Arrested for Murder!

posted by Madame Bubby

I was going through the files at the Bijouworld office, and I happened across a packed file for one porn star who does not appear in any of our titles. But the contents of the folder were certainly both enticing (lots of pics from the gay magazines he appeared in) and disturbing.

Tim Lowe, a prolific porn star from the 1980s and 1990s, worked for major studios like Vivid, HIS Video, Catalina and many others, according to Gay Erotic Video Index. Movies he made frequently referenced in sources include Fratimony (All Worlds) and The Main Attraction (Image Video).

He was also arrested for murder and spent 14 months in prison.

According to the many newspaper clips in the folder, Tim Lowe (his real name was David Cody) was arrested on January 21, 1992, for strangling 52-year-old Allen Kinkead on January 8. David aka Tim apparently had been living with Kinkead in the Haight-Asbury district of San Francisco. Kinkead's body was discovered bound and gagged, and his credit cards and car were missing.

Cody and a female companion (girlfriend?; Gay Erotic Video Index claims he had a wife and two kids too?) were arrested in Mexico driving the stolen car. The pair pleaded guilty.
 

Newspaper clipping with headline: Porn Star Arrested in Murder
Source: Out, April 1993

In February 1994, the charges were later reduced to involuntary manslaughter, as upon further investigation, the circumstances in the death were open to question; the death was possibly accidental, and Kinkead had taken meth, pot, and poppers before his death. (Lowe claims in the interview I reference below his roommate suffered a heart attack.)
 

Newspaper clipping with headline: Charges Against Lowe Reduced
Source: unknown

In an interview with Jerry Douglas for Manshots magazine, Lowe gives some details of his stay in prison (not exciting), mostly lots of waiting, lack of privacy, and smartly, he laid low, stayed aloof, not making friends.

After getting out of prison, he made more films, up to about 2004. According to the interview, he does make much out of getting counseling and trying to figure out where he made that wrong turn. He also makes much out of reading that pop psychology book of the period, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Hmm ... Lowe also claims he did not steal anything. Hmm …
 

Lowe Manshots interview
Source: Manshots, October 1994

What's interesting is that I don't get too much distinctive about him as a person or a performer from what I found. Physically, he is what I would call cute young guy with a conventionally great bod and a well-formed dick, but he just strikes me as vaguely “kind of hot,” with, from what I can see in the facial expression, a hint of cocky. Just a hint.
 

Tim Lowe photo in Mandate
Source: Mandate, date unknown

In fact, the general consensus from the many performers and directors that he worked with is that he was “nice to work with,” in that case, meaning probably amenable, agreeable, delivered the goods without drama.

But nice? Wow. There's so many implications here, but it's hard to really follow up on them specifically, due to lack of evidence.

I am trying to figure out what stance to take. All I can see is a pattern I see time and time again in so many relationships in the LGBTQ community, and this isn't going with the tired stereotype of porn stars generally gravitating toward “fucked up” situations on many levels.

It's the often fraught with peril on so many levels dynamic between the older guy and the younger guy, often one exploiting the other (and in this case, it's hard to tell who was exploiting whom) based on unrealistic expectations regarding sexual attraction which often results in a blurring of fantasy and reality. In the case of Cody aka Lowe and Kinkead, Kinkead apparently had been a fan of Lowe, as the place was filled with Lowe's videos.

I just think overall that not enough attention has focused on the tragedy here: Kinkead lost his life. Lowe lived to read self-help books and do interviews make more movies.

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James Fee
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Friday, 28 February 2020 23:20
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At the Adonis

posted by guest blogger Miriam Webster

Adonis Theater, NYC
The Adonis Theater (photo source: back2stonewall)

The history of the popular 1970s/1980s gay porn theater, the Adonis Theater - the setting and subject of the classic Hand in Hand Films release A Night at the Adonis (Jack Deveau, 1978) - is discussed in an article we recently came across at back2stonewall. The article states that the Adonis Theater was originally built as the Tivoli Theater in 1921. Initially a vaudeville house, it then became a movie theater before its final incarnation as a porn theater/cruising palace. The Adonis was such a hot venue in the 1970s that, the article states, “it was hard to find a seat... but that was all that was hard to find. Patrons would literally avoid the seats under the balcony's edge at busy times for fear of being showered with semen from high above.”
 

Adonis Theater interior
Adonis Theater interior (photo source: back2stonewall)

Adonis Theater balcony
Adonis Theater interior

Deveau's film (which Bijou is excited to announce that we are currently finishing re-restoring for a new and improved re-release next week) is an incredibly well-made, hot, entertaining, and historically intriguing look at this venue. The film does an excellent job capturing - in attractive photography that roams the building as it follows its ensemble cast - the physical layout of the space and the atmosphere created there, as well as featuring the theater's actual staff (their real ticket taker appears in the film in a memorable cameo) and detailing its cruising and sex rituals.
 

A Night at the Adonis poster
Adonis Theater sign in A Night at the Adonis
Adonis Theater ticket taker in A Night at the Adonis
Queue of men waiting to get into the theater in A Night at the Adonis
Men cruising on the balcony in A Night at the Adonis
Theatergoers and staff in A Night at the Adonis

An insightful IMDb review points to some other notable ways the film illustrates some of the nuances of New York City gay culture in the 1970s. Characters bump into each other and have roundabout connections at this particular night at the Adonis, and, through this, the film deals with “both the very local, small-town 'everyone knows everyone else' nature of the then queer community and the odd coincidences and synchronicities that can happen when cruising takes place.”

One of the lead characters (played by hunky Malo, of porn and mainstream film), passes up a pick up attempt by his boss (porn superstar Jack Wrangler) with the intention of staying home to read a hefty volume, Gay American History, but, as this review says, the book only “tells him tales of sodomites of fallen times who were persecuted, tortured, and murdered by the state; Malo's subsequent visit to the Adonis makes a new kind of American gay history, which is... itself a vanished, historical past now."
 

Malo during the filming of A Night at the Adonis
Malo during the filming of A Night at the Adonis

The review points out that Deveau's film manages to “communicate the ways in which human beings locate themselves in history and space, therein creating themselves through a shared culture” and how an ambitious new employee character embodies “a bit of a prophesy of the future, wherein gay normative self-images in the West will be shaped by business-studies kids out to make bucks from the new gay communities.”

A Night at the Adonis played at the Adonis Theater, itself, and the back2stonewall article quotes an internet posting about the unusual experience of watching it on that very screen: “it was rather odd to be in the exact theater that was being depicted... sort of a movie coming to life all around you. What was happening on the screen was also happening in real life as you were watching the film.”
 

Guys cruising in the theater seats in A Night at the Adonis
Guys cruising in the theater seats in A Night at the Adonis

A Night at the Adonis is one of NYC-based studio Hand in Hand Films' productions set in and about a specific gay New York City sex space/landmark. Another is Times Square Strip (1983), set at the Gaiety Theatre, which focuses on the on and off stage antics of the dancers at the Gaiety Male Burlesk.
 

The Gaiety Theatre exterior
Gaiety Male Burlesk ad
The Gaity Theatre and Gaiety Male Burlesk ad

Times, like Adonis, is an ensemble piece set over the course of one night, full of breezy, quippy dialogue, and - though it isn't as full a portrait of its location as is Adonis (it occasionally ventures outside the building for sexual escapades) – it spends considerable time depicting the performances taking place on stage.
 

Dancers performing in Times Square Strip
The MC in Times Square Strip
Dancers and the MC in Times Square Strip

Wikipedia notes that The Gaiety Theatre was open for nearly 30 years, from 1976 until 2005, and, according to a 2005 New York Times article, attracted mainstream attention “after photos of Madonna and some of the club's dancers were included in her book Sex (1992).” These visitors included John Waters, Divine, Andy Warhol, RuPaul, Diane Keaton, and Shirley MacLaine. The club had an “unrivaled ability to survive, despite the strict zoning laws instituted during the Giuliani administration, thanks to a location just outside a restricted area.” Wikipedia also mentions a few well-known dancers who performed at the theater, including porn stars Joey Stefano, Johnny Harden, Kip Noll, and Leo Ford.

The Adonis Theater, however, did not survive New York City's changes to Times Square, with Mayor Ed Koch “using the AIDS epidemic to clean up Times Square” and “trying to get the theater closed down to tidy it up for the building of the monolith Worldwide Plaza, soon to be built on the next block.” The Adonis attempted to relocate to another theater building at this time, but did not last long there and this second Adonis was closed “in 1994 by the City's Health Department after a raid revealed high-risk sexual activities taking place among patrons.” The original Adonis was demolished in 1995, though a vivid portrait of what it once was remains in Deveau's classic film. In watching it, you almost feel as if you are there.
 

Bathroom sex in A Night at the Adonis
Jayson MacBride and Malo exiting the theater smiling in A Night at the Adonis
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