by Ian Gittler
“Everyone thinks I’m doing drugs. I’ll take a fuckin’ drug test right now,” she says. Debi brags about her thrice-weekly mountain-bike rides from Sunset up to Mulholland and back. “My trainer can’t fuckin’ believe what I’m capable of,” she says. Then, softly, “I run on the beach with my dogs every morning. But one of them is getting old ... so I have to work with him, y’know, slow down, ‘cause that’s how much I love my animals.”
I ask her where she lives. Debi changes the subject.
She pulls a bag of Mrs. Fields cookies from her knapsack, munches on a chocolate chocolate chip. She says she was once legendary Hollywood producer Bob Evans’s personal assistant, “a long, long time ago.” She was nineteen, hadn’t “really” started doing porn. Evans introduced her to Helmut Newton. He loved the way she looked. I believe it. Even now, ten or more hard-core years later, her body language is magnetic. Debi says Newton followed her around for days.
“I would crawl around on the floor, kick the air like Bruce Lee, bark like a fuckin’ dog. Shit, I didn’t know what to do. He didn’t say anything—just, ‘Great, fantastic, perfect.’
“So I heard he was having a show. I wanted to see if I was in it, so I went to the opening. The very first thing I saw—in the entrance to the gallery—was a four-foot shot of me. I stole some prints that Bob had in his office and went and had negatives made. I hear I’m in one of his books.”
I tell her I came out today to find her and it was worth it. I know I already have a crush on Debi, can’t help it, and the next time Marcy looks in to see what’s up, Debi and I are holding hands, just sort of buzzing out on each other, and the words “I’m a fan” are coming out of my mouth. Debi’s wild, and because I see it—get her—she acts wilder, but not in a forced way; just like she can turn it up as high as I can take it—I’m sure higher—and for me she doesn’t mind doing it. But Marcy does. She’s taken aback.
Nicole sits between Debi’s legs on the sofa, and Debi wraps her legs around her. She offers Nicole a bite of her cookie. Nicole has a little tattoo on the back of her neck: SLUT. Norma Jeane comes in. Debi fondles Norma Jeane’s tits and really digs a thin chain with tiny clamps that goes from one of Norma Jeane’s nipples to the other. Debi asks to borrow the jewelry for her scene.
Debi keeps being outrageous. Teri begins working on her, but it isn’t easy. Debi doesn’t stop moving. At one point Teri has the curling iron out in the parking lot. Debi sits on the pavement between cars, retrieving messages from her voice mail, trying to figure out who’s paging her, and returning calls on her cell phone. Teri mentions she does hair and makeup for Kenny Rogers.
Nick East is on his cellular, too. He’s already in costume, dressed as a pirate—or a musketeer. Marc Wallice is inside putting on the same costume.
Alex Sanders shows up. Even though the building is in the middle of nowhere and a number of stars are hanging out smoking, and the lot is hidden from the highway, the actor wheels his red Ninja motorcycle into the lounge.
“This is Compton,” he says.
As I pass Marcy on my way to reload my camera, she stops me.
“Do you have anything that says who you are? A card?”
I hand her a card.
She looks at it, frowns. “Nothing that says, y’know, that you work for Rolling Stone? I mean, this doesn’t say who you are.”
I don’t work for Rolling Stone; my explanations don’t satisfy her. Why should they? An hour and a half ago I was in a death mask and underwear. Marcy doesn’t want to see a portfolio of the pictures I’ve done over the past three years, and I don’t make her, which is a mistake. It would clarify that I’m who I say I am. Then she kind of brushes it all aside, like it’s nothing, and sort of glosses over.
Debi’s still in the parking lot. She’s transformed. She towers atop platform sandals with six-inch heels. She’s in a transparent white dress with ruffled cuffs, white panties, white stockings. Her hair has been puffed up into a big curly ‘do. She’s smoking a Marlboro, eating a cookie, and talking on her cellular. The ravaged, beautiful actress looks like a drag queen.
“That was my masseuse,” she says.
I ask Debi to sign a model release. So far I’ve been more successful than Marcy at getting them this morning.
“Uh, can we talk about it after, OK?” Debi says.
She looks away from my eyes. APA sticks his head out and tells Debi it’s time. Someone has lined the dungeon with votive candles in glass. The gray platform where Marc Wallice, Nick East, and Bionca will go at Debi is also surrounded. Each candle has an inch or two of hot wax at the surface already.
Debi is fired up from the word go. She hisses, writhes like someone possessed. She twists her body like a contortionist. Her acrobatics are extreme—at one point she’s standing on one hand, completely upside down, sucking Wallice’s dick and stroking it with her free hand while Nick, also standing, eats her out. The guys need Bionca, if only to steady Debi’s frame while they tip the candles. Bionca pets Debi, tries to soothe her. Debi thrashes her head from side to side. The white dress is already torn away.
“In my mouth,” Debi urges.
She’s on her back. Kelly stops shooting.
“Are you OK, Debi?” she asks.
Debi nods yes, grunts affirmative, motioning with her hand for the director to keep going. Nick glances up at Kelly, sees she’s shooting again, and continues. He pours wax into Debi’s mouth. Debi flips her legs up and spreads herself with her hands. Nick turns to the director again, doesn’t get a sign, keeps going. Debi takes the hot wax everywhere.
A minute later Debi makes a scissors motion with her fingers to signal “Cut.” She says she has wax in her eye, that she needs to take out one of her marine-blue contact lenses. Her string of fake pearls is broken. One end dangles from her shoulder. Most of the beads are scattered around the actors’ feet.
This was intended to be “light bondage,” the central episode of a “couples oriented” Vivid Video release, but the scene has taken a turn for the super hard-core. Debi’s oily, sweaty body is covered with strands of dried wax. It’s been poured into her spread pussy, asshole, and open mouth. Both Marc, who’s been acting in porn for over ten years, and Nick, a relative newcomer with four years experience, are having problems maintaining their erections. They weren’t expecting the scene to turn vicious.
Debi’s snarling demands for abusive treatment are intimidating, throaty, and real. If Marc and Nick had any control over the dynamic when the filming began, that control is gone. The five-minute break will help them. Maybe that’s why Debi called it. It doesn’t matter whether she gets off or not: This scene’s not over until these guys come.
Kelly steps back. Scott St. James moves in to shoot stills. I shoot too. With her legs high up above her head, Debi looks into my lens with the same expression she might’ve worn for her third-grade school portrait. “Help me” is what I hear. It’s too much—not her need itself, but her willingness to make a connection with me, to really let me in. It’s disarming. Debi is the brave one. I flinch, then look away.
Debi storms off toward the bathroom. She pulls Nicole London’s boyfriend, the PA, in with her and slams the door. Nick paces around the set stroking his semi-hard-on. Marc sits, pants at his ankles, casually picking lint off his dick.
Violent sex noises emanate from the bathroom. Bumping, shouting. It lasts five or six minutes. The PA is left standing in the doorway, a frazzled, guilty smile pasted across his face like he’s just been hit by a sexual tornado. Debi returns to finish the scene.
“DON’T WORRY about banging my head against the wall . . . really.”
Debi is reassuring Marc as he enters her mouth. Nick East is at Debi’s other end. “It’s OK,” Marc says, “I can do it this w—”
“No, don’t worry. You can bang my head against the wall if you have to.”
“But if I just—”
“Bang my head against the wall, you fucker.”
“We’re still rolling,” Kel
ly reminds everyone.
Debi, quickly demanding—hissing—one more time, says, “DO it.”
Marc does what Debi says. Now the soundstage is silent except for a steady thumping—Debi’s head banging against the wall of the set—and the hum of stage lighting and video equipment.
It ends with a DP. Marc tells Nick to get underneath Debi. This means Nick will have vaginal intercourse with Debi while Marc enters her anally, from on top. A flash of disappointment crosses Nick’s face but he goes along. It’s as if Marc called “shotgun” first. Only this isn’t Dad’s car it’s Debi’s body.
When it’s over Debi gathers as many of the beads from her necklace as she can find on the floor. Of all the scenes I’ve witnessed—some hot, others not—this is the first one that breaks my heart.
JON DOUGH ANSWERS HIS PHONE. HE’S STILL IN BED, IN TOPANGA CANYON.
“Man, you should’ve been there. That girl Norma Jeane and me ended up rubbing fruit salad all over each other. It’s a hot scene.”
He says he was surprised, that he “never expects much” when he works for Vivid. Jon says he’ll arrange a get-together with Patrick Collins and Joey Silvera. “We’re gonna hit some strip bars tonight,” he says. “You have to hang out with Patrick. He’s a trip.”
FIVE THIRTY P.M., ENCINO.THE TEN-FOOT-HIGH ELECTRIC GATE AT THE EDGE OF PATRICK Collins’s—formerly Tom Petty’s—property swings open. A shining new black Mercedes—a big one—a blue minivan, a beat-up station wagon, and Jon’s Land Cruiser are parked in the driveway.
Jon answers the door. In the den there’s a pool table and a baby grand piano. Patrick Collins is standing near the piano, blowing a harmonica miked through a small amplifier. He has devilish blue eyes, short, very black hair, and a goatee. He’s in jeans, sneakers, and a lavender Polo T-shirt that accentuates his beefiness. Shane, Patrick’s long-haired assistant, backs him up on an acoustic guitar. Large, framed “erotic” posters hang on the walls, one a poster for a Buttman tape. John Stagliano manufactures and distributes Patrick’s videos.
Jon crouches at Shane’s feet, watching his fingers closely. Shane hands him the guitar. Jon fumbles through a couple of beginner-type strums, gets frustrated, then hands it back.
Because I’m a city kid, suburban homes always feel unlived-in, cleaner and newer than what I’m used to. It’s like that here. Patrick turns his amp off and racks up the pool balls. At leisure, these porn guys are like kids. Patrick, at fortysomething, is the ring-leader. He talks like a guy with plenty of experience hawking snake oil. Joey and Jon have both said Patrick was a con man before getting into the porn business.
I tell Jon I’m concerned about not having photographed enough male porn stars in the nude. For balance.
“Anything you want, man,” he says. “It’s no problem.”
I ask if he thinks Joey would do it.
“Sure. I’ll make him do it.”
Joey Silvera arrives a few minutes later.
“Naked? I don’t know,” he says.
He’s sitting, watching the other guys play pool. He scratches his head, thinks about it. It doesn’t look good.
“I don’t know if I’m, y’know, up for that—in the right mood . . .”
Very long pause.
“... unless we do it outside.”
Patrick is bent over the table, about to take a shot. He freezes, then just his head turns to Joey. Shane and Jon fall silent. They all have bemused, wait-and-see expressions and the beginnings of smiles. None of them speaks. Joey squirms in a reproduction Louis IV chair, finally letting out a shy smile.
ENCINO
Jon Dough, Patrick Collins, and Joey Silvera
“I mean, that would be cool. I would do that,” he says.
A minute later they’re filing out of the house. Joey stops to peek in through the kitchen window, on his tippy-toes. There’s a Guatemalan woman washing dishes. “This guy’s got a thing for my housekeeper,” Patrick says. He calls out her name. “Shh! Don’t embarrass me, man,” Joey says, waving and smiling when the plain-looking woman glances up. She smiles back. Patrick says his minivan is normally reserved for grocery shopping.
It’s rush hour. He pulls to the curb near Ventura and Balboa, a busy eight-lane intersection. Patrick sees I’m nervous.
“Kid, if you gunned someone down around here it would take the cops forty-five minutes to show up. Relax.”
Horns honk. Catcalls and whistles zip by out the windows of passing cars. Joey and Jon walk down the boulevard fully nude, barefoot, laughing. They improvise, act out some unscripted drama, do their best to ignore their own nakedness. Patrick joins them, dressed, and plays the angry authority figure, taking the guys by their wrists and leading them away. Then he hops back in the driver’s seat. Each time Joey and Jon try to get back in the van, Patrick pulls it up a little further, making them chase it thirty feet the last time.
“Fuckin’ asshole,” Joey says, out of breath. Jon grunts in agreement. They’re in the backseat pulling on their pants.
“Don’t be such babies,” Patrick says.
Patrick asks if I got what I need. I say I don’t know—the flash was fucking up again—I could probably shoot more to be safe.
Patrick says, “Then let’s find another spot.”
Joey says, “It’s easy for you, Patrick. You’re not out there naked.”
Patrick Collins—director of Sodomania and all its sequels, in one of which he himself, as Roscoe Bowl tree, grovels at the feet of some unknown porn actress, on the floor of a hotel room, kissing, worshipping her toes as he masturbates—stops the car and shuts the engine. He turns in his seat, very slowly, to look at Joey and Jon. His face contorts into a mass of squished wrinkles, twisted eyebrows, sour, pursed lips, and squinted blue eyes—all to convey total disgust with Joey’s insinuation. The actors burst out laughing and a smile sneaks through Patrick’s accomplished expression.
He restarts the car.
Patrick drives a couple of blocks down Ventura. Joey points out truly nondescript pedestrians along the way. “Man, she was hot! Did you see her?” he says. It happens three times. Joey wasn’t nearly this excited about having sex with a porn actress at Tom Byron’s house.
“Nothing like real girls,” Joey reasons.
There’s a doughnut shop, closed, just one guy sitting in his car in the lot. The porn guys have plenty of ideas about what he might be doing there. He notices them checking him out, leaves, and we take over, do more nature shots.
THERE’S A TAXI pulling out of Patrick’s cramped driveway. “Is Tianna home?” Joey asks. He says I should shoot her if she is. Jon agrees. “You can certainly ask her,” Patrick says. Tianna is Patrick’s wife. She’s a porn star who was popular in 1991 and ‘92. Patrick says his wife retired.
Joey and Jon are like sixth-graders saying hi to their friend’s mom, except they kiss Tianna longer and Jon squeezes her ass. They’ve all had sex on film at one point or an-other. Patrick complains about Tianna’s breath, about her eating too much garlic “again,” then kisses her anyway. The guys leave for the strip bars without me.
A couple minutes later Tianna is posing in the big, suburban kitchen. The little blonde woman plays with herself, plays with her tits, and ends up pulling off her picnic—tablecloth-checkered dress. Naked, she prepares some leftovers for Patrick, in between rolls of film. It’s like taking dirty pictures of Florence Henderson.
Tianna says she and Patrick have been married a long time, that she stood by him through a lengthy series of moneymaking schemes before they finally got into porn together and Patrick “found his niche.” She’s proud of her husband and explains that their love for each other is strong and “pretty normal” even though it “doesn’t fit most people’s standard” of a healthy relationship.
There’s a handwritten, page-long letter about “friendship” and “loyalty” stuck to their refrigerator, along with snapshots of nieces and nephews, a grade-school ballet performance, stuff like that.
Even thoug
h she is, or was, a porn star, when Patrick returns to find me hanging out with his wife, who’s still naked, it’s embarrassing for me. It doesn’t bother him, and Tianna doesn’t mind Joey and Jon seeing her naked, either. Patrick says the clubs were a disappointment tonight. The actors agree. They say good night and go.
Patrick stands at the center island in his kitchen picking at the leftovers. Tianna stands near him. She looks admiringly at her husband. He yawns, and she wraps her arms around him, gives him a big hug. Patrick mentions the title of a mainstream Hollywood movie from the eighties, and asks if I’ve seen it. I haven’t. Patrick rubs his face. He has a worn out, thoughtful expression.
“My psychoanalyst really thinks I should see that,” he says.
A GUY WITH A LONG PONYTAIL OPENS THE DOOR.
“You’re gonna have to move your car to the end of the street and park it around the corner,” he says in a friendly voice. “You’ll see the others. Bruce’s neighbors don’t like when the street gets all blocked up.”
I park in between Jon Dough’s Land Cruiser and Marc Wallice’s Thunderbird. The guy with the ponytail comes around in a Toyota pickup. His name is Glenn Baren. On the way back, Glenn says he shoots the stills and composes the soundtracks for all of Bruce Seven’s movies.
“Bruce is on the phone with Billy Idol,” Bionca says, smiling. Then, “Hey, Ian,” and a tight hug.
My behavior on Sunday, in Compton—the mask, Debi, et cetera—had the opposite effect on Bionca than it did on Marcy Hirsch. Bionca trusts me more. This isn’t the kind of shoot outsiders usually get invited to. The other Evil Angel directors I know—Patrick Collins and John Stagliano—said an outsider’s presence on one of their sets was an impossibility. The entrance hallway is lined with Bruce Seven’s videotapes—The Distress Factor, Autobiography of a Whip, A Compendium of His Most Graphic Scenes Vol. 4, dozens more—and the awards he’s received for writing and directing them.