WEBVTT - Chapter 3: B.J. (Before Jenna) 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.760 The eighties were the golden age of porn. Everybody was 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:16.960 treated so well and we were all so close. It 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:22.200 was just beautiful. Jinger and Allen performer. 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.920 We're just another option for adults. I believe people make 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.840 decisions for themselves. It's not for me or anyone else 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.680 to pass any kind of world judgment. We make movies 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:35.839 that people want to watch them. We'll continue to do that. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.159 Stephen Hirsch, Vivid Video Founder. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.360 Nobody in the modern era of the adult industry has 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.120 been more innovative in mainstreaming their company image than Vivid. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.040 That made them one of the premier brands in all 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:55.600 of Hollywood. Adults or otherwise. Paul Fishbeind, Adult Video News Founder. 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:15.520 Welcome to Jenna World. Welcome back. I'm your host, Molly Lambert. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:28.480 This is episode three ej Before Jenna. Pacific Palisades, nineteen 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:33.759 eighty four. At a seafood restaurant off the Pacific Coast 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.399 Highway called Gladstone's at the Beach, a twenty two year 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.000 old five foot six, brown haired Jewish kid from the 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.800 valley named Stephen Hirsh a Gemini and his girlfriend Bren 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.600 are meeting up with twenty one year old five foot 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:52.200 four blonde Sagittarius ginger Lynn Allen ginger Lynn has been 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.680 doing adult movies for a year. Stephen Hirsh is a 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.520 fan of her work who wants to make her an offer. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.560 She agrees to hear him out in exchange for his 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.240 promise of endless crab legs, her favorite and an ocean 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.160 front view. Ginger Lynn arrives in a lace dress and 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.200 heels to meet Stephen and Wren at a wooden picnic 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.120 table on Gladstone's outdoor deck, overlooking will Rogers State Beach, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.960 named for the vaudeville cowboy turned radio star. At twenty 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.600 two years old, Stephen Hirsch is already a second generation pornographer. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.040 His father, Fred Hirsch, is a prominent distributor of eight 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.240 millimeter stag films, which are short films that are at 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.840 most ten minutes long, have no sound, and depict hardcore 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:43.520 sexual acts. Stag films were creditless, with no director, stars, 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.400 or film crew credited. Because pornographic films were then legal 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:53.519 to make or show. They screened stag films clandestinely at fraternities, brothels, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:58.280 and men's clubs. Fred Hirsch was a stockbroker first, but 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.280 after Wall Street crashed in nineteen sixty two, he decided 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:05.000 to shift gears. When Stephen Hirsh is eleven years old, 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.720 his father Fred gathers the family in their living room 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.680 to tell them he's embarking on a new career path 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.040 selling pornographic film reels for a company called Sovereign News. 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.120 All of this takes place not in Horney, liberal California, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:25.919 but in horny, conservative Cleveland, Ohio. Their father warns young 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.440 Stephen and his sister Marcy that other kids might not 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.160 accept them if their parents find out what the Hirsh 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:33.680 kid's dad does for a living. 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.880 My biggest concern was what I would tell my friends. 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.480 I had a hard time Marcy Hirsch, Stephen's sister. 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.840 I was okay with that. If they didn't want to 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.640 be friends with us, I didn't want to be friends 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.520 with them. 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.760 Sovereign News Corporation, the company who give Fred Hirsch his 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.480 new career selling eight non elimeter stagfilms, is owned by 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:07.520 a Cleveland born businessman named Ruben Sterman, A Leo. The 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.200 son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Sterman starts selling comic books 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:12.680 out of the trunk of his car in the late 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.880 nineteen forties, he parlays his comic book hustle into a 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:21.840 wholesale business, distributing comic books, tobacco, and candy to newsstands. 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.680 He adds adult magazines to the roster in the early sixties, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:31.400 and their profits quickly surpass his other wares. Rubin Sterman 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.440 has been called the Walt Disney of porn for doing 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.800 for sex magazines what Walt Disney did for animation, fostering 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.200 a new American national pastime, selling a wildly lucrative form 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.400 of escapism to the masses Mickey mouse or naked chicks. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:49.240 At the end of the day, it's all just a 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.880 way to leave behind the miserable drudgery of real life 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.760 for a fantasy realm. In nineteen sixty four, Ruben Sterman 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.280 gets raided by the FBI for the first time. They 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.159 bust one of his Cleveland warehouses to confiscate a dirty 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.920 book called sex Life of a Cop. He fights prosecution 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:12.200 by filing countersuits and working under aliases to protect himself 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.599 against the government's inquest into citizens, minds and pants. Stermin 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:21.200 links with the Gambino crime family. Sterman also establishes the 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.960 first legal adult bookstores in the US adult bookstores, which 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.839 naturally began in nineteen twenties Europe, were de facto banned 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:36.719 in America, but sexual media still flowed underground. A series 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.760 of First Amendment related Supreme Court rulings legalized sex shops nationally, 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:46.520 allowing Reuben Sterman to legally set up business. Local jurisdictions 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.440 still limit zoning to push sex shops into unofficial red 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.560 light districts on the outskirts of town, which is why 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.920 you often see them way out off random freeway exits. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.560 By the late nineteen sixties, Juevern NewsCorp. Is the number 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.839 one distributor of adult magazines in America. They're also under 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:11.400 constant threat and surveillance from authorities. Reuben Sterman relocates from 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.240 the Midwest to ELA's San Fernando Valley, where a sex 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.839 belt is developing. Sterman's booming business buys him a townhouse 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.720 in Van Nuys, a line of credit for clothes at 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.760 Posh Beverly Hills Men's shop, Vijon, Rolls Royce's Mercedes, and 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.800 a yearly seated the Cannes Film Festival. But the US 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.080 government is keeping a close eye on his finances, and 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:39.560 in nineteen eighty nine, he's sentenced for tax eVision. Sterman 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.960 is ordered to pay two point five million dollars in 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.560 back taxes and spend a decade in jail. He also 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.880 catches a bullshit charge for interstate transportation of obscene materials. 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.240 He strikes a plea bargain, but gets caught trying to 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.200 bribe a juror and is given another twenty years for extortion. 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.440 He's locked up in Boron, California. He pulls off a 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:05.200 jail break and briefly escapes, but the Walt Disney of 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:10.960 porn is apprehended again in Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.640 Cleveland's porn king, Reuben Sturman, serves out the rest of 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.200 his sentence in Kentucky and dies in jail at the 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:25.520 age of seventy three. Despite their dad's unusual job selling 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.400 dirty movies, the Hirshes are a model middle class Jewish 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:35.760 mid century Midwestern family. The Hirsh kids, son Stephen, daughter Marcy, 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.280 and youngest son Bradley, shovels snow in the winter. In 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.160 the summers, they play baseball and mow neighborhood lawns for 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.400 pocket money, but Stephen Hirsch feels alienated from the other 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.760 kids in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Some of them bully him at 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.840 school for being Jewish. He channels his pent up aggression 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:01.000 into a socially acceptable place sports, joining the school wrestling team. 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.600 It helped toughen me up a bit, and it helped 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.120 give me the drive to succeed because I had to 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.200 prove that I was okay. 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:12.679 I'd always wanted to do a movie that was pure 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.400 fucking nothing else the way eat had been just eating, 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:21.000 and sleep had been just sleeping. So in October sixty eight, 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.920 I shot a movie of Viva having sex with Lewis Walden. 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:29.240 I just called it Fuck, Andy Warhol Artist. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.840 After the Hayes Code of Film Censorship ends in nineteen 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.240 sixty eight, stag films are succeeded by full length movies 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.760 that can show sex and screen in public. In nineteen 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.680 sixty nine, the first film to ever legally show real 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.160 footage of explicit sex acts hits the big screen. It's 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.559 an Andy Warhol art film called Blue Movie, originally titled Fuck, 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:57.680 starring Warhole superstar Viva and actor Lewis Walden as a 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.120 couple talking about the Vietnam War and present Nixon and 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:06.760 engaging an unsimulated intercourse shot in long improvised takes. Blue 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.640 Movie is ninety five minutes of talking and ten minutes 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.440 of sex. Blue Movie is focused on sexual realism, not 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:15.720 sexual fantasy. 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.680 Scripts bore me. It's much more exciting not to know 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:25.840 what's going to happen. I don't think the plot is important. 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.440 If you see a movie of two people talking, you 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.440 can watch it over and over again without being bored. 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.080 You get involved, you miss things, you come back to it. 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.360 But you can't see the same movie over and over 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.280 again if it has a plot, because you already know 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.600 the ending. Everyone is rich, everyone is interesting. Years ago, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.280 people used to sit looking out of their windows at 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.680 the street or on a park bench. They would stay 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.240 for hours without being bored, although nothing much was going on. 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.080 This is my favorite theme in movie making, just watching 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.960 something happening for two hours or so. 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.000 The Warhole films for about sexual disappointment and frustration. The 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:10.679 way Andy saw the world, the way the world is, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.640 and the way nine tenths of the population sees it. Yeah, 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:19.040 pretends they don't, don't Viva actress. 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:26.280 Blue Movie follows Warholes shorts Blowjob Number one and Blowjob 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.280 Number two, which both focus and tight close up on 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.880 a man's face as he allegedly receives a blowjob below frame. 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:40.280 Warhole purposely courts controversy, which brings him free publicity. The 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.520 Warhole ethos of art, a self consciously consumerist product, a 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.280 personal brand, was cultivated working as an illustrator in the 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.840 advertising industry. On opening day, Blue Movie grows as a 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.880 theatrical house record of three thy fifty dollars, recouping its 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:00.920 shooting budget of three thousand dollars. It makes sixteen thy 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.400 two hundred dollars within the week, and Warhol takes home 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.920 ninety percent of the box office gross. Andy Warhol gets 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.280 his wish for controversy and free promotion when the NYPD 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.240 raid the Garrick Cinema on Bleaker Street where Blue Movie 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.439 is playing first run. Sees the film reels for obscenity 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.480 and arrest the theatre's staff for distributing obscene materials. Warhol 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.720 cashes in on the scandal by publishing a book of 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.880 explicit dialogue. In film stills from Blue Movie. Conservatives are 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.520 afraid of what frank depictions of sex will do to viewers' minds, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.319 but it's too late for the Prudes Blue movie Lights 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.280 The Fuse, and shortly after its success, pornographic movies like 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.680 Behind the Green Door and The Devil and Miss Jones 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:49.920 become big box office hits. In nineteen seventy five, the 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.199 Hirsch family leaves Ohio, heading out west to the booming 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:58.360 geographic center of the pornographic film industry, La San Fernando Valley. 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.480 HR is chasing the adult film gold rush and also 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:08.160 outrunning some obscenity charges he caught in Ohio. The Hirsch 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.360 family settles into a two story house in Woodland Hills, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.160 a West Valley suburb close to where all the porn 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:19.480 studios and warehouses are clustered. Fred Hirsch's sales model pivots 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.720 from super eight stag films to video home system VHS 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:28.040 and Beta tapes as the eighties approached. After being acquitted 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.480 of the Ohio obscenity charges in nineteen seventy eight, he 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:37.960 starts his own company called Adult Video Corporation. Woodland Hills 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:42.200 superficially resembles the Ohio suburbs. Aside from its key lack 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.079 of snow, the valley is often set dressed with deciduous 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.360 trees to play the Midwest on screen. There are a 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.000 couple aspects of moving to the Valley that considerably improve 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:57.480 the now teenage Stephen Hirsch's life. He's no longer the 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.640 only Jewish kid in town. The valley has become a 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:05.080 place where upwardly mobile, middle class Jewish families settle, not 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.560 in the Tudor Revival style mansions of show business Jews 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.040 in Hancock Park in bel Air, or the orthodox enclaves 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.520 off Fairfax Avenue, but into post war single family homes 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.920 with green grass front lawns and white picket fences. They 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:25.239 are Jewish families, like the Hirsh's attempt to seamlessly assimilate 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.800 into suburban whiteness in the valley. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:29.839 Not only does. 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.880 Stephen Hirsch no longer get bullied for being Jewish at 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.360 his new school, El Camino Real High, he reinvents himself 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.360 as an all American jock like the ones who bullied 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.240 him in Ohio. The Hirsh siblings are also no longer 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.480 the only kids they know whose parents work in the 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.840 porn industry. Fred Hirsch has professional colleagues in the valley, 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.440 and his colleagues have families too. They're all part of 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.000 a thriving local business scene that just happens to involve 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.880 people performing sex x on camera. The Hirsh's are no 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.200 longer local pariahs in the valley. They get to be 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:08.120 just like everyone else. Steve becomes co captain of the 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:13.520 school wrestling team, making his father proud. The suburban San 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.240 Fernando Valley is still very square on the surface, but 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.880 in the seventies, the porn industry surreptitiously grows and flowers. 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.800 There By the mid seventies, the porn industry is estimated 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.520 to be turning a yearly profit of ten million dollars. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.920 By nineteen eighty, the yearly profits for pornography have shot 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.840 up to one hundred million bucks. Stephen Hirsh graduates high 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.680 school and immediately starts working for his dad Fred at 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:44.760 the Adult Video Corporation office in Northridge. The Adult Video 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:49.160 Corporation shop, known as AVC, is a VHS duplication lab 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.000 full of worrying video cassette recorders, cranking out tapes from 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.240 master copies of old adult film reels. At first, they 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.560 try to keep family in business separate, but they work 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.520 in such close quarters it proves impossible. Marcy Hirsch sees 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.440 her first glimpse of porn on a monitor, and her 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.320 dad tells her to stay out of the lab when 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:14.080 he's working. But it's a hard rule to keep, so 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:15.400 they all just adjust to it. 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.200 After that, we would both be in there watching it. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.000 After a while, you almost forget what you're watching because 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:25.040 you see it so often. 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.720 This work arrangement might weird other people out for basic 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:35.040 oedical reasons, but it doesn't really bother the Hirsh's in 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.680 the valley. Other kids dads work in industries like aerospace. 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.400 At least their pornographer father never helped make a bomb. 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:45.440 Fred Hirsch and his kids are making an honest living 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.920 in adult films, and the profits are worth tuning out 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.920 seeing a little porn with your dad. By nineteen eighty five, 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.680 ABC is making four point two million dollars a year, 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.040 with most of it going right back into the operation. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.400 The Hirsh family nets a tidy profit of around half 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:08.280 a million dollars. Steve Hirsch attends cal State Northridge by day, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.920 taking business and journalism classes by night, and on weekends 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.120 he packs porn videotapes for shipping in the ABC warehouse 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.320 and apprentices with his father, learning the back end of 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.320 the adult film business inside and out. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:28.920 Bred Hirsch is an affable, nice guy. Steve Hirsch is 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:34.440 a cunning, ruthless businessman. Budley director. 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:40.040 Stephen Hirsch is wildly ambitious in his own right. He's 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.440 seen firsthand how much money there is to be made 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.520 in adult films and wants his own slice of the pie. 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.760 He's already done the hardest part getting his foot in 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.040 the door, so he decides to leave the comfort of 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.640 the family business and take a sales job at a 0:16:54.640 --> 0:17:00.000 different adult film company, cal Vista International, located in Van Night. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.280 Cal Vista International is an adult film production and distribution 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.639 company behind movies like nineteen seventy one's Grand Prix tagline 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.879 Fast Cars, Hot Sluts. They have an amazing animated title 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.520 sequence where a sexy blonde cartoon woman in a sheer 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.920 nightgown points a camera towards the viewer under a night 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.480 sky with glimmering stars as the cal Vista International logo appears. 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.680 Cal Vista had a huge hit in nineteen seventy three 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.679 with French Schoolgirls, a movie where nobody involved is French 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.560 or a schoolgirl. French Schoolgirls stars Golden age seventies porn 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.560 stars like Harry Reims, Tina Russell, and one of the 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:52.520 biggest and most legendary porn performers of all time, John C. Holmes. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:18:01.520 I don't take drugs. Drugs take me, John Seaholmes. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.160 Because porn is so disrespected as an art form, it's 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.399 much easier to break into than Hollywood, which is a 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.280 fortress of knowing the right people or having a famous 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.080 last name. So the first wave of porn directors who 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.359 get to be credited are a mix of performers and 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:20.679 film school Mavericks. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.960 I was a journalism major at the University of Miami 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.560 when I went to a theater showing foreign films and 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.840 Coral Gables and saw Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves, and 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.480 from that time on I was hooked. I had to 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.160 become a filmmaker. I moved to California and took theater 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.840 arts courses at Santa Monica City College before enrolling at 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:49.960 EUCLA to study motion picture production. Bob Chin director. 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.600 Born in Honolulu to Chinese parents and raised in La 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.800 Bob Chin, a Taurus, pursues his dream of becoming a 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:04.720 filmmaker at UCLA Film He's classmates with Jim Morrison, but 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.879 because he is Asian American, Bob Chin finds it difficult 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:13.560 to break into mainstream film, so he starts directing porn. 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.320 He directs both as Bob Chin and using pseudonyms like 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:23.440 Sparky Shane and Wizard Glick. In the nineteen seventies, Bob 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.919 Chin becomes one of porn's first auteur filmmakers and pioneers 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.000 the concept of porn franchises with recurring characters when he 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:33.280 links up with John C. 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:33.880 Holmes. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.280 John Curtis Holmes, a LEO, is a Bible school dropout 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.280 from Asheville, Ohio, who flees his religious fanatic mother and 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:47.920 a string of abusive stepfathers for the Army. Discharged after 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.200 three years in West Germany, John Holmes moves to la 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.840 where he works as a salesman, factory employee and as 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.359 a taxian ambulance driver. He turns twenty one, marries a 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.240 nurse and gets a job operating a forklift at a 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.960 meat packing plant in the South Bay. The walk in 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.520 freezer at the meatpacking plant gives him severe health issues 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:14.280 that cause one of his lungs to collapse. Allegedly, John 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.240 Holmes is discovered at a poker club in Guardina. He's 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.800 in the men's bathroom at the urinals when an adult 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:26.119 photo agent spots his huge, soft, uncircumcised penis somewhere between 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.320 ten and sixteen inches long and tells him he should 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:34.399 monetize it. Holmes starts nude modeling and filming illegal stag 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.879 films and loops for money. He goes by John C. 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.720 Holmes joking the sea stands for cash because that's all 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.520 he accepts after one check bounces. John C. Holmes meets 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.600 Bob Chin in nineteen seventy one when Holmes walks into 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.520 Chin's office and asks for a film crew job as 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.480 a gaffer. Holmes is a skinny, six foot two guy 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.600 with big, curly blonde hair and a mustache. He tells 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.920 Bob Chin he's an actor too. He looks more like 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.120 a hippie weirdo than a leading man type, but Bob 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.560 Chin becomes convinced of his star power. 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.040 He pulled down his pants and showed me his credentials. 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.120 Bobchin creates a franchise around his muse where John Holmes 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.320 plays a private dick named Johnny Wadd. One Johnny wadd Movie, 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.679 nineteen seventy seven's The Jade Pussycat is replicated faithfully in 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.199 Boogie Knights. The Burt Reynolds character Jack Horner is a 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:41.120 composite of seventies porn impresarios, including Bobchin. The Jade Pussycat 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.000 is set in San Francisco's Chinatown and co stars Linda Wong, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.440 a Japanese American actress from San Francisco and former Homecoming 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.760 queen who is one of the first Asian American porn stars. 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.560 Bob Chin's Johnny wadd series pioneers the concept of a 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:02.520 porn franchise with sequels and recurring characters in tandem with 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.639 seventies mainstream franchises. After the success of Jaws and Star Wars, 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.199 Bob Chin's hit movies make John C. Holmes and his 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:15.080 gigantic Dick Horn's first true megastar. 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.720 I've never found a girl who could not take it. 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.320 It's really in the way you do it. Though I've 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.920 had some women say they've had guys half my size, 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.160 we couldn't get it in the problem is that most 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.119 guys don't know how to read a lady and what 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.280 she really wants. With some you have to be gentle 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:40.000 and romantic and with others. You gotta get down and dirty. 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:42.919 The secret is you have to get in touch with 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:43.800 what they wait. 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.200 Holmes makes seventy five bucks for the first Johnny Watt movie. 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:52.880 Success gets his rate up to three thousand dollars a day, 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.560 and he makes thousands of movies. He would be rich, 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.359 but he spends it all on drugs and is always broke. 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.320 He starts doing crimes on the side, like petty theft, 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.560 credit card fraud, and pimping. His coke and freebasing habits 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.600 start affecting his adult film work, making him flaky, unfocused, 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:15.800 and unable to stay hard on camera. He gets blacklisted 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:20.280 and dropped by everyone in town, including Bob Chin. No 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.320 star is bigger than the industry that made them a star. 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:25.280 Not even John C. 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:29.280 Holmes friends will get you killed. 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.280 John Holmes becomes doubly notorious for his involvement with the 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:38.440 Wonderland or Four on the Floor quadruple murder case in 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:41.800 nineteen eighty one. The Wonderland Gang were a group of 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:44.760 heroin addicted coke dealers who dealt from a house off 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:48.760 Laurel Canyon on Wonderland Avenue. They robbed a club owner 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.639 drug dealer named Eddie Nash, and Nash blamed John Holmes, 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:54.840 who'd been at his house earlier that day and had 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:59.120 left a glass sliding door cracked open. Either Eddie Nash 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:01.600 or another enemy. He sent a team to torture and 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:05.600 murder the Wonderland Gang. Neighbors didn't call the cops because 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:08.520 they were always having crazy parties at the Wonderland House. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.600 The LAPD finds John C. Holmes's hand prints and a 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:15.679 million dollars worth of cocaine at the Wonderland House and 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:19.560 decide to charge him with all four murders. Lead Detective 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:22.879 Tom Lang is later a lead detective in Oj Simpson's 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:27.199 murder case. John Holmes goes on the LAMB for six months, 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.320 then stands trial in nineteen eighty two. After a three 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:36.280 week trial, John Holmes is acquitted. He's tried and acquitted 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:39.160 a second time, and then Eddie Nash is also tried 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:43.240 and acquitted. The Eddie Nash trial marks the first time 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:47.000 in American history that a videotape is introduced as evidence 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:52.240 in a trial. Videotapes are also changing the landscape of 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:56.800 porn Companies like the Hirsh Families. AVC are taking over 0:24:56.840 --> 0:24:59.960 the business as film gives way to the home video revolution. 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:04.639 The top us producers and distributors are known as the 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:09.119 Big Three, and they're all in the Valley VCA or 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:13.560 Video Co of America in Chatsworth, Essex Video in Northridge, 0:25:13.840 --> 0:25:18.720 and Caballero Home Video in Canoga Park. Much like ABC, 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:22.800 Essex Video is also a family dynasty, founded in nineteen 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:28.800 sixty by Jose Domingo Ristreppo from Bogota, Columbia. Rostreppo changes 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:32.920 his professional name to Joe Steinmann. Usually it's Jewish people 0:25:32.920 --> 0:25:35.960 who change their names to sound wasp beer, but here 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:39.240 it's a Colombian guy changing his name to sound more Jewish. 0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:43.600 In order to make it in the porn business. Joe 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:47.320 Steinmann buys rights to existing adult films and distributes them 0:25:47.359 --> 0:25:51.440 on tape at Essex Video. He has four sons, who, 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:55.760 like the Hirsh Kids, work for him. The Steinmann sons 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:58.640 attend high school in Van Nuys by day and pack 0:25:58.720 --> 0:26:02.680 tapes in the shipping warehouse at night. Joe's second eldest son, 0:26:02.760 --> 0:26:06.080 Jeff Steinmann, becomes the main heir to the Essex Video 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:10.840 brand as it transitions from filmed video in nineteen seventy nine, 0:26:11.359 --> 0:26:14.600 Joe Steinman steps down from Essex Video and turns it 0:26:14.640 --> 0:26:18.880 over to his son, Jeff. It is Jeff Steinmann at 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:22.919 Essex Video who is first to give performers exclusive studio 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:27.920 contracts and make them what's called a contract girl. Steinman 0:26:28.040 --> 0:26:31.600 signs Barbara Dare, a five foot two blonde Jewish lesbian 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:34.560 from Wayne, New Jersey, to make ten films for Essex 0:26:34.600 --> 0:26:36.840 Video in one year to earn one hundred and fifty 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:41.439 thousand dollars. At its peak, Essex Video racks up forty 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:44.640 million dollars a year and employs a staff of sixty five. 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:49.560 Cal Vista International is not in the Big three, but 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:51.960 it's the fourth or fifth biggest studio in the valley. 0:26:51.960 --> 0:26:55.399 When Steve Hurst starts working there, he travels coast to 0:26:55.440 --> 0:26:58.680 coast peddling Calvista tapes to buyers at sex shops and 0:26:58.760 --> 0:27:03.200