BUSTER & STEVE YORK: Big Boner Boys of the ‘80s, Part 1

By Josh Eliot

A couple of years after starting work with Catalina Video, they closed our production studio in San Francisco and moved me to West Hollywood. The production department was now a designated section in the warehouse at the main headquarters in North Hollywood. I shared the space with Costello Presley, the now iconic musician who scored most of William Higgins' movies. He occupied a special locked room within the warehouse. He’s an interesting character for sure; I recommend reading my blog “Behind the Not-So Green Door” for more info on him. Everyone else from the editors, art, sales and promotion departments and the management team all had proper offices within the building.

When I had extra time on my hands, I spent a lot of days hanging out with Chet Thomas in the editing suites. Sometimes when I was just plain bored, I would wander around the warehouse looking at all the promotional brochures and VHS videos on the shelves. I was trying to get a grasp of all the content that Catalina was distributing. I spotted quite a few VHS tapes from outside producers and directors who simply had Catalina distribute their movies for them. Movies like Ivy Blues (1985) from director Mark Steel, Flesh & Fantasy (1980), Skin Deep (1982) and Bi Bi Love (1986) from Lancer Brooks aka Tom DeSimone, to name a few. Catalina also distributed all of the early Paul Norman bisexual movies like The Big Switch (1985), Passion Bi Fire (1986), and the controversial Bi & Beyond (1987). Paul Norman was a the pioneer as far as starting the trend on all things bisexual, but there was also a really out there straight movie called Female Aggressors that he directed. I actually found an official “crew” t-shirt for Female Aggressors in the warehouse and the general manager Chris Mann allowed me to keep it. I wore that thing everywhere, as it became one of my first prized gay adult industry possessions. 

In the warehouse, I also discovered a handful of movies photographed and directed by Dan Allman. Dan Allman was William Higgins' long-time art director and cameraman. He was also my boss when I started working for Catalina Video back in 1987. He managed the studio and trained his lover John and me on everything anyone ever needed to know about running a porn studio, from sets to sex. I previously wrote a blog called “Private Dick & The Young Cadets” where I spoke about how Dan directed under the name Cameron Leight; check it out if you’d like to know more. Dan changed his stage name from Dan Allman to Cameron Leight as part of his official segue from 16mm movies to videotaped productions of the mid-'80s. His 16mm titles include Good Times Coming (1982), The Big Surprise (1983) and Spring Semester (1985). The Big Surprise with Buster and Steve York was released, crediting Dan Allman and Mark Reynolds as the contributing directors. Nick Eliot, Tom DeSimone’s long time cameraman, is also noted for photography, surely for the Mark Reynolds-directed scenes. The Big Surprise is similar to the classic original Falcon Video Pacs, where music-enhanced scenes are strung together in what today is called a compilation.

I’ve only discovered, through researching for this blog, that The Big Surprise was a “compilation” movie. You see, back in the day William Higgins owned Drakes Bookstore on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and the real money-maker were the private movie booths. Those quarters sure did add up. He put Dan Allman in charge of shooting scenes to sell in the form of 200’ to 400’ 8mm and Super 8mm film reels, as well as using them for content in the booths. Mark Reynolds also shot content for the booths that Higgins paid for. The movie shorts that were re-purposed for the compilations were Wet Dreams with Buster and Steve York, Sunkist with Buster and Steve Grant, and A Private Shooting with Buster and Chuck Niles, which all ended up in The Big Surprise. While shorts Buster’s Solo, Yard Work with Jerry and Tim, and Bubble Delight with Devin Stevens and Steve York all ended up in Buster Goes to Laguna, another compilation credited to Mark Reynolds as director.

The scene where Buster and Steve York worked together in Big Surprise was so compelling, when I first viewed it, that I decided to recreate it in a movie of my own in 2003 called Stag Show. I had the original scene playing on a TV while the exact same situation was happening in real life, so I intercut the two. I just so happened to have a nearly identical backyard pool area at my Palm Springs house that matched the one in the movie, complete with the pool filter in an underground pit as in the original. The boys together in that scene were explosive for sure, and my “Stag Show” guys working side by side with them, twenty years later, gave a great performance too! Buster and Steve York were two very hot big boner studs that both had very short yet memorable careers within the industry.

BUSTER: Buster was born August 23rd, 1956 in South Hills Virginia. Even though he was not in a lot of movies, the ones he did make certainly made a huge impact back then. After starting off in “film loops” he then jumped straight into two of the biggest movies of the time: Sailor in the Wild (1983) from William Higgins and The Bigger The Better (1984) from director Matt Sterling. After a hiatus, Buster reappeared in 1986 when he took a supporting role in Falcon Studios' Night Flight. Buster was sporting a completely different, clean-cut version of himself and maybe that wasn’t what his audience was expecting. Night Flight was one of my favorite movies back then and you might be surprised to learn of the directing pair behind it! One might say the “oddest couple” ever to direct a movie together: John Travis and Ron Jeremy. Really??! Yes, according to IMDB. To be a fly on the wall! That was the last of the Buster movies, but two years later in 1988, Buster ran for a city council seat in West Hollywood, unsuccessfully. A few years after that, on May 10th, 1991, he unfortunately passed away at the age of only 34. Buster will always be synonymous with Catalina Video, as his look and image became the epitome of the California boy Higgins went on to showcase.

STEVE YORK: Steve York’s 12” schlong always stole the show no matter who was in the scene with him. Steve’s career started in 1979 with recurring layouts in Blueboy Magazine, the first in the Jan/Feb 1979 issue. Follow-up issues included: Blueboy Presents Steve, The Best of Steve and Roger, 10 Best Men Vol. 1, and the Blueboy Calendar, 1979 and 1980. York’s popularity in the magazine made him very much in demand for the film industry. I’m not sure who cast him first, but it appears that he was introduced publicly in Private Collection (1980, Hand in Hand Films) a group of short films from Jack Deveau, Peter de Rome and Tom DeSimone, with Steve cast on the poster as “Blueboy’s” Steve York. That same year, he worked with Kip Noll and Scott Noll in the Mark Reynolds-produced movie Cuming of Age, as well as having a role in Johnny Harden & Friends (Bijou Video). In 1981, he starred in Boys of San Francisco from William Higgins and Performance from Steve Scott. He next appeared on screen in Dirt Bikes (1983) for Falcon as well as The Big Surprise and Buster Goes to Laguna, which we now know contained old film loops. He then dropped out of sight only to show up again eleven years later in Buttman’s British Moderately Big Tit Adventure (1994), a straight movie for John Stagliano (The Buttman). Not much followed that I can see, then suddenly and without warning, in 1997, director Jerry Douglas was able to track Steve York down and cast him in his biggest production of the year called Family Values. Family Values also featured '80s icon Derrick Stanton in a supporting role, cast opposite current top models of the late 1990s. Derrick’s role in Family Values generated enough publicity to garner him a Hall of Fame Award the same year. Steve York also shot a J/O around the same time for director Michael Zen in the movie Hard to Swallow. I can’t find any other productions after that date, but I do see online chatter stating that as of the first decade of the 2000s, he was doing well and living in Los Angeles.

In Part Two, I’ll talk about three other big boner boys from the other Dan Allman-directed movies that I stumbled on back in the warehouse: Good Times Coming and Spring Semester. Those movies feature stars of the early 1980s that made a huge impact of their own: Tex Anthony (Spring Semester and The Big Switch), Michael Gere (The Young & The Hung and Powertool) and Lance (Blonds Do It Best and Leo & Lance). 

Watch Josh Eliot's trailers for several of these classics!
Trailer for The Big Surprise
Trailer for Sailor in the Wild
Trailer for Buster Goes to Laguna

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.