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Book Reading For The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry

Book Soup at 8818 Sunset Blvd. 6:45pm. Tuesday. I leaf through the book and see over 20 paragraphs from my Marc Wallice interviews. I turn to the back and note that I'm properly credited.

7pm. Legs McNeil and co-author Jennifer Osborne walk in. A dozen people await them.

Sharon Mitchell, Tim Connelly, Jennifer Osborne, Peter Pavia Sharon, Legs McNeil Sharon Sharon, Peter Legs, Tim Jennifer, Peter Sharon Legs Sharon, Peter Jennnifer, Peter Ron Jeremy in new PETA ad

Legs radiates hostility. Or is just a New York attitude? Or is it just being a jerk?

He berates somebody for owing him money. I overhear Legs say $2,000. Later it's $240. He complains that all his stuff got stolen. He complains about his bad press. He complains about the meager turnout. He says the dozen people who came through the rain to see him count for nothing.

I decide to stand back and just observe before I introduce myself.

Legs' co-writer Jennifer Osborne seems amiable.

McNeil fidgets. He says he hasn't eaten since New York. He wants a smoke. He wants a drink. He's grateful for candy.

He picks on the audience. Who is the woman upfront taking notes? Are there any journalists present? Where are Sharon Mitchell, Tim Connelly, and Veronica Hart who are supposed to read with him?

Legs bags on Inside Deep Throat. He calls it campy crap. He says he'll wait until 7:30 or 7:45 to start. In my head, I curse his delay.

A documentary filmmaker wants to videotape the book reading. Legs seems to have a problem with that. He turns the guy over to Jennifer. A long discussion ensues. Apparently Legs doesn't want to be videotaped but Jenn and Peter Pavia are ok with it.

After 20 minutes, I introduce myself to Legs. I ask him if all this is changing him.

"I'm still an asshole," he says.

Legs is glad to be with Judith Regan because she knows how to sell books.

Sharon Mitchell arrives at 7:40pm. Legs yells into the microphone, "It was f----- Sharon Mitchell's fault [that the reading began late]."

Mitch accidentally knocks over Jenn's Coke. AVN publisher/editor Tim Connelly joins the crew up front. Veronica Hart doesn't show.

The reading begins. At its conclusion, the first question comes from a writer asking how Legs assembled the book. Legs calls the guy an idiot for asking him a question about writing when one of the sexiest porn stars of all time is present (Sharon Mitchell).

After a rant, Legs answers the question by saying: "It took me eight years."

If I was the guy who asked that question, I'd hate Legs. McNeil must glory in rubbing people of good will the wrong way.

Sharon Mitchell says she started in porn in 1975 at age 17 (she was legally emancipated after a marriage and divorce). That makes her about 46yo today.

"Nobody cared back then [about age]," said Mitch. "We worked directly for the Mob. Who was going to ask us [for ID]?"

I raise my hand and ask one question (to Sharon Mitchell): "Some people in the industry say that you have become more critical of the industry over the past seven years because of your experiences with AIM (Adult Industry Medicine)?"

Sharon seems to tear up as she answers me after a long pause: "Sitting where I sit, it's made me more realistic."

An old man in the back (Victor Bokris, who wrote for Punk and went on to write books about Keith Richards, Patti Smith, and others) asks Tim Connelly to reflect on the death of Hunter S. Thompson. The man says Hunter wanted to do a book on the porn industry. That Hunter worked as a bartender at the Mitchell Brothers theatre in San Francisco as research. Then Hunter fell in love with a hooker and lost his mind and his desire to write on porn.

Hunter also tangled with Gail Palmer.

A question for Tim Connelly: Do porn stars ever use lawyers to negotiate their contracts?

Tim: "Obviously not successfully."

I've not heard of a porn star in the past 20 years using a lawyer to negotiate a contract. Probably the highest paid porn star of all time per movie was Seka (around $40,000 tops for one of them).

The authors are asked for their favorite section of the book. Jennifer says the Times Square material. "When it was a yes place, not a no place."

Four years ago, Jenn was working on a fem porn documentary. She interviewed Legs. He asked her to come aboard his book. Her documentary was never finished.

First question yelled from the audience for Sharon Mitchell. "Did you f--- Warren Beatty?" That was alleged in the book.

Sharon says no.

A writer asks Legs: "You had all these long conversations. How did you bring it down to?"

Legs: "You just cut and paste and throw it in. It took eight f------ years."

Brett Hudson, Kate Hudson's uncle, asks a self-serving question (Brett produced with Legs and Burt Kearns the Court TV documentary on the history of porn): "There's a new documentary out called Inside Deep Throat. Didn't you do a special on MTV that told that same story?"

Legs: "I did a great special on Court TV. I was blessed with two executive producers sitting right here -- Brett Hudson and Burt [Kearns], who has a very small penis he doesn't want anyone to know about.

"They [Inside Deep Throat filmmakers] were assholes. They made this campy movie making fun of Deep Throat. What's great about Deep Throat, the movie is not that great, but the amazing story of Deep Throat is the whole invention of the modern pornography industry. Also the invention of the Mob's control of it."

The Mob controlled the porn industry long before Deep Throat.

Legs: "The story behind Deep Throat is a much more amazing story than the actual film. And they didn't get that. And they're a bunch of assholes. We had done this three-hour Court TV special which is the highest-rated original program in their history. They buried that so this stupid campy movie...

"In the New York Post, they tried to make me anti-gay by saying, well, these two gay guys made it. I said that because if Legs McNeil and crew had done the uncensored oral history of the gay film industry, they would have crucified me. I am not anti-gay."

Can anyone understand what Legs's critique of Inside Deep Throat? Underneath his hyperbole, I don't understand his complaint other than that he feels they stomped on his turf. And for Legs McNeil to think that Deep Throat is exclusively his turf is pure delusion. Neither Legs, in his book or his Court TV special, nor Inside Deep Throat, break any new ground on the history and significance of Deep Throat. Legs and Inside Deep Throat simply retill the soil that has been broken by others.

Please correct me if I am wrong by showing me the scoops in these projects.

Sharon Mitchell is asked if she had any favorite costumes.

"I did this one striptease. It would be my last show of the week. Many times, when I was on the road, I'd do 25 shows in a week.

"I'd have my valet pack my suitcases and have them at the end of the runway. I'd come out completely naked and do a reverse striptease. Nobody understood it. All the guys in the front row thought they were getting the real deal. That I was going to stay naked the whole time.

"I'd put the g-string on, the bra on... I'd pick up my bags, walk offstage and right into the taxicab.

"My second favorite: I learned how to do the fan dance from Sally Rand [born April 3, 1904]."

Old man yells out: "What kind of shape was Sally Rand in?"

Sharon: "Very good.

"I was one of the first porn girls introduced into entry-level striptease and feature dancing. The first gig that I had was co-featuring for Tempest Storm. It wasn't really about how they looked. It was about what they portrayed and the sexual energy they exuded. I was trying so hard to do the bump-and-grind and my body wasn't right for it.

"Tempest Storm told me I could have my own style provided I went with the formula of the tease. I was doing my ballet and stripping to Rhapsody in Blue. And the other girls would come out and pour water on their shirts and do these dollar-a-lick things. I felt out of place. I never compromised.

"I'd say Tempest Storm was the best dancer of that era. She brought her own band."

Question: "Was Sally Rand proud of what she'd done?"

Sharon: "Absolutely. Enthusiastic and proud to pass it on."

Legs talks about the start of his porn book: "Sharon Mitchell was one of the first persons I interviewed. She lived in the Valley. I pulled into her street and said, 'This looks like the witness protection program. I want to live here.' I got a house around the corner from her with a pool and a dog that Tim Connelly stole from me.

"I sent crews out to buy the John Holmes trial transcripts for $10,000 apiece. The transcriber owns the copy unless you're in appeals court, then you can Xerox them.

"I read [Hunter S. Thompson's] Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It changed my life. With the exception of Last Exit to Brooklyn, Fear and Loathing made writing like machine gun fire. It was like rock n'roll."

Luke: "Sharon, some people think you've become more negative towards the porn industry in the last six years seeing all the AIDS and problems that have swept through it?"

Sharon takes a long pause and reflects: "A little bit, Luke. Sitting where I sit with AIM (Adult Industry Medicine), I see all the occupational hazards and the malevolence and it's made me a little bit realistic. I know there are a lot of wonderful things out there, but seeing what I've been seeing, it's almost like porno's version of Fear Factor. How many dicks can you put in a pussy and how goldfish can you make people vomit and what does this have to do with sex? Part of me wonders what this has to do with the wonderful business I stepped into in 1975 where I could show my pussy 15-feet high on the silver screen..."

A guy in the audience: "In your professional opinion, how many dicks can you fit in one pussy?"

Sharon: "I know how many chopsticks you can."

Legs: "That's very humble of Sharon. Sharon is the reason why most of the country has switched over from BNR DNA research from the Eliza test."

I think Legs means "PCR DNA" and I find it hard to believe that Sharon Mitchell changed America's testing procedures for HIV.

Legs: "Sharon pioneered BNR DNA testing and that has seved hundreds of thousands of lives. Sharon Mitchell deserves to be sainted.

"And she got a Ph.D."

Tim Connelly says Hunter Thompson "changed our lives, much like the Ramones did, much like any great artist did... It earmarks a time of passing for our industry. It becomes a time to move on to something else. [Thompson's work] will live on longer than something George Bush says.

"Hunter spent some time at the Michell Brothers theatre and was great friends with Jeff Armstrong and the two Mitchell brothers. He hung out with R. Crumb and was a cashier. He even hung out for a while with Gail Palmer in his hot tub before she filed charges on him. She should've learned that it is ok for Hunter to bring a handgun into the hot tub when he's on mescaline."

Q: Is it true that Hunter fell in love with a whore?

Tim: "I think we all did.

"Hunter called Jeff [Armstrong] after I was at AVN for six months and said, can I get a subscription? I'm starting to enjoy reading it. It pained me to cancel his subscription."

There are a lot of suck-up questions from audience plants such as producer Brett Hudson who asks Sharon: How did video change the industry?

As she answers him, Brett starts talking to somebody else.

Sharon: "Who asked this question?"

Brett snaps back and devotes his attention to Sharon's answer.

Q for Legs: What was the biggest surprise that you found out about the industry?

Legs: "One, that girls had not been abused. I had known that girls got sexually abused and went into pornography. But I've talked to a few girls who only slept with one or two guys. And that to me was shocking."

Legs says his friend since 1975, Mary Harron, is directing a movie of his oral history of punk, Please Kill Me, for Jersey Films.

Legs says they want to do it like Almost Famous (2000), an idea he hates.

Ron Jeremy walks up. He says he has a scene as a bail jumper in Tony Scott's new film Domino (out in May).

Peter Landau Interviews Legs McNeil

LM: Linda was a liar. She lied to me. You know what, she wasn’t that smart. I hate to say that. If you recount her story she’s a victim of Chuck Traynor, then she’s a victim of her second husband, then she’s a victim of Women Against Pornography. She’s always a victim. Once you find that, you say, “OK, something’s wrong here.”

PL: So you edited the book to allow Linda to speak her mind, but do you discredit her in a sense?

LM: I wasn’t discrediting her; I was just asking other people about her. She’s written Ordeal and that had become what everyone thought the porn industry was and I knew it was wrong.

PL: Reading the book I found that there were similarities between the porn stories and those of the punks in Please Kill Me.

LM: That’s kind of why I did it. It was the ’70s, so of course drugs and the sex were the same. I felt familiar with it. I felt like I was the only guy who could actually do this. And that makes me sound like I’m an egomaniac, but I’m not saying it in that way. I’m saying it in the way that I had the time and the money and I wanted to take it seriously. Plus, I’m not a real moral kind of guy. I don’t really judge people. So I thought in that way I was prepared to do it.

The New Screw Review

J.R. Taylor writes in the New York Press 2/24/05:

Not even Sharon Mitchell's new-wave coif can get me to the Museum of Sex's book release party for Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne's The Other Hollywood. There's nothing to celebrate about this Please Kill Me-style oral history of adult filmmaking—unless it's the last sad gasp of Legs establishing himself as a gullible hipster who believes anything he's told.

Word quickly got out about Legs once he started making the porn rounds. It was already common for skin merchants to con gullible cretins like the New York Times' Frank Rich or reporters from 60 Minutes. Legs, however, settled in for the long grift. He's now spent several years spouting revisionist history on places like the E! Channel for his new masters, and no one's sure if he's bright enough to realize he's a bitch.

As an experiment, I've randomly flipped open The Other Hollywood to see how long it would take to find a painfully obvious cover story. Got one on the third try, and I'm no kind of porn insider. That's not to say that the book is a whitewash. Just keep in mind that nearly everyone in its pages is sleazier than they already seem.

Snuffed Out

Porn writer Rodger Jacobs writes: Luke: In response to Legs McNeil's assertion that snuff films do not exist and are just another part of our rich urban mythology, I submit the following article, "Snuffed Out", that I wrote for the June 1999 issue of Eye Magazine.

David Moye writes: "I interviewed Legs McNeil and he refused to consider the German Snuff case. First, he hadn't heard of it. Then, he said his report focused on America."

RPM writes: "Legs McNeil makes the same mistake as most newbies, which is to go along with the FBI's definition of a snuff film as footage that's made "commercially available." The porn industry relies on that dopey definition, too. It sounds like Legs McNeil's knowledge of the industry is mainly based on reading the AVN website. Once again, some gullible goofball will turn out another crappy work on porn that would benefit from your skepticism."

Ian writes: "Hi Luke, I think it's silly for Legs McNeil to insist that there are no such things as snuff movies. He covers himself by insisting that, in order to qualify, they must have been made for 'entertainment'. I would have thought it was enough that they were made to show others and not just look at oneself. I belong to pictureview.com, a site which hoovers up the movie clips and pictures submitted to internet newsgroups and publishes them. A lot of it isn't porn at all, though a lot is. The site owners don't pre-censor the pics and clips, though they say they will respond to complaints. Over a couple of years I have come across a number of pics which might well have been extracted from snuff movies, and two movie clips (which I immediately trashed in horror) certainly classifiable to that genre. In one, an unconscious oriental woman is deliberately shot by a silenced gun, and quite obviously expires from the resulting hole in her chest. In the second one (labelled 'decapitation') I saw the first few seconds of a man having his head cut off with a large knife. The participants looked like soldiers and their prisoner, and the movie might well have been taken during the Chechnya war. If I (someone definitely not looking for this kind of stuff) can accidentally come across examples of it, is it plausible that those kinds of people for whom it is meat and drink are not having it deliberately made for them?"

“SNUFFED OUT” ONE REPORTER’S PERSONAL DECISION TO STAY OUT OF THE DARKNESS

“Snuff films are those in which the final act is sexual murder. No hard evidence has ever been presented that such films do exist, but rumor has it that there are a very few 8mm films to be had at a very high price. The major trouble with producing this sort of film is that you are constantly forced to be on the lookout for new talent.” --- Stephen Ziplow, “The Film Maker’s Guide To Pornography”

It’s like walking into that seedy bar on the wrong side of town. The stench of stale beer, spent cigarettes, and moral decay assaults your nostrils. All eyes are on you with suspicious and hostile glares as you push through the door, bringing with you a momentary glimpse of the sun outside, the harsh rays spilling over the darkened room and illuminating the nasty bit of business going down in the corner. There’s a sudden sharp pain at the back of your head and seconds before you slump to your shaking knees to embrace the piss-stained floor with your face you realize that someone had come up from behind and struck you with a blackjack. God only knows what they have planned next.

That’s how I felt upon receiving the ominous warning; like I had stepped into a sordid establishment I had no business being in and it was time to back out the door, pretending I never saw the place before. Forget the address, forget the street it’s on, forget even what city it’s in.

“Stay away from the snuff film angle,” the strongly worded advisory from Henry, a fellow journalist, began. He sent me the e-mail on May 11, less than a week after I began probing into a ghastly tale that debunked the widely held notion that snuff films are nothing more than an urban myth. “Stay away from the topic completely as a journalist, in conversation, and in every way you can think. Just stay away from it.”

Henry is a trusted friend and advisor, a seasoned writer with keen insights and a few friends in law enforcement. If someone like that tells you to back away from a story you had better do as told or ponder the reality before proceeding any further that you may spend the rest of your life living in fear.

The macabre story of Ernst Dieter Korzen and Stefan Michael Mahn, both sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany for committing murder during the production of a snuff film, fell into my lap quite by accident. On the morning of Thursday, May 6, 1999, I stumbled bleary-eyed to my computer and went on-line to summon up my daily dose of porn industry gossip from Luke F-rd’s website. Luke, a porno outsider, is the leading purveyor of tabloid journalism targeted at the billion dollar smut industry. His reporting is often sloppy and inaccurate and he has been rightfully accused on several occasions of running with a story before pausing to verify the facts, which is why I immediately phoned him after seeing the story on his website that morning.

“Where the hell did you get this story about the German snuff film, Luke?” “A source sent it to me last night,” Luke replied lazily in his soft Australian accent. I could hear him clacking away at the keyboard while we talked, no doubt adding more salacious chunks of gossip to his website from the modest bungalow he occupies literally in the shadow of the monolithic structure of glass and steel that houses Larry Flynt Publications in L.A.’s Wilshire District. “I think they pulled it off a wire service.”

“Is it a reputable wire service? Send me everything you have on this. I need to verify that the story isn’t a hoax.”

“Why?”

He seemed bored and distracted, still banging away at the keyboard, unaware or indifferent to the gravity of the story. Over the years gallons of ink have been shed in magazines and newspapers to discredit the existence of snuff films, most naysayers citing the lack of direct evidence as proof that the trade is as mythical as Hydra. No such film had ever been discovered by any police force in the world --- until now.

“I want to run with this, Luke,” I said through a burst of adrenalin, that certain surge all writers get when pursuing The Big Story. Six weeks had passed since I turned in my last feature article for Hustler magazine; titled Beyond Extreme, the 3,000 word dispatch was a dark and gritty expose of the underground porn market. The article only vaguely touched upon the subject of snuff films. Now, with this horrific story filtering out of Hagan, Germany, I might have the perfect follow-up piece: SNUFF FILMS EXIST.

“I find it hard to believe that there are people that get off on seeing other people murdered in a sexual situation. I think it’s a myth. Of course, it makes a good story.” --- Larry Flynt, Premiere Magazine, March 1999

Three months of research for the Hustler article on underground porn led me into some dark alleyways that should never see the light of day.

Discussion groups on the World Wide Web are perhaps the best venue to locate purveyors of taboo pornography like bestiality and rape videos but be careful where you step because there are some twisted souls posting missives of perversion beyond your imagination. In a discussion group devoted to sexual sadism I followed one very busy and popular conversation thread devoted to “building the perfect guillotine to slice off a woman’s breasts.” A fan of the rather unpleasant subject wrote, “I can think of nothing sexier than seeing the sharp blade of a guillotine cutting through a plump breast.” If anyone ever needed the Lorena Bobbitt treatment it’s this group of gleeful psychopaths. Moving on to another subject in the same discussion group I stumbled upon a posting from a demented contributor who wanted to know if anyone shared his fantasy of “seeing naked young women burned alive at the stake.” Backyard barbeques must offer up some intriguing fare at his house.

There are demons walking among us, far too many to count, and I pored over their maniacal writings for weeks on end. Some of their fantasies are simply unspeakable, played out on the Internet in a blazing Heironymous Bosch-like tableau of sexual mayhem, mutilation, and torture. On a bad day Hell can look a lot like the World Wide Web.

Within this context it was hard for me to believe that snuff films produced for a commercial profit did not exist --- certainly there are monsters out there who would buy the product --- but my editor at Larry Flynt Publications urged me to “stay away from snuff films” in my article “because LFP’s editorial position is that they are an urban myth.”

But if the laws of science and metaphysics have taught us anything it’s that you cannot discount the existence of something just because you can’t see it. Through a discussion group devoted to underground videos I happened upon the man who calls himself Snuff King, a Denmark-based collector of esoterica and a student of the snuff film phenomenon who assured me that “a few real snuff films exist.” While he has never seen the films himself Snuff King avows that “one (of the movies) showed a young, Asian female being strangled to death in a hotel room. It was impounded by the police before it reached the public. The other case that I know of is from the Bosnian War and was apparently recorded in a Serbian prison camp. It showed the rape, torture, and murder of several Bosnian women.”

I believed Snuff King. After three months of reading a laundry list of sadistic lust to prepare for my article I had more reason to accept his word than to dismiss it.

“Soon ... hardcore films will be medical films. People will be jerking off to women laying around with open wounds. There’s nowhere else for it go.” --- from the screenplay “8MM” by Andrew Kevin Walker

“Even the people involved around the fringes of that crap are extremely dangerous,” Henry’s e-mail warning me off the snuff film story continued. “You don’t want to be on their radar, not at all. Even as a journalist you don’t get a free pass with those types of people.”

To underscore the danger inherent in pursuing such a story Henry invoked the account of a New York City newspaper reporter who disappeared while investigating a similar story.

With Henry’s warning bouncing around in the back of my head like a wild pinball I contacted one of two reporters who contributed to the snuff film story for the news service bureau referenced on Luke F-rd’s web site. It was after midnight in Vienna, Austria, when the very British and baritone voice of Nigel Glass, a frequent contributor to the BBC and London Times, came on the phone. I explained that I was a freelance journalist in the States looking for more detailed information on the murder trial of Korzen and Mahn.

“What exactly do you want to know?” Glass asked in a most accommodating fashion.

“Is it true? Did they actually make a snuff film?”

“Oh, it’s quite true,” Glass replied placidly.

The gruesome nightmare began on a November evening in 1997 when 36 year old Ernst Dieter Korzen and 27 year old Stefan Michael Mahn picked up Juleyha Akpinar, a 21 year old prostitute, on the streets of Cologne, Germany. Wolfgang Rahmer, the Chief Prosecutor in Hagan, Germany, would later describe Korzen as “a very dangerous man” known to police for his history of sexual violence, but the authorities had been unable to snare him because his victims were too terrified to testify against him.

Korzen and Mahn took their victim to a bungalow in Kierspe-Roensal, near the city of Hagan, where they repeatedly raped and tortured her while a video camera recorded the details. And then the story takes an even darker twist: the intended “star” of their snuff film died too quickly, strangling to death by the rope knotted around her neck, so the would-be producers of the most heinous film on earth were forced to procure another player for the grim drama that they hoped to sell in the United States, according to prosecutors, for the odd sum of $16,000.

“The second woman that they captured to complete the video managed to befriend one of the men” Nigel Glass related to me, “and as a result was able to escape and alert authorities.” Mahn and Korzen were promptly arrested. Police withheld details of the crime for over six months while embarking on an international investigation into the snuff film trade, an industry that prosecutor Wolfgang Rahmer believes exists, telling the London Sunday Times: “We know that there is no sexual perversion that cannot be marketed, and you would be amazed at the sums offered for such perverse videos.”

“The greatest harm buyers of these films do is to provide incentive for producers to continue having innocent victims murdered.” --- Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices

“This is a major story, Rodger. This is the first time that police have direct evidence of a snuff film being made for profit.” David Buchbinder, features editor at Larry Flynt Publications, judiciously considered my proposal to interview the key figures in the case --- mainly police and prosecutors --- before putting a damper on the whole affair by suggesting that I step deeper into the shadows.

“The only way I see this as a feature story,” David said, “is if you can interview the perpetrators, the girl who got away, and maybe the family members of the victim.”

That’s when that small inner voice started speaking to me, the same voice that suddenly begs you not to get on an airplane, for instance; you follow the voice’s commands, even though it seems paranoiacally illogical at the time, only to turn on the TV news two hours later and learn that the plane burst into flames after making a crash landing in a remote farm field. “All passengers and crew were killed upon impact,” the news anchor says in somber tones as you stare transfixed at the TV and try to wipe the sweat away from the palms of your hands.

I lived in Munich, Germany for two years, 1972 and ‘73. I watched the Olympics massacre unfold on television, a bloody and tragic episode occurring no less than half a mile from where I was living. Furthermore, the rabidly anti-American terrorist group The Baader-Meinhoff gang was merrily setting off pipe bombs all over Munich during this time. And if that’s not enough, I had Thanksgiving dinner in 1973 at a U.S. Army facility outside the gates of the notorious Dachau Prison Camp.

I have the misfortune to associate Germany with death and tragedy, and suddenly the idea of traipsing around the Deutsche countryside poking and prodding with a journalistic stick at things better left alone had a smell of bad fate about it. On an instinctive level I knew that snuff films had to exist even before I ever heard the names of Ernst Dieter Korzen and Stefan Michael Mahn, so what benefits could I possibly derive from pursuing the story any further? They don’t award the Pulitzer Prize for this kind of journalism --- it’s the kind of story people do not want to know about, a little bit of horror that everyone wants to believe is an urban myth, evidenced by the fact that American news services have been slow to respond and offer coverage of the apprehension and trial of Korzen and Mahn.

But I can understand why nobody wants to hear about this story. Let’s face it: if we have evolved as a species to the degrading point where sexual murder caught on film or video tape is considered entertainment to even a small percentage of the population at large then it’s time to change your name to Noah and start building an ark because a hard rain is gonna fall, baby.

I’ve been in the darkness far too long. When your work and research can compel you to make the casual conclusion that such acts of barbarism as snuff films do indeed exist then it’s time to lighten your load a bit, maybe bury your head in the sand with the rest of the human race and pretend that there is indeed some limit to human cruelty.

“There are some stories that really aren’t stories, but something for law enforcement,” my friend Henry wrote to me the day I decided to back off of the story.

Henry is right. Korzen and Mahn will spend the rest of their days rotting behind bars in a German penal institute, and hopefully they won’t spawn any imitators. If they do, I won’t be there to cover the story.

Lynne writes: What an incredible article, Rodger! Not only because it portrays Luke so exquisitely, but because you've really done some nasty homework. I'm glad that guy who told you to "stay away from the story didn't entirely succeed."

Documenting the torture of victims for later enjoyment is extremely common among serial killers, whenever the technology is available that lets them photograph or, better yet, videotape their illicit activities without involving processing by others. Dahmer's souvenir Polaroid collection was a vast improvement over Jack The Ripper's collection of rotting uteri. As they say in the schoolyard, "Take a picture...it lasts longer."

Black & white 35mm film is relatively easy to develop and print, and many serial killers have been amateur photo buffs. The first case I know of is that of Harvey Glatman, who photographed women in bondage before he raped and killed them. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley took pictures of child victims and recorded their torture on reel to reel audio tape; Jerome Brudos killed his victims first and photographed them afterwards (before amputating their feet for deep freezing.)

Technology improves. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng videotaped their torture games. Roy Norris and Larry "Pliers" Bittaker made audiocassettes of their screaming victims. Randy Kraft and the afore-mentioned Dahmer had dozens of Polaroids of dead & dying boy toys.

Type "forensic" and "photography" into any search engine, and you'll pull up sites chock full of sickening photos of men and women with knife wounds, heads blown away by shotguns... Gay with a fetish for dark meat? Pick up a scholarly book on lynching if dead black men hanging from a noose rings your chimes.

The stuff is out there, people! There's more than one kind of of crazy: there's crazy enough to become aroused by fantasies of the existence of violent obscenity, and then there's crazy enough to make souvenirs of one's own handiwork. With the German case mentioned in Rodger's article, are we assuming that the perpetrators didn't enjoy torturing and killing in the least, and ONLY did what they did for potential commercial gain? Or were they trying to combine pleasure with profit, killing two birds with one weapon, so to speak? And that the latter is somehow worse than just being a murderous sociopath for one's own enjoyment?

Apply the argument to garden-variety pornography. Is it criminal to document variant sexuality, or is it criminal to document it if it is to be sold? Or is the crime selling the documentation? And if the producer enjoys his product, is that more or less evil than when he only makes porn for the money?

Hannibal Lechter, the fictional cannibal killer In "Silence of the Lambs," Hannibal Lechter, in his cell, is willing to trade information for just a glimpse of crime scene photos. Real-life sociopaths like Ted Bundy act as their own lawyers in part so that they can continue accessing photos of their handiwork. The tools of law enforcement, as Rodger's article concludes, become pornography in the right hands.

Serial killer Ed Kemper said, when asked what he thought when he saw a pretty woman, "Part of me says...I'd like to date her. But another part of me says...I'd like to see her head on the end of a stick." I, personally, wouldn't want to do either, even for money. Pat Riley's favorite pornography disgusts me, but then I like bukkake Go figure. My most favorite pornography disgusts most everyone (right, Goddess?) Wanna jack off to dead people? That's not illegal, and there's no need to shoot one's own. There's plenty already out there from which to choose, even though "snuff" is only form of tobacco to stick up one's nose.

johnny_rockin [in a CourtTV chat]: What is the history of porn? How did the industry start?
Legs McNeil: It was loops and stag films Until "Deep Throat" came out in 1972, which was one of the first feature-length pornographic films with a plot, and an original score, and was actually funny. "Deep Throat" launched the modern porn industry. It was made with a $22,000 investment by the Peraino family, a low-level mob crew, and it grossed $100 million, which made everyone in the Mafia sit up and take notice.

Lynne writes: Why do we confuse the history of porn with the advent of film and videotape? Men being men, porn began with cavemen drawing smutty pictures on the walls. Erotic writing...erotic art...French Postcards...Asian "pillow books." Indian bas reliefs of statues entwined in positions from the Kama Sutra. Irving Klaw photo sets. Commercial porn sales in this country blossomed with the distribution of "Tijuana bibles" featuring popular newspaper comic strip characters of the 1920's engaged in hardcore action. These little books were passed around schoolyards years before comic books were even invented. The porn distribution network for pseudo-photography, nudie cutie and nudist magazines evolved out of the comic book distribution network. Hedy Lamarr's "Ecstacy" was released in the 1930's without Wil Hayes' seal of approval, effectively classing it as porn. What about "I Am Curious, Yellow?" That's pre-"Deep Throat" porn. "Deep Throat" was a pornographic landmark, but it was hardly the beginning of porn...

Rodger Jacobs writes l-keford.com July 25, 2001:

I certainly hope that Legs McNeil reads your site because he can learn quite a bit from the discourse that has arose as a result of his comments posted yesterday. TODAY'S LESSON FOR LEGS: THE PORN INDUSTRY WAS NOT LOOPS AND STAGS UNTIL THE RELEASE OF DEEP THROAT IN 1972.

First of all, I Am Curious Yellow, released in 1969 to decent box-office was not a hardcore film. The sex in that controversial film was simulated. Most pop culture purists point to the 1970 release of the late Alex De Renzy's feature film Censorship in Denmark: A New Approach as the first film to move hardcore flicks out of the grind-house element and into theaters that catered to the general public. The 90 minute movie was produced, directed, and edited by DeRenzy and released by Sherpix. The camerawork in EastmanColor was done by Jack Kerpan, Michael Martin, and Paul Gerber. Daily Variety reviewed the movie in 1970 and called it "highly interesting". In June 1970, Vincent Canby reviewed Censorship for the New York Times and offered the following commentary:

"It may boggle the mind but only after it boggles, shakes up, and threatens a lot of other things that are a lot more difficult, and less fashionable to talk about, including the puritan conscience and our traditional taboos ... In its favor is the fact that "Censorship in Denmark" is an impolite film that makes very little pretense of being anything else."

As Lynne L-patin correctly commented, Deep Throat was a landmark film but hardly the beginning of the commercial adult film industry as we know it today. Movies like I Am Curious Yellow and Censorship in Denmark moved XXX fare into respectable theaters, hence paving the way for the phenomenal cultural and box-office success of Deep Throat.

2/15/05

Legs McNeil vs Inside Deep Throat

Burt Kearns, a TV producer and author, writes:

Legs McNeil’s book is published today.

Legs was upset that his comments in Page Six were misconstrued as anti-gay attacks on the directors of the documentary :”Inside Deep Throat.” He was trying to get across the idea that the openly gay Bailey and Barbato would not have a natural interest in heterosexual pornography.

Bailey and Barbato obviously “ripped off” the 2001 Court TV documentary, ”Adults Only” the Secret History of the Other Hollywood.” The oft-repeated television miniseries gave a complete account of Deep Throat’s genesis, production and criminal and sociopolitical afterlife, all of it placed within the larger context of the criminal history of the adult entertainment industry.

A look at the trailer for “Inside Deep Throat” looks like a sampler from Legs’ Court TV documentary. Archival stills and footage unearthed by Legs for “Adults Only” were re-used in the Baiely-Barbato feature, and certain players found by Legs (including FBI agent Bill Kelly and Memphis prosecutor Larry Parrish) were reinterviewed—in settings very similar to the Court TV documentary.

“Adults Only: the Secrety History of The Other Hollywood” was a groundbreaking and influential work of documentary journalism (the movie “Wonderland” was also drawn from a long segment about the John Holmes Laurel Canyon murder case—Legs found and interviewed Holmes’ girlfriend, who would sell her story to the filmmakers). And Bailey and Barbato, shrewd players that they are, made use of its “legwork.”

Incidentally, Legs also conducted what may have been the last television interview with Linda Lovelace. He interviewed Eric Danville as well, but despite Legs’ best intentions, he didn’t make the cut.

The one who has the most obvious egg on his face in this situation has to be Ed Hersh, Court TV’s VP of documentary programming. Hersh “inherited” the “Adults Only” project, taking over the reins while it was already in production (commissioned by his predecessor).

He did not take well to its freewheeling, innovative style, and did not want to have a cutting-edge pornography showcase as the first documentary on his term. So he arranged to “bury” all three hours on a Sunday night in July.

When the documentary unexpectedly grabbed record-setting ratings for Court TV, Hersh changed his tune, taking credit for its success and heralding it as the template for future Court TV success. Unfortunately, Frozen Television, the production company behind the “Adults Only” project, had chafed under his administration (which included directives “not to include material that would make people have to think” and a decision not to include Leg’s good friend Norman Mailer in the documentary because “no one knows who he is”). Its association with Court soon ended.

For at least the next three years, Court TV would re-run “Adults Only: the Secret History of The Other Hollywood” every sweeps period, advertising the material as new, and repeating its ratings bonanza. And the story of “Deep Throat” was available on basic cable, free for Bailey and Barbato’s pickings.

Legs’ book, “The Other Hollywood” took the documentary’s title.

Frozen Television became Frozen Pictures, as “Adults Only” executive producers Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns spun the success, and others, into a movie career.

In 2004, they wrote and produced the motion picture comedy, Cloud 9, (starring Burt Reynolds and DL Hughley), with Albert S. Ruddy, who’s up for the Best Picture Oscar for Million Dollar Baby. Ruddy was interviewed in “Adults Only”—as part of the Deep Throat story. Back in the 70s, he’d produced a movie with the mobsters who produced Deep Throat.

Ed Hersh is now hawking the Court TV doco on the Internet. And Court TV’s most expansive Internet documentary connection is still available there as well, here.

Luke says: I find it ludicrous for Legs to say Inside Deep Throat ripped off his documentary. His documentary is simply a recapitulation of previously published information with a few original documents (but nothing new unearthed by them).

Legs didn't discover anti-porn crusader Bill Kelly. Bill has been talking to the news media about porn for more than two decades.

The Court TV special didn't break any new ground on John Holmes and the Wonderland murders either. VCA's documentary WADD beat them to it, as did the E! True Hollywood Story.

I haven't seen the Court TV special but I read everything here and the main things written about the special.

Eric Danville, Linda Lovelace, Sheldon Ranz, Ira Levine

Sheldon Ranz writes on Nina.com:

At the time of her death, she [Linda Lovelace] was working on an exhibit of her career at New York's Museum of Sex, which would have afforded her a much broader platform from which to denounce her former allies. I've always found the timing of her death suspicious - who benefitted?

Eric Danville, author of the superb The Complete Linda Lovelace book, writes:

Jesus Christ, how can so many otherwise intelligent people get this so wrong? First, for the hundredth time, Linda wasn't the one working on the exhibit, it was me, loaning the Museum of Sex some Linda memorabilia out of my collection for their exhibit "How NYC Changed Sex." I gave them an original DT poster, a DT soundtrack, some photos of Linda and some DT2 lobby cards. Second, do you really think a museum doing an exhibit of porn would have anti-porn propaganda displayed in anything less than an objective light? Wouldn't it be overwhelmed by the wealth of pro-porn material? And here I thought Rudy Giluiani was the only person paranoid about the political agendas of NYC museums. Third, Linda wouldn't have been denouncing her former allies, because, unless you missed this part of the story, Linda didn't consider us allies. She was not a big fan of porn and didn't consider (many of) us friends or even friendly-obviously with good reason, too, judging by how people are still dancing on her grave. Finally, the timing of Linda's death was suspicious? WTF? Sorry Linda's catastrophic car injuries weren't more convenient for you. I'm sure she regrets the error.

Ira Levine responds on Nina.com:

Much as I'd love to tag the MacDworkinites with a contract-murder rap - and I wouldn't put such a thing past them - Lovelace/Boreman's death, which I checked out one more time on the Web site of my old employer, The Rocky Mountain News, really does look more like an accident, or perhaps even a suicide, than a murder. Granted, one-car crashes lend themselves to some suspicions, but neither the DPD nor the CHP, both of which are pretty good when it comes to accident investigations (of which we get a lot out there), found nothing suspicious in the crash. She had been in ill-health for a long time, was broke and alone at the end, and posed little threat to any of her various mis-handlers from over the years. She'd already had her say about both pornographers and feminists and, frankly, had drifted out to the margins of camp. It's doubtful anyone would have cared enough to do her in at so late a date, when she'd already done as much damage as she was likely to.

Eric Danville responds:

Oh, for Christ's sake. First, you can call the MacDworkinites a lot of things, but contract killers? Yeah, that advances our arguments against them. Think like Lennie Briscoe a minute. Would Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin want Linda dead? No, they wouldn't (Luke would have already exposed that one!). Granted, they were extremely unhappy with Linda giving my book (The Complete Linda Lovelace) her approval-Dworkin was, apparently, quite literally moved to tears talking about it in an outtake from a British documentary called The Real Linda Lovelace-but no, they wanted her alive. Second, as above, it was a simple accident. Not a suicide -- Linda was about to close on selling her condo and moving to Florida; and not a murder, because that's just f---ing stupid. A porn-business-related friend of mine got a copy of the police report, and it concluded accident (but the moon landing being staged and little green men at Roswell? Both true.) And while it's also true that Linda was pretty broke by the end she'd made a nice amount of coin signing autographs and such (and don't even start about how she was cashing in on her porn background unless your work in this business is pro-bono), but she wasn't quite "alone." She had family and she had friends (including me) who cared not about doing her in but helping her out, and we remain saddened by her death.

Why Isn't Eric Danville Cresting The Wave Of Inside Deep Throat And The Other Hollywood?

Eric Danville probably knows more about Linda Lovelace than anyone. He wrote the book The Complete Linda Lovelace and befriended Linda in her final years.

I emailed Eric about the new Legs McNeil book and the new documentary and he replied:

I was cut out of both projects after being interviewed about 90 minutes for each. Not that I'm one to believe in cause and effect or anything, and not that I'm inordinately conspiracy theory conscious, but, as far as IDT goes, the archivist for the project called me up not long after my interview, requesting to see my Linda Lovelace archive (which is vast). I offered him the same deal that I gave the Museum of Sex in New York City, when they borrowed some for an exhibit: Come to my apartment, take a look at it and list what they're interested in, and then we'd talk about it. No pictures of the stuff and nothing leaves my apartment.

He said he'd like me to send him everything -- books, original magazines, many hours of video, etc. -- so they could get a look at it. They also wanted phone numbers, contacts, etc. I countered with what I thought was a fair offer: either hire me on as a research assitant (which had been suggested to them by several of my friends whom they interviewed) or pay me X amount of dollars for archive rental (I knew they were working with a $2 million budget, because a friend who has done documentary work for HBO knew their funding).

Archivist countered with A). that i was shilling for his job (making his reluctance understandable) and B). no money in the budget, which was of course bulls---. So i stopped returning the next few phone calls he made. Months go by and around Christmas (sort of the Christian Hannukah) I get a letter from them saying thanks to the "embarrassment of riches" they encountered interviewing so many wonderful people, I was being cut out but might resurface as a DVD extra. But at least they wished me a happy holiday. They didn't invite me to the New York City premiere or have me on the panel discussion afterwards, which included Judith Regan, who's never even seen Deep Throat, and Catharine Mackinnon, who Linda told me in interviews twice was among the group of feminists who used and abandoned her, just like the pornographers had ten years earlier. Yeah, I guess with all my access to Linda and my history with her, I was a pretty poor choice to be interviewed...

As far as Legs' book goes, he did have the good sense to pay me for use of my archive (not as much as he had promised and it took about a year to get it out of him, but at least he gave me something). He also interviewed me for about 90 minutes. Then many months later I run into him in a local bar, where he buys me a beer (Heineken) and tells me that the thrust of the book has changed, and I was no longer included. That didn't surprise me, knowing Legs, who had also cut me out of the Court TV series he did a few years back as well. But he also assured me that there would be a "great mention" of my book, The Complete Linda Lovelace which, all humility aside, frankly jumpstarted this whole Linda retro thing, and everyone knows it.

Okay, I think to myself; great mention in a book loads of people will read? Heineken in my hand? The end of my relationship with Legs in sight? Cool. So I get the galley... No great mention. Fine. It should be in the finished product (the galley was uncorrected and such). I get a copy of the finished book... no great mention aside from a few copyright notices (some for stuff that wasn't even mine). In fact, the title of my book, which is The Complete Linda Lovelace, by the way, wasn't mentioned that I could find.

So I basically help all these people out, whether they know it or want to admit it, and I get a couple of thank yous (and there's only one, from Leggsie's co-author, Jennifer Osbourne, that i consider sincere, because she's a really, really sweet girl).

If I didn't know better, I'd think the people in this business were scumbags.

3/22/05

I Was Wrong About The Other Hollywood

My initial impression of the book (based on articles about it and my first look through it) was that it only rehashed familiar stories.

I was wrong.

While most of the book is familiar to me, there are many stories I've never heard of. I particularly enjoyed the MIPORN and Mob stuff.

Vinny DeStephano, a duplicator, is the guy Rob Spallone and I just missed meeting at Michael Esposito's office last Thursday.

Bobby Elkins, pornographer (who is he?): "Vince DeStephano and I were really close friends. They whacked Bobby DeSalvo [pornographer], and they were gonna whack Vinny. They said that he took money; I really have no idea if he did or not."

United States Prosecutive Memorandum, January 1980: "Vincent James DiStephano, aka "Vince": "Born 12/7/31 in New York City. Last known address: 17248 Barnestown St., Granada Hills, California. DiStephano works as a manager for Louis and Joseph Peraino at Arrow Films and Video, Los Angeles, California."

Bobby Elkins:

They put out a contract on Vinny. It was the old man, Anthony Peraino, Sr., and the son, Butchie, and the other son, Joe the Whale.

The Perainos all went back to New York, and they let Vince run Arrow Films. They closed Bryanston Films down, and then they said, "Vince, we found this place in the Valley."

It was when I was out of the business. In fact, when I went back over there, Vince was called back to New York, and they had a guy at the airport waiting for him, and we thought they were going to kill him, so we stopped him from going to the airport. We caught him in time and told him not to go there. Vinny's still alive.

From the 1986 Meese Commission report (summarizing the findings of the MIPORN investigation):

Arrow Film and Video Co. (Arrow) - Louis "Butchie" Peraino, Joseph Peraino, Michael Balsamo, Vince DiStephano, and Arnie Himmelstein, New York, New York, and Los Angeles, California.

Information at a sentencing hearing on January 29, 1982, and the sentencing memorandum filed in this case revealed the following: Joseph Peraino and Louis "Butchie" Peraino are nonmember associates of the LCN organized crime family in New York City.[1244]

Louis "Butchie" Peraino, Joseph Peraino, and DeStefano are reputed to run Arrow Film and Video through the use of extortion and other strong arm tactics. DeStefano has claimed to represent the interests of several LCN family members in investments in pornographic films in Los Angeles and has claimed to have made "big money" for his New York City organized crime connections. The activities of Louis and Joseph Peraino in the pornography business were financed by the LCN organized crime family and Louis and Joseph Peraino contribute large sums of money from their business to that LCN family.

Dec. 6, 1981:

A federal jury finds five men guilty in the FBIs MIPORN investigation into the distribution of sexually explicit films in southern Florida Joseph and Louis Peraino Sr., brothers from New York City and Michael Balsamo and Vince DiStephano of Los Angeles are found guilty on one count of conspiracy to transport obscene films across state lines and six counts of interstate shipments of pornography by common carrier.

Henri Pachard: "Women didn't discover their power until video came along. Until then the power belonged to the director. How much would I get paid to direct a film? Fifteen thousand dollars and up."

The Other Hollywood

Jerry Butler: "Buck [Adams] and Amber [Lynn] were adopted by their stepparents. Their biological mother died of cancer. They led a shabby life in Orange County. They were rednecks -- poor white trash. Grew up stealing and driving fast cars."

Nancy Pera, the manager of the late porn star Savannah:

Steven Hirsch [Vivid owner] knew Savannah was doing drugs. He never said to me, "I know she's doing heroin," but he told me that he had put her through rehab in the beginning.

I asked Savannah about that later on, and she said that that was the biggest crock of s---, that he never sent her to any rehab.

Savannah never said, "I started having sex with Steven." I didn't even known if they were having sex because they had promoted this whole plot that Paul Thomas was having an affair with Savannah. So it wasn't until our first CES in January, when I was sitting between Savannah and Steven, and Steven sort of tried to hold my hand accidentally -- because he was reaching for Savannah's hand... And Jenny, Steven's girlfriend of 15 years, was sitting right across the table from us.

A lot of people criticized Savannah for being spoiled and demanding. But Steven Hirsch let her get away with murder and then Savannah would get the blame.

Savannah got fired from Vivid right after she stopped...going out with Steve Hirsch. She said she just got bored with it and was sorry she started it in the beginning.

Bud Lee: "Even though Steven Hirsch catered to rock stars, he'd rather hang out with the A&R people... He'd get all these guys from Sony and Columbia and Virgin and Mercury coming in to watch people film their scenes."

Tim Connelly: "Marc [Carriere] was known for sending these girls off to Idaho -- to Dr. Pearl. He'd call the doctor up and have him add more cc's of silicone or saline, so that the girls came out with monstrous breasts."

Treasure Brown: "Would Marc tell the surgeon to make the girls' tits bigger when they were already under? Yeah, that's completely true."

Retired FBI agent Roger Young: "Reuben [Sturman] confirmed that [Robert DiBernardo] was his contact in organized crime. Here's the wealthiest...pornographer...in the history of the world -- and none of the other families could really go after him because [DiBernardo] already claimed him, already had him under control."

Tim Connelly on the late Cal Jammer: "Cal photographed real well up close because he looked a little pockmarked and tinted and a little ravaged from the sun. But you could tell he wasn't going to age well because of his features. But he had really beautiful blue eyes. Striking blue, sharp, with a gleam in them. And he had a decent body. He had that whole West Coast porn star look down."

Jill Kelly: "I was fifteen the first time I danced naked. I was nervous, but they, of course, thought I was of age.

"I did live sex shows with Tyffany Million in San Francisco at the O'Farrell."

AVN's Interview With The Authors Of The Other Hollywood

Jared Rutter presides.

Legs McNeil: "Well, nobody knew I was involved. See, Legs McNeil is a big name, for better or worse, and I’m very sorry to say this, guys, but for better or worse, my name has some commercial merit to it. And if someone knows I’m on the story, they’ll want more money; they’ll pull back. So I try to stay as far in the background so no one knows what I’m doing."

Jared Rutter's review of the book.