John Robert Stillman, billed professionally as Jack Wrangler, was an American gay pornographic film actor, theatrical producer, director, and writer. He performed in both gay and straight films.
Brothers James Lloyd "Jim" Mitchell and Artie Jay Mitchell were American entrepreneurs. They operated in the pornography and striptease club business in San Francisco and other parts of California from 1969 until 1991 when Jim was convicted of killing Artie.
Deep Throat is a 1972 landmark American pornographic film written and directed by Gerard Damiano, listed in the credits as "Jerry Gerard", and starring Linda Lovelace. It is considered the forefront of the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984).
Larry David Paciotti is an American director of pornographic films. He appears as the drag-diva persona Chi Chi LaRue, and has been credited as director under the names "Lawrence David" and "Taylor Hudson".
Kip Noll, also Kip Knoll, is an American gay pornographic film actor-magazine model, active in the 1970s and 1980s.
Adult Video News is an American trade magazine that covers the adult video industry. The New York Times notes that AVN is to pornographic films what Billboard is to records. AVN sponsors an annual convention, called the Adult Entertainment Expo or AEE, in Las Vegas, Nevada along with the AVN Awards, an award show for the adult industry modeled after the Oscars.
Boys in the Sand is a landmark American gay pornographic film, released early in the Golden Age of Porn. The 1971 film was directed by Wakefield Poole and stars Casey Donovan. It was the first gay porn film to include credits and to be reviewed by the film industry journal Variety, and one of the earliest porn films – after Andy Warhol's 1969 film Blue Movie, but preceding 1972's Deep Throat – to gain mainstream credibility.
The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American pornography, in which sexually explicit films experienced positive attention from mainstream cinemas, movie critics, and the general public. This American period, which subsequently spread internationally, and that began before the legalization of pornography in Denmark on July 1, 1969, started on June 12, 1969, with the theatrical release of the film Blue Movie directed by Andy Warhol, and, somewhat later, with the release of the 1970 film Mona produced by Bill Osco. These films were the first adult erotic films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. Both influenced the making of films such as 1972's Deep Throat starring Linda Lovelace and directed by Gerard Damiano, Behind the Green Door starring Marilyn Chambers and directed by the Mitchell brothers, 1973's The Devil in Miss Jones also by Damiano, and 1976's The Opening of Misty Beethoven by Radley Metzger, the "crown jewel" of the Golden Age, according to award-winning author Toni Bentley. According to Andy Warhol, his Blue Movie film was a major influence in the making of Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released in 1972, three years after Blue Movie was shown in theaters.
Toby Ross is an American film director who made straight and gay pornographic films in the 1970s and 1980s and later on went to produce nonsexual and cult films with a strong sense of comedic flare. Many film aficionados consider Ross the only missing link between adult films and commercial independent films, as Ross calls it The Antarctica of the film business. He was born in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. At the age of eight, his mother having remarried an Austrian Jew, he moved with his mother and stepfather to Israel. He served two years in the Israeli army. After studies in Los Angeles, attracted by stories of the freedom in San Francisco, he moved there in the 1970s.
The Gaiety Theatre was a gay male burlesque theater in Times Square, New York City, for almost 30 years until it closed on March 17, 2005. The name on the awning over the entrance was Gaiety Theatre, but it was also called the Gaiety Male Burlesque or the Gaiety Male Theatre in advertisements. It was located at 201 W 46th Street, New York, NY 10036, on the second floor of the building that also housed what was the last Howard Johnson's restaurant in New York City. The Gaiety opened in late 1975 and closed in 2005 and was owned by Denise Rozis, run by both her and her younger sister, Evridiki Rozis.
Kansas City Trucking Co. is a 1976 American gay pornographic film directed by Joe Gage. It is the first of the three films in Gage's "Working Man Trilogy", continuing with 1978's El Paso Wrecking Corp. and concluding with 1979's L.A. Tool & Die, and stars Richard Locke, Steve Boyd and Jack Wrangler.
Lucas Entertainment is an independent New York-based gay pornographic studio started by porn star Michael Lucas, funded by his ex-husband Richard Winger. It is one of the largest such studios in the world. The studio is known for lavish, big-budget films, and it contends that its 2006 film Michael Lucas' La Dolce Vita is the most expensive gay porn ever made. The film won 14 GayVN awards in 2007, the current record.
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males. Its primary goal is sexual arousal in its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; which at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornography directed toward heterosexual female, homosexual male, and bisexual audiences of any gender.
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon is a 2008 American documentary film about the life of Jack Wrangler, produced and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures. It had its premiere at the 2008 New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival (Newfest) and is distributed by TLA Releasing.
That Man: Peter Berlin is a 2005 documentary about the popular gay icon Peter Berlin directed by Jim Tushinski. The documentary had its world premiere at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival.
Fred Charles Halsted was an American gay pornographic film director, actor, escort, publisher, and sex club owner. His films Sex Garage and L.A. Plays Itself are the only gay pornographic movies in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where they were screened before a capacity audience on April 23, 1974. A screening of L.A. Plays Itself was sponsored by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on February 28, 2013, and another took place on December 16, 2011, at the Los Angeles art gallery Human Resources. His films have also been shown the Netherlands Film Museum and in competition at The Deauville Film Festival.
George Payne is an American actor and retired pornographic film actor. He found early success as a swimsuit model and was featured in Physique Pictorial. Payne began work in the adult film industry in The Back Row in 1973 opposite actor Casey Donovan. He was featured on the cover of the LGBT magazine The Advocate the same year. He later starred with Jack Wrangler in Navy Blue in 1979, and in Centurians of Rome in 1981. Payne later transitioned to straight roles in the adult industry; his work is considered part of the Golden Age of Porn. He was inducted into the X-Rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame in 1999.
The Other Side of Aspen is a 1978 American gay pornographic film produced by Falcon Studios, directed by Matt Sterling, starring Casey Donovan, Al Parker, and Dick Fisk. The film consists of sex scenes filmed in Lake Tahoe, California, interspersed with dialogue scenes shot in San Francisco. The Other Side of Aspen was Falcon's first feature-length release, notable as one of the first adult films distributed on videocassette.
Hand in Hand Films was a New York-based gay pornographic film studio that was founded in the early 1970s, as the Golden Age of Porn took shape. The company released more than 40 titles. It became known for producing avant-garde sex films with high production values, strong narrative throughlines and scenes that often pushed the boundaries of sexuality captured on film.
