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

by Howie Gordon

  I was just grateful for the job.

  For me, it was another “buddy” film, this time with Randy West. Instead of the dim-witted, socially backward Lenny of Nothing to Hide and Talk Dirty, I would be playing the computer nerd, socially backward Walter of Marina del Rey. Either way, “socially backward” was the operative term.

  Once again, as a girl-shy bumbler, I would be engaging an older brother-like figure to help me get the girls. As Skip, Randy West was a sun-worshipping jock, a legendary ladykiller in an upscale LA singles community. He would be my teacher in the ways of love.

  Dan Shocket, a reviewer for Al Goldstein’s Screw magazine wrote:

  “Richard Pacheco portrays a fabulously wealthy young man who can’t seem to find women. If you believe that, have I got a set of encyclopedias for you!”

  My concession to playing the “shy” Walter was to wear a pair of eyeglasses. Obviously, it wasn’t enough.

  I always enjoyed Shocket’s reviews. He was one of the few regular adult film reviewers who wasn’t a shill for the industry. Most reviewers worked for porn magazines that were tied into the films’ producers in various ways. This frequently resulted in absolute turds getting five-star reviews. Shocket was a free agent. Al Goldstein let him say what he wanted. And what Dan Shocket wanted was to see good X-rated movies. Of Naughty Girls Need Love, Too, he said:

  This film is in reality a series of expertly photographed loops. The scenes range from silly to sizzling, but they are sure to incite surreptitious fondling in theaters throughout the world. The only danger is that you may start to think about it. That would be a mistake.

  A single moment, the tiniest instant spent in contemplation can cause the whole film to fall apart. This will lead you to wonder if the monkeys who randomly typed the script were being sadistically tortured or were simply contemptuous of their audience. Every stereotype is presented without any suggestion of originality. Anyone who can’t guess what happens at least twenty minutes before it occurs is probably writing the producers next script.

  Let’s just say this film is a triumph for actors over the absence of a screenplay.

  My first sex scene was a blow job from two ladies. I worked with Lyn Francis and Lyn Richards. It was memorable only in that it was my nineteenth successful sex scene in a row. In my next scene, that streak would be broken.

  I’m not sure when things went south with Rachel Ashley. Maybe it was because her mother was on the set. She seemed like an agent, a protectress, and an advisor. That didn’t exactly thrill me, but it shouldn’t have been a problem either. Rachel and I actually started off like gangbusters.

  She was sucking me and I was all up and flying. Rachel was young, fresh, and zaftig. You know from zaftig? A busty Penthouse Pet, she would have made Reubens drool. If she’d been a member of the Donner Party, there would have been a lot more survivors. Built like Vanessa Del Rio, she had large breasts and a large behind.

  Shocket wrote:

  Rachel Ashley portrays a blowsily attractive woman with great tits. For most of the film, she is dull and silly, which is about what her part calls for. Suddenly, Pacheco gets on top of her and starts being sensitively gentle. Women critics are mother-bear protective of Pacheco and this scene shows why. In response, Rachel becomes warm and hot and natural. Not only are you horny but you’re so happy for them.

  Dan Shocket was fooled by movie magic, but I’m not surprised. Recently, someone sent me a copy of that scene that was snipped out of the movie. Between the acting and the editing, it looked red hot, but that’s not what happened at all.

  Like I said, we started off swell when she was sucking me. I went from cold and anxious to hot, hard, and ready. Then, we reversed the roles. I began to suck and nibble her. And while I did, I was fucking the bed, her ankle, anything with which my erection came into contact.

  Rachel made the noises of pleasure, but I felt like something was wrong. I felt like the flower was just not opening. It was nothing concrete, nothing visible, just a feeling. Man, the last thing a male porn actor needs are his feelings!

  When they had enough footage of me sucking her, we were directed to move into a penetration shot. We never made it.

  I thought I was eager. As I tried to enter her, it just wouldn’t work.

  Our hips were not fitting together in a way that made access to her vagina easy. Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.

  She did her best to take me in, but it wasn’t happening. My erection started to wilt. I just had the feeling that she didn’t want me inside of her.

  I was getting one message from her on the surface of things that said all systems are go, but I could not shake “the feeling” that she was really saying, “Stop.”

  I got confused. You’ve all been down this road with me before. Those earlier experiences had taught me to avoid these kinds of mental gymnastics, but I was stuck. As I tried hard to push in past the outer gates, I got bent back in half for my efforts. Ouch. I lost my erection.

  Uh, anybody seen my erection?

  I got it back a couple of times, but every time I tried to penetrate, I lost it again. Worry blossomed into fear and fear was frightening. Shame was just around the corner. Rachel was lying there with her legs spread wide. There shouldn’t have been any fucking problem — or any “fucking” problem either — but there was. Eddie gave me some time to try and work it out, but I remained baffled. My penis had lost interest and then Eddie Brown did too. We were wasting his time. He was on a tight schedule.

  Eddie came to the bed of my travail like a manager coming out to the pitcher’s mound. He was calling for a relief pitcher. I was being sent to the showers. “Shake it off, kid, you’ll get ‘em next time.”

  Randy West came in for me and fucked Rachel Ashley silly. Boom! Boom! Boom! They shot all of their hardcore close-ups using Randy’s cock as if it were mine. Boom! Boom! Boom! Most people would never notice the change in the color of the pubic hair or the shape of the dick. Boom! Boom! Boom! And he squirted his come on her bottom.

  After a brief clean-up, I was sent back in to shoot some matching soft-core simulation. I actually tried to get hard and salvage the scene during these shots just to prove that I could. I couldn’t.

  Up until that scene, I had gone to bat nineteen straight times without a misstep. My streak was broken. My confidence was shook. I had memories of the old days. It wasn’t pleasant to linger on those thoughts because I had a huge job lined up beginning the very next day. I was leaving for Hollywood to do a three-week shoot for David Marsh and Svetlana.

  Chapter Seven

  Who am I to argue with Jupiter?

  Her name was Colleen.

  She was eighteen.

  I was thirty-four.

  It was a perfect storm.

  I Blame It on Hollywood

  I do. I was living there for three weeks on location and I blame it all on Hollywood, all of it.

  Unlike Homer’s hero Odysseus, who remained securely tied to the mast so that he might hear the fabled, irresistible call of the Sirens, without falling victim to their curse, I got loose!

  I came untied from the mast. I heard the Sirens’ song and I dove in the water. I swam recklessly ashore and went looking for trouble. Again. I wasn’t getting any younger. I was making my move. This was my chance.

  It was the whole LA package that dizzied me. Again.

  It was the glittering glob of fame and fortune that enraptured me, led by its dazzling muses of sex, drugs, and the three-picture deal.

  I was on the loose again in LA. My boner was a divining rod serving my ambition. The soap opera became my life. It was messy.

  Veteran porn star Eric Edwards once said to me, “I don’t know, Howie, every year I get a year older — and every year, they’re still eighteen.”

  You tell yourself you’re only getting close because you have to be able to do a love scene with her, but by the middle of the second week, she’s sleeping over in your hotel room.

  Oh, I said all the right th
ings. I told her I was married and had a kid. I told her I loved my wife and was going home after the movie. I’d be unavailable for any personal relationship, but we still had almost two more weeks to go in LA.

  I played Harry. She played Susie. Our characters were supposed to be falling in love. They got hit by Cupid’s arrow and unexpectedly had sex with each other in the back of a shoe store. Afterwards, on the beach at sunset, they were looking deeply into each other’s eyes. This was the dialogue:

  Susie:

  I like what we did, but I’m embarrassed. I’m not usually like that.

  Harry:

  Well, it doesn’t happen like that with me either all the time. Y’know, it just happened.

  Susie:

  Harry, do you care about me?

  Harry:

  Susie, I think you’re great.

  Susie:

  You’re the kinda guy I could fall in love with.

  (They kiss. A dog barks. Deep eye staring. Hands on faces, stroking hair. )

  Harry:

  Susie, you are very special.

  Susie:

  What does that mean?

  Harry:

  It means I’m afraid to say words like “love.”

  (They kiss again.)

  I played scenes like this before, but they were usually played in one day, and I’d be on my way back home that night, the next morning at the latest. We still had two more weeks to go in LA.

  We had no chance.

  Chapter Eight

  Why don’t you try acting?

  “Well, if you thought your mother-in-law, your wife and kids weren’t gonna like that last chapter, this one ought to really do the trick!”

  “Oh, go fuck yourself!”

  “Sounds like I already did.”

  “Look, I concede that the judgment of history has been, of necessity, very harsh on the era of “The Sexual Revolution.” These behaviors that I see myself doing with other women back then, they seem unconscionable today to a world entering its third decade of the AIDS epidemic — especially when one considers that they were done by a husband outside of his marriage.

  But the world was a different place then! It was a very different place! Sexual freedom was a meaningful lifestyle choice! It was! It was! It was a great social experiment, and not just some empty-headed slogan for selfish or damaged, addled-brained hedonists.

  Or maybe not.

  I seem to have a hard time being who I was then…now.

  And trying to write about it, trying to amass some level of sympathy for myself, is not an easy task. Could I tolerate a volume describing the 110 other cocks that Carly fondled, and all the intimacy that went along with them when they were touched? Which of those sexual encounters opened up her nose and made her wet? Which ones made her retch? Which ones touched her heart and got her all the way up to asking the question, “Am I with the right man?”

  Jesus, I don’t know.

  All through my years acting in the business, my years writing about it, and my years of making personal appearances, people have always asked me, “What did your wife think?” What did your wife think? What did your wife think?

  This was never a question I could answer to anybody’s satisfaction…especially for the women in the group. There was nothing positive I could say that wouldn’t seem like so much self-serving bullshit. I needed Carly to speak for herself.

  But being a therapist all these years, it was never her wish to take on being the public Mrs. Richard Pacheco. She wanted to keep a low profile. As far as her clients were concerned, she wanted the details of her private life to remain private. Period.

  Okay, so I asked her, if she wouldn’t do these personal appearances with me, would she at least be willing to go on record in writing. Would she make a statement that I could honestly share with these people who wanted to know what my wife thought about my having had a career in the porn business?

  She said she would. And she did. And this is what she had to say:

  Q: What was it like to be married to a porn star?

  The long answer:

  I believe in art, and I believe in art that depicts human sexuality. To me, sex can be the centerpiece of some of life’s most ecstatic experiences; ecstatic and nasty and goofy and terrifying and sacred and divine and no big deal. Art that understands and represents our sexuality can be a vital thing, and films need actors.

  Still, the truth for me is this: thinking back on the days of Richard’s involvement in X-rated films is a little painful and embarrassing. Those feelings are mixed in with my pride in his work and my belief that he really did bring a strong and healthy sensibility to an art form that had been filled with some pretty sad ideas about sex. He was a hard working actor and a crusader for quality films, and he took my chubby little ass swimming naked at the Playboy Mansion. Plus, we made some lifelong friends from the industry.

  So, why is it uncomfortable for me to remember? Being married to any actor can be emotionally dangerous territory, but especially one who plays love scenes and sex scenes. Where’s the line between “acting” and reality? Are we connecting, or are we pretending to connect, or are we lingering here with the connection that we just made? It’s that offscreen time, now that could definitely kill ya. I see why Hollywood marriages are so fragile.

  Well, either it was truly comfortable for me then, and I’ve really, really changed, or else I was operating with a huge amount of self-deception. I do experience jealousy, I hate it, and if I never have to feel it again, it would be fine with me. I am not aroused by the sight or the idea of my mate with someone else. At best it’s neutral, or awkward. At worst, it’s the worst. And a complete turn-off.

  I spent the hippie days trying to transcend the base emotions, like jealousy. Hey, jealousy was a bad idea, so we were just going to eliminate it! Well, we stopped the Vietnam war, we smoked a lot of weed, but we didn’t get rid of jealousy. I’m sure there must be people somewhere who did, but I’m not one of them.

  Sex can come so close to the essence of who we are that we protect ourselves there. I think that’s human nature. We defend ourselves where we are most vulnerable.

  So, I guess the answer is, “I muddled through.” Having kids altered my awareness of how irrevocably vulnerable I am to this man, and my muddling skills melted like snow. Still, I love him, I like him, I’m proud of him and I’m amazed at where we’ve been together in the last thirty-five years.

  The short answer:

  I used to be a really good sport.

  I’m not a really good sport anymore.

  Chapter Nine

  Nice Girls Do was the working title. It was later released as Bad Girls IV.

  This is the film where I bonded with Jamie Gillis. He was the star of this movie. We were working for Svetlana and David Marsh.

  Svetlana and David had the worst reputations in the business. Why did I take this job? It was for the money. They were going to pay me for fifteen days work spread out over three weeks. It was mucho dinero.

  I had worked for them in their original Bad Girls, but it was only for one day. I got through it okay. They weren’t guilty of anything particularly noxious that day other than bad taste, but that was just a hand in the glove of an X-rated movie. When they offered me a big-paying, costarring role here, I figured I could handle it. I figured I could handle it. I figured I could handle it.

  One time, when I’d had a call from a certain New York producer offering me a job, I called Sam Weston to ask if he knew anything about the guy.

  Sam said, “Oh, no, no, you don’t want to work for him.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No, no, you don’t,” Sam said. “Because when he’s not making movies, he’s out there breaking legs.”

  Svetlana and David weren’t bad guys like that, not to my knowledge anyway. I don’t think they ever killed anybody or caused anybody’s limbs to be broken. Still, they managed to qualify as two of the worst people I ever met in the business. They were nasty. Clearly, God must h
ave created them when He was getting ready to take a colonoscopy. All these years later, the stench is still strong.

  In the three weeks of this production, they created an atmosphere full of chaos and confusion. Svetlana was the director and she was the worst one I ever had. She was not fit to lead people. She was a sadist who thrived on chaos and directed her players and crew with humiliation and insult. David played the producer and acted as her stooge. They did bad cop-good cop. She would make messes and he would clean them up. When you’d get to trusting him, he’d screw you too. I learned that both of them would just as easily lie to your face, as other people would say, “Good morning.”

  He was British and she was Hungarian. I thought of them as poster children for Euro trash. They’re the only people I ever met who I would have loved to have seen deported.

  Jamie Gillis lived in the next room down from me at the Hollywood Highland Motel. They served a free Chinese breakfast there. This was a rat’s ass place right next to the Hollywood Bowl where Svetlana and David housed the out-of-town talent and crew. The neighborhood itself was decorated nightly in freshly broken glass and it played host to an array of LA’s mentally challenged and prostitutes of every variety and various genders. Jamie said he felt right at home. It reminded him of the old Times Square in New York.

  Jerry Butler lived down the hall from us. Jerry and I were Jamie’s supporting players. This was a lot of male star power.

  Jerry Butler was the new kid in town. He was handsome, well-built, and proved to be a very talented actor.

  Brought dumbbells in his suitcase from New York. His muscles had muscles. Said he was after a straight career as an actor. Said he’d already done a few things on Broadway. Said that this porn thing was just going to be a brief diversion for him.