In 1970, Chuck Traynor – former Marine, sexploitation dabbler, successful Miami bar owner and less successful drug smuggler, met Linda Boreman – a hippie drifter who’d recently had her newborn taken from her and was recovering from a harrowing car accident. They were both looking for something new, a fresh start – Chuck wanted financial opportunities that would prove his macho worth; Linda wanted direction and acceptance. The way they tell it, they met and fell in love. They lived together, partied together, worked together. Then Chuck lost his bar. This led to money troubles that led to sex work and the start of domestic violence. This violence followed a well-established pattern of conflict building to physical outburst, followed by a reconciliation period of intimacy and re-connection. Linda’s allegations were sometimes inconsistent, but were never disputed by Chuck. He said it was just part and parcel of his background and their lifestyle at the time. In summer 1971, Chuck and Linda got married. A month later, Chuck won his court case for drug smuggling and was a free man. No longer legally tied to Florida, Chuck persuaded Linda to go with him to New York to see if they could claim a stake in the city’s burgeoning adult film business. Chuck was excited about the money they could make; Linda was hopeful the change would break the cycle of abuse. Within a year they would be internationally famous, their lives turned upside down, and the figureheads of the new ‘porno chic’ movement. This is Part Three of the untold story of Chuck Traynor – with contributions from Linda Lovelace, Eric Edwards, Gerard Damiano, Eric Edwards, Harry Reems, Larry Revene, Tallie Cochrane… and Chuck Traynor himself – all talking about the notorious loops Chuck and Linda made in 1971. This podcast is 40 minutes long. Listen to, or read, Part One and Part Two here. —————————————————————————————— Advisory A quick word before this particular episode. You know this is a podcast about the early adult film industry. And that means that we tackle topics that often aren’t, let’s say, acceptable dinner table conversation in polite society. Even allowing for that however, this podcast episode is a little different. The themes and story lines are highly problematic and we recognize that this installment may not be for everyone. Having said that, we’ve tried to present the events in an accurate way with the views of all key participants. This is an additional trigger warning for particularly sensitive X-rated subject matter. * In the previous episode of ‘Svengali – The Chuck Traynor Story’: Chuck was born in Connecticut in 1937 to a single mother. He was raised by his grandparents amid rumors of his mother’s escorting and involvement with mobsters. Eventually the whole family moved down to Florida. Chuck served in the marines, before working on the fringes of the sexploitation business through his romantic ...
When Linda Lovelace met Chuck Traynor, it would have profound implications for both of them. And it would impact adult film and popular culture in America. If they hadn’t met, there would be no Deep Throat (1972), no porno chic, no mainstream debate about an adult film in the wake of the sexual revolution. When Linda and Chuck first met, both were at crossroads in their lives. Chuck had been through three marriages, sporadic work in the sexploitation business, and was awaiting trial on a major drug smuggling bust. Linda was wandering aimlessly between New York and Florida, had lost a child, and was recovering from a horrific car accident. In many respects, they were perfect for each other at this moment in time: Chuck was growing bored of the high-maintenance bar girls who gave him sassy lip. Owning a successful business had made him more confident; running a drug smuggling operation had made him more cunning. Linda was tired of drifting aimlessly and needing more than the passive, directionless hippie boys she hung out with. She was looking for direction, an identity, her purpose. In short, Chuck was looking for someone to make an imprint on, and Linda wanted to be imprinted. This is Part Two of the untold story of Chuck Traynor. This podcast is 32 minutes long. Listen to, or read Part One here. —————————————————————————————— In the previous episode of ‘Svengali – The Chuck Traynor Story’: Chuck was born in Connecticut in 1937 to a single mother. He was raised by his grandparents amid rumors of his mother’s escorting and involvement with mobsters. Eventually the whole family moved down to Florida. Chuck served in the marines, before working on the fringes of the sexploitation business through his romantic involvement with the pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager. He married three times, but Chuck always wanted more, and in the late 1960s, he owned a biker bar that was a front for prostitution, and then masterminded a smuggling operation, importing marijuana into Florida from the Caribbean. And then in 1970, he was busted for smuggling drugs, and met Linda Boreman – who would later become Linda Lovelace. * 1. Who was Linda Lovelace? Linda Boreman was born January 10th, 1949. Her family – parents John and Dorothy and two older sisters, Barbara and Jeanne – lived on the top floor of a five-story walk-up in the Bronx. It was a largely conventional upbringing. John was a police officer. Dorothy, a waitress. The girls attended Catholic schools where Linda was an average student. According to later interviews, she claimed her only childhood ambition was to become a nun. Linda Boreman When Linda turned 16, her father John retired from the police force, and the family moved down to south Florida. John took a job working security for Eastern Airlines. Linda enrolled in Carol City High School, a budding hippie chick. Outgoing and warm, Linda soon made a friend named Patsy Carroll. Patsy was impressed by Linda’s New York accent and fashion sense. Linda and Patsy got close fast. They went everywhere together, to places like the Cloverleaf Bowling Alley and the municipal auditorium where they watched live music on weekends. They both began dating members of a local band called the Shags. It was innocent, teenage fun. Then Patsy’s father, a military man, was transferred to Virginia,
We all know the story of Linda Lovelace and Chuck Traynor, right? Linda was the star of the groundbreaking adult film Deep Throat, and Chuck was Linda’s husband and manager. When the movie was released, Linda did tons of television and newspaper interviews sharing how happy she was to showcase sexual liberation and personal freedom. She capped the publicity rounds with a book, ‘The Intimate Diary of Linda Lovelace’, in which she shared her sexual fantasies and experiences. A real poster child for women’s liberation, then, right? Not so fast. On the heels of the book’s publication, and little more than a year after the film was released, Linda’s story began to change. She divorced Chuck and began sharing extremely troubling details about their former relationship. Now she said Chuck was her pimp. He was her abuser. He was her tormentor. Linda published full details of these allegations in two additional books: ‘Ordeal’ and ‘Out of Bondage’. The stories involved beatings, gu...
For a time in the 1970s, Harry Reems was the biggest and most recognizable male sex star on the planet. He was a porn Burt Reynolds, famous for his mustache, his sense of fun, and his sexual prowess. One critic described him as being all the Marx brothers rolled into one, a big mess of zany humor, tinged with a hint of melancholy. Harry’s public life had a three-act structure: He was famous because of Deep Throat (1972) – the groundbreaking adult film which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Then he was infamous because of the federal trial that followed in which he and various New York mobsters were accused of interstate distribution of pornography. And finally he was forgotten when he ended up a helpless alcoholic in the 1980s, sleeping in a dumpster, unable to take care of himself. But what happened when the three acts were over? The public narrative was simple. Harry managed to get off alcohol and clean himself up. Harry became a successful realtor in Utah. And Harry got religion and became a born-again Christian. As for his porn past, well, that was ancient history. He refused to talk about it, everyone told me. It was contrary to his new-found Jesus beliefs, and he regretted every minute of it. So he never gave interviews. The one exception was when Hollywood came calling, and he spoke briefly about his most famous film for the documentary, ‘Inside Deep Throat’ So what happened to this household name of adult film history whose rise and fall felt so emblematic of the golden age of adult film itself? The Rialto Report‘s Ashley West became friends with Harry, and spoke with him on many occasions. The is the search for the real Harry Reems. This podcast is 61 minutes long. ———————————————————————————— Harry Reems Harry with Ben Gazzara Harry, with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty *
The film director and production designer Alfred Sole passed away this past Tuesday at the age of 78. I first became aware of Alfred about 15 years ago when I was looking through the New York Times archives. I came across a 1973 article about a controversial adult film called Deep Sleep. The article caught my eye because the Times almost never covered porn movies and because the story started out pretty folksy. A young guy in a small New Jersey suburb with a love of cinema had made an adult film. He’d never seen one before but he desperately wanted to make a movie and porn was the only type he could get backing for. With money from members of the local community, he enlisted his family, friends and some local actors to shoot the picture. Even the mayor’s wife was in it, though like many of Alfred’s family and friends, she performed in a non-sex role. But then the tone of the article took a turn: it said Alfred and the film’s lead performers were now under investigation by the FBI and facing significant jail time. Eager to learn more, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI files. I eventually got back about a hundred pages of field reports and interviews detailing a robust investigation. What wasn’t included was any hint of how the case ended. So I called adult performer Kim Pope, an early sexploitation actress who’d made the transition to hardcore films. She had been the female star of Deep Sleep and shared her memories of making the movie and the prosecution that followed. I asked if she’d kept in touch with Alfred and she said no – but that if I found him to please send her best wishes. Despite the controversy, she had only fond memories of him. Lucky for me Alfred wasn’t hard to find. After Deep Sleep he directed a few horror films, including the cult favorite Alice, Sweet Alice from 1976 which featured a young Brooke Shields. He then went on to a prolific career in Hollywood as a production designer, working on popular TV shows like Veronica Mars, Castle and MacGuyver. Alfred generously shared the story of Deep Sleep with me. I was fascinated by the tale, I decided to make a short film about it – something that tickled Alfred to no end. You can watch that early film below. Our coverage of Deep Sleep was picked up by the Daily Beast. And that coverage led to a major documentary company deal to produce the story. Over the past months, as a producer on the documentary project, I spoke with Alfred often. We were in pre-production and there were lots of details to work through. Alfred worried about the fact that we all wanted to make him the heart of the story. He was concerned that his memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. That in recent months he’d found himself searching for words much more than he used to. He said he didn’t want to let us down. I reassured him that there was no way that he could. In the end though, Alfred was just so excited about the project. Then, like everyone else, I learned the news of Alfred’s death this past week.
Charles William Rotsler (1926–1997) was an award-winning artist and science fiction author. Bill was also involved in the burgeoning adult film industry starting in the late 1950s, first as a stills photographer on the set of adult films, and later when he wrote, directed, or acted in over 20 adult films during his career with Boxoffice International Pictures, In 1966, he created Adam Film Quarterly, later called Adam Film World, one of the earliest magazines to provide commentary on pornographic films. He wrote hundreds of articles using a plethora of pseudonyms including ‘Shannon Carse’, ‘Cord Heller’, ‘Clay McCord’, and ‘Merrill Dakota’ – sometimes even interviewing himself. He also wrote the seminal book, Contemporary Erotic Cinema in 1973. But this series of articles is not about Bill Rotsler. It’s about a group of friends of his. Four friends. Four women, to be more specific, who at various times lived with him, and featured in his films, photographs, and magazines. Their lives intersected in his house, as they played their parts in helping establish the adult film industry in Los Angeles. He called this group, ‘The Gruesome Foursome.’ The Rialto Report tracked down each of the four to hear about their lives. This is the third part: Uschi Digard. The interview is taken from our podcast with Uschi. We have added additional information taken from lengthier conversations we have had with Uschi over the years. All photographs are taken by Bunny Yeager, and are courtesy of Grapefruit Moon Gallery. You can read Part 1, the story of Kathie Hilton (and Gerard Broulard) here , and Part 2, Malta’s story here. ———————————————————————————————————————————————- Uschi Digard Uschi Digard always seemed to be larger than life. She was an indestructible, formidable, pinup beauty who was emblematic of the sexual revolution in California. From the late 1960s through to the early 1980s, she was in hundreds of magazine spreads, had many issues dedicated to her, and appeared in countless softcore films, too. Her Amazonian features and natural good looks meant she was always in demand as she proved popular with fans. Or in the words of director Russ Meyer, her close friend and frequent collaborator, “She was a buxom cantilevered barracuda who was a Trojan at work.” Russ was a man’s man, a World War II veteran, and a tough task master, and in Uschi he met his match and found the perfect foil. The combination of her sex appeal with her own sentimental tireless work ethic resulted in a close friendship that lasted decades. But for someone with such a larger than life presence, Uschi was also elusive and deeply private. Her face and body may have been all over the magazines, but her own voice was notably absent. Throughout her long career as a nude model and actress, she revealed everything, but revealed nothing. She rarely gave interviews, and the scant biographical information that was publishe...
The pioneering adult film, Deep Throat, was shot 50 years ago today. The scene was south Florida, and it was Super Bowl Sunday, January 16th, 1972. The local Miami Dolphins were playing, and so the streets of the city were deserted, meaning it was a perfect time to make a film when you didn’t exactly want to draw attention to what you were doing. The filmmakers were a group of New Yorkers who’d made the 1,300-mile trip south to film an explicit sex film. Nothing special was expected. After all, this was a time when no one was sure quite just how legal this was. It was a reasonably ambitious production for the standards of an X-rated shoot. This film had a plot, a script, its own musical soundtrack, and was being made by a crew who had some experience. The film’s budget was rumored to have come from the mob, but given that it was enough for them to travel down to Florida for the week in the middle of a cold New York winter, who needed to ask questions? What happened next is history: ‘Deep Throat’ was the porn film that went mainstream. It became a genuine sensation, one of the most profitable films – of any kind – ever made, costing a few thousand dollars and bringing in a whopping three hundred million, five hundred million, six hundred million dollars. You take your pick. No one knows for sure. But ‘Deep Throat’ was more than just a runaway financial success. It had a genuine cultural impact, responsible for ushering in the era known as “porno chic,” middle-class respectable types getting hardcore about hardcore. For a short while, you couldn’t escape it. The New York Times featured long articles about it, Johnny Carson and Bob Hope made jokes about it, and the crowds of people who lined up to buy tickets included Truman Capote and Jackie Kennedy Onassis. When the Watergate story broke, the biggest political scandal of the 20th century, it seemed normal that one of the protagonists was given a nickname taken from the film’s title. Not bad for a film about a sexually frustrated woman, whose psychiatrist discovers that her clitoris is located in her throat, and so offers to help hone her oral sex skills. So who was responsible for this hugely successful and influential film? The answer surprised many back in 1972. It all came down to one man, Gerard Damiano, the film’s director. But he wasn’t the type of person you might expect to be making a porn film. Gerard Damiano (right) with David Davidson He was no counter-cultural rebel like many who were throwing themselves into sex films at the time. Gerard was raised as a Catholic, and was a family man with a wife and two children. He wasn’t a mobster like other Italians in the business either. Gerard ran a beauty salon in Queens. And he wasn’t a sleazy, sex-obsessed smut hound. Gerard was an aspiring filmmaker, albeit with little formal training and no contacts in the mainstream film industry. In short, Gerard Damiano was an unlikely pioneer. Given that, how did ‘Deep Throat’ ever get made? Despite its popularity, many questions still remain fifty years later. In this unpublished interview conducted shortly before Gerard passed away in 2008, he speaks about his life before ‘Deep Throat’ – as well as his experience making ‘Deep Throat’. He talks about the truth behind where the money for the film came from, as well as the claim from Linda Lovelace that she was forced to perform in it. This is how Gerard Damiano remembered the whole experience decades after it ...
Last week a new docu-drama premiered on Netflix. It’s called Crime Scene – Times Square – and we were pleased to be Producers on it. The show examines how the environment in New York’s Times Square in the late 1970s and early 1980s – a nearly-lawless area rife with drugs and sex work – made it possible for one man to commit, and nearly get away with, unthinkable acts of violence. Many of the characters interviewed for the show have appeared as subjects of Rialto Report podcast interviews – people such as the filmmaker Larry Revene, adult film actress and writer Veronica Vera, and sex show performer Joseph Stryker. And then there’s Marty Hodas, the self-proclaimed Porno King of New York. Perhaps more than anyone else, Marty was responsible for the change in Times Square that took place from the 1960s, when the area descended into such a dangerous area. It was Marty who introduced sexual peep shows into the area, and then ran an empire of bookstores, adult theaters, and massage parlors. I first came across Marty when I read articles in the newspapers from the early 1970s. The sex trade may have been illegal back then, but Marty didn’t hide – in fact, he enjoyed the publicity and regularly appeared on the covers of newspaper and on interview shows. A few years ago, I got hold of a number for Marty and called him. I said I’d love to meet him – and hear about the old days. He invited me over to his apartment and served me a feast of pastrami, shrimp, and cheeses. And he talked. This is Marty’s story – and the story of Times Square. This podcast is 54 minutes long. ———————————————————————————————————————– A Rialto Report dinner with Jamie Gillis, Marty Hodas, and Larry Revene *
June Mack was dead. And no one was on the hook for her murder. Somehow being shot by Russ Meyer made her almost-famous, but being shot by a mystery killer made her almost-forgotten. She’d come to Tinseltown to escape. To start a new life – and she’d been a movie star, bared her charms in magazines, and shared her body in nightly schemes. She made money, bought cars, and lived in clover. But then June Mack crossed paths with Greg Cavalli. The normal story of boy meets girl. If boy meets girl when he buys phone sex. Then boy falls in love with girl over the phone. Before boy goes to girl’s house and finds there’s more to her than he expected. Much more. And then girl is shot dead. But Greg was officially not guilty. He’d been fingered by the cops for June’s murder, and put on trial. He got off. And it wasn’t even close. So if Greg didn’t kill June, who did? Sometimes to get to the heart of a story, you have to look at the outsides, the characters around the edges. People like Arthur Michael Pascal, who ran a shady L.A. security company, a collection of hitmen for hire. Or William Rider, Larry Flynt’s head of security, who used Pascal’s guys to protect the porn king, and eliminate anyone who got in their way. People like Bill Mentzer, the hitman who worked for Pascal, who was hired to protect Greg Cavalli and his family from supposed threats like June Mack. And there was Laney, Bill Mentzer’s girlfriend who dealt cocaine to the stars – who also needed protection. They were all connected to June in different ways. Someone must know the truth. The truth about who killed June Mack. Who really killed June Mack. This podcast is 45 minutes long. June Mack ———————————————————————————————————————– Whether Greg Cavalli was guilty or not didn’t amount to a hill of beans. He couldn’t be tried for the same crime twice. “Never,” said LAPD brass. “He’s been tried once. That’s it. He’s a free man. Forever.” So the Cavalli family retreated. Big money is big power, and big power gets used wrong. That’s the system. They’d won the game. There was no need to stay on the stage. Other players had less luck in the aftermath of the trial. Christian Pierce, June’s devoted follower who’d been with her when she was shot, died of AIDS. June’s transexual friend, Robin Taylor, disappeared, swallowed up by the lonely streets. Arthur Michael Pascal, owner of the security company that had hired William Mentzer and Robert Lowe to tackle June Mack, retired his business. His health was poor. Dirty schemes earn more than straight job income streams, but they lower your life expectancy too. Pascal had had enough. Then there was William Rider, Larry Flynt’s head of security, who’d hired Pascal and Bill Mentzer to protect Flynt. Rider had got into a scrap with the porn king himself. Their beef was over John DeLorean, the car magnate. Maker of the ‘Back to the Future’ sportscar. DeLorean had been charged with cocaine trafficking. 55 pounds of it. That’s $24 million of profit. Or big trouble if you get caught. And DeLorean had just got caught. But it was government entrapment. DeLorean had been framed. The coke scheme was a sting put together by Feds anxious to take down the auto king. DeLorean had only one person who could help him.
Somehow June Mack was a footnote in her own life. She was a footnote in film history after she appeared in a Russ Meyer film, Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens. A footnote for her family who forgot she existed. A footnote in L.A., the jaded city where she’d re-invented herself. And a footnote in a shooting that left her dead. It seems strange. June Mack was big, black, and beautiful. So why did she end up just a footnote? She died in 1984. Many accounts of her murder still linger on message boards in dusty corners of cyberspace. Each tries to figure out how and why she died. Jimmy McDonough in his biography of Russ Meyer wrote: “June was murdered when a drug dealer was going to shoot her boyfriend. She stood in front of the guy to protect him, and took the bullet.” Sounds heroic. Sounds like something that her film character, Junkyard Sal, might have done. But was it true? Other reports say she was the target of gangland hit, someone wanted her wiped out. Or was her death jus...