HOME

 



Dick James aka Bill Wilson has been in the industry since 1969 when he started Pretty Girl International, the name Reb Sawitz took for his talent agency. For a couple of years James provided nude talent for for sexploitation films until selling his talent agency to concentrate on his burgeoning mail order company.

I talked by phone to James Wednesday morning.

Dick: "I had a miscellaneous services company called Services Galore. And got some media attention. And one of the things I offered was [nude] models. And one of the more popular things was models. Much more than dog walking... One of the models and her husband were trying to start an agency. She had the contacts with models and filmmakers and I had the employment agency license. So we went together and started the original Pretty Girl International agency at 6546 Hollywood Blvd.

"Back then, there were nude models for magazines and then girls for sexploitation movies. Hardcore wasn't in until the early '70s... And 8mm films sold by mailorder. I sold Pretty Girl to a guy who never paid me off. The agency just died. The name was dead for a while until Reb picked up the name. He was named Sunset International...

"I sold the agency because I got into (in 1970) the mailorder business with a company called Diverse Industries. Mailorder was a nice profitable section of the market without much competition then. We started a mail order business down the hall from the talent agency and pretty soon the tail started wagging the dog. I ended up selling the agency because it was very labor intensive. These agents work hard for the money.

"Then the June 1973 Supreme Court decisions came down dealing with local community standards [for obscenity] which scared everybody. I had to lay off half of my staff."

Luke: "Were you selling hardcore?"

Dick: "No, not at this time. But it didn't matter because the decision said 'Whatever you guys decide is illegal is illegal, in every little podunk in the country.' So there was no guidance as to what was legal and it sounded like they were defining everything including Playboy as illegal. We were scared.

"Stanley Fleishman was the king of the First Amendment attorneys then. And everybody was waiting to see what Stanley had to say. And finally he came out with interpretations that made us edge back into the business. I bought out my partner and ran into legal hassles based on Miller and other decisions. In 1975 in Shrevport, Louisianna, for the most artistic hardcore by a superb photographer named Ron Raffaelli. We commissioned him to do a bunch of 8mms for us. And we put them on a full color catalogue, the first in the adult business.

"Not having too many options at that point, I agreed to plea bargain and got out of the business. I was out for a few years and got back in [around 1979] as the first nationally advertised phone sex company Personal Services Club. At one time I had the world's oldest phone sex company.

"Most people are not aware of the origins of phone sex because people in the industry are so secretive. I had seen an article about some company back East where some woman had shut down the trunklines of the phone company because of all the calls she was getting for her phone sex company. It wasn't called phone sex back then. I think I invented the term phone sex.

"She was charging credit cards. I'd never considered such a thing. I recognized that if there was such an enormous amount of interest that someone more organized than this solo woman might be able to make some money. I started Personal Services Club operating out of a house. This was before 900 numbers and 976. I ran the first national ads on phone sex in the mens magazines. The first ad I ran was for Candy Samples with her picture. I also ran her fan club. I was her first agent.

"I had a tremendous number of calls. I was always into gimmicks. And my gimmick was that I offered both regular girls and porn stars. At various times I had Little Oral Annie, Mai Lin, Keisha and Angela Summers and Candye Kane. We offered porn actresses for a higher rate and other pretty girls.

"All companies seem to offer pretty girls but they just buy the pictures and then some fat housewife talks to the customer... In our case, we offered Polaroid photos of the actual girls he talked to that he could direct over the phone for whatever pose he wanted... So if he wanted her to have one hand on her stomach and another holding her boob, he'd get it. Or if he wanted his name in lipstick across her tummy, he could get it. So that proved he was actually talking to this girl. It was a good gimmick but the only problem was that it was a lot more expensive to operate than the other companies.

"The other companies would get some black girl or hispanic girl, even if she had an accent that gave away her ethnic origin, she would pretend that she was the 18 year old double D blond. And you could get those a lot cheaper than the kind of girls I had."

Dick James could not remember how much he charged people.

Dick: "I folded the phone sex company in 1994. I was still doing the same type of phone sex... When I advertised it in magazines [that you could get your phone sex from a porn star or a pretty girl], people did not believe it because everyone else was making similar claims. I was making claims that were true but how did they know I was not lying like the rest of them.

"The whole foundation of most of the phone sex industry is that much of it is based on misrepresentation. In the early days, there was credit card fraud. Of course many of the customers were trying to cheat the credit card operators by not paying their bills by claiming that they had never made the call because there was no real record of it... On the other hand, there were companies with a bonanza of credit card numbers and would put too many charges on it. The government, along with VISA, Mastercard and the banks, started investigating phone sex companies for credit card fraud.

"I found it frustrating that the foundation of the business was based upon saying you are talking to a beautiful girl when you're really talking to a 300-pound housewife. When 976 numbers came, they were local numbers... And that was a license to print money. What made money for the operators but was bad for the public... They would see an ad and they didn't know if they would get a recording or a live girl...but they wanted to create the impression they were getting a live girl though often they would just get a recording. And the ads were not clear about how much the guys would have to pay... So people would wind up with huge charges on their phone bill. And it took a while for the phone company to automatically reverse the charges. Then the national 900 numbers came along for "infotech business." I called it phone sex. I think I invented the term.

"The initial company that did extremely well [with 900 numbers was Carl Ruderman, publisher of High Society, Cheri magazines.] They did a lottery. And you either had to know somebody or stand in line a long time [to get a 900 number]. They had their own media to publicize the numbers and they just did phenomenally well. And eventually they offered more 900 numbers...

"Then they came up with international numbers where you call 011 and end up in some strange country. And they charged you enormous amounts for your call and the phone companies made a lot of money. People did not know they were calling a foreign country."

Luke: "When did you start doing fan clubs?"

Dick: "I started back in the '80s on a smaller scale with people like Candy Samples, Hyapatia Lee. I started doing them more seriously in 1995. I'm starting a big push right now to sign up girls because I am starting up an internet site with that particular orientation.

"My main business is mailorder but through the mail fan clubs are really nothing but little specialized forms of mailorder companies. And we're already set up for mailorder. The Post Office and UPS pick up from us every day. So we can take the busy work away from the girls...

"We represent Houston, Chloe, Jewel DeNyle, Annabel Chong, Caressa Savage, Bunny Bleu, Keisha, Asia Carrera. Asia made me stop accepting new members because she it was taking up too much of her time autographing 8x10s... Claudia Chase, Harmony Grant, Summer Knight, Heaven Leigh, Suzy Suzuki, Melissa Monet, Nyrobi Knight, Nico Treasures, Greta Carlson, Tina Tyler, Julie Meadows, Shyla Foxxx, Adajja..."

Luke: "What's taken you so long to get onto the net?"

Dick: "It's going to be a significant site, well publicized. I started off as a computer illiterate and I had to learn a lot. Now I've got a number of bins of information. And I go to IA2000 conventions... Meanwhile, we do the through the mail fan clubs. I creat individual brochures for the girls. Memberships are $25 a piece per year. And everybody has a nice plump fulfillment package for their members. Things like 8x10s, autographed lip prints, videography lists, a sound tape with an interview with the girl... We also offer short-to-order videos, polaroids and used lingerie. Exclusive fan club videos and even non-sex dates with some of the stars.

"I got back into mailorder in 1988. Right after PostPorn [a federal crackdown on porners]. I knew some people who wound up in prison because of PostPorn. And one had to sell out his business and he sold it out to me, which gave me a running start. I analyzed that the feds had pretty much shot their wads on PostPorn and gotten all the publicity they needed. Then the administration changed in the '90s which made it better for the adult industry."

Luke: "There are many mailorder companies. What distinguishes yours?"

Dick: "One problem we have is that we are not a manufacturer. So we are competing with video companies that are manufacturers with mailorder divisions. Like Leisure Time which has a giant mailorder division and they sell stuff by the pound at a low price. So it is hard for us to distinguish ourselves from the other companies other than that we give great customer service. And we give a 100% money back guarantee. But it is still hard to get people to buy in the first place. The adult mailorder business is declining. Not that there aren't a ton of companies out there, niche companies, and a few biggies like Adam & Eve, Leisure Time, Video Age and Excalibur. But it is becoming tougher and tougher.

"I was talking to one of the best know guys in the mailorder business and he said that the future for graphics delivery through the mail was declining due to the internet. He felt good that he was better positioned on sex toys. Let's face it, a guy can rent a video for two bucks. Why would he want to buy one for $30? Unless he's in an area of the country where he can't rent them...

"We screen everything we sell. We write our own catalogue copy. We look at the video to make sure it is good. We suggest Best Buys, but when it comes to money, rental is the way to go for most people. Or the internet. Everybody is trying to get something free off the internet where there is a huge amount of free stuff. Guys who used to spend a lot of time watching porn videos are now spending their time surfing the internet looking for freebies."

Luke: "Your mailorder business sounds labor intensive?"

Dick: "It is. That's what makes it hard for us to do as many mailings as we want. We don't want to just throw something down and put an item number on it and steal copy off the back of the box. We handle about 1000 titles."

Luke: "Is mailorder income down from four years ago?"

Dick: "Yes. And yet it is a better company than before and we treat the customer better than before...

"I was talking at the CES to a guy I've known for years in mailorder... He's been around adult mailorder since the beginning. And he runs what he refers to as 'scams.' Not meaning that he takes money and doesn't send anything but what he sends is entirely different from what he advertises. He'll advertise 'feature length videos.' What's feature length? That doesn't mean a thing. He'll advertise ten videos and they will get ten scenes on one cassette. And he sells potency pills and all this kind of stuff that doesn't work.

"He's made huge amounts of money because people will respond to those kind of offers and send the money in and his fulfillment costs are a fraction of what I have to pay. Fulfillment costs refers to the amount of money you have to pay to get your merchandise in the mail and out to the customer. If I say ten videos, I send ten separate cassettes and have to pay for those from the video manufacturers. In his case, he gets the rights to some scenes and will send out one video.

"And this guy tells me, 'I was doing some experimenting and running legit ads, and there is no way you can make any money off legit ads.' And since we don't do it that way [deceptive] it makes it harder. Many of the ads that you see in mens magazines are from old timers who are running the scammier offers.

"Caressa Savage got her start in the phone sex business working for me... And I'm disappointed, if what I've read about her new career [as a madam] on your site is true, that she hasn't sent me any gifts. No girls have knocked on my door and said this is a gift from Caressa...

"I'm closer to Caressa than to most of the girls... Not to say that I wouldn't be interested in getting closer to some of them, but they've got their boyfriends etc... And I'm an old fart [about 55 years old]. I don't socialize with the industry...

"I've had some weird orders for custom videos. Guys can send things that they want the girls to use in the video. Have her put on a T-shirt... I've got a Windixie T-shirt from a guy who works for Windixie, the Eastern supermarket chain. I opened a box and there were thigh-high fishing boots. The guy wanted a boy-girl scene with the guy wearing the black boots and the girl wearing the white ones. I think he was a commercial fisherman.

"Unlike most custom video companies, I will shoot explicit videos. One regular customer wants a girl with dirty feet, playing with her toes... The most popular type of video is the point of view video, where you are the cameraman... The guy can look at it and figure that he is the cameraman. Here is my hand off playing with the girl while holding the camcorder with the other... And the girl looks at the camcorder and uses the customer's name. Guys really love that sort of thing.

"I've been shooting custom videos since 1979.

"Some guys really love smoking videos, and bondage... Upskirts... People will order anything from ten minutes to an hour and a half. The price ranges from $300 to $3000. That one included Uschi Digart... She wouldn't do hardcore. I am the last person to shoot Uschi for commercial purposes, about six years later."

Luke: "What if the person requests bondage with penetration?"

Dick: "We can't do that... Nor child porn nor bestiality nor defecation... I haven't done urination. I want to get a better feel of the legality of that.

"Guys want give us six pages of script with intense dialogue and fetishtistic details. So I write back and say, 'Can you put this on one page? This is a longer outline than all the feature videos you see...' The constant stopping and starting to review dialogue not only slows down the sexual atmosphere but it pisses the girls off.

"The main appeal of our videos is not their hotness but their personalization... His name being used in the video. That's more appealing than the outrageousness of the sexuality. Because where can you find a sexy girl talking to you, using your name and wearing your clothes? Or using a dildo with your name on it in the video and with us sending the dildo off to you with the video? We maybe the first company to do custom videos."

Dick James can be reached at D.O.M. Corp, POB 9786, Marina Del Rey, CA, 90295.

Luke: "Have you dated porn stars?"

Dick: "Oh yeah. For a long time I went with Colleen Brennan... But generally speaking I am not their type of guy. I am not real flashy and I don't do drugs... I'm not a stud. I don't have any tattoos and I don't play guitar or drums. I am not particularly appealing to the average porn star."

Luke: "Have you ever been married?"

Dick: "Oh yeah. It overlapped with my first business which was the nude modeling agency. It was not the cause of the ultimate divorce. But I haven't been married since then. I imagine that being in the business I'm in takes the edge off the desire to marry. I've always figured that if I wanted to pursue a lot more social and sexual interaction with performers, I could do so...

"I'm a pretty straight guy. I do this for a business and then hang around with mostly volleyball players."

Dick presided over the Personal Freedom Alliance in 1976, which started after the Miller ruling in 1973. "That organization was everything from adult bookstore owners to Vinca Miranda of the Pussycat theaters to publishers and mailorder guys... We had city attorney Burt Pines talk to us, even though he knew it was an industry advocacy group. Mervyn Dymally, the Lieutenant Governer, talked to our group."