Back in the day, everybody seemed to have an opinion about Ron Jeremy – and maybe that was part of his appeal.

He was probably the most ubiquitous of all male adult film stars, and certainly the most polarizing.

In the early days of The Rialto Report, I was keen to interview him. My interest has always been in tracking down stories from the golden age of adult cinema that have never been revealed – but even though Ron’s story had been told many times before, I was still keen to ask him about his life and career. After all, Ron was ranked by Adult Video News at No. 1 in their “50 Top Porn Stars of All Time” list, who described him as the most recognizable porn ambassador to the world, ranking him ahead of people like Jenna Jameson, Marilyn Chambers, and John Holmes. In addition to his hundreds of adult films – both as an actor and director, he appeared in countless mainstream movies and music videos, there was a documentary and a best-selling biography, he was hired for personal appearances all over the country, and he was a brand spokesperson for products that included rum, cigars, beef jerky, and of course, male enhancement pills.

I met up with him at his home in Los Angeles on several occasions, and we often spoke about doing an interview – or rather I listened to him talk in what seemed like one continuous sentence, unable to get a word in between all of his detailed anecdotes and memories.

And then came 2017, and the multiple allegations of years of sexual misdemeanors.

In truth, the stories had circulated for a long time before that. It’s just that now they were suddenly taken more seriously in the era of Me Too, splashed across newspapers, magazines, and social media. I’d heard the accusations for years too – just as I’d interviewed people who worked with him, who’d described him as respectful and considerate, I’d also met ex-colleagues who criticized him for being predatory.

My interest was centered on his early career, which was why I was excited when I came across a previously unpublished interview with him from the late 1980s. It was a conversation between Ron and Barbara Nitke that took place in, where else, a New York diner, not far from Queens where Ron was born and raised. At the time, Barbara was carving out a career as a still photographer on adult film sets in New York, and she was putting together a book of her pictures that she intended to be accompanied by a series of interviews with the stars. The book, American Ecstasy, was eventually published, without any interviews, many years later in 2012. It’s a fine testament to the mid-1980s industry in crisis, transitioning from high budget, scripted film productions to smaller and cheaper video shoots.

When Barbara interviewed Ron, he was experiencing the same transition – and the same existential doubts that came with it. Barbara asks about this – and more, in this conversation, which is presented here for the first time. Remarkably, given this was almost 40 years ago, she also asks about the women who were refusing to work to him at the time.

Many thanks to Barbara Nitke for sharing the interview with us. You can find more details about her work at Barbara’s website and hear our podcast interview with her here.

Thanks too to NSS for the audio restoration and mastering.

This podcast episode is 50 minutes long.

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The post The Gospel According to Ron Jeremy in 1986, with Barbara Nitke – Podcast 160 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In 1964, Lorey Kaye, a twenty-year-old from New Haven, CT, moved to Manhattan to start a new life in the big city. Lorey was a fresh-faced, dark-haired hippie, who attracted attention as much for her headstrong, determined, street smart attitude as for her striking good looks. She was hired as a waitress in a new nightclub that had just opened in Times Square – called Steve Paul’s ‘The Scene’.

The club was an immediate hit with gigs by the likes of BB King, Jimi Hendrix, and Sammy Davis Jr., regular visitors like Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick – and Lorey was at the heart of the action. Another group, The Lovin’ Spoonful, also played there regularly, and their lead singer, John Sebastian, took a shine to her. John and Lorey started seeing each other, and Lorey became his muse, inspiring him to compose a number of the group’s hit singles about her, such as ‘She’s A Lady’ and ‘Rain on the Roof’, even mentioning her by name in some of the lyrics.

Lorey and John Sebastian (1967)

They got hitched in 1966 – by then Lorey had started work as an insider gossip columnist at Hit Parade magazine – and now known as Lorey Sebastian, she became a popular staple in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk-rock music scene.

Lorey and John’s relationship was glamorous, high-profile, and short-lived. Lorey broke up with John in 1968 when they were in Ireland. The legend is that she fell in with a group of gypsies, and felt compelled to tune in, drop out, and join them instead. It was said that John never fully recovered from the breakup.

Lorey (right), with John Sebastian and Mama Cass (1967)

Fast forward to the mid 1970s. Lorey was back in New York, now in her mid 30s and looking for a purpose. She’d become a member of the television and film workers union, with the vague ambition of being a still photographer on movie sets. To make a little extra money, she also did work as a crew member on sex films.

It was on a Gerry Damiano movie that she met Jamie Gillis. Jamie sidled up to her, pushing her in the back, and exclaiming, “What a place to bump into a girl like you!” It was corny but it worked, and Lorey invited him back to her place.

The mutual attraction was instant and sexual – but, for Jamie, there was something more this time. For a confirmed promiscuous bachelor, Jamie confided to friends that, whisper it quietly, Lorey might actually be the one. He spent time with her, encouraged her photography ambitions, taking her to exhibitions and galleries, and was tickled that one of his favorite songs, The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Daydream,’ had been written for her.

Not to suggest that Jamie’s relationship with New York magazine’s Insatiable Critic, Gael Greene, was over. Far from it. Even if the novelty of Jamie and Gael’s physical and emotional relationship had subsided, they were still intent on documenting their lives, in and out of bed, for a proposed joint-autobiographical book. They continued to go the city’s restaurants, cultural events, and glamorous parties, while Jamie spent his in-between time wrestling with whether he wanted an acting career, playing poker, going to the occasional audition, and making semi-regular starring appearances in adult films. In short, Jamie wanted to pursue Lorey, but not give up the affair with Gael.

This is Part 2 of the story of Jamie Gillis and Gael Greene in 1978.

Jamie

This podcast is 49 minutes long.

Listen to Part 1 of The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 here.

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The post The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 Part 2, Lorey Sebastian – Podcast 159 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976), Travis Bickle railed against social decay, moral corruption, and the depraved filth he perceived in the near-bankrupt New York City of the mid 1970s. An insomniac, alienated Vietnam War vet, his taxi trips revealed the city to him as a “sewer” filled with “scum” that needed to be “cleansed”.

Around the same time, another taxi driver, a real one, Jamie Gillis, was also recording audio diaries in a similar way. Jamie worked in cabs on and off in the 70s while he acted in adult films and the occasional play. But his tapes were the opposite of Travis Bickle’s: Jamie reveled in the city’s seediness and the sexual possibilities it offered, and he documented his days with a detail that was as graphic as it was honest.

And so, perhaps Jamie Gillis was what Travis Bickle feared: Jamie was the moral decay.

He was the other Taxi Driver.

Not to say that Jamie was untroubled. He was plagued by doubts, questions, and phobias – his “sickness”, he called it. He feared that the initial promise of the porn film business, that had made him a star of sorts after his leading turn in The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976), was about to come crashing down – that adult films would never live up to his high expectations, that he was turning into a sexual jester, and that he would never fulfill his potential.

So what is the story behind his recordings?

In 1976, Jamie met Gael Greene, a well-known character in the city. She belonged to the blue bloods of Manhattan society, having been New York magazine’s high-profile restaurant critic for the previous decade. She was a smart, sleek, feline blonde, ten years older than Jamie, well known and well-regarded in polite and cultured circles. And she was obsessed by Jamie’s sexually wanton lifestyle.

They first met when she was promoting her erotic novel, ‘Blue Skies, No Candy’: “He knew my work. I knew his,” she later wrote.

Jamie stopped, picked up the book, read a few lines, and laughed. “You’re the food writer from New York magazine,” he said to her. “And your hero has my name.”

Gael replied: “And you’re that actor. From those movies.”

She described him at the time as young, surprisingly shy, with shiny black curls and perfect posture. Even better-looking in person, she noted. “You were wonderful in Misty Beethoven,” she told him.

“That was fun to make,” Jamie replied,” because I liked the woman in that one.”

“What do you do when you don’t like the woman?” Gael asked.

Jamie looked her straight in the eyes, and said, “I can always get myself in the mood.”

They started a relationship that was tempestuous and torrid. They were an odd couple, but well-suited too: Jamie’s business was sex and his passion was food. And Gael’s interest and passion were, well, sex and food. She claimed that “the two greatest discoveries of the 20th century were the Cuisinart and the clitoris,” and she was quick to reach for sexual metaphors whenever describing the ecstasy of tasting food in the upper crust restaurants of the city. “Sex and food have been completely intertwined since the beginning of time,” she said.

They saw each other often, dealing with the pleasures, jealousy, and complications that resulted. Gael couldn’t get enough of Jamie’s sexual explorations, and Jamie slipped into her world – overnight becoming her guest at places that had never been available to him.

But Gael, the insatiable critic as she was called, wanted more from their union. She believed Jamie could, and should, be a big-name actor, and so she connected him with A-list players in the industry – auditions with directors like Mike Nichols, strategy meetings with super agents like Sue Mengers. She took him to Europe to try new restaurants, and stay with friends like Julia Childs.

And came the book: it was Gael’s idea. She persuaded Jamie they should write their story by documenting their hedonistic life together. It would capture the era through the eyes of two disparate people with similar lusts and appetites. Jamie agreed: he figured that with Gael’s literary track record and contacts, it could be a hit, raising his profile, and enabling him to fulfill his vague dream of becoming a full-time theater actor.

Gael suggested Jamie keep an audio diary for one year. He would tape his innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, and the crude, unexpurgated details of his everyday life in all its seamy detail. In return, she would add her own experiences – and they would turn it all into a biographical tale of two lovers crisscrossing 1970s New York, slipping between the city’s high society events and its grimy porn film scene.

So Jamie started recording: but his tapes ended up being more than a diary. They document a spiral – a downward journey into a damaged soul as he dealt with questions that plagued him: ambition, sexuality, art, talent, lust, and love. The recordings that resulted – unfiltered after hours reflections, candid and honest, are presented here for the first time. Needless to say, turn off now if you are liable to be offended.

This is Part 1 of the story of Jamie Gillis and Gael Greene in 1978.

This podcast is 49 minutes long.

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The post The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 Part 1, The Other Taxi Driver – Podcast 158 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

It all started over thirty years ago. I thought it would be interesting to track down people who’d been involved in the very first adult films because I was intrigued to learn what they remembered about the time – and find out how the experience had affected their lives afterwards.

Bear in mind, this was over 30 years ago, before the era of social media, search tools, and online databases, so I had no idea how difficult this endeavor would be.

But I also didn’t know how unwelcome my inquiries would prove – even if I did manage to find anyone to talk to. After all, most of the early pioneers used different names to conceal their identities, and therefore protect their future lives.

A few of them – people like Annie Sprinkle, Jamie Gillis, or Ron Jeremy for example – were still around, quasi-public figures who’d been interviewed many times about their history. But I was more interested in finding the bit-part players, lesser-known figures, people whose involvement had been short, before disappearing, presumably blending back into more conventional 9-5 existences. What did they think about their involvement in such a salacious, unprecedented activity years earlier?

One of these was the actor, Jeffrey Hurst. He’d been a handsome, friendly-looking, more-than-competent actor back in early films, always entertaining and engaging, and not just because of his standard-issue, best-in-class, 1970s porno mustache. Who was he, and what was his story?

Well, his name wasn’t Jeffrey Hurst for a start: I met a director who’d known him and who reluctantly told me that his real name was Jeff Eagle. I misheard him – and so for the next five years, I searched high and low – and unsuccessfully – for an ex-sex film actor called ‘Jeff Feagle.’ Not my proudest moment, and a lot a wasted effort ensued.

And then I met someone who was still in touch with Jeff, and who told me that Jeff was now a massage therapist living a quiet life in Tucson, Arizona. What’s more, apparently Jeff loved talking about his semi-scandalous past. I contacted him, and quickly became friends with one of the sweetest people I’ve ever come across. And so, when I started The Rialto Report, my interview with Jeff was one of the first that I put out as a podcast.

Jeff died last November. He is much missed. This is our conversation.

This episode running time is 61 minutes.
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Jeffrey Hurst photographs:

The post Jeffrey Hurst (1947-2025), R.I.P. appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Jeanna Fine passed away last month.

If you’re a regular listener to The Rialto Report, you’ll know that we like to interview a person from a different angle. It’s a more intimate and personal exploration, rather than just revisiting someone’s fleeting moments on camera. And it can be a challenge to convince someone to open up in that way.

Sometimes it’s quick and easy to persuade a person to talk, but many others are more difficult: some interviews have simply ended up being off the record, or subjects changed their minds after finishing the conversation. A few decided that their interview shouldn’t be released until after they pass, while others just weren’t very interesting.

And then there was my interview with Jeanna Fine.

We’d originally contacted her for all the usual Rialto Report reasons: Jeanna had been one of the adult industry’s biggest, and longest lasting, A-list stars, and I was keen to hear her personal story. She’d first appeared in X-rated films in the mid 1980s – getting her name supposedly when Barbara Dare told her that Jeanna looked so fine. It was the tail period of the so-called ‘golden age’, just as the business was changing into a more corporate, studio-driven, rinse-and-repeat video industry.

But there was nothing standard about Jeanna. She stood out from pack, fiercely individual, different from many other identikit, girl-next door performers, with her short platinum-blond spiky punk hair, or later, long dark hair that turned her into a scowling femme fatale. She was androgenous, full of confrontational attitude – and her scenes bristled with a bad-ass aggression. And Jeanna’s rebellious streak didn’t seem confined to her appearance, and the word was that she would turn up to shoots when and where she felt like it, and sometimes not at all. Sometimes she made scores of films in a matter of weeks, and then disappeared for months, even years. She had a long-term, and volatile, relationship with fellow actress Savannah. Jeanna eventually walked away from it – just before Savannah killed herself. On one of her breaks from the world of X, she got married and had a son, only to return to making films a few years later. Her on/off career continued into the 2000s.

But, and there’s always a but, I wanted to know more about the woman behind the strong, confident, and forthright exterior, this character so full of piss and vinegar. I sensed a vulnerability, that her glamorous life in front of the camera perhaps masked secrets that were a world away from adult films. In short, who was the woman that created Jeanna Fine?

So I reached out to her, and over the next 10 years, we became friends and confidants through a series of conversations, phone calls, emails, and texts.

When we first spoke, she’d been living a rural life in upstate New York for over a decade, and was experiencing something of an existential crisis. She was at a crossroads in her life: she’d experienced recent tragedies – the suicides of both her husband and brother, she was empty-nester, and she was trying to figure out what she should do next.

Intriguingly, she decided to emerge from anonymity and return to the X-rated industry. She turned up at an adult fan convention, she’d set up a Twitter account (as it was back then), and had a friend show her how she could earn money with a web-cam.

But the return to the sex industry was problematic, and I could see that she hadn’t expected the extent of the emotions, the old secrets and lies, that this new direction was bringing back to the surface. What was being stirred in her past, I wondered? Jeanna insisted that she was keen to do the interview – she announced it on Twitter – but I was worried that she was feeling fragile. This podcast is the result of that conversation.

With big thanks to Patrick Kindlon and Self Defense Family – for the wonderful monologue, and to Steven Morowitz and Melusine – for the Video-X-Pix photographs.

This podcast is 52 minutes long.

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Jeanna Fine – Video-X-Pix photos

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Jeanna Fine portfolio

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The post Jeanna Fine: The Lost Interview – Podcast 157 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Regular listeners will know that over the last few years, I’ve spoken to many female adult film actors who were active from the 1960s through to the late 1980s, and, as interesting as their experiences were, it also made me intrigued to find out what it was like to be a male in the business during the same time.

So a few months ago, I contacted actor/director/agent and X-rated film producer, Bud Lee, to hear about his life – which I was curious to hear about, not only because of his career, but also due to his marriages to two of the biggest stars of the 1980s and 90s, Hyapatia Lee and Asia Carrera.

In the first part of my conversation with Bud, he spoke about how he got into the industry with Hyapatia and the struggles they encountered being a couple in the business. This episode picks up in the late 1980s, when their relationship broke down just while Bud’s career making films for companies such as Vivid, Playboy, and Adam and Eve, was taking off. And Bud is still working today – filming scenes and being an agent – and he reflects on the significant changes that he’s seen in the industry, as well as the people involved.

You can hear Part 1 of the podcast here.

We have also included the transcript of an episode of the Donahue television show from 25 November 1986 which featured a conversation with Bud Lee, Hyapatia Lee, Jeanna Fine, Tony Rush, Nina Hartley, and David Hartley. The full episode can be viewed here.

This podcast is 49 minutes long.

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Bud Lee and Hyapatia Lee – on the Donahue show: full transcript

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The post Bud Lee – From Hyapatia and Asia to Only Fans, Part 2 – Podcast 156 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

The adult film business is unique in that it has usually focused on women as the figureheads and main stars, and therefore often relegated men to the background.

Over the last years, I’ve spoken to many female adult actors – from the 1960s through to the late 1980s, and it’s been interesting to see how their memories, experiences, and lives were affected as the sex film business changed. 

But I also wanted to hear from someone on the other side of the equation – and find out what it was like to be a male in the business, perhaps a partner of a major sex film star, or someone who was a performer, director, or agent in the business.

Bud Lee is unique in that he has been – and still is – all of these things and more. And what’s remarkable about his life is that it mirrors the history of the industry itself: consider this – after meeting and marrying Hyapatia Lee, one of the biggest stars of the 1980s, they appeared in adult films together, before Bud became a director for adult industry mogul, Harry Mohney, directing large and expensive productions like ‘The Ribald Tales of Canterbury’ before working for Vivid Video, one of the biggest production companies of the era. Then Bud married Asia Carrera, one of the biggest names of the 1990s adult film industry, making films for Playboy and Adam and Eve, before becoming a talent agent. Today he’s still filming, for performers wanting content for their OnlyFans accounts – a far cry from the golden age, and a stark reflection of just how much the business has changed.

All this from someone who had no background in the sex film business before he met Hyapatia back in the 1970s – in fact he was a plumber who’d briefly considered divinity school and a theological life.

This podcast is 65 minutes long.

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Bud and Hyapatia Lee

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The post Bud Lee – From Hyapatia and Asia to Only Fans, Part 1 – Podcast 155 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

In 1979, Dennis Posa was on the verge of stardom. Against all odds, as Dennis Parker, he’d just released a disco record on a major recording label and was managed by the same team responsible for many of the biggest disco acts of the time. I say, against all odds, because less than 10 years earlier, he’d been a college dropout, the product of a difficult childhood on Long Island who struggled with his sexuality, who had moved to New York to unsuccessfully pursue a career as a theater actor.

Dennis was always a collection of contradictions: he was a private loner – who could also be the popular and gregarious center of attention socially; he took a desk job on Madison Avenue like a latter day backroom character in ‘Mad Men’ but he dreamed of acting and singing; he seemed happiest when he was in his beloved apartment painting a landscape or doing his carpentry listening to his jazz records but he also enjoyed hitting the road on his motorbike and driving across the country, or hanging out in the city’s gay bars at night.

And then in the mid 1970s came adult film stardom – in straight sex films no less. His face – and body – adorning movie posters and adult film screens across the country as one of the industry’s top stars.

That level of fame would be eclipsed however when he met the superstar disco music producer, Jacques Morali. They became a couple, and Jacques wanted to cast him as one of the Village People, before deciding to make Dennis a solo star. They recorded an album for Casablanca Records.

This is what happened next.

This podcast is 38 minutes long.

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When Dennis’ LP, ‘Like an Eagle,’ was released in 1979, the promotional rollercoaster started in earnest.

Early that year, Dennis made an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show. This was a big deal. The Merv Griffin Show was an American television talk show institution. It had run from 1962, and by the late 1970s was one of the most prestigious shows for celebrities to appear on. It was nominated for Emmy awards most years, and more often than not, won them. Just take a look at the guest list on the day that Dennis first appeared on it: it featured Glenda Jackson, David Soul of Starsky and Hutch, and Brooke Shields. Needless to say, Dennis sung ‘Like an Eagle’. Sadly, recordings of the episode have never been released, so we have to rely on the memories of those who tuned in to see it – and they vary somewhat.

Henri Belolo, Dennis’ record producer, was over the moon: “I was just so happy to see Dennis on television,” he remembered. “Dennis was broadcast from coast to coast singing his heart out, and that was when there were just three or four TV channels – so everyone in the country could see him.”

For Skip St. James, Dennis’ ex-partner from the early 1970s, the memories have a bittersweet tinge: “I didn’t see much of Dennis after he moved in with Jacques,” he said. “Then one night, out of the blue, he invited me over for dinner, and he turned on the Merv Griffin show, and there he was singing ‘Like an Eagle’ on TV – all dressed up in shiny silver clothes. He’d invited me over because he wanted me there to share it. I was impressed, although it was strange seeing him sing that kind of music. He hated disco and he hated dancing! Dennis was a jeans-and-leather guy, and was clearly uncomfortable in that silver lame’ jumpsuit. I thought he looked ridiculous. And when he smiled… it was like neon on his teeth. They were way too bright. But he was very proud of it, and I was very proud of him for it. We stayed in touch, but I never saw him again after that evening.”

As for Steven Gaines, the co-writer of the big two songs on Dennis’ album, ‘Like an Eagle’ and ‘New York By Night’, well, his memory was less favorable: “When Dennis premiered ‘Like an Eagle’ on the Merv Griffin Show,” he said, “I invited a whole bunch of people over to my house. We all watched and suddenly Dennis appeared – and he looked like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz! And he couldn’t really dance or move either. It was very artificial and clumsy. It was so bad that we started laughing. There were six or seven of us there just rolling around on the floor because it was so bad.”

Whatever people thought, Dennis was a hit, and he was in demand: he went on to make more television show appearances, including further bookings on The Merv Griffin Show, including a disco-themed episode on May 3, 1979, where he appeared with The Village People, The Ritchie Family, Patrick Juvet, and his partner, Jacques Morali.

Jacques felt that it was his responsibility to get Dennis maximum exposure for the new record, and so he set up a list of high-profile engagements that included The Mike Douglas Show, another high-rated chat show, and an appearance in a French feature film ‘Monique’ (1978), which featured ‘Like an Eagle’ as its theme song. A special mention should also be made of an appearance on a French television show called Exclusif, which is effectively a music video for ‘Like An Eagle.’ You can still see it on YouTube and it’s glorious. In it, Dennis stands underneath the marquee of the Broadway Theater on 53rd Street singing ‘Like an Eagle’, before striding through the streets delivering an extravagant rendition, and getting a perplexed reaction from the New York commuters around him. He looks great, and you have to admire his absolute commitment. It’s peak Dennis Parker, disco star.

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All this attention meant that Dennis was suddenly a celebrity around town, and nowhere was that more evident than on the nightlife scene. He was a regular at Studio 54, where there were lines around the block to get in, but Dennis was welcomed with open arms and ushered behind the famous velvet rope into the VIP area. Dennis may have been an awkward disco star, sometimes uncomfortable with all the glitz and glamor and preferring the quieter jazz clubs, but he did love the night life – and the admiration that brought him. And that attention came in droves – from men and women, and Dennis didn’t turn many opportunities down. and he was still getting great reviews for his performances. One friend, James Dunn, remembered: “Dennis became a great sex symbol after his record hit. People – men and women – would go wild over him. It just seemed weird to me. But I can tell you one thing: I knew a guy who went to bed with him. I asked him, “What was it like?”, and he said, “Oh my God… I don’t know even what he did to me. It was incredible.”

Dennis was living the high life, and the publicity firestorm surrounding him wasn’t confined to America either. As Henri Belolo remembered: “We took Dennis to Europe on a promotional tour because we had strong connections with our record companies there. First, he went to France, then around Europe, where he did many TV show appearances.”

Dennis’ travel itinerary at the time was like a member of a royal family: over the first summer, he made four promotional trips to Europe, visiting France and Spain. Then he went to Italy, where he headlined a ‘Save Venice’ festival. Next was Medina in Morocco where a huge public party was held in his honor, Rio where he stayed with Ursula Andress, the ex-wife of John Derek, who’d directed him in ‘Love You’, and then to Majorca where Jacques commissioned a large – and expensive – portrait of Dennis from a renowned artist, which he wanted to place over the headboard of his bed back in New York.

Jacques accompanied Dennis on every trip – they were still a couple, despite the temptations that both of them succumbed to regularly – but in the interests of selling records, they decided it would be better for Dennis to present himself in public as an unattached, straight male – so they would concoct elaborate stories for the media to build Dennis’ image as a heterosexual, playboy lady-killer, complete with accompanying pictures showing him embracing a selection of beauties.

Here’s an extract from a breathless article from a magazine at the time: “(Dennis) first stop was Paris, where (he) met and promptly fell for a Parisian beauty named Michelle. She was the costume designer for a hot Paris nightspot, The Crazy Horse Saloon. Through Michelle, Dennis met the star of the Crazy Horse show, Lova Moor, and soon the trio packed up and took off for the south of France.”

Dennis’ friend, James Dunn, remembered Dennis finding this subterfuge amusing: “When (Dennis) came back from his latest European trip, (he) would joke about the love affairs they’d invented for him. Jacques had so many contacts with women in show business it was easy for them to arrange.”

Dennis, avec beards, in South of France

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Back in New York, Jacques had his eye on the next stage of his plan for disco domination – and he figured it was time for them all to make a move into film. Jacques had been impressed with the musical films, ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (1977) and ‘Grease’ (1978). Even though he wasn’t a fan of the music featured in either, he wanted in, so he became friends with Allan Carr, who’d done the famous ad campaign for Saturday Night Fever, and had co-produced Grease, which, thanks in part to his promotional prowess, had become one of the highest-grossing films of all time.

At first, Jacques and Allan hit it off. Allan was a powerful powerbroker with an interesting backstory: in the 1960s, he’d worked behind the scenes at Playboy with Hugh Hefner and was a co-creator of the Playboy Penthouse television series, which in turn launched the Playboy Clubs. His career really took off in 1966, when he founded a talent agency which managed actors, like Tony Curtis, Peter Sellers, and Ann-Margret, and then produced a string of television specials with stars such as Joan Rivers, Paul Anka, and Cass Elliot of The Mamas and the Papas. Side note: it was Allan Carr who was responsible for the invention of the story that Cass Elliot had died by choking on a ham sandwich. Apparently, he thought that the story – even though deeply humiliating to Mama Cass – was preferable to the reality that her death was actually drug-related.

And then there was the fact that Allan was gay. It was no real secret, even though he never formally acknowledged it publicly. His personality was legendarily larger than life – just like Jacques, and together he and Jacques were drawn into a stormy creative relationship. Jacques’ idea was a to make a musical comedy feature film, based on a fictionalized biography of The Village People, and it would also include his other stars like the Ritchie Family. “It will be like ‘Grease’” he boasted, “except with better music.” With such stellar talent at his disposal, and with Allan’s track record, how could it fail to be a success?

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So in 1979, Jacques and Henri Belolo teamed up with Allan Carr to make the film, ‘Can’t Stop the Music.’ Allan Carr insisted on writing it and he made sure he steered clear of addressing the band members’ presumed homosexuality in the script. In fact, it bore only a vague resemblance to the actual story of the group’s formation. All of this annoyed Jacques, who became disappointed with the direction it was taking – but he was even more angry when Allan insisted on having casting approval, and turned down Jacques’ request to make Dennis one of the stars.

Henri Belolo remembered the conflict well: “Jacques pushed really hard to have Dennis have a big part in the movie. It was a good idea – Dennis was a good actor, but for some reason, Allan was always jealous about Dennis. Allan like to fool around young and good-looking boys, and maybe Dennis was just getting too much attention. Either way, he didn’t want Dennis in the movie. So Jacques and Allan had a huge ego fight. I had to fly to California to mediate in the middle of shooting.”

In the end, Dennis didn’t get a part in the big budget movie. Steve Gutenberg was cast in the role of Jacques, and didn’t do a bad job. Certainly, better than Caitlyn Jenner, who as Bruce Jenner back then, is miscast as a lawyer.

When the movie was ready for release, Allan orchestrated wall-to-wall media coverage, which included a lavish series of premieres and a television special that co-starred Hugh Hefner and Cher. And though Dennis wasn’t in the movie, he can be seen at all the promotional events and premiere parties.

They say timing is everything, and sure enough, when ‘Can’t Stop the Music’ was released in 1980, the disco craze was declining and the film was a major flop at the box office, losing millions. In fact, Allan Carr won the first annual Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture in 1981.

For Dennis, it was a case of conflicting emotions. He’d yearned to be in a major motion picture, but on this occasion, he was happy to have avoided being part of such a turkey.

Jacques was less philosophical however. Disco’s waning popularity – as well as the stress of the film’s flop – was beginning to take its toll on him, and he became withdrawn and depressed. This had an effect on Dennis and Jacques’ relationship which started to cool. They remained friendly, but eventually Dennis moved back into his apartment on East 38th St where he started living with a new partner… who was his old partner, his former boyfriend, Joey Alan Phipps.

James Dunn remembered, “Dennis always had a thing for Joey, even when he was with Jacques. I guess he never let Joey go. So they started being a couple all over again.”

*

When Dennis split up with Jacques, he decided to return to acting. Jacques was crestfallen: they remained friends, but now, not only had he lost Dennis as a romantic partner, but Dennis wasn’t interested in their music partnership either. In truth, Dennis had never been truly interested in cashing in on his disco celebrity or even recording a follow-up to ‘Like an Eagle’. Sure, he’d enjoyed the limelight, the glamor, and the money while it lasted, but he didn’t feel authentic in the disco scene – and he always had that nagging feeling that he was better suited to acting.

But Dennis was proud too, and this time he wanted to do it his own way, on his own terms. He rejected Jacques’ offer to make some calls and set up meetings with TV and film studio execs. He wanted to start at the bottom, and liked the idea of establishing a career purely on his own merit – and so he set out all over again, just like he had done ten years previously, and started turning up at auditions, usually for small roles, some of them non-speaking parts. His friends were surprised: here was a guy who’d just been on primetime television, featured in magazines all over the world for his recording career, and here he was seemingly happy to be a struggling actor again.

But the procession of auditions didn’t last long, and Dennis was soon offered a leading part on a TV series. As his brother Richard remembered: “Dennis told me went to a casting call for a role as an extra, but the producers really liked him, and so they offered him a full recurring role.”

The show in question was ‘The Edge of Night.’

*

‘The Edge of Night’ was a popular daytime show: it was a long-running television mystery crime series and was produced by Procter & Gamble – the huge American multinational consumer goods corporation. If it seems strange that a company known for its household cleaning goods was producing TV shows, it actually wasn’t: Procter & Gamble had produced and sponsored the first radio serial dramas back in the 1930s – and soon after that, other similar companies, like Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers, followed suit and did the same. This business model became established, and with the rise of television in the 1950s and 1960s, many of the new serials were sponsored, produced, and owned by these companies. And as Proctor and Gamble had been the first, and was known for Ivory Soap, these serials were referred to as ‘soap operas.’  In fact, it’s a model that still continues to the present day: this year, for example, Proctor and Gamble were co-producing a successful daytime drama about a wealthy Black family with CBS.

Over the years, Proctor and Gamble have enjoyed their association with the entertainment industry, increasing the brand awareness of their products and making profits from the shows. The only major hiccup was in 1972 – and that was caused by an event that was beyond their control. What happened there was they selected a young actress to be the figurehead of a new advertising campaign for their flagship product, Ivory Snow soap. The actress was Marilyn Briggs, who was starting out in films and had just appeared in a Barbra Streisand film, ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ (1970).

Proctor and Gamble liked her, and anointed her ‘the Ivory Snow Girl’, and soon her beaming innocent, clean-cut face appeared on the soap flake box, posing as a mother holding a baby under the tag line ‘99 & 44/100% pure.’ The campaign was a resounding success, both for the company and for Marilyn, who figured she’d hit the big time. She decided to capitalize so she moved to San Francisco, mistakenly thinking that the city was the entertainment capital of the world. After struggling to find work, she changed direction and appeared as Marilyn Chambers in a pornographic film, Behind the Green Door (1972). It proved to be an inspired casting choice by Jim and Artie Mitchell, the film’s producers, not just because Marilyn was a charismatic and attractive star for their film, but also because when they realized Marilyn had been the star of the Ivory Snow campaign, they saw a golden marketing opportunity. They billed Marilyn as being ‘99 and 44/100% impure’ and instantly created a nationwide scandal. Procter & Gamble tried to distance themselves by dropping her, but Marilyn’s image was already so well-known from the Ivory Snow campaign that the damage was done. The film’s ticket sales rocketed, television talk shows joked about it, and ‘Behind the Green Door’ became one of the most successful adult films of all time. Whether the whole affair hurt, or even helped, sales of Ivory Snow, Proctor and Gamble were left red-faced and determined to do whatever they needed to to never be associated with the adult film industry again.

*

When Dennis was offered a starring role in ‘The Edge of Night’, he didn’t tell Proctor and Gamble, or the production team, about his adult film past. It wasn’t that he was hiding it. According to his friends, he just didn’t think it was relevant. He’d had a whole other career in music since the last of his X-rated films, and no one had had a problem with the porn films then so why should they care now?

Besides, he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize his big chance. Getting a role on ‘The Edge of Night’ was an important career step for him: the show had debuted on CBS in 1956, and ran as a live broadcast until 1975 when it moved to ABC. By the late 1970s, it was one of the most loved shows on the ABC network with a loyal following. The thing was, ‘The Edge of Night’ was no simple, romantic daytime soap. Rob Foy, a production assistant on the show, remembered: “‘It wasn’t really a soap opera at all. It was a hybrid of a crime drama with some of the elements of a melodrama. So you had the cops, forensics, and attorneys dealing with cases, at the same time you also had romantic, marital, and family issues.”

Dennis was over the moon with his contract on the show. He had walked out of a promising career as an international disco heartthrob backed by one of the hottest record producers around into a leading role on a highly-rated national TV show. How did that happen? According to Rob Foy, it was down to one man. As he recalled, “It was Erwin Nicholson that hired Dennis. ‘Nick’ was the long-standing producer for the show, and under his guidance, ‘The Edge of Night’ got only the second Emmy ever given for a daytime drama. Well, Nick was smitten with Dennis, and loved him from the start. Nicholson was like a mentor to Dennis.”

The show was filmed on the seventh floor of a nondescript brick building at E.U.E. Studios at 222 East 44th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, just a few blocks from his apartment. When Dennis joined the cast, he quickly became one of the most popular members of the team. Sharon Gabet, one of Dennis’ co-stars, remembered him fondly when I contacted her. She said, “The production was unique in that it was a half hour show. We shot it like it was live, meaning we would all shoot at the same time on the set as opposed to waiting in your dressing room until your scenes were up. So the regulars all became very close friends, and I worked with Dennis all the time. My character was engaged to his, and was using him terribly in the script. Poor Dennis! He was so good on that show.”

When I asked Sharon about Dennis’ abilities as an actor, she was unequivocal: “Dennis was excellent. He really was. It wasn’t an easy part to play. There was a lot of acting, but he managed to be sensitive and manly at the same time. He was really, really good in that part.”

Dennis big-time acting gig seemed to be going smoothly, but after the first few episodes were aired, the production company started receiving anonymous phone calls. Someone familiar with Dennis’ sex films had phoned in to complain: what was an ex-porn star doing in a family TV show?

The production team for ‘The Edge of Night’ had a problem. This was the sort of scandal that could sink a family show. Dennis found out about the anonymous calls from a production assistant, and according to Larry Engler, a member of the production team, he decided to take matter into his own hands: “Dennis called a meeting with the bosses,” Larry remembered. “He told them about what he’d done. Nicholson, the top producer, replied that he was doing a great job and that it didn’t matter. He should just keep going and nothing was going to change that.”

But Proctor and Gamble had to be informed. The memory of the Marilyn Chambers public relations disaster still lingered within the company, and Dennis’ past was going to be a problem. As Rob Foy, a production assistant on the show, remembered: “The way it was handled was secretive. Proctor & Gamble got involved and they were unhappy with the situation.”

Nicholson, the show’s producer, had a fight on his hands, but he stood firm. He was a formidable character: he went to speak to Proctor and Gamble senior management, and made a determined case for why Dennis was completely indispensable to the show. On the face of it, the argument was a mismatch, with the international corporate giant on one side and a TV producer on the other, but remarkably, Nicholson won the day, and Dennis was allowed to stay.

The production team was jubilant. They’d been nervous about the effect it could have on the show’s future, but they also saw the humor: Sharon Gabet remembered: “When we first found out about Dennis’ past, we all loved it. We thought it was hilarious. His films were frequently running nearby in Times Square at the time so we’d go there and just look at the marquees!”

If anything, Dennis’ position was strengthened by the whole affair. As Sharon Gabet remembered: “Dennis got a lot of teasing on the set, but he was always a gentleman. He was such a nice guy. You could tell when you talked to him about his past that he was so proud of his adult film work. We got a kick out of that. He was not ashamed at all. He felt he did the best he could in every role that he had. He was very humble but very proud of his work. I mean, he was a star! He was a porn star! And the writers would play along too. They’d put the name ‘Wade Nichols’ into the scripts! That was their joke all the time. It was hysterical.”

And it wasn’t just Dennis’ adult career that was made fun of – his disco music was also the subject of affectionate ribbing. According to Sharon: “The producers would play his song ‘Like an Eagle’ on the set between takes. We’d all just roar. Dennis played along. He was witty, intelligent, and really funny.”

*

And so, Dennis went on to make appear in 142 episodes of the daytime soap opera – one of the most frequently-appearing actors in the TV series’ long history – and recognition came from all quarters. Richard Posa, Dennis’ brother, remembered, “My mother was very proud of Dennis’ soap opera success. She kept scrapbooks of all the articles and pictures that she could find of him.” And Carter Stevens, who had directed Dennis in adult films, remembered: “My daughter hit puberty just when Dennis was becoming successful on ‘The Edge of Night’. She had an enormous crush on him. I’d stayed in touch with him so I mentioned this to him, and a few days later a four-page letter arrived with half a dozen signed publicity shots for her. He was that kind of guy.”

Dennis used his TV celebrity to become active in fund-raising activities for a pet welfare organization called Bide-A-Wee Animal Shelter, which was just down the block from his apartment, and he also made personal appearances to raise money for autistic children.

And Dennis was enjoying a happy home life as well with Joey, in their beloved apartment where they would host dinner parties for fellow ‘Edge of Night’ cast members. Joey was trying make a career for himself as an actor, and so Dennis persuaded the ‘The Edge of Night’ producers to hire Joey as an actor. In 1980, Joey was given the part of a character who was a puppeteer suspected of murder. He appeared in 23 episodes of the show but his involvement in the soap wasn’t as successful as Dennis’ and after a few weeks, he was replaced unexpectedly with little explanation. Joey didn’t have any significant acting parts after that, his only role of note coming as an understudy in Robert Altman’s Broadway revival of ‘Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean’, which featured Karen Black, Cher, and Kathy Bates.

For Dennis though, his life had finally turned out exactly as he wanted. After years of struggling, or working in the shadows of the adult industry, or in a music career that made him uncomfortable, he was where he wanted to be. In an interview he gave in 1982, he said: “I couldn’t have been more pleased than when I landed the role on ‘The Edge of Night.’ I had a wonderful time traveling around the world in the fast lane but I wasn’t happy with the music I was doing. The kind of music that’s popular today, the kind the record company wanted me to do, just isn’t my kind of music. I’m still singing – but I’m singing blues and jazz, not disco.”

In his spare time, he hung out with friends in jazz clubs, he entered a dance contest with Sharon Gabet – which they won, he made everyone laugh when he turned up each week to play in the ‘Edge of Night’ softball team in the tightest shorts, and his friends still remember the joints he rolled as being big as baby’s forearms.

For the first time, he was happy being recognized in public as a celebrity. One friend, Andrew Rubinstein, remembered, “Dennis wasn’t crazy ambitious. I think he would have been happy being a daytime soap actor for the rest of his life, and he could have found work forever doing that. At the same time, he started to be curious about whether he could make it as a film actor. Once he made a name for himself on TV, he started to think about auditioning for bigger parts in movies. He looked at rugged actors like Harrison Ford, and thought… why not me?”

After a career as a star of adult films, then disco music, and then TV, could there be another chapter in store in Dennis’ life?

*

This is a quote from my conversation with Richard Posa, Dennis’ brother: “In the spring of 1984, Dennis called me and said he wasn’t feeling well. He was having bad night sweats and felt weak. So he took some time off from ‘The Edge of Night’. When he returned to the show, they did their best to cover up his physical deterioration. They were careful to shoot around his frailty. They had him sitting at desks and things like that.”

For Dennis, always concerned about his physical appearance, his first worry was that the illness meant he didn’t look as handsome as he wanted to be. This sent him into a tailspin of self-doubt.

I asked Sharon Gabet what she remembered about how Dennis looked at this time. She said: “We all noticed something was wrong, of course, because he started losing a lot of weight. He looked sick. He was white as a sheet. Yes, he was vain, but what actor isn’t? Everyone would fight to get to the mirror. We teased him about it all the time. But we could see he was losing energy. The word on the set at the time was that he had mono. He never said anything. He was quiet about it.”

Friends told me that eventually Dennis went to see a doctor, who diagnosed that he had AIDS.

Henri Belolo, Dennis old record producer, still saw Dennis socially, and he was one of the first people who Dennis told about his illness. Henri told me: “Poor guy. AIDS. That was a horrible time. Except we didn’t call it AIDS, we called it Kaposi’s sarcoma. We didn’t know what was happening, and it was frightening.”

Dennis’ partner Joey tended to him throughout his illness, but understandably, the diagnosis took a toll on Dennis. “He started getting grumpy,” Sharon Gabet remembered. “We all felt terrible later because we were mean to him. Nobody got away with anything on set, so we’d say things like, “Oh, come on, Dennis. Stop being so grumpy! It was very, very sad because no one knew he had AIDS. To be honest, no one really even knew what AIDS was then.”

Eventually, Dennis was unable to continue working on ‘The Edge of Night’, and his character was written out of the show. His last episode aired on October 18, 1984, just 12 days shy of his fifth anniversary of his first air date on the show.

You can see Dennis’ last appearances on YouTube. It’s a sad experience. This was less than seven years after he had played virile, athletic, sexually attractive lead characters in sex films, five years after people across the country had lusted over him seeing him singing on The Merv Griffin Show, a couple of years after he’d started running across the TV screen as a police captain. These final scenes show a thinner Dennis, looking tired and weary, and moving with difficulty.

A few years ago, Sharon Gabet, went back and re-watched the final 18 months of the show. She hadn’t seen it in over 30 years: she found Dennis’ deterioration on camera shocking. “Looking back,” she remembered, “it’s pretty evident to me that Dennis was dying. He would just have enough energy to give his lines and then you would find him asleep in the chair or laying on one of the couches. He just couldn’t do it anymore. They kept cutting his part back.”

Dennis left the show, and ‘The Edge of Night’ was cancelled a few months later.

He was treated at the Cabrini Medical Center near where he lived in mid-town Manhattan, and his mother returned to New York to be with him. Painfully aware of his physical deterioration, he didn’t want to see anyone, and that included friends, present and past. His one-time partner, Skip St. James, remembered: “I wasn’t in close contact with Dennis but I didn’t visit him because I heard he didn’t want anyone to see the way he looked. I remember seeing ‘The Edge of Night’ before he had to leave. He looked so bad.”

His brother Richard, remembered that on his 38th birthday, in October 1984, Dennis said that he was determined it would not be his last birthday. He said he would have other birthdays. He died three months later to the day on January 28th, 1985 in the same apartment in New York in which he’d been living since the late 1960s.

*

The aftermath of Dennis’ passing was characterized by rumors that he’d killed himself.

Henri Belolo remembered: “There was a mystery about the way he died. I mean, we know that he caught AIDS. But some people say that he died because he shot himself with a gun. Perhaps it’s because they want to create more drama, who knows?” Skip St. James heard the same stories: “A friend called me up and said that Dennis had shot himself. That was the rumor for a time. There were so many conflicting stories.” Sharon Gabet heard that Dennis had died just after she gave birth: “When they gave me the news that Dennis had died, the words AIDS were never used. No one knew about it.” Even the obituary that appeared in Variety didn’t mention AIDS, just referring instead to “a brief illness.” The same obituary also omitted any mention of his adult film career.

Dennis died young, at the age of 38. And what happened to those who shared their lives with him?

Skip St James, the first partner Dennis lived with in New York, was alive and well when I researched this story, and generously shared his memories.

Joey Phipps who cared for Dennis at the end, went to live in California after Dennis’ death. In the early 1990s, he too contracted AIDS. This was a different era than when Dennis had contracted the illness. By now, cocktails of drugs were available which could have saved Joey. Unfortunately, he had other health issues and his body rejected the new drugs. Joey tried a variety of alternative cures. The costs were high, and he declared bankruptcy in 1995. Joey passed away on December 6th, 1996.

As for Jacques Morali, after the huge disco successes of the 1970s, his career had gone quiet for a few years. In 1990, several years after Dennis’ passing, Jacques gave a rare interview, and reflected on his career: “I think that the respect (for the work I’ve done) will come one day,” he said. “Perhaps after I die. I’ve had AIDS for five years, and most of my hits were back before I was ill.”

When he was asked for his happiest memory out of all the hundreds of artists he’d recorded with and the thousands of songs he’d produced, Jacques paused and said: “Dennis Parker. I was completely in love with him. It was Dennis who sung ‘Like an Eagle’. When Dennis died, it completely shook me.”

Jacques died of AIDS in 1991. He was buried in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in France.

*

I’ve heard it say that when you write a biography of someone, you end up revealing more about yourself than you do about the subject. And I guess that might be true with this profile of Dennis Posa. Over the past three episodes, I recorded facts, memories, and opinions. They tell the outline of Dennis’ life and the road markings of his journey – but do they reveal who he really was? Do you feel like you’d know him now if he walked into your life? I’m not sure I do. But PERHAPS the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve but rather a reality to experience. I’ll keep looking out for Dennis on Eighth Avenue, outside the theaters, inside the bars, and whenever I walk past his apartment on East 38th St.

*

*

The post Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 3: The Soap Opera King – Podcast 154 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

I’ve always loved movies, especially the films I grew up with in the 1970s. I was seduced by their gritty realism, social commentary, complex characters, and a more honest portrayal of the human condition. And I was fan of that generation of film stars too: always surprising, sometimes conflicted figures, artists more than the celebrities that we have today. Movie genres seemed less important to me, so when I first saw Wade Nichols in an adult film on the big screen, it had just as big effect on me as, say, seeing Brando in ‘The Godfather’, De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver,’ or that fish thing in ‘Jaws.’

Ever since then, it feels that Wade Nichols has always been a part of my life, never far away from my thoughts. I’ve sometimes found myself wondering what it would’ve been like if Wade Nichol’s career had continued into the mainstream.

Wade Nichols is Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ perhaps.

Or how about John McLane in ‘Die Hard.’

Mr. Miyagi in ‘The Karate Kid.’

Ok, scrub that last one. The point is that he captured my imagination in a way that was just as powerful as many of the recognized greats, and so I wondered about the possible twists and turns of his life that were prevented by his death.

Years ago, I turned my attention to finding who he really was, and perhaps also, why he’d remained important to me ever since my teenage years. That disproportionate impact of an early moment in your life that is instrumental in creating your adult sense of self.

This is Wade Nichols: ‘Like An Eagle’ – His Untold Story. This is Part 2.

Parental Advisory Warning for those not familiar with The Rialto Report: this podcast episode contains disco music. This may be disturbing for younger listeners who may wish to switch off. As for the rest of you, clear a space on the dance floor and let’s get down.

This podcast is 42 minutes long.

————————————————————————————————————————————–

In 1975, Donna Summer was a little-known American singer who’d been living in Germany for eight years where she’d appeared in stage musicals. One day, she was playing around with a single lyric, ‘Love to Love You Baby,’ which she sang to an Italian musician and record producer, Giorgio Moroder. He liked the hook, and came back a few days later, having turned it into a three-minute disco song. He suggested to Donna they record it together. She wasn’t sure about the idea, mainly because the whole thing that Giorgio had come up with just sounded so damn sexual. In the end, she agreed to sing it as a demo which they could give to someone else. So she did, but the trouble was that her erotic moans and groans so impressed everyone who heard it that, they decided to release it as a Donna Summer single anyway, and ‘Love to Love You’ went on to become a small-time hit in Europe.

Fast forward a few weeks, and a tape of the song found its way to Neil Bogart, who was the president of Casablanca Records in the U.S. He listened, liked it, and decided to play it at a party at his home the same night. Next day, Bogart got Moroder on the phone. There was a problem with the song, he said: at the party, he’d started playing the song and approached a girl, but by the time he’d started speaking to her, the three-minute single had come to an end. So he had to run back to the tape deck, rewind it, and start playing it again before resuming his pick-up lines with the girl. Just as he got to the stage of propositioning her, the damn song ended again. Same drill: rewind the tape, and start it over again. A few minutes later, he was at the point of asking the girl to join him in the bedroom when, you guessed it, the song finished once more. So, as Bogart protested to Moroder, “How is this meant to work?”

Giorgio threw the question back to him: “How long do you need to meet a girl, chat her up, seal the deal, take her to the boudoir, and do the deed?” he asked.

Bogart paused, doing the sexual math in his head: “I reckon sixteen minutes should be enough,” he said.

And so, sure enough, Moroder and Donna Summer made a recording of the song that lasted just over 16 minutes, and released that version in the U.S. In fact, it took up the entire first side of the album of the same name. But it worked, and the single hit number one on the Dance chart and became one of the great disco songs of all time. I once read that a group of scientists estimated than 1.5 million babies had been conceived to that 16-minute record.

The time was right for music and explicit sex to be combined. And so who was better placed to take advantage than Dennis Parker?

*

1976

Let’s go back to 1976. They say when a man makes plans, God laughs. Certainly, Dennis’ life was nothing like he’d planned, but he had few complaints.

For a start, he was now a movie star, adored and lusted over by men and women, earning reasonable money for his screen appearances in X-rated movies, and regularly interviewed in magazines who fawned over his acting talent, not to mention his smooth 1970s good looks. Every couple of months, Dennis would get a call from someone on the adult film scene offering him another porn job. He’d always happily accept, turn up and do the business – which usually meant reciting lines with casual, effortless cool, having sex with the latest starlet, and then leaving with a few hundred dollars cash in hand. Most porn film jobs took a matter of hours, usually over a day or two, though sometimes there’d be an ambitious project where an aspiring sex-film Francis Ford Coppola wannabe had raised enough money to make a movie they were convinced would be the mythical mainstream cross-over success. Films like ‘Blonde Ambition,’ ‘Punk Rock,’ ‘Honeymoon Haven,’ and ‘Maraschino Cherry’ came and went with Dennis calmly enhancing them all and impressing fellow performers and fans alike.

By now, he’d jacked in his office day job, which meant that he had more time to devote to his art, carpentry, motorbike, jazz record collection, and his partner, a young actor/model, Joey Phipps, who he adored and doted on. They lived a quiet life in Dennis’ tiny apartment, punctuated by wild nights out in Manhattan sex clubs.

Ah the gay clubs of the 70s: Dennis came out when he was in college and spent the next decade in New York’s darkest, horniest and most outrageous corners. Their names are all you need to know. The Eagles Nest, the Anvil, the Ramrod, and the Toilet. It was the era of poppers, gloryholes, and anonymous hook-ups in sweaty backrooms. As if that wasn’t enough, Dennis also had a sideline as a male escort for wealthy clients who responded to his weekly ad for personal services. It was extra cash, and his friends told me about how he enjoyed meeting different people and making them happy.

In short, Dennis’ was a normal life in which almost everything was abnormal. And then it all changed. He met a Frenchman, a music producer who’d recently moved to New York and was starting to enjoy huge international success writing and producing disco hits. He had an impish, youthful face with a chipmunk smile. His name was Jacques Morali.

*

The Birth of Disco

Jacques Morali was born in 1947, the year before Dennis, in Casablanca, French Morocco, to a Moroccan Jewish family. According to legend, he had a fiercely protective upbringing, and there are stories that he was dressed as a girl by his mother when he was growing up. When he was 13, his family moved to France, where Jacques became a musical prodigy, gifted at playing different instruments, and writing songs in any style. He wasn’t afraid to be different: he was original, flamboyant, and gay. He was also outgoing, outrageous, and gregarious, and seemed to know everyone on the music scene in Paris. By the end of the 1960s, he was in demand, writing music for orchestras, for the Crazy Horse cabaret and strip club, and for himself in his bid to launch a career as a solo artist. And because of his knack for writing instant melodies, he was also writing and producing songs for others. An example Is an early single, a long-forgotten song called ‘Viva Zapata’ for a long-forgotten artist called ‘Clint Farwood’ which gives you an example of the hallmarks of his developing style. Upbeat, check. Cheesy, check. Annoyingly catchy, you bet.

But Jacques, just like his music, was restless and always changing, and he was constantly looking for the next big idea. He was also impatient, demanding, and dissatisfied with the level of his success in France, so he started to look to America as being where he could really hit the big time. In the early 1970s, he discovered the music that was coming out of a studio in Philadelphia called Sigma Sound where the Philadelphia International Records label were recording a streak of hit singles. Songs like the O’Jays’ ‘Love Train,’ recorded at Sigma Sound, which hit number one in 1972.

As strange as it sounds, Jacques Morali wasn’t the only prominent music producer and songwriter in Paris at the time who came from a Moroccan Jewish family in Casablanca, Morocco – and the other one was Henri Belolo. Given their similar backgrounds, it was natural they gravitated to each other.

Henri was ten years older than Jacques: he was also a talented musician, but he differed in that he was also a highly successful entrepreneur: Henri had already set up his own record label and music publishing company, imported and promoted records into France, as well as organized concerts in Paris by the likes of James Brown and the Bee Gees. And, just like Jacques, Henri was eyeing the music scene in America.

In 1973, Henri traveled to New York and set up a record company called Can’t Stop Productions to establish a presence in the U.S. music market. During his trip, he went down to Philadelphia to see friends, and that’s where he discovered the same music scene that Jacques had fallen in love with. I met and spoke to Henri Belolo several times over the years, and his excitement for that music still shone decades later. As he told me: “I started to listen to this ‘Philly Sound.’ I became friends with the owner of Sigma Sound, which was the famous recording studio where all of the Philly people were recording, and I got acquainted with musicians and arrangers and the music that came out of Philadelphia International Records.” In particular, Henri loved ‘TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)’ by The Three Degrees.

The song was released in 1974 as the theme for the American musical television program ‘Soul Train,’ and it was the first television theme song to reach No. 1. Henri told me that the song and the visuals of the TV show changed his life: “I suddenly knew that the next generation of music stars would be more beautiful to look at,” he said, “and that these new artists would be more physical and sexual.” Henri was so impressed with the city that he set up a talent scout office in Philadelphia. As he told me, “I returned to France a different man. I promised myself that I would come back to America, and Philadelphia, when I found THE idea. I just needed to find something unique and big and hot.”

So here you have two Moroccan Jews, one gay and one straight, both based in Paris, both ambitious, and talented musically, both enamored by the music coming out of Sigma Studio in Philadelphia, and both looking for ways to break into the American music scene. Back in France, Henri says Jacques started turning up at his office to offer his services: “He was so enthusiastic,” Henri remembered, “Jacques dreamt of going to America, so he was pitching new ideas to me every week.” In the end, Henri told Jacques that if he came up with one really good idea, then he’d take him to America – but it had to be a really special idea, because nothing that Jacques had suggested so far had convinced him.

Then in 1975, a breakthrough. Jacques went to see Henri and told him his latest idea: he’d found an old Carmen Miranda song, ‘Brazil’, that he wanted a group of larger-than-life females to sing, and record it with production values that would turn it into an epic record for the clubs. It was a crazy idea, but Henri liked the concept: “You have to remember the word ‘disco’ didn’t really exist at that stage,” he remembered. “But I loved the idea of making a big club record: it captured my imagination, so I agreed to work on it with Jacques.”

Not only did he like the idea, Henri agreed to finance a residency for Jacques at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, the very home of the music they both loved. The two of them flew out to Philadelphia and within two weeks they’d found three beautiful black women who they named The Ritchie Family, even though the singers were entirely unrelated to each other, and then Jacques hired the best strings and horns from the elite pool of Philly Sound musicians.

The single ‘Brazil’ was released in July 1975, and it was the U.S. hit that Jacques and Henri wanted: it peaked at No. 11 on the Hot 100, became a worldwide success, and Billboard were so impressed they created a separate Disco chart for the first time: Brazil hit No. 1 on that chart too.

The record convinced Jacques and Henri they should continue to work together, and so they both moved over to the U.S., and became long-term musical partners and a virtual disco-hit factory. Belolo would write the lyrics and handle the business side, and Jacques provided the hook-driven, dance music. More success came quickly with No. 1 disco hits, such as ‘The Best Disco In Town’ (1976)

Jacques’ music was characterized by simple arrangements, a unique sense of camp, and simple catchy melodies that could be remembered easily. It wasn’t rocket science, but it didn’t need to be – few others could do it as well as him. In the next eight years between 1974 and 1982, he recorded over 65 albums, for artists as diverse as Cher, Dalida, and Pia Zadora.

Henri and Jacques were on top of the world, splitting their time between New York and Philadelphia. Henri remembered that if they weren’t producing music, they were partying: “We were going every night of the week to every club in town,” he told me. “That included the straight and gay clubs – Jacques was gay, I was not – but we had a lot of gay friends, and I was always keen to know what they listened to. I would dance until the early hours, and then go home and get some sleep. But Jacques would party all night – and it was on one of those nights when he met Dennis.”

*

Dennis meets Jacques

There is some mystery surrounding how Dennis first met Jacques.

Some friends, including Dennis’ brother Richard, thought that it must have been at a bar or a disco. Could be, though it seems less likely to me as Dennis didn’t spend a lot of his time in discos, and the bars he frequented tended to be ones that were more interested in sex than music. According to others, they met through the ad that Dennis ran in the weekly newspapers. “That was what Dennis told me,” said a friend called Chip that I spoke to. “He told me that Jacques was lonely, or horny, one weekend, and came across Dennis’s ad offering company.”

What is known is that when they met in 1977, Jacques instantly fell head over heels in love with Dennis. As Henri Belolo remembered: “Jacques told me straight away that he’d met this sexy and handsome guy that he was madly attracted to. He always said he loved a good-looking mustache! So obviously, Dennis fit that description.” Chip concurred: “Jacques was completely besotted by Dennis, it was obvious for everyone to see. His world suddenly revolved around Dennis.”

And so, while Jacques’ music career in America was taking off and he was becoming a household name in the music world, he and Dennis started a romantic and physical relationship. It was a fascinating union: on the one side, a flamboyant, big-time disco music producer, and on the other, a quiet jazz-loving porn star with a sideline doing escort work.

There are many aspects that intrigue me here: firstly, there was the fact that Dennis was still starring in adult films when he met Jacques – and continued doing so after they met. But far from being a problem for their relationship, Jacques was intrigued by the emerging and sexual world of XXX, and he enjoyed Dennis’ stature as a sex star. As Henri told me, “Jacques was excited by the fact that Dennis was a porn star… not only in gay movies but in straight movies too. It just increased the allure that Dennis had in Jacques eyes. It was a challenge for him to have an affair with a porn star like Dennis.”

And in the free love, anything-goes, no-judgement world of the New York club scene in the mid 1970s, Dennis’ porn films posed no risk to Jacques’ career – if anything, Dennis’ sexual standing was an asset to Jacques.

But if Dennis was perfect for Jacques, was the reverse true? What did Dennis find attractive in Jacques?

Tip Sanderson, a friend of Dennis at the time, reckoned that it was the showbiz allure that was the appeal for Dennis. “What Jacques had in his favor was the music business,” Tip says. “The glitz, the scene, the money… and he exploited it to the max. He told Dennis he would make him a star, a big music star. Dennis was seduced by that. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”

But was it love between Jacques and Dennis? Friends are still skeptical. Tip Sanderson said this: “Jacques was clearly infatuated with Dennis. Totally in love with him. It was sheer physical attraction. But Jacques wasn’t Dennis’ physical type at all, so perhaps the attraction wasn’t as… mutual.”

Henri Belolo agreed saying, “Jacques was in love with Dennis, but I don’t know about Dennis. It’s hard to know, but I doubt it. Was Dennis really attracted to Jacques? I don’t think it was mutual. But the fact that Jacques was a successful music producer definitely helped their relationship.”

Which brings me to another question. What happened to Joey Phipps in all this, Dennis’ partner who he’d been close to and living with for a while? That was a problem, everyone admitted to me. Most said that Dennis was still in love with Joey.

As Tip Sanderson told me: “It was sad because they were tight. In the end, Dennis chose Jacques over Joey. Maybe the allure of fame was more powerful than his feelings for Joey. Either way, Dennis moved in with Jacques.”

So Jacques and Dennis became a couple, with Dennis leaving Joey behind in his tiny, beloved apartment, and he moved in with Jacques, a few blocks away, in his luxury, extensive suite at The Bristol, a prestigious uptown New York address in the Sutton Place neighborhood.

For some reason, I’m reminded of the Terrence Malick period drama film, ‘Days of Heaven’. It came out around the same time that all this was going on. The comparison is imperfect, sure, but if you haven’t seen the movie, the plot involves an impoverished couple, played by Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. Their life is a struggle though they are essentially happy – but then Gere’s character encourages his girlfriend to marry a wealthy grain farmer, played by Sam Shepherd. The reason is the financial security that this will bring. So she leaves Gere, and he’s left living in their small sharecropper property looking up the hill at the mansion into which she’s moved. There’s a heartbreaking element of poignancy and sadness to their separation, and a reminder that not all stories of true love have a happy ending. Did Dennis get what he wanted but lost what he had? Did his new lifestyle come at the cost of love?

It certainly was a step up in terms of lifestyle: being an adult film star had given Dennis’ life an occasional glamor, but this paled in comparison to what he experienced with Jacques. Richard Posa, Dennis’ brother, remembers Dennis telling him that Jacques was making around $8 million a year – and this was back in the 1970s. Jacques was generous with his money, and Dennis’ lifestyle changed overnight. For Dennis, the days of the dark and moody gay leather clubs were over. It was now fancy discos like Studio 54, The Loft, and the Paradise Garage.

Steven Gaines, a friend of them both, told me about visiting their apartment: “Jacques gave me a tour. He took me to the bedroom which was really over the top, and everything in it was super-expensive. There was this beautiful suede headboard – and Jacques said in a thick French accent, “Zees ees where I fist fuck my boyfriend.” I don’t know what I was thinking, but I said, “But what about that suede headboard… aren’t you afraid of ruining it?” Jacques looked horrified, and said, “Whaaat? Do you think we’re peeegs?!’” Which reminded Steven of a joke that he told me: “How do you make a gay man scream during sex? You wipe your hands on the drapes.”

Henri Belolo, Jacques’s music business partner, was living around the corner from Jacques and Dennis, and they would all hang out regularly. As Henri remembered: “I was great friends with Dennis, and I liked him a lot. We had dinner regularly. And my wife liked him because he was a good guy, very soft-spoken, well mannered, and elegant. In many respects, Dennis was the opposite to Jacques. Jacques was loud and extravagant, and Dennis was quiet and reserved. I’m sure that Jacques drove Dennis crazy a lot of the time.”

 *

The Village People

There are two stories about the how the idea for the Village People first came about.

Jacques’ version was that he went to a costume ball at Les Mouches, a gay disco in Greenwich Village, way over on 11th Street on the west side. He was so impressed by all the costumes and the macho male characters portrayed by the party guests, that the idea came to him to put together a group of singers and dancers, each one playing a different gay fantasy figure.

Henri Belolo remembers it differently, saying that he and Jacques were walking through the Village one day, when they saw a man in a native American Indian outfit walking down the street, complete with bells attached to his feet. They followed him into a bar where he danced on the tables – watched by a cowboy and construction worker. According to Henri, “Jacques and I looked at each other and suddenly had the same idea. We said “My God, these characters. They represent the different types of the American man. We need to start a music group like this!”

Whichever story you believe, they took the concept and started work on a single, and signed a licensing deal with Casablanca Records, one of the most famous disco labels – and founded by Neil Bogart, the same Bogart who had requested the 16-minute version of ‘Love to Love You, Baby.’ The label was already prestigious because of acts like Kiss and Donna Summer, but according to Henri, he and Jacques were most excited just because of the name, given that they’d both been born in Casablanca. They decided to name the new group ‘The Village People’ because the idea came from the characters they’d seen in the Village, and the first single was ‘San Francisco (You’ve Got Me).’

The irony was that when the single came out, the group just consisted of one singer, a Broadway star called Victor Willis, who was appearing in the Broadway production of ‘The Wiz’ at the time, and they dressed him up as a cop.

Sales of the single soared, and so, as Henri told me, “We said to each other, ‘We’d better put together a real group now’ because we’d signed up to an album with Casablanca Records.” They set about assembling a group of five males, each one having his own distinctive character. To do this they took out an ad in a theatre trade paper which read: “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache.”

And who fit that bill better than Dennis?

Henri told me that Jacques had been looking for an opportunity to give Dennis a starring music opportunity ever since they had first met: he told me, “To be honest, every time Jacques met someone, he’d say, “I will make of you a star, my dear” with his big French accent. And Dennis was no exception. Except of course, Jacques was in love with him. So this time, Jacques was really serious about it.” Dennis’ brother Richard remembered the same: “When Jacques was putting the Village People together, he offered Dennis a role in the group.”

It’s intriguing to imagine Dennis as a member of the Village People. Would he have assumed one of the character identities that ended up in the group, or would he have developed a different identity of his own?

Somewhere along the line however, the idea was dropped in favor of making Dennis a star in his own right. As Dennis’ friend Tip Sanderson said to me: “Dennis said that he and Jacques decided that they would not make him part of the Village People – where he would be only one of five members of a group, but rather they’d hold him back and launch him as a solo star instead. And so, the two of them carefully mapped out a plan to create a music career for Dennis.”

Meanwhile the rest of the members of the Village People were hired – representing stereotypes such as a leather man, cowboy, construction worker, and native American. They were largely recruited for their look rather musical abilities, with Victor Willis, taking all the main vocal duties. Together they became one of the most successful acts of the disco era with hits such as ‘YMCA’ (1978), ‘Macho Man’ (1978), ‘In the Navy’ (1979), and ‘Go West’ (1980).

Their success only increased Jacques Morali’s reputation as a top disco producer and star maker.

*

Dennis Parker – Disco Star

I was intrigued by the decision to give Dennis a solo singing career. I wondered what Dennis thought of the idea. Was he just as excited by it, or did he go along with it because of Jacques’ ambition and exhilaration?

On the one hand, Dennis’ ex-boyfriend Skip had told me that Dennis always wanted to be a torch singer, and so this was an opportunity to be produced by one of the hottest disco producers in the land. Dennis did love performing and though this wasn’t acting on a theater stage, it was still about embodying a character.

But then there was another side to it: Dennis was a private person, happiest when doing carpentry, driving on his motorbike, and listening to his jazz records. How did he feel about making himself a more public figure?

And then there was the type of music Dennis would be singing. Tip Sanderson saw this contradiction too: “Dennis wasn’t a big pop or disco music fan,” Tip said. “So he had a few reservations about the idea of a solo dance music career. But Jacques was so enthusiastic that I guess Dennis was caught up in the excitement.”

Whatever doubts existed however, Dennis signed up and went along with Jacques’ vision of making him a disco star – and the first step was a significant one. These are the words of Skip St. James, Dennis’ former partner from the early 1970s: “I saw Dennis on and off after our relationship ended. I knew he’d been dating Jacques Morali. Then at one point, Dennis disappeared completely for a short while. When he re-appeared, he said he’d been in Philadelphia. I was struck by the change in his appearance. He had new teeth and a new nose! His old nose was a handsome Roman one, and when he came back he had a turned-up nose that he said was modeled after mine. I didn’t like his nose because I adored his old one. To be honest, I think he was better looking before the nose and teeth work.”

It was true, when Dennis started to be groomed by Jacques for disco stardom, his appearance changed noticeably: his cheekbones, nose, and chin were now leaner, sharper, and more pronounced than the way he looked in the films and the photo features. He looked great, just rather different than the adult film star, and completely different from the nerdy school kid in the pictures that his brother Richard had sent me.

The second change that Dennis made was that he stopped making X-rated films. Unlike many ex-adult film stars who leave the business and immediately disavow their sex film past, Dennis never did. The sex films were not something he ever regretted or denied. But his retirement from the adult business was the only sensible course of action if he was going to make a serious bid for stardom in mainstream America. It wasn’t a difficult choice: he was in his thirties, he’d already appeared in over 30 sex films, he didn’t need the money, and according to his friends he felt it was time for a change anyway. One of the last events of his sex movie career was that Screw magazine voted him ‘Man of the Year’ in 1978. Dennis got a kick out of that, and bought copies for all his friends.

So now Dennis looked the part, and had a superstar producer in Jacques in his corner, but what about the singing part of this career change. After all, his singing activity hadn’t consisted of much more than humming along to his jazz records, so recording a whole album was going to be a completely new experience for him.

One of the skeptics was Henri Belolo. Henri told me about the day he first learned of the idea: “Jacques said to me, ‘We’re going to make an album with Dennis.’ I told him, ‘But Jacques, we can’t. He’s not a singer!’ Jacques said, ‘I know. He’s an actor, but he’s good looking and believe me, we can make him a star. Trust me.’” Jacques’ argument was that they’d already turned several non-singers into the Village People – so why not Dennis? So together they agreed to produce an album for Dennis.

Not that Jacques went easy on Dennis: Henri told me that Jacques made Dennis work hard. He got Dennis to take singing lessons, practice night and day, and prepare intensively. And then in 1978, Jacques secured a record deal for Dennis with Casablanca Records, and so the record idea suddenly became real.

Henri and Jacques snapped into action and started to assemble a selection of songs. Henri described how they split the work: “Jacques and I had different roles,” he told me. “Jacques was the melodist. He was a magician with all the hooks and the melodies. I was the one that came up with the ideas for the lyrics. But my English was not too good at that time, so I started to write the song in French or in bad English and then I got help.” One of the people he turned to for lyrics for Dennis’ record was Steven Gaines, a journalist who’d just written an article about how the Village People had been formed. Gaines told me, “I wrote about how Jacques was selling the Village People like a sports team with different characters and personalities. And now, he was going on to ‘invent’ somebody else – and that was Dennis.”

Jacques loved the write-up, so he called Gaines up and suggested that he write the lyrics for Dennis’ album. Gaines recalled that a few days later, Jacques sent him click tracks to work with. The click tracks were just audio clicks to show the rhythm of the song… nothing else. But he gave it a shot, and came up with the lyrics for ‘Like an Eagle’.”

Gaines recalled Jacques’ reaction to that song: “When Jacques heard it, he said that the words were too complicated for people to listen to on a dance floor. I’d done a lot of work on them, and believe me, they weren’t that complicated! Jacques said he would work on them. He did – and in the end, the lyrics were as follows…: ‘Like an Eagle, Like an Eagle, Like an Eagle, Like an Eagle, Like an Eagle, always searching, always wanting, Like an Eagle.’ So, he certainly made them much less complicated…”

When the songs were ready, Jacques and Henri assembled many of the musicians that had played on their favorite records that came out of Philly, including the same rhythm section that featured on the Village People records. Also notable is that they decided to use synthesizers instead of strings, which was new for the time. When everything was ready they booked, where else?, the Sigma Sound studios – but not the original location in Philadelphia.

In 1977, a second Sigma Sound studio had opened in New York City. It was located in the Ed Sullivan Theater building – that’s the same building where David Letterman’s and Stephen Colbert’s Late Show is filmed each night. This studio was used by the Village People for their records, and would later be used by singers and groups like Madonna, the Talking Heads, Rick James, Aretha Franklin, the Ramones, Whitney Houston, Paul Simon and others.

The whole endeavor was now a big deal, and Dennis was at the heart of it all. How did he cope with the pressure, in that environment, in that recording studio? He was surrounded by professional musicians of the highest quality, used to recording with many of the great vocalists of the time. Was he overawed, out of his depth, and did he struggle? I contacted many of the musicians who recorded with Dennis to find out their memories of making the record.

Alfonso Carey was the first I spoke to. He was the bass player that played on all the Village People hits… from ‘YMCA’ to ‘Macho Man’ and the rest, as well as records by The Ritchie Family and Patti Labelle. In fact, he also wrote the song ‘Why Don’t You Boogie’ for Dennis which was included on the record.

Carey’s first memory was that he found Jacques flamboyant: “Jacques was very ‘out there,’ “Carey told me. “He would let you know in a minute that he was wonderful and gay. He brought Dennis into the studio, and Dennis was completely different. We thought he was cool, and much more chill than Jacques.” I asked Carey about Dennis’ vocal ability. He said that Dennis had talent, not like Victor Willis of the Village People with a voice that could really move you, but he was somebody who could hold a note and that he did all right.

Henri Belolo also remembered being impressed with Dennis: “Dennis voice was actually pretty good!” he told me. “We had to work around it at times, for example, Jacques sang certain passages at the same time as Dennis to augment Dennis’ vocals. So on ‘Like an Eagle’ when you hear the high voice sing just after the chorus, that’s mainly Jacques singing. We also used background singers to cover up some parts as well. But I have to say, honestly, Dennis did his part, and did a great singing job for someone who had no experience.”

Phil Hurtt was Dennis vocal coach and he also wrote two songs for Dennis’ album: ‘I’m A Dancer’ and ‘I Need Your Love’. Hurtt told me that when Dennis recorded the album, the musicians were actually not there most of the time. That was normal. They’d already recorded the basic tracks by then. So when Dennis was in the studio, he was just there with Jacques and Henri, the engineers, and Phil himself. “I was the only one actually in the recording booth with Dennis because I was teaching him the vocals. I stood alongside him until he got it. That was what I always did.” Phil Hurtt was keen to point out that Dennis had a better voice than you hear on the record. “I think he was misused,” Phil said. “I think if he had been working with a producer who knew how to produce different types of music then he would have done even better. He was a nice guy though. Quiet and polite.”

The other song that Gaines wrote for Dennis was ‘New York By Night.’

This is how Gaines remembers writing it: “I wanted to write something that was contemporary about New York, and so I included details like the hustlers on 53rd St.

Henri told me: “The lyrics of ‘New York By Night’ are fantastic. One of my favorite lines goes – ‘At Studio 54, they’re waiting at the door, Can’t get in, just can’t win.’ It captures the moment when we went to Studio 54 every night. We were in the middle of the disco revolution. It was crazy, my God, but so much life, so much happiness, so much enjoyment. We weren’t fighting a war, the economy wasn’t too bad, and people wanted to go out after Vietnam. They wanted to have a good time. Sex was starting to get liberated, the gays were starting to come out. Everything was exploding, it was a new generation, and of course they did not want to be the old generation that was pop or rock – they wanted to be disco. That’s what it was.”

Once again, Jacques said it was too complicated. He wanted me to dumb it down because he said that Dennis couldn’t sing so many words that quickly.”

But this time, Jacques was overruled, both by Dennis, who insisted that he could handle the words, and Henri Belolo – who loved the lyrics.

Whoever I spoke to, everyone always seemed to come back to Dennis’ personal qualities. He was gentle, kind, and considerate. Carla Bandini-Lory, the record’s Assistant Producer told me: “Dennis was a sweetheart, and he impressed everyone. He was a gentleman, he held open doors, never acted above the support staff – which many other people at that time did. He was a total pro. He listened, he took direction from Jacques, and he understood what was going on. Even so, he was always in Jacques’ shadow. Everyone was in Jacques’ shadow. Jacques was always the biggest personality in every room.”

Steven Gaines, the writer of ‘Like an Eagle’ and ‘New York By Night’, went to the studio and to watched them record his songs, and his memory was similar: “Dennis was very cool, and very low key. I don’t remember a big ego or personality thing about him at all. Jacques was a French queen, quite the opposite… a big flamboyant character. When Jacques was good, he was very, very good, but when he got mean, he was really horrid.”

Henri Belolo agreed, and admitted that sometimes Jacques would blow up. Henri said: “During the recording sessions, Jacques got upset and frustrated with Dennis. Jacques could be rude with him. I kept telling Jacques, ‘Relax. Dennis is not a professional singer. You must be patient with him, he’s doing his best. It was your idea to do this album with Dennis, so now you have to learn to work with him. The final result will be good.’ But what amazed me was that Dennis was very calm even when Jacques was angry. Dennis was always calm. I never saw him excited or shouting or mad. He was a pleasure.”

Henri was the Executive Producer for the record, so had overall creative control of the record, and he told me he was happy how it turned out. Neil Bogart, the head of Casablanca Records, liked it as well and was excited to release it. Dennis adopted the name ‘Dennis Parker’ to distance himself from Wade Nichols and his previous career as a sex film star.

The last step was a photo session of Dennis in New York at night for the record sleeve. Let’s spend a moment on that LP cover, as it’s magnificent. If you haven’t seen, try googling it. It features Dennis at his zenith, all cheekbones, moustache, a hint of a dimple in his sculpted chin, and casually tousled yet carefully curated shoulder-length hair, dressed in a denim shirt and a gray sports jacket. Somehow looking coy, mistrustful and confident at the same time. He knows a secret that he might just share with you… if you’re good to him, that is. I’d pick this picture for my mantelpiece over the Mona Lisa any day of the week.

So everything was in place, but how would the disco crowd react? After all, no one had even heard the record yet.

Steven Gaines remembers that, just before ‘Like an Eagle’ came out as a single, Jacques got a disc jockey to play it at a gay club called the Flamingo one night. The Flamingo was a calculated choice: the club had opened in 1974, and was New York’s first exclusively gay disco. It was located in an upstairs loft space on the second floor of a building at the corner of Houston and Broadway. The club was actually secret and had an unlisted telephone number because there was a constant fear of police raids. And it was exclusive too: members paid up to six hundred dollars a year for a membership. It was known for its wild parties, there were stories of a Crucifixion night with models dressed as Roman legionaries and a Jesus Christ who would, from time to time, turn his eyes heavenward and ascend a cross. This was the crowd that would be the first in the world to hear Dennis Parker.

Gaines, understandably, decided he wanted to see his song unveiled publicly for the first time – especially to this audience, so he went along with his lawyer. As he told me, “It was a big dance place, and an important place to launch a record. There were 1,500 gay guys with their shirts off, completely stoned on ethyl chloride. Then the song came on for the first time, and it was really, really thrilling.

“People didn’t know it obviously, and it starts with that whooshing sound before building up.

“I’ll never forget how exciting that moment was… it just really, really worked well… at least until my not-so-brilliant lyrics started. It got a great reaction, the crowd really loved it.”

When the song came to an end, the Flamingo club members demanded that it was played again. And then again, even chanting the title lyrics over and over.

For the second time in his life, quiet, unassuming Dennis had become a star again.

*

The post Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 2: Disco! – Podcast 153 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

This past week I phoned Paul Thomas, former adult performer and film director, also known as PT. I’m heading out to LA shortly and was calling to set up a date with him and his wife. Seeing the two of them when I’m out west is one of my favorite things. It starts sitting together in their backyard under the Los Angeles sun, catching up on what’s been happening since my last visit. Then strolling slowly through the Venice canals as PT pontificates on one thing or another and his wife and I roll our eyes at him, before we end up at a local restaurant lingering over a meal and drinks.

PT’s wife picked up his phone. I said I was calling to make a date with them. She told me she’d found PT dead in their home a few hours earlier. She spoke with disbelief. PT had endured a few health challenges in recent years and apparently had been feeling ill over the past few days, but nobody saw this coming. On the contrary, he’d recently suggested to me that we all take a biking holiday together in the south of France.

PT’s wife said she couldn’t believe she’d never get to speak with him again. I feel the same way. PT and I had a playful relationship from the very start. While some found PT’s arrogance to be a flaw in his character, I always found it endearing – a feature, not a bug. And not because I enjoy egotism – humility is one of my favorite traits. But because with PT, you could put a pin in his balloon of self-importance and it would fast deflate, leaving us both laughing.

I last texted PT a few weeks ago to ask him what he remembered about a director of one of the old adult films he’d acted in. PT wrote back that the director was short and fat and could be overly prescriptive in choreographing the sex scenes. Then he countered saying actually the man was tall and skinny and that he left the performers to direct the scene themselves. Either way, he said, it was too early in the day to be sure, and that he was too sober to think properly about these questions. He wrote, “You know me well enough to know that I’d like to make up all sorts of shit right now because it would make good copy, but I know you don’t want me to stray too far from facts.”

He closed the text saying “We have much to talk about. I’ll leave the light on for you when you next come to California.”

He was one of the true originals: a talented performer, adult film director, husband, father, and my friend. I’m April Hall, and this is a reprise of my interview with PT. 

Please leave the light on for when we meet again.

This podcast is 169 minutes long.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas, or PT as he’s typically known, is one of the iconic names of the adult film industry.

He was born Philip Toubus, and started out as a porn performer for the Mitchell Brothers in mid-1970s San Francisco. Until the last few years, was still in the business as a director.

During the past four decades, PT won every kind of adult award – from Best Actor to Best Director, and was inducted into every Hall of Fame the sex film industry has ever invented.

But there are two aspects to PT’s background that make his presence and success in adult film even more interesting.

First he came from a wealthy family – one that owned household-name businesses like Sara Lee and Jim Beam – and he was brought up in relative luxury.

And secondly, by the time PT started his career in sex films in his mid 20s, he’d already achieved considerable success and fame on stage in musical theater. He’d starred on Broadway in Hair and played the role of Peter in the 1973 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. In fact, he was being groomed by the William Morris Agency in Hollywood for a big career in mainstream television and movies.

So with all the money and success, what motivated PT to move into the newly formed adult industry – a business frowned upon by much of mainstream society, not to mention full of legal and reputational risks for its participants?

It all comes down to a series of questions: Why? Why did he do it, when he had so many alternatives? Why did he stay in the business for so long? And what effect has it had on him? These questions have stayed with PT to this day.

I’ve known PT for years, and we’ve talked about doing an interview for almost as long as I’ve known him. We actually started once, but after over five hours of conversation, we realized that we hadn’t even reached the time he’d started school, so we scrapped the idea.

Recently though we decided to try again, and this time I got PT to agree to a strict format. I would pick ten areas of his life that have shaped him. Ten provocations – in keeping with the biblical theme of his most famous role in Jesus Christ Superstar. I would ask him whatever I liked about these subjects – and nothing would be off the table. We’d cover adult films, both as an actor and as a director, his troubled relationships, his experiences with drugs, his multiple times in jail, and much, much more.

And we’d finally see if we could get closer to answering the question that has plagued PT for so long: why the hell did he go into, and stay in, the adult film industry?

This is the first time PT has told his story. These are the ten provocations of PT.

*

Paul Thomas in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

Paul Thomas in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

PT and April Hall

*

The post R.I.P. Paul Thomas (1949 – 2025) – Podcast Reprise appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Years ago, I first saw the 1970s adult film Barbara Broadcast (1977) on the big screen, and it made a big impression.

In the film, there’s a scene which shows a man standing behind an industrial kitchen worktable, a shirtless, mustached piece of beefcake that was Wade Nichols. Rugged yet pretty. Lean, toned, and handsome. He looked like the Marlboro man from the distant plains, if that cowboy had inexplicably turned up in New York and started moonlighting as a Manhattan sous-chef. He had the appearance of a man in love, or a rather a man in lust, most likely with himself. He was the perfect embodiment of the era, that made you wonder if you were to look up ‘1970s America’ in the dictionary, there could well be a picture of Wade Nichols there.

I immediately wanted to know more.

It turned out he’d been a prolific actor in many adult films over a four-year period in the late 1970s, much loved and much missed. Slowly over the years, I found other details, but often they were in the form of conflicting rumors.

Though he’d been the leading man in many straight sex films, he was supposedly gay, or maybe bisexual? Some remembered him better as the lead actor of a popular TV soap opera, while others said he was a big disco recording star who’d come close to being one of the original Village People. And then there was the question of how he’d died: it had been reported that he shot himself in 1985, but others insisted he was a victim of AIDS.

I was hooked on finding more. But because it was before the internet age, I had no way of finding out much about him. So, years ago, I started to track down anyone who had known him, from his family, to acquaintances from the New York club, bar, and disco scene, adult film actors and directors, music and television industry friends, and many more, to try and find who he really was. I ended up writing an article for The Rialto Report with the information I learned. But my interest didn’t end then, and I continued to track down, reach out, and contact anyone with memories of him.

This is Wade Nichols’ story –  in podcast form.

This podcast is 50 minutes long.

———————————————————————————————————–

Why is that so many of the movies we first saw as teenagers remain important and enduring to us for the rest of our lives? Same thing for the music and books that we discovered back then. And, why does it become rarer that we have that same deep connection to films we discover as we grow older?

Psychologists have suggested it’s because our teen years coincide with the period referred to as “the emergence of the stable and enduring self.” Basically, the thinking is that this period, occurring between the ages of 12 and 22, is the time when you become you. As a result, the experiences that contribute to this process become uncommonly, and disproportionately, important to you throughout the rest of your life. This is because they didn’t just contribute to the development of your self-image; they are part of your self-image. In other words, these experiences and memories become an integral part of your sense of self.

Ok, ok, so much for the theory, but what does that have to do with the life of an adult film actor who died 40 years ago?

The answer is that today’s story is personal. Well, all the stories that I cover are personal in some way, but this one is perhaps even more so than the rest.

When I first saw the 1977 adult film ‘Barbara Broadcast’ as a teenager, I knew nothing about the male lead, Wade Nichols, but he made an impression on my teenage self. I know, I shouldn’t have been in the porn theater in the first place. Wholly inappropriate, too young, etc. and so on. I get it. But I was there, and I watched it. And I liked the film. And yes, just like some of the other films I discovered then, it stayed with me in a strangely meaningful way. It’s part of the reason I wanted to find and tell the stories that I share on The Rialto Report, I think.

It became part of understanding that moment as a teen when I sat wide-eyed in a theater. Perhaps part of the memory that had created that sense of self all those years ago.

*

1. Freeport, NY (1950s):

The first information to know is that ‘Wade Nichols’ was really a fictional character, existing only for the sex film screen. Wade’s real name was Dennis Posa. He was of Italian heritage – a fact that he was proud of. I found out that Dennis’ father originally came from Casamassima, a small town in southern Italy. That was the first surprise to me in this story, because the summer before I saw ‘Barbara Broadcast’ all those years ago, I’d actually visited Casamassima as a young boy. I remember it being a tiny, picturesque place, notable mainly because it was called ‘The Blue Town’. That name dated back to the 1600s when a ship arrived in the nearby port of Bari bringing sailors who’d all been infected with the plague. They came ashore, and all hell broke loose. In a short time over 20,000 locals had died in the epidemic. In response, the most powerful Duke in the town ordered all of the buildings, monuments, and churches to be painted with quicklime mixed with sulphate copper. These chemicals slowed the spread of the plague from infected corpses by accelerating the decomposition of the bodies and thereby reducing the bacteria – and these chemicals were bright blue in color, meaning that the town literally turned blue overnight. It was a story that Dennis would tell over the years – joking that it was ironic that one of the biggest stars of blue movies had, in effect, come from the Blue Town.

After moving to America, Dennis’ father grew up in an Italian neighborhood of the Bronx. He was a popular kid and a small-time rogue, and he ran around with a bunch of minor league hoodlums and gamblers, getting in and out of trouble all the time. He hung out in jazz clubs where his friend, the noted jazz musician Johnny Guarnieri, headlined on piano with his band. Dennis’ mother was dating Johnny’s bass player, but when she met Dennis’ father, it was love at first sight – or something like that. They hooked up and got hitched the following year. Dennis’ father was 26, his mother was 20.

Once he was married, Dennis’ father felt he had to go straight, so the newlywed couple did the sensible thing and moved out to the commuter town of Freeport, NY, thirty miles east of Manhattan, on the south shore of Long Island. They rented an apartment, and his father got a job as a florist, while his mother worked in the children’s section of the local library.  And there they started a family – two boys, Richard and then Dennis, who was born in 1946.

A quick word about Freeport: it was a great place be in the summer, a popular and vibrant spot where people from Manhattan flocked to vacation, but the rest of the year, it was a little different – an anonymous, depressed, forgotten, and empty place – which made it pretty grim for residents.

I tracked down Dennis’ brother, Richard. Richard is a quiet-spoken friendly man, with a bemused but huge affection for his younger brother, and he was happy to share memories of their childhood. He fondly remembered their first years which he described as happy and good. Their father was a good-looking man and he was initially caring towards the boys. After a while though, something snapped: overnight, he seemed to lose interest in the family, and started to disappear for weeks at a time. When he returned, he’d fight with his wife – and sometimes get verbally abusive to the boys too.

It transpired that a big part of his problem was his gambling, and he regularly squandered the money that was meant for the family’s food. Richard remembered that Friday was the weekly food shop day, but often his father would just take the money and not return home. When this happened, it was usually because he’d fallen behind with bookies, and needed the cash to settle his debts.

On one occasion, the family found out that the bookies were threatening to break his legs if he didn’t pay up… so they helped him out and covered the debt for him. But he never paid them back, so the family joked that next time, they were going to be the ones breaking his legs.

Richard remembers that it all seems amusing now, but at the time, it had a destabilizing effect on them. It wasn’t a happy childhood any more, he said, and at times, home life became pretty uncomfortable. Dennis was the more daring of the two, and one time he decided he was going to go through their father’s affairs – where he found $8,000 worth of racing stubs. Bear in mind, in those days their father’s annual salary was only $5,000 a year, so this was a huge amount to be betting. Dennis wanted to confront him, and the brothers discussed it but, in the end, decided against the idea.

The boys weren’t the only ones suffering: the family problems took a toll on the boys’ mother as well. Just when the boys needed her the most, she became agoraphobic and withdrawn, afraid of leaving the apartment.

As a result of all this, neither boy were close to either parent, and initially, they weren’t particularly close to each other either. For a start, the two brothers were very different. Richard was studious, into reading, mathematics, and school work. Dennis liked artistic pursuits, preferring to draw, paint pictures, and make things, developing an interest in carpentry. But physically, there was no getting away from each other. The family apartment was small, and they shared a tiny room throughout their childhood years.

What they did have in common was a passion for their pets, and as kids they always had dogs and cats. Both boys were also keen members of the rifle team in High School – though their love for animals meant they had no interest in hunting.

While I was getting a sense of Dennis, I wanted to understand what he was like as a boy. What was his character like, I asked Richard? Did he have friends, and was he popular? Richard remembered that Dennis was initially quiet socially, but went through a sudden change when he was 13 or 14 – coincidentally when he had his tonsils taken out. Overnight, Dennis came out of his shell, becoming more energetic and outgoing, even something of an extrovert sometimes.

One aspect of Dennis didn’t change however – and that was his taste in music which stayed with him throughout his life. For a kid who came of age during the 1960s, at the tail end of rock n’ roll and amid the onset of Beatlemania, Dennis’s interest was unusual. He inherited his parent’s musical passion – which meant jazz, from traditional forms like Louis Armstrong to newer artists like Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck. “He would spend hours with his head next to the gramophone listening to jazz records,” one school friend remembered.

I asked Richard if he still had any pictures of Dennis from his teen years, and Richard sent me a selection. I was taken aback by what I saw. I was used to seeing Dennis from his adult films, looking sexual and virile, or from his music career where he embodied confident disco chic, or from his time in soap operas where he projected control and confidence. But these teenage black and white pictures were from a different period entirely, and showed someone I didn’t recognize. A geeky teenager with a crew cut, cross-eyed with unfashionable eye glasses, half-smiling self-consciously.

Later, I came across an interview that Dennis gave where he admitted as much: “I wasn’t very attractive as a young kid,” he said. “I was a loner so it was tough.”

I asked Richard about whether Dennis dated. Richard replied: “He didn’t date in High School, but I didn’t think much about it either. It just wasn’t something that we talked about. I do remember he used to look at the pictures of women in Playboy magazines – but that seemed normal… all of the boys did that. I certainly didn’t get a sense that Dennis’ sexuality was different from the rest of the boys.”

And so a geeky jazz-loving, animal-adoring, and gun-collecting Dennis graduated high school in 1964, an initially quiet then outgoing kid, who’d had a difficult home life. His last year book entry read, “Clever, quiet, and profound, Dennis will spread much goodwill abroad as a member of the Peace Corps.”

*

2. Philadelphia (Late 1960s)

Dennis didn’t seem to have a rebellious streak, but he did have a good number of reasons to leave home and start his own life with his own identity. Whatever plans he may have had to join the Peace Corps were abandoned in favor of heading a couple of hours south to Philadelphia to the city’s College of Art where he enrolled in a degree course studying pottery and design. I tracked down several college friends, and they told me that he was a happy and popular member of their circle. Some remembered he dated a couple of girls, taking one of them back to Freeport to meet the family. I was intrigued, and so pressed them on this, but none of them remember much more about his sexuality.

It was while he was a student in Philadelphia, that Dennis became interested in acting. In a later interview, Dennis said it started with a friend who had worked on the Beatles’ films. This person was making an avant-garde, short film called ‘For One Only’, and he wanted Dennis for the lead role. The film was made though apparently never released, but it was a turning point, and Dennis became hooked on acting after that. He started auditioning, one early success being for a 1966 traveling production of Euripides’ ‘The Trojan Women’.

After a couple of years in college in Philly, Dennis dropped out. Friends of his still disagree as to why: some say that it was money issues, others say that he wanted to pursue acting in a more concerted manner. Whatever the reason, over the next couple of years, Dennis appeared in a number of low budget theatrical productions in the area, while sustaining himself by picking up carpentry or construction work. It was the start of the typical life of a struggling actor.

But what of his future adult film career which was still almost ten years away? Were there any signs, any clues as to what was in his future? A few friends recall that when he was short of money, Dennis did nude modeling nude for still-life art classes at the college. I also found an interview where he later claimed that he appeared in a few ‘nudie-cutie loops’ while in Philadelphia. In this interview, Dennis said: “Some guy named Edwards got me into them – for money – good money in those days. I got $60. It was fine. Art students are notoriously poor. They were the old morality stag films… black socks, boxer shorts… but that was not really porno then. A lot of time we just stood and bounced around. There was very little story, no sound, and they were sold under the counter.” It’s a possible story, I suppose, but it seems unlikely given there is little other evidence and we’re talking about 1966 in Philadelphia. Certainly none have ever come to light.

But it was during this period that Dennis told the first of his friends that he thought he was gay. The female friends I spoke to weren’t surprised – though a few of them expressed disappointment: “He was such a gentle, sweet man,” one them, called Sylvia, said. “A lot of us had a secret crush on him, but deep down we always wondered.”

Dennis came out to his mother and father on one of his trips home to Freeport. This is how his brother Richard remembers the occasion: “In 1968, Dennis told our parents about his sexuality. He didn’t tell me at the time – I learned about it from a cousin. I don’t know much about these things, but my impression was that Dennis was bi-sexual.”

I asked Richard how his parents took the news. “Not that well,” he said. “My mother was squeamish about sex anyway, so she didn’t talk about it with anyone. As for my father, he told other people that he was heartbroken. That was difficult for Dennis. So I guess it was difficult for all of them.”

Not long after this, Dennis’ father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He’d been a heavy smoker all his life, and by the time he was in his 40s, he had emphysema and was in bad physical shape. When he became sick, it hit Dennis hard, and he started going back to Freeport every week to see him. His father died shortly afterwards in his mid-50s.

*

3. Move to New York

In 1968, Dennis moved to New York. He took an apartment at 25 East 38th St, which he’d keep for the rest of his life. It was a fifth-floor walk-up, a small rent-controlled place, and he paid $75 a month. It was basically a studio with a skylight and a tiny kitchen. There was a bedroom but Dennis used that as his art studio, and he slept on a pull-out sofa in the main room. It was an old building – when he took up the floorboards to lay down new flooring, he found newspapers that dated back to World War One. It was cramped, but Dennis loved it and was proud of his new space.

Most of all Dennis loved New York – and was in awe of the opportunities it provided. He got into motorcycles, got one of his own, and went everywhere on it… no distance was too short or too long.

But his main priority was to see if he could make it as an actor so he set about auditioning for theater parts. Some of his friends commented that he had talent, but all were in agreement that his temperament was not suited to constant auditions. He hated learning a scene, schlepping across town, delivering it to a group of supercilious theater execs, and then never hearing from them again. One friend commented that he thought Dennis lacked the resilient temperament needed to be a successful actor: “He was a gentle soul, a little vulnerable, and he was easily bruised by setbacks,” he said.

Nevertheless, Dennis persisted, and in 1969, Dennis replied to an ad in the Village Voice for an off-off Broadway play called ‘The Sound of a Different Drummer’ that was looking for actors to take part in ‘a counter-culture experience’. The heading read: “Do you Dig Being Naked in the World? Love Boys Love Girls? Participate in the Ultimate EMBRACE! Get Bread for Doing Your Thing in Our HIT SHOW”. Dennis auditioned and got the part. He claimed later that at first, he had no idea what it was all about and was attracted simply because it was a regular, paid acting gig. This was the era of sexually frank musicals like ‘Hair’ and ‘Oh Calcutta,’ and Dennis embraced the new environment enthusiastically. He appeared in it for several months, but then disaster struck: one night he collapsed onstage and was rushed to hospital with acute appendicitis. This health incident, though not life-threatening, would have a lasting impact on Dennis’ acting career. I spoke to Jon Bletz, a friend of Dennis, who remembered: “It took Dennis some time to recover physically from that, but when he returned to the theater, his part in the play had been given to someone else. Dennis was really upset and discouraged, and so he decided to jack in the whole acting thing. He was already pissed by how much you had to struggle for acting jobs… with little guarantee you were going to get anywhere.”

So Dennis gave up on his thespian dream, and decided it was time to get a full-time 9-5 job. He was hired by Jiffy Simplicity, a company that made dress-making patterns for women.

But the change in his employment wasn’t the only change in Dennis’ life. According to Dennis’ friend, Jon Bletz, after the disappointment of trying to be an actor, for a time, Dennis seemed to become more jaded and cynical. He responded by hitting the New York gay bar scene hard. As Jon expressed it, “It was like “nothing is gonna get in my way now.””

His first favorite bar was The Eagle’s Nest on 22nd St down by the West Side Highway, and Dennis would head over there every night on his motorcycle. The Eagle’s Nest was one of the legendary gay clubs in New York. It had been a longshoreman’s tavern that opened in 1931, but, prompted by the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the sudden growth of the city’s gay culture, the tavern’s owners painted the walls black and converted it into a gay bar in 1970. Not just any gay bar either: The Eagle’s Nest became the most popular gathering point for the leather-clad S&M crowd and biker groups, eventually spawning copycat clubs across the country.

Dennis’ friend, Mark Martinez, remembered the scene well: “The Eagle’s Nest was the best leather bar,” he recalled. “It was isolated in a quiet, dark area by the water, and it reeked of menace and thrill. The place itself was hot and sweaty and exciting. Dennis was there all the time, and I hung with him. He was a beautiful man, and sexually voracious. It was difficult not to love him.”

Another friend, Errol Jones, also remembers Dennis in this period. “For years, I ran into Dennis all over town. He seemed to be at every gay club,” he laughed. “You couldn’t miss him. For a start, he was good looking. And secondly, he was… well… willing and enthusiastic.”

During this time, Dennis also had his first steady male partner. In early 1969, he’d met Skip St James. Dennis was 26 at the time, Skip was in his early 20s. Skip remembers first seeing Dennis in different bars, and he’d just stand there and stare, finding Dennis absolutely beautiful. Skip says that Dennis chased him around for a year or so, but Skip was always with somebody else. And then one day, they finally hooked up, became a couple, and were together for the next four years.

Skip moved into Dennis’ tiny studio apartment on East 38th St – and Skip remembered they weren’t the only people who enjoyed the space… “I remember every Wednesday afternoon, he’d give his apartment to this woman who was married,” he said. “I think she was someone he worked with at Simplicity. Anyway, every week, she’d go there and have sex with her boyfriend. Obviously, we’d have to make ourselves scarce for a couple of hours. But that just seemed very New York back then.”

For the first time, Dennis was in a steady relationship and living with his partner. But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the New York night life – as Skip remembers: “Dennis was very sexual. All the time. Sex was number one for him, and always on his mind.”

Not just that, but friends remember that Dennis was always focused on his physical appearance. Skip recalls: “I remember wearing tackaberry buckles. Dennis insisted on wearing them, and he bought me one. He showed me how you’d hang your keys from left to right. I was new to all this. He was a showman more than anything else.”

Needless to say, their relationship was not exclusive. As Skip remembers, “Dennis insisted it wasn’t exclusive. We had space for other relationships – either individually or together.  He was very into three-ways, orgies, and cruising, and he loved leather bars. He liked to watch too. As far as sex would go, he was not a top. He was a bottom. In fact, his big thing was being on the receiving end – and getting fist-fucked.”

This being the early 1970s, safe sex, well… it wasn’t really a thing. As Mark Martinez says: “Needless to say, Dennis didn’t use condoms. None of us did. Why would you? We expected to live forever.”

Skip confirms this: “Dennis was never safe with sex at all. Once we went to Puerto Rico, and we went to the old part of town where there were all these shacks. I forget what the place is called. It’s supposed to be dangerous. We walked down there. I remember him screwing this Puerto Rican kid in broad daylight.”

Another of Dennis favorite hang-outs was ‘The Barn’, a popular gay bar in the Village at 216 Waverly Place. The Barn was a hub that attracted a large crowd – and it had the added attraction of having back rooms. Skip still remembers ‘The Barn’ scene well: “We’d often go back there, always looking for a three-way.”

Errol Jones again: “I remember seeing him come out from the restrooms in one place that was renowned for glory holes. So I approached him, and he was friendly. I suggested we go back to my place, but he gestured for me to join him in the back of this club. It was an area I rarely went because it was so dark. But he led me back there, and… well, it’s a happy memory.”

For Dennis, it seemed that the only way to get rid of temptation was to yield to it.

*

What I found interesting about Dennis’ early life was the transformation from a quiet, reserved kid on Long Island, happy in his own company and interested in painting and carpentry, to the outgoing, sexually-liberated party guy in Manhattan. But the real paradox with Dennis was that by day, his New York life was still straight and unassuming. Though most of his friends were people from the bar and club scene, everyone else I spoke to was keen to emphasize his gentleness and kindness, and his love of animals.

He still worked as an artist at Simplicity Pattern Company on Madison Avenue, just around the corner from the apartment: it seemed ironic to me that this regular in S&M gay bars spent his days drawing dress patterns for the American housewife. Skip remembers that Dennis was taking his carpentry seriously too, building wall to wall bookshelves and cabinets for their apartment, and spent time drawing with charcoals and painting with oils.

And when he wasn’t trawling the bars – without or without Skip – Dennis could be found at any of New York’s jazz clubs. The 1970s was a vibrant period for jazz in the city, with several legendary venues like Village Vanguard, Birdland, and Blue Note hosting many of the greats in their autumn years as well as new emerging artists. Dennis was a jazz fan boy, always hanging around the stage doors after the shows so that he could meet his idols. His large collection of vintage 78s was growing – his preference was 1920s jazz – and he idolized Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan. He told Skip that he his secret dream was to be a torch singer.

He started collecting antique firearms – particularly black powder guns, which had been the primary type of firearm for centuries before the development of smokeless powder and cartridge-based guns, and flintlock firearms. He became a registered gun owner and kept his collection in a cabinet in his apartment that he built.

Dennis life seemed to be hedonistic and happy, but in the back of his mind, he had unfinished business. He still had the acting bug, and hadn’t completely given up on the idea of performing one day. Sure, he got the occasional part in no-budget off-off Broadway plays, but friends remember that it was generally unsatisfying to him.

From time to time picked up the occasional modeling job, and one such gig was for a popular local gay magazine called ‘Michael’s Thing’ which was a pocket guide to entertainment around town. Ads for bath houses, porn theaters, escorts, and lots of sex… that sort of thing. Dennis appeared in a pictorial on his motorcycle on a bridge over the pool at the Ice Palace at Cherry Grove on Fire Island. His circle of friends loved the mock serious-looking poses, and Dennis took their affectionate ribbing in good humor.

The modeling may seem to be a small part of his life, but according to his friends, it was a little more important to Dennis. And that was because Dennis took his looks very seriously. One friend compared him to Oscar Wilde’s character, Dorian Gray, saying, “We all care what we look like, but Dennis took it to another level. He was obsessed with his appearance and freaked out about getting old.” As Oscar Wilde wrote: “Youth is the only thing worth having.”

Skip agreed, saying, “Dennis’ looks meant everything to him. He had a good body. He was just naturally trim, not muscular by any means. He was Italian so he was hairy. I never even knew until late in our relationship that he used to meticulously trim all his chest hair down. In short, he was insecure, and he could be self-absorbed. I don’t mean that he was shallow. He wasn’t by any means, but he took great care of his appearance, and he could be vain.”

Another friend from the early days, Jon Bletz, remembered, “Dennis never met a mirror that he didn’t like. He was always stopping to look at himself, and ask whether his cheekbones were sharp or if his nose was elegant enough. It was as if he feared that he’d be loved less, or worse still, ignored, if he were to let himself go – so he became obsessive about his looks.”

In 1973, Dennis and Skip split. “We had a good time, but most things come to an end, right?” is how Skip remembers it. “In some ways, I consider him the love of my life, even now.”

Part of the reason for the break up was that Dennis had started a relationship with Joey Alan Phipps. Joey was an aspiring actor and sometime model for gay photo layouts, and was 11 years younger than Dennis.

I found pictures of Joey and was struck by his youthful appearance. Even when he was older, he looked like a perennial teenager, the sort of cheeky, smiling kid you’d see on the Partridge Family TV show.

According to Skip, Joey was a roommate of one their best friends: “Joey was a cute kid, and Dennis’ preference was blond Twinkies,” Skip said. “He did date a young black guy once for a short time, but mainly it was blonde Twinkies. I was a blonde Twinkie. Joey was a blonde Twink.”

Dennis’ friend Mark Martinez remembers the time well: “Dennis was head over heels about Joey,” he recalls. “At first, we all figured it was just a physical thing, but pretty soon, Skip moved out and Joey moved in, and he and Dennis became inseparable.”

*

4. Adult Films

In 1974, Dennis decided to quit his day job in the Simplicity office. He was intent on making his living through his carpentry. Friends remember how he was proud of the idea of making a living simply by using his hands. There was something primordial about it, he said. He placed ads in local newspapers and picked up a series of freelance jobs making cabinets, beds, or tables for people furnishing their Manhattan apartments. It wasn’t a huge amount of income, but he was doing what he loved and everyone I spoke to remembers that he seemed genuinely happy.

In reality though, Dennis had two other sources of income – and these were two activities that he kept quiet about.

The first of these was that he’d started posing for photo sets for gay-oriented companies like Target Studio. A few years ago, I tracked down Jim French, an artist, photographer, and publisher, who’s best known for his alter ego, Rip Colt, and his association with Colt Studio that he founded in 1967 which he turned into one of the most successful gay porn companies in the country. Jim also had a sideline painting portraits that were used as album art for Columbia Records, for singers like Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, and Johnny Mathis – and over the years, Dennis had seen Jim at jazz clubs around town, but it wasn’t until he turned up at Jim’s offices to try out for some modeling work that he realized who Jim was.

The audition was a success: Jim was taken by Dennis and offered him work immediately. Jim was older than Dennis – there was a 14 year age difference between them – but their similar interests – jazz, art, design – meant they quickly became friends. Jim told me that they also bonded because he too had worked as an illustrator and artist on Madison Avenue, just like Dennis, except that it’d been a few years earlier and Jim had designed textiles not dress patterns.

Jim remembered: “Dennis was one of my favorite models from the time. Always willing, professional, and easy to work with… and he had a great look. It was easy to take great pictures of him.”

Jim also remembered that Dennis had another way of earning money too: “It was an open secret that Dennis ran a personal ad in the Village Voice,” he said. “I’m not sure of exactly what the ad was for – but it was for services that were sexual in nature.”

The story that Dennis was a sex worker – or more specifically, an escort or prostitute – is something that various people I spoke to remembered. Carter Stevens, an adult film director, who later became close to Dennis, said that he’d described himself as a ‘call-boy’ before he got into films. Jamie Gillis, the adult film actor went further: “He was fag hooker,” laughed Jamie. “He told me plenty of stories about fucking aging queens on the Upper East Side.” And Dennis’ old friend, Mark Martinez, remembers running into Dennis coming out of a restaurant one day with a distinguished older man on his arm – and studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone who might know him. Dennis later told him that the man was a “client” who was “very generous” to him. Then again, several other friends I spoke to insist that Dennis also had clients that were female. Dennis would just joke that it was no big deal, just regular ‘Midnight Cowboy’ kinda work, he said.

In 1975, Dennis appeared in his first adult film, a gay porn movie by the director David Durston called ‘Boy ‘Napped’. For this movie, Dennis adopted the name Wade Nichols, created from his middle name and his father’s first name.

Durston was one of the first people I spoke to about Dennis, and he still remembered him fondly, describing him as a gift to porn films, being great looking and having an incredible body that looked like he worked out every day – even though Dennis’ brother Richard insists that Dennis never really did any sports.

Dennis’ co-star on the film was Jamie Gillis, who was a veteran in the business even back then. Jamie remembered his own beginnings as a period when he’d had performance difficulties, so he was surprised when this newcomer was seemingly so at home on a sex film set: “Dennis told me it was his first experience,” Jamie said. “And it’s not a natural environment. But he was very relaxed. I remember thinking how natural he looked around the other guys in sexual situations. I thought, Here’s a guy who’s not a stranger to having sex in front of an audience… Dennis could perform sexually, and act well.”

It seems that at first Dennis just considered Boy-napped to be just a quick way to make some extra cash, but it was a success and he enjoyed it. He figured this could be an opportunity to make some more money with other films, and perhaps establish his own carpentry studio where he could make custom furniture.

He found the first adult film parts through an agent called Dorothy Palmer, a tough old broad, straight out of central casting, who operated out of a small, cluttered office near the theater district. Dorothy was notorious for not telling her actors that a role being offered was in a pornographic film, instead leaving it for them to find out for themselves when they turned up on set and find they were expected to do a little more than just recite lines. This left a lot of actors with red faces and indignant reactions. That clearly wasn’t a problem for Dennis, and his acting ability, good looks, and sexual reliability quickly made him a hot commodity – and he was soon appearing in films such as Jailbait and Virgin Dreams.

One early admirer was aspiring actor/director David Davidson, who fell for Dennis – much to the annoyance of David’s beard girlfriend, Erica Eaton. Davidson cast Dennis in two of his films, Summer of Laura and Call Me Angel, Sir, in the hope that it would win him favors with the newcomer. The problem was that Erica was also the producer of both films and she wasn’t impressed, which made the shoot of both movies rather problematic. Dennis, calm and unruffled as always, was amused by the love triangle, and enjoyed David’s favors on the side when Erica was away.

Looking at Dennis in these early films is like looking at early silent films, in that directors hadn’t accounted for the fact that he could really act and so typically used him as a physical stereotype. But even so, Dennis shines – smoldering intensity, an immaculate porno ‘stache, and pronounced Fire Island tan-lines.

The men’s magazines sat up and took notice, eager to profile the new star, and wrote breathlessly about visiting him in his beloved midtown apartment.

This from Rustler: “Wade Nichols is special. The handsomest and most talented of this breed of super-men. Perhaps he is the last of the true matinee idols. Right now, he is content, building furniture, traveling and making erotic films. The Clark Gable of Porn was hanging a chandelier when we visited his hand-built (decorated, at least) Manhattan apartment.”

Or how about this from Skin Biz: “Young, energetic, good-looking and bold. He comes to the door wearing a tight work shirt and faded blue jeans with a navy-blue handkerchief flapping from his back left pocket. His Manhattan apartment in a 5-storied brownstone is eclectically hip. The flavor is rustic, offset by a burning wood fireplace, beautifully shuttered windows and cabinets which he made himself. A motorcycle helmet, sitting on the floor, accompanies his Honda 550 garaged down the street. His telephone rings nonstop until he finally hooks it to his answering machine. His name is Wade Nichols, one of today’s swinging 32-year-old bachelors, but with one exception. While most men only dream about their sexual fantasies, this man indulges in them… on screen.”

Dennis was fast becoming a star in straight porn films, which raises the question that is perhaps discussed more than any other when it comes to Dennis – and that is his sexual orientation.

Everything that I had heard about him from friends and contacts – at least since his school days – was that he was exclusively interested in men, and had an active, varied, not to mention voracious sex life on the New York gay scene. Yet when it came to sex work – and this goes for the adult films and his escorting – people who knew him remember that he didn’t seem to have a preference between men or women. Many described him as simply being a gay man who was so sexual that he could perform with anyone. But occasionally, I did speak to someone who disagreed – and one of those was Jim French, the photographer at Colt and Target. “Dennis was this rare phenomenon,” Jim said, “in that he appealed to women just as much as he appealed to men. I always thought he was bi-sexual.”

Fellow actor Jamie Gillis was impressed: “I knew he could act, but I was still surprised to see that he started turning up in straight films after Boy-napped. I figured that he was a guy who wasn’t interested in having sex with women… but he was just as natural in the straight films too.”

Perhaps the most surprised person was Skip, Dennis’ previous partner from the early 1970s: “When I found out that he was making adult films, I was surprised,” Skip remembered. “Not surprised that he was doing porn, but that he was making straight porn… he never had relationships with women. He wasn’t bisexual in any way.”

And then the sex magazines started to come across his gay films and his photo spreads for Target Studio, and they asked him about his orientation. Dennis was smart enough to know that future work as a hetero porn star probably depended on him taking a firm position, so he went out of his way in interviews to deny that there was anything to it: “I’m NOT by nature a guy who fucks guys,” he insisted. “I’m embarrassed by it. I only did it because I got five hundred bucks for two days work.”

By 1977, Dennis adult film career was in full swing, and he was appearing in movies by the more notable New York directors such as Gerard Damiano, Radley Metzger, Carter Stevens, and the Amero brothers.

As his star rose, something else was happening: Dennis’ mainstream acting aspirations seemed to be receding. Perhaps it was because his acting itch was being scratched, but it was unusual: the mythical cross-over from X-rated to regular films was the holy grail to most of the actors in porn. Even today, when I speak to the pioneers from the early years, they still talk about the forlorn hopes they once had that their sex film success might pave the way into a successful TV or feature film career.

Dennis appeared to be different. In interviews, he insisted that he was content making porn, and had no desire to do anything else: “I have no pretensions of becoming a star,” he said. “I already tried legitimate acting and wasn’t making any money. Acting is a tough business. You can spend your whole life going to every casting call and only wind up with small character parts or walk-ons when you’re 80 years old. As an actor in these adult films, I do my best making them good. I’m serious about my work, but not about myself where I believe I’m going to be a star.”

I asked his friends about whether this was true and most agreed, saying that one of the reasons for this was that Dennis was always a person who valued his privacy. He liked that that he was able to be a genuine star in the X-rated world, yet remain unknown outside of it at the same time. The adult film industry at the time was a strange beast: on the one hand, it had its own star system, awards, and media, and you could be idolized and admired in that world. Yet outside of that, it was also relatively anonymous – which was exactly what Dennis wanted.

From speaking to the various people that Dennis knew in the 1970s, it was clear that Dennis liked to compartmentalize the different parts of his life. He had his family, then there were the adult filmmakers and actors, the gay bar and club scene, his music friends in jazz clubs, the antique gun club members, his clients – both for his carpentry work and his escorting, and there was his partner, Joey. He liked having different personas for different people – often contradictory ones: Here was a loner who enjoyed collecting guns by himself, but was the popular center of attention in social gatherings. He was devoted to his partner Joey, but make sex films and did sex work on the side. He was gay, but was a big star in straight sex movies. He was the epitome of cool, but was also an old-fashioned nerd, his favorite films being ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Captain Blood’, and the only music he listened to were 1920s jazz records. And everyone loved him and said he was thoughtful, kind, and gentle, but they also found him enigmatic and wished they could know him better.

Dennis was also afraid of the two worlds colliding, and possibly facing public shame as result. He admitted this in an interview saying, “I have a fear of doing modelling jobs and having them find out a month or two later who I am and what I am doing in this business.”

And then there was his family – his mother and brother who had moved down to live in Richmond, Virginia. Dennis visited them regularly. Richard remembers one visit: “Dennis came down, and asked me whether I’d ever been to the Lee Art Theater, which was the local adult film cinema there. I thought it was a strange question and I wondered why he asked it. Later, he told me he appeared in adult films, and I realized that his films had been playing in that theater and that he’d been on all the posters. My mother found out about it at the same time. I know she wasn’t too happy about it but she just didn’t say anything. That’s what she was like.” Richard had been curious when Dennis told him about the X-rated films, and he asked Dennis how he could have sex in front of other people. Dennis said that the nude modeling that he’d done at art school had got him used to it.

In the meantime, the movies kept getting bigger. In 1978, Dennis starred in the lead role of Armand Weston’s ‘Take Off’. If any sex film can be described as almost autobiographical of its star, perhaps ‘Take Off’ was it. More intricately plotted that most porn features, it is loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ telling the story of Darrin Blue (played by Dennis), a handsome but vain man who is obsessed with remaining eternally young – in his case, by keeping a stag film hidden in his attic. It was a high budget movie involving much of the business’ best talent – both in front of and behind the camera. Dennis received $2,000 for his role, declaring it the biggest, most beautiful porn film ever.

And then there was ‘Barbara Broadcast’ – and the scene that introduced me to Dennis. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll already know what I’m talking about. It’s the restaurant kitchen scene. Two actors – Wade Nichols and the incredible C.J. Laing. No dialogue. No music. And no sex either – at least not for the first, and best, part of the scene. Just the industrial kitchen metal clanging in the stifling heat of a New York restaurant kitchen in summer. A restless and curious woman descends a staircase into the sweaty bowels of the building. She happens upon the kitchen. She wanders among the anonymous cooking staff but is invisible to all of them. And then she sees Him, shirtless and sweaty. She circles him smiling. He spots her, and returns her glance with an incredulous, amused gaze. The only noise is the sound of cooking pots banging against each other. These two are at the center of the universe, oblivious to the irrelevant world that circles them.

She spies a large metal mixing bowl on the floor. An idea flashes across her mind. She laughs, and kicks the bowl, positioning it beneath her parted legs. She looks back at him, giggling manically. He smiles, his eyes narrowing quizzically like the hero of a low-rent spaghetti western. She starts to crouch over the bowl. The realization of what she might be about to do slowly dawns on him.

Years later I spoke to the film’s director, Radley Metzger. He told me he felt dizzy when directing this scene.

In 1978, Dennis traveled to California and Hawaii to appear in one of his last X-rated films, ‘Love You.’ The film was directed by former Hollywood actor and now director, John Derek, perhaps more famous for his marriages to Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and, Bo Derek.

​The film featured a small cast, comprising of just Annette Haven, Leslie Bovee, Eric Edwards, and Dennis.

John’s wife at the time, 22-year-old Bo Derek, was closely involved in the production – and became its biggest cheerleader when it was made: “‘Love You’ is sexy and erotic,” she told newspaper reporters. “The picture has very explicit sex scenes. It shows everything. It’s the first beautiful erotic, hard core film ever made. I showed it to 600 women libbers in a NOW meeting and they liked it. They said it was not degrading to women. The picture is about love, and you don’t play around with that.”

Years later, Eric Edwards’s main memory of the movie was a nude wrestling match between him and Dennis – which he remembers because John Derek insisted they film it again and again. Eric said, “Dennis was a nice guy. Very respectful. We all liked him. But shooting that wrestling scene seemed to last forever, and John Derek seemed fascinated by it. I wondered if he was gay – which seemed unlikely because Bo was there at his side, watching all the time.”

Within a couple of years, Dennis had become one of the biggest stars in the adult industry. He’d earned enough money to make himself self-sufficient, which allowed him to pursue his passions independently. For most people in the adult film industry, this represented success.

What Dennis didn’t know was that it was just the beginning.

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Tune in next time for the concluding part of ‘Wade Nichols: Like an Eagle.’

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The post Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 1: The Early Years – Podcast 152 appeared first on The Rialto Report.