Boing Boing: Susie Bright interviews "first male porn superstar," now 64

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Susie Bright interviews "first male porn superstar," now 64

Snip from an interesting exchange between writer Susie Bright and '70s adult film star Jamie Gillis, now 64 years of age:

SB: You got started in the business in the early '70s, I think.
JG: '71. There wasn't even a business. It was a dirty basement.
SB: I was about to say, it wasn't so much a business. It was a fly-by-night thing happening in a counterculture. So on top of the sex, you had this attitude: "This is our generation doing something different than anybody else would do." Even though it wasn't explicitly political, in the sense that some of the rock and roll was — it was of the time, like smoking pot or dropping acid. It had that vibe: "We hang together because we have some kind of consciousness, and we're also making some bucks and getting our rocks off." But then you had this complete change in technology in the business, and now there's nothing countercultural about the scene — nothing "outlaw" about it.
JG: It's no longer counterculture. The counter is gone. "Hey, ma! We're culture now!"
SB: Did this change depress you at all? You came from this era where you could be a freak or an intellectual, or you could have some cinematic or theatrical background, and you could fit in. Whereas now it's more like, "What do you mean? I'm busy, I have this many minutes to make this many dollars before my next real estate seminar." Was that change hard to cope with?
JG: In a way. It's sort of sad to see sex be a business.

Link to full text of interview at 10zenmonkeys blog (includes some sexually explicit language). Above, images from "The Opening of Misty Beethoven," one of the adult films that secured Mr. Gillis fame.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:28:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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