The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz

by Ron Jeremy

  Ron Jeremy

  The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz

  Ron Jeremy with Eric Spitznagel

  To my role models: daddy Arnold, mommy Sylvia, and cousin Eliott Weiss, whose service and sacrifice during World War II helped make this world a safer place, and allowed me the freedom to choose this career. In addition, I’d like to give a special thanks to Arnold and Sylvia for raising three children who never touched drugs, never smoked a cigarette, barely drink, and have each been through a six-year college master’s degree program. Nice work.

  The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

  —Archilochus

  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  1. Portrait of a Hedgehog as a Young Man

  Photographic Insert I

  2. Catskills-a-Go-Go

  3. Lions and Tigresses and Bears, Oh My!

  4. A Star Is Porn

  5. The Human Ouroboros

  6. Swinging in the Rain

  Part Two

  7. Days of Porn and Roses

  8. Of Vice and Men

  9. How to Talk Dirty and Make People Laugh

  10. I Fought the Law (and the Law Lost!)

  11. Hollywood Nights

  12. The Ambassador of Porn

  (or, a Midsummer Boogie Night’s Dream)

  Photographic Insert II

  Part Three

  13. Goin’ Mainstream

  14. It’s Good to Be the King

  15. Dude, Where’s Your Penis?

  (or, “John Wayne Bobbitt, Superstar”)

  16. Vertical Reality

  17. The Ron Jeremy Show, Starring Ron Jeremy

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Special Thanks

  Appendix A: Ron Jeremy Fun Facts

  Appendix B: King of DVDs

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  On the set of This Lady Is a Tramp, 1980. (Courtesy Chuck Vincent/Video-X-Pix)

  PROLOGUE

  It isn’t even noon and I’ve already had sex with fourteen women.

  To be fair, it wasn’t entirely my doing. A company called Zane Entertainment hired me to star in a new porno flick called Put It in Reverse, Part 3. It’s a little different than most gang-bang films. Rather than a bunch of guys doing one girl—the typical formula—they pick one lucky stud (in this case, me) to bone over a dozen lovely ladies. I’m not so jaded that I don’t feel incredibly fortunate. How often does a guy get to be the center of attention, the “meat” in an all-girl sex sandwich? But it’s not nearly as much fun as it sounds.

  “You okay, Ronnie?”

  I look up to see Chuck Zane staring down at me. Chuck is an old friend, and the producer and founder of Zane Entertainment. He’s been in the business almost as long as I have, and with his slicked-back gray hair and the stogie that never seems to leave his mouth, he looks the part of a porn producer. He’s always been good to me, which is exactly why I’ve continued to work with him for well over a decade, starring in such features as I Love Juicy and America’s Raunchiest Home Videos.

  I can tell from the concerned look on his face that something’s wrong. He knows that I’m a dependable performer and that I’ve never failed him yet. But with everything that can go wrong with a gang bang, today’s shoot is making him nervous.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “I’m just taking a break.”

  I’m sitting by myself in the corner of the room, naked save for a small towel and covered in a syrupy layer of my own sweat. The crew is loading the camera with a new roll of film, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to sneak away to recover. I’ve been having sex for well over three hours straight, and it’s beginning to take a toll. I’m drinking bottles of water like my life depends on it, and given how dehydrated I am, it just might.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some Viagra?” Chuck asks me.

  “What? Of course not. Does it look like I need it?”

  “No, no, you’re doing great out there,” he says. “I was just wondering if maybe you needed a little pick-me-up.”

  “I told you, I’m fine. And even if I wasn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t take any goddamn Viagra.”

  “Okay, okay, calm down. I just wanted to make sure. We have a case in the back if you change your mind.”

  “If I see so much as one blue pill, I’m going to flush it down the toilet. I’m serious, Chuck.”

  He starts to back away. Chuck knows he touched a nerve. “You’re a pro, Ronnie,” he says, flashing me a toothy smile. “Sorry I doubted you.”

  I don’t know why the very idea of Viagra bugs me so much. I guess it’s because I consider it cheating. Most male porn stars today use some form of Viagra or VigRX or ExtenZe, but I’ll never touch the stuff. The minute I need a pill to get wood, I’m going to retire from the business. I don’t care how old I get. I want my boners to be au natural. Maybe I’m being too old school about it, but that’s the way I feel.*

  The girls are lounging in the living room, enjoying their brief break from a hard morning’s work. They’re like a cross section of every man’s fantasy: there are blondes and brunettes, blacks and whites, big titties and tiny titties. What more could you ask for? Am I a lucky bastard or what? I can’t believe that I get to have sex with women half my age.

  Most of these girls are in their early twenties. Only Angella Faith and Jessica Jewel could pass for porn veterans, and they’ve only been doing films since the early 1990s. I’m a dinosaur compared to them. I was making porn when most of them were still zygotes. I don’t even want to think about it. It’s too depressing.

  Funny thing is, it’s impossible to say how much longer any of them will be around. Very few performers stay in the business for longer than a few years. They come in, make a few hundred films, and then disappear. You almost don’t want to remember their names, because they might be gone before you get a chance to work with them again. It’s not like it was back in the 1970s, when I was getting my start in adult films. Back then, it meant something to be a porn star. Everybody knew your name, and you felt like you were part of an extended family.

  A radical, on-the-edge, sexually liberated, hippie-dippie family, that is.

  Yeah, I’m one of those. I can wax nostalgic about the old days with the best of them. There was a time when porno was still shot on film, and we had actual budgets and sets and scripts. Nowadays, porn is all about quick turnaround. They’ll knock out two or three pornos in just one weekend. Hell, I’ll be done with this particular shoot before lunch. Back in the day, that was unheard of.

  It’s also gotten more complicated. Remember when condoms used to be the last thing you’d see in a porn film? I do. You’d just show up, stick your dick in whatever girl you happened to be booked with, and be on your merry way. Now, condoms are required. Or at least they were. Three porn actresses tested HIV-positive, and the industry went under lockdown. You couldn’t so much as look at another actress without wearing a condom. For this shoot alone, I have to wear a different condom for every girl. That’s fourteen girls, dozens of sex acts, and a different condom each time. You do the math. I’ve already gone through a Dumpster of condoms and we’re not even at the halfway mark yet. I’ve taken rubbers off and on so many times my penis looks like it has windburn.*

  Matt Zane, the director and Chuck’s son, walks over and sits down next to me. He’s a good kid, though, like the women, he’s very, very young. He couldn’t be more than twenty-two. He joined the family business last year, and he’s already become the new face of “Gen-XXX Porn.”


  “How ya feelin’, Ronnie?” he asks, patting me on the back.

  “Couldn’t be better,” I say. “You ready to start rolling again?”

  “Any minute now. We just have to get a few more positions and maybe some anal and then we’ll be done. Think you can handle that?”

  Why does everybody keep asking me that?

  “Of course I can handle it,” I assure him.

  Matt smiles and throws a playful punch at my torso. “You the man,” he says, and returns to his crew.

  I can understand why everybody is treating me with kid gloves. Even for a young stud, having sex with the equivalent of a small sorority house is no small feat. The Zane family was kind enough to throw a party last night in my honor. Most of the actresses and a few celebrities, like Elijah Blue and Jonathan Davis of the rock band Korn, toasted me and helped get me excited for what promised to be a daring, almost superhuman undertaking. But the moment the clock hit ten P.M., I was shuttled off to bed like a kid before his first day of school.

  Funny thing is, there are few things I enjoy as much as morning sex. But on a porn set, all the romance and spontaneity is stripped away. You can’t just roll over and tap your partner on the shoulder. You actually have to leave the house, and take the long, bleary-eyed drive to whatever backwoods, out-of-the-way location is being used for the day’s shoot. By the time you get there, your morning wood has been replaced with a sagging mushroom, a shadow of your former glory.

  And then there are the rehearsals, the waiting, the presex showers to ensure that everybody is squeaky-clean. Even though it might be only six A.M., it doesn’t feel like morning sex anymore. You’re just another employee, working your shift and counting the hours before lunch.

  “Okay, guys, break’s over,” Matt announces. We all return to the living room, ready for round two.

  Angella Faith has her hands on the couch, her cute little butt in the air. I stand behind her and wait for my cue. After mumbling some instructions to one of the lighting guys, Matt turns to me and says, “Let’s do this thing.”

  He yells for action, the camera purrs into life, and I penetrate Angella.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love making porn films. But sometimes it can get a little monotonous. I mean, you’re basically doing the same thing, over and over and over and over again. In and out, in and out, switch positions, in and out, in and out. Who wouldn’t get a little bored after a while? Sometimes I let my mind wander, maybe make a mental inventory of the rest of my week.

  Let’s see, what else do I have lined up for today? Well, after we finish the morning’s shoot, I’m going to jump on a plane and fly out to Indiana to host the Ponderosa Nudes-A-Poppin’ Festival. After that, I’m off to Buffalo, New York, to shoot a few scenes for a new Troma movie. Next I’ll be catching a flight to Los Angeles for a stand-up gig, then back to New York the next morning for a radio interview with Howard Stern, and then back on a plane for the long journey over to New Zealand for the Erotica Expo, where I’ll be shooting a porno with some Kiwi women.

  And that’s just the weekend. Well, okay, a week and a half.

  I can’t imagine how I’m going to squeeze it all in. At some point I must’ve thought I could manage. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Sometimes I wonder if I’m stretching myself too thin. I mean, seriously, how is it possible for one guy to be in three different states—including the state of despair—and even an entirely different country, in less than an eleven-day period? I must’ve been out of my mind when I agreed to it. My schedule would be physically impossible even if I somehow found a way to clone myself. Hmm, actually, that’s not a half-bad idea. I wonder if I could arrange for that. If they can clone a sheep, surely they could clone one measly little porn star, right?

  Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why do I take every last gig that’s offered to me? Sometimes it seems as if I’m terrified of not being busy. Like if I sit still for too long, I might cease to exist. I don’t think I’m quite that screwed up, but it is curious why I always seem to be moving at such a frantic pace. It’s as if I’m trying to cram four lifetimes into one. But I like it that way. I’m not comfortable being idle. I want to keep moving, keep looking for the next project, the next opportunity. I’m always afraid that the phone will stop ringing someday.

  When I first told my dad that I wanted to be an actor, he told me, “Remember to have something to fall back on.” I may have taken him just a little too literally. I’ve got so much to fall back on, it’s propping me up.

  “Ronnie. Hey, Ronnie.”

  I didn’t even realize that Matt is standing right in front of me.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I mutter in reply. “Are we still shooting?”

  “Yes, we’re shooting, goddamnit. Come on, Ronnie, pay attention.”

  Matt asks me to move on to an actress named Temptress, who wants to do missionary. I pull out of Angella and join Temptress on the floor. God, she is so beautiful. What a face on this girl. She’s making eye contact with me, which is always dangerous. Nothing makes me pop quicker. I look away and try to think of something else. Dead animals usually do the trick, but I don’t want to take it too far and end up going limp. It’ll just give Chuck another reason to start mentioning Viagra again.

  I wonder if I turned off my cell phone. I’m expecting a call from Adam Rifkin, my good friend and a very successful director and writer. He always tries to get me mainstream work. He put me in Detroit Rock City and Night at the Golden Eagle and The Chase. He’s been promising that he has another project lined up for me. I couldn’t be more excited. I always make room for a mainstream gig, especially if it has the potential to be seen by a bigger audience. Adam has been one of the most loyal friends I’ve ever had.

  “I need a little anal,” Matt says. “Who signed up for anal?” A few girls raise their hands.

  A pretty black girl drops to her knees. She’s ready to go, her asshole lubed and stretched out about as far as it’ll go. I put just the head of my cock in at first. I don’t want to hurt her. Anal is tough even for the seasoned pro.

  “Is that okay, honey?” I ask her. “Tell me if that’s too much, okay, sweetie?”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, Ron,” she says, thrusting her pelvis toward me. “Just ram it in, will you?”

  Well, so much for the gentle approach.

  It’s strange the things that go through your head as you’re fucking a girl in the ass. I start to daydream about my life up to this point. I am, according to most men’s magazines, the most famous male porn star on the planet. But I also wonder if people know anything else. I’ve done a lot more than porn. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just one line on my résumé. It’s a fat line, of course. But I’m also a mainstream actor of sorts. I’ve been in a lot of Hollywood films, like The Boondock Saints and Orgazmo and Meet Wally Sparks and dozens of others. And when that doesn’t pay the bills, I’m a stand-up comic. I’ve done my act in nightclubs around the world, and rubbed shoulders with comics from Sam Kinison to Rodney Dangerfield. Oh, and don’t forget music—I’m a classically trained pianist and violinist. I’ve been in more than thirteen music videos, performed with Kid Rock at the L.A. Coliseum and other venues, and even recorded a hit single, “Freak of the Week,” which was on the Billboard charts for more than twenty-seven weeks. My name appears on products from T-shirts to greeting cards to rolling papers to hot sauce to skateboards.

  That’s awfully ambitious of me, I know. Most people would be happy with just one career, but I had to try everything. I’m not sure why that is. I guess it’s because I don’t want my gravestone to read:

  HERE LIES RON JEREMY, THE GUY WITH THE BIG DICK. Sure, I’ll take that. But if there’s room at the bottom, I wouldn’t mind if a few of my other credits were mentioned as well. Something that doesn’t involve my oversized schlong.

  “Can we get some more lube over here?” Matt asks.

  A stagehand runs over with a tube and I apply fresh lube to the next girl’s ass. I put on a fresh
condom and move on to Randi, a cute blonde with a set of breasts so perky they’d take out an eye if she wasn’t careful.

  “Lift a leg for me, would you, Ronnie?” Matt says. “We need a down-under shot.”

  I know what you’re thinking. “Poor, pitiful Ron. He’s not happy getting paid to bonk beautiful women for a living. Oh no, that’s not good enough for him. What he really wants is to be a legitimate actor. Most people would be thrilled to be the most famous male porn actor of all time. But not Ronnie. He wants our respect.”

  Well, you know what? You’re wrong. I’m not chasing some elusive and far-fetched dream. I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to be the next Brad Pitt. (At least not as long as I keep going back for seconds at the buffet.) I’m just another actor who wants to take his shot. I know that some people—okay, most people—will only ever see me as Ron Jeremy, Porn Star. But I don’t want to settle for that. It’s too easy. I don’t want to be on my deathbed someday and think, Well, I could’ve done more, but I blew it. I never gave myself the chance to see how far I could go. And if I just sit around the apartment all day, waiting for some producer to call me and give me a break, it’s never going to happen. You have to get out there and bust your ass, pound the pavement, work it.

  As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Good things come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” I couldn’t agree more. If you wait around for the world’s scraps, that’s all you’ll ever get. But I’m going to hustle for as much as I can. And in the end, if I still get nothing, it was still one hell of a ride. And at least I tried.

  “You ready for the pop?” I ask Matt.

  “I’m ready if you are,” he says.

  The girls surround me, sitting on their knees in a semicircle. After almost five hours of fucking, this is the moment of truth. I spray my goo over them, trying to hit as many faces as I can.

  “You’re missing Tamia,” Matt barks at me. “Share the wealth, man. We need total coverage.”