by Howie Gordon
“The family had a lot of buffers.”
Willie Cicci, The Godfather: Part II
I actually got to meet “Willie Cicci!” He was played by the actor Joe Spinell and we worked together in a movie. It was my very first job after quitting X-rated films back in 1985. Tragedy in New York was an all-Italian gangster movie that had a few shooting days in San Francisco. It was just as formulaic as the X stuff, but instead of a sex scene, they just did a murder every twelve minutes. Nobody in the production spoke any English at all except for the director’s wife. She would translate the director’s commands to the local actors who had been hired for a couple of days work in this film. Joe Spinell was the star. He played the Mafia Don. I was cast as one of his underlings.
Meanwhile, I soon learned that even though a porn actor’s salary was a big step up from the wages of manual labor, it wasn’t exactly the actors who were getting rich out of the business.
I was told that only three groups of people made real money in the adult films of that era. It was all film back then, by the way, video would not blossom until the mid-eighties. The big money makers were the people who owned the movies, the people who owned the theaters, and the people who owned the distribution networks. Everybody else was a schlub on a salary.
The performers may have been the biggest schlubs of all. There was no union. That meant that there was little or no protection against the rip-offs or the crazies. There was no medical plan. There were no residuals. There were no unemployment or retirement benefits.
Perhaps, worse than all of that, was the fact that the whole adult business was a dead end for the actors. Everybody else from makeup people to directors could get some phenomenal training in X-rated movies and then graduate. They could move on up to join the appropriate union and work their way into the straight world of commercials, films, and TV. An X-rated actor or actress was not going to be invited to join the Screen Actors Guild. And if you were naïve or stupid enough to tell any of the straight Hollywood agents or casting directors that you had worked in porn, they treated you like you had dog shit on your shoes and were getting it on their carpets. There’s the door, what’s your hurry.
In the beginning of my career, for any number of reasons, I did not want to become known as an X-rated actor. I used a different stage name for each film. There was Marcus Howard, McKinley Howard, and Mack Howard, just to name a few. Eventually, Dewey Alexander became one of my favorites. It was “Dewey” from “Huey, Dewey, and Louie,” Donald Duck’s nephews and “Alexander” from Alexander the Great, a man who needed no introduction.
On the other hand, on the positive side of performing in adult films, there was one fabulous benefit for some of the women. Many of the actresses also worked as dancers in the strip clubs all across the U.S. and Canada. When they became recognizable from a starring or featured role in an X-rated movie, they could easily double and triple the rates that they would be paid for their dancing. They would become headliners! There was no equivalent experience for the men.
Also on the plus side, there were a lot fewer talented actors and actresses competing for jobs in porn than there were in the straight world. That made it a helluva lot easier to get work. Once there, the starting day rates were usually higher in porn than what actors got at the entry levels of the straight world. With less competition, one had the chance to become the big fish in a small pond.
But mostly, there was the opportunity for sex. Those that came into porn just for the money didn’t seem to last very long. In the end, it seemed a lifestyle choice. The people who became the sex stars pretty much wanted to be the sex stars. Some aspect of their personality was being fulfilled by that sexual stardom. Some old score was being settled. The fact that they were being paid for it too, was like a bonus.
In the larger community of actors, the sex stars became like a tide pool of talent that was cut off from the main body of the profession. With very few exceptions, they became a world and an industry unto themselves. Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace, and Georgina Spelvin were the top porn queens of that era. John Holmes, Harry Reems, and Jamie Gillis were the kings.
Chapter Eighteen
The magazines were the bottom of the barrel in the skin trade. Performers were hired to work in choreographed sex scenes that were shot by still photographers. Many of these same photographers also worked on the motion pictures and their pool of models became a source of actors for the movies. A lot of people started out in the business by first posing for these stills. I did maybe two or three of these magazines. Got like $50-$75 a session. Never saw myself in a finished product.
A short step up from the magazines were the loops. Loops were basically just hardcore sex scenes shot in 8mm or 16mm film. Sometimes there was sound, sometimes there wasn’t. Maybe you had costumes and a plot, maybe you didn’t.
Video cassettes eventually rendered the entire film loop industry obsolete, but they had been a big business for a long, long time. I think Thomas Edison made some of the first loops with his maid. Maybe not. I made ten of them early in my career. Some actors made hundreds of these. I got like $50 to a $100 per loop and never saw myself in a finished one of these either.
I got some casting advice from a veteran loop producer who once explained to me that the more anonymous I looked, the more work I could get in the industry. “The women are the stars,” he said, “and the men are their foils.” He instructed me never to bring any attention to myself and away from the female. He suggested that men without tattoos, scars, or any other distinguishing marks would get far more work than those who had them.
I did my first loop for a guy named Daemian Lee. As part of a larger orgy, I had to do a doggie-style penetration of a young well-muscled lesbian named Ronnie. It went well enough. Of course, it would have been a lot easier to do if I’d only had one leg because the other one kept getting in the way of the camera, but we managed. At the appropriate time, Daemian had me pull out and squirt on her bottom. I always hated doing that. Pulling out just made me nuts! It was a crime against, God, Nature, and common sense, but it was like some kind of Golden Rule in the X-rated Cinema: “Thou shalt make a come shot and thou shalt let the camera see it!”
All right, I was done. On my way out the door though, I happened to walk by a room where I saw Ronnie gently weeping into the arms of her girlfriend. It troubled me. Job or no job, it was hard to see a woman that I’d just been some kind of intimate with, in tears. Was it something I’d done? Had I hurt her? Why didn’t she tell me? I had no idea. Was it my fault? Her girlfriend had also been in the orgy having sex with somebody else. Was this some kind of relationship problem between them? Was it none of my business? Should I interrupt them? Should I ask? I didn’t know what was my responsibility in that situation, and what wasn’t. It troubled me. It still does.
This brings us to feature films. It was a very big step up from the magazines and the loops to the world of feature-length films. Here, you were making movies! They came in two sizes. The cheaper ones were shot in 16mm film. They were made down and dirty and in such a hurry that it made you dizzy. Entire movies were often shot in one day. Appropriately, they were called “one-day wonders.” Although by the time I came along, some of these 16mm productions took two or even three days to shoot.
Upon completion of post-production, the final product would be boosted up to 35mm in a lab and prints would be sent out for distribution to all the various X-rated theaters.
The salaries were higher in these films than in the loops or the magazines and some degree of acting went along with all the sex.
The features shot in 35mm film, like The Candy Stripers for example, were the very top of the line for performers in the X-rated industry. These were also being made in a hurry, but they were a big step up from the 16mm’s. You worked in one of these bigger budget productions and you felt like Joe Hollywood. They were more professional. They were “mo better” all way round. These features paid the highest salaries and usually took five to seven days to s
hoot. They had scripts, rehearsals, costumes, makeup, the works!
“I coulda been somebody! I coulda been a contender!”
I heard an interview once with the then aged film legend Jimmy Cagney. He was reminiscing about the good old days of Hollywood when they’d shoot an entire movie in just seventeen days. His interviewer was astonished. In over a hundred films in ten years, I was only in one movie that ever took as long as seventeen days to shoot and that one was just a crazy fluke.
Chapter Nineteen
“There ain’t no success like failure
and failure ain’t no success at all.”
Bob Dylan, from “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”
My next four sex scenes produced a total of zero orgasms. I suspect you might understand how this could be a bit of a problem for an aspiring, young porn actor such as myself. Let me put it into the proper perspective for you. Imagine if you will, a hockey player who doesn’t know how to ice skate. Yup, that pretty much sums it up.
In Sensual Encounters of Every Kind, I was supposed to have sex with Chris Cassidy in the backseat of a Rolls Royce. That sounded like fun didn’t it? Well, we started off just great. I was up and in her. I was able to give them lots of hardcore footage at first, bouncing around in that backseat, but then, but then—it’s the “but thens” that’ll kill ya—I got lost. It was all the stopping and starting over and over again for the camera. It reached a point where my dick just went comatose. Died on the table. Never got it back. Director had me simulate an orgasm inside her.
The only time I ever worked with a fluffer was in Candy Goes to Hollywood. The fluffer was supposed to get me hard off-camera and then I was to jump up, run on stage, and stick myself into Carol Connors, the star of the film. Carol was bending over from the waist and waiting for my doggy-style insertion. She may still be waiting.
I had no problem with the fluffer. She repeatedly kept getting me erect. But every time I inserted myself into Carol, my penis wilted like overcooked asparagus. Perhaps we would have had a chance if Carol had merely turned her head and said “hello” to me. But it wasn’t to be.
After numerous failures to stay hard in Carol, I got the hook. They took me out of the game. Future Hall-of-Famer Jon Martin was summoned to the set as a stunt cock for me. I had to surrender my costume and stand there in a robe while he stepped up to the plate. Harry Mohney was our director. He told me to watch how a real pro gets the job done.
Five minutes later, Jon Martin was squirting his magic seed on Carol’s bottom. I felt about two inches tall.
It got even worse in Telefantasy. Minutes before we were to go on stage to shoot our sex scene, I was scouring the set in search of Christine, my costar. I found her in a dark corner being fingered by the still photographer. Oops!
Our scene was set in a massage parlor. I played a naked guy on a massage table. Christine played the masseuse. On “Action,” she was supposed to suck me until I got hard and then we were supposed to fuck.
When the director did say, “Action,” there began some of the most uneasy quiet I ever heard in my whole life. It was the sound of absolutely nothing happening. I was in a full panic mode. She sucked me for what seemed the briefest amount of time and then just spat out my dick and let loose a torrent of nasty, verbal abuse upon me.
I was clueless, helpless, and emotionally battered. You could add humiliated to that list too. She was raving. The director had seen enough, thank you. Mercifully, he just decided to scratch the whole sex scene.
Chapter Twenty
In my mind, the painted women were all there waiting for me. They were lying on their backs with no panties on. Their legs were spread wide. “C’mon, Howie, what are you waiting for?”
They were on their knees, unzipping me. They were reaching into my pants. They were reaching into my underpants. They were trying to find me.
“C’mon, Howie, we’re here for you. C’mon, now.”
They were naked. They were naked on their hands and knees and they were swaying their asses at me in hulas of invitation. “What are you waiting for, Howie? What are you waiting for?”
I was waiting for my dick to get hard.
The painted ladies were all right there in front of me, all wanting and waiting. I was masturbating myself, now, trying to get my dick hard. I closed my eyes. I was trying to get my dick hard. The whole production was waiting for me. I was thinking about Carly. I was having sexual fantasies of my wife.
There! Did you hear that? Did you hear that?
It was God laughing!
Chapter Twenty-One
The Man Who Would Be King
During this “Golden Age of Porn,” the films and videos overwhelmingly featured male sexual fantasies composed of lust and power.
It was a lovemaking largely devoid of heart, spirit, responsibility, and most intelligence. It was the sexuality of men in groups, the kind that could not show softness, or weakness, or how much a man needed his wife or mommy.
It portrayed an imagined sex life of gangsters, movie stars, business tycoons, and warriors, guys who had the power. These were guys who had the power to easily get who and what and when they wanted.
Women were trophies. Women were comfort stations. Women were good meals at fancy restaurants. Women were use ‘em and lose ‘em.
Pornography was guys showing off for the guys. It was a meager portion of the sum-total of human sexuality, but it completely dominated an industry whose dollars mostly came from men. These were men, alone, without women, men who wanted to see the unattainable women who had denied them, getting fucked and getting fucked “good.”
This skewered sexuality was the backbone of pornography during my era. This is what sold most to guys who were looking to jerk off. And the King of it all at the time was John C. Holmes who stood alone atop a mountain of female conquests with his fourteen inch penis unfurled like the flag of all men everywhere. He was the Achilles of the cock.
The first time I met John Holmes was on the set of Pizza Girls. It was my third or fourth movie. For John Holmes, it was number 1,756 or 2,273.
I was scheduled to work that afternoon, but I got an emergency, mid-morning phone call. The crew had inadvertently set fire to the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor that had been serving as the location. I was asked to bring my VW van and rush myself to the set immediately to help out the film crew in all the chaos. Eager to please as I was in those early days, I hurried to the set.
When I arrived, firefighters were still hosing down the smoldering Shakey’s. Production people were scurrying around them in an irritated frenzy. I recognized superstar John Holmes immediately. There he was schlepping around boxes of equipment like he was some kind of lowly grip. I was impressed.
I had seen John Holmes in dozens of adult films. He looked just like himself. He, with that monster lingam, had already been on top of the X-rated world for well over a decade. I reported to the production manager and soon, I too was schlepping around boxes of equipment like I was some kind of lowly grip. I hoped that someone was taking the time to be impressed by me.
When the vehicles were all loaded, we caravanned to the next location high in the Oakland Hills. It was a private home with a pool and a hot tub. All of my scenes would be shot there.
Pizza Girls was about a heated rivalry between a take-out fried chicken stand and a pizza place. To be kind, it was written in twenty minutes by a brain-damaged chimpanzee. It was very silly.
The movie, of course, starred John Holmes. And it was at once revealing that an actor got top billing in a genre that usually listed only the actresses’ names on the marquee. You see, Picasso painted, Sinatra sang, and John Holmes was a porn star, an institution unto himself in the adult film business.
He had the biggest penis I ever saw in my life, on a human being, that is. There were some donkeys out there that could give him a run for his money. Some said his dick measured fourteen-and-a-half inches long when erect. Others argued that it was a mere thirteen-and-a-half. Would-be Holmes biographer, Al G
oldstein of Screw magazine fame, swore that it was “only” twelve-and-a-half inches long, but Al never paid retail for anything.
By comparison, my own penis measured five-and-three quarter inches at the full height of erection. In the size game, it was like trying to win at poker with a pair of threes.
John Holmes’s cock, however, was a marvel to behold. On the set, eyes widened when he lowered his trousers. In another era, Barnum & Bailey might have hired him out for private parties.
Just about every single actress who ever made a name for herself as a sex star in those days had at one time or another been ritually enlarged by his massive organ. It was an awful lot of penis for one mortal man to be carrying around in his pants.
Watching John’s cock in action, both on the screen and in person, reminded me of the fat women who often served as models in art classes. In student days, I had been very excited when I learned that our class was to have a live, nude female model. When it turned out to be this gargantuan fat lady, I was very disappointed. After staring at her for a while though, it changed. I started to see all of these different women inside of her. She was so very big that she seemed to contain something from every woman who had ever lived. It was precisely that exaggerated size that revealed the universality of all women.
John Holmes’s penis reminded me of that model. His cock was so big that it seemed at times to represent the very essence of maleness taken to the nth degree. And by putting it on the silver screen, that prong poked and spoke for all men and not just for John, the poor schnook who had to live with and care for the beast.
Let’s face it, in the battle between the sexes, John Holmes was carrying nuclear weapons between his legs. For good or evil, he could fuck a woman like she had never been fucked before. To his credit and probably his peace of mind, there was a gentle side to Holmes in matters sexual, as well as the standard “fuck the bitch” mentality so characteristic of conventional porn. I’ve watched many scenes of him delicately and gently offering his enormous cock to frightened women who had to wonder if they could possibly take that huge thing inside of themselves without doing irreparable damage. And I’ve also seen the other scenes too, where, how shall I put this? Let’s just say that “gentleness” was not an issue.