Friday, August 6th, 1999

Paul Cambria Debates Luke F-rd

Noted First Amendment attorney Paul Cambria, who threatened Luke with a lawsuit on behalf of Vivid Video a few weeks back, will debate Luke Saturday night at 9PM on the Wayne Resnick Show on KFI AM 640, and then on Ed Powers Show on KLSX radio in Los Angeles, FM 97.1, starting at 11PM. Cambria is a partner in the law firm of Mafia consigliere Herald Price Fahringer.

Cambria: "I'm sharpening my fangs right now."

Ford replies: "Paul, this may very well end your First Amendment career. You'll probably slink away from public life after this and join a Jewish biker gang."

Paul to Luke: "You won't be able to sit down for a week."

From www.geneross.com: "Though Luke F-rd had been self-touting a debate between himself and Vivid attorney Paul Cambria, radio host Ed Powers said it was news to him that any such event had been earmarked for his show. Nevertheless, Powers made some quick calls and set the confab for Saturday night. Ford will tackle such weighty issues as whether Cambria has mafioso connections or not. Cambria got into the Ford picture when Ford began making bizarre fashion attacks on Vivid head Steve Hirsch, those being the least of a series of libelous accusations against the company, including HIV charges against the Vivid girls. Vivid first threatened to sue Ford then opted, instead, to have Cambria debate Ford. [By the way, see the director's cut of the Unforgiven where Clint Eastwood, instead of gunning down Gene Hackman, debates him.]

"We're going to have him [Ford] on the hot seat," Powers said. "We're going to do it right this time. We have four hours. I think it will be a great forum. We will invite all the people out there who want to have something to say to Luke, to call. I think it will be a great show also for Detroit callers."

Bianca Trump Goes After Brandy Alexandre

Porn star Bianca Trump has gone after her enemy, ex-porn star Brandy Alexandre with a vicious site www.brandyalexandre.com.

Buck Adams Blows?

A source: "Buck Adams - performs fellatio on 2 guys in back of a van in Van Nuys shopping center parking lot in exchange for 10 grams of crack."

Buck Adams says the story is preposterous. He phoned me from Notorious Productions at 2PM.

Buck: "I can't believe some of the s--- that you and Gene Ross get away with printing...I've got a quarter million dollar... I own half of it which means that I paid for half of it, which is a $125,000 grand... I'm getting ready to release it on October 11. I have to write a check for $2800 on Monday, so how homeless can I be Luke? And before you print something like that about me, wouldn't you call somebody and find out where I was at to ask me some ridiculous story like that...

"First of all, who the f--- said that... And then, after you get through telling me who said that, why would you print some story like that about me without having the balls to print the name of the person who said it... So that Buck would know and I can go, what the f--- kind of bulls--- is that...

"You guys can't just write any f---ing thing you want because now I have a f---ing partner that's freaking out and wants to start suing and whether they win or not, they are going to cost you a ton in legal, dude, you know. Check your facts before you do something like that. Now, who said it, because I've got to tell my partner. He's going to sue. We didn't spend a quarter of a million dollars to let you guys write a bunch of bulls--- all over... And trust me, the lawsuit is coming to you dude... You are the one who put it on your site without any substantiation and never called to verify the story. It's not like I am not easy to find... I sit here at this office all the time. You can call me up and find out. You know me. There's not too much I won't tell you. So who is starting these kind of rumors?"

Luke: "I can't tell you my source."

Buck: "So there you go, Luke. That means that you are the only guy I can sue for running anonymous information... My f---ing lawyers are going to wear your ass out for writing s--- like that. My daughter read that. And now everybody has a real big f---ing problem because you can't get rid of Buck. I'm going to be around long after you're gone because I was here long before you showed up...and now you've got a mortal enemy dude because you did not have the f---ing decency to call up and see if you can find out what the story was... So now I am going to sue your ass, and trust me I am going to go until I am out of my last penny, and trust me, I have a lot of pennies, dude. I'm not homeless and I'm not without money and if you start looking at VCA, you will see how much money we have behind us... And I am going to wear your ass out, Luke. Good night."

Buck hangs up.

Ford on Conway and Steckler

From today's www.geneross.com: "Matthew, Mark and John can rest easily in heaven knowing that Luke {Ford] was on Conway & Steckler last night fronting as an expert on the porn industry. Contrary to Ford's popular opinion, he was not deluged with phone calls from irate people in the adult business, though AVN managing editor Bryn Pryor appeared to get cut off by the show's hosts from sailing into controversial waters. Lack of interest might have been due to Ford's having to compete with reruns of WCW's Thursday Night Thunder. Full details along with Ford's libelous accusations against Goalie Entertainment's Eddie Wedelstedt in a later posting today."

Later Friday afternoon, Gene posted:

Ford Libels Goalie's Eddie Wedelstedt on Radio Show; Says Industry Would Espouse Child Pornography If It Could Get Away With It

Gene wrote: "Behaving like a pair of Leonarto August's on Exxxtasy, radio show hosts Conway & Steckler did everything but suck Luke F-rd's cock in what can best be described as a particularly shameless radio love-in aimed at sniffers. The sniffers being the radio show hosts. Failing to check Ford's credentials at the door, C&S readily embraced Ford as an expert on matters of porn, describing him as an author of a "comprehesive overview" of the business. Comprehensive being a very maligned word, even Ford had to admit on at least one occasion, that there were other people in the industry who knew more about the adult business than he did."

Luke F-rd appeared on the (Tim) Conway and (Doug) Steckler Show Thursday night on FM 97.1 in Los Angeles, KLSX.

Steckler: "Luke F-rd is not only an author and an expert on pornography, he was even part of it..."

Conway: "A great name too. A great actor's name. Have you seen the latest Luke F-rd vehicle... Right now the Luke F-rd vehicle is a Mustang?"

Ford: "It's rough... I won't name the make because there would be so many gunmen out there dying to shoot it up...

"Yes, death threats have been a way of life for me over the past four years. The latest issue of Rolling Stone, August 19, contains a death threat from leading pornographer Eddie Wedelstedt, who at the Adult Video News conference in Cancun, Mexico, this Spring, said Luke F-rd is a "threat to society" but "people should not worry about him because he is going to end up as a spot on the pavement."

[Gene Ross interjects: "The Rolling Stone piece never mentioned Wedelstedt by name. No matter, the alleged incident is fevered, fictional workmanship attributable to Ford. Ask yourself this question, why did Ford wait until an August cover date issue to report on something that happened in May? He would have been up on his own site with it, the day it happened."]

Conway: "Do you take those death threats seriously?"

Ford: "Yes, I talk about them with police. I was assaulted at the Adult Video News Expo a few weeks ago by the brother of TV producer Darren Star. He came over and demanded that I stop writing about his brother. When I refused, he sucker punched me.

[Gene interjects: "There is a full scale police investigation under way."]

"This is not an industry that is used to being legal where you can take your disputes to court. Usually it's been, 'I'll break your legs buddy.' This industry has been underground for a long time and so it attracts an underground element. Nice people usually don't enter it."

Conway and Steckler are surprised.

Conway: "Most people I've met in the porno business are awfully nice."

We discussed the two true-crime books written about the Mitchell Brothers.

Ford: "Bottom Feeders by John Hubner is the best book ever written on the adult industry. It's far better written than my book. These two, the Mitchell brothers, pioneered pornography. They ended up abusing drugs and other people, and finally one of them [Jim] murdered the other [Artie]. He got it away with it with a clever lawyer and served about three years in jail. He said he was deluded at the time. What a joke. This guy Jim Mitchell gets away with murder, and he's one of our leaders in the sex industry."

[Gene interjects: "Note Ford's use of the word "our".]

Steckler: "Isn't the religious right and the long history of puritanism in this country, and the Judeo-Christian attitude towards sex... This country is way behind the Scandinavian countries and Europe... We get hysterical if a bit of skin is shown to a young person, but if a person gets stabbed a thousand times in a movie, that's ok. I blame the criminalization of this industry on the religious right."

Ford: "I take the opposite view. I don't look to Europe for moral guidance. This is the continent that this century has been overrun by Nazism and communism. It's a decadent society. They have torture shows in Amsterdam. People who make pornography are not members of the religious right. Members of the religious right [are spending their time] raise families... People who make pornography are secular, [frequently] criminals, frequently come from drug dealing backgrounds... I respect the American puritan heritage and that sex should be kept in the marital bottle, even though I don't live up to that."

Steckler: "I expect to see God in the face unless I f- up... But I think that people like Robertson and Falwell are devils and that they preach much more hate than inclusion and love. They have no business representing religion."

Ford: "I like Falwell and Robertson."

Conway: "You like Robertson? What did you think about his comment that Florida is going to burn unless they get all the gays out of there."

[Gene interjects: "Now watch Ford sidestep."]

Ford: "I think he goes over the line. I like Falwell more just as a human being even though he will say some wacky things."

Conway: "Falwell and Tinky Winky..."

Ford: "I don't see that as bizarre. I mean there have been gay figures in cartoons, and the entertainment industry does have a disproportionate number of homosexuals, and to simply point that out is fine by me."

Steckler: "There should be a quota. We've got too many of your type in here, you get back into government, you go to DC."

Ford: "The entertainment industry is a secular hedonistic industry filled with sexual perversion and other forms of sin."

Steckler: "You think homosexuality is a perversion?"

Ford: "Yes."

Steckler: "Well, the American Psychiatric Association in the early 1970s disabused all of us of that notion."

Ford: "The American Psychiatric Association thought that the [vicious] way they were running their mental hospitals was ok. This is not a group I look to for truth. And whether groups vote A or B on something... They disabused only those who bow down to secular intellectuals."

Conway: "You believe that homosexuality can be cured?"

Ford: "I don't know about that. I believe that the human being has a propensity for doing perverse things, either homosexual or heterosexual, and that human beings should control themselves."

Conway: "Charlie Sheen is hanging out at his house in Malibu and these girls come over..."

Ford: "Teri Star and Charlese L'Amour are porn stars. Teri Star grew up the child of parents into pornography. At age 18, she began stripping. She's done over 200 videos... Both Teri and Charlese admit that they are alcoholics... Teri Starr has passed out many times on set. She has passed out many time with, uhh, can you say the p-word for male genitalia, p-e-n-i-s... She has passed out with a penis in her a-n-u-s...."

Conway: "That gets my attention. There is no reason to pass out when you are getting F'd in the A."

Ford: "She's been on GHB and passed out in the middle of sex scenes. She's a heartbreaking story. This industry draws people with problems. It attracts lost souls. It's not that this industry only wrecks people, frequently it is the beginning of the road up for them..."

Conway: "My girlfriend Jennifer does pass out during sex sometimes but it's not drugs, she's just bored."

Steckler: "I'm interested why someone who's instinctually revolted by pornography, why he wants to get close to the fire?"

Ford: "I am a mixed human being. I have impulses that are totally contradictory. I have impulses to get close to God and lead a pure life, and I have impulses to get close to Ginger Lynn and do things that are unholy."

Steckler: "We tried like hell to get her to come on... I called her from home..."

Ford: "Ginger Lynn had her fling with drugs, with Charlie Sheen..."

Conway: "Charlie Sheen gets so much..."

Ford: "Charlie Sheen has done so many porn girls. He's a running joke in the porn industry. If you need someone's phone number, call Charlie Sheen."

Conway: "I don't like those old porn...on film... They never showed anything. On video, you can get a little camera that goes up a chick's A..."

Ford: "You're probably not seeing the old films on a big screen."

Conway: "I don't have a big screen so I'd have to go to my dad's [noted actor Tim Conway] to watch it on a big screen and I'm not sure...

"Let's talk about Traci Lords..."

Ford: "She started at age 15. Let's be honest, the industry would love to use 15-year old girls if they could get away with it. Max Hardcore would be happy to use 12-13-14 year old girls if he could get away with it... The only reason that the industry no longer makes child porn is that it can no longer get away with it. When it could get away with it, it made it... There really was child porn in the early 1970s but there was a furor...

"The sex industry pushed the envelope... Deep Throat came out in 1972 and within weeks you had girls doing dogs in live shows on Melrose Blvd here in LA... People in the sex industry will do whatever they can get away with... People got upset and in 1977, Congress passed strict laws against child pornography.

"Some American porn stars have done animals in videos... Chessie Moore did a famous video with a dog... The most famous porn star who regularly did animals committed suicide because she was being hounded by the media..."

Conway: "Who's the biggest porn star today?"

Ford: "Jenna Jameson of Wicked. At the AVN Expo a few weeks ago, she drew the longest lines. She's on the E Channel all the time."

Conway: The E Channel is very good at hiring porno chicks as reporters... I really enjoy that."

Ford: "The entertainment industry in general has more in common with the pornography industry than it does with mainstream America."

Conway: "Basically, we're all whores."

Ford: "Traci Lords now claims that she was on drugs the whole time and didn't know what she was doing. This is baloney. Its Linda Lovelace Syndrome. I was abused, point of a gun. That's nonsense."

Conway: "It's the greatest business in the world. I love the porno business. It never lets you down..."

Steckler: "A year in porno is like five years in Devils Island. Look at Linda Lovelace and the intervening years. She's as scary as hell."

Conway: "Tough years... To do five strange guys in one day, you have to be on something... I bet most of the chicks in the business are on drugs."

Ford: "Human beings are complex. Some people absolutely thrive in this industry, like Nina Hartley. She's glowing, she's respectful towards people... Juli Ashton... There are some friendly people who seem to have their act together and the industry loves to trot them out there for the media... But for most people, this is an industry that will grind them down. For most women who perform sex in front of a camera, this will be something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives..."

Conway: "Hey, hey hey.... Don't talk women out of doing this..."

Producer Jason Insalaco: "Wasn't there a VJ who worked on MTV who'd done gay porn."

Ford: "Simon something... I'm not as up on gay porn as your producer..."

Laughter.

Conway: "Stephanie Swift."

Ford: "Wicked contract girl, one of the more beautiful girls in the industry. Quiet, soft spoken... Most people like her... She did have a marriage that busted up..."

Conway: "Husbands just aren't as understanding as they should be..."

Steckler: "Earlier I might've given the impression...about you getting too close to the fire yet having this moral sensibility about pornography... I think you are the absolutely perfect person to be telling us about this... Unlike Tim and I, you may not enthusiastically embrace pornography... Your objectivity is unique."

Ford: "It's very hard to socialize with any group or write about something and to oppose it. And only someone with the particularly twisted psychology of a Luke F-rd can do that... It's not easy for me to go into a room full of pornographers and know that they all absolutely hate me. But... I thrive on adversarial journalism."

Jeff phones: "What's the deal with Max Hardcore splitting from Zane and Zane still releasing his Cherry Popper series?"

Ford: "Max Hardcore has changed pornography more than any other person in this decade... Sexual excitement thrives on aggression, on people being nasty to each other... And Max has become known as the nastiest pornographer...

"Hardcore has perfected the breaking of taboos... such as in his series Cherry Poppers where he would take 18-25 year old women and dress them up as 12 year olds...

"Zane has traditionally made the most nauseating pornography with women throwing up... Unless you put up government limits, censorship, you're going to have this stuff..."

Conway: "I don't want to censor it."

Ford: "I do. I want limits somewhere. I'm not sure where, but without limits, there is no low that pornographers will not descend to..."

Steckler: "Luke F-rd has the unique objectivity about the porn industry...and also one of the most articulate spokespersons with a critical tone about pornography that I've ever listened to... Usually from the religious right you're getting a lot more emotional arguments and condemnations that include Satan and God..."

Michael phones: "I worked on Anna Obsessed many years. It starred Annette Haven... They would do everything that you could think about, but she had a scar on her foot and she would not let us film that."

Ford: "Annette Haven ranked among the five most beautiful brunettes in the industry but she would not take facial cumshots..."

Conway: "I don't think we can say that... Bleep that out..."

Ford: "The c-u-m word."

Conway: "I think we can use that but we can't talk about where it's going... Anytime something comes out of the body..."

Ford: "Facials are all right, right? We can all have facials?"

Brad phones about Sylvester Stallone starting off in a porno.

Luke: "He was not in a porno, he was in a softcore film. He does not do penetrating sex. You can see his naked bottom."

Eric phoned about Ron Jeremy. "I don't think he gets enough respect."

Luke: "Ron Jeremy is the tightest person in the history of porn with his money. Normally people in porn spend wildly. But Ron is very careful with his money. He's also among the most intelligent people in the industry. He's a great interview. And he's also the most recognized person in the industry. More people will recognize Ron Jeremy than Jenna Jameson or Janine."

Conway: "I had lunch with Ron Jeremy before I got into radio. He was a friend of a friend. We went to a place where it's Chinese food for a $1. He stepped up and he got his food, chicken with rice, and soya sauce and one egg roll. He didn't even pay for my broccoli beef."

Ford: "And I am absolutely as cheap as Ron. I'm not judging Ron. We're both nice Jewish boys."

Ron: "I heard a rumor that they are making a movie about the Mitchell Brothers."

Ford: "Yes, and Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez will star in it... Estevez will direct it.

"Jim and Artie Mitchell pioneered pornography in San Francisco... They made 1972's Behind the Green Door."

Conway: "Bryn in LA, you're on the FM Talk station. Luke F-rd is with us."

Bryn: "Hey Luke, it's Bryn."

Ford: "Hey buddy."

Bryn: "How are you doing?"

Ford: "Good."

Conway: "A friend of yours, Luke?"

Bryn: "I wouldn't go so far as to say friend... We work in the same industry."

Ford: "You're a writer right, for AVN?"

Bryn: "Yeah, I'm the managing editor of the trade magazine."

Ford: "Bryn's been in the industry about six years. He used to do magazines for Western Visuals and Robert McCallum. Now he's at Adult Video News, the industry's one trade magazine. It's very influential and is referred to as the Bible of the industry. And Bryn is the managing editor at AVN and has been for about two years."

Steckler: "Bryn, could I please have some free porn videos."

Bryn: "Well, if you guys would've taken the job I offered you as reviewers, you could've gotten some."

Laughter.

Conway: "Why didn't we take that job?"

Bryn: "Because you didn't call me back..."

Conway: "Did it pay anything?"

Bryn: "Yeah, a whopping $15 a review."

Conway: "I knew there was a reason we didn't take it... Hey Bryn, do you have a question for Luke."

Bryn: "Well, no. I just wanted to throw out there... Luke, take a minute and tell these guys how well respected you are by the industry."

Luke: "I am absolutely hated by the industry. Considering that I am usually the most hated person in the industry, and my competition is people like Marc Wallice who is widely considered to have transmitted HIV to about six porn actresses... The industry loathes me and they wish I was dead."

Bryn: "And is there any reason why?"

Luke: "Yes, I am critical of the industry and I bring up things that the people don't like to face."

Bryn: "You don't think it also has something to do with the fact that you frequently have many of your facts wrong, which you will freely admit?"

Luke: "When you hate someone, and you're asked, why do you hate someone, you will usually come up with something which may or may not be the true reason... Even if I have been 100% perfect, the industry would still hate me. I've made mistakes. I'm obnoxious. I'm a flawed human being... I have psychological faults..."

Conway: "That's right. You were depressed for a long time. Weren't you bedridden?"

Ford: "I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for years... There are people in the industry who know far more than I do... But the underlying reason [that the industry hates me] is that I provide a perspective on the industry which the industry resents..."

Conway: "The business may hate you... Even though the business may not love this Luke F-rd, he's probably good for the business... He does point out the interesting facts behind the business which just generates more interest in porno..."

Bryn: "The only problem that I personally have with Luke, and I've told him this myself, I think his stuff is entertaining when I get a chance to read it... I don't read it as regularly as a lot of the people, including some people in my office... There are people who can't stand Luke who can't wait to read his site every day... What worries me is when people start considering Luke as a legitimate source of hard news. He himself will admit when pressed that he is very bad at that. He's a very bad journalist. And as dumb as it sounds, at the magazine I work at, that is our job. We're the only people who treat it like a real industry with real news...

"For entertainment purposes, to just sit around and BS and have fun, I think Luke's stuff is great. I don't have a problem with it..."

Steckler: "Of all the visual art forms, yours is driven by men's libidos which really don't give a rat's ass what Luke has to say... When I want to get off, I'm not going to ask, 'what did Luke say about this?' So I really don't think you guys should be so sensitive to Luke."

Greg: "About the silent porn films..."

Luke: "They first shot on 16mm around the teens and then they moved to 8mm... They'd play at smokers... Pillars of the community, leading men, would get together at their local Elks Lodge and watch films of hardcore sex."

Jeff: "I wanted to know about the big Marc Wallice debate... How many of the actresses [who caught HIV] are still alive..."

Luke: "On April 21st, 1998, I wrote on my website www.l-keford.com that Marc Wallice had HIV. It created a huge stir... A reporter from Adult Video News emailed me saying 'this is bulls---. If Marc Wallice had HIV, we here at AVN would know about it.' Enough of Marc's friends got on his case and forced him to come down and take a proper HIV test which revealed he was indeed HIV positive. He has had unprotected backdoor sex with every actress in the industry who has tested HIV positive since 1995. My reporting on him probably saved lives and forced him to stop performing sex... Whether it can be proved that he transmitted it, I don't know... None of the actresses have died.

"Pornography has been a showcase for sexual perversion... Gay porn has helped homosexuals and others to believe that male to male sex is ok."

Jeff: "I really enjoy Luke's website. He shouldn't be judged so harshly. His website is one of a very few that does any kind of documentary journalism about this field. I read his site... I don't even watch much porno but I read his site because the personalities behind it are fascinating."

Conway: "Trust me, if Luke F-rd really hurt the industry, he wouldn't be sitting here."

Brooke Hunter Profile

Tall curvy blonde Brooke Hunter entered porn around age 30 after ten years of accounting for a CPA firm.

"I had taken some time off," said Hunter in a phone interview with Luke on August 5, 1999. "A girlfriend had recommended that I try working live internet sex... I loved it. I enjoyed being in front of the camera. I thought, 'what's next?' I had an offer from Sugar Daddy Dave Cummings and I decided to try it (April, 1999). It's my one film with natural breasts... And I've continued to build from that.

"I've been turning down a lot of things. I turn down three or four offers for every one I accept. I try to only do quality films. I've only done 13 videos so far...

"I recently appeared in Jill Kelly's Perfect Pink series... I'm doing Jill Kelly's internet site www.wiredpink.com. It's a live internet site with adult stars who chat with the fans and do a live sex show. It's broadcast from Jill Kelly's house. I've started feature dancing. I finished a feature last month at the Gentleman's Club last month in Glendale. And I'm due to feature at Bob's Classy Lady in the San Fernando Valley on the 19th through the 21st of this month.

"I went incognito a couple of nights to the Gentlemen's Club to check it out... I had a great time. I tried to be friendly with the house girls and they treated me with nothing but respect.

"I worked for a business entertainment management firm. I handled celebrities finances, their day to day accounting and pretty much their lives and investments. And I got tired working a 9-5 job...

"I want to stay in the adult industry as long as it will have me... My parents have been all right with this... My soon-to-be ex-husband has been extremely supportive. He came to see me at Erotica LA where I was signing with Jill Kelly... Socially, it has its pros and cons. Some people have been very accepting... You tend to socialize in the circle you work in...

"I got breast implants in April. I've always wanted them... It was for me... It made me feel better about the way I look. I have no regrets. I simply wanted to fill out my figure. I went from a 34C to a 36D. I'm part Norwegian and I have round curvaceous hips and I wanted to continue the hourglass figure look. Dr. Gary Tearston in Beverly Hills did the job. Saline implants.

"At the end of August, I will be shooting Jim Holliday's Car Wash Angels. I'm extremely excited... In just six months I have fulfilled so many of my goals, shooting for Jill Kelly, becoming one of the Perfect Pink Girls, shooting for Jim Holiday and becoming one of Jim Holiday's Angels, a VCA Platinum release, and I'm being considered for a Wicked Pictures feature. I am grateful for all these opportunities and hope to continue to my early successes in this industry. I still have a lot of dreams and a lot to learn, I'm loving every minute of it."

Hunter grew up in Porn Valley aka San Fernando Valley. "I've always been real open about my sexuality. I've always rented videos and looked at the women... And go: 'some of these girls are beautiful. Look how wonderfully the photographers portray these women... I'd like to do that... I want to look like that.'"

Brooke Hunter is the girlfriend of Erotica LA founder, Ron Miller.

Bowery Bar Babble-On

By Krash

Leigh Zermuhlen’s overdose in Darren Star’s hotel room was the kind of story that cub reporters dream of. And by not reporting it, entry-level scribe Jared Paul Stern would cement his place is gossipdom.

Today, Stern labors as occasionally bylined assistant at Page Six under Richard Johnson, the former Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous content-provider whose wife, Nadine, was Bowery Bar publicist in precisely the time-frame that a teenager left the celebrity hangout so frequently mentioned on "Page Six" and died naked in Darren Star’s bed on Central Park West. Alcohol was in the 19-year-old’s blood along with cocaine and opiates, toxicology tests later revealed.

Although Leigh Zermuhlen’s post-mortem report never saw the light of newsprint outside her hometown newspaper, The Staten Island Advance, neophyte gossipist Jared Paul Stern colluded with “American Psycho” author’/ A-list sybarite Brett Eastman Ellis--who, like Stern, attended high-ticket Bennington College--and narcophile Darren Star in fabricating a NY Press story in fall, 1995 depicting the nubile overdose victim as a stalker.

Although omitting details such as the exact circumstances by which the doomed blond stalked Darren Star from East Village to a posh Central Park West hotel, then disrobed in his room, cooked up his dope, and died a stalker’s death--Jared Paul Stern’s “scoop” had author Brett Easton Ellis on the record as claiming that Zermuhlen was stalking him, too.

NY Press’ snarky tribute to “American Psycho” by way of Star’s “Central Park West” would earn Stern a coveted invitation to Bennington co-alumnus Ellis’ celeb-studded annual Christmas party--thus propelling Stern to his current omnipresence as someone who gets invited to A-list parties and writes the kind of “news” that gets him more party invites ad infinitum.

Also at Brett Easton Ellis’ swank East 13th wassail, in addition to “Sex and The City” “journalist Candace Bushnell, was none other than Darren Star.

Star’s presence here is eternalized by a party pic in the Star-friendly “Manhattan File”, dated February 96, to which Jared Paul Stern was a contributor.

Although the homosexual Stern had been slagged by The New York Observer as a “piss boy” for his demonstrated gynophobia--showering verbal vitriol on females unlucky enough not to be models or editors, such as the overweight adolescent girl he impugned in a “Detour” mag style column for choking to death on “a pork product”--his NY Press editor hailed Stern as “a gifted gossip writer.”

The gifted Jared Paul Stern disappeared from NY Press pages shorty after publisher Russ Smith a/k/a “Mugger” learned the exact dimensions of Stern's role in the Leigh Zermuhlen/Darren Star cover-up.

A source tells l-keford.com: “I emailed copy on Zermuhlen's death from The Daily News, The Post, The Observer and Staten Island Advance to Russ Smith at “mugg1988@aol.com” and he wrote back in acknowledgement. This occurred on Wednesday, June 17, 1998. I never heard from him again.”

At the time, Russ Smith was in an escalating epistolary war of words with Richard Johnson at The Post. Johnson had vowed in a letter to NY Press that neither Smith nor his freebie weekly would ever appear on “Page Six.” Smith responded in writing that Johnson was “a cunt.”

Shortly after this uplifting exchange--and shortly after Jared Paul Stern had departed NY Press forever--Smith, according to sources, used the Darren Star whitewash, of which Mr. and Mrs. Richard Johnson were so inextricably a part, as a means of leveraging his way onto “Page Six.”

Since then, NY Press and/or Russ Smith have had numerous mentions on “Page Six”--something which Richard Johnson had emphatically vowed, in the late spring and early summer of 1998, would never happen. Meanwhile, Leigh Zermuhlen, dead of Darren Star’s euphoriants at 19, would live on in NY Press’ archives as a stalker.

NY Press, which is not archived in any libraries outside their own at 333 Seventh Avenue, did not, as this report went online, yet provide l-keford.com with the requested copy of Jared Paul Stern's fall, '95 Bowery Bar item.

Coming Soon: Why S.I. Newhouse Gave Ron “Mr. Big” Galotti The Big Boot from “Vogue.”

New York Post Page Six columnist Jeane MacIntosh writes:

"Yeah, Jared has been here for about 4 years. He is a regular, but he never gets a byline. So technically, Krash was wrong. (Can you tell I am very protective of Jared.) I went on your site yesterday, so now i know what it's about....realize the piece is probably all in good fun. But really a stretch--showed it to richard, who laughed out loud, mainly because to think he and nadine could concoct an elaborate plot like that and land jared a job is hysterical. Actually, jared was already working here p/t when that piece came out, and the chick was still alive when jared wrote it. So the coverup thing is sorta farfetched. Also, I don't think even Jared knew it was Star, because yesterday I asked him and he was genuinely clueless. He was going to check the clips here and get the guy's name. Also, when that story came out, it was a major brouhaha with nadine, because she was freaking that everyone, even Page six, was writing about it. (Oh, and Richard and Mugger called a truce a couple years back, so they started writing about each other, but then they got mad at each other again and I forget where it stands now. I can't keep up)But anyway, who cares, right? At any rate, if you do get any good, fact-checkable stuff, particularly crime/sex/hollywood things, give us a heads up. Thanks for reading! Jeane Mac."

From a November issue of New York Press, the alternative weekly edited by Russ Smith, the Time Out For Jared Paul Stern column:

"My social life is killing me" is a casual remark frequently heard at places like Bowery Bar, but for a Staten Island teenager whose death by suspected overdose was reported in the Post Nov. 14, it turned out to be true. Leigh Zurmuhlen, 19, granddaughter of city Public Works Commissioner Frederick Zurmuhlen (who worked with Robert Moses), was a celebrity hunter whose stalking ground was the verdant, fame-rich field of Bowery Bar's main dining room, where she longed to work as one of the boite's sexy, star-f---ing waitresses.

She was also the most ardent fan in a long line of admirers waiting to exchange greetings and have their books signed by author Bret Easton Ellis follolwing a reading from his latest novel, The Informers, at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble October 5. Zurmuhlen, in art-student garb and bleached blond hair, hung around long after the other audience members had gone, chatting up store employees and Suzie Leness, the publicist from Vintage Books, whom she mistook for Ellis' girlfriend. Zurmuhlen gave Ellis her phone number, begging him to call her so they could meet. "I'm not a stalker or anything like that," she unconvincingly assured me - as I was standing behind Ellis in my dark suit and fedora, she had mistaken me for his bodyguard. An observer commented, "She seemed like an extremely obsessive fan."

Zurmuhlen's nude body was found in a room registered to a "small-time" Hollywood producer at Central Park West's Mayflower Hotel on October 27. Her mother, Kathleen Ryan, told the Post that Zurmuhlen had met the man at the Bowery Bar on October 24. "She used to go there on Thursday nights after her acting class."