The Rialto Report

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The Rialto Report

Ashley West

188 episodes

1 day ago

The Rialto Report podcast is dedicated to the golden age of adult film in New York. It features interviews, profiles and features of the actors, directors, distributors, cinema owners, crew members and anyone else who was a part of making it happen… from the great and the good, to the notorious and the obscure, you'll find them all covered here.

All content for The Rialto Report is the property of Ashley West and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

TV & Film

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Performing Arts

Episodes (20/188)

The Rialto Report

Bud Lee – From Hyapatia and Asia to Only Fans, Part 2 – Podcast 156

Regular listeners will know that over the last few years, I’ve spoken to many female adult film actors who were active from the 1960s through to the late 1980s, and, as interesting as their experiences were, it also made me intrigued to find out what it was like to be a male in the business during the same time.
So a few months ago, I contacted actor/director/agent and X-rated film producer, Bud Lee, to hear about his life – which I was curious to hear about, not only because of his career, but also due to his marriages to two of the biggest stars of the 1980s and 90s, Hyapatia Lee and Asia Carrera.
In the first part of my conversation with Bud, he spoke about how he got into the industry with Hyapatia and the struggles they encountered being a couple in the business. This episode picks up in the late 1980s, when their relationship broke down just while Bud’s career making films for companies such as Vivid, Playboy, and Adam and Eve, was taking off. And Bud is still working today – filming scenes and being an agent – and he reflects on the significant changes that he’s seen in the industry, as well as the people involved.
You can hear Part 1 of the podcast here.
We have also included the transcript of an episode of the Donahue television show from 25 November 1986 which featured a conversation with Bud Lee, Hyapatia Lee, Jeanna Fine, Tony Rush, Nina Hartley, and David Hartley.
This podcast is 49 minutes long.

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Bud Lee and Hyapatia Lee – on the Donahue show: full transcript

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1 month ago

49 minutes 2 seconds

The Rialto Report

Bud Lee – From Hyapatia and Asia to Only Fans, Part 1 – Podcast 155

The adult film business is unique in that it has usually focused on women as the figureheads and main stars, and therefore often relegated men to the background.
Over the last years, I’ve spoken to many female adult actors – from the 1960s through to the late 1980s, and it’s been interesting to see how their memories, experiences, and lives were affected as the sex film business changed.
But I also wanted to hear from someone on the other side of the equation – and find out what it was like to be a male in the business, perhaps a partner of a major sex film star, or someone who was a performer, director, or agent in the business.
Bud Lee is unique in that he has been – and still is – all of these things and more. And what’s remarkable about his life is that it mirrors the history of the industry itself: consider this – after meeting and marrying Hyapatia Lee, one of the biggest stars of the 1980s, they appeared in adult films together, before Bud became a director for adult industry mogul, Harry Mohney, directing large and expensive productions like ‘The Ribald Tales of Canterbury’ before working for Vivid Video, one of the biggest production companies of the era. Then Bud married Asia Carrera, one of the biggest names of the 1990s adult film industry, making films for Playboy and Adam and Eve, before becoming a talent agent. Today he’s still filming, for performers wanting content for their OnlyFans accounts – a far cry from the golden age, and a stark reflection of just how much the business has changed.
All this from someone who had no background in the sex film business before he met Hyapatia back in the 1970s – in fact he was a plumber who’d briefly considered divinity school and a theological life.
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Bud and Hyapatia Lee, 1984 AFAA red carpet

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1 month ago

1 hour 5 minutes 59 seconds

The Rialto Report

Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 3: The Soap Opera King – Podcast 154

In 1979, Dennis Posa was on the verge of stardom. Against all odds, as Dennis Parker, he’d just released a disco record on a major recording label and was managed by the same team responsible for many of the biggest disco acts of the time. I say, against all odds, because less than 10 years earlier, he’d been a college dropout, the product of a difficult childhood on Long Island who struggled with his sexuality, who had moved to New York to unsuccessfully pursue a career as a theater actor.
Dennis was always a collection of contradictions: he was a private loner – who could also be the popular and gregarious center of attention socially; he took a desk job on Madison Avenue like a latter day backroom character in ‘Mad Men’ but he dreamed of acting and singing; he seemed happiest when he was in his beloved apartment painting a landscape or doing his carpentry listening to his jazz records but he also enjoyed hitting the road on his motorbike and driving across the country, or hanging out in the city’s gay bars at night.
And then in the mid 1970s came adult film stardom – in straight sex films no less. His face – and body – adorning movie posters and adult film screens across the country as one of the industry’s top stars.
That level of fame would be eclipsed however when he met the superstar disco music producer, Jacques Morali. They became a couple, and Jacques wanted to cast him as one of the Village People, before deciding to make Dennis a solo star. They recorded an album for Casablanca Records.
This is what happened next.
This podcast is 38 minutes long.
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When Dennis’ LP, ‘Like an Eagle,’ was released in 1979, the promotional rollercoaster started in earnest.
Early that year, Dennis made an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show. This was a big deal. The Merv Griffin Show was an American television talk show institution. It had run from 1962, and by the late 1970s was one of the most prestigious shows for celebrities to appear on. It was nominated for Emmy awards most years, and more often than not, won them. Just take a look at the guest list on the day that Dennis first appeared on it: it featured Glenda Jackson, David Soul of Starsky and Hutch, and Brooke Shields. Needless to say, Dennis sung ‘Like an Eagle’. Sadly, recordings of the episode have never been released, so we have to rely on the memories of those who tuned in to see it – and they vary somewhat.
Henri Belolo, Dennis’ record producer, was over the moon: “I was just so happy to see Dennis on television,” he remembered. “Dennis was broadcast from coast to coast singing his heart out, and that was when there were just three or four TV channels – so everyone in the country could see him.”
For Skip St. James, Dennis’ ex-partner from the early 1970s, the memories have a bittersweet tinge: “I didn’t see much of Dennis after he moved in with Jacques,” he said. “Then one night, out of the blue, he invited me over for dinner, and he turned on the Merv Griffin show, and there he was singing ‘Like an Eagle’ on TV – all dressed up in shiny silver clothes. He’d invited me over because he wanted me there to share it. I was impressed, although it was strange seeing him sing that kind of music. He hated disco and he hated dancing! Dennis was a jeans-and-leather guy, and was clearly uncomfortable in that silver lame’ jumpsuit. I thought he looked ridiculous. And when he smiled… it was like neon on his teeth. They were way too bright. But he was very proud of it, and I was very proud of him for it. We stayed in touch,

3 months ago

38 minutes 20 seconds

The Rialto Report

Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 2: Disco! – Podcast 153

I’ve always loved movies, especially the films I grew up with in the 1970s. I was seduced by their gritty realism, social commentary, complex characters, and a more honest portrayal of the human condition. And I was fan of that generation of film stars too: always surprising, sometimes conflicted figures, artists more than the celebrities that we have today. Movie genres seemed less important to me, so when I first saw Wade Nichols in an adult film on the big screen, it had just as big effect on me as, say, seeing Brando in ‘The Godfather’, De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver,’ or that fish thing in ‘Jaws.’
Ever since then, it feels that Wade Nichols has always been a part of my life, never far away from my thoughts. I’ve sometimes found myself wondering what it would’ve been like if Wade Nichol’s career had continued into the mainstream.
Wade Nichols is Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ perhaps.
Or how about John McLane in ‘Die Hard.’
Mr. Miyagi in ‘The Karate Kid.’
Ok, scrub that last one. The point is that he captured my imagination in a way that was just as powerful as many of the recognized greats, and so I wondered about the possible twists and turns of his life that were prevented by his death.
Years ago, I turned my attention to finding who he really was, and perhaps also, why he’d remained important to me ever since my teenage years. That disproportionate impact of an early moment in your life that is instrumental in creating your adult sense of self.
This is Wade Nichols: ‘Like An Eagle’ – His Untold Story. This is Part 2.
Parental Advisory Warning for those not familiar with The Rialto Report: this podcast episode contains disco music. This may be disturbing for younger listeners who may wish to switch off. As for the rest of you, clear a space on the dance floor and let’s get down.
This podcast is 42 minutes long.
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In 1975, Donna Summer was a little-known American singer who’d been living in Germany for eight years where she’d appeared in stage musicals. One day, she was playing around with a single lyric, ‘Love to Love You Baby,’ which she sang to an Italian musician and record producer, Giorgio Moroder. He liked the hook, and came back a few days later, having turned it into a three-minute disco song. He suggested to Donna they record it together. She wasn’t sure about the idea, mainly because the whole thing that Giorgio had come up with just sounded so damn sexual. In the end, she agreed to sing it as a demo which they could give to someone else. So she did, but the trouble was that her erotic moans and groans so impressed everyone who heard it that, they decided to release it as a Donna Summer single anyway, and ‘Love to Love You’ went on to become a small-time hit in Europe.
Fast forward a few weeks, and a tape of the song found its way to Neil Bogart, who was the president of Casablanca Records in the U.S. He listened, liked it, and decided to play it at a party at his home the same night. Next day, Bogart got Moroder on the phone. There was a problem with the song, he said: at the party, he’d started playing the song and approached a girl, but by the time he’d started speaking to her, the three-minute single had come to an end. So he had to run back to the tape deck, rewind it, and start playing it again before resuming his pick-up lines with the girl. Just as he got to the stage of propositioning her, the damn song ended again. Same drill: rewind the tape, and start it over again. A few minutes later, he was at the point of asking the girl to join him in the bedroom when, you guessed it, the song finished once more. So,

4 months ago

42 minutes 29 seconds

The Rialto Report

R.I.P. Paul Thomas (1949 – 2025) – Podcast Reprise

This past week I phoned Paul Thomas, former adult performer and film director, also known as PT. I’m heading out to LA shortly and was calling to set up a date with him and his wife. Seeing the two of them when I’m out west is one of my favorite things. It starts sitting together in their backyard under the Los Angeles sun, catching up on what’s been happening since my last visit. Then strolling slowly through the Venice canals as PT pontificates on one thing or another and his wife and I roll our eyes at him, before we end up at a local restaurant lingering over a meal and drinks.
PT’s wife picked up his phone. I said I was calling to make a date with them. She told me she’d found PT dead in their home a few hours earlier. She spoke with disbelief. PT had endured a few health challenges in recent years and apparently had been feeling ill over the past few days, but nobody saw this coming. On the contrary, he’d recently suggested to me that we all take a biking holiday together in the south of France.
PT’s wife said she couldn’t believe she’d never get to speak with him again. I feel the same way. PT and I had a playful relationship from the very start. While some found PT’s arrogance to be a flaw in his character, I always found it endearing – a feature, not a bug. And not because I enjoy egotism – humility is one of my favorite traits. But because with PT, you could put a pin in his balloon of self-importance and it would fast deflate, leaving us both laughing.
I last texted PT a few weeks ago to ask him what he remembered about a director of one of the old adult films he’d acted in. PT wrote back that the director was short and fat and could be overly prescriptive in choreographing the sex scenes. Then he countered saying actually the man was tall and skinny and that he left the performers to direct the scene themselves. Either way, he said, it was too early in the day to be sure, and that he was too sober to think properly about these questions. He wrote, “You know me well enough to know that I’d like to make up all sorts of shit right now because it would make good copy, but I know you don’t want me to stray too far from facts.”
He closed the text saying “We have much to talk about. I’ll leave the light on for you when you next come to California.”
He was one of the true originals: a talented performer, adult film director, husband, father, and my friend. I’m April Hall, and this is a reprise of my interview with PT.
Please leave the light on for when we meet again.
This podcast is 169 minutes long.
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Paul Thomas
Paul Thomas, or PT as he’s typically known, is one of the iconic names of the adult film industry.
He was born Philip Toubus, and started out as a porn performer for the Mitchell Brothers in mid-1970s San Francisco. Until the last few years, was still in the business as a director.
During the past four decades, PT won every kind of adult award – from Best Actor to Best Director, and was inducted into every Hall of Fame the sex film industry has ever invented.
But there are two aspects to PT’s background that make his presence and success in adult film even more interesting.
First he came from a wealthy family – one that owned household-name businesses like Sara Lee and Jim Beam – and he was brought up in relative luxury.
And secondly, by the time PT started his career in sex films in his mid 20s, he’d already achieved considerable success and fame on stage in musical theater. He’d starred on Broadway in Hair and played the role of Peter in the 1973 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar...

4 months ago

2 hours 49 minutes 18 seconds

The Rialto Report

Wade Nichols: ‘Like an Eagle’ – His Untold Story Part 1: The Early Years – Podcast 152

Years ago, I first saw the 1970s adult film Barbara Broadcast (1977) on the big screen, and it made a big impression.
In the film, there’s a scene which shows a man standing behind an industrial kitchen worktable, a shirtless, mustached piece of beefcake that was Wade Nichols. Rugged yet pretty. Lean, toned, and handsome. He looked like the Marlboro man from the distant plains, if that cowboy had inexplicably turned up in New York and started moonlighting as a Manhattan sous-chef. He had the appearance of a man in love, or a rather a man in lust, most likely with himself. He was the perfect embodiment of the era, that made you wonder if you were to look up ‘1970s America’ in the dictionary, there could well be a picture of Wade Nichols there.
I immediately wanted to know more.
It turned out he’d been a prolific actor in many adult films over a four-year period in the late 1970s, much loved and much missed. Slowly over the years, I found other details, but often they were in the form of conflicting rumors.
Though he’d been the leading man in many straight sex films, he was supposedly gay, or maybe bisexual? Some remembered him better as the lead actor of a popular TV soap opera, while others said he was a big disco recording star who’d come close to being one of the original Village People. And then there was the question of how he’d died: it had been reported that he shot himself in 1985, but others insisted he was a victim of AIDS.
I was hooked on finding more. But because it was before the internet age, I had no way of finding out much about him. So, years ago, I started to track down anyone who had known him, from his family, to acquaintances from the New York club, bar, and disco scene, adult film actors and directors, music and television industry friends, and many more, to try and find who he really was. I ended up writing an article for The Rialto Report with the information I learned. But my interest didn’t end then, and I continued to track down, reach out, and contact anyone with memories of him.
This is Wade Nichols’ story – in podcast form.
This podcast is 50 minutes long.

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Why is that so many of the movies we first saw as teenagers remain important and enduring to us for the rest of our lives? Same thing for the music and books that we discovered back then. And, why does it become rarer that we have that same deep connection to films we discover as we grow older?
Psychologists have suggested it’s because our teen years coincide with the period referred to as “the emergence of the stable and enduring self.” Basically, the thinking is that this period, occurring between the ages of 12 and 22, is the time when you become you. As a result, the experiences that contribute to this process become uncommonly, and disproportionately, important to you throughout the rest of your life. This is because they didn’t just contribute to the development of your self-image; they are part of your self-image. In other words, these experiences and memories become an integral part of your sense of self.
Ok, ok, so much for the theory, but what does that have to do with the life of an adult film actor who died 40 years ago?
The answer is that today’s story is personal. Well, all the stories that I cover are personal in some way, but this one is perhaps even more so than the rest.
When I first saw the 1977 adult film ‘Barbara Broadcast’ as a teenager,

5 months ago

49 minutes 30 seconds

The Rialto Report

Sue Flaken’s Sliding Doors – The Mystery of the Original Miss Jones – Podcast 151

Who was the original actor cast in the lead role of the golden age blockbuster, The Devil in Miss Jones (1973)?
Not Georgina Spelvin, the talented doyenne of adult films who starred in many pre-video era features, first in New York then in California, and who was the eventual star of the film as ‘Miss Jones.’
No, Gerard Damiano first chose another actress, Sue Flaken, to fill the role, only to change his mind at the last minute. The movie went on to become one of the biggest hits of the era, making Spelvin one of the most famous of the first generation of porn stars.
The sliding doors moment changed Georgina Spelvin’s life forever. But what of Sue Flaken, who was instead relegated to a minor, non-speaking part in the film? Who was she, why did she miss out on the life-changing role, and what happened to her afterwards?
The answer includes supporting involvement for Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Lee Jones, Georgina Spelvin, Harry Everett Smith, Al Gore, the Chelsea Hotel, Joe Sarno, Terry Southern, industrial quantities of hallucinogenic drugs, and much more.
This is the untold story of ‘Sue Flaken.’
This podcast is 35 minutes long.
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sliding doors
/ˈslīdiNG dôrs/
plural noun
definition: a seemingly insignificant moment that has a profound and lasting impact on a person’s life or the trajectory of a relationship. These moments, while often unnoticed, can dramatically alter the course of events and significantly affect future outcomes.
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What if Franz Ferdinand hadn’t been shot, and the event that triggered World War I hadn’t happened?
What if young Adolf Hitler hadn’t been rejected twice from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and instead had gone on to became an artist instead of pursuing politics?
Butterfly-effect inflection points which, if they had turned out differently, might have caused a different world.
Or another example, only less consequential perhaps: what if Gerard Damiano hadn’t decided at the last moment to promote Georgina Spelvin from her role as the cook for the cast and crew on The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and instead given her the starring role?
The story is oft-told: Damiano was shooting the follow-up to Deep Throat (1972) in a converted apple-packing plant in Milanville, Pennsylvania, and needed someone to provide craft services for the long-weekend location shoot. He offered the job to Chele Graham, an ex-Broadway chorus girl who’d featured in stage productions such as ‘Cabaret’, ‘Guys and Dolls’, and ‘Sweet Charity’ before being timed-out by her age – she was a near-ancient 36 by the time of ‘Miss Jones’. Chele accepted the catering job, needing the money for a film collective that she and her lover were setting up in lower Manhattan.
Damiano had already hired someone for the all-important lead role of Miss Jones – a newcomer named Ronnie, an actress he was raving about – but by the time production started, Chele had become Georgina Spelvin and assumed the role of Miss Jones, instantly creating one of the more memorable characters in adult film history – as was borne out by the contemporary critics....

6 months ago

34 minutes 53 seconds

The Rialto Report

Susan Hart – Confidences and Confidence, Part 2: Podcast 150

In the first part of our interview with Susan Hart, we heard about Sue’s early years in 1970s Los Angeles, growing up in a strict Catholic family, running away from home when she was 15, and becoming involved in a bad relationship. She escaped – into the army of all places, before finding a different kind of home, of sorts, as a prolific performer in the early adult video industry.
But what is unusual and remarkable about her story is that Susan is willing to tell it at all. As you will hear in this concluding episode, Susan left Los Angeles in the late 1980s and pursued a professional career, living in constant fear of being confronted by her past. When we contacted her, we had no idea that it would bring out many of her worst fears.
This is Sue’s story.
You can hear the first part of our interview with Susan Hart here.
This podcast is 60 minutes long.
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Susan Hart: Adult Industry Photos

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7 months ago

1 hour 2 seconds

The Rialto Report

Susan Hart – Confidences and Confidence, Part 1: Podcast 149

Perhaps one of the less obvious aspects of The Rialto Report is that it may lead to the impression that people involved in the adult industry forty or fifty years ago are all pretty comfortable talking about their pasts and have led serene lives, free of incident, since they stopped making sex films. After all, our podcasts and interviews are filled with people talking pretty openly about their experiences.
In fact, quite the opposite is normally the case. You see, the truth is that the majority of people we approach – actors, directors, producers – are usually rather keen to not go public with their memories. And that’s understandable: despite the length of time that’s passed since their images and names were splashed across posters and theater screens, the reality is there is still a very real stigma in current day America for something they did all those years ago. The result is that, sadly, these voices are largely absent from the selection of oral histories that we present in The Rialto Report.
So all that begs the question: why on earth did Susan Hart agree to an interview?
You see, Susan was a prolific actress in the California video explosion of the mid 1980s. She appeared in a hundred or so movies and countless spreads in men’s magazines. She had an interesting backstory too: a Latina from Los Angeles, the product of a Catholic upbringing, she joined the Army to break free. Then, she became an adult film performer and later was approached to take part in a sting operation against the sex film business. She was pretty, happy-looking, popular, and I always wondered about her.
So I sent her a letter. Little did I realize that she’d spent the last 40 years terrified that her past would catch up with her, and that her biggest nightmare was someone like me contacting her and asking her to reveal who she was, and is.
But we spoke, and Sue agreed to tell all – including exploring how she feels about it today.
She still can’t quite understand why she did adult films, but I hope she’s happy about this interview.
This is April Hall – and this is Sue Hart’s story.
This podcast is 60 minutes long.
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Susan Hart: Personal Photos

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8 months ago

59 minutes 43 seconds

The Rialto Report

Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Part 4, Rafael Remy’s Story – Podcast 148

Previously on Chasing Butterflies – Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida:
After Dolores Carlos’ retirement from acting in South Florida nudie films in the late 1960s, she still remained close to her circle of Cuban filmmaker friends, and none more so than José Prieto, Greg Sandor, and Rafael Remy. They would still meet regularly, and all three took an active interest in her daughter Marcy’s well-being. From time to time, they would joke about the fortune teller that the three men had consulted when they escaped from Cuba. Greg Sandor had moved out the California and had indeed found the money and respect that had been predicted for him. Similarly, José Prieto had found a degree of fame and notoriety following the success and outcry that followed the release of films he made, such as Shanty Tramp (1967) and Savages from Hell (1968). The only exception to the mystic’s forecast was Rafael Remy: he’d fared well and was not seeing the trouble and strife that had been foreseen in his future.
Rafael had lived a lower profile existence but with more regular work than his two friends: due in part to his jack-of-all-trades skill-set and willingness to get involved in anything, he was always in demand. He was a cameraman, editor, lighting, gaffer, soundman, and production manager who was cheap and could always be relied on to deliver a decent job.
But as the 1960s turned into the 70s, the film business was changing: the innocent exploitation films that had greeted them when they arrived from Cuba were giving way to more explicit sex movies whose legality was questionable, and Rafael was suddenly being offered an altogether different kind of job.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many people involved in the Florida film business of the 1960s and 1970s. Their overlapping personal histories reveal an untold chapter of adult film history – and the hidden role that Cubans played in shaping it. These are some of their stories.
This is the concluding episode of Chasing Butterflies, Part 4: Rafael Remy’s story.
You can listen to the Prologue: Dolores Carlos’ story here, Part 1: Manuel Conde’s story, Part 2: José Prieto’s story, Part 3: Marcy Bichette’s story.

With thanks to John Minson, Tom Flynn, Ronald Ziegler, Leroy Griffith, Veronica Acosta, Marcy Bichette, Mikey Bichette, Lousie ‘Bunny’ Downe, Mitch Poulos, Sheldon Schermer, Ray Aranha, Manny Samaniego, Barry Bennett, Randy Grinter, Herb Jeffries, Tempest Storm, Show more...

1 year ago

44 minutes 58 seconds

The Rialto Report

Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Part 3, Marcy Bichette’s story – Podcast 147

Previously on Chasing Butterflies – Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida:
You may remember Marcy Bichette’s start in life from our earlier episodes: she was born Marcelle Denise Bichette in St Petersburg, Florida in August 1950 to a young married couple who had distinctly different ambitions in life. Her father, Maurice Bichette, had married looking for a settled, quiet existence, but her mother, Dolores, wanted to live her life moving in the opposite direction. Dolores had come from a protected, patriarchal, patriotic Cuban household, and she longed for the excitement and glamor that she saw onscreen in her favorite Hollywood movies. Maurice and Dolores’ marriage couldn’t, and didn’t, last. They divorced, and Marcy lived with her father and his new wife Mary, while Dolores, moved to Miami to pursue a modeling career.
Dolores did well, changing her name to Dolores Carlos, her photos featuring in magazines and newspapers, winning beauty contests, and then, starring (and being arrested) for a hit nudie film, Hideout in the Sun. The success of that film led to her appearing in other films such as Pagan Island (1961), Diary of a Nudist (1961), and Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962) in quick succession, and thereby becoming the unofficial pin-up queen for nudists.
But perhaps Dolores’ biggest impact came in the way that she became a tireless advocate, promoter, and organizer of the Cuban immigrant film talent that had arrived in Miami, a group of people keen to make a new life in the U.S. after escaping the Castro revolution. Her friendships with local film producers and theater owners like K. Gordon Murray and Leroy Griffith kick-started the American careers of many of these Cubans in Florida, including men such as Manuel Conde, José Prieto, and Rafael Remy.
The only downside in Dolores’ new life in the early 1960s was that she was separated from her adored daughter Marcy, a problem that she longed to fix.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many people involved in the Florida film business of the 1960s and 1970s. Their overlapping personal histories reveal an untold chapter of adult film history – and the hidden role that Cubans played in shaping it.
These are some of their stories. This is Chasing Butterflies, Part 3: Marcy Bichette’s story.
You can listen to the Prologue: Dolores Carlos’ story here, Part 1: Manuel Conde’s story , and Part 2: José Prieto’s story.
With thanks to John Minson, Tom Flynn, Ronald Ziegler, Leroy Griffith, Veronica Acosta, Marcy Bichette, Mikey Bichette, Lousie ‘Bunny’ Downe, Mitch Poulos, Sheldon Schermer, Ray Aranha,

1 year ago

38 minutes 46 seconds

The Rialto Report

Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Part 2, José Prieto’s story – Podcast 146

Previously on Chasing Butterflies – Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida:
Manuel Conde had lived several lives even before he moved to Miami, Florida. He’d been born José Conde Samaniego in 1917 in Galicia, in northern Spain, though his family fled to Cuba after General Franco’s fascist coup d’état in the 1930s. And then, in 1959, Castro overthrew the government and enforced Communist rule over Cuba. Manuel, having already fled one dictatorship in Spain a few years earlier, took his family and fled to Miami, Florida, smuggling out a sexploitation film that he’d just made, called Girls on the Rocks.
In Miami, Manuel met Dolores Carlos. Dolores was a newly semi-famous actress and model on the local scene, having starred in (and been arrested for) a successful nudism film, Hideout in the Sun (1960) made by Doris Wishman, which she followed by appearing in a handful of other nudie cutie films.
Dolores introduced Manuel to the growing community of ex-pat Cuban filmmakers that had settled in south Florida after Castro’s coup, and together they shot a nudie short in 1961, Playgirl Models.

Dolores and Manuel arranged a meeting with Leroy Griffith, an energetic, entrepreneurial force of nature, who’d recently moved to Miami and made a name for himself by acquiring a string of theaters where he exhibited burlesque shows and then adult sex films. The three of them made a full-length feature was called Lullaby of Bareland (1964).
In 1966, Manuel and Dolores teamed up with Leroy Griffith to make a film with a decent budget – Mundo Depravados – starring Tempest Storm, one of the country’s best-known burlesque performers, and the movie was ostensibly directed by her husband Herb Jeffries, a suave and seductive film and television actor and popular jazz singer who had a large following in the African American market. ‘Mundo Depravados’ was released with eye-catching promo material – “A Sinerama of Sex and Fear!” – and is one of the most bizarrely entertaining film experiences you can have.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many of these people. Their overlapping personal histories reveal an untold chapter of adult film history and the hidden role that Cubans played in shaping it.
These are some of their stories. This is Chasing Butterflies, Part 2: José Prieto’s story.
You can listen to the Prologue: Dolores Carlos’ story here, and Part 1: Manuel Conde’s story here.
With thanks to John Minson, Tom Flynn, Ronald Ziegler, Leroy Griffith, Veronica Acosta, Marcy Bichette, Mikey Bichette, Lousie ‘Bunny’ Downe, Mitch Poulos, Sheldon Schermer, Ray Aranha, Manny Samaniego, Barry Bennett, Show more...

1 year ago

41 minutes 24 seconds

The Rialto Report

Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Part 1, Manuel Conde’s story – Podcast 145

Previously on Chasing Butterflies – Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida:
Dolores Carlos was from a fiercely Cuban family, even though she was born in Tampa, Florida in October 1930, and never visited her country of origin. Her Cuban heritage and good looks, not to mention her patriotism, came from her father, Gus, and grandfather, Carlos, who had run the family’s cigar making business.
Growing up was complex for Dolores: she was close to her family, but she dreamed of breaking free and having a glamorous life as an actress, seduced by the silver screen and the movies of 1940s that she cut school to watch. At 17, she broke away, but found herself swapping her strict family home for married life – and being a stay-at-home mother after she gave birth to her daughter, Marcy.
The marriage ended in divorce, and Dolores needed to support herself – which she did by modeling: she modeled for Webb’s department store, newspapers, pin-up photographers and local businesses. Her career quickly took off, aided by winning beauty contests and making personal appearances at fairs, carnivals, and balls. Within no time, her pictures were appearing all over the land – even in other countries. She became close friends with a Miami model, Louise Downe, also known as Bunny, and they often worked together.
Most of all though, Dolores wanted to work in films: she introduced herself to every producer she could find and turned up at every audition, but when she turned 30 without any offers, she figured that her dream was probably not going to happen.
Then in 1958, Doris Wishman contacted her. Doris had had a career in film distribution, but following the death of her husband, had decided to make a nudist camp film, ‘Hideout in the Sun’, and wanted Dolores for the lead role. Dolores accepted with a degree of nervousness given the subject matter – and her fears were realized when Doris and Dolores were both arrested filming a nude scene on the beach in Miami, and Dolores was found guilty of indecent exposure. It was a scandal that was splashed across the newspapers and shocked her family.
For Dolores however, the arrest, and the subsequent success of the film, proved to be a watershed moment: she finally felt independent and decided to double down and move to Miami where she could pursue the new film and modeling opportunities that were now coming her way. She appeared in several more nudist camp films, countless newspaper photo spreads, and became a local celebrity, appearing on stage to introduce visiting Hollywood stars, like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they brought their shows to town. Her life was made even happier when she was joined by her teenage daughter Marcy, who moved to Florida to live with her.
Dolores was often accompanied on her film and modeling jobs by her friend, Bunny Downe, and together they decided to produce their own nudist movie, and so they arranged meetings with various impresarios in Miami. One of these was with K. Gordon Murray, a legendary carny entrepreneur, who was a hugely successful importer of Mexican children’s films which he would skillfully dub for the American market.
But Dolores had another outlet for her talents: on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro’s communist rebels had seized control of Havana, Cuba’s capital. Many Cubans, fearing the consequences of the new revolutionary government, fled to Miami looking for work and a new life. Among the influx were many who’d worked in Cuba’s film and television industry. Dolores’ passion for helping Cubans and her newly acquired network of film contacts was ideally suited to helping these immigrants find work in the new sex film industry in Florida.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many of these people.

1 year ago

40 minutes 1 second

The Rialto Report

Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Prologue, Dolores Carlos’ story – Podcast 144

Cuba may only be 90 miles from the southern tip of the United States – a leisurely boat trip on a calm day – but since the 1950s, the island has seemed part of a distant world, too many communist miles away.
It wasn’t always the case. For years, Cuba was almost an extension of America, almost another star on its star-spangled banner. Links between the two countries dated back to when the Cuban cigar industry first arrived in Florida in the 1830s, and Hispanic communities developed in Miami as impoverished Cubans emigrated, dissatisfied with Cuba’s poor economy, a high poverty rate, and the various military dictatorships. Cuban tourists followed and soon the city became home to a variety of Spanish language amenities.
And then on January 1, 1959, everything changed: Fidel Castro’s communist rebels seized control of Havana, Cuba’s capital. The new dictatorship reduced American influence on the island and, by the early 1960s, had seized all American-owned property in Cuba. The United States responded with an embargo restricting commerce between the two countries, which is still in place today.
Many Cubans, fearing the consequences of Castro’s new revolutionary government, fled to the nearest part of America, the state of Florida, and that influx of people changed Miami: before the revolution, just 10,000 Cubans lived there, but three years later, in October 1962, nearly 250,000 more Cubans had arrived, and that number would grow to over 1,000,000 by the 1990s.
Many of the new arrivals had been professionals and tradesmen back in Cuba, and they arrived in Florida looking to continue to work in their chosen fields as doctors, lawyers, auto-workers, and manual laborers.
And then there were those who’d worked in Cuba’s film and television industry.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many Cubans who worked in the Florida film business in the 1960s and 1970s, people who made their home and careers there after escaping their home country. Their accounts uncover a Rashomon collection of overlapping personal histories that reveal an untold chapter of adult film and the hidden role that Cubans played in shaping it.
These are some of their stories. This is Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida. This is Dolores Carlos‘ story.

With thanks to John Minson, Tom Flynn, Ronald Ziegler, Veronica Acosta, Mikey Bichette, Bunny Downe, Mitch Poulos, Sheldon Schermer, Ray Aranha, Barry Bennett, Randy Grinter, Michael Bowen, Norman Senfeld, Richard Falcone, Something Weird Video (nearly all films mentioned in this series have been found with them), and many anonymous families and friends who have offered recollections, large and small, over the years.
This podcast is 41 minutes long.

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1. Dolores at the Opa Locka Community Center
Every time Dolores Rose went to the weekly women’s group at the Opa Locka Community Center near Miami, she made sure she dressed well. She’d have her hair piled high, a string of fake pearls around her neck, high-heeled espadrilles, and she could still fit into her powder blue cigarette pants. Sure, she was the wrong side of 60, and she knew that being old was mandatory, but looking old was optional. This was no God’s waiting room for her, this was her time to shine.
This week’s gathering was more special than usual for Dolores. Each meeting was turned over to a different woman who’d make a presentation to the rest of the group about something of general interest. Pie-baking,

1 year ago

41 minutes 17 seconds

The Rialto Report

Iris De La Cruz – And Her Daughter Melissa: Street Walking Blues – Podcast 143

A few years ago, I was researching an article for The Rialto Report when I came across a 1980 radio program from WBAI, a popular New York City station that specialized in progressive and alternative voices at the time. This particular show featured a prostitute named Iris De La Cruz.
Iris wasn’t directly connected to the adult film scene in New York at the time – though she was friends with several of the adult performers – but I knew of her because she wrote for men’s magazines like Cheri, Partner, and Eros. Her monthly columns were an eye-opening account of her life working as a street prostitute, and this edition of the WBAI show was more of the same, with Iris talking about her experiences and then taking questions from callers to the station.
But the reason that I found this show compelling wasn’t just Iris’ connection to the sex business in New York in the 1970s. No, what was startling, jaw-dropping even, was that Iris had brought a guest onto the show, her ten-year-old daughter, Melissa, and was interviewing her in a completely unfiltered way about what she thought of Iris’s street-walking job.
Even for a program from 40 years ago on a counter-cultural station like WBAI, it still makes for a surprising, engrossing, but sometimes jarring, listening experience. In the current age of debate around parental controls, book bans, and school curricula, this frank, public discussion of sex work between a mother and young daughter is an exchange that probably wouldn’t, and couldn’t, happen today.
I listened back to the show several times – and each time, the same questions came into my head.
Who was Iris De La Cruz, and why did she expose her daughter to a potentially traumatic experience at such a young age
Who was Melissa, her daughter, and what did she make of this – would she even remember it today, or did it actually have any lasting effects?
And then, what happened to this mother and daughter in the years after this show was recorded – after all, Iris would likely be in her 70s today, and Melissa in her 50s.
I wanted to find what happened to both of them.
This is April Hall. And this is Iris and Melissa’s story.
This episode’s running time is 61 minutes.
Many thanks to Melissa De La Cruz for her participation and kindness.
Thank you to Veronica Vera for Scarlet Harlot and Aphrodite Awards photos. Visit Veronica’s site for more on New York’s world of sex work, art, and activism.
We never ask you for money or accept any advertisements for what we do, but if this story means something to you, we’d love it if you went to the Iris House website and considered making a donation, however small. We’re not associated with them in any way, but they do such good work and well… we know that Iris would be grateful to you. Thanks so much.
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Iris De La Cruz

Jean Powell, P.O.N.Y. spokesperson before Iris de la Cruz
Iris defending surge pricing
Prostitutes of New York (P.O.N.Y.) newsletter
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1 year ago

1 hour 46 seconds

The Rialto Report

R.I.P. Howard Ziehm: Mona… (and marijuana, music, and M.I.T.) – Podcast Reprise

Howard Ziehm, the pioneering adult film director, theater owner, author, polymath, and friend of The Rialto Report died last week in California.
Over the years, I visited Howard on several occasions at his beautiful hill-top house in Malibu in California – “It’s the home that porn built”, he would joke. And he was right: Howard had enjoyed a long career making and exhibiting adult films, and in his last years, he enjoyed a happy, comfortable, and well-deserved retirement.
Ten years ago, he even wrote a lengthy autobiography, ‘Take Your Shame and Shove It: My Wild Journey Through the Mysterious Sexual Cosmos’ in which he told the eventful and entertaining story of his life.
The irony was that when I met up with him, we ended up talking about everything except his adult film past: he always wanted to show me his collection of classic cartoons depicting golf scenes – he’d published a book of favorites which featured a foreword by Bob Hope, and I wanted to talk about his experience playing music and managing folk clubs in heyday of the 1960s. Not that Howard was stuck in the past – quite the opposite: he was keen to talk about politics, culture, and technology innovations.
On one of the last times that I saw him, I asked him what he thought about the state of the adult film industry today, and the new developments in AI, streaming porn, webcams, cam girls, and live interactive sites like Chaturbate. He was enthusiastic: “These instant, intimate interactions are like going back to the beginning of the sex film business,” he said. “Except that now you can enjoy it all in your own home.”
I asked him if he ever logged on to any of these sites.
“Of course, I do!” he laughed. “Every day! Except I don’t like to pay. After everything I’ve done to help create this adult film industry over many decades, after all the risks I took and the court cases I had to fight, I figure… I should get some things for free, right?”
This episode’s running time is 102 minutes.
______________________________________________________________________
Original introduction to the Howard Ziehm podcast
Make no mistakes about it, Howard Ziehm is one of the people who invented the adult film industry.
He was there taking still photos for adult bookstores in the 1960s – when the most you could reveal was a girl in her underwear. He made some of the first color loops – when all you could show was the subject writhing on a mattress by herself.
And then in 1970, as the market finally demanded hardcore, he made the groundbreaking ‘Mona: The Virgin Nymph’.
Time magazine called it the ‘The Jazz Singer’ (1927) of fuck films. Variety called it “the long-awaited link between the stag loops and conventional theatrical fare” and it was listed it their annual Top 50 grossing films – the first pornographic film to feature. And it was the first nationally released 35mm adult feature film to play in actual movie theaters.
In short, it was the blueprint for the 1970s porno chic hits that followed.
Howard went onto make many more adult films over the next decade, including ‘Flesh Gordon’ (1974), a science fiction adventure comedy erotic spoof of the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s.
So who was the mysterious Howard Ziehm behind these films?
Fortunately he’s finally completed his autobiography which The Rialto Report is assi...

1 year ago

1 hour 42 minutes 23 seconds

The Rialto Report

Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 4: The Taschen Years – Podcast 142

By the mid 1990s, Dian Hanson could’ve been forgiven for thinking that she’d finally made it – and that nothing was going to derail her career in magazine publishing that had started two decades earlier.
She’d had an improbable and volatile journey, from a troubled upbringing and difficult marriage, to working as a nurse in rural Pennsylvania, before somehow launching an explicit men’s magazine called Puritan for the mob in New York. There followed a succession of writing, publishing, and editing jobs on men’s magazines whose titles eloquently reveal their sexual content: Hooker, Expose’, Partner, Adult Cinema Review, and Juggs, to name a few.
Her greatest triumph was Leg Show magazine – which Dian turned into a high-selling juggernaut. It was a match made in heaven: Dian, long fascinated and deeply compassionate about sexual quirks and fetish, an audience that was crying out for a more intimate connection with their magazine, and a publisher, George Mavety, who gave Dian near-complete creative control.
But then just as everything seemed to be working out perfectly, the internet happened – crippling the sex magazine business. To make matters worse, her employer, George Mavety, died. The good times were suddenly retreating in the rear-view mirror.
In this final episode of the series, Dian talks about what happened next, and how she re-invented herself with Taschen books. It’s a story that includes characters as diverse as Linda Lovelace, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Crumb, transvestite model Kim Christy and transsexual porn star Sulka, Vanessa Del Rio, and many more.
You can listen to the Episode 1 here, Episode 2 here, and Episode 3 here.

This podcast is 52 minutes long.
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Dian in ‘Crumb‘ documentary, 1991
‘
Photo for Crumb portrait

R. Crumb portrait

Dian standing on Leg Show reader, 1995

New York, 2000

Dian and Larry Flynt event, 2008

Show more...

1 year ago

52 minutes 20 seconds

The Rialto Report

Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 3: Going Solo – Podcast 141

In the first part of ‘Dian Hanson, Chronicles,’ Dian spoke of her upbringing in the northwest United States, an often shocking family life with a difficult and frightening father – who just happened to be the supreme grand master of a sex-magic cult. It was a difficult childhood that included bullying, sexual assault, and running away from home, culminating in an unhappy marriage to a transvestite which ended after her troubled and abusive husband forced them to put their daughter up for adoption.
One of the few highlights and true interests from her teen years was Dian’s discovery of sexuality and pornography – thanks in part to the work of the psychologist Krafft-Ebbing and the growing permissiveness in the country, as exemplified by the publication of the strangely titillating Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.
In the second episode of our series, we heard how Dian got divorced and moved on with her life by finding work as a nurse in Pennsylvania – despite lacking any formal training – before starting a hardcore magazine, Puritan, with a boyfriend – despite not having had any experience in publishing. Dian liked the sex magazine work much more than she liked her boyfriend, so she ditched him and went on to partner with Peter Wolff, an eccentric veteran of the New York sex publication scene. Together they helmed popular titles such as Partner, Adult Cinema Review, and Oui, and though the pair were alternately and repeatedly feted and then fired, they developed a template for a new type of publication: a men’s magazine that would be guided by the desires of the readers.
Episode 3 is about the 1980s and 1990s – and how Dian’s career continued in the ever-expanding and competitive world of sex publications.
You can listen to the Episode 1 here and Episode 2 here.

This podcast is 51 minutes long.
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Standing on Fakir Musafar, Partner magazine, 1982

Dian Hanson, 1982

Dian with George Mavety, c. 1988

Dian, with Rick Savage, c.1992

Leg Show column photo, c. 1994

With Juggs managing editor Matthew Licht, 1995

Leg Show column photo, c.

1 year ago

51 minutes 6 seconds

The Rialto Report

Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 2: The Peter Wolff Years – Podcast 140

Dian Hanson is a unique figure from the world of men’s magazines in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, a world that overlapped strongly with the adult film business.
Last time, in the first episode of this podcast series, we heard about her surprising, and often shocking, upbringing: a hippie and high school dropout from Seattle, her father was supreme grand master in a sex-magic cult, and a childhood that included being bullied, sexually assaulted, running away from home, even being considered by her parents as a possible partner for a much older friend-of-the family who just happened to be a pedophile.
By 20, Dian had developed a passionate and life-long interest in pornography – thanks to three unlikely sources: the work of psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebbing, the publication of the bizarre Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, and the appearance of the first sex films that had started to be shown in theaters. But paradoxically, by her late teens, Dian found herself a world away from all these stimuli – as an unhappily married wife, pregnant, and living in rural Mississippi.
In this episode, we hear how Dian recovered from that difficult, not to mention tragic, marriage and found her way into the burgeoning men’s magazine business in New York – albeit through an abusive boyfriend. Quick note: Dian asked that we don’t refer to this ex by his given name, but rather call him “he who shall not be named”. Obviously, I respected that choice.
Dian talks about the first magazine she worked on – the mob-financed Puritan – a trailblazing, still legendary publication, that was the first hardcore magazine aimed at the newsstands in America. After that came Dian’s partnership with Peter Wolff – a similarly important character in magazine history. For years, the pair of them tore through a host of New York adult titles leaving a trail of both success and bewildered confusion behind them, as they pioneered the trend for reader-contributed magazines. Along the way, she crossed paths with people like adult film actors Vanessa del Rio, Ron Jeremy, and Marc Stevens, highbrow art-world darlings like Robert Mapplethorpe and Gay Talese, and low level mob bosses like Robert DiBernardo.
You can listen to the previous episode here.
This podcast is 75 minutes long.
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Dian Hanson – In Pictures
Dian with a model, 1979

Dian, on her wedding day, 1980

Dian with Vanessa del Rio, 1980

On a Partner shoot, 1981

Dian, 1981

1 year ago

1 hour 14 minutes 31 seconds

The Rialto Report

Dian Hanson – Chronicles, Part 1: The Early Years – Podcast 139

If the name Dian Hanson rings a bell for you nowadays, it may be because she’s a senior editor and writer for Taschen, the gold-standard, high-end book publishing company, where she has over 50 books to her credit. In fact, she’s also the so-called head of the company’s Sexy Book division where she’s overseen impressive and weighty tomes that include The Art of Pin-Up, The Book of Butts, Breasts, Legs, and Pussy, The History of Men’s Magazines, lavishly illustrated books by Roy Stuart, Robert Crumb, Tom of Finland, and many, many more, including a Vanessa Del Rio book that remains the greatest-ever volume dedicated to an adult film star. Perfect for your coffee table, if your coffee table needs some hardcore pornography.
But as much as I wanted to hear about Dian’s life in book publishing, it is her life before Taschen that really intrigued me.
You see, Dian was at the heart of the wild and crazy men’s magazine scene in the New York of the 1970s and 80s, a world that overlapped heavily with adult films in that period. At the heart of her professional career lay a partnership with another larger-than-life character inhabiting that world – a writer, bon vivant, political activist, visionary, and rake called Peter Wolff. For ten years, Peter and Dian blazed across almost every New York adult film magazine you can think off, leaving a trail of new ideas, busted budgets, and creative visions that broke the mold of what a men’s magazine could, and should, be.
From Partner to Oui, Adult Cinema Review, Harvey, Hooker, and Exposé, Peter and Dian were the Bonnie and Clyde of sex magazines, tearing their way through an antiquated and outdated business, reinventing it by involving readers and breaking down the barriers between those who appeared in the magazines and those who read them. If Neil Armstrong hadn’t been the first on the moon, someone else would’ve taken his place, but if Dian and Peter hadn’t done their thing, well… the magazine landscape would have been very different.
Together they worked for mob-related figures, promoted golden age porn films – and porn stars, and were fired by every title and every publisher in town – somehow managing to enhance their reputations as creative and innovative trailblazers and yet destroy their own j...

1 year ago

1 hour 12 minutes 34 seconds