Speaker 1: The eighties were the golden age of porn. Everybody was
Speaker 1: treated so well and we were all so close. It
Speaker 1: was just beautiful. Jinger and Allen performer.
Speaker 2: We're just another option for adults. I believe people make
Speaker 2: decisions for themselves. It's not for me or anyone else
Speaker 2: to pass any kind of world judgment. We make movies
Speaker 2: that people want to watch them. We'll continue to do that.
Speaker 2: Stephen Hirsch, Vivid Video Founder.
Speaker 3: Nobody in the modern era of the adult industry has
Speaker 3: been more innovative in mainstreaming their company image than Vivid.
Speaker 3: That made them one of the premier brands in all
Speaker 3: of Hollywood. Adults or otherwise. Paul Fishbeind, Adult Video News Founder.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Jenna World. Welcome back. I'm your host, Molly Lambert.
Speaker 4: This is episode three ej Before Jenna. Pacific Palisades, nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty four. At a seafood restaurant off the Pacific Coast
Speaker 4: Highway called Gladstone's at the Beach, a twenty two year
Speaker 4: old five foot six, brown haired Jewish kid from the
Speaker 4: valley named Stephen Hirsh a Gemini and his girlfriend Bren
Speaker 4: are meeting up with twenty one year old five foot
Speaker 4: four blonde Sagittarius ginger Lynn Allen ginger Lynn has been
Speaker 4: doing adult movies for a year. Stephen Hirsh is a
Speaker 4: fan of her work who wants to make her an offer.
Speaker 4: She agrees to hear him out in exchange for his
Speaker 4: promise of endless crab legs, her favorite and an ocean
Speaker 4: front view. Ginger Lynn arrives in a lace dress and
Speaker 4: heels to meet Stephen and Wren at a wooden picnic
Speaker 4: table on Gladstone's outdoor deck, overlooking will Rogers State Beach,
Speaker 4: named for the vaudeville cowboy turned radio star. At twenty
Speaker 4: two years old, Stephen Hirsch is already a second generation pornographer.
Speaker 4: His father, Fred Hirsch, is a prominent distributor of eight
Speaker 4: millimeter stag films, which are short films that are at
Speaker 4: most ten minutes long, have no sound, and depict hardcore
Speaker 4: sexual acts. Stag films were creditless, with no director, stars,
Speaker 4: or film crew credited. Because pornographic films were then legal
Speaker 4: to make or show. They screened stag films clandestinely at fraternities, brothels,
Speaker 4: and men's clubs. Fred Hirsch was a stockbroker first, but
Speaker 4: after Wall Street crashed in nineteen sixty two, he decided
Speaker 4: to shift gears. When Stephen Hirsh is eleven years old,
Speaker 4: his father Fred gathers the family in their living room
Speaker 4: to tell them he's embarking on a new career path
Speaker 4: selling pornographic film reels for a company called Sovereign News.
Speaker 4: All of this takes place not in Horney, liberal California,
Speaker 4: but in horny, conservative Cleveland, Ohio. Their father warns young
Speaker 4: Stephen and his sister Marcy that other kids might not
Speaker 4: accept them if their parents find out what the Hirsh
Speaker 4: kid's dad does for a living.
Speaker 5: My biggest concern was what I would tell my friends.
Speaker 5: I had a hard time Marcy Hirsch, Stephen's sister.
Speaker 2: I was okay with that. If they didn't want to
Speaker 2: be friends with us, I didn't want to be friends
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 4: Sovereign News Corporation, the company who give Fred Hirsch his
Speaker 4: new career selling eight non elimeter stagfilms, is owned by
Speaker 4: a Cleveland born businessman named Ruben Sterman, A Leo. The
Speaker 4: son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Sterman starts selling comic books
Speaker 4: out of the trunk of his car in the late
Speaker 4: nineteen forties, he parlays his comic book hustle into a
Speaker 4: wholesale business, distributing comic books, tobacco, and candy to newsstands.
Speaker 4: He adds adult magazines to the roster in the early sixties,
Speaker 4: and their profits quickly surpass his other wares. Rubin Sterman
Speaker 4: has been called the Walt Disney of porn for doing
Speaker 4: for sex magazines what Walt Disney did for animation, fostering
Speaker 4: a new American national pastime, selling a wildly lucrative form
Speaker 4: of escapism to the masses Mickey mouse or naked chicks.
Speaker 4: At the end of the day, it's all just a
Speaker 4: way to leave behind the miserable drudgery of real life
Speaker 4: for a fantasy realm. In nineteen sixty four, Ruben Sterman
Speaker 4: gets raided by the FBI for the first time. They
Speaker 4: bust one of his Cleveland warehouses to confiscate a dirty
Speaker 4: book called sex Life of a Cop. He fights prosecution
Speaker 4: by filing countersuits and working under aliases to protect himself
Speaker 4: against the government's inquest into citizens, minds and pants. Stermin
Speaker 4: links with the Gambino crime family. Sterman also establishes the
Speaker 4: first legal adult bookstores in the US adult bookstores, which
Speaker 4: naturally began in nineteen twenties Europe, were de facto banned
Speaker 4: in America, but sexual media still flowed underground. A series
Speaker 4: of First Amendment related Supreme Court rulings legalized sex shops nationally,
Speaker 4: allowing Reuben Sterman to legally set up business. Local jurisdictions
Speaker 4: still limit zoning to push sex shops into unofficial red
Speaker 4: light districts on the outskirts of town, which is why
Speaker 4: you often see them way out off random freeway exits.
Speaker 4: By the late nineteen sixties, Juevern NewsCorp. Is the number
Speaker 4: one distributor of adult magazines in America. They're also under
Speaker 4: constant threat and surveillance from authorities. Reuben Sterman relocates from
Speaker 4: the Midwest to ELA's San Fernando Valley, where a sex
Speaker 4: belt is developing. Sterman's booming business buys him a townhouse
Speaker 4: in Van Nuys, a line of credit for clothes at
Speaker 4: Posh Beverly Hills Men's shop, Vijon, Rolls Royce's Mercedes, and
Speaker 4: a yearly seated the Cannes Film Festival. But the US
Speaker 4: government is keeping a close eye on his finances, and
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty nine, he's sentenced for tax eVision. Sterman
Speaker 4: is ordered to pay two point five million dollars in
Speaker 4: back taxes and spend a decade in jail. He also
Speaker 4: catches a bullshit charge for interstate transportation of obscene materials.
Speaker 4: He strikes a plea bargain, but gets caught trying to
Speaker 4: bribe a juror and is given another twenty years for extortion.
Speaker 4: He's locked up in Boron, California. He pulls off a
Speaker 4: jail break and briefly escapes, but the Walt Disney of
Speaker 4: porn is apprehended again in Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland.
Speaker 4: Cleveland's porn king, Reuben Sturman, serves out the rest of
Speaker 4: his sentence in Kentucky and dies in jail at the
Speaker 4: age of seventy three. Despite their dad's unusual job selling
Speaker 4: dirty movies, the Hirshes are a model middle class Jewish
Speaker 4: mid century Midwestern family. The Hirsh kids, son Stephen, daughter Marcy,
Speaker 4: and youngest son Bradley, shovels snow in the winter. In
Speaker 4: the summers, they play baseball and mow neighborhood lawns for
Speaker 4: pocket money, but Stephen Hirsch feels alienated from the other
Speaker 4: kids in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Some of them bully him at
Speaker 4: school for being Jewish. He channels his pent up aggression
Speaker 4: into a socially acceptable place sports, joining the school wrestling team.
Speaker 2: It helped toughen me up a bit, and it helped
Speaker 2: give me the drive to succeed because I had to
Speaker 2: prove that I was okay.
Speaker 6: I'd always wanted to do a movie that was pure
Speaker 6: fucking nothing else the way eat had been just eating,
Speaker 6: and sleep had been just sleeping. So in October sixty eight,
Speaker 6: I shot a movie of Viva having sex with Lewis Walden.
Speaker 6: I just called it Fuck, Andy Warhol Artist.
Speaker 4: After the Hayes Code of Film Censorship ends in nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty eight, stag films are succeeded by full length movies
Speaker 4: that can show sex and screen in public. In nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty nine, the first film to ever legally show real
Speaker 4: footage of explicit sex acts hits the big screen. It's
Speaker 4: an Andy Warhol art film called Blue Movie, originally titled Fuck,
Speaker 4: starring Warhole superstar Viva and actor Lewis Walden as a
Speaker 4: couple talking about the Vietnam War and present Nixon and
Speaker 4: engaging an unsimulated intercourse shot in long improvised takes. Blue
Speaker 4: Movie is ninety five minutes of talking and ten minutes
Speaker 4: of sex. Blue Movie is focused on sexual realism, not
Speaker 4: sexual fantasy.
Speaker 6: Scripts bore me. It's much more exciting not to know
Speaker 6: what's going to happen. I don't think the plot is important.
Speaker 6: If you see a movie of two people talking, you
Speaker 6: can watch it over and over again without being bored.
Speaker 6: You get involved, you miss things, you come back to it.
Speaker 6: But you can't see the same movie over and over
Speaker 6: again if it has a plot, because you already know
Speaker 6: the ending. Everyone is rich, everyone is interesting. Years ago,
Speaker 6: people used to sit looking out of their windows at
Speaker 6: the street or on a park bench. They would stay
Speaker 6: for hours without being bored, although nothing much was going on.
Speaker 6: This is my favorite theme in movie making, just watching
Speaker 6: something happening for two hours or so.
Speaker 7: The Warhole films for about sexual disappointment and frustration. The
Speaker 7: way Andy saw the world, the way the world is,
Speaker 7: and the way nine tenths of the population sees it. Yeah,
Speaker 7: pretends they don't, don't Viva actress.
Speaker 4: Blue Movie follows Warholes shorts Blowjob Number one and Blowjob
Speaker 4: Number two, which both focus and tight close up on
Speaker 4: a man's face as he allegedly receives a blowjob below frame.
Speaker 4: Warhole purposely courts controversy, which brings him free publicity. The
Speaker 4: Warhole ethos of art, a self consciously consumerist product, a
Speaker 4: personal brand, was cultivated working as an illustrator in the
Speaker 4: advertising industry. On opening day, Blue Movie grows as a
Speaker 4: theatrical house record of three thy fifty dollars, recouping its
Speaker 4: shooting budget of three thousand dollars. It makes sixteen thy
Speaker 4: two hundred dollars within the week, and Warhol takes home
Speaker 4: ninety percent of the box office gross. Andy Warhol gets
Speaker 4: his wish for controversy and free promotion when the NYPD
Speaker 4: raid the Garrick Cinema on Bleaker Street where Blue Movie
Speaker 4: is playing first run. Sees the film reels for obscenity
Speaker 4: and arrest the theatre's staff for distributing obscene materials. Warhol
Speaker 4: cashes in on the scandal by publishing a book of
Speaker 4: explicit dialogue. In film stills from Blue Movie. Conservatives are
Speaker 4: afraid of what frank depictions of sex will do to viewers' minds,
Speaker 4: but it's too late for the Prudes Blue movie Lights
Speaker 4: The Fuse, and shortly after its success, pornographic movies like
Speaker 4: Behind the Green Door and The Devil and Miss Jones
Speaker 4: become big box office hits. In nineteen seventy five, the
Speaker 4: Hirsch family leaves Ohio, heading out west to the booming
Speaker 4: geographic center of the pornographic film industry, La San Fernando Valley.
Speaker 4: HR is chasing the adult film gold rush and also
Speaker 4: outrunning some obscenity charges he caught in Ohio. The Hirsch
Speaker 4: family settles into a two story house in Woodland Hills,
Speaker 4: a West Valley suburb close to where all the porn
Speaker 4: studios and warehouses are clustered. Fred Hirsch's sales model pivots
Speaker 4: from super eight stag films to video home system VHS
Speaker 4: and Beta tapes as the eighties approached. After being acquitted
Speaker 4: of the Ohio obscenity charges in nineteen seventy eight, he
Speaker 4: starts his own company called Adult Video Corporation. Woodland Hills
Speaker 4: superficially resembles the Ohio suburbs. Aside from its key lack
Speaker 4: of snow, the valley is often set dressed with deciduous
Speaker 4: trees to play the Midwest on screen. There are a
Speaker 4: couple aspects of moving to the Valley that considerably improve
Speaker 4: the now teenage Stephen Hirsch's life. He's no longer the
Speaker 4: only Jewish kid in town. The valley has become a
Speaker 4: place where upwardly mobile, middle class Jewish families settle, not
Speaker 4: in the Tudor Revival style mansions of show business Jews
Speaker 4: in Hancock Park in bel Air, or the orthodox enclaves
Speaker 4: off Fairfax Avenue, but into post war single family homes
Speaker 4: with green grass front lawns and white picket fences. They
Speaker 4: are Jewish families, like the Hirsh's attempt to seamlessly assimilate
Speaker 4: into suburban whiteness in the valley.
Speaker 8: Not only does.
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch no longer get bullied for being Jewish at
Speaker 4: his new school, El Camino Real High, he reinvents himself
Speaker 4: as an all American jock like the ones who bullied
Speaker 4: him in Ohio. The Hirsh siblings are also no longer
Speaker 4: the only kids they know whose parents work in the
Speaker 4: porn industry. Fred Hirsch has professional colleagues in the valley,
Speaker 4: and his colleagues have families too. They're all part of
Speaker 4: a thriving local business scene that just happens to involve
Speaker 4: people performing sex x on camera. The Hirsh's are no
Speaker 4: longer local pariahs in the valley. They get to be
Speaker 4: just like everyone else. Steve becomes co captain of the
Speaker 4: school wrestling team, making his father proud. The suburban San
Speaker 4: Fernando Valley is still very square on the surface, but
Speaker 4: in the seventies, the porn industry surreptitiously grows and flowers.
Speaker 4: There By the mid seventies, the porn industry is estimated
Speaker 4: to be turning a yearly profit of ten million dollars.
Speaker 4: By nineteen eighty, the yearly profits for pornography have shot
Speaker 4: up to one hundred million bucks. Stephen Hirsh graduates high
Speaker 4: school and immediately starts working for his dad Fred at
Speaker 4: the Adult Video Corporation office in Northridge. The Adult Video
Speaker 4: Corporation shop, known as AVC, is a VHS duplication lab
Speaker 4: full of worrying video cassette recorders, cranking out tapes from
Speaker 4: master copies of old adult film reels. At first, they
Speaker 4: try to keep family in business separate, but they work
Speaker 4: in such close quarters it proves impossible. Marcy Hirsch sees
Speaker 4: her first glimpse of porn on a monitor, and her
Speaker 4: dad tells her to stay out of the lab when
Speaker 4: he's working. But it's a hard rule to keep, so
Speaker 4: they all just adjust to it.
Speaker 5: After that, we would both be in there watching it.
Speaker 5: After a while, you almost forget what you're watching because
Speaker 5: you see it so often.
Speaker 4: This work arrangement might weird other people out for basic
Speaker 4: oedical reasons, but it doesn't really bother the Hirsh's in
Speaker 4: the valley. Other kids dads work in industries like aerospace.
Speaker 4: At least their pornographer father never helped make a bomb.
Speaker 4: Fred Hirsch and his kids are making an honest living
Speaker 4: in adult films, and the profits are worth tuning out
Speaker 4: seeing a little porn with your dad. By nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 4: ABC is making four point two million dollars a year,
Speaker 4: with most of it going right back into the operation.
Speaker 4: The Hirsh family nets a tidy profit of around half
Speaker 4: a million dollars. Steve Hirsch attends cal State Northridge by day,
Speaker 4: taking business and journalism classes by night, and on weekends
Speaker 4: he packs porn videotapes for shipping in the ABC warehouse
Speaker 4: and apprentices with his father, learning the back end of
Speaker 4: the adult film business inside and out.
Speaker 9: Bred Hirsch is an affable, nice guy. Steve Hirsch is
Speaker 9: a cunning, ruthless businessman. Budley director.
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch is wildly ambitious in his own right. He's
Speaker 4: seen firsthand how much money there is to be made
Speaker 4: in adult films and wants his own slice of the pie.
Speaker 4: He's already done the hardest part getting his foot in
Speaker 4: the door, so he decides to leave the comfort of
Speaker 4: the family business and take a sales job at a
Speaker 4: different adult film company, cal Vista International, located in Van Night.
Speaker 4: Cal Vista International is an adult film production and distribution
Speaker 4: company behind movies like nineteen seventy one's Grand Prix tagline
Speaker 4: Fast Cars, Hot Sluts. They have an amazing animated title
Speaker 4: sequence where a sexy blonde cartoon woman in a sheer
Speaker 4: nightgown points a camera towards the viewer under a night
Speaker 4: sky with glimmering stars as the cal Vista International logo appears.
Speaker 4: Cal Vista had a huge hit in nineteen seventy three
Speaker 4: with French Schoolgirls, a movie where nobody involved is French
Speaker 4: or a schoolgirl. French Schoolgirls stars Golden age seventies porn
Speaker 4: stars like Harry Reims, Tina Russell, and one of the
Speaker 4: biggest and most legendary porn performers of all time, John C. Holmes.
Speaker 10: I don't take drugs. Drugs take me, John Seaholmes.
Speaker 4: Because porn is so disrespected as an art form, it's
Speaker 4: much easier to break into than Hollywood, which is a
Speaker 4: fortress of knowing the right people or having a famous
Speaker 4: last name. So the first wave of porn directors who
Speaker 4: get to be credited are a mix of performers and
Speaker 4: film school Mavericks.
Speaker 11: I was a journalism major at the University of Miami
Speaker 11: when I went to a theater showing foreign films and
Speaker 11: Coral Gables and saw Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves, and
Speaker 11: from that time on I was hooked. I had to
Speaker 11: become a filmmaker. I moved to California and took theater
Speaker 11: arts courses at Santa Monica City College before enrolling at
Speaker 11: EUCLA to study motion picture production. Bob Chin director.
Speaker 4: Born in Honolulu to Chinese parents and raised in La
Speaker 4: Bob Chin, a Taurus, pursues his dream of becoming a
Speaker 4: filmmaker at UCLA Film He's classmates with Jim Morrison, but
Speaker 4: because he is Asian American, Bob Chin finds it difficult
Speaker 4: to break into mainstream film, so he starts directing porn.
Speaker 4: He directs both as Bob Chin and using pseudonyms like
Speaker 4: Sparky Shane and Wizard Glick. In the nineteen seventies, Bob
Speaker 4: Chin becomes one of porn's first auteur filmmakers and pioneers
Speaker 4: the concept of porn franchises with recurring characters when he
Speaker 4: links up with John C.
Speaker 12: Holmes.
Speaker 4: John Curtis Holmes, a LEO, is a Bible school dropout
Speaker 4: from Asheville, Ohio, who flees his religious fanatic mother and
Speaker 4: a string of abusive stepfathers for the Army. Discharged after
Speaker 4: three years in West Germany, John Holmes moves to la
Speaker 4: where he works as a salesman, factory employee and as
Speaker 4: a taxian ambulance driver. He turns twenty one, marries a
Speaker 4: nurse and gets a job operating a forklift at a
Speaker 4: meat packing plant in the South Bay. The walk in
Speaker 4: freezer at the meatpacking plant gives him severe health issues
Speaker 4: that cause one of his lungs to collapse. Allegedly, John
Speaker 4: Holmes is discovered at a poker club in Guardina. He's
Speaker 4: in the men's bathroom at the urinals when an adult
Speaker 4: photo agent spots his huge, soft, uncircumcised penis somewhere between
Speaker 4: ten and sixteen inches long and tells him he should
Speaker 4: monetize it. Holmes starts nude modeling and filming illegal stag
Speaker 4: films and loops for money. He goes by John C.
Speaker 4: Holmes joking the sea stands for cash because that's all
Speaker 4: he accepts after one check bounces. John C. Holmes meets
Speaker 4: Bob Chin in nineteen seventy one when Holmes walks into
Speaker 4: Chin's office and asks for a film crew job as
Speaker 4: a gaffer. Holmes is a skinny, six foot two guy
Speaker 4: with big, curly blonde hair and a mustache. He tells
Speaker 4: Bob Chin he's an actor too. He looks more like
Speaker 4: a hippie weirdo than a leading man type, but Bob
Speaker 4: Chin becomes convinced of his star power.
Speaker 11: He pulled down his pants and showed me his credentials.
Speaker 4: Bobchin creates a franchise around his muse where John Holmes
Speaker 4: plays a private dick named Johnny Wadd. One Johnny wadd Movie,
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy seven's The Jade Pussycat is replicated faithfully in
Speaker 4: Boogie Knights. The Burt Reynolds character Jack Horner is a
Speaker 4: composite of seventies porn impresarios, including Bobchin. The Jade Pussycat
Speaker 4: is set in San Francisco's Chinatown and co stars Linda Wong,
Speaker 4: a Japanese American actress from San Francisco and former Homecoming
Speaker 4: queen who is one of the first Asian American porn stars.
Speaker 4: Bob Chin's Johnny wadd series pioneers the concept of a
Speaker 4: porn franchise with sequels and recurring characters in tandem with
Speaker 4: seventies mainstream franchises. After the success of Jaws and Star Wars,
Speaker 4: Bob Chin's hit movies make John C. Holmes and his
Speaker 4: gigantic Dick Horn's first true megastar.
Speaker 10: I've never found a girl who could not take it.
Speaker 10: It's really in the way you do it. Though I've
Speaker 10: had some women say they've had guys half my size,
Speaker 10: we couldn't get it in the problem is that most
Speaker 10: guys don't know how to read a lady and what
Speaker 10: she really wants. With some you have to be gentle
Speaker 10: and romantic and with others. You gotta get down and dirty.
Speaker 10: The secret is you have to get in touch with
Speaker 10: what they wait.
Speaker 4: Holmes makes seventy five bucks for the first Johnny Watt movie.
Speaker 4: Success gets his rate up to three thousand dollars a day,
Speaker 4: and he makes thousands of movies. He would be rich,
Speaker 4: but he spends it all on drugs and is always broke.
Speaker 4: He starts doing crimes on the side, like petty theft,
Speaker 4: credit card fraud, and pimping. His coke and freebasing habits
Speaker 4: start affecting his adult film work, making him flaky, unfocused,
Speaker 4: and unable to stay hard on camera. He gets blacklisted
Speaker 4: and dropped by everyone in town, including Bob Chin. No
Speaker 4: star is bigger than the industry that made them a star.
Speaker 4: Not even John C.
Speaker 10: Holmes friends will get you killed.
Speaker 4: John Holmes becomes doubly notorious for his involvement with the
Speaker 4: Wonderland or Four on the Floor quadruple murder case in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty one. The Wonderland Gang were a group of
Speaker 4: heroin addicted coke dealers who dealt from a house off
Speaker 4: Laurel Canyon on Wonderland Avenue. They robbed a club owner
Speaker 4: drug dealer named Eddie Nash, and Nash blamed John Holmes,
Speaker 4: who'd been at his house earlier that day and had
Speaker 4: left a glass sliding door cracked open. Either Eddie Nash
Speaker 4: or another enemy. He sent a team to torture and
Speaker 4: murder the Wonderland Gang. Neighbors didn't call the cops because
Speaker 4: they were always having crazy parties at the Wonderland House.
Speaker 4: The LAPD finds John C. Holmes's hand prints and a
Speaker 4: million dollars worth of cocaine at the Wonderland House and
Speaker 4: decide to charge him with all four murders. Lead Detective
Speaker 4: Tom Lang is later a lead detective in Oj Simpson's
Speaker 4: murder case. John Holmes goes on the LAMB for six months,
Speaker 4: then stands trial in nineteen eighty two. After a three
Speaker 4: week trial, John Holmes is acquitted. He's tried and acquitted
Speaker 4: a second time, and then Eddie Nash is also tried
Speaker 4: and acquitted. The Eddie Nash trial marks the first time
Speaker 4: in American history that a videotape is introduced as evidence
Speaker 4: in a trial. Videotapes are also changing the landscape of
Speaker 4: porn Companies like the Hirsh Families. AVC are taking over
Speaker 4: the business as film gives way to the home video revolution.
Speaker 4: The top us producers and distributors are known as the
Speaker 4: Big Three, and they're all in the Valley VCA or
Speaker 4: Video Co of America in Chatsworth, Essex Video in Northridge,
Speaker 4: and Caballero Home Video in Canoga Park. Much like ABC,
Speaker 4: Essex Video is also a family dynasty, founded in nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty by Jose Domingo Ristreppo from Bogota, Columbia. Rostreppo changes
Speaker 4: his professional name to Joe Steinmann. Usually it's Jewish people
Speaker 4: who change their names to sound wasp beer, but here
Speaker 4: it's a Colombian guy changing his name to sound more Jewish.
Speaker 4: In order to make it in the porn business. Joe
Speaker 4: Steinmann buys rights to existing adult films and distributes them
Speaker 4: on tape at Essex Video. He has four sons, who,
Speaker 4: like the Hirsh Kids, work for him. The Steinmann sons
Speaker 4: attend high school in Van Nuys by day and pack
Speaker 4: tapes in the shipping warehouse at night. Joe's second eldest son,
Speaker 4: Jeff Steinmann, becomes the main heir to the Essex Video
Speaker 4: brand as it transitions from filmed video in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 4: Joe Steinman steps down from Essex Video and turns it
Speaker 4: over to his son, Jeff. It is Jeff Steinmann at
Speaker 4: Essex Video who is first to give performers exclusive studio
Speaker 4: contracts and make them what's called a contract girl. Steinman
Speaker 4: signs Barbara Dare, a five foot two blonde Jewish lesbian
Speaker 4: from Wayne, New Jersey, to make ten films for Essex
Speaker 4: Video in one year to earn one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. At its peak, Essex Video racks up forty
Speaker 4: million dollars a year and employs a staff of sixty five.
Speaker 4: Cal Vista International is not in the Big three, but
Speaker 4: it's the fourth or fifth biggest studio in the valley.
Speaker 4: When Steve Hurst starts working there, he travels coast to
Speaker 4: coast peddling Calvista tapes to buyers at sex shops and
Speaker 4: video stores. He's mentored at Calvista by two porn elder
Speaker 4: Statesmen and meets another young guy named David James. Hirsch
Speaker 4: and David James start privately discussing launching their own studio.
Speaker 2: He was sort of overseeing the warehouse and the mail
Speaker 2: order division, and I was overseeing the wholesale division.
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch sees the future of the business from his
Speaker 4: time selling videotapes on the road. With the move from
Speaker 4: film to video, there's been a change in the way
Speaker 4: adult content is sold and consumed. While video's ascension signals
Speaker 4: the end for porn's old lions, it becomes a backdoor
Speaker 4: for a new generation of pornographers primed to embrace the
Speaker 4: video age. The battle between VHS and Beta Max for
Speaker 4: eighties home video supremacy is decided by porn Sony refuses
Speaker 4: to let it. Beta Max tapes carry adult content, but
Speaker 4: VHS decides to allow adult content, and thus VHS ends
Speaker 4: up burying data. Max video lacks the image fidelity of film,
Speaker 4: but importantly, video is much cheaper than film. It also
Speaker 4: offers a sensual griminess and immediacy. Video is way less
Speaker 4: finicky than film, and did I mention it's cheap. Stephen
Speaker 4: Hersch and David James team up to start their own
Speaker 4: porn studio. They put the new format right there in
Speaker 4: the name Vivid Video. Steve Hirsh wants to be a
Speaker 4: porn tycoon. He models himself after his father, Fred, but
Speaker 4: also hopes to surpass his success. He has a vision
Speaker 4: for Vivid Video using contract girls to market porn stars
Speaker 4: like movie stars. In another innovation, Vivid will be first
Speaker 4: to put a performer's name in a film's title. In
Speaker 4: this way, he will be able to build his performers
Speaker 4: brands up to rise in value, and the marketing blitzes
Speaker 4: orchestrated around stars will benefit performers and their studios.
Speaker 2: We had a better way of skinning the cat. We
Speaker 2: wanted Vivid Video to be unique and separate ourselves from
Speaker 2: the rest of the industry. We wanted to focus on
Speaker 2: a girl, not just some innocuous movie title. There were
Speaker 2: two huge stars at the time, Ginger Lynn and Tracy Lord's.
Speaker 2: Fortunately we chose the right one. We focused on Ginger
Speaker 2: and she was the first Vivid girl.
Speaker 4: He is glad they didn't choose Tracy because she was
Speaker 4: working in porn underage, using a fake ID that said
Speaker 4: she was eighteen. This jeopardized the porn business by making
Speaker 4: it seem like she'd been knowingly hired while underage, but
Speaker 4: really everyone just believed her fake ID was real. Had
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch chosen Tracy Lords to be the first Vivid girl,
Speaker 4: this whole story would be different. But Luckily for him,
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch decided to bet the house on ginger Lynn Allen.
Speaker 4: When Jenna World returns, ginger Lynn Allen becomes Vivid Videos
Speaker 4: first contract girl Oh My an Welcome back to Jenna Worldwood.
Speaker 1: I actually helped Vivid form a lot of their ideas.
Speaker 1: We worked very closely together. It was a very good experience.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 13: Ginger Lynn was comfortably pretty. She didn't have the kind
Speaker 13: of beauty that chilled you, it warmed you. She came
Speaker 13: along at exactly the right time. William Margold X rated
Speaker 13: critics Organization.
Speaker 4: Ginger Lynn Allen is a tomboy born and raised in Rockford, Illinois.
Speaker 4: Her father, Wayne Allen, was an alcoholic who physically abused
Speaker 4: her mother, Marilyn. Her mother, Marilyn, was born to a
Speaker 4: prostitute and adopted into a family of strict Baptists. Marilyn
Speaker 4: would beat Gingerlyn and scream at her that she was
Speaker 4: evil and ugly like the Mom and Carrie. Ginger Lynn's
Speaker 4: parents divorce, and she's so traumatized from her home life
Speaker 4: that she tries to commit suicide by sleeping pills at
Speaker 4: age twelve. At age thirteen, she moves in with her
Speaker 4: dad's parents, who provide a calm, stable environment. She gets
Speaker 4: into sex, drugs and skipping class, but still graduates from
Speaker 4: Rockford West High at eighteen in nineteen eighty. In nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty two, at age twenty, Gingerlyn moves to Redlands, California,
Speaker 4: to care for her grandfather. When he dies, ginger Lynn
Speaker 4: and a guy she calls her first nice boyfriend move
Speaker 4: into her grandpa's trailer park home. She gets a job
Speaker 4: at a chain record store called Musicland, but it barely
Speaker 4: pays the bills and rent. Then she sees a print
Speaker 4: ad for World Modeling Agency, the biggest adult modeling agency
Speaker 4: in the LA area. It's run by a dark haired
Speaker 4: Texan fellow with a big walrus mustache who always wears
Speaker 4: cowboy boots, western shirts and jeans. He goes by the
Speaker 4: name of Jim South.
Speaker 14: Anybody can say or have the opinion they want to have,
Speaker 14: just like I believe, if a girl is of age
Speaker 14: and she's not drugged or coerced, she has the right
Speaker 14: to be in a movie. She has the right to rent, buy,
Speaker 14: or view a movie. I think there will always be
Speaker 14: people who think any of this is degrading for women.
Speaker 9: Jim South agent.
Speaker 4: Jim South is born James Marvin Sowder Junior in Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 4: A virgo, he works as a Texas insurance salesman in
Speaker 4: the early sixties. In nineteen sixty eight, he moves to
Speaker 4: la and gets a job at an agency that reps
Speaker 4: fashion models. In nineteen seventy six, James Sowder redubs himself
Speaker 4: Jim South and starts World Modeling Talent Agency, which represents
Speaker 4: nude models in an office on the valleys Van Nuys Boulevard,
Speaker 4: evading LAPD surveillance in the occasional pimping charge. Jim South
Speaker 4: runs print ads scouting for new adult talent for decades.
Speaker 4: World Modeling Agency and another agency called Pretty Girl International
Speaker 4: are the only two agencies who recruit and represent nude performers.
Speaker 4: Signing with one of them is the primary way to
Speaker 4: break into adult films.
Speaker 14: Holy men in the business are just props. The women
Speaker 14: make the line share of the money. The women dictate
Speaker 14: who they'll work with and who they won't work with.
Speaker 14: Believe me.
Speaker 4: Ginger Lynn Allen answers a World Modeling Agency ad seeking
Speaker 4: figure models for one hundred and fifty dollars a shoot.
Speaker 1: He asked me to take my clothes off. I had
Speaker 1: no trouble doing that whatsoever. I was never ashamed or embarrassed.
Speaker 1: I was always comfortable with my body.
Speaker 4: Now, some people say Jim South is a true professional
Speaker 4: with a strict no dating the talent policy. Other people
Speaker 4: say he's a real scumbag who offers models cocaine and
Speaker 4: champagne to try to get them to take their clothes
Speaker 4: off faster. Ginger Lynne signs with Jim South's agency and
Speaker 4: he books her first paid photoshoot. On the spot, she
Speaker 4: dumps her nice boyfriend and moves to La ginger Lynde's
Speaker 4: nude pictures for Hustler and Penthouse get her noticed and
Speaker 4: scouted to do adult films. She makes her first one
Speaker 4: that year, called Surrender in Paradise, shooting in Maui, with
Speaker 4: actor Jerry Butler. Butler, whose real name is Paul Siderman,
Speaker 4: becomes her next boyfriend. Jerry Butler stars in adult films
Speaker 4: like Raw Talent, which has this indelible dialogue from Butler
Speaker 4: and actress Taija Ray, what.
Speaker 15: Do you do?
Speaker 12: I'm an actor.
Speaker 8: Name something you've been in?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 4: I was in a soap opera, Dawn of day.
Speaker 11: I don't watch soaps. Name something else, all right.
Speaker 4: I did some off off Broadway, some one act plays,
Speaker 4: some summer revivals.
Speaker 16: Tell me something I might have seen on TV, something
Speaker 16: really big, something that's.
Speaker 10: Been on TV. Well, I was in the Vietnam War
Speaker 10: and I had a bit part in that one.
Speaker 4: Jerry Butler's father managed the original Coney Island location of
Speaker 4: Nathan's hot Dogs, and his grandfather was Leon Trotsky's half brother.
Speaker 4: Jerry himself once tied for first place in the Nathan's
Speaker 4: hot Dog eating contest in New York. Jerry Butler studies
Speaker 4: the Meisner technique, tries out for the New York Rangers,
Speaker 4: and drives a taxi cab. After failing to bring into
Speaker 4: mainstream acting, he gets into porn and does movies like
Speaker 4: Angel Buns, Fixin's In Heat, Debbie does Dallas three, and
Speaker 4: Doctor Strange. Sex on set in Maui, Jerry Butler proposes
Speaker 4: to Ginger Lynn.
Speaker 1: She accepts, I was making more money in two weeks
Speaker 1: than I did in two years, and I was having
Speaker 1: great sex with someone I loved.
Speaker 4: Ginger Lynn breaks off her engagement to Jerry Butler halfway
Speaker 4: through filming because he insists on method acting, speaking with
Speaker 4: a heavy New York accent, and wearing a gross shirt
Speaker 4: even when he's not filming. It's her first of ten
Speaker 4: broken engagements. Ginger Lynn makes five one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: dollars for Surrender in Paradise. With her eighties video girl
Speaker 4: look and strong work ethic, she quickly rises up the
Speaker 4: ranks of adult film. Nineteen seventies golden age porn stars
Speaker 4: resembled the stars of nineteen seventies New Hollywood. The men
Speaker 4: Harry and Ethnic. The women also Harry Bralis and Freaky
Speaker 4: Everyone's sweaty as hell. Guys like John Holmes and Harry
Speaker 4: Reems are the porn equivalents of actors like Robert De
Speaker 4: Niro and Al Pacino.
Speaker 17: Let's face it, we were a hairy bunch back then,
Speaker 17: and there was more of the natural woman. I became
Speaker 17: famous as a porn star not because I was so
Speaker 17: gorgeous or I had the best body, but probably because
Speaker 17: people felt comfortable with me. I was kind of like
Speaker 17: the girl next door that you could feel like you
Speaker 17: could talk to and maybe get lucky with. Veronica Hart, performer.
Speaker 4: The adult film business begins in New York before moving
Speaker 4: to La The first performers to have sex on film
Speaker 4: are a mix of stage actors, times Square strips, and
Speaker 4: downtown artists, which is why monologust and actor Spaulding Gray
Speaker 4: appears in a nineteen seventy six porn oh called The
Speaker 4: Farmer's Daughters. The porn stars of the nineteen eighties resemble
Speaker 4: mainstream nineteen eighties movie stars, clean cut, all American Barbie's
Speaker 4: and Ken's. If they're sweaty, it is only with the
Speaker 4: healthy sheen of exercise, which includes vigorous sex. Risky business
Speaker 4: is a big hit in the eighties, and porn stars
Speaker 4: start to resemble stars like Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Morney.
Speaker 4: The girls are approachable, pretty preppy babes who do filthy
Speaker 4: sex stuff in the movies. So ginger Lynn Allen, who
Speaker 4: has the clean cut, blonde, white babysitter look that's in
Speaker 4: favor in Hollywood, thrives in the valley. Now that she's
Speaker 4: making good money doing porn, ginger Lynn has to make
Speaker 4: as much as she possibly can. She has already shown
Speaker 4: her tits and ass on the film record, which in
Speaker 4: the eighties was considered a social death sentence for having
Speaker 4: a normal life afterwards, But ginger Lynn didn't have a
Speaker 4: normal life in Rockford either. The girl who looked to
Speaker 4: everyone else like a wholesome teenage girl in Illinois was
Speaker 4: secretly suffering at home. In Los Angeles, ginger Lynn has
Speaker 4: personal freedom from her abusive family and something else, vital
Speaker 4: financial independence. Gingerlynn is also well aware that porn, much
Speaker 4: like Hollywood, tends to chew people up and spit them
Speaker 4: back out. In her first year in the biz, she's
Speaker 4: already nearly run the gauntlet of filmed sex acts. She
Speaker 4: doesn't want audiences to tire of her novelty too quickly
Speaker 4: and move on to new performers, and that is how
Speaker 4: ginger Lynn finds herself at Gladstone's on the beach, eating
Speaker 4: crab legs by the ocean with Stephen Hirsch as he
Speaker 4: paints a beautiful picture of her future at his new studio,
Speaker 4: Vivid Video. He makes her an offer an exclusive contract
Speaker 4: where she'll become what he calls the first Vivid Girl,
Speaker 4: with clauses for casting and script approval, royalties for videotape sales,
Speaker 4: and an ad campaign dedicated to marketing her to the masses.
Speaker 4: Ginger Lynn knows that Stephen Hirst has nothing to show
Speaker 4: for his pitch, but big promises. But he wins her over.
Speaker 4: They will launch vivid video together.
Speaker 2: It's the way they talk, the way their eyes are,
Speaker 2: way they carry themselves. If there's something that just really
Speaker 2: stands out about them, then we send them over to
Speaker 2: our photographer. If those look great, we shared a scene
Speaker 2: with them, because obviously the sex has to be great.
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch also believes that the home video revolution will
Speaker 4: open up a lucrative new consumer base.
Speaker 13: Women.
Speaker 4: Anyone too shy or ashamed to admit they want to
Speaker 4: see movies of people having sex will now be able
Speaker 4: to consume them in a its setting. If the idea
Speaker 4: of having to sit in a theater surrounded by raincoated
Speaker 4: dudes jacking it is what put you off porn, you're
Speaker 4: suddenly in luck. You can now watch it in the
Speaker 4: ideal eighties viewing setup. Sitting on a black leather couch
Speaker 4: with a glass top coffee table and a neon lit
Speaker 4: tropical fish tank, watching on a big TV with a VCR.
Speaker 1: I look like what might be your best friend's sister.
Speaker 4: Ginger Len Allen will give these new female viewers an
Speaker 4: avatar they can identify with, providing them an entree into
Speaker 4: watching porn. If this nice, normal, suburban girl can do pornography,
Speaker 4: surely there's nothing wrong with watching her enjoying herself. The
Speaker 4: first female porn stars reflected the sexual revolution spurred by
Speaker 4: birth control pills. They were freaky hippie chicks who liked
Speaker 4: to eat health food and fuck. Many were political, actively
Speaker 4: pushing against social constraints, and accepted female roles in society.
Speaker 4: Instead of pursuing homemaking, child rearing, or husband hunting, they
Speaker 4: searched for personal ecstasy. But there was also a known
Speaker 4: dark side, best represented by deep throats Linda Lovelace and
Speaker 4: other women like her, who were pushed by suitcase pimp
Speaker 4: boyfriends into doing stuff on camera against their will. Nineteen
Speaker 4: eighties porn reflected a backlash against the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 4: an attempted reset to an imaginary wholesome as apple Pie
Speaker 4: America the Reagan years. Ginger Lenn Allen is young and sexy,
Speaker 4: but approachable in an eighties twist, She's also a powerful businesswoman.
Speaker 4: She's the perfect screen commodity for her era and for
Speaker 4: Stephen Hirsch's big plan to prove that porn is not
Speaker 4: a gross thing. For disgusting people. It's a normal, healthy
Speaker 4: outlet for human sexuality.
Speaker 18: Stephen Hirsch grew up when porn was a dirty, underground business.
Speaker 18: If he was going to be in the business, it
Speaker 18: was going to be mainstream. Bill Asher Vivid Video co.
Speaker 4: Chair Stephen Hirsch's promise to make Ginger Lind a big
Speaker 4: star is more than just hot beach air. With thirty
Speaker 4: eight thousand dollars of capital, funded in part by his father, Fred,
Speaker 4: Vivid Video launches itself as the first adult film studio
Speaker 4: of the video age. Vivid sinks money into film production
Speaker 4: and even more money into the box cover, ponying up
Speaker 4: for a pro photographer to do a high fashion shoot
Speaker 4: of Ginger at the beach straddling a ceramic lion in
Speaker 4: a blue and white striped bikini in an industry first.
Speaker 4: Her first movie for Vivid Video is titled Ginger. Before Ginger,
Speaker 4: video covers were always a collage of the sex scenes within,
Speaker 4: and movies were never named after the star Ginger. The
Speaker 4: movie is an instant smack uh hit, establishing Gingerlynn the
Speaker 4: person as the video generation's new biggest porn star and
Speaker 4: Vivid Video as the new studio to watch Ginger sells
Speaker 4: a then record six thousand VHS copies right off the bat.
Speaker 4: A softcore cut of Ginger sells even more copies worldwide.
Speaker 4: The final gross for Ginger is seven hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: which is reinvested into follow up projects like Ginger on
Speaker 4: the Rocks, Ginger's Private Party, and I Dream of Ginger.
Speaker 1: The combination of a great box cover and young beautiful
Speaker 1: women became Vivid's trademark.
Speaker 18: The girls don't have to worry about anything. We handle
Speaker 18: their careers and treat them like stars.
Speaker 14: David James Vivid Video.
Speaker 4: When Jenna World returns, Vivid Video takes off into the stratosphere.
Speaker 4: Oh my, an welcome back to gena world. Gingerln Allen
Speaker 4: rises rapidly in fame at the same time as another
Speaker 4: horny Midwestern girl with a healthy appetite for fund and sex,
Speaker 4: Michigan's own Madonna, Luise Chicone a Leo. In nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 4: Madonna puts out a music video for Like a Virgin,
Speaker 4: directed by Mary Lambert no relation. The lyrics cause controversy,
Speaker 4: and the video where Madonna rolls around Venice hornily in
Speaker 4: a wedding dress, makes it a cultural Lightning Rod. Madonna's
Speaker 4: stardom causes discourse about what sex in the eighties means
Speaker 4: for America's horny young daughters, who could be tempted to
Speaker 4: leave the stifling suburbs behind to get involved in New
Speaker 4: York's bustling art scene and date John Michelle Bosquiat, Madonna
Speaker 4: and Ginger Lynn and straight a potential future where women
Speaker 4: aren't doomed to be sex objects lacking agency. They can
Speaker 4: be sex subjects expressing their feelings and desires. This is
Speaker 4: the start of what's called third wave feminism, which involves
Speaker 4: using female sexuality to gain power. The kind of power
Speaker 4: that can be gained from sexuality is allegedly temporary and
Speaker 4: easily taken away by the straight cis male audience who
Speaker 4: grant it. Of course, Madonna and Ginger Lynn are also
Speaker 4: both skinny, white women, which grants them certain societal privileges. However,
Speaker 4: the new nineteen eighties brand of women who are empowered
Speaker 4: both sexually and financially terrifies a lot of straight men.
Speaker 1: It was just this moment of freedom to know that
Speaker 1: sexually I was going to be able to do anything
Speaker 1: that I wanted, and it was okay.
Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty four is a landmark for Gingerlyn Allen. She
Speaker 4: wins big at the inaugural X Rated Critics Organization Awards
Speaker 4: for her first Vivid video releases, an award show partially
Speaker 4: funded by Stephen Hurst's father Fred. The first ever Adult
Speaker 4: Video News Awards or AVNS, are also held in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty four. Award shows promote the adult industry, build out
Speaker 4: Porn Valley's reputation as the other Hollywood, and provide a
Speaker 4: way for people in the porn biz to internally acknowledge
Speaker 4: the artistic value of their work.
Speaker 1: The industry definitely felt like a family.
Speaker 12: Back then.
Speaker 1: There were fifty people in the entire industry, and that
Speaker 1: included the cast and the crew. It was a wonderful
Speaker 1: relationship that developed between the cast members, the crew members, everybody.
Speaker 4: In a black dress with yellow polka dots that she
Speaker 4: got from a Sears department store at the mall. Gingerlyn
Speaker 4: Allen collect her X Rated Critic Organization Awards trophies for
Speaker 4: Starlet of the Year, Video Vixen, and Best Female Performer
Speaker 4: Vivid Videos. Contract Girl Gambit has paid off.
Speaker 1: I did what a lot of women do in the
Speaker 1: adult industry. You live right here, Right Now Today.
Speaker 4: By nineteen eighty five, ginger Lynn Allen is the biggest
Speaker 4: porn star and Vivid Video is the hottest porn studio.
Speaker 4: In the span of twenty seven months, She's made sixty
Speaker 4: nine adult films, such as Poonies, a porn parody of Goonies.
Speaker 4: She stars in New Wave Hookers, about cool girls who
Speaker 4: get horny when new wave music is played. New Wave
Speaker 4: Hookers pioneers what becomes known as alternative or alt porn.
Speaker 4: As the first Vivid Video contract girl, ginger Lynn is
Speaker 4: the cover star of sixteen titles, top sellers like Club
Speaker 4: Ginger and Ginger Sex Asylum. By nineteen eighty six, Gingerlyn
Speaker 4: is making nearly one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a
Speaker 4: year off her films and promotional work. She knows that
Speaker 4: her current success comes with no guarantees of financial longevity,
Speaker 4: but she wants to enjoy it while it lasts. The
Speaker 4: girl whose first award show dress came from Sears can
Speaker 4: now afford to drop cash on designer clothes at Beverly
Speaker 4: Hills boutiques and buy herself a brand new Porsche. She
Speaker 4: splashes out on a luxurious European vacation. She also starts
Speaker 4: doing a lot of cocaine, as does her boss, Stephen Hirsch.
Speaker 1: We didn't cocain the hotel rooms. We didn't cocin the limos.
Speaker 2: My life is out of control. Some of it was alcohol,
Speaker 2: some of it was drugs.
Speaker 5: Now was that.
Speaker 4: Having ascended in the ranks of poor into the pinnacles
Speaker 4: so quickly, Gingerlynn has a new dream making it in
Speaker 4: mainstream movies. Hollywood is sometimes the final gauntlet for porn stars.
Speaker 4: The curtain dividing porn from Hollywood is much thinner than
Speaker 4: people think. Some filmed fantasies play in big, fancy movie
Speaker 4: theaters and multiplexes, while others play on smaller screens at home.
Speaker 4: There's something erotic about filmmaking, whatever the genre, because it's
Speaker 4: voyeuristic in porn. The church like eroticism of the film
Speaker 4: going experience, the darkened theater and communal hush while you
Speaker 4: hope to be astonished is made literal with images designed
Speaker 4: to sexually arouse you. Once it was a secretive theater,
Speaker 4: now it's a private browsing tab. Even if Hollywood snubs
Speaker 4: the supposedly less classy porn industry in public, there is
Speaker 4: plenty of private socializing between folks from the valley and
Speaker 4: the other side of the hill. There's a quickly established
Speaker 4: path from porn to mainstream film, primarily into low budget
Speaker 4: B movies in genres like horror and sci fi as
Speaker 4: sex worker characters. Mainstream folks, particularly auter director types, but
Speaker 4: also everyone in comedy, privately love the adult film business.
Speaker 4: The idea of casting a porn star in a mainstream
Speaker 4: project to see if they can really act interests everyone,
Speaker 4: so in nineteen eighty six, ginger Lin Allen leaves adult
Speaker 4: films to try and parley her underground fame into a
Speaker 4: Hollywood acting career. She gets cast in her first mainstream project,
Speaker 4: a B movie titled Doctor Alien, where she plays a
Speaker 4: rock and roll chick. She's then in another B movie
Speaker 4: called Cleo Leo with another porn star turned mainstream actress
Speaker 4: named Veronica Hart. Veronica Hart is a redheaded adult film
Speaker 4: star who had a difficult child custody trial because of
Speaker 4: her job and inspired the Amber Waves character in Boogie Knights.
Speaker 4: Hart plays the judge in Amber Wave's hearing. Compared to
Speaker 4: the movie star treatment, movie star paycheck, and lead build
Speaker 4: roles that ginger Lynn got in porn. Mainstream films are
Speaker 4: a big financial step down. Now she also has to
Speaker 4: audition for parts and hardly ever books. Her mainstream efforts
Speaker 4: range from schlock like Vice Academy, a police Academy ripoff,
Speaker 4: to Ken Russell's sex work art house movie Whore. Even
Speaker 4: with the rise of the vivid video girl, porn is
Speaker 4: still mostly backroom stuff. To obtain porn to watch at home,
Speaker 4: you still have to buy it at an adult bookstore,
Speaker 4: rent it from the other new business spawned by the
Speaker 4: VHS revolution video stores, where the X rated stuff is
Speaker 4: kept in a curtained off adults only section. Ginger Lynn
Speaker 4: Allen ends up in a very unique situation. She is
Speaker 4: one of the most famous women on Earth, her films
Speaker 4: among the most watched, but not everyone wants to publicly
Speaker 4: admit that they know who she is or why. In
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety, she plays a hooker named Dove in Young
Speaker 4: Guns two and meets star Emilio Estevez's brother Charlie Sheen,
Speaker 4: who opted out of being In the sequel, Ginger Lynn
Speaker 4: gets into a romantic relationship with Charlie Sheen, and for
Speaker 4: even more on that, please listen to my other podcast,
Speaker 4: Heidi World the Heidi Fly story.
Speaker 1: Charlie is the only man I ever really loved. People
Speaker 1: thought who I was was detrimental to his career.
Speaker 19: Ginger is, in my opinion, one of the finest people
Speaker 19: I've ever known. She has a powerful sense of integrity,
Speaker 19: a strong internally defined morality, and is at times generous
Speaker 19: to a fault. Charlie Sheen actor.
Speaker 4: Charlie Sheen and Amelio Savez come from an acting dynasty
Speaker 4: through their father, Martin Sheen. They grew up in Malibu
Speaker 4: with other second generation showbiz kids whose parents left the
Speaker 4: Method acting studios of New York to work in la
Speaker 4: in the burgeoning television industry. The Sheen parents are Hollywood leftists,
Speaker 4: and their kids have friends like Sean Penn, whose father
Speaker 4: Leo Penn, was blacklisted for refusing to name names of
Speaker 4: purported Communists to the House on American Activities Committee. Charlie
Speaker 4: Sheen encourages Ginger linn Allen's acting ambitions. He makes her
Speaker 4: feel like she can and will be part of mainstream Hollywood.
Speaker 4: Charlie Sheen became a major movie star with the box
Speaker 4: office hat trick of Wall Street Young Guns in Major League,
Speaker 4: but by the early nineties he's had some big flops
Speaker 4: and he's plagued by addiction issues. Charlie Sheen and Ginger
Speaker 4: Lynn are allegedly doing a lot of drugs together.
Speaker 1: It was almost like he was the male version of
Speaker 1: me and I was the female version of him.
Speaker 4: Ginger lenn Allen dates Charlie Sheen through his first major
Speaker 4: stint at rehab and stands by her man during his
Speaker 4: involvement with the Heidiflies trial. Then he dumps her. She
Speaker 4: is heartbroken. She allegedly shakes it off with a six
Speaker 4: month long fling with George Clooney after guest starring in
Speaker 4: an episode of soap opera Sunset Beat, until she finds
Speaker 4: out Clooney is still married to Talia Balsam.
Speaker 1: On a scale of one to ten, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give George an eleven for performance, and as far as equipment,
Speaker 1: I give him a twelve.
Speaker 4: Ginger finds new personal fulfillment in mainstream acting. In nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety three, she hits a high in her Hollywood career
Speaker 4: playing a topless dancer named Monique on one of the
Speaker 4: most popular shows on TV, NYPD Blue. Her episode Tempest
Speaker 4: in a Cea Cup wins an Emmy Award for Best
Speaker 4: Drama Direction against stiff competition from three other episodes of
Speaker 4: NYPD Blue and the pilot of Lois and Clark The
Speaker 4: New Adventures of Superman. By the nineteen nineties, Ginger Lynn
Speaker 4: Allen is enough of a household name that she is
Speaker 4: allegedly called in to audition for Martin Scorsese's Casino. Naturally,
Speaker 4: she auditions for the role of Ginger, which ends up
Speaker 4: going to Sharon Stone. According to some sources, Ginger was
Speaker 4: Scorsese's top pick and Sharon Stone was the studios I
Speaker 4: know that it's impossible to imagine anyone other than Sharon
Speaker 4: Stone in the role of Ginger. I dare you to
Speaker 4: look up the real Ginger McKenna and see how much
Speaker 4: she looks like Sharon Stone. Ginger Lynn Allen has a
Speaker 4: vulnerable softness to her that would have changed the character
Speaker 4: of Ginger into something very different. Sharon Stone's portrayal of
Speaker 4: Ginger McKenna is so remarkable because it is so hard
Speaker 4: edged and kinetic, like flipping a shiny coin. That Martin
Speaker 4: Scorsese allegedly brought Ginger Lynn Allen into audition for Casino
Speaker 4: means he probably saw her movies and thought she had
Speaker 4: a kind of genuine star quality, which means Martin Scorsese
Speaker 4: agrees with me that pornography is real cinema. End of podcasts,
Speaker 4: Just kidding Transition.
Speaker 8: Vivid changed forever the way adult material is marketed there.
Speaker 8: The trendset is they tend to copy mainstream entertainment, mainstream
Speaker 8: business principles, mainstream graphic arts and advertising principles. Then a
Speaker 8: lot of people in the adult business copy them. Christian Man,
Speaker 8: general manager Evil Angel.
Speaker 4: After Gingerlyn Allen leave Vivid in nineteen eighty six to
Speaker 4: pursue her mainstream acting dreams, Stephen Hirsch moves on to
Speaker 4: manufacturing his next Vivid video starlet. While ginger Lynn Allen
Speaker 4: came into Vivid with her own established style and some
Speaker 4: film credits already under her belt, Hirsch uses his new
Speaker 4: power to do a creepy thing that guys with power
Speaker 4: in the film industry love to do. He wants to
Speaker 4: mold a new actress into his own personal sexual ideal.
Speaker 4: The classic example is Alfred Hitchcock and Grace Kelly, followed
Speaker 4: by a succession of icy blonde actresses. Hirsh's first Vivid
Speaker 4: girl creation after Ginger Lynn is Jamie Summers. Stephen Hirsch
Speaker 4: sets his sights on an eighteen year old brunette from
Speaker 4: La named Denise Stafford, who goes platinum blonde and takes
Speaker 4: the stage name Jamie Summers after TV's The Bionic Woman
Speaker 4: to become a Vivid Girl. Jamie Summers is another each
Speaker 4: blonde bombshell designed to fill the spot evacuated by Ginger Lind.
Speaker 4: With her teased blonde hair and hot pink lips, she
Speaker 4: resembles Darryl Hannah in Splash. Jamie Summers is also conveniently
Speaker 4: dating Stephen Hirsch. He casts her as a spoiled Beverly
Speaker 4: Hills yuppie bitch in her own starring franchise called The Brat.
Speaker 20: I hope you like it. It's about me The Brat.
Speaker 20: I take astrology classes, I do aerobics, I eat sushi,
Speaker 20: and I'm so busy I hardly have time to satisfy
Speaker 20: my horny husband. Jamie Summers. Vivid Girl.
Speaker 4: Jamie Summers and the next few Vivid Girls afterwards all
Speaker 4: follow the template set by gingerln Allen. Short and blonde
Speaker 4: with a suburban girl next door look. He hires actresses
Speaker 4: like Nikki charm A four foot eleven California beach Blonde
Speaker 4: and Barbara Dare aforementioned five foot two blonde Jewish lesbian
Speaker 4: from New Jersey. Vivid video puts out Jamie Loves Jeff,
Speaker 4: directed by Paul Thomas. Paul Thomas is a nineteen seventies
Speaker 4: Golden age porn performer who moves into directing in the eighties.
Speaker 4: A six foot two aires of Greek and Russian Jewish descent.
Speaker 4: Born Philip Charles Tubis in Winnetka, Illinois, he attended the
Speaker 4: University of Wisconsin on a basketball scholarship and majored in
Speaker 4: political science. Like a lot of original porn guys, Paul
Speaker 4: Thomas was aiming for mainstream success at first, and he
Speaker 4: even tasted a little bit. Paul Thomas was a New
Speaker 4: York stage actor who was in the New York productions
Speaker 4: of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. He even played the
Speaker 4: apostle Peter in the nineteen seventy three film version of
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ Superstar. He moved to California and signed with
Speaker 4: the William Morris Agency. He was auditioning fruitlessly for tea
Speaker 4: shows when he was scouted into porn. Paul Thomas, known
Speaker 4: as Pet in the adult industry, stars in Golden Age
Speaker 4: porn films like One of a Kind about an enchanted
Speaker 4: accordion whose music makes everyone so horny they have to fuck.
Speaker 4: He even makes use of his musical theater skills when
Speaker 4: he composes and performs a song called If Wishes Were
Speaker 4: Horses for a Bob Chin movie called Fantasy World. In
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty two, Paul Thomas is caught smuggling cocaine into
Speaker 4: the US from South America and serves a year in prison.
Speaker 4: After his release from jail, he returns to porn, this
Speaker 4: time behind the camera, directing.
Speaker 12: I don't define myself as anything Jeff Striker, performer.
Speaker 4: In addition to Vivid Girls, there are Vivid Boys. Vivid
Speaker 4: Video puts out gay porn movies like What the Big
Speaker 4: Boys Eat. Gay porn is a parallel lane to the
Speaker 4: straight porn industry that occasionally intersects. Directors routinely crossover between
Speaker 4: gay and straight porn, and wood men sometimes work in both.
Speaker 4: Some male performers do what's known as gay for pay,
Speaker 4: where they take a paycheck to have sex with men
Speaker 4: on screen, but do not identify sexually as gay or
Speaker 4: fluid in their personal lives. In nineteen eighty seven, Paul
Speaker 4: Thomas direct Jamie Loves Jeff for Vivid, where Jamie Summers
Speaker 4: has sex with one of gay pornography's biggest stars, a
Speaker 4: guy named Jeff Striker.
Speaker 12: Someone had labeled me a quote straight actor and gay
Speaker 12: porn but universal, I think is the only word I
Speaker 12: could actually use to describe my sexuality. I think humans
Speaker 12: are humans. I could be sitting next to God knows
Speaker 12: what and get turned on. Now.
Speaker 15: I think Jeff is great. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 15: Jeff Striker. I think he's the carry granted porna and
Speaker 15: in person he looks great, he looks real. He has
Speaker 15: a great car, like a muscle car. I mean he's perfect.
Speaker 15: I think he's the perfect porno star. He does gain
Speaker 15: straight too, He's all purpose. John Waters director.
Speaker 4: Jeff Striker is born Charles Casper Payton in Carme, Illinois,
Speaker 4: in August of nineteen sixty two. A leo, he's raised
Speaker 4: in Springfield, Illinois, and gets sent to military school at
Speaker 4: age thirteen, and when he gets back home, he learns
Speaker 4: his parents are divorcing. He works as a balloon, telegram
Speaker 4: delivery man and a stripper until a friend sends photos
Speaker 4: of him to a gay porn director named John Travis,
Speaker 4: who scouts him into porn. Jeff Striker's gay porn career
Speaker 4: takes off in movies like Power tool On and Striker Force.
Speaker 4: Jamie Loves Jeff becomes one of Vivid Video's biggest selling
Speaker 4: titles yet.
Speaker 21: Jamie and Jeff used to be the hottest couple in
Speaker 21: high school until she dumped him for dorky lawyer Tom,
Speaker 21: and Jeff ended up marrying Megan five years later. At
Speaker 21: the high school reunion, the former lovers fall in love
Speaker 21: all over again, while their respective spouse's embark on a
Speaker 21: little grudge fund of their own. Vodkatonic adult DVD talk.
Speaker 12: I handpick all the actors I work with. Porn stars
Speaker 12: myself included, only have so much life. If you pour
Speaker 12: it out in a year, you get burned out. If
Speaker 12: you could afford to carefully do a movie a year,
Speaker 12: then that's looking for a career. As long as I
Speaker 12: look good in front of the camera. When I start
Speaker 12: looking bad, I'll be the first to get off screen.
Speaker 4: Nudity in films has been protected since nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 4: when the Stanley Versus Georgia rulings said people were free
Speaker 4: to watch whatever they wanted in the privacy of their
Speaker 4: own homes. This led to everything from new Hollywood films
Speaker 4: to the full legalization of pornography, all protected under the
Speaker 4: First Amendment. Conservatives were pissed, and in response, Congress fund
Speaker 4: did the President's Commission on Obscenity in Pornography. Set up
Speaker 4: by LBJ and carried out by Richard Nixon. The nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty nine President's Commission on Obscenity in Pornography found that
Speaker 4: there is quote no evidence that exposure to explicit sexual
Speaker 4: materials adversely affects character or moral attitudes regarding sex and
Speaker 4: sexual conduct end quote. President Nixon and Congress rejected the findings,
Speaker 4: which did not fit with their anti porn fear mongering
Speaker 4: and the puritanical attitudes towards sex in America. In nineteen seventy,
Speaker 4: a writer and publisher named Earl Kemp, who writes pulp
Speaker 4: fiction paperbacks, sci fi and gay erotica, puts out an
Speaker 4: illustrated version of the President's Commission on Obscenity in Pornography
Speaker 4: and gets charged with his co publisher, William Hamling, with
Speaker 4: conspiracy to distribute obscene material. Kemp serves a federal minimum
Speaker 4: of three years in one day. In the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 4: federal backlash against making and distributing images of sexual intercourse
Speaker 4: returns via President Ronald Reagan. Despite its profitability, pornographers are
Speaker 4: always under threat of getting busted and brought in on
Speaker 4: obscenity or pandering aka pimping charges. Porn is mainly shot
Speaker 4: in private houses in the north end of the valley
Speaker 4: rather than local sound stages because of the constant legal threat.
Speaker 4: Mainstream sound stages aren't interested in renting to porn folks.
Speaker 4: Due to the legal gray area and constant threat of
Speaker 4: getting busted.
Speaker 1: We were like outlaws at the time because it was
Speaker 1: illegal to shoot.
Speaker 4: The porn industry operates in a clandestine legal space throughout
Speaker 4: the seventies and early eighties, even as it becomes big business.
Speaker 4: Pornos are shot run and gun style, both because they're
Speaker 4: low budget and because they needed to shoot quickly without
Speaker 4: attracting at ten tih from neighbors. I had a friend
Speaker 4: whose family lived near a pornhouse in the hills of Encino,
Speaker 4: and you could tell whenever they were shooting there because
Speaker 4: the windows would be blacked out with curtains in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty six, the Reagan administration puts out the final report
Speaker 4: of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography from a task
Speaker 4: force called the Me's Commission. It is known as the
Speaker 4: Me's Report. The Mes Report claims a direct connection between
Speaker 4: porn and an abstract American moral decay, with no actual
Speaker 4: evidence to back up its fearmongering claims. The Mes Report
Speaker 4: also suggests legal loopholes that can be used by conservatives
Speaker 4: to sue pornography studios. The idea is to bankrupt pornographic
Speaker 4: film companies through drawn out court battles. In nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 4: one such case goes to the Supreme Court. The state
Speaker 4: of California tries to charge adult producer and director Harold
Speaker 4: Freeman with pimp hal Freeman is a nineteen seventies porn
Speaker 4: film crew worker who becomes the director of titles like
Speaker 4: Radio k Com Love on the Hershey Highway, one in
Speaker 4: two and My Favorite nineteen eighty three is California Valley Girls,
Speaker 4: about two lesbians who recruit valley girls into a prostitution ring.
Speaker 4: In the late eighties, Hal Freeman is producing his hit
Speaker 4: Caught from Behind series when the State of California decides
Speaker 4: to make him a sacrificial lamb to try charging pornographers
Speaker 4: with pandering, the legal term for pimping, rather than the
Speaker 4: usual obscenity charges they occasionally level at them. Hal Freeman
Speaker 4: is hit with five pandering counts under California Penal Code
Speaker 4: Section two sixty six I. He appeals and says porn
Speaker 4: isn't pimping, it is filmmaking. It's art. The women he
Speaker 4: hires to have sex on film aren't prostitutes, they're actresses.
Speaker 4: The actors are paid for their performances in the movie,
Speaker 4: not for doing the sex acts. They are playing characters
Speaker 4: who are having sex in the scene.
Speaker 22: Defendant Freeman is the president of Hollywood Video Production Company,
Speaker 22: which is in the business of producing and marketing adult films.
Speaker 22: In September nineteen eighty three, Defendant produced and directed a
Speaker 22: film called Caught from Behind Part two. Defendant hired actors
Speaker 22: and actresses to perform in the film. As part of
Speaker 22: their roles, the performers engaged in various sexually explicit acts,
Speaker 22: including sexual intercourse, oral copulation, and sodomy. People versus Freeman.
Speaker 4: All the participants in Caught from Behind two had been
Speaker 4: sent to hell Freeman by superagent Jim South through a
Speaker 4: World modeling agency, except for Nancy Conger, the woman whose
Speaker 4: private house they were renting for the shoot. Conger asked
Speaker 4: if she could be in the movie too, and soon
Speaker 4: enough she was signing a release form. The court tries
Speaker 4: to find someone being exploited during the making of Caught
Speaker 4: from Behind Part two, but all they find is a
Speaker 4: film crew capturing a group of pro performers and one
Speaker 4: amateur engaging in lawful sodomy. Sodomy had been a felony
Speaker 4: crime in America until nineteen sixty two. Anti anal sex
Speaker 4: laws were homophobic, but they were actually originally created as
Speaker 4: a way to prosecute heterosexual non procreative sex, including blowjops.
Speaker 4: Even married couples could be charged for having anal sex.
Speaker 4: In nineteen sixty five, New York was the first state
Speaker 4: to reduce sodomy down to a misdemeanor and excuse married couples.
Speaker 4: Hal Freeman is convicted in California on all five counts
Speaker 4: of pandering. He appeals his case to the California Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: who overturned the conviction. The state of California then takes
Speaker 4: the case to the U. S. Supreme Court hoping to
Speaker 4: get a conviction for Freemen there.
Speaker 23: I recognize that the state has a strong interest in
Speaker 23: controlling prostitution within its jurisdiction, and at some point it
Speaker 23: must certainly be true that otherwise illegal conduct is not
Speaker 23: made legal by being filmed. Sandra Day O'Connor, Supreme Court Justice.
Speaker 4: Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O'Connor, of whom I am
Speaker 4: normally know. Fandra day O'Connor did agree that the state
Speaker 4: of California had no case against hal Freemen.
Speaker 12: The U. S.
Speaker 4: Supreme Court agreed with the California Supreme Court, which characterized
Speaker 4: the pandering charges as an attempted quote and run around
Speaker 4: the First Amendment and state obscenity laws. Despite landmark rulings
Speaker 4: like this one, the First Amendment battles between pornographic filmmakers
Speaker 4: and the American government rage on throughout the eighties. But
Speaker 4: there's no stopping the porn industry behemoth, at least for now,
Speaker 4: and so the Valley's porn studios continue to churn out
Speaker 4: new films and mint new starlets like Ginger Lynn Allen.
Speaker 4: This will be the porn Valley that welcomes Jenna Jamison.
Speaker 16: Well, we're very approachable. If I were out and about
Speaker 16: and I saw Madonna, I wouldn't even know what to say.
Speaker 16: But if I saw Ginger Lynn, I'd be like, oh
Speaker 16: my god, I have this boyfriend and he's been doing
Speaker 16: crazy things to me in bed, and I don't know
Speaker 16: what to say to him. I would feel open enough
Speaker 16: with her to talk like she was my sister. It's
Speaker 16: great because women are much freer when it comes to
Speaker 16: their sexuality. In turn, that's helping men because they've got
Speaker 16: these women who are trying to swing from chandeliers. Jenna Jamison.
Speaker 4: Next time on jenal World, Episode four, The Valley Goes Gonzo.
Speaker 4: Jamie Gillis invents gonzo porn with his on the Prowl series,
Speaker 4: which takes off as the new hottest trend in Foreign Valley.
Speaker 4: Jenna Jamison steps into the industry and makes her debut,
Speaker 4: kicking off an illustrious career that will see her surpass
Speaker 4: even Ginger Lynn Allen to become the biggest porn star
Speaker 4: of all time. All this and more next time on
Speaker 4: Jenna World. Jenna World is an iHeartRadio production executive produced
Speaker 4: by Anna Hostier and Becca Ramos supervising, produced by Bei Wang,
Speaker 4: produced by Victor Wright, script editing by Jonathan Mills, engineered
Speaker 4: by Graham Gibson, and edited by Rory Gagan. Today's episode
Speaker 4: of General World featured Yasi Solik as Ginger Lynn Allen,
Speaker 4: Noah Garfinkel as Stephen Hirsch, Dave Horwitz as Paul Fishbeine,
Speaker 4: Andrea Moore as Marcy Hirsch, Carvell Wallace as Andy Warhol,
Speaker 4: Gwanadora as Viva, Victor Wright as Bud Lee, Will Sennett
Speaker 4: as John C. Holmes, Christopher Chang as Bob Chin, Nick
Speaker 4: Ciarelli as William Margold, Grant Crater as Jim South, Fay
Speaker 4: Wang as Shirley, Dave McNamee as Jerry Butler, Jamie Minnellis
Speaker 4: as Veronica Hart, joey Izzo as Bill Asher, Bridger Winneger
Speaker 4: as David James, Jason Stewart as Charlie Sheen, Kayden Mark
Speaker 4: Gardner as Christian Mann, Seth McCann as Jamie Summers, Ira
Speaker 4: Madison the Third as Jeff Striker, Miles Clee as John Waters,
Speaker 4: Lauren Gold as Vod Katonic, Alex Papadimus as People Versus
Speaker 4: Freeman Lawyer Elena Smith as Sandra Day O'Connor and Laurenceer
Speaker 4: video as Jenna Jamison
Speaker 6: Mm HM