BijouBlog

Early on in my career with Catalina Video, we had a pretty regular list of repeat actors we used in the movies we were shooting. As I mentioned before, a number of those actors were gay for pay or bisexual. I was 25 when I started with Catalina and before actually meeting these models, which included Johnny Davenport, Eric Manchester, Mike Gregory, Derek Jensen and Chad Knight, my friends and I would always scoff at the fact when someone said they were bisexual. It’s was just how the world reacted to the word bisexual at the time. We would roll our eyes on the set when the models had to watch straight porn to get hard in between shots. We thought that they were doing it for appearances' sake but they were really getting hard looking at the guys. You know, the way silly ass 20 somethings thought back then. In our minds it was always “cut and dry” - you were straight or you were gay, there was no in between. They were performing a gay sex scene so of course they were gay, right? Luckily life experience has shown us all to have a different perspective on things. Bisexuality is alive and well in the world.

 

Kurt Bauer & Mike Gregory

 

I became aware of a director named Paul Norman, a pioneer in the industry who some would call “The King of Bi-Sexual Movies.” He made The Big Switch and Passion By Fire in 1986, turning the industry on its head, and Bi and Beyond in 1987. I worked with Kurt Bauer from my first day on the set and many times afterwards in the movies Top Man, My Best Buddy, and The Big One, and he even did a non-sexual walk on in my directorial debut Runaways. Kurt also so happened to grace the cover of Bi and Beyond, which Catalina was distributing at the time, and it happened to be in our pile of tapes for models to watch while jerking their dicks to get hard. I borrowed it from the studio one day and took it home to watch. This was my first time watching a bisexual feature. The movie also featured Mike Gregory who I had literally just finished shooting for a movie called The Young Cadets. Watching Kurt and Mike performing with girls added another layer of understanding for me, opening my cynical mind to the fact that the world was not so black and white as one might think.

Unfortunately, an open mind was not something the straight porn industry was experiencing when it came to the idea of bisexual features. I felt like any connection to the gay world was just not something the industry would embrace, on any level, at that time in history. I think Paul Norman brought a sense of legitimacy to them, but they were not having any of it. At the yearly adult video conventions in Las Vegas, the gay and bisexual companies were literally in a completely different room or building! It was hard to get straight porn actors to even consider performing in a straight scene for a bi movie for fear they would be shunned. Paul and his fiancé Tori Wells became the toast of the town after she became a mega-star in the 1989 movie from director Andrew Blake called Night Trips. Blake shot it entirely on 35mm film, while most others were shooting on video. If you’ve never seen it and appreciate straight porno, it’s a “must.” Winner of the AVN Award for Best Film, Cinematography and Editing, it is truly the most stylish adult film I have ever seen. Tori Wells led a star studded cast including: Porsche Lynn, Victoria Paris, Randy Spears and Peter North. Did her mega stardom help move forward the acceptance of Bi movies, directed by her fiancé, within the industry? I’m not sure, but I feel like it opened the door.

Two actors that were able to go from gay movies to decades-long careers in straight movies under the radar without any push back from the industry were Jamie Gillis and Jack Wrangler. Back then, things weren’t streamed or online so it was easy to sweep the fact they performed in gay movies under the carpet. One of Jamie Gillis’ best roles was in Boynapped, re-released by Bijou - a Hand in Hand classic directed by Spencer Logan. Jack Wrangler (Gemini, Hot House, Heavy Equipment), well we all know his success story, and Bijou has tons of content featuring his hot-ass-self! Gay for pay? Or bisexual? I’m truly stumped. Another star that comes to mind is Matt Ramsey, made iconic from the desktop scene in The Bigger the Better with Rick Donovan, who went from gay movies to straight movies under the name Peter North. Luckily, by the time I met Peter North, the industry had come to its senses about bisexual movies and Peter was on my set shooting a straight scene with Leanna Foxxx for my Bi-Dolls series. I asked if I could credit him as Matt Ramsey instead of Peter North, but he respectfully declined, we came a long way getting him to act in the movie, but that might have been pushing it.

Then there is Paul Barresi (alleged lover of John Travolta and porn icon). Now, that hot number is in a league all onto himself! YOWZA! I saw him in person once, wearing super tight black slacks, at a movie cinema in West Hollywood some hot chick. I was with Catalina editor Chet Thomas and he pointed him out to me while we were in line... Gay for pay or bisexual? Who the hell cares!!! All Chet and I could focus on was that hot hairy chest and tight ass on him! I’m sure there are dozens more examples I could give of guys who were or could have been gay for pay or bisexual, but quite honestly I can’t stop thinking about Paul Barresi right now, I think I need to go stream Men of the Midway.

Correction: Bi-Coastal, previously cited as a Paul Norman movie, was a 1985 movie by director Tom DeSimone. We at Bijou apologize for the mix-up. We do make mistakes and are happy when they are pointed out so we can correct them so that we can make sure that the history is properly recorded.

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. 

Patience is a virtue, or so they say. There were more than a handful of times that my patience wore thin on a porn set. It’s not all fun and games, let me tell you that right now. I became an expert on troubleshooting situations throughout my years of producing and directing, but in the early days, the crew and I were not able to escape the inevitable when a certain someone was in charge. I wouldn’t say my producer Scott Masters was a perfectionist, but he tried damn hard at it. If I’m being completely honest, Scott Masters and I had a love-hate-love again relationship from almost the very beginning. We both shared the passion for putting out the best product possible, both of us were totally invested in the stories we were telling, proper lighting and camera angles. You would think it was a match made in heaven, and to an extent it was, but there was one very important difference that had us butting heads many times over the years. Flexibility, or the lack of it.

Probably the first time it really came to a head was when we were shooting Hard Men 3, the third installment of a very popular series in the 1980s called Hard Men: No Strings Attached. It was basically a Chippendales type video where dancers would dress as a theme character and strip. The twist was that our dancers would strip all the way and when their undies came off they had a huge hard on that they flopped around for the camera, shot from every angle imaginable. We even had a plexiglass floor made for the models to dance on while we were underneath. At the end of the video, there was ordering information where the viewer could purchase a J/O tape of their favorite dancer masturbating, complete with cum shot, sold via mail order. The series was perfect for women or gay men to purchase. It was also perfect for Scott Masters as “director” of the segments. Scott loved plays, musicals and anything to do with the stage, not to mention his “costume fetish” I’ve mentioned before. Our “head butt” came one day when Scott was directing Chris Dano, who was playing a matador. The matador was to enter the stage through separating walls that we built on wheels to open and close. Very theatrical. It was 10:45pm, we had shot the dance/strip, the j/o bonus movie and all we had left was the opening shot where he entered the stage through the walls and dozens of roses showered him from above. “What? Roses? What are you talking about (Scott Masters)? You never asked for roses on your list!”

Well, you would have thought I’d killed his first born. The look on Scott Masters' face said it all as he screamed back at me, insisting he mentioned the roses when he ordered his custom built set over the phone. He definitely had not, and it was too late to run to the store to purchase any. His flight back to L.A. was at 8am, so I apologized if I missed the “roses request,” but reinforced the fact that he had a strong scene and no one would miss the fact that there were supposed to be roses. Well, that fell on deaf ears. Back and forth, back and forth. Suddenly he had an epiphany: “The curtain!” “The curtain?” Yes, the red velvet curtain that the model used in his dance and wrapped himself in for the J/O bonus movie. Don’t you know that Scott Masters had me, the 2nd cameraman, the make-up man, the still photographer and even poor Chris Dano sitting on the floor until 1am cutting up that muther fucking curtain into small strips and making fake roses that were stapled together so we could shoot a 15-second shot of them falling from the sky onto Chris Dano. It took all of my will power not to purposely jiggle the camera during the shot. I think I got home around 3am.

 

Another more draining situation came on the movie The Main Attraction. This was a homage to his Nova Video movie of the same name. Matt Powers was Catalina’s new exclusive, and Scott Masters' secret (at the time) obsession. (I might talk about that “love affair” in a future blog; it’s personal so I’m not sure. But, then again, I do have a big mouth.) Anyway, Matt Powers finished the scene with Vic Summers, which, let me tell you, took a layer of flesh to complete, even before things came to a dead halt. We waited four hours while Vic would watch and rewind the VCR to get himself to the point where he could cum. He must have ran into the set screaming “I’m cumming!” seven or eight times, but nothing came out. Masters refused to let us put the cameras on a tripod because he had very specific angles in mind that called for me to be on a 20-foot ladder and 2nd camera to be wedged with the still photographer, literally on top of each other in the corner of the set. All of our backs were sore and aching but he refused to let us change the angle. At around midnight, Masters decided to end our misery but wanted us all back at 6am to try again for the cum shot, as they all had 1pm flights home. At 6am, we all returned to the studio hoping and praying that a good night's sleep would somehow empower Vic Summers to quickly blow his load. It was a repeat of the night before, so I requested to Masters that we lay Vic on his back on the bed with the VCR in viewing distance so he was comfortable and could just “cum” without having to run into the set and get in an awkward position. That and any other suggestions were met with a “no” accompanied by a long monologue as to why not. Just shy of four and a half hours later, drip... drip. A very un-dramatic visual presentation of what some might call a cumshot.

When I saw John Travis later that month to start shooting My Best Buddy, the crew and I shared our nightmarish experience. Travis was like, “What the fuck? We’ve got so many fucking cum shots in the can, close-up, underneath, overhead, fat dicks, thin dicks, straight dicks, crooked dicks, mushroom heads, no head… couldn’t he have just reused one of those?” Exactly.

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. 

By Josh Eliot

I had a nice long 22-year career with Catalina Video. I was hired just a short time after William Higgins moved to Amsterdam to open his “brothel” and continue his filmmaking with a European flair. It’s hard to fathom, but while I was producing and directing over 100 movies for his company, we never crossed paths or even spoke on the phone. I was always intrigued with the “idea” of him watching over us and wondered what he might think of my work or if he had any input to share when I was restoring his movies for DVD. Throughout my decades of service, this was something I always thought about, waiting patiently to get the word that Higgins needed the crew and I to fly to Europe to work on his next movie. That phone call never came. But one day Higgins did call - not to talk to me, but about me with Catalina’s general manager, Chris Mann. He phoned to demand my termination because of a 10-second shot in a movie I made called Full Service. It seems my little movie found itself smack dab in the middle of a lawsuit - a one million dollar lawsuit.

My second movie for Catalina Video was Full Service, shot and released in 1989 when I was 27 years old. As I previously mentioned, Scott Masters was my producer and Chet Thomas was the movie’s editor. My first movie, Runaways, was under my belt and since Chris Mann and Scott Masters were happy with its look and tone, they gave me some leeway on my next movie. We shot both movies in San Francisco at Catalina’s studio in the Potrero Hill District. Dan Allman left the company and they put me in charge of running the studio. We would build the sets according to John Travis or Scott Masters' specifications and they would fly up from L.A. with the models in hand for filming. Things were moving fast. I moved from the Tenderloin to a great three bedroom flat on 19th and Castro and hired my best friend, Brian, to work with me at the studio. When it came time to figure out the idea for my second movie, I knew right away what the story would be. While living in the Tenderloin, I would pass the Century Theatre on my way home from work and it seemed like Grease Monkeys was playing there forever! Even though I never saw the movie, the poster imagery was so effective that I knew I wanted to do something with a gas station theme. When I proposed it to the boss, it was the quickest I ever heard Scott Masters say yes to a project. In hindsight, I’m sure it was because he immediately got a boner thinking about the great “costumes” he could make for it. He was the wardrobe wizard and a costume connoisseur. Literally before I could even finish building the sets at the studio, he called to tell me that he had all the blue jumpsuit costumes being made and he found some “unnamed gas station company” tags to have sewn onto them. He also mentioned that I should go out and shoot some exteriors of the gas station for cutaways.

My movie was taking place in a small town, so during a weekend trip to Napa Valley with Brian, I took the camera along. It was like a miracle when we drove past this older looking gas station just outside of Santa Rosa. There were cows grazing in the field behind it and the main building looked like a log cabin. What a score! The wide shot of this gas station showed everything I needed it to: small town, rural, and the “brand name” matching the tags my producer was sewing on the costumes. I was so excited by this place that I failed to see what else was written on the building; so did Chet Thomas when he edited the movie, as well as Scott Masters when he viewed it to approve the cut before release. It was one of those things that was in front of your face, yet invisible. Months later when I was shown a photo of that same gas station on the front page of The Press Democrat newspaper, I saw for myself my grave error.

The owner's name was written on the wall of the gas station in big giant letters. It turns out the owner’s nephew lived in San Francisco, rented Full Service from a video store and, upon viewing it, saw his uncle’s gas station. The newspaper photographed the owner with his wife and children in front of the station, looking very sad. Long story short, Scott Masters and I had to give depositions, go through arbitration with the family and finally settle for a $30,000 settlement. Oy vey, my first BIG BUDGET movie! I don’t mean to make light of it, because it really was quite serious. Chris Mann had to reach out to every buyer of the movie to buy their copies back. The “unnamed gas station company” simply asked for their logo to be removed with no request for compensation. It was all very hideous and I came very close to having no career with Catalina Video at all. John Travis and Scott Masters went to the mat for me with Higgins but Chris Mann, the GM, was truly my guardian angel. Chris had Higgins' utmost respect, and when he laid out the reasons he wanted me to stay on with the company it didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Within a couple of years, Chris Mann went on to own Video Team, a “Boutique Adult Video” operation that brought Black porn genres to the mainstream. He also served on the board of the Free Speech Coalition and, after selling Video Team, became general manager of John Stagliano’s Evil Angel. Thank you, Chris, for saving my career! Things were never the same when Chris left Catalina and, due to new management conflicts, Travis and Masters shortly followed. Needless to say, copyright violations were something I always tried to avoid, moving forward from my experience with Full Service. Talk about being haunted by it. Do you know how traumatizing it is for a director to see these little pixels covering patches throughout his entire movie every time some hot stud shows up wearing a gas station uniform?

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. 

By Will Seagers

This blog, “The Reverse Story of Dorian Gray,” where the pictures remain fabulous but their subject goes through the ravages, is an addendum to the Bijou Blog, "Chasing the Boys and Chasing the Sun." I had a great time in my early years in the beginnings of my porn career. I thought that part of a sexy body and face was to be perpetually tan. Maybe so, but there is a price to be paid for that notion.

This duo with Al Parker was still in the early stages of my career. One thing that we did share was beautiful satin-like skin. I do acquiesce that he was a "bigger" man than I. But, there were never any shortcomings on film nor in private.

Going way back to pre-publication. I believe that this was shot in the basement of a photographer friend. The hairstyle definitely gives me a clue to the timeframe. Just a kid toying with the idea of modeling!

Alabaster - yes if I were to describe my skin back then - alabaster. This was early on in my work with Falcon Studios. Sultry and unblemished! (Not ready for my close up, Mr. Gray.)

My first year working in The Pines, Fire Island - 1976. To my recollection, this was originally a Polaroid that a friend took on one of the many wooden walkways in The Pines. During my breaks from The Boatel, where I worked, it was off to the beach to work on that tan that I thought was quintessentially needed for my “other job!"

Although a black & white print that was used for the cover of Michael's Thing, a mini-mag in the 1980s, this pic was shot on a deck on Fire Island following the wrapping up of Fire Island Fever and Dune Buddies for Hand in Hand Films. Living and working on Fire Island gave me prime ammo on the assault of my skin. I was actually quite dark in this photo!

Also, from the movie Dune Buddies, my co-star and I were taking a dip. Although there are a lot of other things to look at, please note the tan line... Mr. Dorian Gray is beginning to play.

Here in the beautiful open air (and SUN!) of Northern California, one of my last magazine shoots took place. Credits to Mr. Wilde, but no telltale payments to the Devil, as yet.

Giddyup, pardners! A shot from L.A. Tool & Die. Carefully morphing into a new age category, the subtle signs of years of sun are starting to make their appearance. That movie was the highlight of my porn career. I had a great time working with some very professional people.

Once again from the set of L.A.Tool & Die, with heartthrob and co-star Richard Locke, this was the infamous truck used in the love scene as well. I use the term 'love scene' because I thought that the scene transcended a regular or even hot sex scene! Once again, that pearly clear skin prevailed. If my dermatologists and surgeons could have only seen this! Ha.

This is the epitome of a Dorian Gray scenario. The very perfect left cheek featured in this photo is the one that was "the payback" of years of neglect and abuse to my skin. On July 14, 2022, the most recent of six radical Mohs procedures leaving a 4" scar now occupies that cheek. Hindsight is 2020.

Stitches out and ready to take on the fine art of aging. This final shot in the sequence is from the present, age 71. It is not meant to garner sympathy or horror. It is a simple statement of fact... the Sun is not your friend. And, your skin remembers all......Will Seagers.

Thank you to Will Seagers for use of his photos.

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted career and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model and film performer. He made iconic appearances in releases from Falcon, Hand in Hand, Joe Gage, Target (Bullet), J. Brian, Steve Scott, and more, including in lead roles in major classics like Gage's L.A. Tool & Die (1979) and Scott's Wanted (1980). He brought strong screen presence and exceptional acting to his roles and was scene partners with many fellow legends of classic porn.

 

 

When I saw on the Bijou website that they are offering Nova Studios note cards (Set 1 and Set 2), I thought to myself, what a great collector’s item! I remember my older brother’s collection from 1966 of the Lost in Space “Topps” trading cards, especially the ones featuring my first crush at age 5, Don West. Card sets came in various sizes, small enough to include a flat piece of bubble gum and as large as Lobby Cards showcased in theaters. What an incredible taste of the 60’s and 70’s, and it’s no surprise to me that Nova Video’s founder Robert Walters (known to me as Scott Masters) included such items in his mail order business.

Walters started his business in 1967, producing male photo sets for bookstores, and then partnered with Reuben Sturman to shoot and print magazines. In 1970, magazines segued into loops (8mm short films designed for peep shows) and by 1976, Walters had directed more than 100 of them. The same year, he founded Nova Studios and shot their first production, Tub Tricks. The silent films were now 20 minutes in length and sold through direct mail as well as at adult bookstores.

Nova’s offices were right across the street from Pink's Hot Dogs, a Los Angeles landmark, where on any given day you can see A-List stars in line or in their limos waiting for Pinks’s Famous Chili Cheese Dogs. Several blocks away was another wiener stand called Oki-Dog, which was not as famous. Instead of Hollywood elite as their customers, the place was always crawling with street hustlers, making it a great location for Walters to pick up lunch and discover new talent for photographing.

The Robert Walters Nova era was prior to my meeting him in 1987, but my friend Chet Thomas worked for Walters at Nova from 1984 to 1986, when Nova stopped production and they both signed with Catalina Video. Once I moved to Los Angeles, Chet and I were attached at the hip and he would tell me stories about his times working for Robert Walters. William Higgins hired Walters as head of production, and he shot his first movie for Catalina called The Bigger They Come. Chet Thomas became the company editor. Walters, now known to everyone as Scott Masters, hired me in 1987 in San Francisco and then brought me to L.A. in 1989. He set me up in a fabulous condo on Sweetzer Street just a block from The Spike, a gay bar that Chet and I would hang out at.

Being new to Los Angeles, Scott Masters had me shadow him everywhere. Any day that we weren’t shooting sex, he had a list a mile long of “things” for me to do. At times I felt like an indentured servant, frequently getting him his favorite lunch (curry chicken sandwich from a Sunset Blvd deli) or organizing and inventorying his garage, which was filled floor to ceiling with wardrobe from his Nova and Catalina movies. Masters was a “costume queen” producer, always spending money from our budgets on them to satisfy his own fetish. Obsessed would be an appropriate word. When he wasn’t focusing on the latest Members Only jacket, he trained me on producing, budgeting, directing photo layouts, scouting locations, model scouting, and grooming. One day, we headed to San Diego to meet a potential new “exclusive” model, but stopped on the way to see a penthouse in Hollywood for a possible shooting location. The penthouse unit had the highest ceilings ever with a massive balcony overlooking the living room. It was beautifully furnished, very high end, until we got to one room in particular. Inside that room was a wall to wall wrestling mat, making it look like a sports facility.

The owner led us to an attached room where a couple of guys looking very “Street-Wise” were throwing back some beers. The owner of the penthouse was David Hurles, one of the first reality porn moguls famous for the Old Reliable video line. David would pick up ex-cons, street hustlers, straight dudes looking for bucks and pay them pretty well to smoke cigars, wrestle, flex their muscles, flip off the camera and jack off. His collection feels very authentic… because it is! The guys are exactly what they portray on the screen, hard edged and a little frightening in a very HOT way! It felt a bit tense being around them, for me. David invited us to stay to watch him film, which I thought would have been amazing, but Scott declined, as we were on our way to San Diego.

Once in San Diego’s Seaport Village, we waited at a table for the potential new model to meet us. Adam Grant came walking up with a huge smile, great personality, and very excited at the prospect of being an exclusive model for Catalina. We talked, then went back to his apartment where Scott Masters got some hard shots of him (fattest dick ever) while I waited in the other room with his female roommate - awkward! He was cast to star in Head of the Class 2, which we ended up shooting in Palm Springs instead of David Hurles’ penthouse. When grooming the new star, Scott Masters went all out, taking Adam Grant to stylist of the stars José Eber's salon. Adam looked great after the makeover, but introducing him to Eber kind of backfired. Once Head of the Class 2 finished shooting, Adam Grant and Eber started a decades long relationship and Grant was no longer interested in becoming a Catalina Exclusive Model or shooting any more movies.

Scott Masters produced all of my and John Travis’ features from 1987 to 1992. Catalina ownership changed hands and Masters and Travis could not come to terms with a new contract and left the company. It was a huge loss for Catalina Video, and the same year they both started Studio 2000. I was offered the role of producer with Catalina, which I worked at until 2007 when the company was sold yet again. I’ll write much more about Scott and John, as there are so many adventures that need to be told. In 2020, Scott Masters passed away at the age of 86 in Bloomington, Illinois. He was one of the very first in our field, paving the way for adult photographers and filmmakers to come. His star shines bright in the skies like a supernova.

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.