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Washington Post, 2/16/80: The big FBI porno roundup didn't spoil Valentine's Day for many of the princes and princesses of America's X-rated movie industry. Hours after the FBI made public its "Miporn" indictments on Thursday, stars from the netherworld of pornography pressed the flesh -- and peddled it -- in a warehouse-size disco on the west edge of Chelsea in New York. Notwithstanding the federal dragnet, porn stars Serena, Vanessa Del Rio, Seka, Jill Monro, Samantha Fox and Jamie Gillis and hundreds of friends and "friends of friends of friends" gathered to celebrate Valentine's Day at the invitation of their hard-core colleagues Marc Stevens. As crews of videotape cameramen moved through the cavernous Fun House Disco, couples danced beneath strobe lights, played pinball in an adjoining game room, necked and sampled recreational drugs in a dark balcony, or watched as Stevens and a troupe of friends called "The Fantasy Performers" cavorted in brief costumes and simulated sex on a stage. Between acts, Tiny Tim sang "Tip-toe Through the Tulips," "America the Beautiful" and other favorite tunes. The guests who were dressed at all favored black lingerie, leather outfits, Qiana gowns cut in such a way as to suggest a worldwide fabric shortage, and Spandex pedal pushers. Also in the crowd were more conservatively dressed representatives of men's magazines, their advertisers and ad agency employes. "This party helped kick off the decade of sensuality," said Roy Winnick, who helped organize the bash and hopes to help Marc Stevens and His Fantasy Performers take their show on the road. "These people in the adult-oriented entertainment business -- AOE, we call it -- want to go legitimate. We wanted to bring this new legitimacy, this new sexual awareness, to a respectable place." Serena, the blond, 23-year-old actress who is perhaps most in demand in the X-rated movie business, wasn't concerned with the issue of legitimacy. "I'm an artist," she said between sips of Jack Daniel's and water. "I don't care what medium an artist works in -- oil, watercolor, charcoal, ink -- it doesn't matter if it's still photography or movies, I am an artist. I'm one of the more healthy people I know, if not one of the happiest. I'm providing an example for our society so our children's children can grow up in a more liberal atmosphere." Among the partygoers who book adult entertainment , the revelations of the FBI's 2 1/2-year undercover probe of a nationwide conspiracy to control the dirty-movie industry was the subject of lively discussion. "Did you hear about old Zaffarano?" asked Herbert Cole, who came to the party to scout talent for the two Washington adult-movie houses he's associated with. "Supposed to have died right after the FBI found him. Hell, a little old subpoena wouldn't have killed him. He must have been due anyway." Michael Zaffarano, a reputed crime figure with a record of involvements in pornographic films, reportedly died of a heart attack in his Manhattan office less than an hour after FBI agents began searching for him Thursday, through it is not clear the two factors were related. The indictments come at a time when X-rated movies have begun to assume the trappings of more conventional films. Credits now appear on screen, and some of the names are real. Parties with searchlights and champagne herald the premieres of some major-budget productions. And the hard-core movie industry runs its own version of the Academy Awards presentations. At Marc Steven's Valentine's Day Party, then, you had your usual mix of elderly hopefuls and aspiring young actresses. Cami Graham of Little Neck, Long Island, says she has a 14-year-old granddaughter who thinks it's swell that grandma has appeared in 10 adult films over the past five years. "I always say I'm the one with my clothes on," said Graham, crossing her legs to let her scarlet dress ride high above a thigh. "I'm known in the business as 'the New York grandma! I was in 'Barbara Broadcast' and 'Cherry Hustlers.' I got real good dialogue in that one. The publisher of High Society asked me to pose for a centerfold. I said, 'Baby, everything isn't where it used to be,' but she said not to worry." In the ingenue department was Toni Rose, 20-year-old daughter of exotic dancer Morganna, known to some as baseball's kissing bandit for her fondness for running onto major league fields to buss ballplayers. "I do a lot of parties with Mark," said Rose, who says she attended his wedding party several years ago at Studio 54 when he married the famous transsexual Jill Monro. She also attended their divorce party last year at the Copacabana.
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