Henri Pachard memorial: "He was one of the greats"
Proud pornographer Ron Sullivan, known professionally as Henri Pachard, was remembered today at a well-attended Buddhist ceremony in the Panorama City section of Los Angeles. Sullivan, who died September 27, succumbed at 69 to a three-year struggle with cancer.
Veteran performer Herschel Savage moderated the two-hour ceremony, held at the Soka Gokkai International Friendship Center. "Ron and (wife) Deloras embraced Buddhism about two years ago," Savage said, shepherding the group of about 200 attendees through a hybrid ritual of chanting, incense burning, and bell ringing combined with a traditional - and often boisterous - wake.
I'd estimate that more than 90 percent of those who attended knew Sullivan from the adult industry, which he'd been a part of since the late 60s in New York. Sullivan directed, wrote, appeared in, or otherwise worked on thousands of adult movies (as well as, as director Jane Waters remembered, in-house documentaries for Colonial Williamsburg). The remaining ten percent appeared to be members of the SGI Center and the family of Deloras, who was Sullivan's fifth wife.
"Ronnie was one of those people who would stand up and say, 'I'm a pornographer,'" said director Freddie Lincoln, looking cool and trim in long white hair and jeans. But Lincoln was representative of most of the guests who, unless they were the children of people who knew Sullivan, all appeared to be older than 35.
Sullivan's was the most recent funeral of men who were integral to this region's fame as Porn Valley: directors Jim Holliday and Clive McLean and performer Jon Dough were all waked within the past five years.
Anyone who harbored fears that the decorum of the tranquil Buddhist ceremony would be shattered by the pornography crowd was quickly proved right.
"I was Ron's penis," said director Paul Thomas, who began as a performer in the 70s. "We started a line of cocaine that didn't end for twenty years. And Ron, I'm still your penis."
But the crowd didn't appear scandalized. As a video montage played, a porn pantheon took the stage to pay tribute to Sullivan. Among them were Nina Hartley and Ernest Greene, Randy Spears, Sullivan's son Jason (a much sought after porn cameraman in his own right), performers TT Boy and Valentino, and former performer and founder of Adult Industry Medical - the de facto Porn Valley STD testing clinic - Sharon Mitchell ("Then I was Ron's vagina").
In the audience were veteran directors Roy Karch, Cass Paley, Jace Rocker, Bud Lee, Rob Spallone, and David Aaron Clark; performers Lynn LeMay, Don Hollywood, and Cameron Cain and Aiden Starr (two exceptions to the Over 35 demographic I saw); agents Mark Spiegler and Derek Hay; and screenwriter/costumer Raven Touchstone, who remembers a time when one could make a living writing porn scripts (hint: it was long ago).
Sullivan was remembered - fondly - by many as a womanizer. Sharon Mitchell said that Sullivan was the first person she called in 1996 when she was attacked by a crazed fan and needed a ride home from the hospital. "And he didn't hit on me," Mitchell said. "He said that he wanted to but he could see I was too fragile."
Another hospital story (as well as numerous video clips) revealed Sullivan's loopy sense of humor.
"I was recovering from an operation and told him that my sides hurt to laugh," Sullivan's younger sister recalled. "We got in the cab and Ron told the driver to go slow and avoid all potholes 'because all ten of her toes have been amputated.'"
Deloras took the racy anecdotes from Sullivan's porn friends in stride, and received glowing tributes herself. "We were all so lucky to have Ron," said Tammy Behan. "But Ron was so lucky to have you."
Sullivan's final years were painful. If the primary theme of the service was what a delightful person he was, the secondary theme was the ugliness of his cancer.
"It was like a fire inside him," Deloras said. "But he doesn't have that body any more."
"I have to admit I'm relieved that he doesn't have to go through this anymore," Sullivan's son Jason said.
For those of us who didn't know Sullivan well, this was a "good funeral." It left us wishing we'd known the departed better.
Director Ernest Greene was one of many who described Sullivan as a mentor.
Greene also said that Sullivan was a great source for the history of the adult business. Even though that history is brief and the business is comparatively small, there isn't really much more than an oral history, whose few remaining interpreters have been reduced by one.
In my own (brief) experience, this has resulted in a reactionary culture of "Don't you know who I am?" among some long-time adult industry personnel, fearing marginalization in an already marginalized business.
But Sullivan was not like that. He was just friendly and supportive.
And humble. David Aaron Clark put this better.
"(Sullivan) never said, 'Don't you know who I am?' He was the guy who you'd be talking to for 45 minutes and then someone else would say, 'Don't you know who he is?'"
It was an uncharacteristically rainy day, so naturally it was a porn screenwriter who said "the heavens are crying." But Deloras Sullivan, who took care of her husband from hale to hollow, was relieved and hopeful, even as she cried.
"He's back," she said.
Update: Toronto-based artist Denise LaFrance painted the 2004 likeness of Sullivan displayed at the top of this story and on the program for Sullivan's memorial. It and several other paintings of adult industry notables appear in LaFrance's upcoming coffee table book "The Golden Heart & Soul of XXX ~ A Celebration of People."
In uncertain financial times, sometimes the sheer joy of remaining in business will prompt a company to create an ad, even if it is unclear what's for sale.
I'm particularly impressed with the harmonica solo in this piece by German outfit S.F.W. Porn for client Diesel's 30th anniversary.
Philosophy major and former AVN editor Eddie Adams contributed a review for VCA's Deep Inside box set that employed the phrase "dick-railed." It is a refreshing break from the brunt of my porn reviews that do not use the term "dick-railed."
Classic porn company VCX will re-release one of John Holmes' signature movies, 1971's Johnny Wadd, in September. I reviewed the movie for an upcoming issue of the adult trade publication XBiz.
You should watch this movie for several reasons, all of them having to do with how different (and similar) shooting porn was in California three decades ago.
Johnny Wadd director Bob Chinn gives a great interview on the DVD. Holmes, then 26, walked into Chinn's office looking for a production job, and Chinn sent him away with an assistant.
"Then my assistant calls me and says, 'you should look at this guy's cock,'" Chinn said. "I said, 'That's the last thing I want to do.' But I saw it, and hired him. We shot the movie the following Sunday."
Chinn said that, because shooting porn was illegal, he would have to keep filming locations a secret from the actors lest they get picked up by the cops. The performers would arrive at a public place and then be shuttled to the location. The camera was never placed on a tripod outside, so that people could make a break for it if necessary. The film was never kept in one place for a long time.
"It was the producers or directors who were most likely to be arrested," Chinn said. "They'd be charged with conspiracy to commit prostitution, or conspiracy to commit oral intercourse." The conspiracy charges were why the actors were kept in the dark as long as possible.
My favorite line of the movie comes from the woman in the picture above. Protesting her desirability she says, "I ain't so hard to take!"
I won't give away the movie or the review of the movie (XBiz has to eat), but one other thing Chinn said about Holmes reminded me of a story I heard recently.
A contemporary director told me about a (with luck) former porn actor who modeled himself the "real-life Dirk Diggler," the Boogie Nights character based loosely on John Holmes.
"This guy would show up late to a set and then tell me he had to be done in an hour," the director said, "and then he'd want more money if I needed him to stay longer, even if he arrived late. He was an asshole."
Chinn said that Holmes had been hired for $50 for the $750-budgeted Wadd, but when he showed up that Sunday he demanded $75.
It was a different time when porn movies were shown in theatres, and they created an uneasy community of people with a common secret, and a similar residue on their shoes. But after a generation of porn for personal devices, porn movies are creeping back into theatres.
I watched Bill Lustig's 1977 film The Violation of Claudia at the New Beverly Theatre this weekend. Part of a midnight series that will include a tribute to John Holmes, Claudia pulled in an audience of about 30, including director David Aaron Clark, who filmed part of his Asia Noir 5 at the New Beverly in 2006.
10 bucks took care of admission, a coffee, and Junior Mints, and the show started following giveaways from Hustler and an autographed poster of Sharon Mitchell, who played Claudia. Unfortunately neither Lustig, who had the flu, nor Mitchell could be there in person.
Lustig (who wrote and directed the movie as Billy Bagg) would later become a cult icon for his trio of Maniac Cop movies, the first two of which starred Bruce Campbell. He now runs Blue Underground, a national treasure of a company that re-releases forgotten and cult movies.
I was not prepared for the Violation of Claudia for several reasons. The story of a repressed trophy wife who tries her hand at affairs and prostitution, Claudia was shot well and acted well. Both Mitchell, who looked at the time like an attractive cross between Ellen Barkin and Joan Cusack, and tennis pro/pimp (not enough hours at either job, I guess) Jamie Gillis were believable and intent on their roles. And there was a twist ending that literally made the audience shout.
I told Clark I liked the ending, and he said, "That was the seventies. You expected better."
The audience was a mix of hipsters, thirty-something film fans, and the occasional person stereotypes dictate encountering in an adult theatre at midnight. When a particularly egregious hairy bush or set of hairy balls appeared on screen, parts of the crowd shrieked.
Cancer benefit for Henri Pachard, veteran porn director
Donations to Henri Pachard's Cancer Fund are now being accepted. And, for the next 30 days, every adult store order of Not the Bradys XXX results in a percentage donation, as do purchases of Pachard titles from my store on Gamelink.
Like workers in any industry - but perhaps more so than mainstream entertainment, which they are often compared to - Porn personnel work from job to job and, if they're smart and lucky, put money away for rainy days.
Director Henri Pachard (born Ron Sullivan in New York), though responsible for hundreds of porn movies over five decades as well as dozens of Times Square grindhouse movies, is suffering from cancer and, because cancer is expensive and directors do not get residuals, has watched the disease eat through his savings.
Pachard wrote a regular column for AVNInsider called "The Pornographer's Journal" when I edited that website, covering his current projects but mostly talking about Porn's so-called "Golden Age" and before. He was always entertaining, compelling, and the kind of gentleman who would say "fuck" a lot, which made me trust him more than the gentlemen who didn't.
Here is one of his columns about his early days as a director and the making of the classic Babylon Pink.
At my first AVN convention, I asked 100 youngish (ages 18-21) porn performers what "Deep Throat" was and, aside from a number of people telling me it was a style of blowjob, only two knew that it was the standard-bearing porn movie.
Knowing that, it is easy to believe that the porn world and the world at large often forget pioneers in the porn business; there is no real objective journal and its employees are often all too eager to hide their roles in the business once they are done, making for a business with no solid institutional sense of history.
But Pachard is and was a walking history lesson. He is a reminder of a time when people got into porn because they were film fans and fast-talking east coast players and, in a way, radicals. He is a beloved presence to those who have been around long enough to see him at work.
And, like many of the adult world's established behind-the-scenes workers, Pachard got his son a job: Jason Sullivan shoots camera for most of Porn Valley's big productions.
But Pachard and his lovely wife, Delores, are struggling. If you are a porn fan of a certain age, chances are Henri Pachard has helped form some of your earliest impressions of the San Fernando Valley.
Henri Pachard Cancer Fund Mail: C/o All Media Play 1680 Vine St. #1118 Hollywood, CA. 90028 Ph-323.467.9900
Wow. You know my towering rage when women advertised as MILFs aren't actually moms, so you can imagine the sadness and hurt I felt when Satan made no appearance in Sex Slaves of Satan (say what you will about John Holmes).
Before you're tempted to laugh at the night-time activities of 70's swingers, consider what future generations will think about the Dirtpipe Milkshakescollection on your coffee table amongst the In-n-Out wrappers.
Al Goldstein's "Midnight Blue" public access show aired this series of commercials in the late 70's, America's Grooviest Time.
Houston-based classic porn e-tailer TVX Films has (in most cases) removed from boxcovers a photo of an underage girl that it had obtained without permission from her profile on the website deviantART.
TVX is, like VCX, mostly in the business of repackaging classic porn titles. In this case, the movie is the 1982 Kathleen Kristel/Joey Silvera outing Body Magic.
The problem started in February of this year when TVX reissued Body Magic with a new cover featuring Lara Jade, a 17-year-old photographer from England's Midlands. Jade claims that her picture was taken when she was 14 (it is unclear if she took it herself) and that she had uploaded the photo to deviantART, only to find that it was now being used as the cover of a porn movie.
Jade was appalled when she saw the photo attached to a porn movie, the copyright obscured with an image editing program. "The back of the cover was disgusting," she said on her deviantART blog.
"What I don't get is the story on the back of the DVD mentions a photographer who is young and her name is 'Laura'," Jade told me.
The picture was allegedly downloaded from the deviantART site by boxcover artist A.J. Cohen, who TVX president Bob Augustus Burge said has worked with TVX for several decades.
"A.J. made a mistake," Burge said, "and I chewed him out about it."
The mistake was not only in using an image without permission (Burge said he does not ask Cohen where images come from, and Cohen did not remember from what location he'd downloaded the photo) but also in using one that would not sell the movie. The only similarity between the photo Jade claims is of her 14-year-old self and the current boxcover photo is that both covergirls were wearing top hats.
View the February boxcover release of Body Magichere.
Burge said that a person using "several names", including "Lara Fairie, Lara Jade, Lara Croft, and Lara Craft" began contacting him soon after the film was re-released in February, saying at first that her parents were very upset and then asking for money.
"When she said how old she was," Burge said, "I said I couldn't even talk to her. I told her to have her parents call me. But they never did."
Jade writes:
My parents followed my e-mails with (Burge) and found him very rude. They were worried about costs of phoning him because we're in the UK therefore they felt that me messaging him with guidance would be okay.
Burge is the financier and producer of several adult and mainstream titles, including the 1988 Abe Vigoda/Lee Majors/Don Rickles vehicle Keaton's Cop. Vigoda also starred in Burge's Vasectomy - A Delicate Matter. Vigoda is a goddamn genius.
Burge told me that he believed Jade to be scheming. "She blew it when she said she was 14 and asked for money," he said. "And then she wouldn't give me her real name."
Jade did not mention calling Burge, but she did reprint several e-mails from him, including this one:
"I’M SURE BY THE END OF THE MONTH YOUR FACE WILL BE HISTORY. WE HAVE STOPPED SELLING THE DVD UNTIL COVER IS REPLACED. WE HAVE FURTHER CHECKED OUT YOUR NAME AND ITS NOT LIKE IT’S A HOUSE WHOLE NAME. ACTUALLY, REMOVING YOUR IMAGE WILL HELP IMPROVE THE SELL OF THE DVD….. SO FAR IT BOMBED"
Burge admits to writing the e-mail, and in my conversation with him his insight into the matter extended to his legal liability. He said he immediately discontinued the boxcover, having "sold less than 200 pieces" and then sent notice to all of his distributors, including IVD.
"I ate 4000 pieces at .39 a whack," he said.
The controversial boxcover is still up on several websites as of this writing, however.
"I lived through Traci Lords," Burge said. "Do you think anyone in this business would knowingly have a picture of an underage person in their movie?"
Burge would have offered Jade $300 for the cover picture, he said, had she been of age. As it is, Burge said that Jade and people claiming to represent her have been calling and e-mailing him, but he simply does not know if she is who she says she is because she never had her parents call him and she demurred when he asked for her real name and address.
"That's when the stuttering started," Burge said. "But I started off the conversation very apologetic."
Burge, who is in his 60's and claims that his "knowledge of computers and the Internet could fit in the tip of my dick", does not understand the Internet Age's love of aliases.
"I know Seka, I know Veronica Hart," he said. "You knew what their real names were. This girl's got at least four names." Jade's deviantART journal is attributed to Larafairie.
Jade is a precociously talented photographer, and the multiple instances of blogs as well as her personal website seem to corroborate her identity. The "No Easy Way Out" portrait is indeed clearly copyrighted and watermarked.
"THEY ARE REMAKING THE COVER AS WE SPEAK SO YOUR TEN SECONDS OF FAME WILL SOON COME TO AN END."
My so called ten seconds of fame was from a porno dvd? No thanks."
Burge is clearly an old campaigner, used to adult industry scams. "I had to deal with the Mafia in the old days," he said. "But this Internet is ridiculous." He said, "Somebody called me up once and said I'd put Seka's head on her body. I said, 'I took the original picture; those are Seka's tits'. She said, 'Oh.'"
It sounds like Burge doesn't understand how mortifying appearing on a porn boxcover might be to someone who didn't intend to, and that Jade got antsy when the gruff Texas porn mogul asked for her address. This is just a guess.
Jade said she was alerted to the inappropriate use of her photo when yet another blogger alerted her to it. "(The other blogger) said that (the photo on the DVD) was one of her favorite things."
Friends then directed Jade to Hustler.com, and she was from there directed to TVX.
How Cohen found Jade's picture on adult websites is unclear, but my assumption is he Googled "top hat" and "classic". Jade told me her mother helped take the picture.
Proud pornographer Ron Sullivan, known professionally as Henri Pachard, was remembered today at a well-attended Buddhist ceremony in the Panorama City section of Los Angeles. Sullivan, who died September 27, succumbed at 69 to a three-year struggle with cancer.
