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

by Howie Gordon

  He’s gone now, as are my folks, and my mother-in-law is the last remaining parent. We have developed a great relationship over the years, one I think that has delightfully surprised us both. I have shared that the last thing I ever thought I needed was another mother. But over time, I had to admit that I was wrong. My in-laws were both incredible people. I lucked out in that department and have always done my best to show the immense gratitude I feel for all the love and care extended to me and the kids. We have truly been a family.

  So, that’s what makes what she told me yesterday, after more than thirty years of waiting, all the more poignant. She told me yesterday, after thirty years of keeping it to herself, that when Carly first told her that I was working in the X-rated business, she got sick.

  She remembered that we were driving her and her husband to the airport where they were to fly to Western Canada to begin a cross-continental railway adventure. They did fly to Canada, but she said she got so sick trying to absorb our news that she had to cut short the whole vacation and go home.

  My heart sank, but I understood it. I had faced all of those same feelings before when I first told my own parents.

  She said that she always wanted to think of her family as part of some kind of refined cultural elite. Clearly, my choice of occupations had smashed that aspiration to pieces, but she held her tongue. For thirty years, she held her tongue.

  She wasn’t actually scolding me now. She was more being wistful, kind of confessing a long ago hurt between two people who had somehow grown to love each other anyway. She was letting me know that I had demanded a lot, but that she had given it, as best she could, even though it ran against her every fiber.

  Then she talked about the kids, her grandchildren. She worried about what difficulties I had lain upon their heads by having chosen my path through life. Carly and I have often worried about that too. We worried from what might emerge at an elementary school or on a little league playground to what might one day get said by the parents of a partner that they’d fallen in love with and wanted to marry. We have worried.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mike

  Mike was the coach. Stanford-educated, but could still kick your ass in a hurry if he wanted to. Mike was coaching my son’s little league baseball team. The players were all eleven or twelve years old.

  It was early in the year. We were at the field getting ready for a game one day when Mike came right to me.

  “We might have some trouble today,” he said. “One of the mothers on the other team knows who you are!” Surprised me. I hadn’t said word one to anyone in the whole league about me being Richard Pacheco.

  “Of, course,” Mike added, “I knew who you were the minute you walked on the field.”

  I admit that was gratifying.

  “And I just wanna say,” Mike continued, “that anybody who’s been all up in Nina Hartley’s booty, is all right with me. If anything happens today, I’ll take care of it,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  That was even better.

  And as far as I know, nothing did happen, except that Mike and I became buddies. That was good. And then the kids went on to have themselves an outstanding season. That was great!

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Damiano

  If I had to put four faces on the Mt. Rushmore of Porn, I’d have to choose Gerry Damiano and John Holmes, and then Georgina Spelvin and Marilyn Chambers. Although it wouldn’t take too much prodding for me to drop Marilyn and stick Vanessa Del Rio up there. As I said before, Marilyn just got famous from the Ivory Snow thing. Vanessa Del Rio was a true peoples’ champion. Men everywhere loved her.

  Fact is, you could talk about substituting in Jamie Gillis, Linda Lovelace, or maybe even Annette Haven or Seka to be up there too. But the one space you wouldn’t mess with at all would be the one reserved for Gerard Damiano.

  He was the Moses of the industry. He led us out of the desert of eight mm stag films and delivered us to real motion picture theaters with paying customers out there eating popcorn in the audience.

  So, when the word passed around that the great Maestro was coming out West to shoot a new movie, we all got in line to kiss the ring

  The film was called Never So Deep. It was a farce, a silly old baggy-pants piece of fluff. It stunk.

  When the Great Recorder comes to discuss the ground-breaking contributions of Gerard Damiano to the world of adult films, it’s not likely that this film will ever be mentioned.

  It was like hooking up with Babe Ruth at the end of his career when he was playing for the Boston Braves. Forgetaboutit.

  Probably the best thing that happened on this whole shoot was having an off-stage rendezvous with Maria Tortuga while we were waiting to go on one afternoon.

  We snuck off to a broom closet and I gave her a blow job. She gave me this autographed picture as a thank you. In case you can’t make out the writing, it reads: “Howie Sweetheart — See ya back in the broom closet, LOVE Maria Tortuga.” This was the kind of fringe benefit, of course, that often made being in the adult business a lot of fun.

  Damiano gave me two parts to play in the movie. One was that of a Hindu tourist visiting a peep show in North Beach and the other was that of a famous French film director.

  His direction to me consisted of two words, “Be funny.” I was funny. At least in that first scene I was. I made him laugh. Don’t know what he was doing in the second one, though, because I was too busy trying to get my dick to speak French.

  It was Loni Sanders again, but it bore no resemblance to our red-hot first encounter. This time, we were in a three-way with Mike Horner. It was on a desktop in my office. I was the French director in this scene. Loni was on her back on the desk. I was supposed to be fucking her at one end while Mike got head at the other.

  With me standing on the floor, I was too short for my penis to reach her vuvuzela. They brought in an apple box for me to stand on and cheat the shot. I may have told you before that I don’t like standing up for very long when I’m having sex, especially when it’s in the movies. In this scene, I was supposed to take the stand-up sex all the way to orgasm. Additionally, I was supposed to do it all while improvising a steady French-accented, comic monologue. It was a recipe for disaster. It was comical all right, but it wasn’t much of a sex scene. Maybe Gerry was laughing at that. If you weren’t me, you might have thought it was very funny.

  God bless Loni Sanders. She was trying. I actually did get an erection and gave them some of the in-and-out footage they wanted, but it was a struggle all the way. My dick was up and down. It was difficult to stay aroused. And friends, when that penile yo-yo stuff starts, you try being funny in a French accent.

  It was Mike Horner to the rescue. He had already had his orgasm from the blow job and was watching me sweat bullets. When it became clear to one and all that it would likely take an act of God for me to have an orgasm, Mike Horner volunteered to take my place. He wanted a second helping of Miss Sanders. It was fine with me and it was fine with her.

  In no time at all, he was up and in the saddle. Way taller than me at six feet one inch, he didn’t even need to use the apple box. Mike had a big grin on his face as he rode on to glory.

  Seemed like Mike always had a big grin on his face. At the time, he was probably one of the most under-rated, under-publicized, and likely under-paid actors in the business. The man had talent. He could act with anybody. And he for sure could fuck like a rabbit.

  I invited Mike to share his memories of that scene with me:

  “I vividly remember some parts of this movie, though I was merely a bit player, and not yet very accomplished at acting (that took a few years of acting classes), and I particularly recall your acting. At one point, playing the director, you threw the fake script in the air in a gesture of fake inspiration and it was funny, and drew laughs from the crew. Forty years later, I was playing Bill O’Reilly in “Who’s Nailin Pailin” and used the same gesture in a fake fit of anger by my version of
O’Reilly. As my arm went up and scattered the pages, I had an instant remembrance of you performing the same gesture and I gave you some measure of credit for placing that little idea deep in my brain.

  I hadn’t remembered that the girl was Loni Sanders, who I always admired. Thanks for the memories.”

  Mike Horner

  I liked Mike — still do. I always enjoyed seeing him on the set. He was a team player who always had a nice word for everybody. Mike Horner was high on my list of actors I would cast as a leading man when I moved up to writing and directing my own movies. I looked forward to that happening one day.

  After writing this chapter, I later had some later doubts that maybe I’d been too harsh on Gerry Damiano. I mean, who was I to be so critical of the great master? So, I looked up Never So Deep in some of the old reviews.

  In Adam Film World’s 1984 Film Directory, they wrote: “Despite his success and reputation, Damiano has had his fair share of turkeys, which out of respect we won’t mention.”

  And to cap it off, after detailing a synopsis of Never So Deep in his own X-rated Videotape Guide, sex educator and reviewer Robert Rimmer wrote:

  “Please, Gerard, don’t make a sequel.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Veronica Hart

  There was a knock on my door, at least I thought it was my door. It was Veronica Hart. I’d seen her around. We’d said hello before. She was a New York actress who was coming on like gangbusters in the business.

  There were at least three different film companies staying at the Howard Johnson’s in Mill Valley that night. I was with Spinelli. She was with somebody else. She was wearing a fur coat.

  Turned out, she wasn’t knocking at my door at all. She was knocking at the door next door. It was the door of Raul Lomas, the suave cameraman from Brazil. All the pretty girls were knocking on the door of Raul Lomas, the suave cameraman from Brazil. Must have been when we were shooting The Dancers. Raul and I had adjoining rooms at the HOJO. She was knocking at his door.

  “Go away now, I’m busy,” came Raul’s voice from inside. Veronica looked at me and I looked at her.

  “Want some company?” she asked. I smiled and invited her in. She let her fur coat fall open. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

  It wasn’t long before we were cast opposite each other in Anthony Spinelli’s Between the Sheets. I was eager to work with her on screen. Veronica Hart was in the midst of a meteoric rise to become one of the top performers in the business. She was an actress of the first order and her sex scenes growled! The young maiden was Hall of Fame stuff from the get-go.

  While reviewers didn’t think of Between the Sheets as one of Spinelli’s major efforts, I thought it was a charming idea. It featured a lot of the big-name X-rated talent of the era in what amounted to a series of vignettes all held together by a talking bed.

  Somewhat akin to one of my Hollywood favorites, Tales of Manhattan (1942), Annette Haven, Seka, John Leslie, Vanessa Del Rio, Eric Edwards, Aracadia Lake, Joey Silvera, Tigr, R.J. Reynolds, Veronica Hart and myself took star turns in being some of the lovers who used the bed in the over 200 years of its amorous history. It started with the first couple during America’s Revolutionary War and traveled through time until it got to Veronica and me, who were using it now.

  I actually lobbied Sam to cast us as the 1960s hippie couple, but he had this whole, long kind of existential mishmush of dialogue that he really wanted Veronica and me to play as the present day couple (1981). We did it his way. You didn’t win too many arguments with Sam.

  I can’t remember exactly what it was about. It was heavy. It was dark, something about office politics. She was my boss. Ambition, alienation, might have had something to do with John Lennon’s assassination too. That was a big moment that touched Sam deeply. I don’t know. It was long, about eight pages long and dense. Veronica and I rehearsed the hell out of that scene before we ever got on the set and it still took us all day to shoot it. It got the full Spinelli treatment. But, six months later when the movie came out, none of that stuff was even in there. They had cut it so all that remained was the sex scene.

  Who those people were and why they were having sex didn’t seem to concern the editor very much. Why should I let it bother me? Besides that, the sex scene was pretty good. Pornoland.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Kelly Nichols

  It was The Mistress. We were shooting The Mistress. I met Kelly Nichols for the first time and got all stupid.

  Sure, there was the glitz and the glamour, the porn and the pose, but once the war paint came off, there was something else underneath.

  I wasn’t even working with her in this movie. Well, I had a scene with her, but it was all dialogue. There was no sex. I wanted to have sex though. What was going on here? I was married. I think she was married too. Sure, I wanted to be in the business and all, but that had nothing to do with getting myself all stupid. I didn’t want to get stupid. I was fighting with myself. Something about Kelly Nichols just made me stupid.

  It didn’t go anywhere then, we didn’t have sex. I worked with another girl in The Mistress and we did have sex. In fact, it was the first time I got up close and personal with a bikini-waxed woman. Lord, have mercy, I truly loved that. I absolutely adored it. You could finally see what was going on down there! And when you got right down into it, it was like kissing Mother Nature right on the lips. Did not want to take my face out of there.

  Hair had always been the big problem with oral sex. Sometimes it bothered me and sometimes it didn’t. Depended on my mood, the thickness, the odors, lots of factors were at work down there, but nothing could bring things to a halt faster than a stray hair getting caught in your throat. Gagging did not do much to enhance foreplay. It was just a step or two above farting.

  This clean-shaven thing, this was a get-out-of-jail-free card! This was smooth sailing. This was soft, sweet, and sacred stuff. It was wet, wild, and free. Vagina pudding. The tongue was on a rampage, let loose in paradise. This was a joyous event. Flicking, licking, nose and tongue, my whole face was rolling around in the wet and wonderful.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Which Brings Us to Annette Haven Again

  To me, she was Liberty Leading The People.

  Annette was another special woman, but not just to me. She was special to the whole industry. Not near enough fuss has been made about her in celebration. There was no one else like Annette Haven.

  We’d had four years of getting-to-know-you foreplay before we were finally cast as lovers in Las Vegas Maniacs, I had her quite idealized by then.

  First of all, she was a star of the highest order.

  Anthony Spinelli often said she was a throwback to an earlier Hollywood, one that had been lit up by the likes of Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. “Annette didn’t just walk into a room,” he’d say, “she swooped in.” Sam would howl with glee when she’d make such an entrance. “And once inside that room,” he observed, “Annette would proceed to own it.” Sam admired her style and chutzpah, how she managed seemingly to do it all with a smile, flashing eyes, and a sharp tongue.

  In the world of porn, one that was so utterly dominated by men flexing their muscle and their fantasy, Annette Haven made a huge difference.

  In the early seventies, when the industry was just getting started, Annette was porn’s great beauty when so many of the other women just weren’t.

  She soon made the X-rated world her personal domain. She had star power and she knew how to use it. Her beauty was a weapon. She quickly understood what it meant to be the box office and she kept that edge throughout her entire career.

  If other actresses tried to do some of the things that she did routinely on a set, they’d be fired, gone, and history.

  If the producers wouldn’t treat her the way that she demanded, she’d be gone. Annette played it as if they needed her more than she needed them. Very few ever called her bluff.

  Annette Haven mad
e an enormous contribution to humanizing the men’s locker room aspect of making adult films. You just didn’t see certain kinds of male behaviors on her sets that you saw on others. What am I talking about?

  Well, for one thing, I doubt that Annette Haven ever took a come shot in her face. In a business whose sexuality was dominated by male rage, she kept the beast at bay. I marveled at her spirit. She was Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Sarah Bernhardt, all living in the body of Venus.

  That she was a unique star in her own right was a big enough deal, but what truly made her special was that she was also very protective of all the other women around her. Annette went out of her way to teach the young actresses how to survive in the erotic jungle of Pornoland. She was the Mama Bear. You messed with her cubs at your peril. If she saw a guy being abusive to a woman on a set, she’d get right up in his face. If need be, she’d bring the show to a halt and get the producer to either set the guy straight or get rid of him.

  While other women may have had those same impulses, Annette Haven was the one who acted on them. And pretty much alone amongst all of them, Annette Haven had the will and the power to back it all up. If she walked off the set in the middle of a production, it was gonna cost somebody a lot of money. Producers were inclined to keep her happy.

  If it’s not clear yet, I can just tell you that she was my fuckin’ hero.