The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz

by Ron Jeremy

  But I didn’t.

  I just sat there and watched myself in action, dreaming about the day when my face wouldn’t get second billing to my cock.

  “Ron ‘The Hedgehog’ Jeremy. I think that has a nice ring to it.”

  Victory shot. 1980. (Photograph by Len Tavares)

  chapter 4

  A STAR IS PORN

  I knew I was in trouble when it started to snow.

  I’d been cast in a movie called Olympic Fever, which was being shot in the mountains of Southern California. It was my first trip to the West Coast, and I’d tried to pack accordingly. I brought a few pairs of shorts and linen shirts, everything I needed for the eighty-degree weather. What’s more, I had opted against renting a car, assuming I could get around just as easily with a motorcycle. Back in New York, a bike was my main mode of transportation. I owned a Honda Hawk that I used to commute between Queens and the city. During the winter months, it could be a major pain in the ass, especially when the roads were icy. But here in the Sunshine State, I thought, it was the perfect environment for motorcycle travel. Nothing but sun and warm weather. It was going to be glorious.

  But I had been seriously misled about just how goddamn tropical this state was.

  When I walked off the plane at the L.A. airport, the weather was pleasant, almost humid. So I jumped on my bike wearing the skimpiest outfit I owned and headed up to Lake Arrowhead. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour journey north of Los Angeles, up in the canyons near San Bernardino. I wasn’t thrilled about driving through unfamiliar mountains, but I had the luxury of taking my time, because I wasn’t needed on the set until later that afternoon. I planned on taking a long, leisurely trip, enjoying the views, and soaking up the rays of my first April day in California.

  When it started to snow, I thought it must be some kind of sick joke. The snow turned into hail, and then just as quickly became a blinding blizzard. Before long, I wondered if I was going to die.

  Up until that day, it had been a great couple of years for me. I’d worked steadily since Tigresses, making an average of six films per month. And best of all, I was even given speaking roles, where my face was seen about as often as my penis. I appeared in high-profile movies like Mystique, Object of Desire, Blonde in Black Silk, The Good Girls of Godiva High, Pink Champagne, and Women in Love, to name just a few. But it was a film called Sizzle that put me on the map. At long last, I was really able to act, showing off my comedic abilities with a goofy southern accent that was played more for laughs than authenticity.

  It was because of Sizzle that I had caught the eye of Phil M., the director responsible for one of the most lauded big-budget pornos of the late 1970s, called Lust at First Bite. It starred all the major names in adult movies: John Holmes, Seka, Serena, and Jamie Gillis. I’d seen the movie when it opened in New York, and I was floored by it. It was by far the funniest comedy I’d ever seen in porn. Some of the dialogue was so smart you forgot that you were watching a skin flick. And what’s more, it featured some kinky scenes, from sex with vampires to mental patients with delusions of prepubescence. Gillis, who played Dracula, had anal sex with at least two of his female costars. I couldn’t believe what Phil had gotten away with for that time period, and I wanted to work with him. When he offered me a role in his second big feature, and free airfare to California for the shoot, I didn’t have to think twice.

  Not that I needed it, but he gave me an advance copy of the script for Olympic Fever. I read it on the plane, and laughed like an idiot during the entire trip. It involved the U.S. Olympic swim team and a young swimmer with a protein deficiency that could be cured only by giving blow jobs. I was cast as a Russian spy, who, along with my partner (played by Seka) plotted to sabotage the swim team and stop them from winning gold at the summer games. We were basically doing versions of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, only with less-believable Russian accents.

  The snow was coming down in such thick sheets, I had no idea where the road ended and the cliff began. I could very well have plummeted to my death at any moment. And to add to my anxiety, the bitter cold had almost brought on the first stages of hypothermia. With nothing but a lightweight T-shirt and shorts to protect me from the elements, I was shivering so violently that I could barely steer my bike. There were icicles on my mustache. I fully expected to die of frostbite.

  At long last, I saw the campgrounds in the distance. To re-create an Olympic training camp, the director had found an abandoned Boy Scout camp in the middle of the woods. I’d never been happier to see civilization, though I had a surge of panic when it occurred to me that there might not be running water or heat at this place. It was, after all, a fucking barracks.

  I staggered toward the nearest bunkhouse and knocked weakly on the door.

  “Good Lord! What happened to you?”

  I almost collapsed into Bill Margold’s arms. He was an actor and cowriter on Olympic Fever, and large enough to drag my limp body inside. By the expression on his face, I thought it might already be too late for me.

  “You drove a motorcycle up here?”

  “I didn’t know,” I whimpered. “It’s California in the spring. What happened to the expression ‘sunny California’?”

  “Ron, we’re up in the mountains. It’s cold.”

  “Well, I didn’t fucking know that,” I shouted at him with my last burst of energy.

  He took me into a back bathroom and pointed toward the shower. With what little strength I had left, I stumbled out of my clothes. “I have someone here who might be able to warm you up,” Margold said. He called over Connie Peterson, a beautiful blonde actress who’d been rehearsing with him before I arrived.

  “Oh, you poor baby,” Connie said, giving me a sad look like I was a sick puppy. She stepped into the shower with me, turned on the hot water, and soaped down my ice-covered body. When my body temperature finally returned to something resembling normal, she asked if I wanted to fuck.

  Well, sure, I thought. After a near-death experience, nothing makes you feel alive again like having sex in the shower with some big-boobed woman. Even if it was just a sympathy screw, I was happy for whatever I could get. I didn’t climax. I knew I had to save it for my scene with Seka later that day. But it was enough to get my blood circulating again, which is all I really needed.

  When I walked out of the shower, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, Margold was waiting for me, along with Seka and a few of the other actors. He took one look at me and burst into laughter.

  “What’s so goddamn funny?” I asked him.

  “Will you look at this guy,” he said to the others. “He’s all pink and furry, like a little hedgehog.”

  “Oh, fuck you,” I snapped.

  “You look like one of those animals in The Wind and the Willows.”

  The entire room was laughing, so I ran back into the bathroom to check my reflection in the mirror. He was right, the combination of extreme cold and heat had given my skin a pink hue. And the hairs on my body were standing on end, which did sort of resemble the furry bristles of a rodent. Although hedgehogs are kinda cute.

  Margold was standing right behind me, enjoying the view. “You are a hedgehog, my friend,” he said with a smirk. “A walking, talking hedgehog.”

  “Will you please shut the hell up?”

  “Ron ‘The Hedgehog’ Jeremy. I think it has a nice ring to it.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I told him.

  I could only pray that the nickname wouldn’t stick. That’s the kind of thing that could haunt a guy for the rest of his life.

  I never wanted to be a porn star. But once the wheels were in motion, I became insatiable. It wasn’t enough just to do one or two films, I had to do everything. When there weren’t any jobs for me in New York, I’d jump on a plane to L.A. or San Francisco or anywhere that I was booked for an adult production. I didn’t care where it was happening or what the film was about, I wanted to be a part of it.

  It was a large part of why I became so famous in the
porn world so quickly. I worked more than most because I was willing to do the legwork. At the time, porn actors tended to live either on the East Coast or the West Coast, and they didn’t travel unless it was absolutely necessary. If a movie was being shot in their neighborhood, they’d do it. If not, well, they’d just wait until one was. But I didn’t have that kind of patience. I wanted to stay busy. I wanted to work. And if that meant leaving one set at midnight and driving to LAX to catch a red-eye to New York for another movie the next morning, I’d do it.

  Although it wasn’t the career I’d hoped for, I was still a working actor. I studied my scripts and tried every day to give the best performance I could. Except for the “having sex on camera” part, I was living the life that I had always dreamed about.

  Granted, there were days when it wasn’t much fun. There was one shoot* in Majorca, Spain, that promised to be a paid vacation. And for the first few days, that was exactly what it was. The sky was crystal clear, the water was blue; it was paradise on earth. But on the last day, I was scheduled to do a scene on an eighty-foot yacht. Because of my tendency to get seasick, I took a Bonine pill before boarding, just to be on the safe side. Nobody else in the cast or crew bothered to take anything, and after just a few hours out at sea, they all became deathly ill.

  Not just a little queasy, mind you. They were puking in buckets, puking over the sides, puking in anything that so much as looked like a container. It was disgusting, and not exactly conducive for a morning of hot hard-core action.

  But the show must go on, and, despite the fact that she had been throwing up all day, Caroline (the actress I was scheduled to work with) refused to cancel the shoot. She arrived on the ship’s deck right on time, slipped out of her clothes, and gamely tried her best to perform. When your leading lady has a green complexion and her “come hither” eyes are really saying “I may hurl chunks at any moment,” it’s not the sort of thing that puts me in a sexy mood.

  We tried to make the best of a rotten situation. We obviously couldn’t do any positions where her face could be seen, primarily because of all the vomit coming out of her mouth. So we decided to stick to doggy-style. That way, she could remain perched near the ship’s edge, where she was free to throw up to her heart’s content.

  But even with our careful choreography, I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. It just didn’t seem right. I stood behind her with my hard-on, watching the poor girl puke her guts out, all while her ass was aimed toward me, waiting for me to enter her.

  I’m a gentleman. When a girl is puking, I like to hold her hair, not fuck her silly. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s how I feel.

  “Ron, just do it,” she assured me. “I’ll be fine.”

  I did the best I could, under the circumstances. If you’ve never had the chance to fuck a woman while she’s vomiting over the side of a ship, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s about the furthest thing from erotic that you could ever experience.

  It was all eventually fixed in editing. Back on shore, Caroline recovered from her seasickness, and the director got a few “reaction shots” of her face faking an orgasm, with the ocean and the sky in the background. In the finished movie, nobody would ever know that the woman who appeared to be moaning and groaning with ecstasy was, when the camera wasn’t on her face, puking like a Roman at a vomitorium. It’s all part of the magic of moviemaking, but I still can’t watch the scene without grimacing.*

  Those were the bad days.

  On the good days, however, it was hard to believe that I was actually being paid to do this for a living. I remember being flown to Maui for a Hustler photo shoot in 1980. It was me and a female model named Danica. They took us by helicopter to a secluded beach, where a shipwrecked boat could be seen in the distance. They put me in a tuxedo and her in a cocktail dress, and we’d sip champagne on the beach and then eventually simulate sex. But on our first day, the photographer, James Baez, looked at the sky and said, “The sun isn’t quite right today. Let’s try again tomorrow.” So we’d all take the day off and go Jet Skiing. Althea Flynt, Larry’s wife, came along and paid all the expenses.**

  The next morning, Baez looked at the sky again and it was still no good. “Okay,” I said, “let’s do some sailing.” Althea came along again and, you guessed it, paid for everything.

  This went on for days. Every day that we didn’t shoot, we’d end up snorkeling or lounging on the beach or taking a catamaran out to the ocean. Every night we had huge lobster dinners. (It was then that I realized that food tastes so much better when someone else is paying for it.) I was spoiled rotten. I was the only one I knew who actually came back from work with a tan. I didn’t need a vacation. Hell, my job was a vacation.***

  The best part of my travels was when producers would fly me to Los Angeles. I made the most of my visits, using every free moment to advance my career. When I wasn’t on a porn set, I’d be driving my motorcycle around Hollywood, dropping off head shots with agents, hustling my way into TV auditions, trying to get my foot in the door of the mainstream.

  Joel Zwick, my old movement teacher at Queens College, got me an audition with Bobby Hoffman at Paramount. He was directing episodes of Laverne & Shirley, and he briefly considered casting me as Laverne’s fireman boyfriend. I ended up losing the job because I was too short. Another Queens College alum, producer Mark Rothman, helped me get an audition for Happy Days, for a guest stint as “Satan’s nephew.” It was just one episode, but it was still a very big deal. Happy Days was responsible for a lot of spin-offs. Robin Williams played Mork on Happy Days, and the network gave him his own show. Jimmy Brogan played an angel and got his own show called Out of the Blue. I would’ve given anything for that kind of opportunity. I had stars in my eyes. I would’ve dropped porn in a heartbeat. But I think they gave the part to some comic named Richard Levin. He never got a spin-off, but it was small consolation.

  Some mornings, it wasn’t worth getting out of bed. Jesus, I’d think, who does a porn star have to blow to get a break in this town?

  Even with all my travels, I still called Queens home. I never bothered to get an apartment in New York. It would’ve been pointless because I was hardly in the city for longer than a day or two. And besides, when I did return to the East Coast, I wanted to spend time with my family. Particularly my mother, who had Parkinson’s disease. Though I tried not to think about it, I knew that she was getting sicker and would probably not be around for much longer.

  During the late 1970s, she underwent experimental cryogenic surgery. It’s a process where damaged tissue in the brain is removed by freezing it with liquid nitrogen. The doctors told us that freezing the tissue rather than cutting it would cause less bleeding. Cryosurgery had been successful in removing tonsils, hemorrhoids, and cataracts, and they were hopeful that it might work on Parkinson’s.

  The first few surgeries were successful, and we began to think that she just might pull through. But subsequent surgeries made her condition only worse. And it was by no means an easy procedure. It caused her such excruciating pain that, even under anesthesia, she’d often faint right there on the operating table.* She told me that the pain was worse than childbirth. I tried to keep her spirits up and remain optimistic, but she was too smart not to realize that she was running out of time.

  She managed to live many more years, but it was difficult for her, because she had always been an independent woman. In many ways, she may have been one of the country’s very first feminists. Long before I was born, she scared the pants off the family by enlisting in the army during the 1940s. She wanted to fight in World War II, which was not something that women at the time were expected to do, especially since she was a Queens College graduate. She served as a lieutenant in the Overseas Special Services, the direct precursor to the CIA. She was a translator and cryptographer, helping to decipher German codes. Her missions were so dangerous that she was given cyanide capsules in case she was ever captured.**

  My father had his theories about how she developed
Parkinson’s. He thought that she might’ve been a casualty of war. While flying over Germany, she was frequently shot at by enemy planes, and the damage caused the cabins to lose oxygen. Her brain may have suffered because of the lack of oxygen, which feasibly could have resulted in her becoming ill. But I knew in my heart that even if she had advance knowledge of what would happen to her, it wouldn’t have stopped her from going to war. She was a stubborn woman with enough courage to sustain an entire army.

  When she became too sick to fend for herself, I would come home to help my brother, sister, and dad take care of her. She had just been hired as a proofreader for Random House, and she refused to give up her job despite her condition. Even if she wasn’t able to use her body, she still found ways to keep her mind active. Random House would send her manuscripts, and she’d proofread them from her bed and send them back. But before long, she was too sick even to lift a manuscript without assistance. I tried reading to her, but it made her feel belittled and helpless.*

  She died in a Bronx hospital in 1979, a year after I entered the porn business. I never got the chance to ask her what she thought of my career choice, but my dad insists that she would have supported me. A part of me knows that he’s right. She used to say that I danced to the beat of a different drummer.

  During one of my last summers in the Catskills, she and my father came up to visit and to watch me hang gliding over the mountains. The disease had already taken its toll on her body, and she was barely able to walk unassisted. My girlfriend, Alison, was with us, and she was so sweet to my mother. As I was gliding over them, Alison lifted her head and pointed toward me.