Sharon Kane is one of the most prolific adult film stars of all time, having featured in 100s of films, videos, and loops over a 30 year period.

She began work as an exotic dancer at Alex De Renzy‘s Screening Room in the mid-70′s, before entering the porn industry in 1978 in the film ‘Pretty Peaches‘. Over the next three decades Sharon worked in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Los Angeles making the transition from film to video, and

is member of both the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame.

Sharon joins Laura Helen Marks and Ashley West at the Rialto Report to talk about growing up in Ohio, stripping in San Francisco, Alex De Renzy and The Screening Room, actors Richard Pacheco, Paul Thomas, and Joey Silvera, living in

New York, directors Chuck Vincent, Anthony Spinelli and Gerard Damiano, moving to Los Angeles, bondage, gay, transsexual films and much, much more.

I often wonder what it’s like to be interviewed by the Rialto Report.

Most of the people we speak to have left the adult film industry many years ago, and some have done their best not to think back on it too. Then we turn up and ask personal questions about why they did it, what it felt like, and whether they have any regrets.

We’re nosy, and we’ve been waiting years to ask these questions for years. We do our best to be respectful and polite, but it’s invasive nonetheless. Most of our interviews are over five hours long and that’s a big ask for anyone. Our relationship with our own past is a complicated thing.

So when The Rialto Report’s Dr Laura Helen Marks said that she’d always dreamt of interviewing Sharon Kane, we had two reactions.

On the one hand, Sharon is a person who has led a fascinating and important life.

For a start, she’s one of the most prolific actresses of all time, having appeared in hundreds of films from the mid 1970s right through to just five or six years ago. She’s lived and worked in all three main American porn hubs – starting in San Francisco before moving to New York and then LA, and along the way she’s acted in 35mm feature films, 8mm loops, and video productions, in straight, gay, transsexual and bondage films. She’s worked in almost every capacity on set; apart from acting, directing, and producing, she’s been the art director, production manager, set designer, make-up artist, and writer of countless films. And she’s composed more film scores than anyone I can think of – many of them uncredited – often singing and playing all the instruments too. Fittingly she’s won as many industry awards as anyone.

So in short, how could The Rialto Report not interview Sharon Kane?

But then there’s the other side. As much as we wanted to speak to her, Sharon left the adult film industry a few years ago. And when I say she left, she really checked out. She moved away from LA completely, and today lives in a remote rural location, where she seldom has the need or desire to think back to the old days. She’s shy, private and values her personal life.

We decided to reach out to her as we wanted to hear her important story, so we got in touch and introduced ourselves. We suggested that she take a look at our website, and perhaps listen to one of the other interviews that we’d done, after all they’re with people she had known for many years.

At first Sharon was hesitant but then we got a message back. This podcast is the story of what happened next.

This week we return to one of The Rialto Report’s earliest and most downloaded interviews.

Jeanne Silver – adult film actress and stripper from the 1970s and 1980s – joins us to talk about her life and memories.

With thanks to Josh Alan Friedman for the great picture above. Visit his website here.

Jeanne Silver packed more life and adventure unto her first 25 years than most manage in a lifetime.

For a time in the 1980s, she was a regular in New York adult films and a featured dancer at the Melody Burlesk Theater in the city – but her life started on the other side of the country in Arizona where she was born and spent large parts of her childhood. There she grew up with the stigma of having part of her foot and leg amputated at an early age.

By the time she hit New York, just weeks after her 16th birthday in 1976, her rebellious ways meant that she was on the run from the law, and the fun was only just beginning.

Shortly after her arrival, she was featured on the pages of men’s magazines like Cheri and High Society, and on the big screen appearing in the notorious film Waterpower.

News reached the Mitchell Brothers, the renowned filmmakers and theater owners in San Francisco, who flew her out to join them, and there she appeared in her own show and starred in the Alex De Renzy film Long Jeanne Silver.

On this program, The Rialto Report’s April Hall and Ashley West speak to  as Jeanne Silver who grants her first interview in 30 years.

Candida Royalle joins The Rialto Report to talk about her life and influential career as a pioneer in the adult film industry.

With tales of Brooklyn beginnings, San Francisco in the 70s, the Cockettes, 8mm loops, John Holmes, Bob Chinn, John Leslie, New York in the 80s, Chuck Vincent, Larry Revene, Femme Productions, learning how to skateboard for Pizza Girls…. and much more.

As she looks back on her life so far, what does she feel about the unconventional path she’s taken, the choices she’s made, and her role in shaping the adult film industry?

I clicked onto Candida Royalle’s website from a public computer the other day – and got a message saying that her site was blocked due to pornographic content. For some reason I was surprised, though I don’t know why I should be.

Candida has been in the adult film industry since the mid 1970s – when she started as an actress on the West Coast before moving to New York.

Maybe I was surprised because in some respects you couldn’t meet a more unexpected, even accidental, person in adult film. For a start she’s lived many lives – from her difficult upbringing in Brooklyn, political activism in college, a flower child in San Francisco, artist, singer in theaters and clubs… and then the adult film career. She’s a determined, deep thinker who has strong, complex feelings about the industry she’s been part of for so long.

But she’s bold and fearless too. Whenever faced with a fork in the road – Candida has a knack for choosing the direction that will challenge and grow her the most.

In 1984 she launched her groundbreaking production company Femme Productions with the goal of making erotic films that reflected women’s emotional and social lives. Detractors accused her of removing the danger from sex. But is there anything more subversive than getting housewives and working women to rush out and embrace films that showed explicit sex for the first time? She was now a producer, director, business women and spokesperson for the films she made.

And, as you’ll hear in this interview, today she is starting another new chapter – one that promises to be as interesting as anything that she’s done before.

Visit Candida Royalle’s website here.

Three years ago, following the closure of AIM (Adult Industry Medical Associates) which she had founded and managed for over a decade, Sharon Mitchell left Los Angeles and the adult film industry in which she had featured so prominently for over 30 years.

How does Sharon remember her early days as a porn star in New York in the 1970s, and on the West Coast in the 1980s. How did she come to form AIM, and what happened to lead to such an abrupt departure from the industry. And what is she doing now?

On the episode Ashley West and April Hall speak to Sharon in one of her first interviews since AIM closed its doors, and look back at a remarkable life and career, and consider what the future holds.

With thanks to the photographer, Joyce Baronio, for the featured photograph on this page.

For a start, she stood out from her fellow film actors; most of them looked like they’d walked in from being extras on the set of Charlie’s Angels or The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Sharon seemed like she’d come straight from a Ramones gig at CBGBs. Which she probably had.

Somehow she combined the look of a runaway bad kid with the girl next door.

She started out in New York as a dancer and actress, and a regular on the New York punk music scene, before becoming a staple in the growing adult film industry as a borderline underage performer.

She was frenetic and busy, starring in films and in strip clubs, taking acting and dancing classes, working as a dominatrix, and singing in bands.

When the East Coast porn industry started to change, Sharon moved to the West Coast where she was equally prolific and successful.

By now Sharon was one the most recognizable figures in the adult film industry, but against the backdrop of this she was battling her own demons resulting in a serious drug habit, and culminating in a brutal attack that left her fighting for her life.

Then came the second act. In 1998 following an HIV outbreak in the Adult Entertainment Industry, Sharon founded the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, a nonprofit organization serving sex workers and the general public in areas of HIV testing, counseling and industry-related educational groups.

For over a decade AIM tested hundreds of adult film performers per month, establishing itself as the industry’s go-to location for healthcare, before lawsuit led to the clinic’s closure in 2011.

AIM had been the culmination of everything that Sharon had worked for in her life. She created it, invested her time in it, and believed in it. Its closure was tough on her.

So where does that leave Sharon Mitchell? What does she think when she looks back at her remarkable journey from a Catholic schoolgirl in New Jersey to being a porn star on both coasts, and her role in changing the industry forever.

And that’s something else I like about her. She’s honest and open, and this interview is as candid and frank as any you’re likely to hear.

On this episode of The Rialto Report, Rick Savage talks about his life and career from being a dancer to a sex show performer to becoming a star in the California and New York adult film industries.

With tales of Annette Haven, classical ballet, Shanna McCullough, Jim and Artie Mitchell, Video-X-Pix, Joe Sarno, live sex shows in Japan, Traci Lords, public sex in ‘The Streets of New York’, Lois Ayres, serving in the Vietnam War, Charles DeSantos, ‘The Grafenberg Spot’, Harry Reems, the original roadie for Jimi Hendrix and The Who, and much more.

This episode running time is 96 minutes.

I once asked Rick Savage how he would describe himself. He said single father and porn actor.

He could have added ballet dancer in Boston, theater actor in New York, free spirit and hippy traveller, Vietnam veteran, burlesque stripper in San Francisco, live sex show performer in Japan, and one of the last recognizable stars of the dying New York adult film business.

The irony was that Rick moved back to New York just when most other people in the adult film industry were moving to California.

Rick had started on the West Coast in the mid-1980s, making films for the Mitchell Brothers, Anthony Spinelli, and Ron Sullivan, working with the likes of Annette Haven, Jamie Gillis, and Kay Parker, during a period when filmmaking was turning to video production, plots were being replaced by gonzo, and Los Angeles became the recognized capital of porn films.

In New York, he seemed to be on every Vidway and Video-X-Pix film set, working regularly with Joe Sarno and the Adventure Studios crowd, before creating the public sex themed series, ‘The Streets of New York’, with the ex-roadie for Jimi Hendrix and The Who.

So who is the real Rick Savage, how did he go from a ballet scholarship at the Boston Conservatory to making porn films, how do you raise a son single-handedly while being in the adult film industry, what really happened on the set of ‘The Grafenberg Spot’ with Harry Reems and an underage Traci Lords, what do you say if you’re caught having sex on the streets of New York, and what do you do when you son decides to follow you into the X-rated film business?

On this episode of The Rialto Report, Kay Parker talks about her beginnings in war time Birmingham in England to becoming a star in the California adult film industry.

With tales of Sex World, Robert McCallum, Taboo, Annette Haven, Caballero, Joey Covington, Jefferson Airplane, Abigail Clayton, John Leslie, ‘V’: The Hot One, Firestorm, Traci Lords, Health Spa, Kat Sunlove,Mike Ranger, Joey Silvera, Kirdy Stevens and much more.

Also featuring special appearances by Eric Edwards, Seka, and Richard Pacheco.

(The above picture shows Kay with director Anthony Spinelli (Sam Weston)).

This episode running time is 100 minutes.

Does anyone have a bad word to say about Kay Parker?

She made a series of highly successful adult films between the mid 70s and the mid 80s, working with respected directors likeAnthony Spinelli, Robert McCallum and Cecil Howard – and it seems that everyone she met loved her. Along the way, she quickly developed a devoted fan base that has stayed loyal long after her retirement, and became a spokesperson for the industry on television and college campuses.

She even won an award once for being the class act of the industry.

And all this despite the fact that she didn’t make her first film until she was well into her 30s, and still describes herself as the biggest prude in porn.

It’s not as if her career was without controversy either; she starred in the incest film ‘Taboo’ for example and many of its sequels, and was working at Caballero when the Traci Lords underage scandal broke.

So what’s her secret? Well for a start, she describes herself as a wise old soul that has lived many previous lives that have prepared her for this one.

She’s published an autobiography – Taboo, Sacred Don’t Touch – in which she explores this, as well as her career in the adult industry. And more recently she’s worked as a metaphysical counselor and lecturer.

But who is the Kay Parker of this life, the one born in England who sounds like she should be in Downton Abbey, the one who made her way to California and ended up being one of the biggest names in the adult film industry?

And as she approaches her 70th birthday, what does this wise old soul make of it all today?

You can visit Kay’s website here.

You can buy Kay’s book and photos from her here.

Al Goldstein died in December 2013. He’d been the founder of Screw magazine, which helped break down legal barriers against pornography and raged against politicians, organized religion and anything that suggested good taste.

On this special extended episode of The Rialto Report, we look back at Al’s life and legacy – with Al himself in one of his last interviews.

We’re also pleased to be joined by special guests – Steven Heller (Screw magazine’s first art director), Josh Alan Friedman (Al’s biographer), and Herald Price Fahringer (Al’s attorney).

This episode running time is 118 minutes.

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Al started Screw with partner Jim Buckley in November 1968 as a weekly tabloid in response to his “dissatisfaction with the sex literature of the day”, and from the start he was the New York anti-Hugh Hefner.

He was crude, loud and obnoxious. He railed against sacred cows in the magazine’s pages; in 1973, when the magazine printed nude photos of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, his critics were outraged, and half a million New Yorkers snapped up copies.

There was much to enjoy: outrageous cover artwork, adult films reviews, descriptions and adverts for New York swingers clubs and massage parlors, and scathing editorials exposing religious leaders and the government for justifying war while imprisoning erotic magazine publishers like him.

Most importantly he was angry. And often he used his irritation to good effect. He quickly took on authorities and won a series of nationally significant obscenity cases. In fact during the magazine’s first three years, Goldstein was arrested 19 times on obscenity charges.

You can read The Rialto Report memories of Al here.

 

We’re proud to be joined by the following guests:

Steven Heller was an art director at the New York Times for 33 years. He’s lectured extensively on the history of graphic design and is the author of over 100 books on design and popular culture.

And in 1968 at the age of 17, Heller became Screw’s first art director.

He knew Al and Jim Buckley before Screw was thought up when they worked together at the New York Free Press, and he worked closely with them in the early years of Screw magazine.

Visit Steven Heller’s website here.

 

Josh Alan Friedman probably knew Al as well as anyone. His first published work was for Screw magazine back in the mid 1970s, and he covered the Times Square beat for Screw during time when few, if any writers, ventured there.

Several of his Screw pieces would later appear in his 1986 collection,Tales of Times Square. Friedman continued to write for the magazine eventually holding the position of Senior Editor, and he also worked as a producer on Screw’s cable television show, Midnight Blue.

Visit Josh Alan Friedman’s website here.

 

Herald Price Fahringer, has spent more than 50 years representing high-profile clients such as Claus von Bulow, jazz drummer Buddy Rich, and Hustler magazine publisher, Larry Flynt. He was there when Flynt was gunned down in front of a Georgia courthouse in 1978.

But he’s perhaps best known for his lifelong advocacy of First Amendment rights, where he’s been a pioneer in representing people and products that have shocked and offended the mainstream.

Fahringer represented Al in numerous court cases since the inception of Screw in 1968.

 

 

Thanks to Shane Brown for musical support!

Striptaculous: We are proud to be carrying the Rialto Report and this is no exception.  Gloria was a great pioneer of the industry, we will miss her.

The Rialto Report interviewed Gloria Leonard in July 2013. Our intention was to speak for a couple of hours about the first half of her life in New York, and to return later in the year for a second interview which would cover her West Coast career.

We called her at her home in Hawaii and Gloria was in fine form. We spoke for over four hours about her upbringing in the Bronx, her life as a broker and a publicist for Johnny Carson, and her eventual move into adult films at the age of 35.

Along the way, she remembered her old friend Al Goldstein, working withRadley Metzger on The Opening of Misty Beethoven and Maraschino Cherry, her starring vehicle All About Gloria Leonard for Arthur Morowitz and Howie Farber at Distribpix, working for Carl Ruderman at High Society, her friendships with Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Hart, and Jamie Gillis, working with directors Gerard Damiano and Lenny Kirtman, fellow actorsBobby Astyr, Zebedy Colt and John Holmes, and her enduring love forBobby Hollander.

We made tentative plans for the second interview, but unfortunately we never got around to it before the sad news of her passing last week.

Her death was covered by the New York Times here.