RetroStuds of the Past: Focus on Gene Lamar

Prompted by the beautiful piece on vintage gay porn icon Gene Lamar just penned by author/dancer/musician Brontez Purnell for Them magazine, I wanted to take a moment to highlight this legendary performer through a very brief tour of Lamar's work via photos and interview excerpts.

Purnell's article gives a wonderful summary of Lamar's in-depth June 1995 Manshots interview and of his importance as a Black gay porn star in the '80s/'90s. In that era, Lamar (also credited as Gene LaMar or various other pseudonyms) was one of the most recognizable and popular Black stars, at a time when there were only a handful of big-name Black performers in the genre. The open and engaging Manshots interview (a truly great read) gives valuable insight into Lamar's career history, the origins of his stage name, his co-workers, his family, his relationships, his sexuality, and more. A few excerpts from it sprinkled throughout below...

Gene Lamar, on having sex on camera:
“Well, to me, sex is wonderful. I love it. If I don't feel it, I won't do it. I have to say, as far as the sex part, I'm not acting. I'm for real. I'm enjoying it. I love what I do. I don't know if it shows in the film, but it's real. I've had people come up to me and say, 'Are you for real in those movies or are you faking? Because it really looks like you're enjoying it...' That's basically what I'm portraying – when I'm into it, I'm into it. You know, I cannot get into a movie where it looks fake – there's no sounds, the person just lies there. When I feel it, I feel it. And when I feel it, it comes out. I really didn't get into talking in sex until I started doing the movies. The more experience I got in sex, the more came out. The more I felt it, the more came out.”

Lamar's breakout video roles were in the 1987 releases Black Attack from Catalina and M.A.G.I.C.: Meet a Genie Into Color from Black Forest Productions and director Dwight Antoine. In the latter, Lamar is in the lead, playing a genie who grants wishes from a magic bed. This charming, playful video from the always-excellent Black Forest was a strong introduction to the adult video world for Lamar, and his warm, sensual presence and muscular physique hold attention throughout its runtime.
 

Bijou carries M.A.G.I.C., as well as a couple of other of Lamar's movies (from his very extensive filmography): Jim West's Bullet Videopac 12: Black Bullet (1988) and the Gino Colbert-directed Black Jacks (1989), both of which co-star Randy Cochran and Ty Jones, two other major early Black gay porn stars whose careers frequently crossed paths with Lamar. In the Manshots interview, Lamar also discusses his admiration of Colbert, a frequent collaborator with him as both director and co-star, and a close friend.

Gene Lamar on Gino Colbert:
“He turned out to be one of my best friends. Gino Colbert is my heart – he's my heart. He taught me a lot. He's gotten me into so many different places... He looks out for me... On the set, he's great. He's complimentary, he always has this great, positive attitude. He works well with me, and he knows I'll never give him a bad movie... He knows me, he knows my body like I know him and know his body... When I first did a movie with him, I couldn't believe it. To me, he was sexually a direct image of me. Passionate, knowledgeable. I said, 'Gino, look, we work very, very well together.' I felt that if I spent a lot of time with Gino, being that he's like he is sexually, I could fall in love with him. I love his personality. I mean, there's nothing about Gino Colbert that I don't like. Nothing.”
 

In 2024, we remastered and released another starring vehicle for Lamar from Black Forest and Antoine, The Good Old Days (1988) [again featuring Ty Jones], his next feature with them after M.A.G.I.C.! Simultaneously a sweet romance and a raunchy reminiscence of past anonymous sexual encounters, the video is also notable in how it addresses the AIDS crisis in a much more direct manner than most of its contemporaries. This frankness, while non-standard in the industry, was very in keeping with Black Forest's style, always cleverly and thoughtfully working social commentary and fun creative flourishes into their body of work. (We currently also carry BFP's first feature, 1985's Suckcess, their 1990 romantic drama Tricky Love, and - most recently - the debut of Randy Cochran in their 1986 production Making It Big.)
 

Also with Black Forest and Antoine, Lamar starred in Solos 1 (1988), In Thrust We Trust (1989) [again with Cochran], and Love Thy Neighbor (1990). And with Lamar's extensive filmography, this is only a small sampling of his work, which also included numerous performances for Catalina, Stallion, and All Worlds, among many other studios.

Closing out this "RetroStuds of the Past" installment with one more excerpts from Lamar's interview...

Manshots: If somebody else asked you if he should go into porn, what would you advise him?

Lamar: I would say, “Think about it first.” If you don't want your family to know about it, if you don't want people you know to know about it, if you don't want people coming up to you saying, “I love your movies,” if you don't want to be bothered with any of that, don't do it. If you are your own person – I figure, I'm feeding myself, I'm clothing myself, I'm putting a roof over my head – it's up to me to live my life. If you're living your life for somebody else, don't do it, 'cause it's not going to be anything but heartaches. Because somebody's going to come to you and say, “I saw you in a movie.” (Laughs)

Go read Brontez's article for a heartfelt tribute to Lamar.