BijouBlog

I was looking at some footage on YouTube of Chicago in the 1940s (my nostalgia kick keeps kicking and kicking and kicking, ouch!), and I noticed, as most of the footage was of tourist sites like “State Street, that great street” and its plethora of movie theaters.

And these were not movie theaters hidden inside in decaying malls or bland multistory cineplexes with parking garages, but both glitzy and palatial structures (quite a combo!) that beckoned to passersby (yes, people walked more, it seems, to entertainment) through signs.
 

Yes, the marquee, the name in lights, oh so Old Hollywood. In fact, on one of the videos, I saw theaters whose marquees displayed Leave Her to Heaven with Gene Tierney, and on another one, Joan Crawford in A Woman's Face. Heady stuff for a gay Old Hollywood fan!

The adult movie houses, and in the gay world, often called porn palaces, followed suit when censorship restrictions were lifted in the wake of the 1960s sexual revolution. Even though such venues were usually ghettoized "red light” districts (think 42nd Street in New York City) and often shared buildings and neighborhoods with the seedier peep shows and massage parlors (live sex, less cinematic content) and the like, they still boasted the marquees and the names in lights.
 

In fact, I remember in the camp classic Valley of the Dolls, Neely O'Hara sees her friend Jennifer's (now a star of soft-core French porn) name lighting up that ubiquitous XXX signage as she wanders drunkenly through what is probably the Nob Hill area of San Francisco.

Gay XXX's home in Chicago was the Bijou Theater, and in its heyday, it showed some of the famous, finely crafted classics of gay porn (shot on film, of course). A premiere there was akin to a red carpet event, like it was in Old Hollywood.
 

Porn studios like Hand in Hand Films and Falcon and, later during that Golden Age, Al Parker's Surge Studios were definitely producing more substantive work, but the assembly-line, amateurish product with mostly anonymous participants (like that being churned out in Europe these days) were confined to peep show booths.

The Bijou Theater thus showcased some groundbreaking gay porn films, but in tandem it also showcased the stars of those films. Again, think Old Hollywood. Fans, autographs. Stars!
 

For example, when Al Parker, the greatest of them all, appeared at the the theater in the early 1980s, he did a live sex show (a live orgasm to complement so many of those on-screen orgasms), but according to Steven Toushin, owner of the theater, he spent most of the time there signing autographs and talking to fans.
 

And the uber-Daddy of them all, Richard Locke, also appeared at the Bijou Theater in 1984. Here's a description of the event, which, as with many other events that showcased porn movies and their stars, blurs the lines between on and off screen performances in an enticing, exciting way:

“The screen on the Bijou screen – a dimly lit room at truck stop, fitted with grimy cots, where truckers catch forty winks before they hit the road again. [A scene from Joe Gage's 1976 classic, Kansas City Trucking Co.] In this case, however, the truckers are not sleeping; they are fucking and sucking with a vengeance. The center of the action is the older, experienced trucker, played by Richard Locke, muscular, masculine, bearded and obviously enjoying himself on screen. The light on the movie screen fades, and suddenly a figure appears from behind the screen. A cool blue light silhouettes a muscled body and music builds. A new kind of show is in progress at the Bijou Theater — but Richard Locke is still the center of attention... Richard turns to face the audience, clad only in a leather harness, stroking his erect penis... Finally he reaches orgasm, shooting onto the mesmerized audience. He turns back, the lights fade, he exits and the film Richard Locke returns to the movie screen.”
 

Now, the above event may be unique to the dynamic of gay porn and its purpose of sexual exploration and gratification, but what happened after that movie/performance links to that Old Hollywood world:

“After his live show, Richard meets his public, signing autographs and talking to a group of eager fans. He is friendly and unassuming as he talks. One young man asks Richard to autograph his back and tells Locke that he will have a tattoo made of the signature. (A later encounter with the same man proves the truth of his boast.) One by one the crowd drifts away and another day's work is finished for Richard Locke, erotic entrepreneur.”

Amazing, and so exciting! Joan Crawford would have been thrilled (perhaps more by the method rather than the content!). Richard, like she did, was working a publicity machine, one of his own making. And he understood that what fuels that machine are the fans and their fantasies, hopes, and dreams. The young man with the tattoo in the quote above was living embodiment of these emotions.

Yet, unlike Joan, he skillfully kept his “divo-hood” on the screen, but at the same time let that larger-than-life screen persona become real in the flesh when he appeared live in that brief moment of ecstasy.

Some say home video (and then the internet) and the tragedy of AIDS killed this world. Perhaps, on the surface, yes.

But in hindsight I think it's a deeply complex issue revealed in today's cultural climate as red carpet events still unfold, and the culture of celebrity has become something like a 24/7 fuck fest. But the cinematic magic that thrives on finely-crafted illusion that elicits an audience's deeper intellectual and emotional responses gets lost in a weird combination of special effects and banal cynicism.

The great porn stars like Al Parker and Richard Locke created and crafted a visual and sexual magic in their films and in their performances and in their audiences.

Bette Davis said in her movie The Star, “If you're a star you don't stop being a star.” And thanks in great part to the Bijou Video's preservation and revitalization of their legacies, Al and Richard still shine.

Look for their movies on DVD at BijouWorld.com and streaming at BijouGayPorn.com, including our brand new release The Best of Richard Locke!

 

It seems like every month there's a megamillions or powerball lottery ticket craze, and even though the chances of winning are apocalyptic odds (I think it was one in three million), people buy tickets. I bought one, which was miniscule compared to the many who play every day and calculate odds and pick numbers using esoteric formulas. 

Ultimately, it's a matter of luck, who archetypally has been characterized as a woman, the Roman Goddess Fortuna. She is related in function to the Greek Three Fates, who determine the course of events by the slightest thread, literally, as they are depicted as spinners. Clotho spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread (thus determining the individual's moment of death). These figures eventually became the Lady Luck many invoke as they gamble at casinos! 
 

These goddesses were so powerful that even Zeus, king of the gods who became the source of law and order and justice, submitted to Fortune and the Fates. 
 

The Hebrew YHWH, like Zeus, supposedly the source of justice, tells Job, who thinks he is the victim of a horrible fate he does not deserve, that basically the way the universe works is a mostly violent mystery, and gives images of a nature “red in tooth and claw” such as sea monsters and lions. 

Maybe those who think they can somehow beat the odds are influenced by science and mathematics rather than superstition, because I've heard that the “numbers don't lie.” Well, maybe in a math problem in itself, but even though scientists have discovered certain inexorable natural processes, like gravity (thank you, Isaac Newton), someone like Einstein came along to blow the “God is in his heaven, all's right with the world” Deism apart with this theory of relativity. 

On the social level, our obsession with celebrity feeds into our desire to beat those supposedly insurmountable odds. So many think they are talented and want to be discovered, and shows like American Idol with its elaborate (and public) audition process are part of that explosion of “everyone can be famous,” and everyone can be famous if his or her youtube video goes viral. These seekers of fame and fortune may think they are beating the odds, but I think it just emphasizes that a person is one in a multitude in the cyberuniverse, which changes by nanosecond. 
 

Gone are the days when someone like Lana Turner (a Hollywood sex goddess of the 1940s and 1950s) was discovered at a soda fountain, when a discovery was really a one-of-a-kind event, which I think made the Susan Boyle phenomenon, who blasted into fame on Britain's Got Talent, so different and thus more exciting in our age of one-second, often meritless fame. 
 

 

And speaking of breaks, just think about how some of the most famous gay porn stars of the past made their way in a genre that didn't enjoy during that time a wide public audience. The pioneering directors and producers like Arch Brown, Steve Scott, and Toby Ross were discoverers themselves, not just of talent, but of expressing a sexuality that has been so long hidden. 
 

But the gay porn stars of the past, like many of the Hollywood legends, often came from humble, obscure origins but got that break (of course, they were, and again, a matter of luck, a generous endowment granted by the Fates). Al Parker worked as a butler and an aide to Hugh Hefner before making his debut in Brentwood's Challenger and going on to become a porn superstar and, later, director and producer. 
 

In many cases, the desire may not have been, hey, I want to be a porn star, but if one has a great body and a certain size dick, and is stripping in a club (likeJamie Wingo and Scorpio), maybe that venue would be the “big break.” In fact, Scorpio tried to get into modeling, but his stripping gig, according to him, killed his chances. 
 

Yet Fortune, capricious, is still inexorable, and AIDS decimated so many of these men. Science and medicine discovered the cause, while a culture of homophobia claimed the virus was God's justice and blamed the victims. Both interventions were too late for so many. Since then, as in so many other crises, we've changed the future (we are so close to a cure), but at the tragic cost of the past. 

Never again, we say, about so many natural and human evils, but ultimately, but even what turns out to be good is often a chance discovery. 

All I can say, is, may luck be a “lad” for you, as was the case with me, when I met my late partner totally by chance in a bar, and that night I wasn't even there to meet anyone. He actually went home with someone else, but the next day he called me, and the rest for both of us became our history.

One totally awesome perk for working at the Bijouworld office (it isn't sex) is you never what you might find in the files.

Yes, files, think beige manila folders, not computer directories. We pretty much have anything, yes anything, related to gay sex dating to the beginning of the last century. Just ask!

I was looking for a retrostud to do a blog on for this week, and I pulled a file that contained a list of former jobs of 12 gay “porno” stars, by Leigh Rutledge, author of the book The Gay Decades.

Interestingly enough, these retrostuds didn't just work as the stereotypical bartenders or escorts or strippers.

Al Parker (below) worked as a butler, a video technician, and a personal aide to Hugh Hefner at Playboy magazine.
 

Keith Anthoni (below) was a waiter, an actor in Pepsi commercials (which one?), a stage actor, and a male stripper.
 

Steve Scott worked in the publicity department at Universal Studios.

Kip Noll (below) was very blue-collar; he was a machinist, an auto mechanic, and a carpenter.
 

Roy Garrett (below) was employed as a supervisor in a New Jersey cosmetics factory, as well as doing the bartender/male stripper thing.
 

Jamie Wingo (below) worked in marketing for a gay advertising agency and also, guess what, stripped.
 

Jack Wrangler (below) was a child television star with his own NBC series, Faith of Our Children. He also did bit parts on the Mod Squad and Medical Center. If my mother only knew …
 

Scorpio (below) was a male stripper in straight bars. He tried to get into modeling but found out from an agency that his job as a stripper killed his chances.
 

Richard Locke (below) worked very diverse jobs. He was a tank commander in the army, a gas station attendant, an insurance claims adjuster, and a baths attendant.
 

Jayson MacBride (below) danced and sang as a chorus boy. He later enjoyed a successful career in corporate market research.
 

Mike Davis (below) was a set designer.
 

Christopher Rage worked as a talent manger for cabaret acts, as a male escort, and then joined an ad agency promoting X-rated films.

I just can't get the picture out of my mind of Al Parker as a butler wearing some tight-fitting livery! One can only dream …

Hope you enjoy this very photogenic blog!

Ra

And Manshots also offered some telling biographies of and interviews with most of the great gay porn stars of the past; again, treating their lives (and of course their activities on screen) as something as interesting and entertaining as any feature on a celebrity in a mainstream magazine likePeople. 

And if there was a gay porn star, or “retrostud” who deserved celebrity treatment, it was Lee Ryder. But like many of the gay porn stars of that period, as noted in the all­too­common “Fade Out” feature at the back of so many back issues of Manshots, he died of AIDS-­related complications (in 1991). 
 

Lee Ryder was born in 1959 as Darras Robert Pyron. He was California born and bred, raised in Laguna, and he graduated from Esperanza High School in Anaheim. 

After Mark Reynolds discovered him and featured him in All American Boys, he literally made a splash in Falcon Studio's Huge in 1982. 

He starred in thirteen features between 1982 and 1986, including Bijou titles Screenplay, A Few Good Men, Giants 1, and 2 X 10. 

Now, of course, if one views these films, it's clear that Lee Ryder's cock is pretty much legendary. According to one Jeff Starkey, who reviewed the movie Screenplay in tandem with Ryder's appearances at the Bijou Theater to greet fans and sign autographs back in 1984: 

"Ryder's cock is long, thick, and shapely and is criss­crossed by just the right number of lovely veins. Beneath it hang a perfectly balanced pair of what appear to be 5­pound balls. When his cock appears in public, it is usually hard as a baseball bat, with its swollen head looking purple and petulant." 

Purple and petulant? Wow. Perhaps those adjectives could apply to the cock, but not the person. 

In an interview with Stallion magazine, known for his sexually aggressive but also unforced, natural screen presence, seems rather low­key, both veering between a quiet confidence in himself, but also showing a somewhat self­deprecating attitude. Definitely not the “divo” attitude of so many celebrities: “Everyone wants to look at me, I am the Adonis with the giant cock and all should worship me. 
 

In fact, in the interview, he actually seems rather pragmatic: he does it for the money, and for his business (he actually was a successful floral designer), but ... he actually doesn't see himself as a sex symbol. He just enjoys being himself, and letting a chink of vulnerability come out, being wanted. 

(We also find out in the interview he had a relationship with an older guy from ages 15 to 18, who tragically committed suicide soon after they broke up.) 

To add to the complexity of his character, despite his appearance at the Bijou and other venues as a gay porn celebrity, he actually admits he would rather not be recognized (he even goes to Europe to escape the attention)... and he notices, even when he does, the guys stay away, or “they stare – I guess I do show a big crotch – or they look at my eyes.” 

To be honest, at least for me, the eyes can be just as erotic as, especially in Ryder's case, a dick of death. And Ryder he admits in the interview that he loves his eyes. And rightly so! 
 

His eyes make love to the camera, like those of that famous movie star Joan Crawford (completely the opposite in her approach to celebrity). The eyes themselves create a unique effect in the viewer; they seem to draw you in with a promise of something intense; you think he is looking directly at you via the camera, which could satisfy your desire, but you at the same time feel like you will always want more. Perhaps it's their narrow shape but also richly colored pupils. I don't know, but I can't stop looking at his picture on the cover on Stallion magazine as I write this piece. 

And I promise you, you won't be able to take your eyes off of Lee Ryder in our remastering of Huge (now Huge 1) as he beats his meat while perched on the toilet ­ ­ making it bigger, hotter and harder. He, Rick Jensen and Matt Stoker roll around on the cold concrete floor, licking each other's hairy armpits and sitting on each other's faces.