Hindsight: True Love & Mischief in the Golden Age of Porn

by Howie Gordon

  The other woman on the set was her younger sister, Lisa. Lisa would be the gofer. One could already see that she was going to be just as beautiful as her big sister once the skin cleared up and she stopped being all elbows and knees.

  The dog was Bella. While Sandy and I were going over the clothes, Mike was telling us that Bella had just done a shoot with Jaclyn Smith, one of TV’s original Charlie’s Angels. If the numbers Mike was tossing around were accurate, Bella had just made more money than I was going to earn for being a Playgirl centerfold. I tried not to take it personally. The dog had an agent. I didn’t.

  And speaking of clothes, Sandy absolutely hated mine. I’d been instructed to bring a number of outfits, but my wardrobe was one hundred percent Berkeley Flea Market. She doubted that it would constitute the fashion upgrade she had been hired to produce. We had a real problem until Sandy speculated that Mike and I were about the same size. Problem solved. She raided his uptown wardrobe and there I was, a Mr. GQ.

  It took a while for Mike to recognize that I was wearing his clothes. Not only did he get himself stuck taking pictures of a man but the goddamned guy was dressed in his clothes.

  There was a last cup of coffee, some makeup, and we were ready to begin. There would be twenty rolls of film shot that day, twenty rolls with thirty-six pictures each. That was 720 smiles for the camera. My cheeks would be sore by the end of the day.

  They put me in a fancy robe to start and had me reclining on some big cushions. Me and my tanned tushy began tossing out those smiles for the cameras.

  I was tense. They were businesslike. My smile was forced and nervous. They moved me this way and that. Sandy, Mike, and Leslie were all telling me what to do. I pretty much responded to all voice commands, but I drew the line when the dog ordered me to roll over and play dead.

  I didn’t know how to use my body as a tease. It was a sexual role reversal I had never attempted before. I bumbled through a striptease somehow, feeling awkwardly feminine. The shoot felt like Disney on Vice. I was Goofy being cast as a female impersonator.

  Mike was clicking the cameras and the lights were flashing. About halfway through that first scene, someone noticed that I still had on my wedding ring.

  Sandy had me remove the ring. Dark makeup had to be applied to the ring of lighter skin now visible around my finger. That done, we started all over again.

  Mike pretty much took over directing at this point and shot another ton of pictures. We worked rapidly and I was jaybird naked by the time he stopped shooting. There was a pause. I awaited further direction. Mike tried to get Sandy’s attention. She was ignoring him. Ostensibly, Sandy was busy with Leslie arranging costume and set for our next scene, but it was obvious to me, and undoubtedly Mike, that she was definitely avoiding his gaze. Something was up. Mike waited for a bit and then told me to go put on the next outfit.

  Okay, so now I’m putting on the new clothes for my second striptease act and I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong? This is my first shot at high-gloss LA and I do not want to screw it up. Why did Mike start acting weird? Why were the women ignoring him? I had a pretty good guess, but this was their shoot and I didn’t want to jump the gun.

  They dressed me in a nice casual outfit, a sweater and a sport coat. It was Mike’s sweater and sport coat. I’d never dress like that, but I looked pretty good in it anyway.

  They gave me a beer and the dog for props. Mike instructed me to undress slowly. He would take pictures all the way through my striptease. A giant fan was turned on and I was faced into the wind. With the breezes blowing through my hair, I was the young Troy Donahue starring in a love movie right out of the 1950s. This part was fun.

  By the time I was naked and Mike stopped shooting, it had gotten all weird again. Mike had been the only one directing and now he was looking to Sandy who was again pretending not to notice him.

  “Is this the part where you want me to get a hard-on?” I asked.

  Bingo! Laughter and smiles erupt everywhere! It was like I had just popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and brought out the cocaine.

  No one had said a word about erections since I had arrived on the set. It had only been mentioned in that first long distance phone call with Sandy. Clearly, they had all been at a loss to broach the subject in person and were all greatly relieved when I recognized the 500 pound gorilla in the room.

  Their awkwardness suggested that they did not know how to proceed with this portion of the program. It didn’t appear that any of the women present were going to be offering much in the way of help. No matter, I told them not to worry. I stretched out naked on the floor and closed my eyes. I took matters into my own hands. In the quiet, pretty Leslie started talking dirty:

  “You’re raising her skirts now to reveal her creamy, milky thighs,” Leslie was talking in a stage whisper. It made the other folks laugh. Me too. I told her thanks, but no thanks. She said that she was only trying to help. I told her that there were other ways that she could help, but she did not pick up on it. Too bad, I closed my eyes and returned to the wild kingdom. Wish I could honestly remember what I was thinking.

  Whatever it was, it worked. Soon, my penis was hard and I jumped to my feet as Mike went into rapid-fire photography. When my erection began to fade, Mike stopped. I fell to the floor, closed my eyes, and started all over. The magic worked again. I hopped to my feet for round two. We went about four or five rounds before Mike declared that he had all the pictures of me with an erection that he would ever need for the rest of his life.

  This portion of our shoot was done. They were elated and euphoric. They hadn’t had the slightest idea how they were going to accomplish this part of the session. It gave me the giggles. They were lucky they had me.

  A guy without any sexual performing experience would have probably been more traumatized than they were. For me, it was like a day off. I didn’t even have to come!

  I had been so bullied and intimidated by their high style LA ways and all the big-time show biz name dropping. This little episode had been a great equalizer. They became much nicer to me and the rest of the photo shoot was all light and airy. They were happy and I was happy that they were happy. Mike began teasing me like a big brother. Here I was in his house, wearing his clothes and being Mr. Sex Appeal. He joked with Sandy that she should have chosen him and they could have saved some money on the plane fare. Sandy teased back that he never would have been able to get the hard-on.

  P.S. Y’know, I look at this body and I think, “That’s not me! It’s just something I made in metal shop.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “You did it for your father.”

  “Pardon me?’

  “You did it for your father. You lost all that weight and you sculpted that show-off body for your dad.”

  “Yeah? How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “And you are?”

  “I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was dinner time. You’re mother had made the mashed potatoes, the kind with the onions fried in schmaltz mixed in.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Yeah, mmmm. They were good. You liked them. You were reaching for your fourth helping when your dad uncharacteristically went ballistic.

  “I remember.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “No son of mine,” he said, his voice rising and his anger sharp, “is gonna be a fat slob!”

  It came out of nowhere. It seemed like your father had never said word one to you about your weight. Now, he was exploding. It was like he slapped you across the face.

  You were destroyed. You were helpless. You were reduced to rubble. You were ashamed and betrayed and had absolutely nowhere to hide. And worst of all, he made you put back that fourth helping of mashed potatoes under his angry eyes.

  San Francisco. Gordon Archive.

  Miss Martini. Gordon Archive.

  Gordon Archive.

  Gordon Archive.

/>   Rehearsal! Gordon Archive.

  I got his autograph in my diary. Gordon Archive.

  “Acting” with Carol Connors. VCX.com

  Hall of Famer Jon Martin. Jon Martin

  She was not playing nicely with others! Gordon Archive.

  Gordon Archive.

  John Holmes & Howie. Gordon Archive.

  Lailani. Gordon Archive.

  Candida. Gordon Archive/Candida Royalle

  Stormy Weather. Gordon Archive.

  Working on my craft. Gordon Archive.

  John Seeman. Gordon Archive.

  Amusing John Seeman with tales of ejaculatory incompetence. Vincent Fronczek

  Gordon Archive.

  Gordon Archive.

  Gordon Archive.

  John Seeman was selling my salami. Vincent Fronczek/Gordon Archive

  With Sandy and Teresa in Prize Catch (1978). Paul Johnson

  “Fine with me,” I told her. “I’d love to be a centerfold!” Shirley/Gordon Archive

  Ooops, they didn’t want any married centerfolds! Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Gordon Archive.

  Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Gordon Archive.

  Mike Ross/Playgirl

  Part Three

  Officer Pacheco and Father Silvera. Gordon Archive.

  One of The Guys

  “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

  John Milton, Paradise Lost

  Chapter One

  THE TOP TEN LEADING ACTORS:

  1. JOHN HOLMES: “Is that a nuclear warhead in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” Dead from the neck up, but a monster from the waist down.

  2. JERRY BUTLER: Blonde and built, California style. What women mean when they use the word “hunk.”

  3. JOHN LESLIE: One of the few good actors in smut. Specializes in sleazy, reptilian roles. Can come on cue.

  4. BOBBY ASTYR: The funniest man in adult pics. The girls keep on laughing until he drops his pants.

  5. JAMIE GILLIS: The professor of porn. Takes his sex seriously: he bones up on it.

  6. JACK WRANGLER: A switch-hitter who crossed over from gay films to do straight smut. Doesn’t prevent him from exciting the ladies.

  7. HARRY REEMS: Has been or never was? Only his agent knows for sure. On the strength of Deep Throat and his 10-incher makes the Top Ten.

  8. ERIC EDWARDS: The boy next door, naughty and nice.

  9. RICHARD PACHECO: The thinking girl’s stud. If the role calls for any amount of acting at all, Pacheco should be in it.

  10. RON JEREMY: Last and least. Proves there’s no such thing as over-exposure in the smut biz, because if there was, he’d have retired a long while back.

  Al Goldstein

  Where was Paul Thomas? Where was R. Bolla? Why was I on that list? Who knows what goes on in the mind of Al Goldstein? Did he suffer a rare moment of good taste? Tell ya what, I was just grateful for the recognition.

  There’s a lot of other guys that maybe coulda and shoulda been on that list too. There was Joey Silvera, Mike Ranger, Randy West, Herschel Savage, Billy Dee, Jon Martin, Mike Horner, Bill Margold, John Seeman, and Don Fernando, no doubt, among others. These were some of my friends and colleagues of the era in what amounted to a fairly unique fraternity of the Golden Age players.

  Chapter Two

  While the Playgirl adventure had rekindled my fantasies of going mainstream, I continued making X Rated movies as a way of financing my trips down South to the straight side of Hollywood. There were flights, hotels, meals. I needed to find an agent. I needed 8 x 10s. Those things cost money.

  As far as the adult films were concerned, my basic training was over. I was now considered one of the guys. I was an industry regular getting calls from lots of different producers asking me to come audition whenever they came to San Francisco to shoot. This phase of my career would last a couple of years and carry me through some fifteen to twenty more films and loops.

  I met my first pair of breast implants while filming Tangerine.

  These were the early days of that particular cosmetic surgery and I was not overly impressed. I would not argue that the “new” breasts weren’t beautiful to gaze upon. That they were, but it was all downhill from there. The breasts were as hard as baseballs and didn’t seem to do too much in the way of arousal for either the toucher or the touchee. And they just didn’t move, not even if the owner did jumping jacks or stood on her head. They just stared at you like headlights.

  One would hope that the owners of some of those early models have long since upgraded to the newer, improved, and more human-like ones. One would hope.

  My leading lady in Tangerine was taller than me. When she put on her high heels, it was ridiculous. To compensate, I had to wear platform shoes that made me five inches taller. It was like spending the whole day on stilts. No doubt Boris Karloff wore a similar pair when he played the Frankenstein monster. It was a lot of fun to be taller, but it soon took its toll. After a couple of hours in those shoes, my legs would start to tremble. I would cramp up and get shooting pains. Periodically, I would have to parachute back to earth where I didn’t get nosebleeds.

  There was a scene in this movie where an actress was supposed to have some kind of sex with a dog. He was a big German shepherd and he was not interested in having sex at all! Poor bastard just sat there whimpering to be saved as the woman stroked his cock in a vain effort to arouse his ardor.

  Oh, man, the dog looked toward his master with begging in his eyes to be freed from this indignity, but the owner made him stay. It was a payday.

  I’d been where that dog was. He had all of my sympathy. This whole scene belonged in some forbidden cellar in Tijuana. I’m not a big fan of inter-species dating. It was an embarrassment just to be there.

  I had to do a sex scene with three young women in Tangerine. In the preliminary tangle, when I was moving to this breast or that mouth, one of the young women whispered in my ear, “Do not touch me unless you absolutely have to.”

  The cameras were rolling. It was a bit of a shock. This was one of those sex scenes that was being completely choreographed by the director. Our moves were not our own. He was telling us whose what went where, whose legs got spread, what should be sucked or fucked, how, and for how long. He did not hear the request that had been whispered in my ear, and with the cameras rolling I hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him.

  As the scene proceeded, I tried to work around her. At one point, though, the director directly directed that I should now enter and plow the fields of that very maiden who had asked to remain untouched. Came the moment of truth and she allowed my penis into her vagina. She did not seem to object. In fact, once inside my reluctant lover, she soon met my thrusts with some wickedly sweet undulations of her own. I enjoyed the ride.

  And I couldn’t resist. I whispered in her ear, “Is it okay that I’m touching you now?” She smiled with her eyes closed and shook her head, “Yes.”

  Chapter Three

  It was Agent Marty on the phone. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “Marty! How you doin?” I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. What do you mean, ‘Uh-oh?’”

  “’Uh-oh’ means that you’re back to writing the same book you already wrote in 1985. The writing’s a whole lot better, but still, you’re just going from one movie to the next and telling the story. It’s gonna be slow, repetitive, boring, and way too long. You’re gonna have to be more selective.

  “I agree.”

  “I mean, nobody out there is gonna want to read the encyclopedia of your entire career. You were in over a hundred movies, y’know…and some of them were incredible stinkers. Wait a minute, what did you say?”

  “I said I agree with you. You’re absolutely right.”

  “Oh,” Marty said.

  Chapter Four

&n
bsp; Things You Learn the Hard Way

  Beware adrenalin. It can make you somebody you’re not. It can surprise you.

  We get excited when we make movies. No surprise there. Especially when it’s all pretty new to us. Costumes, makeup, bright lights, people watching, cameras rolling, and we’re performing. If you’re human, the adrenalin is flowing.

  I was making a loop for an old timer named Irv Carsten. I think he began shooting 8 mm porno films sometime during the Truman administration.

  It was an outdoor poolside location on a warm sunny day. For the first shot, Irv placed his camera on one side of the pool and wanted me to dive towards him from the other side. When I got across, I was supposed to pop my head out of the water where he’d have me perfectly framed for an extreme close-up. That was the plan. Not too complicated. Did we need a rehearsal? NAH, hell no! Let’s just shoot one. Okay.