Email Luke Archives Photos Stars Essays Search Luke Is Back.com Headline News Click Here - The Movie Dec 16

Tod Hunter On Carnal Knowledge

Tod Hunter writes:

It looks like my disappointment at the recent sorry state of AVN Insider's "Carnal Knowledge" feature was noticed by the AVN Brain Trust and steps have been taken. Somebody went and downloaded a list of all the Vivid contract performers. And posted it as a "trivia feature." Wow.

When I was a researcher on Card Sharks, I once sat in on a meeting where the writers would propose new questions for use on the show. The producer would dismiss questions that didn't pique his interest with a wistful "I don't care." Looking at the downloaded list of Vivid Girls reminded me of that moment of indifferent dismissal.

Keep trying, guys. If a monkey can bang out Hamlet you'll stumble on a decent trivia feature sooner or later. I hope I live to see it.

Sin-A-Rama

SIN-A-RAMA celebrates the forgotten world of erotic paperbacks from the 1960s, when sex acts were described with code words, writers used pseudonyms, and publishers hid behind mail drop addresses.

Sleaze paperbacks sold by the million throughout the decade. Their unorthodox content and inroads into the marketplace provoked new laws, FBI investigations, high-pitched court battles, and prison sentences for the crime of obscenity. Earl Kemp, the notorious Greenleaf Books editor, provides an insider's perspective, profiling famous and little-known co-workers. In "My Life as a Pornographer," science fiction legend Robert Silverberg divulges how he and other famous authors learned their craft and earned their keep pounding out softcore sin.

The bizarre glories of cover artists Robert Bonfils, Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton, Paul Rader, Ed Smith, Bill Ward, and Doug Weaver are seen throughout in lurid color.

SIN-A-RAMA is the first book-length exploration into a shadowy but revolutionary industry. A useful appendix reveals the actual names behind the pseudonyms, and catalogues both established and fly-by-night sleaze operators.

Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia : The A-to-Z Guide to Finding Your Favorite Actresses Naked

Mr. Skin is the Chief Sexecutive Officer of MrSkin.com, the World Wide Web's most popular celebrity nudity movie-review site. Since launching MrSkin.com in 1999, Mr. Skin has become one of the most popular guests on morning radio. Mr. Skin's Skinpire is based in Chicago, where he lives with Mrs. Skin and Baby Skin, and oversees a crack staff of thirty skinployees.

Product Description: After turning his lifelong obsession with famous girls on film into the Internet phenomenon known as MrSkin.com, the Skinmeister General has now compiled his expert knowledge and skinsationally witty way with a phrase into an authoritative, uproarious book that you'll never tire of flipping through---single-handedly, of course!

Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia compiles exhaustive information on more than two-thousand starlets and the films in which you can witness them free of clothing. Every actress bio contains a complete list of movies in which she's appeared naked, as well as the specific body parts that are exposed.

In addition, Mr. Skin picks each star's Skinfining Moment--- the single skinematic high point that defines her carnal career. The Skincyclopedia also comes packed with top-ten lists, revealing quotes from the bare beauties themselves, and a host of rare, eye-popping photos---all delivered in Mr. Skin's signature puntastic style.

Spanning nearly a century of cinematic history, the Skincyclopedia unveils the silver screen's naked truth from the silent era to the blockbuster to the straight-to-DVD age of today, along the way revealing the answers to questions such as:

- Did Marcia from The Brady Bunch ever bust out her Brady bumps?

- Can you name the 1990 flick that features Jennifer Connelly sunbathing nude?

- Is it Farrah's right or left Fawcett that takes flight in Saturn 3?

- What are the Top Ten Most Leztastic Girl-Girl Scenes of all time?

- Which twentysomething Hollywood honey once declared, "My boobs are fine---they go with my body"?

- How many Academy Award--winning actresses have displayed their Golden Globes on film?

- Got "furburgerage"?

I was scanning through the book and found this description for Alison Eastwood:

Daughter of he-man Clint Eastwood, Alison Eastwood makes Mr. Skin's day. Breast of all, she doesn't share her daddy's grizzled skin, as evident by her luscious nudity onscreen. Sadly, they don't call him Dirty Harry for his perverted bent. When Eastwood cast Alison in his Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), her debut celluloid sex scene was shot once and then rudely cut from the film. Papa don't preach! Once free of Eastwood's steely grip, Alison got into the swing of things with Friends & Lovers (1999), playing one of the lovers who had a hard time keeping her shirt on. Then in If Only You Knew (2000), Alison showed off her heavenly hooter handfuls in a skin rite of passage, the shower scene. Do you feel lucky, punk?

About some of my favorite actresses:

Michelle Pfeifer:

Groin-crunchingly beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer wasn't always a star. She began her career with such duds as National Lampoon's short-lived Delta House series and in movie flops such as Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) and Grease 2 (1982). But when you look as impossibly enchanting as Michelle, people take notice. Although Michelle was unforgettably electrifying in her all-latex outfit as Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992), her most noteworthy onscreen nudity remains a blisteringly sexy naked stroll past Jeff Goldblum in Into the Night (1985). Another skin scene of note came in A Thousand Acres (1997), in which she showed off her right boob during an examination. It's a smidgen weird, though, since her left tit is covered with a pretty grotesque prosthetic. Let's hope that in the pfuture, Ms. Pfeiffer won't be as pfinicky with her perfect pflesh.

Morgan Fairchild:

Hair big and blonde enough for the entire state of Texas, slim, contoured legs that go on for longer than a Panhandle highway, Morgan Fairchild may not be a Lone Star bitch, but the Dallas-born bombshell sure did know how to play one on TV. Morgan's merciless schemer Jordan Roberts was the sweetest of evil delights on the nighttime network adultery drama Falcon Crest. Those attuned to the rules of skin knew that a woman wielding such an advanced grasp of sexual manipulation must surely have taken off her clothes somewhere. That somewhere is The Seduction (1982). Fairchild's fair nipples popped up as she raised her arms and pinned up her hair. She slipped into a sudsy tub and the nips played hide and seek in the bubbles.

When Sex Was Dirty

By Josh Alan Friedman

Welcome to the twilight days of debauchery, when porn was filth and sex was still dirty. Josh Alan Friedman, author of Tales of Times Square (Feral House), provides face-to-face reporting from licentious New York City of the 1980s-a compelling assortment of pimp laureates, porn starlets, evangelical strippers, bizarre 42nd Street inhabitants, Screw magazine staffers, "the strikeout king," and his stud-like counterpart, "God's Gift to Women."

Josh Alan Friedman is also the co-author (with Drew Friedman) of Warts and All, co-editor (with Nile Southern) of Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, 1950-1995 (Grove Press), and contributor to It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps (Feral House).

"Evocative, entertaining, not for the faint-hearted. Friedman's no-holds barred portrait of the porn industry and its workers is intriguing, if a little cold-blooded." -Chicago Sun-Times, on Tales of Times Square.

Dick Delaware - Best Male Newcomer?

Dick has been nominated for the AVN award.

I called him Monday afternoon.

Luke: "When's your next fight?"

Dick: "I have a couple of things up in the air. I'm doing scenes. I'm working with Chasey Lain tomorrow for Rick Davis.

"Things are going good. Zero drama. I talk to [his ex-girlfriend] Layla [Rivera] every day.

"My focus is porn for the next six weeks so I can get myself ready to take time off to train [before his next fight]."

Luke: "When do you think you might fight again?"

Dick: "February. Too Hot To Handle [equivalent to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, an A-level show at the Taj Mahal] is coming to Atlantic City. It's a high-paying fight."

I called Russell Hampshire in Hawaii but he was busy playing a round of golf and couldn't talk.

Gallery, Fox and Lollypops

Montcalm Publishing puts out Gallery, Fox and Lollypops magazines. It's a privately owned place, owned by the Orenstein Family. They are often called the "GuiJews" as they're Jewish/Italian. Their cheapness and mediocrity paid off in the end because they're still in business and they've never been in the financial trouble (while a lot of other magazines have closed). Their overhead was always low and they didn't give a crap about image or contributing, it was just a business that they wanted profit from. The old man, Edward Orenstein, bought the property from F. Lee Baily whom he was partners with at a private law firm.

Mike South Pulls His Negative Review Of Digital Playground's Movie Contract Stars

Tim Case writes:

Mike South, my friend, you oughta be ashamed. We've been friends for years -- friends hell, I consider you my family, Brotha -- and I sit here now, chagrined and embarrassed by actions I'm afraid you may have taken today. You are a true southern gentleman who, more than anyone in XXX, has tried for years to walk the walk AND talk the talk, to be a real person, and to always take a stand for integrity in a lowdown business which rarely has any to exhibit.

I may be talking out of turn here, as I don't really know why your recent review of the Digital Playground film "Contract Stars" is no longer available on your website -- but I gotta tell you, buddy, I sure do have my suspicions. It was up for a day, maybe two at most, and now it's gone. Maybe I'm way off base to assume that you might have been contacted by someone at a certain company and asked to maybe take down that review, a review which no one would really call "negative" in any way...[hell, I've seen you turn on the heat when someone puts out a real piece of trash, and I think you were probably as gentle in your "negativity" as anyone could have been when it came to commenting on the newest Robby D release.]

Let me guess...Adella? Joon? Sam? Who got to you, Mikey? I can't imagine anyone giving a s--- about a porn journalist's review of a video in the first place, let alone anyone getting ticked off enough to actually ask you to take the damn thing down, but maybe I'm way off base here in Ohio and underestimating the power those on the Left Coast ascribe to WWW.MIKESOUTH.COM.

So, what gives? Have we lost just a smidgen of integrity here? Are all those rumors of you being on the DP payroll really true? Is that the powerful stench of men-da-city I detect down there in the Georgia air?

Somewhere, I'm afraid that Gene Ross, Rob Black, and Sharon Mitchell are smiling...

Dude, just tell me it ain't so.

I asked Mike South for a copy of his original review. He replied:

I cant believe I overwrote the damn thing basically I said it was horrible, while the script followed the basic three act structure the acting was horribly bad. apparently they wanted everyone to speak with bogus Hispanic accents but to what end I had no idea. There wasn't anything funny in the movie and it wasn't politically incorrect I went onto say watch jacks playground instead and that DP has some amazingly talented people and that someday they would find a good script and a good concept and make an adult movie that was both sexually arousing and intellectually un-insulting but Contract Star wasn't it.

Nici Hunter Celebrates Her Birthday Sunday Night In Studio City

Photo by Bishop. Frankie LaRue is on the left. Amber on the right.

Waiting For Jordan Taylor

At the Penthouse casting call Tuesday, I thought to myself, and here I am going to translate my thoughts into a more lofty expression than what they really were (to coddle the delicate sensitivities of my readers), "I would give anything to be with Jordan."

In my mind, I imagined Jordan said back, "You will only have me in the graveyard."

Now, looking back with the wisdom that comes from living six more days, I realize that what she meant was that I would never have her. But in my naivete, I thought she meant that I should wait for her in the veterans' cemetery in Westwood.

Each night for the past five nights, I've waited there for her. And guess what? She never came.

But my time was not wasted. As I gazed up at the stars and analyzed my longings, I realized that what I truly seek is not so much Jordan's 18-year old curves, but a much loftier constellation of worthy values, a sturdy moral code to live my life by and be a blessing to others.

Jordan's friend writes:

Bad news, Luke. You were at the wrong grave yard. Ms. Taylor says that she waited for you five nights in a row at the grave yard in Hollywood. She assumes that you stood her up, and she is angry. She was particularly upset because until now she thought you were a paragon of morality. She was looking forward to being raised into a world of lofty ideals and morality after a good boffing. Oh well.

Jim Holliday Blasts AVN

Over the past few years, Gene Ross had many conversations with the late Jim Holliday. Now he's publishing them on Adultfyi.

The Incredibles

I went to see this cartoon with my civilian friend Cathy who insisted on it.

When it was all finished and we could leave, she asked me if I enjoyed it.

"Yes," I said, seeing no choice in my answer (I did laugh a few times).

"See?" she said, happy to point out a moral to the story. "Every movie doesn't need to have a double anal scene."

Earlier, she had referred to the anal rape scene in Lawrence of Arabia, which I've seen twice but I never remember any such scene. I think Cathy is more sensitive to suggestions of anal sex than most people. During the HIV-crisis this Spring, she had me explain to her the meaning of the mysterious phrase "double anal."

It was quite the talking point between us for a good ten minutes.

Which reminded me of Rob Eshman's column in the Jewish Journal this week:

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, took umbrage. "A lot of Catholics in this town are saying, 'Is that how Jews are looking at us,'" he told The Jewish Week, "'that you scratch a Catholic and out comes a latent anti-Semite?'"

Last week, Donohue provided the answer to his rhetorical question. And the answer is, in his case, yes.

In a Dec. 10 appearance on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," Donohue railed against the possibility that Michael Moore's documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," would receive an Oscar nomination, while Mel Gibson's "The Passion" would not.

"Who really cares what Hollywood thinks?" Donohue said. "All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah."

Donohue continued: "Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common."

The host for this Jew-bashing fest was - surprise! - Pat Buchanan. Instead of calling Donohue out, he turned to panelist Rabbi Shmuely Boteach and asked why secular Jews hate America and love Michael Moore.

Read the transcript, and you'll begin to wonder what looking glass you've fallen through. Boteach did a superb job in the role of Moses Nachmanides, the 13th-century scholar who was forced into public disputations over religion with Christian opponents.

"I'm amazed that we've made this a discussion about secular Jews," Boteach said. "I have got to tell you that Bill Donohue, who I otherwise love and so respect, ought to be ashamed of himself, the way he's spoken about secular Jews hating Christians. That is a bunch of crap, OK?"

Donohue's accusations, goaded on by Buchanan, turned nastier:

Boteach: The fact is that Jewish people are incredibly charitable, good, decent family people.

Donohue: I didn't question that.

Boteach: Hollywood has become a cesspit because it's secular, period. Don't do this - don't tell us that it's secular Jews.

Donohue: So the Catholics are running Hollywood, huh?

Boteach: Soon, you're going to start telling us that the NBA is violent because it's black people, all right, Bill? No, no, no. When people behave badly, just hold them individually accountable.

Donohue is clearly on the right flank of the Catholic world, but he is far from a fringe character. His organization, based in New York, claims a membership of 350,000 and has some significant mainstream names attached to it.

On the group's Web site, Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, offers this endorsement: "I encourage you to join the Catholic League, which defends not only the interests of Catholics but of all victims of anti-religious bigotry."

Um, almost all.

So far, Donohue hasn't apologized, and Mahony and others haven't publicly chastised him, resigned their memberships or done anything to indicate that blaming "secular Jews" for all that is rotten in contemporary culture is perhaps out of bounds.

The comments buzzed through the entertainment community, evoking equal measures of outrage, disbelief and humor. Suffice it to say that in the wake of the scandals concerning priestly pederasty, Donohue didn't get a pass for his "anal sex" remark.

It seems indecent to have to point out the obvious, but here's a quick reality check for Donohue:

1. Jews don't control Hollywood, corporations do. If you have a problem with smut on TV, tell Rupert Murdoch - not a Jew - to sink "Temptation Island."

2. Hollywood is profit-friendly and risk-averse. Religion and politics are risky subjects. Knowing what they know now, 99.9 percent of studio execs would have green-lit "The Passion" faster than you could say "Scary Movie 7."

3. The vast majority of Hollywood movies are positive, uplifting and moralistic, anyway. "Ray," "The Incredibles," the upcoming "Lemony Snicket" - great entertainment and great values.

AIM Blood Drawers

I suspect many of them have a junkie past, that's why they are good with needles. I also suspect that many of them are working off community service hours for various crimes (read drugs). I've had my blood drawn there many times and never had a problem.

Porn Actress Sells Her Daughter's Virginity

From The News of the World:

Porn actress Claire Kent is desperate to find a pervert to have sex with her little girl so that she can buy herself a new car and drugs. She already has Sharon hooked on crack cocaine and brags about how they take it together every day. And she's even offering to join in as her girl loses her virginity, making it a sick threesome.

Britain's most evil mum has prepared Sharon for that 'big time' in her life by letting her watch some of the hardcore videos she herself has starred in.

To justify flogging her daughter's innocence, Kent said: "I crashed my car. I desperately need some cash because we need to get a car fast."

Photos of "Claire Kent" as Clair Brown.

Johnny Traffic writes about Clair and another UK porn star accused of trying to murder her husband:

I work with this sponsor UK Adult Cash The guy who runs it, Matt is a great guy. Well he gave me a ton of content to promote it. I made lots of galleries including this one. Well look at the girl closely in this set "Candice" plus shes also at the top of all my galleries in the heading, shes the second one on the top. Shes in all my galleries. Well I was a bit shocked to see her in today's papers for trying to kill her husband. She really looks an evil bitch. Quotes from the paper:

"Bristol Crown Court heard Johnson sent text messages to Edwards urging him to "get on with it" after earlier suicide bids failed."

"Johnson, who starred in a string of porn films under the name Candice Paris, was said to have "aggressively" forced painkillers into his mouth"

Weighing Strippers' Rights

From The LA Times:

Hundreds object to steep fees clubs charge them; some say private lap dances encourage prostitution. State plans an industry audit.

SAN FRANCISCO - This city claims a proud history in the realm of tease.

Stripper Carol Doda made her 1964 debut at the country's first topless club atop a baby grand piano. Then the wild and raunchy Mitchell brothers one-upped her - promoting the heavy-contact lap dancing that has become the national norm in strip clubs.

Here, sex and free speech walk hand-in-hand - often donning leather chaps or a G-string. So when Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris declined this year to prosecute exotic dancers arrested for soliciting prostitution in the private booths of strip clubs, some saw it as another dose of sexual tolerance, San Francisco-style.

HIV positive model in the Netherlands

Jacco writes on ADT:

Hi, it seems some people have seen this post about a Dutch model who tested HIV positive. First: this girl was tested before she was going to do her first shoot. So she wasn't in the industry yet.

Second: that thread (and the coverage from De Telegraaf, not the country's most accurate newspaper) is filled with misinformation and speculation.

I checked with Bobbi Eden, who checked it with the agency and her response can be seen on these posts at the BGAFD:
post 1
post 2

The reason that the model agency did not release the model's name is because that is not allowed according to Dutch law. All contacts of the girl have been informed in private and basically this has no impact on the Dutch porn industry, as she had not worked before.

But of course the rumour mongers and panic seeders have started posting and emailing all kinds of unsubstantiated rumours and half truths.

Jenna Jameson has cancerous mole removed

Jenna Jameson writes:

I get regular facials and skin treatments with a great dermatologist here in AZ. Well, I went in to her office in early November and she was looking at my back, and said she wanted to remove one of my moles because it looked irregular. I reluctantly agreed to have her do it... because I am deathly afraid of cancer since my mother died at such an early age of melignant melanoma that formed out of a mole on her shoulder... the same place my irregular mole was. So, she removes it and sent it to pathology... and then I played the waiting game. I jetted off to NY to shoot 2 very important shoots for Elite and then returned home a week later. I called my dermatologist straight away. She said, no results yet. A feeling of dread came over me... why was it taking so long? About a week later... 3 days before Thanksgiving the call came in... I had malignant melanoma.

I cried. I silenced. I cried. I hid. I cried. It wasn't my time.... I called DR Fisher, my close true friend... and he said he will do the surgery to remove the surrounding skin of the malignancy on December 2nd. I had about a week to freak out. But, I really didn't... I was just still. The worst was telling my father. He had nursed my mother while she was ill, and watched her die. This was one of the hardest things I ever had to do... listen to my father break down was too much for me. Finally the day came around and I went in... I am now recovering and my pathology came back all clear... Thank god! I am sporting a 5 inch scar on my right shoulder, but I am now cancer free. I am feeling better physically and I have even quit smoking!!! I haven't had a ciggy in 3 weeks! I now have to watch myself and take very good care, so I don't ever have to deal with this again.

Jim Gunn writes on ADT: "I'm not superstitious at all, but there was a psychic on Howard Stern a few weeks back that had predicted that Jenna Jameson had some type of internal cancer. (Not melanoma, so it's not an exact match) I doubt she read Jenna's diary, even if that was up at the time. Maybe it was just a lucky guess. Gary, Howard's producer said that he was trying to contact Jenna about when they were discussing it, but they never mentioned it again."

CHIEF JIMMY WHITE MOCCASINS GOES TO HAPPY HUNTING GROUND

Mike Albo writes on AdultStarsNews.com:

Jim Holliday has died due to complications arising from type II diabetes. According to what I've heard, he had been in failing health for over a year, but resolutely avoided taking care of himself. If that's true, it was a typical Holliday move.

Jim was a unique individual, to say the least. I first spoke to him back in 1993 when I had just started working at Hustler Erotic Video Guide. I had turned in my ballot for the XRCO Awards, and Jim called to tell me that I had "got it." What that meant was that my votes met with his approval. Or something like that. It was hard to follow because, over the course of that conversation, Jim ping-ponged from subject to subject like a tweaker with ADD. One minute he was talking about the XRCO, the next he was nattering on about early '60s rocker Del Shannon. And he was relentless. He just kept talking. For over an hour. Still he was entertaining. A real character.

A couple of Jim's movies were reviewed in HEVG around that time, and received positive ratings...opinions not shared by the reviewers at Hustler. Jim would call and rail about the "pinheads" who didn't understand his "fun and fluff" epics. He had a particular dislike for Hustler Editorial Director Allan MacDonell, claiming he'd "bitch slap" Allan if he ever saw him and that Allan only kept his job thanks to Holliday's benevolence. According to Jim, he could have "anybody fired at any time."

Holliday also had a habit of calling at all hours, usually identifying himself by one of his many nicknames: Jimmy White Moccasins, The Velvet Hammer, The Golden Ghost, etc.

But then Holliday took exception to a couple of reviews and comments that appeared in the magazine, and added me to his list of perceived enemies. Oh, well. What are you going to do?

Some things I'll remember about Holliday: Sitting in the bar at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas during CES with Holliday, David Christopher, Bobby Hollander, Howard Levine and others and listening in horror as Holliday rattled on about the Holocaust. "I'm not saying it didn't happen...I just question the numbers." This to a table of mainly Jewish dudes. Oh, and Holliday never bought a round. "When I'm in Vegas, I'm America's guest."

Another year, and another CES show, following the AVN Awards, I bought a few "coke and ryes" for an already drunken Holliday who spent his time buttonholing passers-by and asking them if they knew the name Jim Holliday. Most did not. Holliday was convinced that these midwestern housewives and such were all lying. I don't think they were.

Holliday liked to boast, and he certainly came up with some doozies. According to him, he was once the youngest head basketball coach in the NCAA. He "invented" the trend of wearing painter's pants. He wore sunglasses at night before anybody else did. He had a cult following that numbered in the "hundreds of thousands." He was a certified "genius." He could walk into "any diner and go home with any waitress" to which he took a liking. And on and on he'd go for as long as anyone would care to listen.

Most of Holliday's rap was pure bulls---, but it could be entertaining bulls--- if one was in the right mood to hear it.

But, like I said, Holliday was a character. A real character. Even at his most obnoxious, he was entertaining as only a true character can be. Later, Chief. May your white moccasins tread easy on the happy hunting ground.

A Critique Of AVN's Coverage Of Jim Holliday's Demise

Hart Williams writes:

AVN has CHANGED the Jim Holliday story by Tim Connelly posted yesterday! There is some rewriting, additional material and the addition of Jared Rutter's byline on the same story, supposedly posted 12-16. ( The original copy I downloaded is time-stamped 12-16 at 7:04 PM, so either someone rewrote it long after the AVN offices closed last night, or else they rewrote it this morning, dishonestly pretending the story was written yesterday. There is no notice of any revision or updating, although *that* may appear in the next 24 hours, as well.) Heck, it may well appear that Holliday is not dead at all. This is not exactly what you'd call "high credibility."

The only new material is two paragraphs of a laudatory quote from Susie Bright. ... but I have a hunch the additional byline is to cover up the astonishingly self-serving piece that was originally posted, wherein Connelly quotes Holliday (from nearly twenty years ago, with quotation marks!? Impossible. He wasn't carrying a tape recorder) telling him what "integrity" he had and how Connelly was "the 'eyes and ears of the industry. '"

And then Connelly quoting HIMSELF about how great Holliday was for saying how great Connelly was. Quoting oneself as a named source has got to be the ne plus ultra of amateur (hack) "journalism." This is simply scandalous, putting self-laudatory words in a dead man's mouth -- in a story purportedly ABOUT said dead man. Has Connelly been sliding by for so long as a third-rate hack that he thought no one would notice? Or is it merely the ultimate extension of "ME Journalism"? (One awful writer writing about another awful writer is probably appropriate in some inadvertent and hideously ironic manner.)

If you're going to "report" then at least report with some semblance of integrity. I guess not only are they NOT journalists, but they've learned the White House trick of retroactively changing the website to cover up embarrassing material!

Or, if that's *not* a problem to an uncritical audience, then I would like to add that Holliday once told me that I was "the best writer that ever worked in the field of porn," and that he would count himself lucky "just to be able to write ONE sentence as well as you do, Hart." I remember it precisely from 1984. (Yeah. Right. Sure.)

Death takes a Holliday

By Tod Hunter

Jim Holliday, writer, director, historian of the adult film industry, reportedly died this week, according to the predictable-dreck story over at AVN.com.

I knew Jim Holliday, not well - did anybody know him well? - but many were the times that I would come into my cubicle at AVN and see my message light flashing from another wee-hours rant from "Idiot Boy," as he called himself, railing about sports (about which I know nothing), old mainstream movies, old porn movies, who was the best director out there, besides himself, of course, because he would get crowds as big as any of the girls when he went out on a signing. He was the only guy I knew who could go from Howard Hawks to François Truffaut to Gerard Damiano without missing a beat.

I always hesitated to call him back because he was loquacious as hell, and although he was an excellent raconteur it was like being in the Bellagio buffet: This is great stuff but I have to stop eventually. I called him back, many times, and enjoyed the hell out of it, but eventually hung up the phone feeling stuffed, sated, and eager to do it again when I was ready. He also told me that I was the only person at AVN who "got it," which may be another reason I made those return calls.

His movies spoke for themselves: Brightly-lit, filled with his "Angels" (busty blondes with sunny smiles and cheery attitudes), and loaded with snarky in-jokes and clever innuendo, along with the sex. Some people at AVN didn't like his stuff - the absence of brutality, forced throat-f---ing, double-anals, and other such elements that defined "porn" to some reviewers meant that Holliday videos would gather dust in the review closet until I came in - but I enjoyed them, and so did a lot of other people. Even if Holliday overstated his sales and fan base, he was kept on staff at VCA for years, so he must have been selling something.

I was on one of his last sets, over at Skye Blue's studio. A kitten had wandered in, and he shot the girls playing with it. Before setting up a 30-foot tracking shot of a cheerleaders' locker room, he gathered the cast together for the obligatory class picture, and then invited several of the onlookers to pose with the girls, for a keepsake picture of one guy with 20 naked porn performers.

I turned down the offer. Not sure why, now. I would have had a tangible memento of Jim now if I had taken him up on it.

Damn.

Ave atque vale, Jim.

World Modeling On Friday

I stopped by Jim South's talent agency shortly before noon Friday, December 17, the day after news broke that porn historian and director Jim Holliday had died Wednesday.

I passed the open door of Protecting Adult Welfare. Bill Margold sat alone and glum.

I walked into World Modeling. With just Jim South and Jim Jr. it seemed empty.

Jim Sr is on the phone to TT Boy. "She was only doing girl-girl," Jim says, "but she got offered $1500 to do boy-girl."

Luke: "How did you meet him?"

Jim Sr: "I met Jim Holliday [in the mid-to-late 1980s]. This was when it was just me and [Reb Sawitz's agency] Pretty Girl International. He was on the board of directors of the XRCO. When I joined them, it was a new thing for an agent, he looked at me with a grin... I had met him briefly but I did not remember his face. He stuck his hand over the table on the stage that he was on and said, 'Thank you for coming along on this. I guess now I've met the main agent I'm going to deal with.'

"I was impressed with the guy. He's always been extremely honest and understanding. All the girls love working for him."

Luke: "Why did they love working for him?"

Jim: "Jim could impress them with his movies. He did some great movies. He was an excellent director. He had a way of being truthful with the girl... Girls would make him deals [give him reduced rates] because he would use them over and over again.

"He used to call me the day after a shooting and say he was going to VCA to put in a request for a check. Let me give you the cast list I used. That's unheard of."

Luke: "When did you last talk to him?"

Jim: "Either Tuesday or Wednesday morning. He sounded medicated. He was rambling. I assume he was in pain. He told me that Bill Margold had not returned his call and he had left him several calls. He said he was using his arm now and it wasn't hurting as bad, the position that he had it in.

"I thought, ohmigod. We've gotten to this."

Luke: "When did you last see him?"

Jim: "In the last month of two. I had love for him. I had two conversations with him, like a father, about his weight. I said, Jim, you're killing yourself. You've got to lose weight.

"He was receptive a little bit. Other people had mentioned it. Let us not dwell on it.

"The adult industry has lost a great man. Whether it is on a personal level. The fun that we used to have when he used to tell me who he was betting on, because he bet a lot. All the way up to him making sure I had a complete casting list."

Luke: "Did he hold casting calls here?"

Jim: "Almost always. He was always invited. He used Bill Margold's office and chain-smoked the whole time he was in there."

Luke: "Did you visit his home?"

Jim: "I don't know anybody who knows where he lives. Bill and I were talking about this a month or two ago. Bill said, he's very sick. I'm afraid he's dying. I don't even know where he lives. God forbid if something would happen. Bill told me this morning that the manager of the building found him and she called the police.

"Somebody asked me yesterday if I had heard from Jim lately and I honestly said, he's dying. But it is so hard to accept. Just like when I went to the pre-wake for Bobby Hollander. I think he died three or four days after that."

Luke: "How do you think Jim would like to be remembered?"

Jim: "As a person who loved the adult industry and loved to direct."

I think World Modeling is the only talent agency that does not take fees from the talent. The others charge the talent from 10-50% of their porn earnings.

World Modeling has employed a couple of drivers and is getting more aggressive in keeping and recruiting talent and taking a personal interest in their careers and making sure their girls are seen by those who can employ them.

12:15pm. I sit down with Bill Margold and remember Jim Holliday.

Bill talks about how he likes to unlock the zippers of the mind. "Holliday's zippers were made out of velcro," says Bill. "Mine were made out of barbed wire."

12:20pm. As I'm walking out, I meet the new executive director of the Free Speech Coalition. Michelle Frereridge. She's a big woman, in her 30s, with short blonde hair. She wears blue jeans and a flannel shirt. She's been at the FSC for three months.

Bill introduces me as "perhaps the most vicious of the Internet columnists. But he has his own style. Everybody is fair fame."

"Style is everything," says Michelle.

The FSC Los Angeles office is located in M&M Sales owned by Edward Wedelstedt.

VCA Director Jim Holliday Dies

I hear Jim Holliday (AKA Jack Nash) died Wednesday of complications from Type II diabetes.

He was taken from the hospital and he died there. I believe he was 56 (born in 1948?).

An announcement about Jim's funeral should come Friday.

Holliday was the industry's premier historian as well as director of many popular porn films that featured ten or more porn girls.

Jim put on an enormous amount of weight in his final years. He weighed over 300 pounds and suffered from diabetes. He would not follow his doctor's instructions.

Over the past couple of years, he had his budgets dramatically cut by VCA. But no other company was interested in hiring him. Many others, such as journalist Mike Albo, critic Pat Riley, and director James DiGiorgio, did not share his inflated view of his directing abilities.

XPT thread

Before he met Rob Spallone, Jim Holliday would tell me Rob was a nut and that I should side with Jim South (then Rob's rival). Then Holliday and Spallone met in the summer of 1999 and Rob became Jim's production manager and buddy.

"Jim Holliday is an institution," AVN president Paul Fishbein told me years ago when I asked him why he published Jim's off-beat columns.

"I've lost my best friend," said Bill Margold at 5:11pm.

"The last time I cried over the phone to you was about Stagliano [on February 9, 1998].

"You're the third person I've called, only because they called me first [VCA, AVN]. Fishbein and Connelly called. That was very touching. I congratuled Connelly for his story. I called [Gene] Ross and congratulated him for his story. Your story is just the way you write.

"How is Rob taking this?"

Luke: "I think he's ok."

"I've been dealing with this since this morning. Eventually I would like to have a service for him, complete with eulogies, probably up in the high desert where he used to like to go and make his movies.

"I've called a couple of his angels. I've spoken with Shayla [LaVeaux] and I've spoken with Selena [Steele?]. I think that will be a form of dominos of other angels [Holliday called his favorite girls "angels"].

"There isn't anybody [in porn] who isn't moved by this. He was bigger than life in more ways than one. The diabetes. He just wasn't going to pay attention to anything like that. He allowed it to eat him up.

"I've had crying jags throughout the day. As Gene [Ross] was perceptive enough to realize we knew it was going to happen."

[I remember in the Spring of 1999, Jim Holliday and I would talk on the phone for hours about how to bury Gene. Jim would allow me to quote him on things to try to hurt Gene. For a while, I was Jim's favorite Internet columnist, then he switched over to Gene. It was more a matter of who Jim hated more at the time than who he liked more.]

"I guarantee you that they are handing out earplugs in heaven.

"He left behind a large body of work that nobody will ever equal. He made marshmellow rainbows with the pot of gold ending in VCA. He understood the purpose of eroticism was to comfort as well as arouse.

"I suggested this to the VCA PR man. He's very nice. Named Shawn. I don't know who he is. Perhaps there should be a scholarship fund for the perpetuation of adult industry studies. We're going to be taught in colleges.

"The guy at VCA seemed so overwhelmed by the story, I needed to deal with him. He's all alone there.

"Jim was a starmaker. Everyone of them was an award winner and some of them are living legends -- the Ashlyn Geres, Victoria Paris, Selena Steele, Porsche Lynn, Angel Kelly, Felecia, Jill Kelly, Sharon Kane...

"I found out at 8:30am. I was called by a detective who I had met at PAW and he wanted to know more about Holliday.

"It's a sad day in the history of this business because he was the history of this business. He was the historian. For him, this industry was a fraternity based on friendship, loyalty, truth and honor. Holliday ranks among the highest of all.

"It makes me scared for the first time. I've been making these laments over people for a long time. I've lost Titus, John Holmes. What the hell are they going to write about me? This is going to be interesting. I have something that Holliday wrote about me. I have to track it down. It's going to fulfill that truth, honor, friendship mentality."

Bill says his last conversation with Jim was Monday. It was about sports -- about Bill's Lions and Jim's 49ers. Jim left a message on Bill's PAW phone number Monday night inquiring about that night's game. Jim wanted to know who was playing. He no longer had a television.

"It's appropriate that the last thing I heard about from him was football.

"Anybody who comes after him now is going to have to answer to me."

Margold would speak to Jim up to a dozen times a day.

Luke: "Did Jim need an intervention?"

Bill: "We would have all liked to have thought about doing it. I even said I might. He was the most private man I ever met. I don't know where he lives.

"He never thought he'd get to 40 and he was surprised he got to 50."

Luke: "Did you ever meet his family?"

Bill: "He had none. The X-rated industry was his family. As the X-rated industry is my family.

"He once said cryptically to me, before you got into the business, that as a team, we were absolutely unbeatable. Woebetide anybody who did anything wrong to this business because they would have to answer to both of us.

"He was irreplacable and irreproachable.

"If you watched his movies, he had an arsenal of cryptology that the greatest codebreakers in the world couldn't figure out. When I was acting in his movies, I would make up my own cryptology on top of his cryptology."

Luke: "Did he have girlfriends within the industry?"

Bill: "I don't know. I don't think he became emotionally involved within this business because I think he knew better."

Luke: "Has he had a significant other since you've know him?"

Bill: "No. He was his own significant other. The best company he ever kept in his life was with himself."

Luke: "Why do you think he was so private?"

Bill: "The industry in general, and you are too, you wear your heart on your sleeve, we are all lonely people in a crowd. He took it to a different level. We are very scared. Our number one fear is rejection. We build up wall after wall to prevent the rejection. Anybody who might reject us, we just prefer to not deal with them at all.

"It's been a tough year for me. This whole thing with Free Speech [Coalition, from which Margold resigned under pressure] and losses of friends. Bill Liebowitz's death...

"You didn't really get to know him. Because of your reputation, you fell out with him. You said once that one of the things you regretted the most was [the loss of] our relationship. If you had not done that [written about Bill's comments on Stagliano February 9, 1998, Bill believed they were off-the-record] things would've been different. Stagliano didn't deserve it. Stagliano is the only person I've referred to as a genius in this industry.

"We've bookended our conversations with tears. I cried the day I told you about Stagliano. This is even more painful. This is 25 years..."

Luke: "Tell me about the day you met Jim Holliday?"

Bill: "I was working at 6912 Hollywood Blvd [at Reb Sawitz's Pretty Girl International] as an agent. Jim came in and admitted to me that he was a fan. He wanted to meet me because he was going to be doing this book about the business. You know me when people are doing books about the business. As the sainted Kat Sunlove [of the FSC] refers to me, I'm a media whore. I'll talk to the devil.

"Jim and I hit it off immediately based on our mutual admiration of sports. We became inseperable. We went to screenings together. When he needed a place to say, he moved into an apartment at the back of 8231 De Longpre.

"He and Viper [the love of Bill's life] had an interesting relationship. They would go into conversations that would last hours.

"Then he couldn't arrange for her to be in the first Sorority Pink or the second Stairway to Heaven. I was disgusted. I eliminated him from my life about the same time Viper left. He went to the Valley. I've always said that people go to the Valley to die."

Luke: "How is your living situation?"

Bill: "I don't like it. It is more of a prison than an apartment because it isn't where you met me [in January 1996]."

Luke: "How is your health?"

Bill: "It is better than Jim Holliday's."

We laugh.

Bill: "He was not in any way, shape or form foreboding. You should've gotten to know the man."

I spent about 50 hours of my life talking to Holliday.

"It's going to be a long time until we stop seeing Holliday's name in print."

Video Team owner Christian Mann said to AVN, "I'll never forget his eulogy at John Holmes' funeral. The opening line was: 'John was a liar.' Classic Jim Holliday. I wonder what the opening line will be in his eulogy, or who will deliver it?"

Former porn journalist Hart Williams responds to my email:

I didn't know that he'd died. These are my instantaneous thoughts: Jim Holliday irrationally and maliciously engaged in a campaign to assassinate my writing and film career within the industry within hours of my meeting him in Bill Margold's living room in April of 1984. I never understood why -- nor did Margold ever explain it, except to make sure that we were never at his place at the same time.

This was odd, since I'd been writing for men's magazines since 1978, and Holliday had, at that time, *never* been legitimately published. "Only The Best," was published by his employer, who was not, normally, in the business of publishing. [He also published the pamphlet: "The top 100 X-rated films of all time: The first handbook of its kind."] His career as a "writer" only began a couple of years after that. I think at the time he'd written a Shauna Grant screenplay, but, as I am continually reminded, writing porn scripts isn't exactly "writing." (Fifteen pages interspersed with "SEX SCENE: A & B" isn't exactly G.B. Shaw.)

This isn't unusual in writing, as many a tyro spends a lot more time building their "rep" as a writer and impressing those around them with their literary chops before actually seeing that paycheck for writing, which I always took as the essential validation of this odd profession. Lots of people talk the talk, but if somebody pays for your writing, then you're walking the walk.

During the entire time that I knew Holliday, I paid my rent and clothes and food with writing money, and he never did. Still ...

His quoted remarks over the years that I saw seemed to indicate that he was never a man afflicted with humility, and loved to state that he believed himself superior to most everybody else in the world -- a stance not entirely guaranteed to win friends and influence people. He had some fetish about "Skull Mountain" where I take it he used to get drunk in high school or college. There is an "in-group" reference to it in the pamphlet "Only the Best."

His film career and columns in AVN came later, so I never had any professional interaction with him.

His various attacks on my career were legion between 1984 and 1987. In fact, at the first meeting of XRCO (which I missed because of an emergency), Holliday made certain that the admission requirements were carefully tailored to exclude me. I ignored it, and never bothered trying to fight it. He spent several years disparaging James Avalon, dismissing him (when he created and edited the ADAM FILM WORLD GUIDE) as "the Inch." Something on the order of how if He, Holliday, was the "Yardstick" by which porn history and criticism was measured (his self-appointed title) then Avalon was "the Inch."

Margold evidently forced the XRCO to accept Holliday as their "Historian" since he was far less qualified than I for membership, but, as I say, it was a non-issue to me. It irked, but not being in the "boys club" never caused me lost sleep.

I think you get the idea. I tend not to like people who try to destroy me professionally, but he seemed a personable fellow at the time, and intellectually gregarious. I never had the opportunity to know him better, except via the various slanders reported to me over the years.

I was amused to see him inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame a few years ago.

Beyond that, I am loathe to speak ill of the dead (I have tried to be factual here, but you can probably guess my feelings), except, perhaps to quote Sun Tzu:

"Sit by the river long enough and the body of your enemy will float by."

I imagine that his mother loved him, but I don't know who else might have.

I just read Connelly's Holliday obit on AVN. Dear Lord: Does he realize that quoting himself kind of sort of undermines his self-serving quotes from Holliday on Connelly's "integrity"?

Well, porn journalism will never approach journalism, I suppose.

I look forward to seeing more trees sacrificed in the name of "Saint Holliday." Or, as Mark Weiss (who Holliday continually disparaged and put down, but whose pencil-box Holliday was not fit to carry), called him: Jim-Jack-Holliday-Nash. (His real name was Jack Nash.)

Gene Ross reports:

Holliday would usually call me at 11 pm or so but over the months his golden vocal chords- one of his great gifts- were shot. Holliday's speech had been reduced to a cracked, hoarse whisper and he was telling me about how Health Services had come to visit him that morning, how he was confined to bed unable to move, his feet swollen. Holliday couldn't even drive- he had someone doing that for him. I could tell that Holliday was sinking fast and it was only a matter of time.

Malachi Ecks from VCA writes on ADT:

Slightly unhinged and mysterious, yet beloved director Jim Holliday passed away, yesterday. He died in a hospital of a heart attack.

Jim Holliday was a mysterious character who has been in the business for over 15 years. His features, mostly bizarre sex romps featuring numerous girls, helped to make him the man he will be remembered as.

His method was to shoot three features at one time, with no one really knowing exactly how they would end up except for him. Young girls, anal, rimming, toe sucking, pigtails, cheerleaders, nurses, sororities, and pink nail polish interjected with oftentimes off-kilt, strange dialogue about sports, politics, grifitng and anything else, was his style.

I was always straight-up with Jim and in return he gave me respect. I for one will miss him.

Rob Spallone calls me at 3:39pm: "I speak to him about ten times a day. Every day. And every day, I keep telling people this guy is going to die. Two days ago, I spoke to him about ten times. He'll be on the phone and he'll start snoring.

"He'll call me up and say there are people in his room. 'Rob, I can relate to you because you believe in that stuff, right?' Yeah, yeah, yeah.

"Last week when he called, he told me there were a whole bunch of cops in his house. I asked him, what are they doing? He says they're standing here. I was believing him. 'They're not saying nothing. They're just standing here. And the VCA art department is in my back room.' That's when I know he's nuts.

"The other day, there was a girl sleeping in his closet and another guy sleeping on his couch. They built him a thing to sleep on the floor.

"Nobody knows where he lives, not even Bill Margold. He never drove home twice the same way. A few weeks ago, I called Bill Margold. 'I think he's drinking or he's dying.' Then last week Jim called and said they wanted to have an intervention. 'You've got to stop them.'

"I said, Jim, how are you feeling? He says, I'm fine. I said, maybe we can help you. No, no, no. Then I found out he died."

Luke: "How long was he crazy for?"

Rob: "For the past three months. He calls me ten times a day."

Luke: "What do you remember from your last conversation with him?"

Rob: "He was talking sports. He wanted to know how he could get me back in on his shoot because they gave him a movie to shoot next month. I said, Jim, you can't. He said, why? I said, because the orders came straight from Larry Flynt."

Luke: "Was he a drunk?"

Rob: "I heard he was years ago. I didn't know him then. I've been with him 20 times and I've never seen him drink. But when he called me with these conversations three months ago, I said to Margold that I think he's drinking. Margold said no, his liver or his kidneys are failing. That's what makes him hallucinate.

"I'm talking to the guy and he's slurring and can't even talk. Bill hasn't seen him. Jim was calling me the other day -- 'I haven't heard from Bill all week.'

"Nobody even knows anything about this guy. I think he was a fugitive."

Luke: "Did he ever talk about family?"

Rob: "No. He talked about his college days. His best friends were me and Margold. He was lonely. He hadn't left his house in five months. The other day he told me his legs were bothering him."

Luke: "He got really fat."

Rob: "We have no clue. He was huge the last time I saw him. Now for five months just sitting in the house..."

Luke: "Why do you think he liked you so much?"

Rob: "Because I listened to him."

Luke: "Was he happy?"

Rob: "No."

Luke: "What did he normally complain about?"

Rob: "Hustler. He hated Mark Hamilton. They wouldn't take his phone calls. Do you know who was good to him? Russ [Hampshire] and Jack [Gallagher]. If they could've gotten him into a hospital, Russ and Jack would've paid the bill in a second. Without them, where would he be?

"I remember when I first went to work for them [VCA], Russ said, Rob, I need you to do me a favor. I want you to produce Holliday's shoots because he can't get along with anybody. Maybe you can keep him under control.

"And everyone in the office thought I was crazy. That I wouldn't last ten minutes with him. We were going to the desert with him for the first one for five days. And I got along with him just fine.

"He said that Hamilton has been stroking him along for months. Yeah, we're going to give you a movie. Then finally, the other day, Jim called me and said they gave him a movie."

At 4pm Thursday, I call Russ Hampshire on his cell phone in Hawaii.

A gruff voice says, "Yello."

Luke: "I wanted to get a comment on the passing of Jim Holliday."

Russ: "I don't know what to tell you. I got nothing to say right now. I don't know anything about it. Somebody just called [that was me] and left a message. I've got to call somebody and find out what happened. I'm on vacation."

I called the last number (818-883-0207 in Canoga Park, Pacific Bell) for Jim Holliday. His voice sounds slurred: "No one is currently available to deal with your call. Leave a message. Your called will be returned."

I last saw Jim Holliday on May 21, 2003. He threatened to have me beaten up if I wrote about him. I wrote about him. Jim did nothing except to complain about me to Gene Ross:

11:50AM: I see VCA owner Russell Hampshire driving home from VCA.

I spot VCA's head of sales Marty Turkel. I sit beside him in the sun and get that calm easy feeling. Marty and I have been friendly for years.

Jim Holliday walks out to smoke a cigarette. He's put on an enormous amount of weight. He refuses to let me take a picture. He believes that fans will stop buying his movies if they see how fat he's become.

Luke: "How's Jim Holliday?"

Jim: "Jim Holliday? Who's that? I'm Eddie Cantrell."

Jim's also become increasingly paranoid over the year. He warns me that if I write about him, he will take care of me "old school," meaning I will be beat up.

He says he will sue me if I take a picture because he won't sign a model release. I'm a news photographer not a commercial photographer. I don't need releases to take and publish photos in connection with news stories I report.

Eddie Cantrell is one of Jim's many fake names for himself.

He's been a recluse the past few years. He points out there have been no articles about him in the porn press.

He complains about his enormous workload and how his helpers want to charge him a half-day's pay just to run a script or tape over to another company.

As long as I've known him, Jim's been feeling the load of weighty responsibilities.

Jim starts talking about that "nigger" [Jayson Blair] who made up a bunch of stories at the New York Times. Jim says it will destroy the credibility of the "liberal" New York Times for 50 years.

Holliday starts a harangue about how evil I am, how I'm going to get everybody locked up in the next one to three years.

Jim says I am evil. That I have evil theories on the industry. Jim barrels over Marty who sits back and enjoys his cigarette.

Holliday remembers an argument we had five years ago about interracial. Jim says I argued with him for two hours that the federal government ought to force white girls "to f-ck niggers."

Jim uses the word "nigger" a lot but adamently rejects any inferences that he is racist.

Marty says there are white niggers.

I point out that many black males call their fellow blacks "niggers." Country did that to me today.

Jim says that it is racist to make it socially acceptable for blacks to call blacks "niggers" but not allow whites to do the same.

Jim rarely includes blacks in his movies.

I don't believe the man is racist. He knows what the fans want.

He makes movies that sell phenomenally.

He's phenomenally organized on his shoots. He may have 20 beautiful high-salaried porn girls on his set on one day and he'll move them all through their scenes with haste.

Jim wonders if I'm allowed on the VCA property. Everyone looks at each other. Nobody knows. Russell isn't here. Somebody suggests that Russell be called and notified I'm on the property.

I lie and claim Marty said it was ok for me to be here.

I don't think I've screwed Russell in the past few weeks, so depending on his mood, he might be ok with me sitting here. Jim's not.

Rob Spallone walks out of VCA and he looks at me with a shock that turns to anger. He wants to get me out of here. He has many connections at VCA. He serves as Jim Holliday's production manager.

Rob yells at me: "Don't write about Jim Holliday. Now get out of here. I'll take you to lunch."

We go to San Carlo Italian Deli, a reputed hangout for wiseguys and pornographers. I used to have my picture on the wall here. The folks behind the counter says Vivid's head of sales, Howard Levine, took it down.

Howard says Marty at VCA should call him when the Larry Flynt Publications take-over of VCA is complete and Howard will give him tips on the transition.

Rob: "I told you to get the f--- out of VCA and leave Jim Holliday alone. He makes the best movies in the business."

Rob gets a call from Jim Holliday who tells him not to let me write about him.

Rob: "I will do my best but sometimes he just don't listen to me."

Rob turns to me: "Listen to me. That was Jim Holliday. He says that if you print one thing about him, you're going to get the beating of your life."

Rob tells me not to print a thing about Jim Holliday because then Rob is going to be mad at me and Jim is going to kill me.

I have not spoken to Jim since then. Between 1997-2001, we spent about ten hours on the phone. He wanted to keep that quiet. He complained a lot about AVN. He seemed to hate AVN more than he hated me but he had so many hatreds that things got confused.

Jim was a great talker. He'd get the phone numbers of his favorite porn girls, the ones he wanted to cast, and call them up and talk for hours. Many of them did not appreciate it and fled from his calls.

Jim was a difficult man. He had an enormous estimation of his own greatness and believed most everybody else in the industry was a pinhead.

He had a long feud with Mike Albo.

Jim expressed a lot of skepticism about the Internet to me. For about a year (1998-1999), he said I was to be his Internet representative. He wanted to talk to Viper. I could never find her to hook them up.

Jim talked to me about setting up his own website where people would have to pay to chat with him. He talked about updating his book Only The Best.

I first learned of Jim Holliday in the book PORN by Dr. Robert Stoller. Holliday has been a long time friend of Bill Margold though they had a falling out for a few years.

I first met Jim in March of 1996. We did a two-hour interview and then spoke intermittently. He was gratified that I know who he was and what he knew, but as Margold related to me later, "You did not behave with the proper subservience."

Jim was surly and difficult. Conversations had to be all about him. They weren't really conversations. He would go on and on. He would take his words and pour them down your throat whether you wanted them or not.

Dr. Samuel Stetson did much of the research for Holliday's book Only The Best.

Jim shared a home with Gail Palmer (Harry Mohney's former girlfriend) on a platonic basis for years in the 1980s.

I called Dr. Sam Stetson Thursday afternoon at his home in Arlington, VA. He lives five miles from the Pentagon.

In his 1986 book, Holliday called Stetson his mentor.

Sam is sad to hear the news. "I'm not surprised. The last time Margold talked to me, he said he was over 300 pounds and he had diabetes and he wouldn't follow the doctor's advice. That's a tragedy.

"When I knew him [Holliday], he was a very nice guy. His personality changed.

"We were close. I did most of the background research on the films for the book Only The Best. He did the writing and the selection. He knew the people who I didn't know. It was all by telephone.

"At that time (circa 1984), he was a salesman for Wonderful World of Video (owned by Harry Mohney). Jack Gallagher ran the company at the time. Jack went over to Sydney Niekirk, but their offices were above the Cave Theater on Hollywood Blvd. You had to walk through the theater to get up to the offices.

"Jim was a telephone salesman. When I called there inquiring about a film, we got to talking and he realized that I was more interested in the research than anything. He put out a couple of small books before that.

"I had access to a private collection here of about 300 films. My interest was in identifying people. He knew the people but he didn't know what they were in. There were so many psuedonyms. Identifying women was difficult because a woman could change her hair or make-up and it would make a radical difference in her appearance.

"I was fascinated in tracking down the actresses I liked. I loved this girl. I wanted to get more movies of her. I started sending Jim the cast list of the films I viewed. They were all BETA. The big old BETA machines had no slow motion or still frame. It was a great deal of work, thousands of hours of research.

"In a page on identification, he talks more about me and how we got together."

Sam and Jim had a falling out circa 1994.

Sam: "It wasn't a falling out. He became rather paranoid. When the book came out, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get more recognition."

I remember Jim calling me in 1999 to say he had had a brief telephone conversation with Sam at Margold's house but he didn't want anything more to do with him because, according to Jim, Sam had broken his trust by giving out his phone number.

I gave out Jim's VCA number (with Jim's permission) to several journalist over the years but Jim would never talk to them.

Dr. Stetson (a PhD in engineering) turns 81 next month.

I email Mark Hamilton (he helped run VCA after Russ Hampshire sold it to LFP in 2003) of LFP for comment. He replies:

Hi Luke,

Obviously we're all very sad. A number of people at VCA knew Jim for many years.

Jim was not in the best of health for the last few months, but was really eager to get back to work and full of ideas. In fact, we were chatting only two days ago about a new series that Jim was in pre-production on.

Jim was also a wealth of knowledge about the history of the industry, and was without doubt one of the most popular VCA directors within the last 25 years. Everyone at VCA will miss him greatly.

PS. One other note, Luke. While it's true that his budgets were cut back a little over the last couple of years, Jim was always the first one to come up with a suggestion as to how we could be creative within the budgets. He never took these requests personally, and instead try to find a way to work within the budget given to him.

I walked a fine line with Jim over the years. On the one hand, I valued his knowledge of the industry. On the other hand, he was pompous beyond belief. I usually stayed on the side of staying in his good graces to the extent I could while still telling as much of the story as possible.

From 1997-98, we had a falling out (Jim blasted me in an AVN column for breaking the code by revealing porn stars real names) repaired at the World Pornography Conference in August of 1998.