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Born 4-7-40, army brat Howard Ziehm (Linus Gator) grew up in a strict Lutheran family that lived all over the United States. 

The oldest of five children, Ziehm attended high school in Monterey, California. He then studied mathematics and engineering at MIT, before dropping out a year short of graduation. In 1961, he moved to Berkeley and opened a folk music coffee house. He smoked marijuana and enjoyed the sexual revolution. He hitch-hiked and hopped freight trains across North America. In 1967, at age 26, he moved to Los Angeles. He became a carpenter and put together a rock band. 

"I knew who my father was, but only saw him once growing up, at seven years of age… I looked him up at 26. It was part of the reason I came to LA. Our relationship only lasted three months… 

"My stepfather was very good to me… 

"Losing contact with my biological father was probably one of the reasons I became self-sufficient… I started a shoe shine stand when I was seven. I was always working shining shoes, selling colorful rocks…dishwashing…" 

Howard lost his virginity at age 20. "I was extremely shy… One of the reasons I become a rock n'roller (guitar player) was to meet women.. But we never got that far… " 

Howard estimates that he's slept with 100 women in his life. Working in porn was not a dip in the Hefner hot tub. 

"You'd be surprised… You can't get a reputation [in the industry] that you screw every girl… If they came on to me, then maybe. Otherwise, I kept it professional… 

 

"They're always fighting within themselves. Am I being loose or immoral? They perform on film for money. But outside of business, they are often straight. I had a few relationships with porno stars. A Danish porn star in the mid '70s, Katrina. A little Philipino girl. Lisa DeLeeuw. Holly Ryder. I had a good relationship with Serena, before she got on with Jamie Gillis. She used to hang out with seedy guy. Had a kid with him. She came to parties at my place. We tried to get an orgy going one night but it didn't work out. 

"I saw Serena performing at the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrel. Much more aggressive than lap dancing. The girls would lie on your lap and you could feel them up any way you wanted. Hand jobs and blow jobs in the back room sometimes. There was a club in Redwood City. Ten bucks to get in. Girl comes out. For a buck, you got to eat her out. Then she'd give a few guys blow jobs. That place lasted about six months before getting busted. New York hosted the Melody Burlesque houses. On weekend you could eat the girls out. During the week, the police were more active. You could feel the girls up." 

In 1970, Howard married his tall wife, who sported long strawberry blonde hair. "She had an amazingly quiet voice." A stripper at the Santa Monica club The Ball, she did several solo girl masturbation loops and a lesbian scene in his movie Hot Cookies. (With a girlfriend and a drunk man, she ventures into the country on a horse driven carriage.) 

In the late '60s, Ziehm met a man whose business acumen would change his life - Bill Osco, of the Osco drug chain family that became Save-Ons. They lived in a $10-a-week rooming house. Ziehm played in a rock band and Osco became its manager. 

"He had a certain arrogance which was good," Howard told the 9/30/74 edition of Screw. "I can't describe how horrible we were - but he would go to the best clubs… There'd be ten or more groups auditioning… After we'd played, Bill would go up to the manager and say, "Do you want my boys to leave their stuff up there?" The guy would say, 'Why?' Bill said, 'Well, you're hiring them, aren't you?' That was his way. When I was thinking 50 bucks, he was thinking 500…" 

Bill wanted to make motorcycle films but there were two problems. Neither Osco nor Ziehm knew anything about filmmaking and they had no money. So they started shooting stills of naked women and selling them. Then they began to make sex loops in 1969. Their main competitor, Jack Richardson, was murdered, leaving Ziehm and company in the dominant position. 

Bill and Howard paid the female models $35 each for half-a-day's work and they sold 400-foot prints for $100. Theaters started sneaking in hardcore and the word spread quickly. 

"When hardcore came in, the public went berserk. Within seven weeks f---ing and sucking wasn't enough; they wanted dog movies… 

"We decided to do an animal movie. I offered $200 for the girl and 15 girls lined up to do the movie…beautiful girls. I know a lot of girls who had scenes with animals, privately. A lot of girls, if they have a dog, they'll let it lick her cunt…" 

Production of Howard and Bill's bestiality epic was delayed for two weeks until they could find a dog. 

Theaters began putting on live shows. A man named Lee on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles took out a big ad in the L.A. Free Press that said: "At three on Tuesday afternoon, a girl will come out and stick a big dildo up her cunt, then she's going to f--- two guys, and eat another girl. And then a Great Dane is going to come in and f--- her." The place was jammed. The featured female performer on stage invited men from the audience to come up to f--- her. 

As the police cracked down on the live shows, theaters concentrated on hardcore loops. 

Howard Ziehm co-directed the 1970 Los Angeles classic Mona with Mike Benveniste. Credited director Bill Osco served mainly as an administrator. 

Around 1975, Mike, who was married with children and who had worked on the pornos Hollywood Blue and Flesh Gordon, committed suicide. He slit his wrists in the bath tub. 

"He never seemed depressed to me," remembers Ziehm. "We had a falling out in the middle of the Flesh Gordon movie, around 1972. We didn't see each other after that." 

Judy Angel, who played Mona's mother, committed suicide in 1972. "It's hard to fathom to what would go on in people's minds that they would cut off their lives," says Ziehm. "It has nothing to do with porno, they are seeking some switch to turn on… 

"It's like people who say that sex businesses cause crime. Strip clubs are normally the quietest places in the world.. The guys are subdued… The men are intimidated by women… When the girl is on stage she has the upper hand.. 

"Savannah shot at my house several times… She was haughty… Most of the [porn] girls seem to be struggling with something inside… The guys are like a bull in the candy shop… The girls are trying to convince themselves that they are sexual delights… Many of them are attractive. But it is amazing how many beautiful women are not convinced that they are truly attractive… They look for the label, thinking that 'now I am a porno star, now I am sexually attractive...' 

"When I was making Hollywood Blue, which started as a collection of stags, I met June Wilkerson, a second string Jane Mansfield… She did some sexploitation movies… She had always thought of herself as the ugly duckling, then she became an international sex star." 

Mona has no cum shots but plenty of penetration shots and the gynecological closeups common to most pioneer efforts. Ziehm used innovative lighting and camera angles for a porno feature which had virtually nothing to compare itself to. (Only The Best by Jim Holliday) 

In 1971, Ziehm directed City of Sin, one of the many flicks he made using the pseudonym Harry Hopper. City of Sin features a Dragnet type plot and a couple of hot Linda McDowell scenes. 

"We were daily tracked by the police. So I used psuedonyms to distance myself from the film. It didn't work. We still got busted. I got busted twice, and remained in jail until we could raise bail. I was never convicted of anything. But I spent 11 years in court fighting these things. 

"Oral copulation was a misdemeanor but if you conspired to film it, which simply meant if you told anybody, then it became a felony. Number 288-A in the California Penal Code. I spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars fighting this… Part of the reason I left the industry." 

Between 1971-74, Ziehm and Osco produced Flesh Gordon, their last film together. "We were never sure if we were going to make it hardcore or not," Ziehm told Screw in 1974. "We were going to make it hardcore if it became standard for motion pictures to have hardcore scenes. When we first started shooting the thing we thought the Supreme Court was going to rule in favor of hardcore and we thought that a lot of big, major pictures would come out and, instead of having a love scene which fades out 'til tomorrow morning, they would have a hardcore scene… But when all the hardcore footage [for Flesh Gordon] got confiscated, combined with the fact that the Supreme Court ruled opposite [Miller] from the way we thought they would, it didn't matter anymore…" 

Ziehm says Flesh Gordon cost $700,000 to make. 

The 1975 loop carrier Honeypie may be the finest of its type. Each of the sex scenes - oral, anal, straight, double vaginal and double penetration - is an erotic triumph. (Holliday) 

Sexteen appeared the same year as loop carrier, followed by Hot Cookies, Sweet Cakes, Star Virgin, and Naughty Network with Peter Loche, who became a major Hollywood producer. "Peter was Jewish. I was surprised how supportive his family was. His dad invested money with us. My [step] father would never had dreamt of it. A lot of Jewish families probably think, 'If it is going to make a buck, it's ok.' 

"My family knew about my porn work… My (step) father was a Christian fundamentalist…They sort of accepted it…but they never saw the films. 

"My mom is still alive. We relate. And I also get along well with my brothers and sisters." 

Ziehm left porn in 1979. "With video coming in, it appeared that budgets would plunge. I did not want to do loops again. Peter Loche and I did not make a movie unless we had something special, such as the Young twins, Brooke and Taylor, who did a scene in Sweet Cakes. 

"Peter distributed Flesh Gordon for me, then we made six quality films together. He was a helluva producer. I'd fly to New York. He had a limo meet me at the airport. We'd get the equipment. Meet at Peter's apartment. Immediately go into a full-time story review. Everything was boom, boom, boom. Ready to go. He wanted to become a big time producer, and hooked up with people down the line to form Kushner-Loche… 

"We generally tried to star never before seen beauties. Now you see the same people over and over again. Now there is no tease. Everything is so slam bam. 

"When the mood strikes, I'll go rent five pornos. Three will be unwatchable because of poor quality. Two may be titillating. I like Bruce Seven, Rodney Moore, Ed Powers and Max Hardcore. His Cherry Poppers series was good. Max has become absurd, with these stretching routines... Now he's stuffing footballs up their cunt, and tries to add a crowbar. It's fun to see a girl pull her pussy open, but once you start climbing inside of her…" 

Ziehm used to smuggle tons of marijuana from Mexico. "It was during my 20s, my stupidity era… You had to watch your suppliers and your buyers. I was always running from the police. I was always getting burned in business. There was no way to make money unless you became mean… So I quit. I smoked dope through the '60s and '70s but eventually quit. I don't have an addictive personality. I did a few lines of cocaine when they were offered to me but I was too cheap to buy my own. My wife did have a big problem with coke. I never shot up." 

Howard invested his earnings from porn wisely, buying two homes in expensive parts of California's oceanfront. In the 1980s, he developed a business teaching vocabulary improvement on cassette tapes. 

He frequently leased his home to porn shoots. In 1993, he lost his home in the Malibu fires but eventually rebuilt it. In January 1998, Howard leased his Malibu home to Candida Royalle for a shoot. "She's more restrained and classy than most [in the industry]." 

In 1997 Ziehm published a book about golf in comic strips ranging from The Yellow Kid in 1897 to the present. Bob Hope wrote the foreword. 

Howard's former partner Bill Osco lives in San Luis Obispo in a jail. He was sentenced for cheating on his taxes. (Source: New York writer and ex-porn star Bill Landis, author of a book on Kenneth Anger) 

"Bill and I hired an accountant in 1971 to run our business on the up and up. 

"I remember meeting with the IRS… I told them that Bill and I were like two kids opening up a lemonade stand expecting to make a $1:50 and ended up making $150K… It [porn] was a lark, just having fun… 

"Flesh Gordon drained us of so much money… Money filtered through Bill… He said, 'I'm not going to lower my standard of living… He lived high off the hog… Reuben Sturman was like Bill… They didn't like paying their taxes." 

Osco and Ziehm owned a series of porn theaters and mini-houses in Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, LA, and Caldwell, Idaho that they split when they split up in 1973. Howard still owns an art theater on Beverly and La Brea Boulevards in Los Angeles. Bill kept the minihouses. 

Ziehm last talked with Osco in 1983. 

I met Howard Ziehm 6/24/98 at Starbucks on San Vicente Blvd in Brentwood. He stands 6'2, weighs 210 pounds and appears healthy and vigorous. He recently had a lung biopsy (benign) and back surgery for a herniated disc. 

"Once in a while I think about doing a picture [a gonzo] for the fun of it. Play out a few fantasies. Have some fun [sex]. I wouldn't try to get into a storyline. 

"I tried to hold a 16mm film camera while I was having sex. It worked ok for a few loops [1970?]. I had a huge studio in Venice near the Venice Pier and the amusement center. I knocked out ten loops a week. 

"Once, I set up two girls. I was going to have them each do a solo scene, then a lesbian scene. I wound up f---ing the little blonde first. She may have been underage. The other girl got pissed off and wouldn't perform. 

"Most women in the porno business are bone dry. They are not turned on. It's dismal sex. Sex for the camera is not sex. 

"I've seen some bestiality films out of the Netherlands that are good. It's like everything. Once you see something, it's no big deal. I've known a lot of women get friendly with their dogs. They'll pat his tummy and play with his dick. Women are like that. 

"The Mafia came along as time went on. At first, we were able to sell our pictures on a percentage basis throughout the country. That was profitable. Then the gang people stepped in and gave you a price for Chicago, St. Louis and the whole midwest. A ridiculously low figure and you couldn't get any movement out of them. 

"There was Mickey Zaffarano in New York. He died when they came to get him in MIPORN. He was too yellow to go to prisons. My associate Peter Loche negotiated with him. Mickey was speaking. Peter jumped. Then Mickey growled, 'When I'm talkin', you don't talk. Is that clear?' 

"The Mafia killed the film business, because who is going to make movies for these jerks and not get paid [much]? The mob thought anybody could make a porn movie. That's not true. You need a visual sense to make a porno. 

"Suze Randall brought Ginger Lynn to my house for Ginger's first job. Ginger was a nice girl. She used to bring her grandmother to one of the adult film conventions in Las Vegas. Her charm was her openness. She'd say, 'in this business I don't need a boyfriend.' A good-natured girl. Then she got caught up in the tax situation. 

"People in this business didn't pay their taxes. People thought, 'the police are trying to bust us, why should we pay taxes?' Bill Osco served a lot of jail time for his tax shenanigans. Some people never learn. 

"Bill Landis and his wife are working on a magazine called MetaSex. 

"My friend went to one of the Melody Burlesque houses in New York. There were eight ugly black girls who did not want to dance. When they did dance, they scowled. They didn't want to talk to you for less than $10. He was totally turned off." 

Luke: Blacks have never played a big role in this business. 

Howard: "When porno started, there was still a strong racist bias against blacks. If you used a black girl, many theaters wouldn't even take the picture. Then, as porno evolved into looking for nastier things to happen, which is the porno thrill, then… A girl f---ed by a black was about the filthiest thing. Many girls would say, 'I don't f--- dogs or niggers.' Now they are many blacks doing videos, though most of the ones I've seen are not erotica. There are some beautiful black girls. You're selling a fantasy. [Many people don't fantasize about blacks.] In general, it hasn't been a big seller." 

[A car full of blacks stops beside us, blaring rap music.] 

"Eric Kroll has an interesting style. That's why I was successful. I had a style. I was the first person to do lots of erotic close-ups and use different angles. I always used a hand-held camera and moved it around. Most people just slapped the camera on the tripod. 

"I did not like that stupid movie Boogie Nights. No one makes a porno movie like they show. With the camera on the tripod. You'd never see anything. It's hard to get angles that way. 

"The biggest mistake? No porno producer runs around looking at guy's crotches for a big dick. A big dick is only a novelty. You try to find sexy girls. 

"That wife in Boogie Nights who was f---ing everybody. That doesn't happen. I've never seen anything like that on a set. That was just the director's fantasy. If Ron Jeremy was the advisor, I don't know what he was advising. Ron is a funny little guy. Who knows where he is coming from. 

"That movie tried to portray the porno business as a bunch of mean, coarse people telling each other to "f--- off." 

"I made my last Flesh Gordon movie in 1990. Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders. We had an NC-17 rating. It's got lots of nudity, bare tits, mammory mountains, baby people, farting asteroids, the turd people… Lots of way-out metaphors. Most of the reviewers couldn't understand the facetious humor. They only understand slam-bam slapstick, and if you try to do something subtle, it goes way over their heads. We shot on 35mm on a budget of $1.5 mill. We shot in Vancouver and did the special effects in Michigan. The drive-in king, reviewer Joe Billy Bob, liked it. He wrote that he didn't think it was possible to match the original, but it did it. I'm nominating this for my academy awards. 

"We released the picture at the height of political correctness. All these uptight cunts reviewed it… It didn't suit their image of women. Finally, people are waking up to see what a bunch of two-faced hypocrites these girls are. Women are very manipulative. That's their power. They want to manipulate and then have you thank them for being manipulated. And they don't want you to manipulate back. It's BS. 

"I've become disillusioned with many women. I've become very disillusioned with my wife. That's probably natural. I've been married almost thirty years. She's still got a good body. She got f---ed up with drugs. Now she's developed this complete bulls--- mindless attitude." 

Luke: Does she bring women over so you guys can have threeways? 

Howard: She doesn't do anything anymore. We used to have some threeways in the '70s. Free love. Part of it is my fault. We both used to go out… Then resentment built. Men can go out and f--- somebody, and it's just a f---. But if a woman goes out with somebody, she falls in love. My wife has been in love with so many f---ing people… I couldn't name them all. 

Luke: How come there are so many beautiful women around here? 

Howard: Gene pool. Everybody comes to Los Angeles to be a movie star. This is the high end section of town. They're here to be discovered. 

I'm not ashamed to be written about. I'm not proud of everything I did. You were an atheistic communist. I used to run around with a Castro hat. I didn't have a clue what that meant. Now I hate communism. I'm anti-welfare but pro-abortion… I love listening to [KABC radio talk show host] Dennis Prager. 

"I shot two features in New York, Sexteen and Honey Pie. Everything else I shot in LA. We made Sexteen for $40,000 and it brought in $400,000 in film rental in a year. 

"I used John Holmes in several loops. His dick was so big that he could never get a full hardon. He was around at the modeling agency… There were three agents in the '70s, Reb, then Jim South… I tried to keep them both happy. Reb was always pissed off there were other agents. 

"Holmes was a quiet, nebishy [wimpy] guy. Not brash. We had to hang around a long time for him to get a hardon. Then there was Gene Carrier. I used him in Star Virgin in a black and white scene that was a take-off off Dracula. With subtitles. He throws his cape off to reveal a big hardon. I called him Big Dick Gene Carrier. He was supposed to do anal with this girl but she chickened out when she saw his big dick. 

"Those guys who've stayed in for years. You've got to wonder about them. Most guys burn out f---ing girls who snarl at you, with a dry pussy… Even Paul Thomas said to me, 'film sex is not sex.' You keep hoping that the next girl you f---. I remember when I was eating Lisa DeLeeuw's pussy. She seemed to enjoy it. Then you put your hand up her cunt and she's dry."