by Howie Gordon
John Leslie on top! Adam Film World
I became a Big Leaguer, one of the Spinelli All-Stars. Gordon Archive.
My son Bobby would call it “A Stilltahn (Steeltown) Trifecta” in this birthday offering he gave me many years later. Gordon Archive.
“Top of the World, Ma!” Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive.
Kenjii.
Left to right: Charlie Stephens, Michael Lewin, and Harry Lee. Gordon Archive.
Marilyn backstage with David Clark in makeup. Gordon Archive.
Howie & Marilyn in the Ferrari. Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive.
TERRIBLE! REALLY, REALLY. REALLY TERRIBLE! Gordon Archive.
Miracle Releasing of Nevada, Inc.
For Posterity. Gordon Archive.
“Your Mother Should Know”. Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive.
Mike Ross/Playgirl.
AM Los Angeles with Regis. Gordon Archive/Playgirl
Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive/Playgirl
Signing autographs with Candace Collins. Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive
The Master Class. Gordon Archive.
VCX.com
Savage Levene with Dorothy Le May. Mark Focus/VCX.com
VCX.com
VCX.com
Jack and Lenny Polaroid. VCX.com
John Leslie & Holly McCall. VCX.com
Her name was Tigr. She would use the name Chelsea Manchester in the credits. VCX.com
Lenny and Karen get ready to have sex. VCX.com
Karen and Lenny embrace. VCX.com
Putting on the condom. VCX.com
Lenny and Karen make love. VCX.com
The wedding. VCX.com
THE KISS. VCX.com
Kathleen Nuzzo.
The happy couple. Kathleen Nuzzo
Sam had made a nice little movie. Jackie Giroux/Gordon Archive
We won everything there was to win. Left to right: Richard Pacheco, Ricky Frazzini, Anthony Spinelli, and John Leslie. Gordon Archive.
Aunt Kitty and Uncle Manny. Gordon Archive.
Martini & Rossi.
Martini & Rossi.
Gordon Archive/Annette Haven.
Annette in The Seven Seductions of Madame Lau. VCX.com
John Leslie was Jackie. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Randy West kissing Vanessa Del Rio. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
I was Jonathon and Joey was Joey. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Left to right: Randy West, John Leslie, Richard Pacheco, and Joey Silvera. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive.
I danced. I did my routine. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
I kissed this one and that. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
More towel wrestling. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
JOEY! Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Happy backstage after the dance. Vincent Fronczek/Gordon Archive
Georgina Spelvin.
Howie & Georgina. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
We delivered the lines. I was good…she was better! Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Timeless Georgina. Georgina Spelvin
It was a great day. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
I think it was “The Lancelot Effect.” Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
We played a tender love scene. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
There were sweet whispers. Vincent Fronczek/VCX.com
Georgina and I would later win numerous Best Supporting Acting awards for our roles in The Dancers. Kent Smith/Adam magazine
Kawasaki Saturday Night. Gordon Archive.
Ooops! Gordon Archive.
Cover Boy! Mike Ross/Playgirl
“Howard,” she called me, “Howard. Thanks for all the help. Along with the help, thanks for the good time.” Lonnie Sanders
Damiano. Gordon Archive.
Vanessa Del Rio. VCX.com
Maria Tortuga and friends. Maria Tortuga
Gordon Archive.
Gordon Archive/VCX.com
Mike Horner. Mike Horner
Veronica Hart. Adam Film World
Heat! Adam Film World
Veronica & Howie. Gordon Archive.
Kelly Nichols. Kelly Nichols
This wasn’t subtle. This wasn’t casual. Kelly Nichols
This wasn’t something to be trifled with… Kelly Nichols
With Brooke West in The Mistress. It was the first time I ever met a shaved woman. VCX.com
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix — La liberté guidant le peuple
Caballero
Hustler Video/LFP Video Group, LLC
Hustler Video/LFP Video Group, LLC
Hustler Video/LFP Video Group, LLC
Howie the male lead. VCX.com
Annette Haven as Madame Lau. VCX.com
Reading the Tarot Cards. VCX.com
With Kay Parker and Director Charles De Santos on sticks. Gordon Archive.
We began to make love on the beach… VCX.com
…but we soon had to stop because the mosquitoes were eating us alive! Gordon Archive.
Copulating and coping. VCX.com
Blindfolding Howie. VCX.com
Be careful what you wish for. VCX.com
Check, please!VCX.com
Saved by Annette Haven. VCX.com
The Main Event. Gordon Archive/Annette Haven
VCX.com
VCX.com
Charles de Santos. Gordon Archive.
Georgina & Howie on the rooftop. VCX.com
Gordon Archive.
Annette & Howie as teenagers. VCX.com
Putting on the condom. VCX.com
We called the baby “Junior Mints” right from the start. Gordon Archive.
We’re makin’ a baby here! Gordon Archive.
This one was all about the money. Gordon Archive.
TVX
Samantha Fox. Platinum pictures
A sweep in New York! Johnny Castano/ADAM
Nose to nose with Samantha. Vincent Fronczek/TVX
Vincent Fronczek/TVX
Vincent Fronczek/TVX
Vincent Fronczek/TVX
Director Eddie Brown. Gordon Archive.
Spinelli’s Reel People. Ricston/Arrow
Me and Junior Mints. Gordon Archive.
Part Five
My Entire Career Was Like a Man Sticking His Hand Up His Ass and Trying To Grow Geraniums
Chapter One
From a Cad to a Dad in 106 Easy Lessons
So, we had a baby. The entire universe is telling you that your life will never be the same after that but you don’t really know what that means. There’s still Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and eventually, after all the hoopla, you just go back to doing what you were doing, only now you gotta take care of this baby too.
The nine months of pregnancy and the child’s birth had already completely turned us into scrambled eggs. The game was on. Our antes were in there. We were coping. We just had to keep on playing the cards that we got dealt.
Carly’s parents and my parents finally got to meet each other when they were all introduced to their new granddaughter. It was a special time for everybody, accounting for many pictures in the great family scrapbook of our lives.
Our first babysitters were the family and then later, friends. Eventually, we got introduced to the wonderful world of professional childcare.
Driving one babysitter home after a night out at the movies, she asked me whether or not our house had ghosts. She thought a ghost had come to check her out after we had left for the movies. If she had asked me that before we left, we never would have made it out the front door.
Another time, with a different sitter, we got home to discover her calmly sniffing lines of cocaine off a mirror. Not only was she unapologetic, she actually started scolding us for going out at all. She said our daughter was too young for childcare.
We had our hits and misses with
the babysitting brigade, but eventually, we did find all the help we needed. Carly was able to resume her career as a therapist and I was ready to get myself back into the movies.
Chapter Two
The very best part of the LA Awards that year was that Veronica Hart and I both brought our babies to the afternoon rehearsal. The flower of the porn world cooed and giggled with our newborns. It was a delight.
That night, Richard Bolla and I tied in the Best Supporting Actor category and shared the podium for our thank you speeches. We had never met before. He was mostly East Coast and I was mostly West. Being in competition and all, I didn’t expect to like the man, but I did. He was a gracious guy and he had bright eyes with an easy and welcoming smile. We rarely crossed paths, but when we did, I always enjoyed his company.
Chapter Three
I resumed my career with a round two of Marilyn Chambers. I played a prestigious LA disc jockey named Tommy Harper and she was the young country western singer Cassie Harland, who was, as the movie’s title suggested, Up ‘n Coming.
In our little scene, Cassie was offering Tommy sexual favors in trade for his promoting her new single on the radio. They used to call that, “payola.” It was illegal.
I’d been out of the business for a couple of months. It felt like an eternity. I had put on a few pounds. Pregnancy can be tough on a fella, y’know. She eats, you eat with her. I wasn’t exactly fat, but my sculptured Greek god body was gone. Oddly, nobody really seemed to care much but me. In the mainstream porn business, the eyes were all focused on the woman. Still, like the biblical Samson with his hair, that chiseled body I’d made had given me some strength. Now, I’d lost that edge. No more centerfold body, I was just another actor.
And it had been a long time since I had done my last sex scene. There had even been talk between Carly and me about my saying good-bye to the business. I was fragile. I was living in this new bubble of intimacy with my wife and baby. It was a long, long way from the land of lust and come shots.
Besides that, when I had been working regularly, it was the frequency of doing those sex scenes that had helped me to develop some sexual confidence. As I was about to discover in this last phase of my career, with longer periods of time between the sex scenes, each one of them would feel like a comeback. There was too much time for me to worry about things. It was a return to the high anxiety levels about sexual function that had deviled me in the early days. I was a veteran now. I was supposed to know how to handle this pressure. It was a cause for concern. Viagra was still twenty years away.
Well, if I was going to jump back in and restart my career, a Marilyn Chambers movie was a great way to do it. They were always top of the line.
“It’s a blow job scene and you won’t even have to come!” was the way the producers put it to me. And the money was good too. They were making it easy for me. We’d have diaper money for five months. Deal.
In Up ‘n Coming, Cassie Harland gave Tommy Harper exactly one half of a blow job. When she was sure that she held his interest, she abruptly stopped sucking and told Tommy that she’ll be back to finish it when her new song reached number one on the charts! Slick old girl that Cassie Harland!
Tommy Harper wasn’t at all happy about that and neither was I. Tommy couldn’t do anything about it because the script said so, but I hung around backstage hoping that I could get Marilyn to finish the job for me privately.
Fat chance. Chuck Traynor immediately had her changing clothes and running lines for the next scene. She did sign an autographed picture for me though.
Wham-bam-thank you, ma’am! I was paid off and sent on my merry way. If there were any sound effects here, you’d hear a wolf howling at the moon. Many years later, Marilyn had these kind words to say in an online interview:
CRAVE MAGAZINE: Who has been your favorite actor to work with?
MARILYN CHAMBERS: A guy named Richard Pacheco, he was really good. He played in Insatiable; he was Artie Goldberg, the guy I picked up in the Ferrari. He also played in Up ‘n Coming, he was a DJ. He was really easy to work with, he’s a great guy. I really liked working with him. Working with Robert Klein was really cool. I’ve been really fortunate, it’s not that I’ve worked with so many famous people, but I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of great actors in my career. I have to tell you too that John Holmes was not the evil person that everyone tried to make him out to be, that was not the whole story. I also have to mention David Cronenburg, working with him in Rabid, the horror film that I did for him, that was really fun, I think David Cronenburg is a great director.
Behind Chamber Doors, Mar/Apr 2005
An Interview with Marilyn Chambers by Robin Steeley
Chapter Four
The bad news was that I didn’t work again for the next three months. Fortunately, that was also the good news.
I got to be a full-time daddy with Carly and our new baby. We were in Kitchee-Kitchee-Koo Heaven. Not many other daddies got to do that.
On the other hand, out of work is not good for actors, porn or otherwise. Between the adjustments to parenting and the withdrawal from working, I was nuts.
There was the odd negotiation or two, but nothing quite happened. Cecil Howard became my annual overture from a New York producer. He had a good reputation for making classy films. When he called, he was full of praise and all excited about bringing me to Manhattan for his next project. His zeal quickly evaporated when Carly, now acting as my manager, told him my rates. He stated simply that he couldn’t afford us.
As time passed and the bank accounts dwindled, the doubts set in. Will I ever work again? Is this acting thing over? Are my rates just too high? What about graduate school? Is it too late? What subject would I study? What do I want to be when I grow up? Did I want to grow up?
I got in the habit of cutting out grocery coupons. I wondered how was I ever going to pay for my kids’ college educations?
Silly me! Little did I know that we were already going to go broke just trying to pay for their elementary schools.
Chapter Five
When I was a little kid — maybe eight, nine, and ten — I used to sit on the sofa with my Mommy. She used to let me tuck my feet under her bottom while we watched TV. It was not unlike a hen sitting on her eggs. I loved that.
Chapter Six
Summer and Eddie Brown came to town and brought an end to my drought when they hired me for Naughty Girls Need Love, Too.
Unlike Irresistible, the earlier big-time production that I did with them, this one was to be a lower-budget quickie without a lot to brag about. Still, I would have three days work with two sex scenes.