From the NY Observer (3/13/00): He was born and raised in Bayside, Queens, the son of an Army engineer father and a cryptographer mother. He first understood his own extraordinary endowment one day at summer camp: While bending over to tie his shoes, he found he was able to fellate himself. The gift remained sealed throughout his time at Benjamin Cardozo High School, where he appeared in a production of Oklahoma! and was known more as thespian than as a lover.

Then came Queens College, where he studied theater and education. After college, Mr. Jeremy tried to make it in New York as an actor. During the week, he taught at a high school in Queens. On weekends, he waited tables at Catskills resorts. He studied with the Dramatis Personis and La MaMa theater troupes and appeared in Oscar Wilde's Salome (as King Herod) and Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector (in the role of Osip). But, still, Mr. Jeremy couldn' t catch his big break, and he was low on money.

Then, it happened: Mr. Jeremy's girlfriend sent his nude picture to Playgirl. The picture appeared in the October 1978 issue, and the offers started coming in, including the one for his first movie role in Tigresses and Other Man-Eaters.

Luke: An overshadowed middle child who lived with his frustrated father until age 30, Ron Jeremy began performing in New York in 1978. Taking his fat hairy body into 1300 videos, second only to Tom Byron, Ron became the most identifiable person in porn. His nickname is "Hedgehog" because he looks like one.

"Ron Jeremy has a ten-inch dick and unbelievable muscle control," says Jerry Butler. "He can make his dick jump, bounce or wiggle like a snake. He can get his dick hard for any kind of pussy, and it stays up until he comes."

Ron comes from an upwardly mobile New York family. His brother [in the Marriott hotel chain] and his sister [in advertising] are vice-presidents in New York.

Ron came a point away from getting his Masters Degree in Special Education. His thesis was in psycho-drama - combining education and theater.

Jeremy taught Special Ed. for several years, performed comedy in the Catskills and acted in off-off-Broadway shows before entering the sex business. His mother died within his first year in porn. "She approved of what I did because she was a free spirit. I come from a dynamite family. They all think I'm a nut. But they all get a kick out of what I do though they hope I can crossover into mainstream.

"When I first got into the business, I tried to even have sex in character. I got a double major in Theater and Education. My favorite possession is my Equity card. I belong to the stage union [Equity], TV union [AFTRA] and the movie union [SAG]. I still hold a permanent New York state Teacher's license."

Ron doesn't participate in Jewish life except to go to an occasional Bar Mitzvah and wedding though he's proud of his heritage. "I know Jewish history. I remember my Bar Mitzvah and what I spoke about - the Amalekites and stuff. I lost relatives in the Holocaust."

When Ron was thin, he appeared in Playgirl four times. His first appearance was in 1978 in the issue that features John Ritter on the cover. "It was one of the first erections they ever had. Now I'd be lucky to get a centerfold in Field and Stream."

Ron helped his friend Mike Feline (Ronald Michael Filene) enter porn in 1980.

In Blonde Goddess Ronnie played a Red Baron type. I got to f--- Tiffany Clark, a blonde girl Jan Gold from Queens (Jewish) and my wife "Bobbi Burns," all in the same scene. Ronnie then took over and the folding bed folded trapping Ron and Tiffany. It was hilarious.

Ronnie and I had a "PIG" contest. We would find the fattest, ugliest girls we could and then rank them out to each other afterwards. Ranking out means to make fun of. Not the nicest thing to do, but then again, we weren't very nice. A favorite hangout for us was at the "Barnyard" the home of a fat 40ish swinger in Brooklyn. We had weekly parties there and Ronnie and I loved doing double insertions with out host. Her best friend was a 250lb lesbian who I converted. She fell in love with me and when I ignored her the next week, she left, crying. I think she went back to women.

Ronnie and I were like a couple of kids. I was in my second childhood. I was f---ing the world's most beautiful girls and getting paid for it. I was famous. I bought a candy bar at a subway news stand and the owner handed me a new porno mag, opened to my picture. I did a centerfold swing club commercial for Screw magazine and the guy sitting opposite on a bus kept going from the mag to my face, back and forth.

Ronnie and I are both great practical jokers. I set him up to believe he was being sucked by a guy at the Hellfire Club in NYC and he fixed up our friend… the law secretary of a New York state supreme court justice and president of his Democrat club, with a transsexual who had not had the operation. This guy tries to kill him and all we could do was roll on the floor laughing.

Once I fixed Ronnie a delicious meal, sliced beef and gravy (Mighty Dog.) My dog Scampi knew from the smell it was hers. Ronnie loved it. To this day, he doesn't know.

How do I feel about the guy I just described? I love him. You can't help it. As big a rat as he is, I will never have a friend as close. He is the brother I wish I had.

Unlike other male performers, Ron doesn't worry about working out and staying in shape. He loves food as much as sex and fame.

Jeremy can suck his own cock, and displays the talent in Inside Seka, The Lady is a Tramp, Lips and Fresh Meat.

Popular within and without the industry, Ron's a consummate performer not just in sexvids but also in comedy clubs and regular conversation. At porn conventions, he often attracts the longest lines of fans wanting his autograph. Jeremy knows famous people in the entertainment world and he frequently sets them up with porn queens. "I've got brown stuff on my nose from all the producers I brown nose [kiss ass].

"I know a lot of rock and roll stars. They like to party. I don't actually set them up. When I lived with Slash's wife, sometimes the girlfriends got mad at me. They think I'm setting up their boyfriends. You know, rock and roll stars can get more nookie in a day then I'll get in a year! Rock and roll stars don't need my help getting laid. Girls are paid to have sex with me. Rock and roll stars, they wanna have sex with. So I said, "Slash, Savannah", "Savannah, Slash". That's it."

Jeremy is a rare person who remembers the past accurately. Many of his peers seem to know less about the movies they've done than their fans.

"John Leslie caught me bringing women into the bathroom on the set of Coed Fever in Sacramento," remembers Jeremy. "He heard that I could give myself head. Women would hear this and demand to see it. I'd say, 'Not here, let's go into the bathroom.' Then I'd be sneaky. 'Cause I didn't have to be hard to do it. But I'd tell the woman I needed to be hard, so could she help me out? And we'd play around. John saw me do this twice in one day and he couldn't believe it.

"Back in 1979, Veronica Hart and I were at a party. She was going to work in my film Fascination which is one of my best films of all time. Chuck Vincent produced it. It got me on the map in the world of porn.

"So it was Veronica's first film. She used the stage name Randy Stiles.

"We met for the first time. She said, 'I heard you can give yourself head?' I said 'I can but I'm not going to show you here.'

"She suggested we go to the bathroom. I didn't want to pull anything on her because she's so intelligent. So I was giving myself head while my dick was soft and she joined me. It was the first time in my whole life that a girl and I kissed my dick at the same time.

"I don't like it. I don't enjoy having my dick in my own face. It's not a turn on. I've never done it to a pop shot. Even Eddie Murphy on HBO said it's all right that Ron Jeremy can give himself head. But if he came in his own face or f---ed himself in the ass, than that's gay. Eddie did a whole routine about it which was in the original Raw, but it was too strong [for the producer] so they cut it. But they kept it in the HBO version.

"In Inside Seka I squirted into the air [after giving myself head].

"John Leslie used my gimmick in Fresh Meat.

"We, [Al Goldstein and Sam Kinison] were on the Tom Leykis [radio] show together and I made a joke about giving myself head. I said that I always wear a condom because I don't know where he's been.

"John loved it and put it in his film. I played a butcher. Eva Flowers is giving me head and I say, "Wait, wait. Do it like this. I put a rubber on and did a few strokes in my own mouth and say, 'When I was thinner, I could go deeper.' Then I back off, pull the rubber off, and say, 'now you do that.' I used the rubber for my own mouth because I didn't trust where I've been but I did trust where she's been.

"Sam Kinison made these jokes about it, and Al challenged me to do it right there on the radio. And I said I would if he'd suck it first. [Goldstein declined.]

"I've never done it [auto-fellatio] for pleasure. I always get a big paycheck for doing it. I'm not a big fan of receiving head in general. If you look at my films, you'll see that I begin a scene by giving a girl head."

Susan Faludi skewered Jeremy in her essay "The Money Shot" for the 11/30/95 New Yorker. "Why did Susan have to be so mean? If you wanna give facts, fine. If you want to call me short, fat and ugly, it wouldn't bother me in the least. But why did she choose to say unnecessary mean things? If she wants to dislike me, find something truthful. Maybe I let off gas while she was with me. Why hate me so much and then behind my back say how charming and informative I was?

"I didn't suck on a cream cheese box.

"We went through things in your {Luke] book about me that were insulting and I laughed at most of it. But only Jerry Butler and Susan Faludi in my 18 years in the biz have hurt me. They went right for my vulnerability and they lied. But they lied in a way that people will believe. Butler did it for the sake of a scandalous book, but why Susan?

"Did you see what Cal Dixon did in Detour? She's another feminist writer. She apologized for what Susan did. She thought it was unfair. She chased me for weeks to talk to her. Then she writes "Ron Jeremy - the self-proclaimed most famous man in porn." I asked her why she wrote that and she said she was just joking. Bill Margold and Jim Holliday told her I was the most recognizable face. Most people won't argue that. If you take me to a restaurant, I'll sign more autographs than any other person in the business."

Monster Fish Aliens Meet Porn Film Crew

The 1992 R-rated movie They Bite asks the question, ''What would happen if a porno film crew went to Florida to shoot a movie about giant fish-monster rapists at the same time that a beautiful brunette ichthyologist was studying suspicious giant fish monsters off the coast and outer-space aliens were disguising themselves as giant fish monsters so they could invade local topless bars and suck the guts out of wet T-shirt models?''

Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs: "…We have rubber lizards all over the lot, fish sex on the beach and, best of all, Ron Jeremy, the porno star, in a dramatic role. Evidently Ron, after making approximately 94,000 of the sleaziest hard-core X-rated movies in Western civilization, is trying to cross over to legitimate films.

"Ron, if you're reading this, nobody deserves it more. You must be awfully tired by now.

"From the same people who brought us A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, we have . . . Thirty-two breasts. Sixteen dead bodies. Giant rubber-lizard attack. Teenager-chewing fish monsters. One guy literally sexed to death. Multiple aardvarking. No plot to get in the way of the story. Head rolls. Hand rolls.

"Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Christina Veronica, as Tammy, the piece of meat in a porno film, for saying, 'I am not just a piece of meat!'; Ron Jeremy, as a member of the porno crew, for calming Tammy down by explaining how she is 'an archetypal representation of your sex'; and Nick Baldasare, as the porno director, for saying, 'This has got to be more than just a dirty movie - this has got to be the King Kong of porno movies.' "

Not one to allow mainstream success to spoil him, Ron performed sex on camera through the end of the 20th Century, including 1995's Depraved Fantasies 2. Jeremy "summons the creepiness of the real-life Lewis Carroll as he takes a young niece into the land of hairy snorkel-lubing," writes AVN. "A crew of seasoned, battle-ready slags...are confused by a goofy Cash Markman script... Racist humor abounds in a sequence of two ghetto-accented black studs in coon and fox masks rapping badly before ravishing red-muffed Alice in Fantastic Pictures - Land, a place where the actors chuckle when the actresses ask them to be gentle. We learn one important lesson: a true gentleman of color offers the lady a hankie after he's come on her face."

Saint Peter Green of Hustler Erotic Video Guide was not amused. "Thou shalt not feature Ron Jeremy in any production ever again," he thundered from Larry Flynt Publication Headquarters on La Cienega and Wilshire Boulevards in Beverly Hills. "We thought he was funny at first, but isn't anyone tired of seeing his furry, flabby ass humping on some gorgeous 18-year old slut?"

Many of Saint Peter's Ten Commandments of porn apply to Ron.

VI: Thou shalt know when to fade away and not be heard from again. The need for elder spokespersons in porn is dubious at best... Shut up, pack your bags and head for the nearest retirement community, posthaste.

X: Thou shalt not let thyself go to seed while still in front of the cameras. If we wanted to see some fat cow getting laid, we'd all take security-guard jobs down at the local trailer park. There's something sad in watching the little f--- bunny you've whacked to countless times put on enough weight over the course of 15 videos that if someone strapped a bell around her neck and put her in a pasture, you'd have to start calling her Bossy. (HEVG)

"Listen up, Ron Jeremy," Wally Wharton says. "I love the way you socked it to dark-and-lovely Persia [Portrait of Lust]. Your cock looked thick and juicy (so did your waistline, but that's another matter) and Persia seemed anxious for you to make her your woman. This is by far the sexiest you've been." (HEVG)

"Say what you like about Ron Jeremy's looks," writes Nicias on RAME, "he seems to enjoy sex and to like women. Most male performers look like they're breaking boulders in the prison yard. Ron smiles. He laughs, he talks, he makes attempts at humor. He is one of the few actors who depict normal, healthy sex."

"The Hedgehog is not so much a stud as a survivor," says Bill Margold. "He may be the cockroach of porn - living proof that anyone can get laid. If he can't find someone else to suck his dick, he is happy to suck it himself."

Smut scribe David Aaron Clarke says Jeremy embodies the Troglodyte archetype (AFW PSA 9'5). "The Troglodyte is also known as the Sin Eater. Avatar and all-time champeen: Ron Jeremy."

Troglodyte means a cave dweller in ancient times. Avatar in Hindu doctrine refers to the descent to earth and incarnation of the deity.

"The Troglodyte is a mainstay of porn, serving a schizophrenic function as both its greatest resource and embarrassment. When a porn fan finally convinces some ice queen to take a look at the genre before she runs off to pledge her pubes to Catherine McKinnon's Campaign to Stamp Out Male Pleasure, the Troglodyte will inevitably pop up, his grizzled reprobate pair of heads sending a potentially juicy porn neophyte into perma-frost mode. 'Well, this was obviously not made with women's pleasure in mind,' your date will hiss, and demand a Robert Redford movie.

"But in truth, this object of near universal derision performs a valuable service for the overwhelming plain portion of the male population that follows porn: He makes them feel better about themselves. To see someone as ugly, as unpleasant, as buffoonish, as the Troglodyte humping a dripping retinue of prime poon - and in front of a camera, for all to see, yet! - bestows that most tender of mercies upon your typical smuthound loser: Hope."

A rare porn star with the discipline to save money, Jeremy Hyatt demonstrated his frugal ways through making dozens of One Day Wonders during the 1980s for Mark Carriere of Video Exclusives.

Ron's pictures concentrate on the "f---ing and sucking that fans demand," writes the 7/87 edition of AFW. "Jeremy's style is uncluttered, candid, and straight to the point. He uses the camera to catch as much of the action as possible, never dwelling too long on the 'monster' close-ups of genitals for fear of missing something outside the frame, but always encouraging his players to shuck their affectations and get real. Producers who hire Jeremy to direct know his strengths; they seldom hire him for glossy, big-budget movies. Ron's expertise is at the other end of the scale. Give him ten or twenty thousand dollars for a one-day video meant to blister the eyeballs and he'll deliver." Ron's best directing work includes Sins of the Wealthy, Shaved Pink, Cheerleaders Academy and Caught From Behind #5.

"Cream Dreams is a good looking movie with a couple of scenes that take the roof off. A felicitous teaming of Jeremy as director with Mark Curtis [Carriere] producing has resulted in a movie with the best qualities of each represented. Jeremy knows how to get the players cranked up for frenzied sex, and has enough wide shots to take it all in, but his images are stark, even harsh, due to a tendency to use a few strong lights in a blunt way. Curtis is different. His camera takes lovely pictures of carefully lit people, making them all look great - but he often stays in so close to the moving parts that they come to resemble machinery."

The stocky New York Jew doesn't get much respect from many quarters as a sex performer because of his fat hairy body, and as a director because he turned out so many cheapies. "I don't get my name on these movies because producers and distributors don't want the public to think that it's a quick, cheapie One Day Wonder of which I did so many for Leisure Time and Video Exclusives."

Jeremy has made superior high-budget ($100,000) films like Bad Girls. "We had cop cars driving through store windows." Ron created E3 - The Extra Testicle and Sore Throat for Svetlana who credited him as Director Lululatush. Jeremy directed Girl-Girl films for Lipstick Video under the name Ron Hedge. Hedge is short for Hedgehog.

Bill Margold gave Ron that knickname in April 1979 when he worked with him in Olympic Fever, one of the first shot-on-video pornos. Jeremy had flown into Ontario Airport, jumped on a motorbike in 80 degree weather and ridden up the hill through the snow to Arrowhead. "He came in covered with icicles and snowballs," remembers Margold. "He took a hot shower and came out all pink and furry, looking like a baby hedgehog. He reminded me of all the animals in The Wind and The Willows."

Jeremy made Deep Throat 4-8 but producer Joy Dawson gave herself the director's credit. He also made a "couples" film called Games Couples Play which Hal Freeman took credit for.

"Even Mark Carriere gives me fake names now and it was his cheap films that created my reputation. He calls me Hiramus Smurkin and Bill Blackman.

"I directed a bunch of good films for Cinderella such as the Hawaiian Vice series as well as starting two good new series - Backdoor to Hollywood and The Double D. And they called me Nicholas Pera and Ron Fortisimo. I rarely get to direct under the name Ron Jeremy these days."

Ron was the king of killer and filler - "all these little techniques of hiring that one girl whose on the boxcover and shooting her for two or three scenes and then make two or three movies using her. The next day we'd shoot the filler - the girls who were less expensive, and then we'd have three movies. It was a conveyor belt style of moviemaking. The plots were cute. Porn was semi-legal in those days, so to avoid getting busted we shot in Lake Mead and made movies on the water, in San Francisco and Oakland and Orange County. It was the mid '80s and the beginning of the video era.

"Everyone complained that we put out cheap product but everyone was doing it. Everyone blamed Mark Carriere and he says the Israelis did it and he had to compete. Henri Pachard, Bruce Seven, Phil Prince, Buck Adams, Sharon Mitchell, Aja, Tina Marie, John Stallion, Gina Colbert, Rex and Brad Bunch all directed films for Mark Carriere, but I always got the credit: 'Ronnie did the low-budget cheapies for Mark because he was so good at it'. But everyone worked for Mark. They worked before I did. I just did a good job at it. I took his policy of killer and filler and adapted it into a business and Mark and I had years of a good run together. I was never exclusively with him. I also worked for other companies. I've never in my life been contracted [to one company]. "

Ron Jeremy is porn's biggest connection to the mainstream world. He directed the best selling tape of the past decade - John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut starring the former husband of Laurena Bobbitt. Tired of John abusing her, she cut off his dick with a knife one morning and threw his organ out the window of her speeding car. Someone found John's penis and it was sewn back on its rightful owner.

Porn newcomers Jordan St. James, Crystal Gold, Tiffany Lords, Jasmine Aloha and Olivia star in Uncut. "A lot of girls said 'How disgusting. He's a wife abuser.' I say: 'When I did the movie, he won the case against Lorena.' But this guy got his dick cut off. I hate to say it, but he was a victim. Women who know him don't find him the least bit threatening. They think he's a simple guy. He has an attention span disorder. John did this S&M movie. Kym Wilde told AVN: 'For a guy who supposedly abused women, he can't even spank properly.' If anyone in Hollywood didn't want to be in a project because someone in it might've been a felon, there'd be no Hollywood. There's a guy in a big TV series who was in jail for murder... Another in jail for drugs. You don't turn down work because someone on the set may've had a problem."

Uncut was a frustrating and difficult shoot for Jeremy. For the first few days on the set, John couldn't get it up, so eventually he received shots of prostoglandin, a fatty acid that induces erection when shot into the base of the penis. Six injections over twelve days got John up and off as needed.

"Mark Carriere always took care of me. That's why when I had the Bobbitt movie, I turned it over to Mark. It was my film and I could have gone anywhere with it. But Mark was the most loyal back. He allowed me to take a part in it, to direct it. We went on Howard Stern, Geraldo and Jerry Springer. Mark paid for all the airfare for the girls and I. Mark showed a wallet and we did it classy. We got a lot of press and that helped it become the largest selling tape of all-time.

"If I had given it to Vivid and VCA, and these are nice guys, but they would've given me a $10,000 finders fee and told me to get lost.

"I gave it to the man who stuck by me for ten years and put the most money in my account, who paid my legal fees when I was busted working for him... We had a relationship. He's a friend. When the sequel came along [Frankenpenis], he gave it to me. Divine Brown [the hooker who blew British actor Hugh Grant on Sunset Boulevard] came to me.

"...Anytime anyone mainstream has gone into porn, they've gone through me. Bobbitt, Divine Brown, Miami Dolphins player Dave Nelson, Edy Williams [the third wife of Russ Meyer]. I put together her first hardcore appearance and directed it. We have more surprises in store. We have two mothers of celebrities, one celebrity female... I'm rolling.

"I had this poem I wrote for Mark and he loved it. [LT equals Leisure Time.]

When mainstream hits the cream, it's LT.

When the famous take it up the anus, it's LT.

If your career's hit a low, there's only one place to go...

"Mark [Carriere] is the richest person in the business. That gives people reason to hate you. I feel good that I've backed the right horse.

"Mark gets busted all the time because when you're that big in mail-order, you get busted all the time. The Feds tried to get me to testify against him, but I wouldn't.

"Mark is a nice guy but he hires tough guys as front people. Two editors tried to blackmail him, and so rumor has it that he sent a couple of black guys working for him in the labs to threaten them. They didn't hit them but pushed them around and scared them. Mark's got the money and the power to do things like that, but he's only done it once that I've heard of.

"There are rumors about Perry Ross [who supposedly died in Amsterdam of a drug overdose. Perry worked for Mark]. I wouldn't like to think that Mark's so mean or rotten a human being to actually hurt someone.

"He's a pleasant guy. He'll probably marry a beautiful intelligent Playboy playmate. I may be the Best Man. Everyone who knows him says that he's a nice guy. I would not want to go into business against him. I would not want to compete with him and his staff of lawyers. Fortunately, I'm on the right side of him. You don't want to cross him.

"Mark and Tina Marie had an amicable divorce. She didn't want to be a cut-throat and he wanted her to live comfortably. Recently, however, they've had some problems because of things she said and so he's cut off communication.

"I don't want to own anything in this business. It's too strange a business. Every four years you have to worry who the president is. If a Republican takes over next, he could try to close down the industry and we'd have busts all over again. Who wants that kind of headache? Who wants to be asleep at night and get a knock on the door [from the Feds]? I've almost been arrested twice by the Feds and I have been arrested twice in state cases [before the 1989 Freeman decision]; all for directing a f--- film. That's totally overlooked in New York but it was prosecuted in LA. It drove me nuts sitting in jail. In New York City, the cops wanted to be in the movie. New York and the West Coast are like two different countries when you compare the liberal attitude in New York with the West Coast, where someone like Heidi Fleiss can go to jail for seven years when murderers frequently don't get that much time.

"The end result is that everything is good. I never got charged, convicted or anything. I have a clean record. Not even a ticket.

"Now the Feds try to get you for interstate trafficking of obscenity. They look for a jurisdiction that will find your product obscene. Freethinking individuals like Jack Anderson find that obscene.

"The FBI in Los Angeles is dominated by Mormons and operates more out of a religious intent than a constitutional one. To satisfy the religious people who put them in power, they have to show that they're doing their job [by busting pornographers]. A film that would not be obscene in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles may be found to be obscene in Broken Arrow, Tallahassee or Dallas."

The Supreme Court's 1973 Miller decision on obscenity left it up to local jurisdictions to define obscenity based on community standards. As communities differ, so do their standards of what is obscene.

A credited consultant on the 1986 mainstream film 52 Pick-Up, Jeremy helped hire eleven porn stars. All those who wanted to got their SAG cards through doing the movie, including Herschel Savage, Honey Wilder, Erica Boyer, and Amber Lynn.

"I told him [Pick-Up director John Frankenheimer] that I don't care what you do. You can make us all a bunch of slime if you want. And he did."

Ron also served as a special consultant to 9 1/2 Weeks, Next of Kin, and many other mainstream flicks. Ron performed in Killing Zone and wrote some of the script. Everything the American tourist says came from Ron.

In the summer of 1996, Jeremy received the Free Speech Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, Actor, which was presented by Randy West, who announced: "I'm here to present the Lifetime Eating Award... to a legend in his own pants. Ron's not gong to get up while there's still food on the table."

But Ron did get up, and summed up his 18 years in porn, "If not for adult movies, I'd have a lot less money and a lot more boring social life." He noted that he was arrested twice on pandering charges in the early days of his career, and acknowledged, "I have to share this award with an old friend, Hal Freeman." Ron also thanked his sister Susan and his father, who were in the audience.

"Aside from supporting actor, I've received most of my nominations for Best Non-Sex Performance. Anytime there's a need [in an X movie] for a good actor, nine out of ten times I get a call.

"I'm making good money out of my Web site. I'm selling T-shirts and photos. Some devout fans are sick of seeing me. Get that little bastard out of my f---ing video. It's funny how it's divided. And all I have to do is live at the gym for a while and get back into shape. And then it'll be a whole new era. I can see their point. I've seen myself in movies and thought, 'I should be thin. I should've sucked it in. And I want to throw up.'

"But we men are props. The girl sells the tape. I don't care if it's Rocco Siffredi. In some of the best-selling films you don't even see the guys face. All you see is that dick. John Holmes was one of the most horrifying looking guys on the planet but people wanted to see his big thing go through girls.

"Look at Ed Powers. He may sell more tapes than anyone. He makes a million dollars a year. And he's a mile from being a Chippendales guy. But fans want to see an average guy, a Woody Allen type, with a small penis get these brand new girls off a bus stop. And some of the girls turn him down too. So it's real.

"All guys in porn are more famous for what's on the other end of their penis than on their end. So, I try to create a cute role, a character who's exciting, and then make the sex scene as hot as possible, and that's it. I suck in my gut and do my best.

"This whole thing about the couples market is blown out of proportion. Girls who watch porn look at the women who've got the makeup and the more interesting look. Women watch it because their husbands are watching it and they want to see him get turned on.

"If women want to see a tape, they'll watch Coming Home or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or a softcore film with a famous male lead like a Paul Newman or a Mel Gibson.

"Girls who want to get turned on are not going to look at a porno film because even good looking guys get lines that make them look ridiculous. They can't look at a handsome man say, 'Here's a cup of coffee. Now blow me.' They are not going to enjoy that. Women, more than men, care for more than just appearance. They want the whole person, the personality, the gestalt. Men can enjoy looking at body parts. Women cannot. Women love a man's ass but if they hate his face, his ass won't look good anymore. If they hate his personality, his ass looks bad. Men don't delineate that way.

"I've done my own research. I've been all over the world and asked these questions. Even the staunchest feminists who like a good hard f--- - if they don't like something about the guy, they aren't going to enjoy the screw. For a man - the girl could dribble and not even speak English - but if she's got a great body and face, he's in there.

"In porno, no matter how gorgeous the guy is, he's not going to get the kind of character development necessary when you've got to cut to five f---ing scenes and an anal. You're not going to have enough time to develop a personality. That's why love stories can't work in porn. You can't show a few shots of a couple on a merry go round and sharing a hot dog, and say they're in love, now blow me. The women aren't going to buy it. The men don't care. This idea of a "couples market" is incorrect. I'm living proof. If women wanted to see gorgeous guys in the movies, I wouldn't work.

"Some of the girls say I give good head. Tiffany Million, Nina Hartley... If you make the right move, and give them the vibrator effect, you can give them an orgasm. And girls on set don't expect to get off. Sometimes they'll get a surprise. I've done a lot of hot scenes. People will see the scene and say, 'She couldn't have been into him [Ron].' But she might've been.

"A lot of new girls have seen me in movies and are excited by me and want to do me. A lot of girls say, 'I was told I shouldn't [have sex with Ron], but I enjoyed it anyway.'

"If a woman chooses not to have sex with me, I never have a problem with that. We're all more attracted to the young and beautiful. I'm even flattered that some girls who won't do me, add 'but I like him.' That's sweet. Directors, casting directors, agents have told me that 'she won't work with you, but she went out of her way to say she likes you as a person.' That's heartwarming, because over the years the looks go. But if you've got soul, and personality and character and try to get along with people, that lives on.

"You'll never hear me badmouth anyone. [True.] I receive it a lot but I don't dish it out. Life's too short.

"I've never pushed girls to get into the biz. Girls have approached me. I got Barbara Dare, Samantha Strong and a lot of others in. But they came to me."

Ron is often badmouthed for not bathing. "That's not fair. You'll never see me doing an actress without first taking a shower. It's just that with my look, I appear as though I haven't bathed.

"I'm a professional. I always get my AIDS tests. I couldn't have been a school teacher if I didn't have an air of professionalism about me. You have to show up on time to teach a class of 32 kids."

Ron's appeared in only two films without his famous mustache which he uses to offset his big Jewish nose.

"Hollywood Video did a funny compilation tape called The Ron Jeremy Story - From Here to Obesity. They did a whole thing about how I didn't shower. And Patrick, the owner of the company, said he knew it was all a joke. Al Goldstein also looks as though he doesn't shower but he always does. He's always clean. He has hundreds of shirts and changes them every hour.

"It makes you more famous [when you get criticized frequently]. The public sympathizes with you."

Another name for Ron Jeremy could be The Cunt Master.

Richard Hollander, the publisher of RickNews, wants to produce a movie called the The Cunt Master starring Ron Jeremy and Annabell Chong. Hollander insists on directing it himself if Jim Holliday isn't available.

"You're jerking the gherkin at 3AM, and this stupid commercial comes on telling you how you can turn your bloated kiester into iron. Frankly, I'm fed up with these buff behemoths telling me to put down my pecker and pick up the weights. I say we perverts make our own infomercial.

"The TV blasts with an opening shot of Nina Hartley getting Liberaced by Peter "The Man Who Put the Ram in Ramsey" North. When he pops and milks the grand-pappy of all jizz shots, the goop drips down the screen to form words "The Cunt Master". Then our friendly announcer introduces TV's Chuck Woolery as our host.

"Chuckie tells the audience about a machine that changed not only his life, but his wife's. "Please welcome our first guests, Annabel Chong and Ron Jeremy!" The gang- banging Asian and the Hedgehog stride out stark naked. Chuck asks Annabel what the Cunt Master did for her. Annabel plugs about 15 movies she's been in - that week - and begins the product endorsement....When a chick gets on [Cunt Master], a chrome dildo springs up from the seat and into her pussy. She then flexes her vaginal muscles to lift a 10-pound weight about a foot-high into the air. Three repetitions and even granny will be able to snap the cock off a race horse.

"The host then asks them about sex before and after the Cunt Master. Ron talks about rigors he faces in life: the all-night parties laughing at Pauly Shore's lame jokes while sucking-up to producers of "legit" flicks, and still having to pop the next morning. His voice trembling with the shame and degradation of it all, Ron admits he was in danger of "burning-out." Until he got the Cunt Master. Now he claims he can f--- just as well as any smelly, hairy, obese 20-year old can."

(Richard Hollander, RickSH@aol.com, POB 810051, FL, 33481-0051.)

On The Town With Ron Jeremy

I had dinner with Ron and Jasmine St. Claire in Hollywood one Sunday night in June, 1996.

"I've signed with John T. Bone for another two years," says Jasmine. "I want to make a lot of money quickly.

"I say that I will go back into business but I really want to teach.

"I'm taking classes at UCLA to please my mother. I already have my Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration."

Luke: "Why try to please your mother?"

Jasmine: "She was heartbroken about the gangbang. She found out three days before. Her sister in England picked up a British paper with my picture on the cover and a story about the gangbang. She put two and two together and sent the newspaper to her. I tried saying it was someone else's body with my face on it, but that didn't work. I have this guilty conscience about the whole thing."

Ron: "And you're not even Jewish."

Jasmine: "Hanging around you I've become Jewish."

Ron to Luke: "You're Jewish too?"

Jasmine: "Ron, he has a yarmulke on. It's the first thing I saw."

Ron: "No wonder you're a nice guy. Are you a Lubavitcher? [The Hasidic sect also known as Chabad]"

Luke: "No, I'm a non-Orthodox religious Jew."

Jasmine: "Ron, why don't you wear a yarmulke?"

Ron: "It's not appropriate... This other girl who almost joined us tonight is also Jewish - Alexandra Silk."

Luke: "I know her. I saw her get double penetrated on a Jim Enright set."

Ron: "She's great at it."

Luke: "We attacked each other in the dressing room. I was interviewing her and she told me that I had nice eyes, and a nice voice...and that I was witty and handsome...and one thing led to another... So I kissed her."

Jasmine: "I like the picture on your card. Did you have a real kiss? A French kiss? A tongue kiss?

Luke: "No. The kisses were tender, not deep."

Jasmine: "You remind me of a cat. You have a smile like a Cheshire cat."

Ron: "Did she say you had a nice penis?"

Luke: "No."

Ron: "How could she? It was already in her mouth, she couldn't speak."

Luke: "No. I'm a nice Jewish boy. Innocent. Professional. I don't do the talent. I'd like to, but I don't want to come on to the women I interview."

Ron: "I know that. If you did, we'd know about it. So you had kissy kissy and feely feely. Did she grab your cock?"

Luke: "No, unfortunately. I grabbed her. She was wearing these tight little Frederick's of Hollywood shorts..."

Ron: "Did you get into her bush?"

Luke: "No, she had to go somewhere..."

Ron cleans his plate.

Ron: "Oh no. I can see it already. You're going to write that my tongue snaked the bottom of the salad bowl."

Luke: "I don't do assassination journalism. Susan's great at it. I read her book Backlash. She pulls out these little details and throws them in like darts to destroy people she doesn't like."

Ron: "She liked me. I don't get it. Why did she have to write "My tongue snaked the bottom of the cream cheese container." It wasn't true. It wasn't nice. And she's so friendly. A little cutie. I bet she does that [assassinates persons' character] in real life too. It's like dancers. They can't help but be sexual in real life too. It's in the way they walk and smile. And so you think you're going to get lucky. But they don't mean anything. They're not even aware of what they're doing."

Jasmine: "So, in January, I'll take some courses in Education and go into that field instead. But for now, I'm doing things to please her. She's coming out here next month for her birthday so we're going to try to rebuild the bridge that was broken by the gangbang. My mother is a straight-laced woman. She wouldn't let me go out and date. She wouldn't let me have the car.

"I'm Roman Catholic. I wasn't raised religiously, just strictly. I went to private schools but they weren't religious. I go to church at times.

"My mother chaperoned me on my first date. I was 16. It was just to the movies. She called the boy's parents. It was so embarrassing. I didn't give her any reason for mistrust.

"I went to public school for one semester. That was their biggest punishment for me - sending me to public school. I wish I had Ron as a teacher.

"I'm an only child. My mother is one of eight children. She sent me away during the summers to visit family. I like experiencing other cultures. It mentally enriched me.

"I'm a typical only child. I admit it."

Luke: "Intelligent, academic, successful, driven, stressed, competitive".

Ron: "I'm the typical middle child. I lacked attention. I had an older sister and younger brother."

Luke "You were the peacemaker."

Ron. "Yeah."

Jasmine: "Where are you from?"

Luke: "Australia."

Jasmine: "I love Australia. I think Australian men are really handsome..."

"I dance two weeks out of the month. I make about $5000 a week.

"I was raised everywhere - California, New York, London, Paris, Canada.. .My father died."

Ron: "Howard Stern was so funny. He asked when did your dad pass away? And she said, "How did you know he was dead?" And Howard said, "You'd never do a gangbang like this if he were still alive."

"Howard is the best. The king of all media. I have a picture of us together."

Jasmine: "John Bone has signed another girl. Mishka. A blond girl. Sweet. We're good friends. She's Jewish. She went to high school with Corey Feldman."

Ron: "Jasmine is a little nuts."

Jasmine: "I'm a certified bitch. I don't work with black men. I'm not prejudiced. They just don't turn me on. I did them in the gangbang. In my mind, I pinned Marky Mark's face on their's."

Ron: "A lot of girls won't do black guys but will do them off-camera. I remember working in Hawaii and all these girls wanted to do Ron Victory off camera and he was so happy.

"It's not so much the girls that have a problem with doing blacks on camera, it's that their family would have a problem. Particularly girls from down south. It's bad enough that they are doing porno, but if their uncle, or brother caught them with a black guy, they'd get the s--- kicked out of them.

"I'm color blind. I work with black girls. I'm just telling you what some girls say. They don't mind doing blacks, they just don't want to be seen doing it. It affects their fan clubs and their popularity and dancing down south. I think that sucks. We should be the leaders and make things nice on this planet. So it won't sell on cable? f--- cable..."

Jasmine: "John Bone means a lot to me. He treats me like family. He pays me. I've never been asked to give him sexual favors. I even called him today to wish him Happy Father's Day."

I told Ron and Jasmine that many female performers in committed relationships didn't want it known because it might discourage their fans.

"Don't worry," says Ron. "By the time your book comes out, they'll be in different relationships anyway."

Jasmine jumps in. "You know I don't work with women."

Ron: "I really thought that Hyapatia Lee and Bud were a good marriage, but it's gone. Tiffany's [Million] would've lasted, gone. It's so difficult to keep a relationship in this business."

Jasmine: "I wouldn't go with anyone in this business anyway. I date a doctor in Las Vegas. People in porn are a bunch of idiots. They don't have their stuff together. They don't save their money. They don't do anything worthy with their lives, that's why their stuck in porn. Not you Ron. You have your college degree."

Ron: "That's because you go out with pretty boys."

Jasmine: "Vince Voyeur is 30 years old. Peter North is 40."

Ron points at a tattooed man entering the restaurant. "That guy used to be a gangster. He just came out of jail. He's a nice guy."

Jasmine: "I don't pay attention to those guys [in porn]. I want someone who has more for me. If I go out with someone, it's for all the right reasons. I don't want someone's money. I don't want anyone to support me. I can do that on my own. I'm a self-sufficient independent person."

Ron: "She gets negative on people. I'm not like that."

Jasmine: "They're negative on me so why should I be nice to them? They're nothing to me. They're nasty to me. I don't know them and that's the way I want to keep it. They're rude, stand offish, arrogant."

Ron: "It's the gangbang."

Jasmine: "Yeah, but I don't care. The gangbang is not politically correct."

Ron: "They say they wouldn't do it. There's hypocrisy in the biz. I did John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut. A lot of girls said "How disgusting. He's a wife abuser." I say: "When I did the movie, he won the case against Lorena." But this guy got his dick cut off. I hate to say it, but he was a victim. Women who know him don't find him the least bit threatening. They think he's a simple guy. He has an attention span disorder. John did this S&M movie. Kym Wilde went on AVN: "For a guy who supposedly abused women, he can't even spank properly." If anyone in Hollywood didn't want to be in a project because someone in it might've been a felon, there'd be no Hollywood. There's a guy in a big TV series who was in jail for murder... Another in jail for drugs. You don't turn down work because someone on the set may've had a problem.

"If Mike Tyson did a TV show, I don't think you'd refuse to work with him.

"When Roseanne Barr refused to let Kato Kaelin on her TV show, I respected that because it would've glorified the murder of two people. And Kato hasn't gone through the proper channels of working himself up in the biz.

"This is a porno movie using John Bobbitt. Anytime a girl had a problem with it, I'd look at Bill Margold and Jim Holliday and wink. Then I'd look the girl in the eye and say, "We're doing a sequel called Frankenpenis and you're name came up. We're thinking of using you." And the girl changes like that. Because every girl who worked in that original Bobbitt film became feature dancers. Tiffany Lords, who's done only this one movie in her life, earns up to $10,000 a week dancing. Other girls have been making movies for three years and only make $2000 a week dancing. All the girls got on the talkshows like Jerry Springer, Geraldo and Howard Stern. Only one person kept her convictions - Jessie James from Florida.

"In Europe, men can pick the girls. In America, the girls pick the guys. Let the girl feel comfortable and maybe it'll be a hotter scene. But it's not true. Sometimes when you're really into your partner you block the action. You're cuddling too much and you can't see anything. How many times have you seen an award for the best sex scene and the actor and actress say, "We didn't even like each other on that set." You don't have to. It's performing.

"Another perspective is - this isn't a dating service. Be with who you want to be with after the camera is off.

"I've been on the receiving end of girls not wanting to work with me and I've lost the job. We men are only props."

Jasmine: "Meat puppets."

Ron Jeremy: "Every single time that the company has to have the guy, and the girl realizes that if she won't work with him she may lose the job, she'll do it. I was booked as Uncle Fester in the Maddams Family. A girl said she didn't want to work with me, and the director said, "I'm sorry but I'll have to use you another time because Ronnie is in this show." And you should've seen how fast she said "Ok."

"The girls may say, "I don't do this. I don't do this and this and this." But when they have no choice, there's never a problem.

"In this business, as in all of life, everything has a price. Your jacket looks good on you [Luke], but if I offered three thousand dollars for it, you'd sell it to me off your back. You'd strip here at the Rainbow and throw in your underwear."

"John Bone did this to me in my last movie," said Jasmine. "I usually just do double penetration - one in my vagina and one in my ass. And facial cum shots because I love to swallow come. But I did a double vaginal which I didn't think I could do, and fisting, because my contract [with John Bone's Metro] got raised."

Ron: "They can't show that fisting in America.

"I was once offered a Ferrari to do a gay movie but I turned it down.

"I'm bi. I'm bi-coastal, bi-lateral, and bi-lingual. Occasionally, I'm even by myself.

"You want to see these photographs I've got? It'll bore you to tears. I'm bragging but what the hell."

Jasmine: "You'd make the perfect grandfather."

Ronnie: "Silver Chair. They're the hottest band. See me. They are all seventeen year old kids from Australia."

Jasmine: "They are so cute. Do you have their phone numbers? I want to do them all."

Ron: "This is Roger Avery, the guy who wrote Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs. He's big. This is the Academy Award. I'm holding it. See. He directed me in Killing Zone and in Mr. Stitch. Supposedly you can't photograph the Academy Award. It's in the Academy rules. But not only did I photograph it, I'm f---ing holding it. Here is Roger picking his nose as he autographs the cassette of Reservoir Dogs."

"Here I am again. And again. Here I'm holding Academy Awards from America, England, Spain and Italy."

Jasmine: "I go up to surfers on the beach and say "I want each and every one of you.""

Ron: "You may say that, but I don't think you'd f--- all of them."

Jasmine: "I would do two of them."

Ron: "No you wouldn't. You're all talk. Here's a picture of Kato Kailin."

Jasmine: "He was in Playgirl."

Ron: "Did you see his dick?"

Jasmine laughing. "He had something over it but you could see the outline."

Ron: "Here's Corey Feldman."

Jasmine: "I slept with him. It was a mercy f---. He had a small dick."

Ron: "Here's a picture of me and Lynn Redgrave. She's in my video Freak of the Week. The black guy is D.J. Polo. And Joey Buttafuoco... John Bobbitt. There's me and Richard Jeni from the TV series Platypuss Man. He played Jim Kerrey's best friend, the banker, in The Mask. This is Rick Duckumon. He was star of The Verbs. This is me and Sally Kirkland the actress. And me and Sweat Pea who played with Bonnie Raitt. Working with a Dinosaur. I love that video. And here's me and one of my favorite rappers - Sir Mixalot. He's also in my video Freak of the Week. He did a huge song Baby Got Back, which they do all these takeoffs on in porno. He also had a TV series for Paramount. This is Brian O'Neal who opened for Eddie Murphy - The Bus Boys. He wrote that song, "The boys are back in town. The boys are back in town." Billy Sheehan was with David Lee Roth. Here's Al Lewis - Grandpa Munsters. The Dracula father. Here's Ray Boom Boom Mancini. He's also in my video. Susan Faludi saw the video and could give a f---. You should see it."

Jasmine: "Boom Boom punches Ron in the video and knocks him out. I thought he really punched you."

Ron: "Here's the star of the controversial movie Kids. He knows that I was up for that. I had a part with a boy telling a story about his father and I was going to be the father. Then they decided they couldn't use someone as recognizable as I was.

"This is the producer of the Howard Stern show. This is Gary and I doing the famous dick pose."

Jasmine: "Howard is so cute. I've never been with him. He's married and very straight."

The photos of Ron with celebrities roll on.

Ron: "There's me and Jay Leno. Jay can't have controversial guests but he's done jokes about me....Well, there you go. I hope you didn't find it too boring.

"I'm in this Disney program wearing this mask. At last my little nieces and nephews can see their Uncle Ronnie Hyatt on television in September. I pick up this girl and carry her around. It was a gas."

Jasmine: "Do your nieces and nephews know what you do?"

Ron: "They're getting to the age now where they know that I do something they can't watch. This guy is having his Bar Mitzvah on Saturday. I'm going. I will read a bit of Hebrew when they take out the Torah. My sister's son. We say I do nudie movies. Movies that you can't watch until you're 18. Since I know rock stars, they are crazy about me."

Jasmine. "You know Marky Mark. I want him."

Ron: "You're cute and funny. Your boob feels good against my right elbow. Are you wearing a bra?"

Jasmine: "Yes I am. Do you want to see it?"

Ron: "Yeah."

Jasmine lifts her top and exposes her full breasts tucked inside a lacy black bra.

Ron: "She has lovely boobs. Show Luke. It'll make his day. No one will see. Just give him a quick flash."

Jasmine turns and lifts her top to me.

Ron: "No, your boobs. He doesn't want to see your bra."

Jasmine lifts her bra and exposes her full breasts and hardening nipples. My eyes bug. "Oh wow."

Ron: "He just popped his yarmulke. Your nipples are hard."

Jasmine pants over the prospect of meeting Marky Mark.

Ron: "The day I shoot the movie you can come to the set. I just ask that you let me and Luke warm you up first."

Jasmine: "Marky Mark likes blondes."

Jasmine has dark skin and dark hair.

Ron: "Do you want to see my impersonation of Savannah and John Holmes?"

Ron uses his fingers to imitate twisting worms.

Jasmine "Oh God."

Ron: "Luke just got it. I ruined the boner he had looking at your boobs."

Luke: "You did... Jasmine, how many movies have you done?"

Jasmine: "I've done nine X-rated films and three films for the Playboy channel and four B films and some Penthouse movies. And I worked with Marilyn Chambers in these pay-per-view movies. Bedtime Stories and New York Nights. I had speaking parts. The ones for Playboy were The Woman of Color, The Girls of Southbeach and The Girls of Summer. My X-rated movies are Just Jasmine, Vortex, Possessed, Hell Fire, Two Too Much, Delirium, Compulsion, The World's Biggest Gang 2 and Degenerate.

"I'm in a bunch of them," says Ron, "though we only worked together once. I do a lot for John T. Bone. He's one of my supporters."

Luke: "John does raunchy material, right?"

Jasmine: "And I love it. I think that's the best thing. He sets a new standard in porn."

Ron: "He and the Private Video Series go as far in porn as you can."

Jasmine: "I'll never do a double anal, but I'll take a fist up my vagina. I'm small but elastic."

Ron: "Girls like Sophia Rio can do double anal. Domonique. Alexandra Silk can take two. I've been in them and I can feel it. They can take two dicks in their ass. You can feel them as they loosen up. You can tell. Annabell Chong can do two."

"I want to do Rocco," says Jasmine. "I did T.T. Boy once, off camera. He didn't hurt me. He did the best thing. He strangled me and I loved it.

"I don't do anal in my personal life unless I'm really horny."

Ron: "I worked for Corey Feldman in another movie last week - Busted. I play a Peeping Tom."

Jasmine: "I want Arnold Shwartznaeger. How can I meet him?"

Ron yells over at a well-built man in his 30s. "Hey Chuck, how are you doing?"

Chuck waves.

Ron: "This is the number one stunt man in town. He's a Hells Angel. Does a lot of photo doubling for Stallone."

Chuck walks over.

Ron shows him some pictures. "Look at this: It's a TV show for Disney that Adam put me in."

Chuck looks at the pictures. But he's more interested in Jasmine.

Ron to Chuck: "I've got a kid [T.T. Boy]. He wants to be an apprentice in stunts. He's built, short, muscular. I don't usually refer people but I think this guy can take it. He's a former Golden Gloves boxer. Good looking. Handsome face."

Chuck: "Tell him to come down to the set. We're filming in... for eighteen days."

But Chuck's more interested in Jasmine.

Chuck: "Do you ride motorcycles?"

Jasmine: "Yep."

Chuck: "Come riding with me tonight."

Jasmine. "I can't tonight. Tomorrow night."

They exchange business cards and home telephone numbers. Eventually we finish our dinner and head outside and gather around Ron's car. He's got more pictures. A good one of Ron and John Holmes from the early '80s. We look at a Playgirl spread of Ron from that time. Burt Reynolds is on the cover. Ron looks good in the pictures. He's in his prime and in shape. Playgirl calls him the leading porn stud of the 1980s.

Jasmine: "You look good there."

A group of middle aged men walk by.

"Hey Ron," says one.

"What's up," Ron says.

The men are in town to set up three days of Garth Brooks concerts. They assure Ron they can get him free tickets. Can he get them some porn videotapes? Ron can.

We chat for five minutes and they move on. Throughout the evening, people recognize Ron and frequently say hello.

Ron: "You realize that if T.T. Boy were here or Peter North or Rocco, this would not happen to them. They wouldn't get a free pass to go to the forum. According to Susan Faludi, Jeff Stryker [gay porn star] would get one. And I don't think that Garth Brooks or these guys watch gay movies. And if they did, I don't think that they'd admit it. Can you picture them saying backstage, "Hey, we've got this gay porn star coming in." No. Can they say they've invited Ron Jeremy to their show? Yes. But if you read Susan Faludi's article, it's clear who the big star is [Jeff Stryker]. I'm just some porker who wants to gross out the world..."

We look at a cover of Britain's TV Guide from the week of Valentine's Day 1996 which features Ron on its cover. The article quotes Ron as saying that the one thing missing from his life is love.

"I've got no one to share my life with. If I see a flower, I've got no one to share it with. The ups and downs. That's the only thing missing from my life. A relationship. They wanted something to fit in with the Valentine's Day theme."

We walk to the Comedy Store.

Ron: "Turn on your tape recorder. It's amazing. We're prosecuted for obscenity all over the country. Even though our product is rated X - for adults only. We have the Vivid billboard that was above the Viper room and all the girls were classily dressed. How do they get away with a billboard on Sunset over the Laugh Factory with a singer breastfeeding a pig? And you see her tits and everything. How do they get away with that?"

Ron Jeremy gets Jasmine and I in to the Comedy Store for free. Howie Mandel performs. Midway through his act, he recognizes Ron Jeremy.

"That guy can blow himself."

Everyone laughs.

Ron: "Thanks for telling them."

Howie: "If I could blow myself, I would tell everybody. The first time you blew yourself..."

Ron: "I wore a rubber 'cause I didn't know where he'd been."

Laughter flows across the room

Ron: "I was tying my shoe and I found out. I can make money on this, so what the heck?"

Howie: "Because someone paid you for this. It wasn't as though you were sitting at home and couldn't get a date..."

Ron: "No. And I gave myself a wrong phone number when it was over, too."

Laughter.

Howie: "And you're with her?" He points to Jasmine.

Ron: "Yeah."

Jasmine, against the club's rules, is talking on her cell telephone. "f--- you, you pillow biter."

Jasmine's voice cuts through the laughter. She's talking to an ex-boyfriend.

Howie: "There's an emergency happening. Are you getting a big movie deal?"

Everyone applauds.

Jasmine: "I'm not in the business. I'm just friends with him."

Five minutes earlier, Jasmine told Howie she was a school teacher. Now Ronnie tries to defend her."She's an interior decorator."

Everyone laughs at the contradiction.

I speak out. "She's done 300 men."

Because of the laughter, no one hears me. Jasmine elbows me to be quiet.

Howie: "It's so weird that everyone knows who you are... Ron Jeremy. He's a porn star."

Howie struggles on stage for his next routine. He's obviously got nothing prepared. "I'm wandering...Yes. I'm a wandering Jew... It's Father's Day today. I did my boys. I did my time. And then I went out to talk to a man with a big dick. I said: "Good night kids. You sleep tight. Daddy's got to go to Hollywood to talk to the man with the biggest dick in the world."

A stream of comics used Ron's presence for jokes throughout the night.

Mark to Ron: "Do they allow female fluffers? Could I fluff the females?"

Ron: "It's called a "Scream test."

Mark: "It's Mark Turner, the Jewish fluffer. Oy, look at this. A pussy. Hmmmm. You don't get that at home."

Mark begins singing. "If I were a rich man...I'd be Ron Jeremy... All day long I'd be in and out and in. In and out and in. And I'd come. Oy!"

Applause.

Mark turns his back on the audience and opens the curtains behind him. He speaks with a Yiddish accent. "And now to read the Torah. It's Bar Mitzvah's bottoms."

Ron: "It's a Jewish night."

Jasmine: "I like it."

Mark: "What are you going to do today Jim? "

"I'm going to go to my Bar Mitzvah. But first, I'm going to get Aunt Judy. She's giving me a couple of thousand today. Inside Jewish humor.

"I like girls. I like sex. And I'm learning to just skip right to the rejection. I walk up to girls and say, "Hi my name is Mark. I'm sorry it didn't work out." No guilt that way. No pain."

Laughter.

Later in the evening, I walk out to the bathroom at the beginning of a comic's routine. He notices me wearing a yarmulke and comments: "What's a Jew doing here, hanging out with Ron Jeremy?"

Laughter.

"You can't be a Jewish porn star. I haven't seen any with yarmulkes on."

I smile and try to answer the comic's question in my mind.

• Ron Jeremy in Time magazine
  
  
• Ron Jeremy at CES 01/00
  
  
• Ron Jeremy
  
  
• Ron Jeremy
  
  

  8/8/98
  
  Annie Sprinkle tries to pull Ron Jeremy away from conversation to have lunch. He's talking with a short Jewish woman two years his junior. They each had their first sexual experience behind a rock in a park near Public School 46 on a lot on 65th Avenue near Springfield, in Bayside, Queens, New York. They each grew up in Bayside. Ron went to school with the ladies' sister.

• "It wasn't screwing," remembers Ron. "We didn't go all the way, but I did come in my shorts. I was 14. The girl was Margie.

  "Our parents were always home so you had to find rocks. Did other kids use the rock too? Yes. Oh, I thought I was being creative."

  The woman lost her virginity behind the rock. She was penetrated at age 15.

  Ron: "My first screw took place at age 17 in Littleneck in an alley beside a school. Same girl, Margie."

  Ron tells me about his T-shirt put out by Porn Star Clothing. A cigar company in downtown Los Angeles, La Plata, wants to put out the Ron Jeremy ten inch cigar. $10. And a liquor company wants Nina Hartley and I to have our name on a beer. I have a penis mold and the rap song CD Freak of the Week."

  Ron says he's close to becoming a millionaire.

  "A month ago the Jay Leno showed played a commercial I was in with Samuel Jackson and Taylor Wane for MTV's movie awards. That was my second plug on the Tonight Show."

  Ron has been cut out of a couple of mainstream movies on the distributors insistence. Test audiences recognized Ron, causing executives to act. Ron does appear in Orgazmo and Studio 54.

  Ron served as a technical consultant on Boogie Nights. "It was an accurate representation of a select few [LA crowd]. They [Boogie Nights stars] all came to my sets. Julianne Moore seemed more comfortable watching sex than Heather Graham. Burt Reynolds did not come. He felt that he knew enough about porn that he didn't need to come on a set.

  "Los Angeles porn did have people like John Holmes who were into drugs. The kiddie pornographer did not exist. Jane Hamilton questioned the director. Paul said, "it's a story… exciting." Paul could've done worse… He could've shown the John Holmes character catching a virus…

  "Paul Thomas Anderson knows a lot about adult films. I helped them get Veronica Hart, Nina Hartley… I told Paul to go to World Modeling where they got a hold of Tony Tedeschi and Little Cinderella. Rob Spallone gave them Summer Cummings and Skye Blue for the jacuzzi scene."