A Taste for Leather and Fur: All Kinds of Action For All Kinds of Men, Part 2

Catalina’s slogan “All Kinds of Action for All Kinds of Men,” as I mentioned in part one of this blog, referred to movies with a wide diversity of cast members. I previously wrote about our Black Gold Series, the Freshman Features with twinks, our Far East Features with Asian casts and our Generation Gap Series featuring daddies matched with twinks. In this follow-up, I’ll cover the other series we included in our library of movies.

"All Kinds of Action for All Kinds of Men" - various Catalina series

Our debut Leather Series movie was The Taste of Leather (1993), specifically hiring leatherman Joe Magnum. At the time, Catalina was not a studio you would go to for your favorite new leather movie; in fact, I think we only had one leather feature in our library, the fabulous Tom DeSimone film NightCrawler, so we were far from knowing what we were doing. Yes, William Higgins, John Travis, Scott Masters and Cameron Leight all knew how to dress models up in leather for a random scene, but that was the extent of our knowledge regarding the leather community. Joe Magnum continued on with Catalina in the Chet Thomas production Sex Crimes alongside Phil Bradley and Bill Marlowe, star of the movie Private Dick. His diversity beyond the leather genre kept him busy for years to come.

Out of nowhere, we got the opportunity to shoot The International Mr. Leather Contest in Chicago, starting in 1996. We suddenly had access to the winners and runners up, which was a game changer for our Leather Series category. It was an amazing opportunity to work with Chuck Renslow, the founder of International Mr. Leather. In 1958, he opened the Gold Coast Bar in Chicago, which is believed to be the first leather bar in the U.S., among a host of other bars and businesses like the Chicago Eagle, The Club Baths, Sparrows Lounge and Man’s Country, to name a few. We were definitely in over our heads on our first trip to Chicago, but Chuck welcomed us with open arms, discussed the history of the IML with us and opened his sex club Man’s Country to us for filming. He was with us every step of the way as we set up and shot the IML contest and made sure we had access to each and every contestant that we wanted to follow up with regarding roles in adult cinema. He personally brought the winner of the contest to the set the following morning to shoot the box cover for the VHS version of the show. This is but a “smidge” when discussing the achievements of Chuck Renslow; much more can be found in the amazing book Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow by Tracy Baim and Owen Keehnen. Another of Renslow’s triumphs was as co-founder of the Leather Archives & Museum, a repository for history and a place where future generations can discover the past. Despite the fact that we didn’t know all that much about the leather community, we kept trying with Hell Bent For Leather (1997). This movie starred the winner of International Mr Leather 1996, Joe Gallagher, in his porn video debut, as well as 1996’s Mr. Boston Leather, Beau Lyons. As far as I can tell, Joe Gallagher only performed in one other movie for Director Frank Parker, Leather Factory, released in 2001.

Chuck Renslow

At the 20th Annual IML Contest in 1998, Tony Mills won the top prize and the first runner up was Andrew Lennox from Australia. I swear, when Tony Mills came to the box cover shoot the next morning, our jaws dropped. He was bare-ass in chaps and those ass cheeks looked like two hard basketballs - it was incredible! Brad Austin tried his hardest to persuade Tony Mills to do a porn movie for Catalina but it was a hard “no.” He had an amazing career in the medical industry, so we totally got it, but we were so bummed not to be able to see that “bum” penetrated in one of our movies! We did, however, meet the first runner up, Andrew, at the bar of the Congress Hotel later that day and he was 100% down for it! Months later, we shot and released Australian For Leather (1999) starring the 1st runner up, Andrew Lennox. Andrew was very versatile and went on to do a number of other movies for us including Thrill Me!, Score, SwitchCraft and Spit & Leather (unfortunately). I say unfortunately because in 1999, when we shot Spit & Leather, director Chi Chi LaRue was at the time the “spit queen,” using it in all her movies for other companies. I couldn’t stand it, so she included all that spitting just to gross me out, I’m sure! That was the last IML contest we videotaped, and our leather series took a back seat after that. Cole Tucker was another model with the IML connection, but he entered the contest in 1999 after shooting several movies for us including CatalinaVille and Big Guns 2.

IML Winner Joe Gallagher and several Leather Series titles

We did, however, return to Chicago to shoot the BEAR Contest once or twice, and in 1997 another diverse category was added when we initiated our Furry Features series. The debut movie was Big BEAR Lake (1997) starring Anthony Gallo and a bunch of unknown hairy bears! Gallo wasn’t exactly a BEAR, but he did have a hairy chest, he grew a full beard for us and looked incredible on the box cover! Furry Men Do! (2000), Bathhouse BEARS (2000) and BEAR Country (2001) started the trend, using our tried and true Catalina style that they adapted to seamlessly. Other titles included BEAR Patrol (2002), BEAR Chested (2002), BEAR Boned (2004), Grizzly (2006) and many others.

Furry Features box covers

Making these movies, we got to meet and befriend “Tit Pig” Steve Hurley, who helped me immensely in finding talent and shooting locations throughout Palm Springs and Cathedral City where he lived. After a shoot one day, he introduced the crew and me to Don and Sweet Sue’s Restaurant that he loved, and in fact I just ate there with friends last week! Steve was able to work in our mainstream movies, as well, and was always such a great energy and presence on the set. He’s dressed as a CHP officer on the cover of Truck Stop Daddy (2003) and worked in the adult industry for over 15 years. I just couldn’t talk about Furry Features without giving a shout out to Steve Hurley, who recently passed away on April 17, 2022 at the age of 64. Furry Features naturally aligned with our Generation Gap Series that I spoke of in detail in the first part of this blog, allowing crossover bookings for our furry friends matched with twinks from our Freshman Features.

Steve Hurley & Buster in Truck Stop Daddy (L); Steve Hurley (center) ; 1992's Steel Garters (right)

Diversity didn’t end there - we even shot a movie called Steel Garters back in 1992. Steel Garters was promoted as a gender-bender featuring a gay, straight and drag cast, and was directed by Chi Chi LaRue. This movie was pulled from the market a mere two weeks after release by Catalina executives due to its controversial content, and remained unavailable for seventeen years! The movie was re-released in 2009.

There were times where we missed the mark in our diversity campaign, like when we made a girl-girl movie called The Women ("I Am Not A Lesbian Director"), but having the freedom and ability to feature all kinds of performers from every race and background really was a move forward for the company and opened the doors for everyone to be included. When it came to Leather and BEARS, help from representatives of the Leather and BEAR communities like Chuck Renslow and Tit Pig allowed the crew to attain a much better understanding of our entire LGBTQIA community. Priceless.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002.

You can read Josh Eliot's previous blogs for Bijou here: