.

How attractive did you consider yourself when you were a teenager?

Not very. Never gave it much thought, actually. No.

Were you an early bloomer physically?

Yeah. I had big breasts from the age of 11, and I wasn’t too pleased about that. I tried to hide them. So I usually would wear sweaters that were kind of large and bras that were too small so that I could let something hang underneath and something on the side and then covered it all up. And that made me look smaller.

So it doesn’t sound that boyfriends or sex was a big part of your teenage years.

No. Wasn’t even on the agenda.

*

2.     Leaving Home

So when you left school, you finally got the chance to fulfill your ambition of learning languages. And you embarked on a multi-year European tour.

I’d work during the day and go to school at nights and stay in each country until I passed the degree, and then move on to the next country.

Where did you start first?

My Italian wasn’t too good, so I went to Italy to perfect my Italian. After a year in Italy, then I went to France and worked on my French. It was all right, but it wasn’t perfect. Then once I knew my French, I wanted to learn English. Written English, not just spoken English. And I went to the Channel Islands, Jersey.

Did you pick up English quickly there?

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn any English at all because all the other people were also continental so we never spoke in English. So winter came and Jersey got cold, (and) I thought, “Well, I’ve got to get a degree in English.” And so I got myself a job in London at The Regent Palace Hotel, which in those days was the largest hotel in Europe.

What was it like working there?

I am almost like a retard when it comes to directions. I’m normally a left-handed, but in boarding school, they tied my left hand behind my back and forced me to be a right-handed. And so all the things from school I do with my right hand, but everything that I do out of joy like tennis I do with my left hand. I think this is one of the reasons I have no sense of direction. And this hotel being so huge, it took me three weeks just to find the way to my room because every day I got lost.

Do you still have that problem?

I’m still abysmal. When we first came to L.A. and started driving a car in L.A…. those freeways, San Diego Freeway, east, west, north, south, it’s all the same to me. It would take me hours to get home because I’d get so lost. Still to this day, I have a horrible sense of direction.

What was it like living in London at that time? It must have been an exciting time.

I loved it. It was a beautiful time. Yeah. And I had my first boyfriend in London. Actually met him in Jersey, and then we came to London. It was wonderful, exciting time. And also musically listening to big dance, and living on my own, and no longer being affected by the church or by nuns was a great freedom. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

In the early 1960s, I’m guessing it was still relatively uncommon for a single female to be such an independent traveler.

I never really gave it much thought, because whenever I went somewhere I had gotten myself a job beforehand. Before I went to London, I got myself a job at The Regent Palace so I had somewhere to go. Or when I went to France, I got myself a job. And then immediately when you work somewhere, you meet other workers. So I always had a little family around me and I never felt lonely or estranged. I always felt very good.

So you’ve been to Italy, France, and then England. Where do you go next?

I first went to a little place called Cubelles, which is outside Barcelona, to learn Spanish. And then when the winter came and it got cold and I hadn’t learned enough Spanish, and someone told me, “There are these islands called the Canary Islands where they speak Spanish, and the weather is beautiful, and it’s gorgeous…”

This time you didn’t have any work lined up, though.

The first time I went somewhere without a job.

How did you get to the Canary islands, because it was quite a journey at that time?

I took one of those boats that only travels in the night, the cargo boat, and it went through Spain, Malaga, Alicante, then it went over to Tangier, Marrakech and finally arrived in the Gran Canarias after three weeks, and I was there without a job.

So what did you do?

Again, I helped myself, got myself with job, and indeed ended up spending four or five winters there working, and then in the summer I would travel around.

What kind of work did you find in the Canary islands?

By then, I already knew Italian, French, German, and English, so I immediately got a job as a linguist.

That must have been useful because of the tourist trade out there.

A lot of foreigners, particularly German and English people would vacation in Canary Islands. And I worked in the jewelry business, and the jewelry there was very cheap in comparison to the rest of Europe. People got to know me, so they would come from England and say, “We saved up four or 5,000 pounds. What you think we should invest in this year?” And I would show them the baubles that I thought would be of interest to them.

And how did you get paid?

I worked at a percentage. So whatever I sold, I would get my certain percentage, so I made a lot of money.

That sounds like a lot more than just linguistic work. You sound like you were a salesperson who had some understanding of the product as well.

I kind of learned it as I went along. And indeed, I then worked in Europe – in Sweden and Switzerland – in foremost jewelry stores as a jewelry sales lady.

Would you say you’re good at the sales side?

Yes. Excellent. Because I don’t try and sell something that I don’t think is right for someone. If I feel it is too much for a person to spend or whatever, I would steer them in the direction of something that would be a little more modestly priced. And I always had the customer’s interest at heart, not the seller’s interest. And I think that’s why people kept coming back to me and I became an excellent sales lady.

So you would work the winter in the Canary islands and get commission from the sales, and that would presumably give you enough money for the rest of the year to travel.

That’s right.

It was in the Canary Islands that you met your husband.

I had actually seen him before when I lived in Jersey. There was this night club called The Watersplash. A very fancy night club. And I used to go there, and Ron was there with a band. But we never met. I just would admire his drumming, but that was it. And I didn’t really meet him until four years later on the beach.

Was he in the Canary Islands to play music as well?

He had his own band there.

Was it love at first sight then, once you saw him in the Canary Islands?

Interest at first sight. Ron and I have been married for almost 50 years.

What kind of music did he play?

He had his own band, and they were brilliant. They were bass, drums, piano and horns. And they played jazz, rock n’ roll. They also sang in harmony. If you remember a band called The Hi-Lo’s. They were very well liked because they were different.

So having met Ron, you have this job in the jewelry business and he has his job that I suppose involves a lot of traveling as a musician, where did you go next?

We went to Israel and we were there during the Seven-Day War. (His band) became a big hit in Israel.

This was a troubled time in the history of Israel.

It was very interesting because there was still a lot of fighting going on. In fact, I remember we would have fans that would come one week to listen to the band, and the next week two or three people would be missing and we’d inquire and they’d say, “Oh, they got shot during the week.” It was a very terrible time and a very unhappy time for the Israelis. But we found them to be very, very generous, good human beings, and we admired them very much for what they stood for.

And the reason you went to Israel was because of Ron’s music?

Yeah. He had an agent and he got a great contract in Tel Aviv.

Was it at this stage that you got married?

We got married in 1967 because it became a hassle when you weren’t married with hotel rooms. So it was easier to be married. That’s why we got married.

And after Israel, you went to Sweden.

That’s correct. (His band) became the hot band, and they had a weekly TV show. I worked in the jewelry business because in the Canary Islands, I had met a jeweler who had a jewelry shop there and he says, “If you ever want to work for me, just give me a call.” In those days he had 40 jewelry shops all over Scandinavia.

As soon as I contacted him he said, “How soon can you start?” And I started working for him in one of the best jewelry stores in Scandinavia, and ended up buying diamonds for all the stores all over Scandinavia. I was the main buyer for the 40 stores. And we liked Sweden.

What was Sweden like at that time?

Very interesting. We just did like the winters. Boy, can it get cold! We stayed there during the winters because Ron’s band got steady work, and they had their TV show, which was very much like the Beatles had later on – where they did scenes, like they would ride elephants and then they’d play ‘Baby Elephant Walk’, or they’d be skiing down a hill. The show became a huge hit. They did very well in Sweden, so we stayed there for three years.

So where did you go to next?

Then to Mexico. We were in Mexico during the Olympics.

Oh, the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Right. They opened a new hotel there called Camino Real, and they booked Ron’s band for the opening.

What did you do in Mexico? Did you continue to do the jewelry work?

I tutored college students in language work

Was that relating to the Olympics?

Yeah. I did that too. I had to pass an exam, and then I started translating for the Olympic Committee.

*

3.     Modeling in the United States

So in 1968, you decide to move to the U.S. and to Los Angeles. Was that to pursue Ron’s music career?

He got a contract with a band called Les Brown and His Band of Renown. Les Brown’s band was very famous in those days. So we came to the United States and we lived in Venice, California.

What was that part of L.A. like in the late 1960s?

It was the best time I think of the L.A. era to live in L.A. because it was the hippie era. They had these ‘love-ins’ at the beach, and it was just so free… flower-power and grass. It was just a very, very happy time in L.A. Now, L.A. is unbelievable. It’s horrible. But in those days it was really, really the place to be.

And I would imagine that there was plentiful work for Ron as well due to the music scene there. Who were the sort of people that he played with over the next few years?

He was on the road with Ray Charles for many years. Then he joined an avant garde band with Don Ellis. Don Ellis was the one that played in the unusual time signatures, which most musicians found very difficult to play. Instead of 4/4, they played 8/9, 12, 15 beat. And it was a big challenge and he enjoyed that. (Then ) he went on the road with a lot of people… Jack Jones, Marie and Donny Osmond. You name it, he went on the road with them.

Now, I imagine it was not easy for you to get work straight away when you got to the U.S. because of the situation regarding work permits and green cards.

We didn’t have working permits right at the beginning. I immediately went to the language school, Berlitz. They had one on Hollywood Boulevard and I asked them if they could employ me as a linguist or translator or teacher. And they said, “Yes, of course. Just bring us your green card and you’ll get to work.” (But) I didn’t have a green card, so that was that.

I presume that’s how you got into modeling, because that was one type of work that didn’t necessarily need…

I didn’t need a green card for that.

Yeah. So how did you find your first modeling work?

I saw an ad in the Los Angeles Free Press, and they were asking for models, and there was a model agency on Hollywood Boulevard called Pretty Girl Agency.

Do you remember the guys who ran the Pretty Girl Agency?

Hank Cline and Dick James. And I went in there and said, “Do you think you could use somebody like me?” They immediately put me to work, and I worked every day. And from earning modest fees like $50 a day, I ended up getting a $1,000 a day.

So that became your full-time job for a while.

Yeah. I thought, “Translating can wait.”

What was it like at first? Was it typically just you in a shoot, or was there other models in the same shoot?

No. In those days, you had all those pretty girl magazines, like ‘She’ and ‘Modern Man’ and ‘Allure’. There were a lot of pretty girl magazines, which are pretty modest in today’s standards. They barely showed pubic hair.

Then you also worked for the Japanese market a lot, which meant absolutely no pubic hair and no nipples. Just a swell of the breast, but no nipples. You had to cover it up. They’d have these gory magazines like with executions and blood, but the girls couldn’t show their nipples or the pubic hair! It’s amazing the way you look at life. So it was pretty modest in those days.

How much modeling work did you get?

I got so busy modeling; I could have worked seven days a week if I wanted to. And the money got bigger and bigger all the time, and everything was on my terms.

Did you have any inhibitions about posing for the magazines at first, or was it fairly natural?

No, it became very natural. As soon as we were in L.A., we also joined a nudist place called Elysium Fields up in Topanga Canyon. It’s a beautiful place. In fact, we were some of the first people there. When Elysium Fields was (first) opened, we were part of the group of people that planted some of the trees to made it pretty. And we helped build the tennis court.

Nudity was just part of our life. It just felt very natural to be nude. So if somebody was willing to pay me and carry me until I could get a real job, I was very happy to just pose nude. It never, never bothered me.

It was a real heyday for nudism. And what was the attraction to you?

It’s just totally natural. I always felt that when people went nude, you knew whom you were dealing with. Very often people are hiding their character between fat suits and briefcases. Once they’re stripped of all that, what you see is what you get and people are more honest. That’s what attracted me.

Swingers clubs were starting to be big around that time too. Did you find that there was a crossover between the two?

Well, it was kind of a two-faced. Apart from Elysium Fields, there was another nudist place, and it was higher up on the same canyon, and it was a swingers club. I can’t think what it was called right now. And because they knew of me because my modeling, they invited us to go up there once. And so Ron and I went and we hated it. One of the scenes was there was a big, big hangout room and there was this huge water bed, and there were about five couples making love on that water bed. And then there were two guys with a stopwatch timing them to see who came first, and we just found it horrible. You had to be careful you weren’t standing freely because somebody would sneak in behind you. It was just so horrible that we left.

The Elysium Fields was just delightful. It was a nudist place, it was free, it was just great. And it did have little rooms if people wanted to go in and make love, but then that was private. It wasn’t a huge orgy place.

I remember reading an interview with British actor, Patrick Macnee, who stared in The Avengers, the television series. And he mentioned that he used to go to the Elysium Fields as well around about that time.

Yeah, it’s funny. That’s where we met Patrick and became good friends. In fact, we had a little routine while we were in L.A. He would come to lunch at our house every Monday, and every Friday he would take us out to lunch somewhere.

Once when we were at Elysium Fields, I was reading a magazine, and I turned around to Patrick and said, “Hey, Patrick. You’re called Best Dressed Man of the Year. Isn’t this funny? I never seen you with any clothes on!”

Was your experience of modeling all good?

I have to say that although many girls that I later worked with said how abysmally they got treated by photographers, I never had a bad experience. I always got treated the way I wanted to be treated, and I always got paid, and in fact I got spoiled. They would bring me flowers and God knows what. So I had no bad experiences.

Why do you think you were always treated so well?

I think to a great extent, a person gets treated the way they want to be treated. You give off an aura, and my aura was, “Okay, you take me at my beckon. Whatever I say goes, not what you say.” And so it worked.

Did Ron ever join you on any of the photo shoots?

Ron did a couple of shoots with me. Actually, he kind of fell into it because in those days I didn’t drive, and so he had to take me to my modeling assignments, and one of the male models didn’t show up. So they used to Ron. And so he got involved in a few of the modeling shoots.

You know those big matches, those long matches for fire places that come in these long boxes? For a while, they sold these long boxes, and there was a picture of Ron standing on the box, and I was cuddling his leg. Both of us were nude, and it’s a great matchbox cover. He did quite a few shoots with me.

So he was a musician and a model then?

No. Not really a model, but he did it a few times.

One photographer that you worked with at the beginning was Bill Rotsler.

Oh, I adored Bill Rotsler. I worked a lot for him. In fact, he’s one of the first people I worked for. When I started to work for a photographer, normally a girl shoots with them once or twice. Bill would book me for a month, like five days a week for a month. And so I started working for Bill on a regular basis.

In those days I didn’t drive a car, and Bill wasn’t too happy to drive me home. I spoke eight languages, but I couldn’t drive a car. I thought I’d gladly give a language to drive a car. So I always needed a lift home so Ron would have to come and find me and pick me up.

Bill lived in the Hollywood Hills, and Bill had a house which was like a Turkish harem. It was all Turkish carpets and huge pillows. And it was just a party house. It looked like a tent in the Arabian night. We spent a lot of time hanging out there and having a wonderful time. It was like a second home for us. We just ended up always hanging out there after work. And Bill became a dear, dear friend.

People like Harlan Ellison used to hang out there as well.

Harlan Ellison? Yeah, he was there a lot.

And wasn’t Bill a really good cook?

Well, actually he was great at putting pouches into boiling water, and then cutting the pouches open and the food was delicious. That’s the first time I ever saw people cooking with pouches, and boy, did it taste good. Like curried rice and tikka masala chicken all out of pouches. Delicious. And he was always very generous.

You worked with Bill for several years.

He started to have a problem with his hands.

You mean like arthritis or something?

No. The thing is they’re like paralyzed. Because he was a photographer, he couldn’t take pictures anymore because he couldn’t move his fingers. And it was very painful, and that started to get worse and worse. So he started to run into money problems because he couldn’t take pictures anymore. And so he didn’t have such a good end.

Were you ever interested in actually buying the magazines in which you appeared?

I have a lot of the magazines. I don’t think I ever bought one, but they were given to me or sent to me. So I have a whole bunch of them, and there are two or three books that are just Uschi books. I think I have those, but I don’t think I ever paid money for any of those.

*

4.     Working in Films

So most of the modeling work I guess you get through the Pretty Girl Agency.

Yes, and then later on with the guy by the name of Hal Guthu.

Yes. Hal found you more work in films.

That’s right. Yes.

What was Hal like?

I liked him a lot too. Very shy. I think he had a hindrance, maybe clubfoot or something. He was limping a little bit, but very sweet, very honest. If Hal would recommend me for a gig, I knew it was upfront, the money was all right, and I could trust him. And I liked him enormously.

Hal was the agent for a lot of actors at that time. In fact, he managed Rene Bond, for example. Hal passed away in 2000 after a fire in his office and he was found shot in the head. It was ruled a suicide at the time. What’s your take on this?

I have no idea what happened. When his place went up in flames, his parrot also burned with him, and that parrot was his life. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Starting in 1969, you start to work in films in addition to the modeling.

It’s all called sexploitation films, which were like softcore nudie films.

Did the films pay more than the modeling?

It depends. In the beginning, as I say, I only got $50 a day for the modeling, but then later I got so much money that it would pay more than films. It’s just that films would last one week, two weeks, sometimes three weeks in this one location, and so you’d make regular money in the long run.

Let’s talk about your film work. And I’d like to start at the first film you did with Russ Meyer, Cherry, Harry, & Raquel!

That film was already finished and it didn’t work. For some reason, Russ didn’t like the way it showed. And then I came into it. He saw me and he cast me, and he would go and get me in different situations like underwater in a pool, or in the desert on a railway station, or like a secretary, or running up the mountain in boots… and wherever the film wasn’t working, he would put in little shots of me. And really, with no sequence or no rhyme or reason. And for some reason, it pulled the film together and then we released it.

What do you remember about meeting him for the first time?

Well, he was very Germanic, because his father was a policeman and he came from German stock, so I knew exactly what to think of him. I knew what he liked because I’m a Germanist, so we got along just great.

It sounds like you had very similar backgrounds.

Right. And indeed, I ended up working a lot for Russ not just in the films, but as co-producers – and doing everything from casting to makeup to cooking to you name it. To paying the bills.

Had you seen any of Russ’s films before you actually met him for the first time?

I’ve never seen one of Russ’s films.

Still to this day?

No. Never.

Did this extend to all the other films you made?

I’ve never seen one. I’ve never, ever seen one. I’ve just never gave it a thought.

Why do you think that is?

I think it’s (that) I don’t particularly like to watch myself, because I immediately think what I could have done better, or awkward pose or whatever. So I never put myself into that situation where I have to critique myself.

That makes a lot of sense.

So I never bothered.

I read a quote that he said about you. He said that you, “had the dedication of a Watusi gun bearer, and was somebody who could run over cut glass,” which I guess really appealed to him because you had the sex appeal that he was so interested in, but at the same time you had the work ethic and the strength of character that he obviously admired.

I remember in ‘Harry, Cherry & Raquel!’ that on one shoot, I had to wear thigh-high boots and run up a mountain in these boots. The boots were two sizes too small, and he wanted to get the sun coming down, me going up the mountain and topless, and it had to be just right. And I also had to run down again. Now, running up wasn’t so bad, but coming down, the breasts really hurt. And then he had a little Jeep with a red light flashing all the time, and that was an effect. By the time we were finished shooting, his battery had died because he used the battery of his Jeep all day long to get the light going. And here we were stuck in I think it was Death Valley. Stuck in the desert, no car, and he said, “Okay, let’s use the last light to take a few stills.”

And he’s shooting stills, and I hear this clicking, and there’s this rattler right next to me. I say, “Snake!” And he says, “Don’t move.” He always had a gun with him. He shot the snake’s head off, never said a word, and we continued shooting. He says, “Okay, move more to the left. The breasts are not at the right angle.” And that’s how he was. That was rough. We didn’t have a battery, so he ended up starting the battery of his Jeep with the battery of his camera, and he got us home. And he just was a task master.

Then at the end of the shoot, he’d wine and dine us and take us to the best restaurants. He was a good guy. He was just old school. You know, German old school. Work, work, work, and then play.

Russ used the name Astrid Lillimore for you I think in that movie. I guess the reason why you had so many different names at that time was because you still were getting your green card and your papers in order, and therefore used different names to hide your identity. Would that be fair?

You got it in one. I got paid cash and I didn’t want to be recognized. I remember I went to a book signing in Newport Beach, and the press came, and there were some books that I was involved with, and the press wanted to have interviews. And so I always would push everybody else in front of me, and I would go to the bathroom until they’d be gone because I didn’t want to have any press or any celebrity or anything like that.

But I have to add, even though I worked all these years so-called illegally, I paid taxes right from the beginning. I never did not pay taxes. I was very strict about that, because I knew one day I’m going to be legal. But I just didn’t want them publicly. I just wanted to get my money and disappear.

You acted in a lot of films at this time, but a lot of the roles were very small and you were uncredited. I presume that was for the same reason then.

That was my wish. Whenever they wanted to give me something bigger, I asked them not to. I got a part in a film actually with Richard Burton in Acapulco, and the part I got was to be a band leader, and I turned it down because I felt it would be a little too much publicity. Too big a film. So I never did it.

Let me ask you about the name that you eventually decided upon, Uschi Digard. Where did the Uschi part come from?

Ron had a girlfriend and really liked the name Uschi. Uschi is an abbreviation for Ursula.

That’s the real name, Ursula. And so we used that. Digard got used by one of the guys I worked for, a black guy (called) Ted Williams. He worked for a lot of magazines. He was an excellent photographer, who was famous for photographing jazz music legends.

I said, “Okay, Uschi what? Uschi what?” He says, “Oh, Uschi Digard. That sounds good.” I said, “All right. Uschi Digard it is.”

Is that Digard that ends in a D or a T?

D.

Yeah. D-I-G-A-R-D. Digard.

And is there any meaning to Digard?

I don’t think that name exists, actually. Have you ever heard anybody else being called Digard?

No. Never heard anybody.

You appeared in so many films between 1970 and about 1974. Was it difficult to keep track of actually what films you’d made?

I usually knew the working title, but by the time the films get released, they have different titles. So I wouldn’t even know what they’re called anymore.

A lot of them were quick one-day wonder shoots. How much fun were they to make?

Some of them were more fun than others. Depends who the director was. I always expected to be treated the way I wanted to be treated, and everybody did. So I had fun. I had fun going to work. If I got a job that there was something wrong with it or I didn’t like the directors or producers, I would withdraw. Because by then I made enough money I really didn’t need certain jobs. So I only took jobs that I knew that people had recommended to me. Either the agents were saying, “These are good people and you’re going to have fun,” or I wouldn’t take it.

I’m interested in the fact that you appeared in a lot of low budget sexploitation films, but then you would pop up in some mainstream films as well. What was your experience of the differences between the two?

I had a great more fun doing those sexploitation films than I had doing the legitimate films, because I worked with Sam Peckinpah and Robert Duvall and quite a few people, and I got more sexual harassment in those films than I got in this sexploitation films.

How did that happen?

The casting directors for the sexploitation films were gentleman, were down to business, told you how much you’re going to make and what you can expect. The casting directors for the so-called MGM and Fox would say, “Look, little one. We have five ladies like you up for this part. Which one of you is going to give out? She’ll get it.” And there you go. So I’d say, “Forget about me. I’m not in.”

Why do you think that was?

You see, sexploitation films, there wasn’t all that much money. You went down to business. The big, big films, there was a lot of casting couch stuff going on. I don’t say everybody was like that, but more often than not, whoever went to bed with the big producer would get the part, and I found it disgusting. They just thought because we did some sexploitation films we were easy prey, and we were not.

Yeah. Do you have any specific memories of working with Sam Peckinpah?

I remember I did five films with Sam, and he had unusual methods to get the actors doing what he wanted.

Like what?

Like if he wanted a specific reaction, he was not above taking amyl nitrate capsules and breaking it under your nose to get the reaction he’d want. He was quite an unorthodox, but he got results.

Did you actually enjoy the acting part of the films?

Yeah. I actually just for fun joined an acting (school) at the Celebrity Centre. I didn’t even know what Scientology meant, but they had a great acting school in downtown L.A. at the Celebrity Centre. So I went to acting school there and loved it, and only pulled out when I realized they were trying to convert us to Scientology. But anyway, while I was going there, there was a great teacher, and we did some good things, and I felt I had talent as an actress. And I enjoyed it. It was really good.

You also have a great sexual presence on screen. How much of this do you think was your acting ability, and how much were you really getting into the moment?

Mostly it was just trying to do a good job, but once in a great while I would have chemistry with someone. I understand from people that would’ve seen those scenes and know me well enough, they’d say, “Hey, you really dug him,” or, “You really did great.”

I’d say, “Yeah… I’ve got to confess.”

How easy did you find these scenes?

Acting is one thing, but if you have absolutely no chemistry with the other person, it’s hard work. And if you do have chemistry, then it’s like falling off a log.

So once you actually got your green card, you became legal, you continued to make the films and continued to do the modeling. I guess by this stage you were earning such a good living that it didn’t make sense to pursue a career doing translation, for example.

Actually, I immediately also got a job and I worked for Weber Aircraft in Burbank, in the spares department. So if any aircraft that was needing a part that was grounded, my department would get the needed part and get them off the ground and get them going again.

Working in an office was a new experience for you at that point, I guess.

At the beginning, it was horrendous for me because I knew nothing about computers. All I knew was languages and jewelry, which didn’t help me in an aircraft department. And I had to start at 6:00 in the morning, and we had no windows. Just neon light. But then I started to think, “Okay. I’m going to do this as best as I can, and I’ll make it as agreeable as I can.”

So you were doing this work for the airline company at the same time that you were making films and modeling?

Yeah.

Did that continue then? Did you have day jobs throughout the early ’70s when you were doing the film and the modeling work?

Pretty much. Yeah. I was pretty busy.

I always thought that your film and modeling work was full-time, so you managed to fit in…

I was doing a lot of stuff. It just kind of blended in.

Did you enjoy that period?

Very much. And I started to love the computer, and I felt proud to be able to get these aircrafts off the ground in no time at all. There were lots of different languages involved. French airlines, Spanish airlines. So I used all my languages and learned about computers. It was good.

When I look at the films in which you appeared in the early ’70s, there are certain names that crop up time and time again that have always led me to believe that you must have had a circle of friends that appeared in the same films. One example of this is the actress Kathy Hilton.

Yes. I worked with her a lot.

Very honest, very sweet and very sad. I always felt that she was unhappy. And indeed, when I went one morning to her apartment I think before we went on a shoot, and I saw how she lived very, very frugal and very basic. So I don’t really know what her background was, but I just always felt her to be inhibited and sad, not easygoing like the rest of us. You know, happy-go-lucky. And indeed, she ended up sad.

She had a relationship with a wealthy man who ended up shooting himself while he was in bed with her, and shooting her in the head. He died and she didn’t. I went to see her in a hospital where you have no insurance, and it was pretty sad, the whole thing. And I don’t think she lived much longer after that. It was sad.

Another couple of your friends I believe are Maria Arnold and Malta. They appear in a lot of films with you.

Yes. Malta lived with Bill Rotsler, so whenever I worked for Bill I would see her, and we did a lot of shoots together.

I got close to Maria too. I think Maria used to pick me up when I didn’t have rides, so we got pretty close.

You did a number of lesbian scenes in the films as well. And I always wondered whether that was something that you were comfortable about, or whether it was more difficult?

No. Absolutely comfortable. Very natural.

Do you have any memories of two people who were involved in these sexploitation films right at the beginning, Marsha Jordan and June Wilkinson?

Yeah. They were like the icons that we were held up against. June Wilkinson had a house, a very pretty house, in the Hollywood Hills. And I ended up shooting there. So obviously she lent the house out to photographers for shoot, and she had these interesting planters all over the house, and they were her bras! She would cast iron her bras and then put plants in them.

And she said that she made a fortune endorsing some kind of equipment that’s supposed to make your breasts bigger. And she really got a lot of money. And I said, “Don’t you feel a little guilty, June? I mean, your breasts, God’s nature gave you the breasts, and here you are endorsing a product that’s supposed to make them bigger. Isn’t it a little hypocritical?”

And she says, “No, no, no. Not in the least, because what it does is the people use this machine. Whatever they have, it’ll make it better. So I don’t feel guilty.” So anyway, she made a lot of money.

Candy Samples had a similar thing.

What was that?

Candy ended up having a house in the desert. I was invited to the housewarming party, and over the fireplace was this huge painted portrait of her with her breasts. Now Candy is bigger than all of us together, so those breasts really looked enormous. And I saw that these conservative Palm Springs people kind of looked, and not looked, and whispered. So Candy says, “Listen everybody. Those tits paid for this house. If you don’t like it, you can go!” And that broke the spell.

How do you remember first meeting Candy Samples?

That was Ted Williams again. He was exclusive for this one magazine, and he did a shoot, an entire magazine just on Candy and me. When that magazine came out, I think it had sold out almost immediately. It was a book, just Germany, and then we got a lot of work through it.

You worked quite a lot with Candy. How was she to work with?

Great. Candy and I, apart from doing a lot of shoots together, we worked for another agent that gave parties, celebrity parties. And in the ’80s, that was quite big in Hollywood where men that were divorced or whatever would put on big parties by renting a tent and a caterer and everything, and Candy and I would be hostesses. And sometimes we’d be topless, sometimes not. If there was a single man that didn’t have anybody to talk to, we would go talk to them or introduce them. And so we did a lot of those parties together, and we got quite close. She was a nice lady.

And you did plenty more modeling with her too.

We also did a couple of magazines together that is just she and me around a nice pool somewhere I remember.

Wasn’t one of them shot at Bela Lugosi’s house?

No. At Bela Lugosi’s house, I worked by myself for photographers that had the most fancy equipment that I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean, umbrellas, lights, you name it. Ron would drop me off at the Pancake House in Hollywood. (The photographer) would come pick me up every morning. And we’d stop at the bank and then go to the shoot at Bela Lugosi’s house.

One morning the photographer didn’t show. And Bela Lugosi’s house is interesting because everything had to do with blood and coffins. You’d switch on the light and blood would drip down. The dining room was a huge coffin. It was just a macabre house.

So anyway, one day (the photographer) picked me up, and we did the shoot usual, but the next day he didn’t show. But the FBI showed up at my house. He’d been robbing banks.

The photographer had been robbing banks?

Yeah. Whenever we stopped in front of a Bank of America, he’d go in there and case the scene. And then if it was no good, we’d go do the shoot. That last day (we worked together) he (went into the bank and) said, “Give me all your money or I’ll shoot,” and they gave him the money, and that was that. And everything he owned was stolen.

No wonder he had such good equipment.

That’s right. And when they showed up at my house, they said, “What’s your relationship with him?” I said, “I’ve been working for this guy.” So that was Bela Lugosi’s house.

But with Candy, I worked in some really nice houses and we worked in a lot of celebrity houses together. In Lou Rawls’ house, we worked… I remember (it was) the day before Thanksgiving… and the chef in the kitchen made this incredible stuffing that really whet our appetites. So we would hang around the kitchen to see if we can get little tidbits.

One person that you and Candy worked with was the actor John Holmes.

Yes. I worked with him many times.

What was your memory of him?

Oh, a really, really nice gentleman. Shy, easygoing and modest. Even though he had a huge endowment, (he was) great to work with, very supportive, so I can only say good things about him. All he ever wanted was eventually owning a sheep farm. That was his dream. And he was a sweet, sweet, gentle guy.

The only problem with John is that he got hooked on cocaine. And he needed cocaine and he didn’t make enough money to support his habit, and he fell in with the wrong crowd, and then he was witness to some kind of a murder, which makes things a little more difficult. And so things were just getting from bad to worse for him.

John Holmes

I saw some interesting loops that you made with Candy, which were wrestling loops.

Yeah.

Had you had experienced wrestling before?

No. None whatsoever. But I took to it like a duck to water. Loved it.

There was a guy, I can’t think of his name now, in Hollywood who actually was a wrestling promoter for legitimate wrestling, and he saw an interest. And so he went to Hal Guthu and he picked me out of a book and some other girls, and then he started testing us to see which one of us would have aptitude, and I immediately took to it. So we started to make a series of wrestling and boxing films, and I became a star. Yeah. I absolutely loved it. And I did quite a lot of wrestling after Candy, and then got some lessons by an ex-wrestler.

He did a whole series of wrestle films with me. And instead of just play acting, it was serious. We were really wrestling, and it was a lot of fun.

Didn’t you also wrestle with your husband?

I used to like wrestling. When we lived in Sweden, Ron and I used to wrestle, and whenever it got a little too heated, one of us could call “ding” and we immediately had to stop. And I remember once he was just getting me in the mouth and I called “ding.” And as I’m calling “ding” one of my teeth was flowing out. So he actually knocked one of my teeth out. It was just in fun, but he just got me wrongly and I called “ding” little bit too late. So anyway, I’ve always loved wrestling and boxing.

You also did some stunt work on some of the films as well. Is that correct?

Yes. Just fake hitting, fake falling, that kind of stuff.

And you did that for other actresses as well?

Yes. There were some actresses, and they didn’t really want to do too much because they might break a nail, so I would volunteer. So they keep my face off (the screen), and I’d put on a wig similar to their wig, and then I did the stuff they didn’t want to do because I always enjoyed that, the physical things.

Given that you haven’t seen any of your films, I presume if I say some names, they’re not going to mean much to you. So for example, there was an early film called Getting Into Heaven… Do you remember that?

Yes. Yes, because I had a poster of that. I was topless in blue jeans in different positions. Yeah. I remember it from that, but of course I never saw the film.

How much did you like making films?

I enjoyed the film work, and particularly I loved going on location. I did a film, a Western, where we spent like two weeks, somewhere on location and did some stunt work. I always loved that kind of thing.

Do you ever recall doing much publicity for any of your films?

There was a series of them. One was called If You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind and Can I Do It ‘Till I Need Glasses? I did publicized those films, and I traveled all over the United States, and I would give lectures to college kids and go on all the TV and all the talk shows.

Now, you started out by making films when they were all softcore, but after a while the films became more progressively explicit. And there’s always been the question as to whether you actually did any hardcore work.

Never did. Never once. What had happened is they have made or they have shown some films where they inserted hardcore (footage) into films that I did, but that’s somebody else. And we tried to take action against that, but there’s not much we could do about it. All I can say is I have never in my life done any hardcore.

And what were your reasons for that?

That’s where I drew the line. I just thought hardcore takes (away) all illusions, and the beauty in film is illusion. I didn’t see the reason to kill that illusion. For me, it was always make believe. It’s like if I’m going to kill someone on film, I’m not going to actually shoot them. So that’s just where I drew the line.

I don’t put anybody down that did hardcore. What anybody wants (to do is fine to do), but that’s just my private motto.

And was there also an aesthetic reason that you actually preferred the tease rather than the explicitness?

I find that because I watched that being on a lot of sets where they did hardcore, I found it kind of boring. It just didn’t turn me on. I found it boring.

I presume you were offered money to do hardcore.

Yeah. Still boring.

And I presume it was a lot more money than the softcore as well.

Still boring. I was offered incredible amounts of money, and just never interested. That’s just something I wouldn’t do.

*

5. Russ Meyer

The second Russ Meyer film that you made was Supervixens where you were SuperSoul. You worked on alongside Charles Napier. What do you remember about Charles?

I like Charles a lot. He was a guy’s guy, gentleman, fun to be with, absolute wonderful person. Blue, blue. The kind of guy you can steal horses with.

And did you stay in contact with him?

We kind of kept in contact watching out for Russ, he and I. Then when Russ died, we lost contact with each other.

Were you aware of his battle with depression towards the end of his life?

He was a good actor and he just couldn’t get work, so it really affected him.

What were the crews like on a Russ Meyer film?

Russ has a knack of surrounding himself with really good men. Like he had friends from the army times. This one guy that was a photographer when he was in the army, and he was a really close friend of Russ. Anybody that really knew Russ and worked for him would’ve done anything for him, and these were the kind of guys Charles Napier was. Just a really good guy.

In Supervixens, also appearing was Haji. Did you get to know her at all?

Not really, no. Liked her, but I don’t think I ever had a conversation with Haji. It was just professional and nothing personal.

Did you ever feel that there was any tension between the first generation of sexploitation actresses who’d been around in the 1960s, and then the people like yourself who were working mainly in the 1970s?

There was a bit. I don’t know. Maybe. That’s how I saw it. I don’t even know whether it’s the truth, but there is a bit of a theory with people like Haji and in those days older models than we were at the time, a bit of disdain or jealousy, like thinking we tried to usurp us, take their position. It’s just the kind of feeling you got that they didn’t really trust us.

I’m interested in your role as an associate producer on the next two Russ Meyer films, which was Up! in 1976 and then Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens in 1979. You touched on it before, but what roles did that encompass you doing?

It’s just doing everything from casting to getting the wardrobe together, to getting the props, to make sure (there was) continuity between each shot, that the props are exactly where they’re meant to be, doing the lines with the actors, getting them pacified when they got into temper tantrums or diva things, making the casting calls in the morning, make sure lunch is there, and if it’s not there, make it myself, pay them their wages. That’s about it.

That’s a lot! Russ could be very demanding. So how stressful was it actually working with him?

Not at all. I kind of enjoyed it.

Did you actually do any of the directing of the more sensual scenes?

He let me do that, yes. That was kind of my reward.

Did you enjoy that?

Yes, I did. Because I felt sometimes he was a little bit too much of bull in the china shop, and things could be (done) a little more delicateky. And so he let me do that, because I said, “Russ, you just don’t have it. You’re great. You’re the best photographer I ever worked for, but when he comes to sensuality, Russ, you’re missing the boat.”

So he would let me do it. And we were very honest with each. So we had a good relationship.

On Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, you worked as associate producer again. This time the star was Kitten Natividad. Did you get to know her well?

Yeah. I knew Kitten very well. Liked her.

Kitten Natividad

People like Kitten were quite big on the stripping circuits. Did you ever do any stripping?

No. No. I never. That wouldn’t be my forte. I’d rather do wrestling than stripping. I think Kitten did an act where she’s in a cocktail glass I think, and I thought it was brilliant. Beautifully done.

There was rumors that on the last set of Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens that tensions were running high and there was a falling out with Russ. Did that actually occur?

You mean me falling out with him?

Yes.

No. Never has. No, no. No. Absolutely never. There was one dissent I had with Russ, if you can say that, and that is when we were doing post production shootings in Hollywood after we’d been on location for a long time, and I was in a tennis tournament.

I got into the final, and I said to Russ, “Could I come in after I played the finals, because I got a good chance of winning it,” and he didn’t let me.”

So I thought, “Fuck that,” and I went and played the finals anyway and won it, and then came to the set late. So he had a gob on, and I let him have his gob on, and we got over it and that was it.

Do you think part of the reason why Russ liked you so much was that you were one of the few people who really stood up to him and showed you had independence and strength?

Yeah. Russ wouldn’t take no for an answer, and you had to be at his beck and call, and I wasn’t going to lead my life to be at Russ’s beck and call.

I remember once he wanted something, and I put my foot down and I said, “Ron says he’s just about had it because I might as well be married to you. I’m over there more than I’m at home.”

And Russ said, “Well, we all know your old man and I don’t see eye to eye.”

And I said, “Well, I’m glad for it,” because he would take your pound of flesh and I would only get so much. But I never ever had a falling out with him.

In fact, these last few months of his life, he had a house in Palm Desert and he still wanted to shoot, but he wasn’t capable, but he always had a camera. So what I would do is I would go pick him up in his place in Palm Desert, bring him to my house with his camera and let him shoot knowing there’s no film in the camera, but do the poses and everything just to give him some pleasure, give him lunch and then take him home again. And we did that several times, and he thought he took the greatest shots of his life. But no, we never had a falling out.

He became a little bit paranoid I think towards the end of his life, did he?

Well, not just towards the end. He was paranoid all the time, but that’s just one of his idiosyncrasies. We’d go on a shoot and it would just be a shoot maybe a half an hour away from the house. He had a lovely house in the Silver Lake in Hollywood, and he’d lock the door, and we’d go in the car and we’d drive, and he says, “I have to go back to see if the door is locked.”

I said, “Russ, I watched you lock it.”

He said, “I’m not convinced.” So we’d drive back and he checked the door again. Of course, it’s locked. He sometimes did that three times just to go back to see if the door is locked, and he just wouldn’t be convinced.

That’s like and obsessive compulsive thing then.

Right. But no problem.

Have you been in touch with his estate in recent years?

Yes. Yeah, because I wanted to do this book, “I Used to be Uschi.” In fact, the book is written and I have a chapter in it about Russ. So I wanted to use some of Russ’s shots, and you cannot use anybody’s photographs unless you have permission. So I called Janice (executor of Russ’ estate) and asked her to ask the estate moguls, who are lawyers, to give me permission to use some of the shots. And so she sent me a long letter and indeed gave me permission.

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6. Retirement

You’ve had mixed feelings about publishing your biography. Why is that?

Because if we were to publish, then I’d be at their beck and call, and I’d have to go and do book signings and God knows what. Between the job that I still have, that’s the last thing I want. If we just publish it on the internet and get a website, anybody can steal it. So I’m just a little disenchanted. The bottom line is I don’t need the money.

I love the title you’ve come up with. Can you tell me a little bit about the title and the thinking behind it?

Well, because when occasionally like once every five years we look in the internet, there are all these websites saying they’re me and giving these stories about me that are totally false. And so I’ve just got a little disenchanted. Everybody wants your flesh impounded.

How do you feel about that concept though that ‘I Used to be Uschi’? How do you relate to Uschi Digard nowadays?

Well, it’s an interesting thing of the past, but I’m definitely not Uschi anymore because I’m an old lady now. I’m a lot older than I used to be, but I’m content within my own skin.

Do you ever have any desire to go back and look through your photographs or the films?

Actually, none whatsoever.

Would you do anything differently?

No, because it was all in sequence. Whatever I ever did led me to the next step, and the next step led me to the next step, and it was for the good. I wouldn’t miss a thing, and I don’t regret a thing.

Now, if I had done hardcore just because they offered me a fortune, I would regret it because then I would say to myself, “Yeah, you sold out. You went off the almighty buck.”

Sure, I wanted to make good money, but just money that I earned and that I thought I deserved. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Absolutely. Now, many people made films and appeared in magazine spreads at that time, but your popularity doesn’t just seem to have endured. It seems to have increased. And your magazines change hands for a lot of money. What do you think the reason is for that?

A friend that I had said, “The reason I’m prevailing is because I’m true to myself and that comes across.” So maybe it’s that.

I get the impression that you never took it too seriously.

Yeah. To me, it was always kind of tongue-in-cheek. I never aspired to be a big star or be famous or anything. You see, I only did it until I could get a real job, and that was my whole attitude. I’m only going to do this so I can make enough money until I can get a real job. It never was a real job for me. Just a way to get a real job.

Was there a single decision to stop the films or the modeling, or was it a gradual transition away from that industry?

I didn’t like the shoots anymore. Just they became more and more tasteless, so I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

Was it the same for modeling?

The modeling became more and more explicit and more and more basic, and it turned me off. From the ‘pretty girl’, it became the ‘bizarre girl’. I still got a lot of calls, but it had run its course.

The evolution of the internet, computers, where you could get anything you want on the computer, you didn’t need the magazine anymore. So that whole market that I profited from had gone.

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The post Bill Rotsler’s Gruesome Foursome – Part 3: Uschi Digard appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Charles William Rotsler (1926–1997) was an award-winning artist and science fiction author.

Bill was also involved in the burgeoning adult film industry starting in the late 1950s, first as a stills photographer on the set of adult films, and later when he wrote, directed, or acted in over 20 adult films during his career with Boxoffice International Pictures,

In 1966, he created Adam Film Quarterly, later called Adam Film World, one of the earliest magazines to provide commentary on pornographic films. He wrote hundreds of articles using a plethora of pseudonyms including ‘Shannon Carse’, ‘Cord Heller’, ‘Clay McCord’, and ‘Merrill Dakota’ – sometimes even interviewing himself. He also wrote the seminal book, Contemporary Erotic Cinema in 1973.

But this series of articles is not about Bill Rotsler. It’s about a group of friends of his. Four friends. Four women, to be more specific, who at various times lived with him, and featured in his films, photographs, and magazines. Their lives intersected in his house, as they played their parts in helping establish the adult film industry in Los Angeles.

He called this group, ‘The Gruesome Foursome.’

The Rialto Report tracked down each of the four to hear about their lives. This is the fourth part: Maria Arnold.

You can read Part 1, the story of Kathie Hilton  (and Gerard Broulard) here , Part 2, Malta’s story here, Part 3, our interview with Uschi Digard here.

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Maria Arnold

Maria Arnold was a rarity in early 1970s adult films: a regular presence who could actually act, a rare example of a performer who could have made the transition to Hollywood movies. She had a colorful life – featuring in men’s magazines in the 1960s to making exploitation and hardcore films in the 1970s with many legendary names, such as Ed Wood Jr, Nick Millard, Lowell Pickett, Bob Cresse, and Ray Dennis Steckler. And it turns out the rest of her life was even more interesting, from working at a topless bar in the San Fernando Valley as a bikini waitress to dating famous men… and much more.

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1.     Beginnings

What were your aspirations when you were a girl?

I always thought I was going to be an actress. A real actress. My dad was an actor forever. For 50 years, in fact.

What acting did he do?

He did it all. Films and movies. He started when he was eight years old. He was a comedian; one of those bit-part actors who was in just about everything, like all the old series, Death Valley Days, I Love Lucy, I Married Joan, and many others. He was in several Three Stooges films. He’s got a good scene in The Comancheros with John Wayne. I see him often in that because it’s on television all the time.

He was a funny, short, bald-headed, chubby guy. But he was terribly good at what he did, and he was fun.

He was an incredible tap dancer too. Later in life, when he got down, I’d say, “Dad, don’t be sad. Dance for me.” So he danced, and it was wonderful.

Phil Arnold

He inspired you to be an actor?

Yes. When I was a kid, he’d take me around all the time to the movie sets, and that’s why I wanted to be an actress. He tried to discourage me because he knew how hard it was, but I was adamant: I would tell him, “No, I’m going to do it.”

Was your mom in the film world too?

No, no. She wasn’t in the business at all. She just loved being married to an actor.

Phil Arnold, in ‘I Love Lucy’

Did you ever do any acting training?

I did some, but just local stuff. Nothing really substantial. Not enough, I guess.

Dustin Hoffman was in an acting class with me when I was really young, and he encouraged me. He said, “You need to go to New York. That’s where you’ll learn. You have to get really serious.”

But that would’ve meant leaving my livelihood which was paying my bills, so I didn’t go. I was afraid. I didn’t know if I could do it, so I never did go to New York.

You had real acting talent.

I thought I did, but it was difficult to be seen or heard and taken seriously. Dustin was right: You really needed to be in school or in training in New York with someone like Stella Adler. You had to be serious.

Did you father live to see you pursue an acting career?

No. He died in 1968. All his life, he liked everything about his life. And then one day he didn’t, and the next day he died. He was only 58.

What happened?

The business had changed so much for him. When he started out, you used to be able to knock on doors and say hi to casting directors and directors. Then later, it changed overnight and you couldn’t do that anymore. And it was tough for him to find an agent that would really push for him when he was a one or two line actor. So at that point, he sort of gave up.

He died young. I was just out of high school a couple of years.

It was strange because I went on a date with somebody who spent the night telling me his father had just died. He cried all night, reliving the whole experience and he wouldn’t let me go home. When I finally got home that night I found that my father had just died. It was very weird.

*

2. Leaving Home

What did you do when you left school?

Straight out of high school… my first job was for the city of Los Angeles.

Doing what?

I typed the budget for the city. I was always an incredible typist, so that’s what I did. And then I got high on acid one day going to work. I thought I was an ant on the highway, you know? I thought, “Oh, that’s the end of this job. Never going back there.”

So I went to work for the police department instead.

What were you doing for the cops?

I was the records clerk on the graveyard shift. I typed reports. It was always typing…

How did that end up going?

Badly! I had a friend that lived near someone that had robbed a bank. I went over to their apartment one evening, and the cops were staking out the bank robber’s apartment. They stopped me and asked, who was I? Where was I from?

I said, “I work for you guys!” which was a stupid thing to say. So they took me back to the station where I worked, and interrogated me for 18 hours.

At the end of it, they told me that I could sign my own resignation or get fired.

Even though you had nothing to do with the crime?

Yes. They kept insisting that I should introduce them to the people who lived there – just because I had a friend who lived downstairs.

I said, “I’m not a policewoman. I’m not getting involved in anything. I don’t even know these people.”

I said, “You guys are so full of shit.” They really were. So that was the end of that job.

Where were you living at this time?

I moved out of my family home, and lived in a hippy commune. It was the time when many people were doing that. It was cheap and fun.

Then I became a waitress.

One of the rumors about your time as a waitress suggests you played the mouth organ, the harmonica, on stage in a bar in the San Fernando Valley – is that true?

No.

And that you told jokes while you played the harmonica…

Oh, it wasn’t a harmonica. It was one of those kazoos. I had a really good time at that bar, and I wasn’t even 21. It was a topless joint. I remember when my birthday came, I was mouthing off about how I just turned 21. And my friend said, “Shut up! You’re gonna get in trouble!”

What came next?

It’s all a blur, but waitressing led to topless dancing.

And then pretty soon I started modeling – or rather, nude modeling.

Was that through Dick James?

Yes! Pretty Girl International. What a trip. I haven’t thought of him in years. A waitress friend recommended I go to find work with him, and soon I was earning more money than I ever had before.

Did you ever do any straight modeling?

No.

Do you remember getting into films?

Yes, but it was just 8mm at first. Reels of real film! You would just look pretty and sexy.

At first I did a ton of films that were not really sex. I mean, they were sexually exploitative, they would intimate towards real sex, but you didn’t really do anything. And you had dialog and little plots to act out. That was fun and I enjoyed them.

It was easy for me to be on film sets, because I’d grown up around them. So I didn’t freak out, or forget who or what I was doing.

Do you remember any of the first films you made?

No! None at all… I didn’t know the titles of any of them when I made them, and I never saw them afterwards. I often didn’t even know what the plots were when I was making them. You were just told to turn up, repeat lines, and be topless… That was easy enough. I never paid attention to what they were.

Who do you remember from those early films?

Bill Rotsler was the social center of that scene. He was older, and wiser, than the rest of us, so he was a stable influence on a whole generation of actors, directors, cameramen, and film people. Good guy. I would hang out at his home.

That’s where I met Uschi. She didn’t drive, so I said, “Oh, I love you. I’m driving you everywhere. Don’t worry about a thing.” And we just started to hang out. We had a really good time together.

I did some work for Ed Wood. Strange guy. I was approached to give information on Ed for the Johnny Depp movie people when they were researching it. But I couldn’t remember much about Ed, except that he was pretty high all the time. But… so was everybody.

What was the drug of choice?

Quaaludes, they were the thing, so we were always stoned. I loved Quaaludes. They used to call me the Quaalude lady. I had a few doctors in my pocket, so…

What about acid?

Oh, I did that too, but I didn’t really care for it as much as I didn’t have the best experiences. I was always trying to get that incredible high, you know? But I didn’t get there really. Acid is a weird drug. It can put you in a strange place, where you’re trying to pick your skin off in the mirror or something. Just too strange for me!

I liked pot. Pot was my favorite thing. I don’t smoke it anymore. I did up until about one or two years ago, and I had a medical license, but I stopped because I just didn’t get high anymore. Even with all the incredible stuff that’s out now. In the end, I just said, “Shit. I’m spending a lot of money and I’m not even getting high!”

Do you remember John Holmes?

Oh, yes. I knew John. I made a couple films with him.

He was nice. Very considerate. Not at all like you’d think given his reputation. He was really a nice guy. Gentle and considerate.

(From left to right, seated) Three of the Gruesome Foursome: Maria Arnold, Malta, Uschi Digard, plus John Holmes, in Fuzz (1970)

How about stars like Rene Bond?

I made a lot of films with her. She was straight as an arrow. Boring as anything. No personality at all. I don’t want to be mean, but she just wasn’t an interesting person. I didn’t know her that well, but I was never thrilled when I found her on the set with me. Oh man, what a snooze she was…

She had a boyfriend named Ric Lutze.

Yeah, I remember him. I did films with him too. He was a doofus as well. They weren’t my favorite people. Very square.

How did you find the film work?

I had an agent. Hal Guthu. He was terrific. I loved him. He was always cheery. He used to have a lot of film shoots right at his office, in the back.

He was very fatherly. I would come back from filming, and I would tell him all the stories of what had happened on set. He would laugh and say, “You’ve got to write your life story. These things don’t happen to everybody, Maria. They only happen to you!” It’s true. I had a good time.

I hate that Hal died the way he died. In a fire or something.

They said it was a suicide, but there were rumors…

I don’t believe he would ever kill himself. He liked himself too much. Somebody killed him. He had a bird. A cockatoo, I think.

How were you treated when you made the sex films?

Fine. We never got stiffed or anything. Actually, one time somebody did try to rip us off, and I said, “Oh, no way.”

I went to their office and said, “I’m waiting for the head of the company, the guy who is going to write the check to me.”

And they said, “Oh, he went off to Europe.” Well, I knew that wasn’t true, so I said, “Well, I’ll just wait til he comes back.”

They said, “Well, he’s gone. He’s internationally abroad.” And I said, “Well, I’m internationally here.”

About ten minutes later, he came out with a check.

So you were always quite feisty and strong?

I guess so. I always was outspoken about whatever I was doing. I stuck up for myself if necessary. And I had a really good time.

Did you ever do interviews for the media?

Yeah. I was always recommended to be the one to speak to magazines or journalists. When anyone asked, “Who could we speak to about these sex films,” my name always came up first, maybe because I love to talk. I was pretty good at it. I did articles in Playboy and Cosmopolitan. I was always happy to stand up for our craft. I wasn’t ashamed. I would say, “My skin is my costume.”

I even did a TV show once. I went to Canada to do it. Margot Lane, who was like a Canadian Maury Povich, did a show called ‘All About Women.’ We did the interview in a hotel. The actor Nehemiah Persoff was the person asking me questions. His goal was to get me aggravated so I would flare or something. And he did it. He pissed me off. I told him I had lived in communes as a hippie when I was younger, and so he asked if I fucked everybody in the commune. And I said, “That’s a pretty stereotypical thing to think.”

I stood up, and I said, “I’m not talking to you anymore.” I’d never let anybody insult me.

You acted in a lot of those early sex films.

The work never seemed to dry up. If you wanted work, you could work almost every day of the week. And the money was so good, so I took advantage of the opportunities.

Did you continue to try and get mainstream acting parts?

Yes, but it was tough, because when you have a resume’ that reeks of nudity, people don’t really take you seriously. And so I had a hard time finding straight parts.

Maria (left), with Cheri Rostand (center)

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3. Hardcore

The nature of sexploitation films changed in the 1970s.

Yes. The parts become less interesting, and then they started getting into hardcore.

How did you feel about that?

I did a handful of those. I didn’t like them. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to fuck on camera. I just liked the whole idea of flirting around it.

Do you know who James Best is?

Yes, he was the actor who played Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard.

He was a big shot. He did quite a lot of mainstream film things. Good looking guy, as well. I met him in an interview for something and he asked me to marry him. He was so weird, because he hardly even knew me. He was producing movies at the time, and he was making a film with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, I think they were in Mexico.

He called me from there, and said, “I want you to come here.” He said I had potential as an actress.

This was before I did my first hardcore porno film. He said, “I’ll give you money, so you don’t do the porno film.” He sent me roses and a check for the film. I did the porno anyway so I scored twice.

James Best, as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane

What made you decide against going to see him?

I didn’t go because I said, “Who is this weirdo?” I didn’t know him.

In some movies you’re actually credited as Maria Aronoff. And then some movies it’s Maria Arnold.

Maria Aronoff was my SAG name, because, that was my father’s real last name. In the 1950s, when the blacklist happened, the name ‘Aronoff’ was considered too Russian and Jewish, so he changed it to Arnold. When I got my SAG card, I thought, “I’m going to take it back. It’s classy.” I liked it.

One notable film you made was called, Love Me To Death, aka Cozy Cool.

I don’t remember it at all. I only remember the title. Was that the film where I would kill people? Fuck them and then kill them? I don’t know. I haven’t thought of these films for 40, 50 years.

Who do you remember from this part of your film career?

Not really many people. I would’ve remembered more people 20 or 30 years ago. But nowadays I don’t think about that time much at all.

I remember Harry Reems. He was my favorite guy – a great guy. He and I were close. We dated for a long time. I liked him. We always had a good time. He used to live in Malibu.

I met him in the films. We didn’t make any movies together I don’t think, but sometimes he would ask me onto sets when he had to do a film and he couldn’t get off, or couldn’t get hard. He would go, “Get Maria over here.”

He’d was always calling me from all over the United States – wherever he was. We had a lot of great phone sex. He had a great sense of humor.

A year or so after we broke up, I started dating a mob guy. Don’t ask me how that happened, but anyway… And I happened to be in Memphis with this guy and some other mob guys too. This was when Harry was on trial there for having been arrested for Deep Throat.

I was in the courtroom where Harry was on trial, and Harry came over and said, “What are you doing with those mob guys? They produced Deep Throat. They fucked me.”

So I turned to my friend and I said, “Guess what? I’m leaving. And I’m going to go stay with Harry. I don’t want anything to do with these people. They fucked my friend over.”

And I left. Oh my God, they were so pissed off at me.

I’m loyal, and Harry was so low. He didn’t have many friends during that time. But there were people that did fundraisers for him. I went to one at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I really liked Harry.

Harry Reems (right) with Ben Gazzara at a fundraiser for Harry’s Defense Fund

Did you date much during that period?

I just had a good time. I went out a lot. I dated Bobby Pickett, the guy that wrote ‘Monster Mash’.

I didn’t really fall in love with anybody until I left L.A. but I had some unusual, strange boyfriends. I dated Freddie Prinze.

How did you meet Freddie?

I was an opportunist.

What do you mean by that?

I had just been to the Director’s Guild, and I saw the pilot for Chico and the Man which was going to be his breakthrough.

A friend of mine was throwing me a birthday party at the place next to the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. I don’t remember the name of it now. I was outside getting some air, and Freddie was out in front of the Comedy Store.

My eyes caught his, and I wasn’t going to let it go. And he wasn’t either. We just sort of clicked. He put the girl he was with in a cab, and then he came and got my number. I let him call me a few times. I was playing the game, you know? I wasn’t going to answer him right away.

Freddie Prinze

What was Freddie like?

So talented and energetic. Such a great presence. We dated for a while while he was making ‘Chico and the Man.’ He was special and we were close.

When did you hear that he’d killed himself?

When I heard that he’d shot himself, I was married and living in Santa Cruz, so I wasn’t with him anymore. I just couldn’t believe it. I heard the news and I went, “Oh my God.”

He was so young and talented. What a waste.

On our first date, he took me to his producer’s house to meet him. That’s the producer that he shot himself in front of.

One of the last times I saw Freddie was at the Improv in Hollywood, and I gave him a Quaalude. I felt so bad, because I didn’t know he was so confused and fucked up. He was a nice guy. He was fun too. But I remember him saying to me that his career all happened too fast. He just couldn’t get his mind around it. It was just too fast for him. And that was at the height of his career.

Maria, in ‘The Godson’ (1971)

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4. After Films

Why did you leave the film business?

After a while, I got burnt out. I stopped making the movies, but I was still doing some voiceover work.

One day I realized that I knew the person bringing cocaine in from South America, Colombia or someplace. And I also knew the person that sold it to all the wealthy people in Beverly Hills. I went, “Oh, I can put this together.”

So I did. For a while there I had the best coke in town. I really thought I did. And I sold it to many people.

Did you have many wealthy clients?

I did. I had lots of them. I had everybody.

Did it work out well?

Very well. I would grind it up and put it in a little bottle to sell. I always tried to make whatever I was selling better than anyone else’s. Like if it was pot, I’d throw in a couple of rolled joints, you know?

What happened next?

Gradually the quantities sold became smaller. The smallest was a quarter ounce. I remember somebody taking too much out to taste. That fucked me up and I had to start to break it into grams. And that was the beginning of the end of it. You start dealing just a gram.

How did it end up?

I got sick of it, and it got sick of me. I was getting pretty thin and some friends took away my last stash. They said, “You need to get out of here.”

And I said, “You know what? You’re right.”

So I left, and I went to Hawaii. That’s where I met my husband.

How did you meet him?

He wasn’t in films or anything like that. He was just a regular guy. He was a printer.

What did you do when you got married?

We bought homes and redid them, and we owned print shops together. I mean, we did a lot. He totally worshiped me. And I cared about him a lot too. I loved him. I just got a feather up my ass, and that’s what happened…

How did the marriage turn out?

I left him.

Why did you leave him?

I don’t know. You know what? I led a crazy life. All of a sudden, I was like, “Do I really want to be settled down?” I just couldn’t. Even though I was married and happy.

There was no reason for me to think like that, or leave. I should have never left him. I should have never done it. He was the best thing that ever happened to me.

You’ve had quite a life. Have you ever thought about writing a book like Hal Guthu suggested?

I’ve tried a few times but I didn’t get very far. I always got caught up thinking of how many people have done the same things.

There are many people who have doing modeling for men’s magazines, then softcore, and eventually hardcore films, then the selling drugs and… that’s not an uncommon story.

Any regrets back from the film days?

Oh yeah. That I didn’t get serious and drop all the bullshit nude film stuff and get into real acting. I think I could have had a career. Too bad none of the films were legitimate. I wish I could have had a legitimate part in something. That would have been cool.

You know that there are many people who remember you fondly?

Really? That’s crazy. Once or twice, people have suggested I go to conventions. They said “Oh, go and sign autographs. People are wondering what happened to Marie Arnold.”

What do you reply?

I don’t care about any of that. So no, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to be contacted to tell my story any more. This interview is it.

So no book is on the way?

What I do now is transcription. I just type other people’s words all the time. Now I’m reduced to State Farm accident reports. But I like working.

You don’t want to retire anytime soon?

No. What am I going to retire to?! First of all, I have terrible ankles. I have to use a walker when I go out in the street because my ankles are just fucked. So I don’t want to go into an office anywhere. I love working from home. I love having my own hours. I type really fast for an hour or so, and then I take off two or three and watch TV. I like this job because it’s different. There’s always something different to type. I’m my own boss at last.

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The post Bill Rotsler’s Gruesome Foursome – Part 4: Maria Arnold’s Story appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Ron Hudd, a prolific New York adult film actor in the early 1980s, passed away recently.

The Rialto Report lost a friend. He spoke with reserved amusement about the people with whom he worked, like Radley Metzger, Roberta Findlay and Larry Revene, but preferred to remain in the shadows.

To mark his passing, The Rialto Report spoke with Lisa Be about her unique relationship with Ron.

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It started on the set of a pornographic film, A Scent of Heather (1980).

It was my first experience as a performer in an adult movie. The film was directed by Bill Milling, who often used the name Bill Eagle or Dexter Eagle, but this time had adopted the nom de porn, Philip Drexler Jr. Bill was calm and civilized, and in hindsight, I was lucky this was my first experience of a porn shoot. Any concern or uncertainty I had in advance about taking part in such a venture evaporated when I got to the set. It was the warmest, least threatening, and happiest experience I ever had on a film set. Later I would realize that this level of comfort would not always be the case.

I took a car service to the location, an old stone mansion in Connecticut, where I met the cast and crew. I played Aunt Phylis and my first scene involved me initiating Heather, played by Veronica Hart, into the ways of love. Or more bluntly, I fingered her. It was a ridiculous scene and I was embarrassed to do it, but I later learned from a friend who went to see a screening of the film that the script was a plagiarized version of an Italian art house film Til Marriage Do Us Part (1974) – and that same, embarrassing scene was in the original!

Lisa Be

The day I shot my second scene for the film remains one of the most beautiful of my life. It was with Ron Hudd, who I had just met for the first time. He was striking, intense and serious, as well as introverted and taciturn. He had a deep voice that commanded attention, and a tattoo of Pegasus on his arm. I found him instantly attractive, but wondered if we would have any chemistry. After all, we looked like the mid-western kids that we were, Ron from Indiana, me from Michigan, so would it be like two cousins having sex?

My doubts disappeared the moment we came together for the camera. I had just emerged from make-up in my period costume. Ron looked at me and his eyes grew wide in schoolboy incredulity. I stared back at him in awe, returning the same gaze. The instant sexual attraction was mutual, real, and intense.

Our scene started on a grand staircase, and ended on a four-poster bed. Ron was to deliver the line: “You are the most beautiful girl in the world,” which he changed to “You are the most beautiful woman in the world.” He said it with immense vulnerability and shyness, looking at me with the same intimate and penetrating stare.

The director shouted, “Cut!” and asked Ron to revert to the original dialogue line.

Ron looked embarrassed, taken aback. He snapped out of the moment, clearly fearing that he had been too sincere and romantic in delivering his line. The concern he had for being too authentic and not macho enough was etched over his face.

I soon learned, that was Ron. He disliked his own best qualities, such a gentleness that he tried to keep hidden behind a gruff exterior.

The cameras rolled again, and Ron repeated the line, this time barking it out incongruously, and losing any dramatic meaning. It was a strange way to start a sex scene.

No matter. The sex that followed was as beautiful and intense as any sex I have ever had.

Ron and Lisa, in ‘A Scent of Heather’ (1980)

*

The next time I saw Ron was on a farm in Pennsylvania. It doubled as a swinger’s club at weekends, and we shot a sex magazine spread there.

Afterwards, we traveled back to New York on the train, and had a chance to talk for the first time. It was a strange, formal, and detached conversation, as if we didn’t want fellow passengers to realize that we’d just had sex. Ron told me he was an artist and lived in a studio on West Broadway. I told him I was a painter too, and that I did some writing. We swapped numbers.

A couple of months later I was offered a photo shoot with Puritan magazine. I called Ron and asked him if he was interested in doing it with me, and he eagerly accepted.

We traveled to the shoot in a van with the photographer, Ed Seeman and a make-up artist. During the journey, Ron took out a postcard-sized picture of one of his artworks. I was very impressed. It was an industrial landscape scene in the style of Thomas Hart Benton and the Regionalist art movement which depicted everyday people in everyday scenes of life. Ed took a look and dismissed it. “Predictable and gimmicky” he said, waving it away.

I sensed Ron’s immediate and crushing disappointment. He was visibly upset and uncomfortable, making excuses for the smallness of the picture. I was surprised: surely an artist like Ron had to have a thicker skin than this to cope with the inevitable reactions to his work? And then I saw the same embarrassment I’d noticed on the film set. He was ashamed that he had revealed his sensitivity, just like he had been when corrected by Bill Milling.

I rubbed his leg affectionately hoping to distract him, but he felt wounded. The preparation for the day’s shoot was difficult after that. Ron was frustrated with how long the make-up girl was taking to get me ready, and it was hours before we were able to start.

But once the photo shoot started, it was explosive. Ron’s pent-up frustration at having had to wait was unleashed and our connection was instant. The sex was just as incredible and passionate as it had been before. Even seasoned crew members, like Richard Jaccoma, admitted to being aroused.

On our way back to New York, I showed Ron some of my pictures. He said he was impressed, and he mellowed. He showed a genuine interest in my work, and was engaged in our conversation.

He opened up, and for the first time talked about his personal feelings and aspirations. He said his art career meant everything to him. Certainly more than relationships. That was the reason he made adult films. The movies provided enough money to support his art endeavors, and meant he could have sex with a variety of women without the need for any commitment. He knew women expected more from him, but that was just not going to be possible. He told me that he’d called up fellow adult film performer, Samantha Fox, and asked to go out with her. After they had sex, he moved on, not returning her phone calls or contacting her again. He knew her feelings had been hurt, but he never called her back.

Despite this, I was strongly drawn to Ron. He was intelligent, brooding, and intense, and our sexual connection was without parallel.

I was struck by the contrast with another close friend and lover of mine, Ron Jeremy. Ron Jeremy was sweet, caring, kind, and funny. He was considerate and would never let anyone down. I would sometimes share his bed when I wanted companionship without any fears that he would take advantage of me. It’s strange the way life turns out.

Lisa Be, in the studio above Show World

*

In between film work, I worked at Show World – until Ron Martin, the manager, fired me.

I called around and spoke to other live sex show theaters. They told me to come down with a partner, and they’d consider me for a job. I called Ron Hudd, and he invited me over to his loft. He lived there with a few other artists. He showed me hundreds of his canvasses. Apart from the quality of his work, I was struck that none of them featured people. My own work was almost exclusively centered around human subjects.

I told Ron I was concerned about making money. He was thoughtful and considerate, and we discussed it for a while. In the end, he declined, saying, “I just want to be an artist: I don’t want to be known for sex.”

I asked him how he thought he could stay anonymous by doing something so public, so visible, as sex films?

He answered with a simple conviction: “If anyone ever asks me about it, I will tell them they are mistaken. They are getting me mixed up with someone else.”

In July 1981, we made our next film together, Cosmopolitan Girls for Dave Darby. It wasn’t an enjoyable or easy shoot, and much of that was due to Darby himself. My scene with Ron was in a dentist’s office – a real one hired for the production. Darby was playing around with the laughing gas, sucking it up himself and getting high – which made me nervous. Ron was made uncomfortable by the situation too and found it difficult to maintain an erection. It was a far cry from the professionalism of Scent of Heather.

In September 1981, Ron and I made another film, Young and Innocent (aka Wild Innocents). It was shot at a kid’s summer camp, unbeknownst to the owners of the property.

We spent time together chatting and talking about art, and I sketched him by the pool. I was struck by the way he was drawn into himself all the time, self-centered, diffident and meditative. When he opened up, he described a failed relationship that clearly weighed heavily. She was a senior executive at Grey Advertising, and Ron had told her how he felt about her. She left him shortly after that, and Ron was convinced that she’d lost respect for him because he’d revealed his vulnerability to her. It was the same old story: Ron was terrified of opening up and revealing himself to anyone in an intimate way.

In ‘Young and Innocent’ we were cast as camp counselors, and our scene is one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen. Ron may have been a chauvinist but he was attuned to pleasing me sexually. The scene remains etched in my memory and heart.

After that, Ron started calling me frequently asking to go out with me. I was surprised. He’d already confessed to me that he wasn’t interested in relationships. That he would discard women after he had sex with them. That he was only interested in his art. And I accepted that. So why was he so keen to see me outside of work?

I resisted the temptation to get together with him, but it wasn’t always easy.

Once I ran into Ron and Sean Elliot at Bernard’s. I invited them both back to my place on Sullivan St for the night. We had sex, but it was a strange, unsuccessful affair. Ron and Sean were nervous and we seemed out of sync with each other.

Next day, I asked Ron why he thought it hadn’t worked. In his booming, deep voice, he said: “Sometimes there’s just too much of a danger that the two guys are going to go for each other.”

*

In December 1981, Ron called again. He said he wanted to see me. He wanted to take me to a stag party where we’d have chance to dance, have fun, and be together.

I was excited. I had fantasized about this. I imagined a real date. We’d get to know each other more. Perhaps a conversation about our pasts, presents, and futures. I could learn more about his family and friends. Hear about his art work. This was what I’d been waiting for.

I accepted his invitation. I took a taxi to a nightclub on West 36th St, and entered the building with high hopes.

I was disappointed.

There was no conversation, no acknowledgement that I was there. A short while after I arrived, he started making moves on me. His intentions were clear: he was repeating the same behavior that he’d used on Samantha Fox. I’d thought that I was more interesting than that. I was hurt and sad.

I told Ron that I was leaving, and he was surprised. He said: “I never knew that you’re so turned off by me.”

I wanted to tell him everything: that he was my favorite partner, that I longed to get to know him better, that I wanted something more with him, but I didn’t.

I left. I was proud of myself for not giving in and surrendering to him, but I was upset that we hadn’t talked. We communicated so perfectly sexually, but found it difficult to do with words.

*

It was only fitting that as my first adult film role had been with Ron, my last was with him too.

Teach Me was a cheap, shot-on-video effort. It had been only a short few years, but the adult film industry had changed, and so had Ron. Now, Ron had to engage in rougher sex in order to stay aroused, and we were embarrassed to be there. It was clear that we both felt rejected and hurt by each other. We were young, and hid our unresolved feelings from each other, when we should have tried to talk and express ourselves instead.

*

A few years ago, I went back and watched ‘Scent of Heather’ again on DVD. I had just read a New York Times article denouncing porn, and I wanted to test my own memories and values. I hadn’t seen any of my films since they came out in the 1980s, and I wondered if re-watching my first film would cause me to re-appraise that part of my life through a modern-day lens. Was I guilty of misremembering it? Or romanticizing the era and the sex industry, and my own involvement in it?

I watched my scene with Ron, and I was surprised to be overcome with tears of emotion.

Firstly, because I was confronted by myself in the flower of youth. A young, attractive girl with a voluptuous body that I hardly recognized from the mid-sixty year old I am today. I never appreciated how pretty I was at the time, but then again, who does?

Then there was the sexual energy and power I once possessed, and now mourned never to return. I cried too for the critical negative judgement against sex performers that existed then, and still exists today. We were, and are, at odds with the world. I thought of Catharine MacKinnon and her diatribe, ‘Only Words’ (1993), in which she argued that pornography is an act of intimidation, subordination, terrorism, and discrimination, and should be legally treated as such. What would she make of this scene, in all its gentle intimacy and beauty?

And then there was Ron. I was struck by Ron, all over again.

Over the decades since I had last seen him, I often thought about him. About how I wished we’d had the chance to say what we should have said when he invited me to go dancing with him. So many years had passed, but the feelings remained bottled up in my sub-conscious. I decided to write an account of our relationship.

When I finished the piece, I looked Ron up online. He was easy to find. He was now a successful painter whose work appeared in exhibitions across the country, and sold through major auction houses. (It was however sad to see that he had abandoned his earlier wistful style in favor of modern, colorful abstract images.)

I got hold of a phone number for him, and a couple of years ago, I called him.

*

When Ron answered the phone, I re-introduced myself. He sounded panicked and alarmed.

I told him I was writing a piece about our relationship against the backdrop of the adult film industry in the early 1980s. I offered to send it to him. He expressed an interest in reading it, and so I said I’d email it to him.

It was a short call, that was understandable given his surprise.

A few weeks later, I followed up with another call to see if he had had chance to read the article. What happened next shouldn’t have surprised me given what he had once told me, but it did.

He denied knowledge that we had known each other. Refused the idea that he’d ever been active in the adult film business: “I painted some nudes back in the day, but that’s all. You must be mistaken. You must be getting me mixed up with someone else.”

He still had difficulties expressing himself, and closed the conversation by saying, “I am not interested in continuing this conversation.”

I was saddened by Ron’s reaction. I tried to console myself with the thought that at least I had tried to reach out and seek closure.

A while later I was contacted by someone in touch with Ron. This person told me that Ron was going through a difficult time in his personal relationships, but that I could expect to hear from Ron as soon as he felt he had worked them out. I wondered if Ron’s reticence to engage with me was perhaps a result of being in a relationship where his adult film past was an issue.

I waited to hear from Ron, but heard nothing.

I decided to take one final step. I resolved to send him a birthday card, to remind him that if he ever wanted to re-connect, I’d be happy to speak with him.

I looked online to find his birth date. Instead, I came across his obituary. Ron had passed away only weeks before.

*

I was devastated.

I was a sex worker. A prostitute, a lap dancer, and a porn star. Men like Ron Hudd played an important, critical, part of my life. They kept me alive because of the connection I had with them. Other people were bodies, but not Ron. He didn’t act a role when we were together. He was real. He was compatible with me. I loved him.

I hadn’t been in touch with Ron for many years, but I realized that I had harbored hopes that one day, we’d be able to communicate. I fantasized one day we’d meet again. Go to a museum, a coffee shop, a walk in the park. We’d talk. I’d explain that night. The sadness, the disappointment. I’d explain that I never rejected him. On the contrary, I just wanted more. Finding that Ron had died meant that this would never happen.

I am at the age where I lose friends. I know that. But Ron was part of my formation. He was life blood to me. I never pictured myself in this world without the possibility to speak with him again. I haven’t been able to accept that yet.

When I learned of Ron’s passing, I let myself mourn a person I loved, but perhaps hardly knew.

Ron Hudd, artist, in later years

*

The post Ron and Lisa – A Love Story: R.I.P Ron Hudd appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In 1980, the east coast publication Cheri was riding high. A sizable circulation led to significant revenue that allowed for regular cross-country travel for its stories. As a result, this fifth year of the magazine reads like a sex atlas of America.

In addition to erotic profiles of America’s major cities, the issues include articles and photo spreads with Uschi Digard, Seka, Little Oral Annie, Damon Christian, and many more.

And Cherry Bomb’s profile of musicians continue with The Police, The Fabulous Poodles, Ted Nugent, and others.

Fully digitized copies of each Cheri magazine can be found in the article below. You can find The Rialto Report’s growing collection of digitized resources by choosing Library in our site menu. 

Click on the covers below to access the full magazines. Due to the fact that the magazines are scanned in high definition, allow time for each page to load. If you are viewing on a phone, view in landscape orientation.

Magazines are fully searchable; use the icon displayed in each magazine to search by keyword.

Publications are being shared here purely for the purpose of research. They should not to be used or reproduced for any commercial gain.

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Cheri: The Complete 1980 Issues

January 1980 (Vol 4, No. 6)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Naked City, Indiana -Cheri’s new year resolutions -Cleveland’s ballsy bakery -America’s best swing ads –Cherry Bomb meets The Police -Cheri columns: Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom -Miss Nude Ohio -Where Las Vegas swings –The Chicken Ranch -Assorted pictorials

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February 1980 (Vol 4, No. 7)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Cheri staff profiles -America’s best swing ads -Cheri in Ohio -Ohio’s Randy Lynne -Wet lust in Key Largo -Cheri columns: Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -A hot hockey tale -An in-depth look at Dracula Sucks -Cleveland’s bouncing boogie bar -A California love ranch -Confessions of a Hollywood stunt starlet -Middle aged spreads

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March 1980 (Vol 4, No. 8)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-America’s best swing ads -Cheri goes backstage at a traveling carnival girlie show -Bare-assed beaches: west coast wetlands -Wet lust in Key Largo -Cheri columns: Cherry Bomb, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -Cher’s west coast sweet tarts -Secrets of a sexual talent scout –Uschi Digard meets Seka -Dave the rave -Assorted pictorials

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April 1980 (Vol 4, No. 9)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-America’s best swing ads -Why Cherry Vanilla tastes so good -International X -Cheri columns: Cherry Bomb, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -Miss Nude Canada -Big Apple porno premiere party -L.A.’s clothing optional society -Confessions of a San Francisco VD inspector -Assorted pictorials

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May 1980 (Vol 4, No. 10)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-America’s best swing ads -Nude dude ranch in upstate New York -Phyllis Prinz toilet photos -Cherry Bomb gets The Hotts -Cheri columns: Cherry Bomb, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -Lust from Leather Land -Assorted pictorials

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June 1978 (Vol 4, No. 11)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-America’s best swing ads –The Fabulous Poodles -Suit yourself: Fort Lauderdale -Sinthia Blue’s movie reviews -All nude cabarets: Florida -Presto Strip-o -Cheri columns: Cherry Bomb, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -69¢ beauty contest -A binding New York encounter -Assorted pictorials

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July 1980 (Vol 4, No. 12)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Ted Nugent stalks Cherry Bomb -America’s best swing ads -Cheri columns: Mistress Candice, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -The Candy Store disco -Battle of the buns -Fat Enzo -Assorted pictorials

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August 1980 (Vol 4 No. 1)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Swing wedding in Southern California -America’s best swing ads -Fantasies on film -Sinthia Blue’s movie reviews -Cheri’s 1980 oral olympics –Little Oral Annie profile -Balling with the west coast’s best –Damon Christian flashes his tits -Seka sells passion with pride -Assorted pictorials

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September 1980 (Vol 5, No. 2)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-America’s best swing ads -Sinthia Blue’s movie reviews -Washington goes wild -D.C.’s swinging sex club -Cheri columns: Mistress Candice, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -Playtoys for passionate politicians -Live sex at the Gayety -Stripper Stacie Renay -Mammary of the month club -Assorted pictorials

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October 1978 (Vol 5, No. 3)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-America’s best swing ads -Sinthia Blue’s movie reviews -Sex in Chicago -Halloween ball -Cheri columns: Mistress Candice, Gail Palmer, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -Seka live -Chicago’s hottest social club -Assorted pictorials

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November 1980 (Vol 5, No. 4)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Strut your stuff sweepstakes -Passion painting at Black’s Beach San Diego -Taylor Evan’s movie reviews -Sexual cyclones of Kansas City -Cheri columns: Little Oral Annie, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss –Foxy Boxers -Miss Nude Kokomo -California’s swinging love chapels -Assorted pictorials

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December 1980 (Vol 5, No. 5)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Strut your stuff sweepstakes -Fourth annual erotic film awards -Sinthia Blue’s movie reviews -Illinois: wet tits -Cheri columns: Little Oral Annie, Sabra Starr, Jill Monro, Jasmine, Sandy Freedom, Samantha Bliss -Nude City nude olympics -America’s best swing ads -Assorted pictorials

*

The post Cheri magazine in 1980: An Issue by Issue Guide appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The film director and production designer Alfred Sole passed away this past Tuesday at the age of 78. 

I first became aware of Alfred about 15 years ago when I was looking through the New York Times archives. I came across a 1973 article about a controversial adult film called Deep Sleep. The article caught my eye because the Times almost never covered porn movies and because the story started out pretty folksy. A young guy in a small New Jersey suburb with a love of cinema had made an adult film. He’d never seen one before but he desperately wanted to make a movie and porn was the only type he could get backing for. With money from members of the local community, he enlisted his family, friends and some local actors to shoot the picture. Even the mayor’s wife was in it, though like many of Alfred’s family and friends, she performed in a non-sex role.

But then the tone of the article took a turn: it said Alfred and the film’s lead performers were now under investigation by the FBI and facing significant jail time.

Eager to learn more, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI files. I eventually got back about a hundred pages of field reports and interviews detailing a robust investigation. What wasn’t included was any hint of how the case ended.

So I called adult performer Kim Pope, an early sexploitation actress who’d made the transition to hardcore films. She had been the female star of Deep Sleep and shared her memories of making the movie and the prosecution that followed. I asked if she’d kept in touch with Alfred and she said no – but that if I found him to please send her best wishes. Despite the controversy, she had only fond memories of him.

Lucky for me Alfred wasn’t hard to find. After Deep Sleep he directed a few horror films, including the cult favorite Alice, Sweet Alice from 1976 which featured a young Brooke Shields. He then went on to a prolific career in Hollywood as a production designer, working on popular TV shows like Veronica Mars, Castle and MacGuyver.

Alfred generously shared the story of Deep Sleep with me. I was fascinated by the tale, I decided to make a short film about it – something that tickled Alfred to no end. You can watch that early film below.

Our coverage of Deep Sleep was picked up by the Daily Beast. And that coverage led to a major documentary company deal to produce the story.

Over the past months, as a producer on the documentary project, I spoke with Alfred often. We were in pre-production and there were lots of details to work through. Alfred worried about the fact that we all wanted to make him the heart of the story. He was concerned that his memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. That in recent months he’d found himself searching for words much more than he used to. He said he didn’t want to let us down. I reassured him that there was no way that he could. In the end though, Alfred was just so excited about the project.

Then, like everyone else, I learned the news of Alfred’s death this past week. I’m so saddened by the loss of someone I was fortunate enough to call my friend these past 15 years. I’m grateful that so much of his creative output is available for audiences to appreciate. And I will keep doing all I can for the story of Alfred Sole and Deep Sleep to reach as many people as possible.

To mark his passing, we are premiering our short film, and reprising the 2015 podcast we made on Alfred Sole and the Ballad of Deep Sleep. 

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Deep Sleep – The Short Film

*

Deep Sleep – The Podcast

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 – The 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 RIP Alfred Sole: ‘Deep Sleep’ (1972) – The Short Film appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Jamie Gillis, golden age porn star.

Jamie Gillis, gonzo video pioneer.

But Jamie Gillis, lecturer?

By the mid-1990s, Jamie had been in the XXX industry for almost 25 years. Sure, he’d accumulated a fame of sorts, but had made no fortune. Money had always been an alien concept to Jamie, a man motivated by appetites far more esoteric.

Worse, he’d been replaced in the industry by younger performers, was becoming jaded with his life, had put on weight, and for the first time was being offered less work.

All he had left was his past. Or, to be more charitable, his experience, his wisdom.

So for a short time, Jamie tried to monetize his history and contacts. He formed a distribution company, but became bored of the paperwork and admin. He tried being an agent for adult film actors, but was frustrated by the flakiness of the performers. And he attempted to set up a series of weekend courses of lectures and seminars, to teach aspiring porno filmmakers about the business. Only two such weekenders took place.

These all-day X-rated seminars have rarely been mentioned since they were held in 1994.

They were billed as a master class for “learning the ins and outs of making professional adult films and videos… you will learn, in just one day, all you need to know to succeed in this exciting and lucrative field!”

Aside from Jamie’s keynote presentation, guest speakers included Duck Dumont, Annette Haven, John Leslie, Ed Powers and Kym Wilde. Others made special appearances like John Stagliano, Mistress Vicky Gold and Valeria.

The Rialto Report recently tracked down previously unseen video of Jamie’s lecture – all three hours of it – shot by fellow adult film star and presenter at the seminar, Richard Pacheco.

The video shows Jamie in his element, weary, cynical, and unpolished, but enjoying the attention and the chance to share his sexual war stories. He was fresh off the success of On The Prowl and Dirty Debutantes, so he made frequent references to both series.

Fortunately, not only did Richard Pacheco film the event, but he also wrote two articles about it for San Francisco’s Spectator Magazine. We’re indebted to Richard for allowing us to reprint his memories, as well as publish previously unseen excerpts from the footage.

Richard Pacheco’s book Hindsight: True Love & Mischief in the Golden Age of Porn is widely available.

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Jamie Gillis: The Master’s Class – by Richard Pacheco

Excerpted from Richard Pacheco’s Spectator Magazine articles.

 “Porn actor, director, producer and cameraman Jamie Gillis offers a class on How to Make Your  Own Erotic Videos (or Break Into the Business) For Fun or Profit. Included are tips to make film sex look natural, video techniques and equipment, legal questions and more, on March 2nd from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. in a downtown San Francisco location. $39. Register with the Learning Annex.”

Did you see this ad in the local papers? I did. I couldn’t believe it. It was like Picasso offering a sketching class at a junior college, Barry Bonds coaching Pony League, or Aretha Franklin giving piano lessons. The master was coming down from the mountain.

Very few people could rouse me from my domestic stupor these days to make a nocturnal trek across the Bay Bridge in the name of sex videos, but understand, dear readers, that Jamie Gillis is one of them. He has long been one of my heroes. In the shadow world of adult entertainment, Jamie Gillis is the light of day.

By far, he is the most sexually adventurous person I have ever come across. Women, men, chickens, pastry, roasted pigs, if it’s a sex act, Jamie Gillis probably has done it…at least twice.

For you young ones out there who can’t remember, Jamie began in the late ‘60’s by first making loops in New York. With a background of training as a Shakespearean actor in the off-off Broadway, Jamie, and that booming, unique, signature voice of his, became porn’s leading actor into the ‘70’s.

A tall man with dark smoldering good looks, Jamie had it all. He seemed to embody everything that was likable about New York. There was charm, sophistication, intelligence, and wit. Jamie was a guy that men wanted to be friends with and that women wanted to fuck.

His class was not at all what I expected. Then again, I didn’t exactly expect anything. I was just happy to get out of the house. I’m a father now, three times over. That’s what I do. It doesn’t pay in cash. This writing, it turns out, is just a hobby. Me as the porn star Richard Pacheco is really getting to be ancient history. Going to see Jamie was like an archeological dig in my ancient history. I was time-traveling to my more innocent days of sin.

I videoed the event. It was three hours long. Jamie seemed to be as unsure as I was about what he was doing there. Y’know, he broke the indoor record for “y’knows” in his presentation, but this was new for him, too. Teaching requires more than amusing yourself. He wanted to be there for his students. He was earnestly trying to share. Jamie would take them in any direction they wanted to go. I myself was hoping for a spontaneous orgy.

It was the wrong decade, Dr. Pacheco. His audience was mostly interested in the business end of the business. There were twenty-eight men and three women. The prettiest one asked me not to tape her when I panned the room with the camera. There seemed to be a couple of curiosity seekers and a whole bunch of amateur video guys who wanted counsel as to whether to go with big distributors or develop their own mail order catalog. What kind of camera do I need to use? Where are the safe locations? Where is the talent? How much money should we pay them? What about A.I.D.S.? Can I get busted? Is it actually legal? What’s a model release look like? Where can I get one? How does Ed Powers get those women to let him fuck them in the ass?

What’s new in fuck films? The fetish market is booming. It’s safer distribution because there is no sexual penetration in them. Some don’t even show pubic hair. Go on, make a fetish movie…spanking, foot worship, panty adulation, anus adulation, anything you can think of. “Go, make it, follow your dream,” Jamie tells them.

And “Follow your bliss,” Joseph Campbell said on PBS, same message. Jamie and I were slaves to our dicks. All men are to some degree, but I think it’s safe to say that we took it to an extreme…and Jamie, I believe, more so than most.

Funny thing, though, Jamie didn’t seem to be a slave to too much else. The money, the power, the fame, the celebrity, Jamie waltzed through all that like some kind of whimsical sprite. It was torn jeans and sandals at the race track. “Whoops, I’m broke. Hey, I’ll go make another movie.” He was the lion in Summer.

But now, it is Fall and Winter is approaching. Jamie’s got a pot belly and he’s working in production. He still performs from time to time, but now he shoots videos, too, with a favorite camera. He produces tapes. He sells them in the mail. He sells them to the big and little distributors. Jamie had all the answers to his students’ business questions. Not that he cared a whole hell of a lot about the answers, but he did have them. While money and business don’t seem to drive him, he has still had to learn enough of those answers…for himself…in order to both survive and maintain his independence. Sort of.

See, we all grow up. As much as we can stand it, that is. You get the impression that Jamie just needs enough and enough is exactly what he has.

For ultimately, what I heard in this workshop…more than anything else…is that Jamie eschews the scripted sex scene of today’s San Fernando Valley Videos. People taking money to fuck is boring him. Hell, it’s boring them while they’re making it so why should we bother to watch. Jaime’s in love with going On The Prowl, which is also the name of a video series he’s shot.

Jamie showed clips from his movies throughout the lecture. They were welcome in the sense that they reminded us why we were all there, dressed in our nice clothes, and sitting in a conference room at a Holiday Inn. Just seeing all the pussies and the dicks in the raise-your-hand-when-you-want-to-talk atmosphere was like a dolphin coming up from way down deep…for air…amidst all the blather of percentages, marketing, and legalities. Yup, there’s Jamie spanking a woman. It’s become a specialty of his of late. Jaime would put on a tape, step back folding his arms and watch it just like the rest of us.

In teaching a class like this, Jamie is just like the rest of us. That’s why his audience went home happy whether they ever make that special porn video of theirs or not. Sure they learned what they wanted to know about the current state of all the little business details, but what they really did was get to hang out with Jamie Gillis for a night. It’s one of the more charming and fascinating occurrences one can get to have on this planet. It’s backstage with a great one who is so busy living that he doesn’t have time to worry much about greatness. Flattery is nice. You can chew it…just don’t swallow.

I hear that Jaime’s going to do some more of these “classes” for the Learning Annex. They’ll probably be advertised right here in this paper. If you get the chance and are at all enamored with either the profession or the fine art of being Jaime, don’t miss this opportunity. I expect his presentation will become more refined for this exercise…and considering the wealth of experience he has to draw upon, it’s like watching a leprechaun playing with his own pot of gold.

It started out as a class. It ended up as an event that actually surprised itself. In another era, it would have been called “a happening.” And it was a happening, too, the real deal. An experience that could only happen because it was “The Mad Satyr,” Jamie Gillis himself, who had sounded the call to congregation.

My lord, did these people ever get their money’s worth! After nine hours, nobody wanted to leave. The hotel had to kick us out. Speakers at the end were jammed for time. Nobody expected what happened to happen. Not even Jamie.

“Do you think it was alright?” Jamie asked me later during the post-game show at a North Beach bar.

I counseled the big guy to drop the business part of the show, add a few more stars with stories, a couple of songs and strippers, put in some big screen video clips from adult movies, and let’s take the whole thing to Broadway. I think he has the makings of an extraordinary Golden Age of Porn Review. We could hang out with each other and feed for a long time at that trough. We could tour the country. We could go abroad…

Sigh deeply. This world, my friends, is often an upside-down place. Secret scumbags are frequently hidden behind masks of public virtue while those free spirits we would be so quick to condemn and dismiss from polite society are just as often the real people of heart and substance that we should admire.

“Trust in God,” the Sufi’s say, “but tie your camel first.”

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Jamie Gillis: An All-Day X-Rated Seminar – Video Excerpts

How to Get Started in the Business

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The Birth of ‘On The Prowl’

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How to Find Your Niche

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X-Rated Business Economics

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Women and Money

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A Fringe Benefit from Richard Pacheco

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As part of our ongoing series of podcasts and articles commemorating the pioneering adult film Deep Throat, which was released 50 years ago, Ashley West joined the Projection Booth podcast to consider one of director Gerard Damiano‘s follow-up films, Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974).

Light years away from the comedy of ‘Deep Throat’, ‘Miss Aggie’ tells the story of a troubled spinster named Aggie who lives in isolation with her crippled wheelchair-bound companion Richard. While attempting to remember the exact circumstances about how she and Richard first met, Aggie starts to piece together a true portrait of who and what she really is.

The film was reviewed in the New York Times – rare for an explicit sex film in any era – who also published Damiano’s response to the review. Both the article and response are re-printed below.

‘Miss Aggie’ was also notable in that the two lead roles were non-sexual parts and played by mainstream theatrical actors, Deborah Ashira and Patrick L. Farrelly. A selection of articles about Ashira’s career are re-printed below.

You can hear the full podcast discussion – hosted by Mike White, and including Samm Deighan – here.

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‘Memories Within Miss Aggie’ (1974) – Press coverage

Vincent Canby’s notorious review of ‘Memories With Miss Aggie’ in the New York Times:

Gerard Damiano’s reply to the New York Times review of ‘Memories With Miss Aggie’:

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Deborah Ashira

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The post Deep Throat @ 50: ‘Memories Within Miss Aggie’ – Projection Booth Podcast appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The 2022 Academy Awards ceremony takes place this evening, with the event being broadcast live on television all over the world.

But rather than tune in to see ‘West Side Story’ compete with ‘The Power of the Dog’, we prefer to travel back 38 years and watch the 1984 Adult Film Association of America (AFAA) awards – when films like The Devil in Miss Jones Part II, Little Girls Lost, Naughty Girls Need Love Too, Reel People, and Suzie Superstar battled it out.

It was the eighth annual ceremony, and was just as glitzy as its mainstream counterpart, featuring a full orchestra, musical numbers, live performances of the nominated songs, comedy segments, and clips of the nominees. Attendees included all the XXX stars of the time – from John Leslie, Seka, Richard Pacheco, Kay Parker, Jamie Gillis, Eric Edwards, Fred Lincoln and Tiffany Clark… plus Francis Ford Coppola, who Henri Pachard called out during the Best Director award.

The event itself was billed as ‘Adult Movies Have Come of Age’. With hindsight, the title is bittersweet: the evening now feels like the last gasp of the golden age, the eleventh hour before the takeover of the shot-on-video productions that would dominate from the following year. The 1984 awards make little reference to the next generation’s new breed of star, such as Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon, and Traci Lords, who would take over proceedings in future years (though video-porn starlet Angel can be seen handing out each of the awards.)

A note of melancholy is provided by the performer Shauna Grant, who features prominently with three nominations and a presenting role. She committed suicide weeks later.

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1. AFAA Preview

Kay Parker introduces the evening’s celebrations.

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2. Red Carpet

The stars arrive for the big AFAA night out – including Hyapatia Lee with husband Bud, John Leslie, Kelly Nichols and partner Tim Connolly, Eric Edwards, Juliet Anderson, Luis ‘Short Stud’ De Jesus, Anthony Spinelli, and Al Goldstein.

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3. Opening Musical Number

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4. Opening Remarks

David Friedman, Chairman of the Board of the Adult Film Association of America (AFAA) opens the ceremony, and introduces his co-host, Seka.

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5. Best Song Nominee – 1

‘Sexy Faces’ from Flesh and Laces, Part I and II, sung by Carolyn Gardner.

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6. Best Supporting Actress

Presented by Harry Reems.

Nominees:
Vanessa del Rio – Aphrodesia’s Diary
Kay Parker – Sweet Young Foxes
Georgina Spelvin – Between Lovers
Samantha Fox – The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
Shauna Grant – Flesh and Laces, Part I and II
Anna Ventura – That’s Outrageous

And the winner is…

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7. Best Song Nominee – 2

‘It’s Just The Devil In Miss Jones’ from The Devil in Miss Jones Part II, sung by Reggie Leon – actor, choreographer and member of throwback rock ‘n’ roll group Sha Na Na for more than two decades.

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8. Best Supporting Actor

Presented by Richard Pacheco and Lee Carroll.

Nominees:
Eric Edwards – Bodies in Heat
R. Bolla – The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
Ron Jeremy – Suzie Superstar
John Leslie – Naughty Girls Need Love Too
Bill Margold – Sweet Alice
Billy Dee – Virginia

And the winner is…

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9. Best Song Nominee – 3

‘If I Love You Tonight’ from Suzie Superstar, sung by Julie Christensen.

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10. Best Song

Presented by Hyapatia Lee and Ron Sullivan.

Nominees:
‘If I Love You Tonight’ from Suzie Superstar
‘Sexy Faces’ from Flesh and Laces, Part I and II
‘It’s Just The Devil In Miss Jones’ from The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
‘Little Girls Lost’ from Little Girls Lost
‘That First Love’ from In Love
‘A Woman In Love’ from Between Lovers
‘The Young Like It Hot’ from The Young Like It Hot
‘Outrageous’ from That’s Outrageous

And the winner is…

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11. Best Actor

Presented by Kay Parker and Eric Edwards

Nominees:
Paul Thomas – Virginia
Jack Wrangler – The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
Jamie Gillis – Flesh and Laces, Part I and II
Richard Pacheco – Naughty Girls Need Love Too
John Leslie – Suzie Superstar

And the winner is…

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12. Comedy Interlude

Performed by Jackie Gayle – ex Frank Sinatra warm-up man and Dean Martin Celebrity Roast comedian, whose acting credits include Barry Levinson’s Tin Men (1987) and Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose (1984).

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13. Best Actress

Presented by Jamie Gillis.

Nominees:
Arlene Manhattan – Aphrodesia’s Diary
Jessie St. James – Between Lovers
Kelly Nichols – In Love
Georgina Spelvin – The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
Veronica Hart – Little Girls Lost
Shauna Grant – Virginia
Shauna Grant – Suzie Superstar

And the winner is…

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14. Best Director

Presented by Sidney Niekirk, Cal Vista Films.

Henri Pachard – The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
Troy Benny – Flesh and Laces, Part I and II
Ted Roter – Little Girls Lost
Anthony Spinelli – Reel People
Cecil Howard – Scoundrels
F. J. Lincoln – That’s Outrageous
Vinnie Rossi – Too Much Too Soon
John Seeman – Virginia

And the winner is…

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15. Best Erotic Scene

Presented by Fred Lincoln and Tiffany Clark.

Virginia – John Seeman
Aphrodesia’s Diary – Serge Lincoln
Flesh and Laces, Part I and II – Hollywood International
Hot Dreams – Warren Evans
Reel People – Richard Frazzini
Sexcapades – David Stone
Suzie Superstar – Cal Vista International

And the winner is…

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16. Dance Interlude

‘Ladies of the 80s’ performed by the Michael Darrin Dancers – choreographed by Michael Darrin, veteran of more than 50 Broadway and stock musicals, who worked with Cyd Charisse, Elizabeth Taylor, Bob Hope, Diana Ross, Cher, Paula Abdul, and Lucille Ball, among others.

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17. Best Art Direction

Presented by John Leslie and Shauna Grant.

The Devil in Miss Jones Part II – Eddie Heath
Scoundrels – Lynn Jefferies
…In The Pink – Andre Nichipolodas
Suzie Superstar – Robert McCallum
Virginia – Karen Fields

And the winner is…

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18. Award of Merit

Presented by Jimmie Johnson, President of the AFAA.

Awarded to Dr. Lois Lee, founder of Children of the Night, a privately funded non-profit organization established in 1979 with the specific purpose of rescuing children and young people from prostitution and sexual exploitation.

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19. Best Picture

Presented by Georgina Spelvin and Jimmie Johnson.

Nominees:
Flesh and Laces, Part I and II – Hollywood International
The Devil in Miss Jones Part II – James George
Little Girls Lost – Ted Roter
Naughty Girls Need Love Too – Essex
Reel People – Richard Frazzini
Suzie Superstar – Cal Vista International
That’s Outrageous – P.R.P. Inc.

And the winner is…

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20. Closing Remarks

Dave Friedman brings the AFAA ceremony to a close.

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The post AFAA Awards 1984 – The Filmed Ceremony appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In the second of our recent collaborations with esteemed film podcast, The Projection Booth, we discuss the Amero Brother’s X-rated musical, Blonde Ambition. (No, not the Madonna film. This is the real, original ‘Blonde Ambition.’)

Released in 1981, ‘Blonde Ambition’ was years in the making. Written by LaRue Watts and directed by Lem and John Amero, the film stars Suzy Mandel and Dory Dev0n as Sugar and Candy Kane, sisters who have a song and dance act in a podunk town. One fateful evening they encounter the dashing Stephen Carlisle III (Eric Edwards), a prince of sorts who carries not a glass slipper but a valuable jewel — and, wouldn’t you know it, a duplicate of a worthless replica owned by the Kane sisters. It goes without saying that wackiness ensues.

You can hear the full podcast discussion – hosted by Mike White – and featuring all-new interviews with director John Amero, actor Kurt Mann, writer and production designer LaRue Watts, and frequent Amero collaborator Larry Revene, by clicking here.

April Hall of The Rialto Report and Heather Drain join Mike to discuss this amazing musical.

You can listen to our other collaborations with The Projection Booth here: Roommates (1981) and Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974).

John Amero’s biography, co-written by The Rialto Report, has recently been reprinted after its initial run sold out. You can buy an autographed copy from FAB Press.

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‘Blonde Ambition’ (1981)

Suzy Mandel

Choreographer Mary Ann Niles

Dory Devon (left) and Suzy Mandel (right) with choreographer, Mary Ann Niles

John and Kurt Mann (in blonde wig)

Lem Amero

John (behind) and Lem Amero

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The post ‘Blonde Ambition’ (1981) – Projection Booth Podcast appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In the third and final instalment of our recent collaboration with esteemed film podcast, The Projection Booth, we discuss the Dark Brother’s influential New Wave Hookers.

Released in 1985, New Wave Hookers featured a cast of established performers from the era and was followed by a number of sequels and a remake. The movie starred Ginger Lynn, Desiree Lane, Kristara Barrington, Kimberly Carson, Brooke Fields, Gina Carrera, Jamie Gillis, Jack Baker, Tom Byron, Steve Powers, Peter North, Rick Cassidy, Greg Rome, and Steve Drake.

Traci Lords appeared in the original version dressed in all-red lingerie, portraying ‘the Devil,’ but this version was removed from distribution in the United States in 1986 when news broke that Traci Lords was under 18 when the film was made. The movie was subsequently reissued with the Lords-Rick Cassidy scene excised and the box cover photo of Lords replaced by co-star Ginger Lynn’s image. This altered film version is the one that is (legally) available in the United States today.

The movie was produced by the Dark Brothers, who featured the slogan “Purveyors of Fine Filth.” Walter Dark was the executive producer, and Gregory Dark produced, directed, and co-wrote with Platinum Fire.

The story begins with Jack Baker and Jamie Gillis telling jokes as they watch porn and talk about women. They fantasize how their lives would be better if they were pimps with women working for them. They discuss opening an escort service featuring “new wave bitches” who would become aroused whenever they hear new wave music. The two men fall asleep to TV static, and much of the remainder of the film depicts them dreaming about different sexual encounters with women who become sexually receptive after listening to new wave.

The movie won AFAA Erotica Awards in 1986 for Best Erotic Scene, Best Musical Score and Best Trailer. The soundtrack includes the song “Electrify Me” by The Plugz, which won for Best Song. The film was also nominated for Best Art and Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Advertising Campaign. In 1986, New Wave Hookers also won the Adam Film World Guide Award for Best Movie and the AVN Award for Best Packaging – Film. New Wave Hookers went on to be included in the XRCO Hall of Fame and in 2001, Adult Video News placed it 17th on its list of the 101 greatest adult videos of all time. It is widely credited as helping create the alt-porn genre.

You can hear the full podcast discussion – hosted by Mike White – and featuring Ashley West of The Rialto Report and Robin Bougie, by clicking here.

You can listen to our other collaborations with The Projection Booth here: Roommates (1981), Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974), and Blonde Ambition (1981).

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‘New Wave Hookers’ (1984)

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For a time in the 1970s, Harry Reems was the biggest and most recognizable male sex star on the planet. He was a porn Burt Reynolds, famous for his mustache, his sense of fun, and his sexual prowess. One critic described him as being all the Marx brothers rolled into one, a big mess of zany humor, tinged with a hint of melancholy.

Harry’s public life had a three-act structure:

He was famous because of Deep Throat (1972) – the groundbreaking adult film which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Then he was infamous because of the federal trial that followed in which he and various New York mobsters were accused of interstate distribution of pornography.

And finally he was forgotten when he ended up a helpless alcoholic in the 1980s, sleeping in a dumpster, unable to take care of himself.

But what happened when the three acts were over? The public narrative was simple. Harry managed to get off alcohol and clean himself up. Harry became a successful realtor in Utah. And Harry got religion and became a born-again Christian.

As for his porn past, well, that was ancient history. He refused to talk about it, everyone told me. It was contrary to his new-found Jesus beliefs, and he regretted every minute of it. So he never gave interviews. The one exception was when Hollywood came calling, and he spoke briefly about his most famous film for the documentary, ‘Inside Deep Throat’

So what happened to this household name of adult film history whose rise and fall felt so emblematic of the golden age of adult film itself?

The Rialto Report‘s Ashley West became friends with Harry, and spoke with him on many occasions.

The is the search for the real Harry Reems.

This podcast is 61 minutes long.

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Harry Reems

Harry with Ben Gazzara

Harry, with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty

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The post Deep Throat @ 50: Searching for the Real Harry Reems – Podcast 117 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Jamie Gillis would have been 79 years old this week.

Given that he was almost 30 by the time he started appearing in early New York adult films, what had he been doing until then? The answer, not surprisingly, was performing. What is perhaps surprising was that he was first a mime artist in Europe, and then a well-regarded theater actor in Off-Broadway productions, using his real name Jamey Gurman.

The Rialto Report recently acquired previously unpublished photos of this period of Jamie’s life – which we present together with excerpts of our conversations with him and newspaper articles about this time.

Jamey Gurman, Jamey King, Jamie Gillis

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Jamie Gillis – The Mime

Did you always want to be a performer of some kind?

For as long as I can remember. My first exposure to Shakespeare was in the 8th grade when our teacher took some of us to see a group called the Shakespearewrights perform in a nearby church. The theater was intimate, and I loved being able to smell the performers as they strutted across the stage doing Julius Caesar.

Jamey Gurman, 1956

Jamie (left) in a high school production of Brigadoon

Jamie (middle) in a high school production of Brigadoon

Jamie (left) in a high school production

What happened when you left school?

I went straight into the theater. I took the name ‘Jamey King’ which I thought sounded regal and important.

Do you remember any of those early plays you did?

One of the first plays I did when I 18 was ‘Rope’, which was play that Hitchcock made into a movie.

From production of ‘Rope’

Village Voice article about ‘Rope’ – with a cartoon of Jamie (right)

Did you have an agent?

Dora Weissman. She was an ancient Yiddish actress, must have been in her 80s. I went to her Performing Arts School, and she liked me, and represented me for a short while.

Ten years later I saw her in Al Pacino’s film The Panic in Needle Park (1971). She was a legendary figure in acting circles in New York.

When did you become interested in being a mime?

Mime was once a revered and respected art form. It’s funny to think that nowadays… because mimes are almost universally mocked today.

When I left school, I decided that I’d become a Shakespearean actor. I was naïve and innocent, and I thought that Shakespeare was the purest form of art for a performer. I didn’t want to be a sell-out, I didn’t want to be a commercial actor, I didn’t care about money.

Then in 1961, when I was 19, I went to see a Marcel Marceau performance. It changed my life – at least for a while. I used to think that a theater was like a church, but this was like a monastery! After I saw Marceau, I only wanted be a mime. I felt that was the perfect vehicle for my craft.

Did Marcel Marceau remain an inspiration?

For a time, he was God to me. After seeing him, I became a mime. I actually went backstage to see him. I mumbled “Bless you” to him.

Over the years, I spoke to him several times about the possibility of studying with him but he was always touring and unreachable as a teacher. He seemed to be jealously guarding his talent, the small band of mimes in the world that loved him held out hope that he would someday have a company and impart his great secrets to us.

So who did you study with?

Everyone. I was serious about learning, so I studied with everyone I could find, often studying with more than one teacher at a time.

My favorite was Tony Montanaro. He hired me to work with him on his one man show, ‘A Mime’s Eye View’ at the Gramercy Arts Theatre in 1962. Then there was Richard Morse, Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, Lionel Shepard, Moni Yakim.

How did you end up doing mime in Europe?

That was in Holland in the early 1960s. I was living in Amsterdam in a place on Prinsengracht, working as bellboy at the Victoria Hotel. It was a perfect job for me. I ran errands for guests in the red light district, and spent time talking to the prostitutes who displayed themselves in the ground floor windows.

One day I saw a sign announcing a performance of the Will Spoor Mime Troupe. I went to see the show and afterwards went backstage and told them that I’d studied mime in New York. That was enough of a resume’ to be immediately asked to join them.

I started seeing a girl named Yeka, a 17 year old, half Japanese ticket taker for the company.

What was Will Spoor’s Troupe like?

There were only five people in the troupe. We bought a tent from a circus performer named Bosco who was retiring. He came to see us after the tent was up and, as a way of saying goodbye to his old life, did his trapeze act one last time just for the five of us. It was a moving experience. He sat on a chair with its two back legs somehow miraculously balancing on the trapeze. There was no net.  We felt proud and humbled to have his tent.

Jamie seated (in hat) on left side of picture

Jamie seated on left side of picture

Jamie, on left side of picture

How did you afford the tent?

Actually it was bought for us by a wealthy Dutchman, Mr Heine, who was in the supermarket and coffee business. His only stipulation was that somewhere in the show we insert a mime piece about his coffee… so we did. I was the coffee king who was given different coffees to taste – and of course Heine’s was the one I preferred.

Amazingly, we did that damn ad in every show even though we never showed it to Mr. Heine, and he never actually bothered to show up at the tent. I still think of him when I drink coffee…

Jamie, Summer 1964

Where was the tent erected?

We did a summer season in Bergen op Zoom, a seaside resort town. Children would come around and try to talk to me before or after the show but I explained that: “Ik sprek ingalls” – then when they saw me they would refer to me delightedly as the “Ingallsman” as if I was some wonderful creature. Maybe they somehow enjoyed the idea that the silent mime was really unable to speak to them.

During that summer the troupe all lived together in a lovely house on a street called the Doorntjes and I bicycled to the tent for performances. Yeka sat in the booth and sold tickets.

It was a happy, carefree life. I found great beauty in simplicity. Bliss.

Dutch newspaper article about Jamie, and the Will Spoor Troupe (Jamie, left of the picture), August 1964

Dutch newspaper article mentioning Jamie and the Will Spoor Troupe, August 1964

Dutch newspaper article mentioning Jamie and the Will Spoor Troupe, August 1964

When did you decide to return to New York?

I had constant wanderlust, so with regret, I decided to leave the company and the Prinsengracht apartment after the season ended. I still wanted a mime career and I started studying with Moni Yakim.

In the summer of 1964, I went to see a free performance of the San Francisco Mime Troupe in Washington Square Park. The performance was not allowed to proceed because there was an issue with the permit. The performers were arrested.

I went up to a member of the troupe who was removing the posted signs that announced the show. He was much older than I was, and I asked him how much the performers made by passing the hat when they were allowed to perform.

He replied “$5”.

The combination of the guy’s age, the money, the arrests, and the fact that they were being refused permission to perform was crushing. I couldn’t believe that these talented people were virtually destitute.

It was at that moment I ceased to be a mime.

Did you continue to enjoy mime, even though you didn’t pursue it?

Oh yes. It was a intimate and innocent art. I went to see Marceau perform again in Los Angeles in 1990 – and was astounded to see that the show he was doing was identical to the one I had fallen in love with as a nineteen year old. I felt sorry for Marceau. He seemed to be a sad, pathetic creature condemned to roam the world night after night, decade after decade, famously putting on and taking off a mask that wasn’t there.

I went backstage again – just like I had when I was 19. But this time let others bow to him while I watched from a distance and felt sorry for the mechanical man I had once revered.

But when he died, I was destroyed. I cried openly when I read his obituary in the New York Times.

I was crying for his loss, but also because I had lost that innocence that was once such a part of me. When I first saw him, I thought I had just seen the wisest, most spiritual human being in the world.

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Jamie Gillis – The Theater Actor

When you decided against mime, did you gravitate back into theater?

No. I went back to school. First to get better high school grades; then to college. I was accepted to the Columbia School of General Studies – the branch of the school that accepts students who have knocked around a bit and now want to get a degree. I lived in a tiny apartment with my girlfriend on 105th between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue – a lovely landmark block near Columbia.

Why did you want to go to college?

I thought I may need a degree in case I needed to teach something like dramatic literature at some point. But my intention was to get straight back into acting right after I graduated.

I even took an acting course in what turned out to be the exact same room in which I was born! Columbia had taken over the woman’s hospital that had closed years before. I was born in that hospital and our classroom was the baby delivery room. I figured that was a divine sign that I was meant to act.

And you graduated?

Yeah, I ended up with good grades even though I knew well before graduation that I was going back into the theater no matter the cost. I knew it would be a difficult life, with plenty of financial hardships, but I was determined to do whatever I had to do to survive.

What was the first professional acting work you did?

In 1969 I saw a notice in Backstage about a group called the CSC (Classic Stage Company). They were in the Village on 3rd St in a converted shoe factory. I went over to audition. I did Edmund from King Lear: “Thou nature, art my goddess…” and I was accepted into the company in March 1970.

Didn’t you also get into Joe Papp’s Shakespeare Company in Central Park?

Yes, but I stayed with the CSC because I though I’d be a bigger fish there which would lead to bigger roles. Papp’s people told me I was crazy and that no one cared about the CSC. They were right I guess, but I loved the CSC.

I took a tiny closet-sized room for $17 a week at 148 Waverly Place just a short walk from the CSC theatre.

CSC – Biographies of the Actors

What was the CSC like?

Very small, very intimate. If a pretty girl in a short skirt was seated in the first row I could have a little concentration problem.

Many big-name actors passed through the company over the years, but in those days they couldn’t afford to pay any of us a salary. I started driving a cab a few days a week to make ends meet.

What plays did you act in?

We pretty much did a different play every night, I appeared in ‘Hamlet’ as Laertes, in ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ as Hamlet, in ‘Twelfth Night’  as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and in ‘Moby Dick’, first as Starbuck and later as Ishmael, and lots of others (laughs).

CSC production of ‘Moby Dick’

New York Times review of ‘Moby Dick’

Backstage review of CSC production of ‘Moby Dick’, November 6th, 1970

CSC production of ‘Hamlet’

New York Times review of ‘Hamlet’

CSC production of ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead’

New York Times review of CSC production of ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead’

CSC production of ‘Twelfth Night’

Review of Hamlet in Washington Square Journal, 1971

Did you enjoy your time at the CSC?

It was wonderful. I learned so much about acting and made many friends.

While I was at the CSC John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson were appearing in ‘Home on Broadway’. I went backstage to meet them because I thought it would be great for company morale if one or both of them could be induced to come see us in our little theater.

Gielgud was contemptuous and told me he had very little time to see anything, but Ralph Richardson was warm and funny. He had a half empty bottle of vodka at the foot of his dressing table, and when I told him I was playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek he immediately leapt into the role of Sir Toby Belch which he had famously performed, and we bandied lines back and forth to my great delight.

I take it your career as a sexual performer that was ahead of you… was not expected at this stage?

I was always sexual, but at that time I was strictly a thespian!

I actually lost my girlfriend to one of the senior actors at the CSC, Frank Dwyer, for a short while. All the men at the CSC wanted her. She told me that after once fucking her a couple of times in rapid succession, Frank boasted: “I bet Jamie can’t do that”.

She replied, “Jamie only does it once” and then added: “but he does it all night.”

How did your time at the CSC come to an end?

I saw an ad in Village Voice for nude actor work, or something like that.

That was placed by Bob Wolfe. He filmed 8mm hardcore sex loops in a dirty basement on 14th St. That was bascially Ground Zero for the New Yrok sex film business.

I responded, and my career in porn films started. I still did plays from time to time, but in truth, there was no going back.

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