P.T. Anderson's Top 10

[Brock Landers]

Paul Thomas Anderson listed these ten films as some of his film favorites and "Boogie Nights" influences...hope you dig them like I do...let me know...

1. Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr.) (1969)
"I came across it at a video store when I was 15. Robert Downey Sr. seemed
interesting to me because I'd just seen Robert Downey Jr. in some little movie. I was
also interested in having a 'black culture' phase in my life, and this seemed like a cool
movie. When I watched it, I realized that you could be really punk rock in a movie. You
could do anything: it didn't have to make sense. As long as it was funny, or funny to the
guy who was making it, it would come across as exciting. At the time, Downey Sr. was
considered very odd and avant-garde."

2. Nashville (Robert Altman) (1975)
"I actually just got a print of this to screen tonight because it's my birthday and that's
what I'm going to watch. This film is perfect, absolutely perfect, to me. It's a
cinemascope movie, which I love, and so incredibly bold. The long camera takes, the
overlapping dialogue, the multi-track recording that he first implemented here. And to
have all these stories but still keep you interested, it's amazing. The film feels so
natural, dirty and fucked up, but so cutting-edge. Nashville gets me speechless - it's
one of his best, right up there with The Long Goodbye."

3. GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese) (1990)
"This was the first movie to show me techniques I'd spotted in French films being
interpreted by a director I was in awe of. He threw the cinematic fucking sink into that
movie. Some stuff I did in Boogie Nights is compared to the long travelling shot into the
Copacabana. But there have been so many shots like it - you can trace it back to Max
Ophuls. What's obnoxious and so fucking brilliant about Scorsese is that he does these
pretentious, insane camera moves that suddenly make sense. He's the biggest
show-off - and we don't even see it."

4. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen) (1952)
"Everyone needs a musical, right? I'd actually have to make this a tie with Ernst
Lubitsch's The Merry Widow (1934). But Singin' in the Rain meant a lot to me because
the story - the transition from silents to talkies. It's chock-full of everything you want to
see in a movie musical: handsome people, bimbos, studio bosses that chew on
cigars...It's colorful and it's fucking funny. And even it sucked, and Gene Kelly's scene
was basically the whole movie, it'd still be one of my favorites because everything in it
is so beautiful. Kelly is just so good."

5. Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut) (1960)
"I always loved gangster movies, but if you've seen a hundred of them you've seen two
hundred of them, right? But in this, Truffaut took the American gangster movies that I
knew and loved as a kid all that Humphrey Bogart stuff - and took it somewhere brand
new and postmodern: our hero could be a little skinnier and not so tough. This films
also taught me how to dress - I wanted to wear those suits! I wanted to be in that
movie! The people in the film weren't typically handsome, but they were so sexy and
cool."

6. The Jade Pussycat (Bob Chinn) (1977)
"This is like Hitchcock doing a porno. It may not be one of my top ten films but it's a film
I recommended to the Boogie Nights cast to watch as research. For me, it's the
quintessential porno film. It's got a murder mystery and an action hero, John Holmes,
that we love. It sucks - I know that - but it's so enjoyable to watch, not just in a horny,
get-off kind of way. You're just as eager to find out what's going to happen next as you
are to watch those people fuck. The structure is, like, 'You have to solve crimes, but you
also have to take time for the ladies.' It's just brilliant."

7. Soy Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov) (1964)
"I couldn't even really tell you the premise of this one. There's a girl and a love affair and
so forth. It's simple and straightforward in terms of plot. It's the beauty of the scenery
and the cool shots these guys pull off that gets me. I imagine these guys creating rigs
for the camera to do all these insane shots. The camerawork is all wide-angle 10mm
lens, which is done in continuous one-shots. I took the going-underwater shot in Boogie
Nights from this. They do all these technical things, but what you feel is the joy of them
experimenting and inventing as they go along."

8. Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme) (1980)
"Jonathan Demme is my favorite director by far. His films have rough edges - things
are slightly off at times - but they're perfectly modulated. This one doesn't just hit me
emotionally. It's the first 20 minutes: two guys talking in a fucking car - and that's it! This
to me is heaven. It's fucking amazing the way the movie sets you up to accept whatever
happens. It's like you've been sucker-punched. A lot of my first film, Hard Eight, is
patterned after Melvin and Howard's structure - I just didn't do it so well."

9. Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa) (1949)
"This is what I call a 'pop song' movie. It's so simple. You can say it in one sentence: a
rookie cop loses his gun. It's unbelievable. And this movie opens with a bang, which I
love. The first shot is a close-up of a guy saying, 'I lost my gun.' It's funny: Truffaut's in
France, ripping off American gangster movies, Kurosawa's over in Japan doing the
same. They sit there going, 'We love Howard Hawks, we love Raoul Walsh,' and then
they take them home, mix it up and take it to another level. And the violence isn't
gratuitous - it fucking hurts. It's, like, Fuck! Ow! Dead! Blood everywhere!"

10. Bay Day at Black Rock (John Sturges) (1954)
"Can I make it a tie with Sweet Smell of Success [Alexander Mackendrick, 1957]? I
like films that are simple in their storytelling - and I can't fucking write for shit! What I got
from Bad Day...is that it balances what is real, how we talk and communicate, then you
pick moments to make a point. That's what makes it movie dialogue. With Sweet
Smell..., talk about me learning from movies! I mimicked the way Curtis and Lancaster
talked. Clifford Odets wrote the quips. It's smart-ass and dark, one of the greatest
scripts ever."

[JoBlo]

Hey thanks for the cool post, Brock. It's nice to know. But to be honest, and maybe it's because I never went to film school or anything but, there are only 4 films on that list that I know of...

One film that I TOTALLY got as an influence in BOOGIE NIGHTS was GOODFELLAS! The first time that my friends and I watched BOOGIE NIGHTS, we kept saying "oh, this is just like Scorsese...this is like that shot in GOODFELLAS, etc...", but of course, it's all good, cause Paul obviously takes it all and turns it into something so cool of his own.

I hope that he continues on his cinematic winning streak. Any idea what his next flick will be? I heard something about him doing a comedy with Adam Sandler (no joke!).

[Brock Landers]

I have only seen some of them myself...

for instance "Jade Pussycat" is an old seventies porn, and I only get new porn...

I did see Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" only because I am on a Kurosawa mailing list with Janus Films Group (by far the leader in Kurosawa and many foreign films)...I feel a compulsion to buy every Kurosawa film...plus I really dig Toshiro Mifune (the guy who John Belushi's "Samurai" was based on...

They actually got Buck Swope's (Don Cheadle in "Boogie Nights") name from that film "Putney Swope" and crossing him with a black cowboy sans "Blazing Saddles"...BUCK (cowboy) SWOPE ("Putney Swope" black slur)...

I have actually never seen "Nashville" by Robert Altman but I dig "The Player" and "ShortCuts" (an influence on "Magnolia").

"GoodFellas" was my introduction to Scorcese and it is, of course, great...

I really like "Melvin & Howard", a little ditty on a stranger meeting a messed up recluse drifter who may or may not be Howard Hughes...Anchor Bay Films recently re-released this on VHS and DVD.

and last but not least, "The Sweet Smell Of Success" is a hard-biting Hollywood story full of black humor and a plot that reminds me of E! True Hollywood Story or "Sunset Boulevard"...I remember Burt Lancaster being great as a hard-edged cynical Hollywood producer...

[Brock Landers]

Upcoming P.T. Anderson releases:

"Flagpole Special"

This 17 minute short was shot by PTA for inclusion at the RETinevitable which is held at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

Paul made the film specifically for the festival at Adam Levite's request who incidentally designed the cover art for the Criterion LaserDisc & Boogie Nights 2 Disc Platinum Series DVD.

The short lays the early groundwork for the Frank "TJ" Mackey character as John C. Reilly & Chris Penn spend the entire film talking about how to "Seduce and Destroy" women.

Here's a brief summary:

"Paul Thomas Anderson's "Flagpole Special", a single seventeen-minute locked-off take on digital video of the torsos of two guys - a long haired, bicycle panted, chubby ranting about women as his pal idly strums his electric guitar. Based on a conversation Anderson found on a discarded audiotape, the characters, portrayed by actors John C. Reilly and Chris Penn, manage to keep up their inane dialogue for an irresistibly mind-boggling amount of time like a flesh-and-blood Beavis and Butthead."

Directors Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights"), Atom Egoyan ("The Sweet Hereafter""), and Harmony Korine (writer of "Kids") created their new experimental films together. David Byrne, actor/director Vincent Gallo, and techno artist Moby are among hundreds of downtown denizens who pack the catacombs beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Films are projected on 50- foot stone walls and ceilings, while DJs mixed beats to video collages of flashy graphics intercut with scenes from such flicks as "Rollerball" and "Clueless." It is a night for young cinematic talent: The only trace of the Hollywood old guard is director Peter Bogdanovich's cameo in a short film by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sofia. The directors' presentations veer from the inspired to the shocking. Egoyan's "Peep Show" uses double exposures and dramatic film tinting that make it hard to follow the action. Music- video director Spike Jonze earned cheers for his hilarious short, "How They Get There," which shows how a harmless flirtation can end in a brutal car crash. Anderson's eagerly anticipated work, a short video called "Flagpole Special, is in the works of being released widely on video with other stuff like P.T. Anderson directed music videos for Michael Penn, Fiona Apple and Aimee Mann...the music video's by P.T. will be included in a DVD release entitled "6" by p.t. anderson.

[Brock Landers]

"The Adam Sandler Project" - dig this JOBLO...

The story was leaked by the Hollywood Reporter & you can read their comments below. There really are no specifics at this time
(including a studio), but New Line seems the likely place based on Paul & Adam's history with the studio. Just remember that things can change at anytime & this is far from a done deal. I've been sworn to secrecy on this issue for many months, but I can tell you that PTA has been extremely busy writing the script specifically for Adam.

Paul Thomas Anderson and Adam Sandler are in discussions to join forces on a
feature comedy project that Anderson wrote and will direct with Sandler possibly
starring, sources said. The move seems very un-Anderson, considering that the
filmmaker has been prone to three-hour dramatic epics, most recently
"Magnolia." But sources said Anderson has been honing his comedic skills
during the past year by writing for "Saturday Night Live" and recently finishing his
comedy script. Now that the project is ready to find a home, New Line Cinema,
which released Anderson's "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia," will naturally get the
first look. The studio also has a long-standing relationship with Sandler, who has
a two-picture deal there.
Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter - 8/23/00



March 3, 2000

PTA has stated many times how fond he is of Adam Sandler & although it may seem
like an unlikely combination, expect a collaboration in the future. PTA has expressed
his interest in doing an "89 minute comedy", so this might not seem that far fetched.
Both parties have a good working relationship with New Line & Adam is looking to
expand his range as well. This is all I am able to discuss at this time, but you'll be the
first to know when new information develops!

ALSO...In a recent book review by The Chronicle ( A Duke University Newspaper), PTA has
purchased the movie rights to David Liss's new book, "A Conspiracy of Paper". This
is a mystery novel set in eighteenth century England. Obliviously this information has
not been confirmed by PTA & it's not clear whether it was purchased by Ghoulardi for
PTA to direct or produce.

ALSO...IGN movies.com is reporting that PTA is pitching an animated film revolving around
Fiona Apple to Pixar. As usual, this has not confirmed by any reliable sources at this
time.

ALSO...This was recently reported in the New York Times & confirmed by PTA that he &
Jonathan Demme are serving as Executive Producers on Forest Hills Bob a new
film written & directed by Robert Downey, Sr. "It's the story of a widower coming to
terms with the next chapter in his life," producer Peter Saraf (Ulee's Gold) told the New
York Times. While the lead hasn't been chosen, expect quirky ensemble casting from
the Chelsea-based Clinica Estetico production.

ALSO...There still appears to be a collaboration on the horizon that is not related to the Bob
Downey, Sr. project. I believe the project is with Universal & it seems that PTA is
writing a script for Demme to direct. PTA has mentioned this in many articles &
interviews while doing press for Magnolia.

[This message has been edited by Brock Landers (edited 09-20-2000).]

[Tuukka]

Straw Dog once again reminded me, that I have NEVER seen any film by Akira Kurosawa. Everyone who has seen Seven Samurai and Ran claims that they are great films. I probably have to rent them. By the way Brock, are you familiar with the films of Andrei Tarkovski? I watched yesterday the first hour of Stalker, and I loved it. Hopefully I have time today to watch it to the end.

[Brock Landers]

note: "Straw Dogs" is a Sam Peckinpah film starring Dustin Hoffman. "Stray Dog" is a Kurosawa film about a policeman who loses his gun..."Stray Dogs" is the book that Oliver Stone's "U-TURN" was based on...no big deal Tuukka.

I do own "Andrei Rublyov", the Andrei Tarkovsky epic film about the russian icon painter living in the chaotic 15th century...it is pretty interesting...I have yet to watch a copy of "Stalker" I bought a couple years ago while drunk...

My favorite Akira Kurosawa film is "Yojimbo". It stars Toshiro Mifune and is funny and heroic at the same time. They later based the Clint Eastwood film "For A Few Dollars More" on it...

[This message has been edited by Brock Landers (edited 09-20-2000).]

[Brock Landers]

Here's some more P.T. Anderson rumors...

Total Film, the UK magazine, reported in late 1999, that PTA was interested in
reuniting Mark Wahlberg & Heather Graham for an adaption of the Southern novel,
Blue Movie, which details how a brother & sister from an American acting dynasty
decide to make a porn film as an expression of high art. PTA laughed this off and said,
"not a chance."

...There has been speculation for some time that Paul was going to tackle a biography
on John Lennon. I first heard rumors of this after Boogie Nights was released. Well, it
looks like those rumors are surfacing again.

Film Threat Online is also reporting the Lennon rule. Here's their brief comments:

Paul Thomas Anderson, the man behind "Boogie Nights" is in discussions with
Sony/TriStar/Columbia to write and direct "The John and Yoko Story."

I believe Ain't It Cool News posted this rumor first. Here's what they had to say:

"And in an exciting bit of news that came out of my new found contacts in the world of
Sony/TriStar/Columbia named Pegasus, I have heard that Paul Thomas Anderson,
the man behind BOOGIE NIGHTS (which I need to write a review of) is in the
discussion stage of doing THE JOHN & YOKO story. This has cool written all over it.
Paul would be given "auteur" status and would fill the writing and directing shoes!!!
Can't ya just hear the soundtrack, can't ya just see the royalties check? Can't ya just
IMAGINE all those zeroes... standing in a line."


ALSO...After seeing the report, PTA fired off
a very funny email to Harry Knowles regarding the proposed partnership of producer
Scott Rudin on the adaptation of Don Delillo's The Underworld. Here's his email
(which as he states, has not been re-read or spell checked!)::

SO, yeah, jeez, anyway.....um....I'm just off a flight from Japan and waiting for jet lag to
set in but it hasn't....

...I've had a few beers in the late afternoon sun at my big Hollywood director
mansion....and jet lag isn't happening yet....soon...

So: A few years ago, I read Underworld, loved it....was in the middle of writing
Magnolia and saw a similar sort of thing...(sprawling, many characters....blah blah....)
and I said, who owns this? Scott Rudin, said my agent...so I started to step into the
Scott Rudin world.....actually, this all seems slightly revisionist....I believe he had
actually called first....I was a Don Dellilo fan anyway, so I was gonna read it -- I think,
yeah....maybe he was thinking, "ohh....Boogie Nights guy...lots of characters...epic size,
he'll be good..." I had it as Dellilo fan and was casually reading it....his phone call made
me more than casually read it....

Whatever...all the things met in the middle, I went to meet him, honestly not knowing
how the fuck I would ever do it as a movie.....I didn't love it sooooo much that I would
just say, "fuck it, I'm gonna shoot every word and see what happens..." Which is what I
want to do one day when a book really catches my fancy......and I just talked with him a
bit....Scott Rudin is very interesting.

He calls you. You call him back. He's not there. Fine. He calls you...you JUST miss the
call....you call him right back...he's not there....fine...a Hollywood sort of thing... until you
start to see a pathological pattern of THIS is how he does it....no mattter what....(Keep
in mind: I was Mr. New Big Shot in town, so casually, jokingly, sort of, with his assistant I
would say things like, Here is where I am...if he doesn't call me back in ten minutes I will
never speak to him again....This is really silly don't you think Mr. Assistant Man? Right,
right....I'm sure you know....why do you seem so frightened Mr. Assistant Man? Is
someone hurting you? Huh....I guess I've heard stories about this fellow....but he sure
does corral some talented people into working for him....how can you work with
seriously gifted auter directors and be an overbearing producer...you can't....you have
good material and you leave them alone and blah blah blah.....right? sure.) We met, it
was fine....he told me some gossipy type stuff about Martin Scorsese (tailored shirts,
etc.) how Shaft was gonna be...how much he loved Bill Macy (uh-huh.) .....He was
great.....I called a few days later and said, listen, I'm too into my own thing and I can't do
Underworld so good luck with it....he said, thanks for being so upfront and great,
yadda-yadda....

In the meantime I have heard three or four horror stories from close personal friends of
mine who have made films with him.....You can probably do the math and deduce who
they are......they just say, "what the fuck...." They never really tell specific stories....none
of them are really able to enunciate or structure WHAT it is or HOW he is...they all just
mumbles things about...."motherfucker.." "holy christ..." "pathological..." and on and
on....

Now, maybe I have an odd bone to pick because in the recent, WONDERFULLY
INFORMED AND ACCURATE "Power Issue" of the fantastic Premiere Magazine...

Anway, in the IT'S TRUE section...y'know how it works I assume...it said something to
the extent of Rudin passed on Anderson project due to elaborate creative
demands....(In other words, he turned me down from making a movie with him...(god
knows, I SURE DO NEED A PRODUCER....(making movies is sooooo impossible if
Scott Rudin isn't there....) because of contractual things...

Now the problem becomes: You feel like a hot shit because you've made the stupid list
(which you shouldn't care about but do) and it's completely invalidated and ruined
because the TRUE part is wrong....so basically, it shatters years of Childhood
admiration and insight that you THOUGHT you had when you read Premiere magazine
and they sold you on the fact that they REALLY did have it right...but now it's you and
it's wrong...and you realize how many times you believed them....dammit....That makes
me less powerful...I forefit my position from the Power 100...what's that? You say I lost it
already...well, fuck you then....I forefit anyway.

(Yes I am in writing mode....can't you tell...what? So I write long movies, what's wrong
with that -- are you saying I can't not write a long e-mail, damn you to hell, that's it,
conversation over...)

Ok. That was uncalled for. Anway: No, I'm not doing Underworld.

Ok. that's that. I am fading. I won't go into the dream (true) I had about you a few nights
ago while I was in hawaii.....(swear to god...) Jist: You were about three inches tall and
on the beach in a floatie-ring thing....

But that's for another time....Keep up the good work.

pppppppspsssssssspppsss......off topic: Are you a Monty Python fan? I'm sure you
are.....as am I....and always have been....but I'm currently in a fascination phase with
them......What The Fuck? Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

See ya. (un-read and un-fixed....completely stream of conscious...)

PTA


PTA has said numerous times that
he does not want to direct something that he did not write at this time.

[This message has been edited by Brock Landers (edited 09-20-2000).]

[Brock Landers]

This 1983 interview with John Holmes was the basis for much of P.T. Andersons script for "Boogie Nights" including the drugs, personality of Dirk, Rahad Jackson the Drug Dealer, etc. P.T. Anderson claims it was one of, if not the most helpful, pieces of research he used...I think it is very telling, in fact, it is almost the script for "Boogie Nights" in and of itself - Brock

CAUTION: THIS INTERVIEW DOES CONTAIN PROFANITY.

To passing motorists the two-bedroom home seemed as inconspicuous as hundreds
of other stucco dwellings in Los Angeles’ rustic Laurel Canyon. But to those who knew
occupants at 8763 Wonderland Avenue – three drug dealers and two visitors who
together were spending $6,000 a day on heroin, cocaine and various uppers and
downers – it was a sure place to score a wide variety of illegal substances. At all hours
of the day the house seemed to be swarming with buyers and sellers. Some were
welcome, like porn-movie star John Holmes, who at the time had a $1,000-a-day
cocaine habit. Others weren’t welcome at all, like those who passed through in the
early hours of July 1, 1981, leaving behind four battered bodies and one savagely
beaten survivor.

In the following week a strange tale of retribution and revenge emerged. Two days
before the murders a robbery had taken place a few minutes’ drive from 8763
Wonderland, at the lavish home of Eddie Nash, a local nightclub owner and reputed
drug dealer, Nash had been born Adel Nasrallah of Arab patents in Palestine, a part of
the world where pride and honor rank high and human life ranks very low. Police
conjectured that the killings were in retaliation for the robbery, during which a gun
accidentally went off and creased the side of Nash’s 300-pound black bodyguard,
Gregory Diles, and Nash dropped to his knees to pray for his life.

Information received by law enforcement officers led them to the conclusion that the
connection between the two Laurel Canyon residences was John Holmes. They were
told that it was Holmes who had set up the robbery at Eddie Nash’s home and that he
had also led the murderers back to the death house on Wonderland Avenue.

To give Holmes an incentive to cooperate with the police, Los Angeles District
Attorney John Van de Kamp offered him immunity from prosecution and protection if
he would reveal all he knew about the murders. Although Holmes’ statement
exonerating Nash did not satisfy the police, he was still released.

Those few days were troubling ones for Holmes. His address books had been
confiscated by people who threatened to murder members of his family, friends and
business associates if he told what he knew. He was shot at twice. Clearly, it was time
for a change of scenery. With his girlfriend and his Chihuahua, Thor, Holmes jumped
into his old Chevrolet Malibu and disappeared.

Five months later Holmes was lying in bed watching a Gilligan’s Island rerun in his
room at the Miami, Florida, motel where he had been working as a construction laborer
and handyman. Suddenly, members of the local SWAT team and two L.A. Police
Department detectives burst through the door and took him away in handcuffs.

Back in Los Angeles, Holmes was again offered immunity and protection if he would
cooperate with authorities. But he continued to refuse, pointing out that to cooperate
would jeopardize the lives of his family, friends and business associates.

With no one else to prosecute, D.A. John Van de Kamp decided to go after Holmes.
He was charged with four counts of murder and one of attempted murder, based on
flimsy evidence: two of his fingerprints on a glass table at the murder scene and a
palmprint on the headboard of the bed in which Ron Launius was found, a bed which
Holmes himself had often slept.

Holmes never testified during his June 1982 trial. His attorneys, Earl Hanson and
Mitchell Egers, offered in his defense only a closing statement. When Holmes was
acquitted of all charges, the matter should have ended. This is America, after all. If a
person is accused of a crime, tried and acquitted, he is freed.

Unless he is John Holmes. As soon as he was acquitted, Holmes was subpoenaed to
appear before the L.A. County Grand Jury to answer the same questions for which he
had risked life imprisonment rather than answer.

Holmes now had two options. He could talk to the grand jury and possibly cause his
own death; or he could refuse to answer and be held in contempt of court. Refusing to
talk, he was returned to his jail cell.

Time and again in the next few months he was taken to a waiting van, his hands
manacled, to appear before Superior Court Judge Julius A. Leetham. Each time, after
failing to testify, he was again held in contempt and sent back to jail. (Persons held in
contempt of court are not allowed to post bail.)

Holmes went on a hunger strike to protest his plight – losing 16 pounds in 32 days. The
strike ended when his jailers decided it was time to strap him down, shove a tube
down his throat and force-feed him.

After 110 days behind bars the pale and haggard John Holmes finally told the Los
Angeles County Grand Jury everything he knew about the Laurel Canyon murders. And
on November 22, 1982, he became a free man. On the same day and in the same
court, Eddie Nash was convicted of possession for sale of a million dollars’ worth of
cocaine and sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $120,000.

During Holmes’ lengthy incarceration he spent four evenings a week working with
writer Barbara Wilkins on his autobiography.

-Your name is synonymous with hard-core movies that until recent years were
regarded as sleazy and depraved. Does that reputation bother you?

Holmes: No, because I am willing to face up to who and what I am. I am a sexual
professional; just as another professional might be a tennis player, a doctor or a
certified public accountant. But instead of a racket or a stethoscope or a set of tax
manuals, I have a cock 14 inches long and as round as my forearm six inches above
the wrist. That’s my primary tool, and I’ve used it to have sexual intercourse with
approximately 14,000 women.

Many of them are my tricks – the very wealthy females who pay me when I work as a
male whore. Many of them were clients at an orgy house in the Hollywood Hills where,
as the star attraction, I received a percentage of the profits. Twelve of these women, all
married and with the approval of their husbands, are mothers of children I have sired –
each for a large fee. Twenty or 25 of these women were female whores whom I paid to
have sex with me. And many of these women have performed sexually with me in the
more than 2,000 pornographic movies in which I’ve appeared.

-Why have been constantly in demand for such films?

Holmes: I can keep an erection almost indefinitely. In a porno movie a four-minute sex
scene of the screen means that I have maintained an erection for the five hours it took
to shoot it, dripping sweat under klieg lights hot enough to drive the temperature on a
set up to 104 degrees. I can also keep an erection straddling a girl at the edge of a
cliff, looking down at 300 feet of nothing, with my knees bleeding from the sandstone
surface. I come on cue.

-Can you give me an example?

Holmes: One of the films I made was called Dancing Ladies. I played the role of a
doctor who moves into a new apartment. All of the housewives in the building are after
him. Four women played the housewives. Four other men on the shoot played their
husbands. Each of these men had two cum-shots – a cum-shot meaning a close-up of
an external orgasm. But none of the other men were functioning sexually that day. They
played their characters, and I did all the cum scenes – nine of them in eight hours.
Staying in control has always been the most important thing in my life.

-Have you ever been out of control?

Holmes: The only time was when I was free-basing cocaine. In less than two years I
smoked away a couple of apartment buildings I owned, my house, my antique store,
my hardware store and my career. I stayed up for as long as ten days at a time. If I ate
at all, it was half a taco from the Taco Bell drive-in every four days. When I looked in a
full-length mirror, what I saw could have been liberated the day before from a Nazi
concentration camp. I went from 170 pounds to 142 pounds. I was so emaciated; I
couldn’t shoot movies anymore. I hadn’t had sex in six months, and all my wealthy
female tricks were gone.

Not only had I smoked away more than three-quarters of a million dollars, I had
degenerated into a gofer – running around selling drugs to some people so sleazy, I
would have crossed the street to avoid them in the past. I sold five ounces of cocaine a
day to rock stars, murderers, dentists, restaurant owners, burglars, hitmen for the
Mafia, attorneys, producers, directors – anybody who was buying. I was paid each day
with a marble-size rock of free-base which was worth $1,000. That adds up to
$365,000 a year. I smoked it all. I even had to borrow money for gas. I was a drug
addict.

-When did you get started with drugs?

Holmes: I did cocaine for the first time in 1979, after turning it down two or three times
a day for ten years. Someone with whom I was co-producing five films offered me
cocaine on the average of twice a day. I finally thought, Oh, well, I’ve done everything
but beat dogs; why not? It had an awful, medicinal taste, like licking the floor in a
doctor’s office. For the six months after that I was doing about $500 worth of a coke a
week, not much by Hollywood standards. I stayed awake more, and I seemed to get
more done. I must have liked it, because I kept doing it. I was having sex less
frequently, and I really shot to hell all my tricks, but I thought, Screw it. I’ll use the energy
for films.

-Where did you get drugs?

Holmes: My cocaine supplier was a member of the Lavender Hill Mob – the Gay
Mafia in Los Angeles. One night he ran out of cocaine. That was the night I met Eddie
Nash. He was a skinny Arab who sat on a sofa wearing only a pair of bikini briefs and
smoking free-base cocaine from a water pipe. There were four or five nude
teenyboppers running around, along with a 300-pound black monster named Gregory
Diles, who was Nash’s bodyguard. Eddie offered me a free hit on the water pipe. It
was free the next few times I got cocaine from him too. He must have invested $10,000
worth of coke in me. Once I was hooked, I started to pay. He got around three-quarters
of a million dollars of my money back on his investment.

-Did you have another other drug connections?

Holmes: Yes, I also bought cocaine from the people on Wonderland Avenue. They
were heroin addicts who lived in an armed camp. They had two stolen antique guns
worth $25,000, which I took to Nash in exchange for $1,000 worth of heroin. All they
had to do to get the guns back was come up with the $1,000. But whenever they got
enough money, they’d always call another connection and spend the money with him.

So the guns were with Nash for a week, then two weeks, then six weeks. Eddie wanted
his money, the people on Wonderland wanted their guns back, and I was right there in
the middle.

That was when the people on Wonderland got the idea to rob Eddie Nash. They were
going to break into his house, rob the place and kill everyone there. I knew if I told
Eddie about it, they would send over his people, and it would be the people on
Wonderland who would be killed. I was between a rock and a hard place. So I agreed
to leave a sliding glass door open at Eddie Nash’s house if the people on Wonderland
Avenue would guaranteed that nobody would be hurt.

They robbed Eddie Nash and brought back heroin, cocaine, jewelry, $10,000 in cash
and the antique guns. The day after the robbery I was tortured for 14 hours by Nash and
eight of his bodyguards while 60 or 70 people walked through his house making their
regular drug buys. I sat in a room off the entry hall, my hands bound with black electrical
tape. Blood was pouring from my mouth where Eddie had hit me with a gun. Nobody
waved hello. Early the next morning four people were beaten to death on Wonderland
Avenue, and another woman was left for dead.

-After refusing to tell the grand jury exactly what you witnessed on Wonderland,
you spent 110 days in jail before deciding to testify. What made you change your
mind?

Holmes: I received a communication from the people who had previously threatened
my life if I testified. They told me to go ahead. If I hadn’t done so, the court could have
kept me in jail forever. I had no rights, no bail, no privileges. The law didn’t apply to me.
The fact the court can throw anyone in jail and forget about him is not only a
dehumanizing experience; it’s an absolute outrage.

If you’re serving 90 days or five years, each day that goes by is one day closer to the
time you can walk away. With me, the judge said I held the key to my own freedom. He
told me that I could walk out anytime I wanted. All I had to do was agree to participate in
my own murders and the murders of my family, friends and business associates. That
was like purgatory. That was punishment worse than a sentence.

-How did you deal with the prospect of being jailed permanently?

Holmes: the thought of spending any amount of time without freedom was
mind-boggling. During the trial I had a razor smuggled into prison and was more than
prepared to kill myself if I was found guilty. I was planning on cutting my jugular vein. It
only takes six minutes that way. The same day I was found not guilty, I was ready to kill
myself that evening.

-What was it like in jail after you were held for contempt?

Holmes: I was in what is called the “High Power” section where they stick newsworthy
people who, if they are injured in jail, could be an embarrassment to the county. Bad
things happened to people in jail all the time. They’re raped, killed, stabbed and
robbed – and you never hear about it. But if somebody is in the newspapers two or
three times a week and he comes into court with his arm in a sling or his neck in a
brace, there are going to be questions from the press. So people like that are put into
a protective situation.

Most inmates are incarcerated in what is called the “Main Line,” six prisoners to a cell.
Everyone in High Power has his own cell so nothing can happen to him that might
prove embarrassing. Just about everybody in High Power was accused of mass
murder. Everybody had been in and out of jail for years, except me. I was the one with a
contract out on my life. So when we had to go to court, none of them would ride in the
same van with me. In High Power you go everywhere in handcuffs, accompanied by a
deputy. I had no physical contact with anybody at all. The first time I was able to shake
my attorney’s hand was a sensory shock.

-Who were some of the other inmate in High Power?

Holmes: The “Skid Row Slasher,” who had murdered 11 winos as they slept on
downtown Los Angeles streets, Kenneth Bianchi, the “Hillside Strangler,” who had
murdered 11 women; and Angelo Buono, his cousin. There was one guy who had
sexually molested his own two little boys, killed them and then burned his house down.
The head of the Black Mafia in Los Angeles was there. So was the guy from the Israeli
Mafia who was convicted of dismembering two people at the Bonaventure Hotel. He
was as nice a guy as you’d want to meet. I also played gin rummy through the bars of
my cell with a kid awaiting trial after turning evidence against the “Freeway Killer,”
William Bonin, who had tortured and murdered 21 boys in Orange County and Los
Angeles.

-Since everyone was confined to his own cell, how id you communicate with
other prisoners?

Holmes: there is a one-way mirror that runs the entire length of the tier. You can look
through the mirror and catch the reflection of the guy next to you. The mirror is about ten
feet away; so it’s always like you’re talking to somebody ten feet away. When I first got
out of jail, it was difficult talking to somebody up close.

-What was your cell like?

Holmes: It was nine feet by 12 feet long. In that space there was a bunk, a small desk
with a stool, and a toilet. All I could do was pace around four feet and then turn around
and pace four feet back. There was no television, no newspapers, no magazines. I had
paperbacks smuggled in. I wrote quite a bit – poetry and short stories. All during the
day, the radio was broadcast over loudspeakers throughout the tier. There were three
different shifts of deputies; if a black officer was on duty, you’d listen to black music on
the radio. If it was a Mexican officer, you’d listen to Mexican music. During the sports
season there was baseball, football, all the nauseating athletic bullshit. I usually stuck
toilet papers in my ears, or tried to read or write. When I got real bored, I flushed the
toilet. And I clean my cell once a day for exercise.

-Was that your only exercise?

Holmes: No, I also did yoga and calisthenics. And once a day, for 45 minutes, I did
Transcendental Meditation. To make the point that my being in prison was punishment
and not coercion, I complained to the grand jury that jail conditions were atrocious –
really horrible. They said they would investigate. One Friday the grand jury came down
by bus and toured the entire jail facility. The only thing that came out of was that the
grand jurors, all being over 70, were shocked at the Penthouse and Playboy and
Hustler pictures hanging all over the walls of other cells. So they had all of those
magazines removed.

-What about the pictures on your wall?

Holmes: They weren’t interested. I had pictures of food. I hated prison meals so much
that I would cut pictures of casseroles from the food sections of magazines.

-What was your routine in jail?

Holmes: Breakfast was at 5:30. It was either pancakes with no syrup, French toast
with no syrup, five different kinds of eggs, or “shit on a shingle” – chipped beef and
gravy on toast. We had lima beans three times a day. The prison honor ranch had
planted a bumper crop of lima beans; so we were lima-beaned to death. There were
lima beans in stew, in Jell-O, in corn, and creamed lima beans. Other prisoners had
pet mice and rats. I had a pet cockroach that I used as a food taster. When he wouldn’t
eat, I wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t touch about half the food in there. The three things I
missed most were food, freedom and sex.

-How did you deal with the lack of sex?

Holmes: Badly. I hadn’t had a wet dream since I was 16, but I returned to them in
prison. You build up so much sexual pressure and tension that your subconscious
releases it in your sleep – all over your jumpsuit.

-Were these erotic dreams?

Holmes: Sure. You don’t have wet dreams thinking about Chevrolets.

-Were the dreams about specific people in your past?

Holmes: Of course. It’s tough to come up with ones in your future.

-Did anyone make sexual advances towards you in jail?

Holmes: Well, the deputies would stand around and watch me shower. It wasn’t
exactly a sexual advance; it was kind of like a curiosity. They’d walk into the shower,
stand there, stare at me, drool and leave. When I was a kid, going out for football, track
and the high jump, it was in the gymnasium shower that I started to get known for the
size of my cock. The other kids called me “Horse Dick.” Many years before, the doctor
who delivered me told my mother that I had three legs and only two feet.

-We hear a great deal about homosexuality in correctional institutions. Did you
see any evidence of such behavior?

Holmes: In High Power there was no sex, since everybody had an individual cell and it
was one man out a time. If you got close enough to many of these prisoners’ bars,
they’d kill you – they wouldn’t try to kiss you. But on the Main Line, where they had six
men in a cell, there was quite a bit of forced sexuality. People came past High Power
on stretchers, lying on their stomachs with bloody sheets around their asses. They’d
been raped in the Main Line. Sexual molestation’s and stabbings increased when the
air conditioning went out for nine days while I was there. In jail they find that the higher
the degree of temperature, the higher the degree of violence. So they keep you very
cold in a constant, controlled environment. Male prostitutes were also available in the
Main Line. Put somebody who is bisexual in prison, and if he wants a cigarette bad
enough, he’ll become sexually involved with someone.

-When did you get items like cigarettes?

Holmes: There was a rolling cart that came by twice a week with cigarettes, cards,
toothpaste, that sort of thing. Visitors are not allowed to bring anything into jail except
money. Not even books. A page can be taken out of a paperback, soaked in LSD and
cut into a hundred squares. A square of acid is worth ten bucks in jail. Actually, you can
get just about anything you want; it’s just tough to do it. Many people hide hypodermic
needle kits in their cells. There’s cocaine, heroin, acid, Quaaludes, speed.

-Where do these drugs come from?

Holmes: I don’t feel that I can tell that because prison officials could put a stop to it. I
so resent the inactivity in jail that I wouldn’t do anything to harm the recreational drug
trade that goes on there.

-You mentioned everything except grass.

Holmes: There’s plenty of grass. What you do is smoke it a night so the deputies
won’t smell it. The lights go out at ten. They do a 10:30 bed check, and they don’t come
back until 2 o’clock in the morning. When you smoke, it dispersed into the
air-conditioning filter. People start to scream at night too. It turns into a small jungle, an
after-hours zoo. The militant blacks do exercise in cadence, counting in booming,
shattering voices.

-How did you get along with the deputies?

Holmes: I must have come in contact with 500 of them, but there were only two that I
resented. They didn’t personally treat me badly, but I watched how they treated other
people – body-slams, elbow-slams in the face, breaking people’s faces and noses,
caving ribs, stomping people half to death. They would take PCTP drug victims who
were totally on another planet and jump up and down on their rib cages. High Power
was on the way to the hospital from Main Line. When we saw gurneys go by, it was
bloody time. People were just pulp on their way to the hospital.

-Were you ever threatened or abused?

Holmes: Only by other prisoners. Newspapers and magazines rolled up tightly make
weapons like a wooden club, and several times I was swung at. But I was lucky enough
to stay out of range. Once, I had my arm wrapped around a cell bar, and somebody
tried to take my eye out with a pencil. I came away unscathed. I had no trouble with the
deputies because I can pretty much get along with anybody. I’m a totally nonviolent
person. I never put a deputy into a position where he could get angry with me. I was
always friendly, always had a kind word. In fact, most of the deputies brought in their
porno video tapes or 8mm box collections or porno playing cards, and I signed
thousands of autographs for them. During my trial I also had male and female judges
ask for autographs, along with district attorneys and secretaries. In the past I’ve signed
panties and bras, as well as the usual matchbook covers. A couple once came up to
me on Hollywood Boulevard and the guy said, “We’re going to a swing party. Sign my

[Brock Landers]

Here's some more background on the REAL Dirk Diggler and "Boogie Nights"...

Long before he inspired Boogie Nights, John Holmes - a.k.a. Johnny Wadd -
was America's most naturally gifted porn star. Then came drugs, murder and
AIDS. It's a story more riveting than any movie.

He couldn't act, wasn't particularly good-looking and wasn't too bright. He was a liar, a
thief and a crack junkie who was accused of taking part in the grisly murders of four
people who were savagely beaten to death. Just about the only thing John C. Holmes -
a.k.a. Johnny Wadd - had going for him was his magnificent dick: 14 inches long, as
thick as a wrist, closer to a Louisville Slugger than any other cock ever put on film. It
was enough to earn him several million dollars for more than 500 X-rated feature films
he made. Enough to inspire, ten years after his death, Boogie Nights, a movie based
loosely on his years as the one and only male porn actor to achieve the marquee status
of the female stars. And though critics have generally loved the movie, those who knew
Holmes, those who worked with him in the outlaw world of the early hard-core business,
tell a much darker and more sinister story about the life of the man they still call the
King of Porn. And, unlike the movie's, the ending to their story isn't a happy one.

The stories Holmes told about himself were mostly lies, tales that could have been
lifted from the thin scripts through which his characters moved on film from one erotic
scene to another. He grew up, he said, with a rich aunt who took him to Europe, fed
him caviar and champagne and cozied him in her lavish Florida mansion. When he
was just eight years old, she took his virginity, then schooled him in the art of fucking
while the two of them were waited on by butlers and maids and cooks.

In fact, he was from a poor Midwestern family of confused lineage. His birth certificate
registers him as John Curtis Estes, born in rural Ohio on August 8, 1944, though his
listed father, Carl Estes, a railroad laborer, was never a part of his life. Sometime later,
his mother, Mary, changed his last name to that of her husband, Edward Holmes, a
carpenter. They divorced when John was three, and the family - John's mother, two
brothers and a sister - moved to a housing project in Columbus. When John was eight,
his mother married a man named Harold, who moved them to a small house in
Pataskala, Ohio. Neighbors remember John as a shy, awkward boy with a perfect
attendance record at Baptist Bible classes, a love for the outdoors and a tense
relationship with his manic-depressive stepfather. By the time that John reached high
school, his relationship with Harold had become violent. When he turned 16 his mother
defused the situation by signing papers that enabled him to join the Army early. He
went off with the Signal Corps to Germany for three years.

He had a very good time in the service, according to an autobiographical manuscript
his widow, Laurie Holmes, is preparing for publication under the title Porn King. Laurie,
who has worked in more than 20 porn films, is a delicately pretty 34-year-old who was
with John for the last five years of his life and married him 14 months before he died.
She's a brunette in their wedding pictures but a blonde these days, and though she no
longer makes movies, she fondly remembers her days as Misty Dawn. "I was a
natural-born porn animal," she said of her film career. "I didn't even have to take drugs
to do it. I was naturally sick." She makes a living now dancing in strip clubs around the
Southwest.

Laurie is guarded about the manuscript and will paraphrase and quote from it
sparingly. She insists that the stories in the book are true, despite the fact that many of
them, including one of John's Army reminiscences, sound like the macho legend
spinning he was notorious for.

"He had a lot of fun in Germany," she said, flipping through the 200 typed pages to find
what John had written. "He spent a lot of time in a bordello, where the madam liked him
so much that she wouldn't let him pay and wouldn't let any of the other girls near him.
Here's a quote: 'The Army was good for me. I can't honestly say that it taught me any
morals or sense of responsibility. I had been raised with those qualities. What it taught
me was that there was a whole world of sex I had yet to discover.'"

When he mustered out he landed in New York and started hanging around with a buddy
who showed him how he could make a lot of money as a prostitute. "But he didn't like
the cold weather," Laurie said, continuing the story in her words. "He'd grown up with it
in Ohio. Anyway, what he really wanted to be was a cinematographer, to work behind
the cameras. He said he never in his wildest dreams thought he was going to be what
he became."

From New York he hitchhiked to Los Angeles, where he met and married a nurse
named Sharon Gebenini. He took odd jobs, intending to save money to go to UCLA
film school. He later claimed to have graduated, though there is no evidence he ever
enrolled. Instead, while in his early 20s, in the porn capital of the world, he fell easily
into the trades that his monumental penis fated him to: He whored, posed for still
photographs and worked in a few erotic films called loops. He was paid $100 for his
first short movie, but the check bounced. "From then on," Laurie said, "It was cash only
for John." Then, sometime in 1971, he met Bill Amerson, the 6'3, 250-pound Brahman
bull of the fledgling hard-core movie business, who would become his mentor, his
protector and perhaps the only close friend he ever had.

Now 60, Amerson has a big, rumbling voice and a presence that has been described
as "benignly menacing." He's been clean and sober for six years and works as a
counselor at the California Center for Addiction Recovery. That's about as far across
town as he could get from his days in the X business, with its big money, Mob
connections, hillside houses, women, drugs, arrests and shootings.

"I got into the business in 1970," Amerson said. "My wife at the time - I've had a few -
knew a couple of girls in the nudie business. They were making movies - all simulated
stuff back then, no penetration - and I went to work for them to learn how to do it. Back
then you could shoot an X-rated movie for $4000 and make 60 grand on it. Around
1971 some friends and I decided to start showing actual penetration. We took $14,000
and a handful of bennies, and in one weekend we made five films. We sold them in
New York and Chicago, made back our investment in a week and went on to make a
lot of money off those movies."

Enough money, it turned out, to attract a legendary organized crime family from New
York, who sent an under-boss to Hollywood to organize a piece of the action.

"I told him I didn't want any partners," said Amerson, who still wears a diamond pinkie
ring, the fraternity jewelry of the profession. "Said I'd teach him the business but that I
liked to work alone. He basically told me, 'If you don't work with us, you don't work.' I
wanted to work."

That same year, working with his new partners out of a building called Crossroads of
the World on Sunset Boulevard, he met John Holmes.

"It was late in the afternoon. We'd been interviewing people all day for magazine work,
and in wanders this kid, six feet tall, really scrawny, ugly. I thought, Don't waste my time.
The guy I was working with told me to take a Polaroid and get rid of him. So we went in
the back room, he took of his clothes - and I just stood there looking at his dick,
thinking, My God, this guy's a star."

Holmes' timing was propitious. He had walked into an enterprise that had begun to
surge into the mainstream. The grungy freelancers in trench coats who sold "dirty"
8mm films out of the trunks of cars were being replaced by organized hustlers who
knew how to make and distribute big-screen movies with real sex. And an audience
was ready for them. In 1972 Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones and Behind the
Green Door broke hard-core movies into the public consciousness as a logical
outgrowth of the sexual revolution.

Now that those in the business escaped the wrath of conservatives or the police, who
were still vigorously enforcing pornography laws.

"There was a tremendous tyrannical power that came down on the performers,"
remembered Bill Margold, a 54-year-old critic, porn actor, director and entrepreneur
who started his career in 1969. "Everything we did back then was illegal. I was in 300
movies - 500 sex scenes - wondering through much of it if I was going to be arrested.
And I was, many times. One of things that I hated about Boogie Nights was that it never
portrayed any of the incredible tension we worked under. We were the last outlaws,
really. It was Les Miserables. We were the Jean Valjeans, the vice cops were Javert
and our loaves of bread were between our legs."

Margold, who coined the title "the King" for Holmes, vividly remembered his first
encounter with the cock that was, he says, "absolute proof that all men are not created
equal."

"The first movie I made with him was called Disco Dolls in Hot Skin, 3D. I was on the
floor being blown by the great Lesllie Bovee, reputed to be the best cocksucker in the
business. John was above us on a window seat, and there were three or four girls
playing with him. At one point I glanced up to see his dick hanging over my head, and it
looked like the opening scene from Star Wars, with that spaceship swooping in, filling
the screen. It was intimidating. My poor dick just collapsed into the rug like an ostrich
burying its head."

Holmes' first movies cast him in bit parts and didn't pay much, which left him hustling
around the business for whatever work he could find. Then he showed up on the set of
a movie Bob Chinn was directing.

Chinn, a soft-spoken, slightly built Hawaiian, had begun making amateur films when he
was 12, after his family moved from the islands to New Mexico. He bounced from the
University of Miami to Santa Monica City College, then graduated from UCLA's film
school in 1966. He went to work building sets for commercials, crewing on X-rated
films and making erotic loops on his own and selling them to theaters.

"In those days you could hire a girl for $25 and shoot ten or 15 minutes of film, one reel.
It was a strange period, when you could get away with hard-core if you did just a little,
sort of slipped it in. There wasn't a lot of money in it then, but it was a living, and it led to
my crewing on features and then to directing them."

Asked about the Mafia involvement in those years, Chinn was comically circumspect,
though he wasn't trying to be funny. "I don't know if they were Mob or not," he said. "I
was making films for Italian businessmen."

He was working out of an office next to the Pussycat Theater on Western Avenue when
Homes walked in and asked him for a job on the crew or as an actor.

"I'd heard about him from an actress I worked with," said Chinn, on his way to the sort
of understatement that is his hallmark. "And when I saw him with his clothes off, I
thought, I could make an interesting movie with this man."

Immediately after Holmes left the office, Chinn went to work on a script for him. "I came
up with the idea of a private detective sort of character. I called him Johnny Wadd and
wrote the script on the back of an envelope."

Not exactly the Gettysburg Address, perhaps, but for Holmes, the character Johnny
Wadd - a caricature of Chandler's and Hammett's tough guy detectives - was a
double-entendre star vehicle: a hard-boiled dick with a hard-boiled dick.

Chinn shot the first film, called Johnny Wadd, in a day. It was an hour long and cost
about $750 to make. Theaters around the country bought it, wore out the prints and
began asking for sequels. Chinn and Holmes made nine Wadd films, a series that
eventually turned the kid from Ohio into the hottest male star the business would ever
see. People began to recognize him on the street. He grew a droopy mustache and
started wearing three piece suits. His acting fee went to $3000 a day. His work as a
gigolo for Beverly Hills women brought him cars and jewelry.

"Sex was taking over my life," he says in his autobiography. "Husbands wanted to me
to fuck their wives, sometimes while they watched. Wives were calling me to come
back when their husbands weren't around. Wherever I went there was always someone
new to meet - always a waiting bed."

At the height of his success, Holmes worked with the hottest female porn stars,
including Marilyn Chambers, Seka and Gloria Leonard. A few months ago Leonard
attended a rare big-screen showing of a Holmes movie in which she had co-starred.
About 60 people sat listening in the Sunset Theater as Bill Margold introduced her.
Leonard, articulate, sophisticated and beautiful in her early 50s, told the audience that
she and Holmes had traveled to France in 1978 to make Johnny Does Paris, one of
three films they made on that trip. "The day we met," she said, "he had this diva
attitude, so I said, 'I'm sorry, my dear, but this set isn't large enough for two prima
donnas.' He was a baby, really, and an egomaniac. But people are here tonight not
because I'm in the film. They're here to see John Holmes."

Bill Margold thanked her, then noted that the big-screen experience was going to be
very different than video-sized porn. "It's going to be all Eiffel Towers and Grand
Canyons up here, folks."

And it was, Holmes made his way around Paris as a young Hemingwayesque writer
determined to collect experiences he would someday write about. Leonard played a
rich American woman who subsidized his adventures in exchange for the services of
his mighty schlong. After 20 minutes of Holmes' terrible acting and four fuck scenes,
Leonard made a discreet exit.

Around 1975, as Holmes' stardom grew, he began supplementing the marijuana he
had always used with cocaine. The joke among his fellow actors was that if you wanted
him in front of the camera, you had to lay a line of coke from his dressing room door to
the set. According to his autobiography, his habit "spun wildly out of control" over a
three-year period. Then he began freebasing and losing work because of his erratic
behavior.

He'd always been a thief - stealing luggage from whatever airport he landed at,
snagging jewelry out of the rented houses where his films were shot. But by 1979 his
drug habit was outrunning his dwindling income and he began to burgle and steal from
everyone he knew. Even his wife Sharon, with whom he had only an off-and-on
relationship by then, and Gloria Leonard were targets. Holmes visited Leonard at her
home. The following day, returning home from an appointment to meet John, Leonard
found that $25,000 in valuables were missing.

Anderson and Holmes, meanwhile, had become close. "He's the godfather to my kids,"
said Amerson, citing the good times that drew them into their long friendship. "He lived
with us in the big house we had in Sherman Oaks, and the two of us became like
brothers. He liked to garden, did handyman stuff. We went hunting and fishing together,
partied around town. He had a heart as big as the fucking world, but as he got more
and more fucked up on drugs it became impossible to make movies with him. He
started hanging out with his suppliers, real assholes, people like Eddie Nash and Ron
Launius' bunch."

Nash, whose real name was Adel Nasrallah, had arrived in Los Angeles from Lebanon
as a young man and opened a hot dog stand on Hollywood Boulevard. When he met
Holmes, Nash was in his 50s and had parlayed his business into a
drug-and-entertainment empire that included a restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard
called the Seven Seas, a strip joint called the Kit Kat, several gay clubs, a club that
catered to blacks and a rock-and-roll hangout called the Starwood.

Nash, a heavy addict himself, had a large home in the San Fernando Valley from which
he dealt coke, heroin and other drugs. He was gaunt and had dark wavy hair and an
evil temper. He rarely left his house. Instead, he invited friends and associates to
parties that went on for days and often included his favorite entertainment - young
women.

"He was an awful man," said Laurie Holmes. "John told me he used to leave the
bathrooms without toilet paper, then offer the young women cocaine if they'd lick his
ass clean."

His bodyguard, Greg Diles, slept in a back bedroom with a shotgun under his blanket.

Holmes was a star attraction at Nash's parties and eventually went to work delivering
drugs and doing other favors for him in an attempt to repay some of the massive drug
debt he owed the gangster.

And Nash was only one of the dangerous drug dealers Holmes owed. The others lived
in a dumpy two-storied house on Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon. The name on
the lease was that of Joy Miller, a 46-year-old junkie who had been arrested for
dealing. She lived there with her lover, Billy DeVerell, 42, a heroin addict with 13
arrests on his record, and they shared the house with Ron Launius, a 37-year-old
convicted drug smuggler with a violent reputation. Holmes began visiting the house to
fence what he had stolen in exchange for drugs, then went to work making connections
and delivering for them. Sometime in the summer of 1981, he smoked up one of the
shipments he was supposed to deliver. When he came back without the money,
Launius beat him with a walking stick, then asked him how he was going to make
good.

Holmes - strung out, broke, unable to work and desperately afraid they were going to
kill him - told them he knew someone they could rip off for lots of money and drugs, and
that he could help them do it.

"Eddie Nash," he told them. "I've known him for three years. He trusts me, calls me his
brother. I know the house, where the drugs are, and the cash. I'll draw you a floor plan.
I'll visit him and leave a door unlocked. You cut me in for whatever you think is right."

On June 29, 1981 Holmes showed up at the Nash villa to party and buy drugs. He left a
few hours later; unlocking a door on his way out. Early the same morning, Launius,
DeVerell and two of their low-life friends, Tracy McCourt and David Lind, slipped in
through the unlocked door and surprised Nash and his bodyguard in the living room.
Lind flashed a stolen police badge, waved a .357 Magnum and told them to freeze.

As the intruders struggled to handcuff the hugely fat bodyguard, Launius fell against
Lind's gun hand and the .357 went off, leaving a nasty muzzle burn across Diles' back.
The gunshot frightened Nash onto his knees. He began to cry, invoking his children and
begging for his life. Launius put his gun into Nash's mouth and demanded the
combination to his floor safe, which Holmes had identified as the drug stash. In it they
found several pounds of coke, thousands of quaaludes, money and jewelry. They took
a large vial of heroin from a bedroom dresser and then fled.

Holmes was waiting for them when they returned to the Wonderland house, and he
watched as they weighed and counted their booty. Altogether they had robbed Nash of
more than $100,000 in cash, $150,000 in jewelry, eight pounds of cocaine, a kilo of
heroin and 5000 quaaludes. Holmes smoked some of the coke as he waited for his
split, which came to $3000. When he complained that they were cheating him, Launius
punched him in the stomach and threw him out.

For Billy DeVerell and Ron Launius - who had swindled other drug dealers by selling
them bags of baking powder - the caper was the perfect score. What was Nash going
to do, call the cops? As it turned out, although he wasn't the first gangster they had
ripped off, he would be the last.

Detective Tom Lange and his partner Bob Souza, received a call around 4:30 the
afternoon of July 1, 1981. They were working with a special unit of the LAPD's Robbery
and Homicide Division that investigated high-profile murder cases. Fourteen years
later, Lange and his subsequent partner, Philip Vannatter, would become painfully
famous as the lead investigators in the O.J. Simpson case. But as brutal as those
murders were, they didn't come close to the butchery on Wonderland Avenue.

"Tom and I thought we'd seen it all, " said Souza, a bear-sized man with a short
salt-and-pepper beard. "But I'd never seen so much blood. Four people bludgeoned to
death and a fifth victim who survived. It was gruesome."

The video of what they found fits Souza's description. It was the first time that a
multiple-murder scene had been videotaped by the LAPD (coinciding with the
changeover from film to video in the porn industry), and though the quality of the police
tape is rough, the scene it renders is chillingly vivid. As the camera is moved from
room to room, blood is everywhere: on the floors, the furniture, the walls, even the
ceilings. Barbara Richardson, Lind's girlfriend and an overnight visitor, lies in a pool of
blood and brains on the floor next to a couch where she had been sleeping. (Lind was
not home when the murderers arrived.) Ron Launius sprawls in a bloody bed, as does
Joy Miller. Billy DeVerell, probably the only one who had a chance to fight back, is in a
half-seated slump beneath a television. Susan Launius, Ron's wife, was beaten
severely around the head. The blows crushed her skull and in a way that impaired
bleeding and allowed her to be rushed to the hospital in time to survive.

That night, Lange and Souza, both retired now from the LAPD and working as private
investigators, began their probe into what they called the "four-on-the-floor murders."
They knew from previous police surveillance of the house, and from needles and pipes
and pills they found there, that it was a drug case. And from the position of the bodies
they knew that at least three, and perhaps as many as five, assailants had participated
in the slaughter.

"The next day we got a call from a go-between stating that a David Lind would talk to
us," Lange said. "When we met with him he sat there popping pills - rainbows,
cartwheels, everything - and told us the whole story of the Nash robbery and Holmes'
involvement. In fact, he was the only one who figured out that Holmes had played both
ends against the middle and had set up the Wonderland gang the same way he had
set up Nash."

As it turned out, a couple days after the robbery, Nash had confronted Holmes about
his part in it. Diles had taken Holmes' address book from him, and when Nash found
the names of John's family in Ohio, he told him that he would kill them all, every last
one, if he didn't identify his partners in the robbery.

There are several versions of what happened next. Lange and Souza, who are writing
a book with Nils Grevillius about the crime, Four on the Floor: The Laurel Canyon
Murders, are convinced that Holmes led the Nash gang to the house, let them in, then
watched as they went about the carnage. "He may have assisted in the killing of Ron
Launius," said Lange. "He hated him, was terrified of him. We found Holmes' palm
print on a bed rail above Launius' body, an incriminating place for it to be."

"He was there all right, but he didn't do it, and neither did Nash," said Amerson, who
believes that people were lined up to kill the Wonderland bunch. "The morning of the
murders I got a call from a good friend, Dee Samuels, who was a hit man. He'd been
staking out the Wonderland house because he had a contract to kill the guys and was
waiting for his moment. He told me, 'I just saw your friend John Holmes coming out of
there alone, covered in blood. I went in to see what was going on, and they were all
dead.' John showed up at my house a half hour later, all wild and bloody, saying he'd
gone over there to let the Nash bunch in and found everybody, except Susan Launius,
dead already.

[Brock Landers]

Here's a great P.T. Anderson / John C. Reilly interview...I love this shit...

John C. Reilly is an unsung hero of American movies. The appealingly grizzled,
gruff-looking 34-year-old has given indelible performance in movies like What’s Eating
Gilbert Grape, Dolores Claiborne, Georgia, Boogie Nights, The Thin Red Line and For
the Love of the Game without attaining critical-darling status the way a showier actor
might have. Reilly’s cult following is made up of those who appreciate an absolute
natural. It isn’t so much that you don’t catch him making a false move. It’s more like you
don’t catch him acting. Reilly’s biggest Hollywood fan is Paul Thomas Anderson, the
writer/director who has used him most astutely to date, first in Hard Eight, then in
Boogie Nights, and now in his new film, Magnolia. Anderson has such confidence in
Reilly that, even though Tom Cruise is also in the movie, Reilly is the film’s romantic
lead. What better person to interview Reilly than the director who sees so much in him?

Paul Thomas Anderson: I first became aware of you when I saw your first
movie Casualties of War. Then you worked with Sean Penn again in We’re No
Angels and State of Grace and I thought you were almost his sidekick, but also
a really good actor.

John C. Reilly: It was like, would you like an entrée of Sean Penn with a side of John C.
Reilly? Although I got along well with Sean as an actor, I purposely didn’t spend a lot of
personal time with him and I didn’t want people to think that I was getting parts because
I was his friend. By the time we did The Thin Red Line together, we were fucking sick
and tired of each other and were like, “Oh, you old woman, just leave me alone.”

Q: Your first branch-off from Penn was Days of Thunder, which was with Tom
Cruise, and now you’re in Magnolia together.

A: I love Tom and think he’s a great actor, but at the time it was all about working with
Robert Duvall. That movie was a bizarre experience. I was coming off serious movies
and suddenly there’s Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer in their fucking heyday like
Sodom and Gomorrah. It was a fall from grace for me as a young man to see the
decadence that movie and Hollywood at its most extreme - $100,000 parties and
recruiting girls off the beach to come be extras. It was nuts.

Q: Actually, between Days of Thunder and Magnolia, you starred in the short
film Tom directed for Showtime’s series Fallen Angels, “The Frightening
Frammis.” Tom told me he was concerned he wouldn’t get you for his movie,
and I was concerned I wouldn’t get you for Hard Eight because you were too
big a star to do it.

A: Which is so the opposite of my pathetic life. I was told Tom wanted to meet me, but
it seemed like he didn’t doubt at all I was gonna do it. He was like, “OK, we’re starting
on Wednesday, could you comb your hair down?”

Q: So, how does it feel now to be the star of a Tom Cruise movie?

A: It didn’t cross my mind. I’m glad it didn’t, because it would have been more
pressure. I just felt like I was part of this huge jigsaw.

Q: Do you feel excited about being “the character actor who gets the girl” in
the movie?

A: The thing is, you seemed to be writing for me before we even knew each other. I felt
like we were already on the same wavelength when we met.

Q: How would you describe the differences in shooting Hard Eight, Boogie
Nights and Magnolia?

A: Hard Eight was like we billed somebody’s rich uncle and were getting away with
some crazy scheme out in the desert and had to finish before anyone figured out what
happened. Gwyneth Paltrow was fairly new in the movie business and it was exciting,
all of us giddy with getting to know each other. We knew we were doing a good,
original movie. By Boogie Nights, we already had our groove on. This really felt like we
were in the big time. One great thing about the three characters I’ve played in your
movies is that they’re so committed to the dream of their life, they’re just unshakable.
There’s something really poignant and funny about people like that.

Q: What about the vibe on Magnolia?

A: You just took it to the next level and came into your own. There were certain aspects
of Boogie Nights that, because of its size, seemed like you were kinda playing it by
ear. On Magnolia, it was like, “All right, I don’t have to play it by ear. I know what I like to
say and the ways to say it.” It was a very intricate masterwork and you pulled it off.

Q: The character I wrote for you stems from the summer a movie project was
taken away from me. In our restlessness, we did video improvs of faux Cops
episodes with you and Philip Seymour Hoffman. That’s how the dialogue and
characters were created, directly from the improvs – it was a character you’d
already lived with for two years.

A: Those improv videos were so great because we were just having a blast. The guy
became more grounded in your script.

Q: Remember you once asked me, “Come on, man, can’t you write me a
sunrise where I get the fucking girl?” It’s kind of a romantic leading man, right?

A: You did this with a few people in Magnolia – tapped into what’s real not just for the
characters, but for the people playing them. In the beginning, it was kind of a joke: “Be
careful what you say around Paul, it’ll end up in the movie.” Now, that’s just become a
given. But I can’t be “cool John” in front of you. I lay it on the line. I say stupid shit to
people. I don’t try to hide my personality at all.

Q: Do you think you’ll get to a point where you just don’t do any publicity?

A: If a project’s success depends on your promoting it, you should promote it. I’m just
like an Irish bullshit artist from way back, so I don’t mind. It’s kind of like therapy.
puff-piece therapy. There’s this code of silence on a press junket, like you just talk
about how great your costars were and how Kevin Costner wasn’t a total prick.

Q: A portion of me thinks that the true appreciation of your work won’t happen
until your movies are playing on AMC 40 years from now, a sort of “He was the
fucking greatest,” sort of like looking back now on Elisha Cook Jr. or
someone.

A: I think I’m appreciated by people who watch movies to the degree that they don’t
know who I am from movie to movie. That’s actually a compliment. Some people think
I’m just stupid for this, but I try think in long-term goals, to do work that I can be proud of
in 10, 20 years, not just disposable crap that made everyone chuckle in the moment.

Q: [Sardonically] And what’s the name of the movie you’re making – The
Perfect Storm?

A: Good movie, man. A good character in this movie. Wolfgang Petersen’s directing it.
I just want it to be Das Boot, not Air Force One.

Q: Anyway, hopefully this is the last movie we’ll ever make together. I met
Oliver Platt today.

A: Hey, I’m just trying to become the Michael Caine/Gene Hackman of my generation.

[Brock Landers]

Here's a rare Don Cheadle (Buck Swope) "Boogie Nights" interview...

Don Cheadle is a 32-year-old actor who became familiar to many through his role as
D.A. John Littleton on CBS' "Picket Fences." But it was his evil turn as Mouse in 1995's
Devil in a Blue Dress, opposite Denzel Washington, that made him one of those actors
critics keep an eye on. Since then, he's had prime roles in major studio releases like
Volcano, Rosewood and the upcoming Warren Beatty flick, Bulworth. In Boogie Nights,
Cheadle plays Buck, the one guy who chases a normal life amid the world of sex and
drugs that he uses as the ultimate part-time job.

Why did you take the role?
It was only working with Paul (Paul Thomas Anderson), because when I read the script I
didn't dig it. I didn't really understand it. It was like the first time I read Chekov. I had no
context for it. The way Paul writes, what you see on screen is what you see. "The
camera moves down to 40 frames per second." That was in the script! It was very hard
to follow. It wasn't the nudity. I'll do that. As long as it isn't, "Just look how clever we are."

How did you prepare for the role?
We tried to have sex with at least one of the people in the movie to keep it real. Just
kidding.

You were the only black porno actor in the film. Was that an issue for you?
No. In the film, it was like we were a family. I've learned since making the film that race
is a very big issue in pornography. But it never came up on this film.

What kind of family is it?
I think all the characters are lost souls and kind of injured. I think all of them are scarred
and searching, and Jack Horner is kind of the dad.

What was the most disturbing scene in the film for you?
The scene in the courtroom, because I have two kids, was very disturbing to me. To
see her life slipping away and her trying to get it back. Very disturbing.

Did porno actress Nina Hartley (who was in the film) give you insight into the
skin business?
I found it hard to talk to her because she always tried to make it into something else.

You mean, she hit on you?
She hit on everybody.

"I think there's something abnormal about being that intimate with somebody
without feeling anything. I think there's a heavy price to pay."
-- Don Cheadle

Was there anything good of yours that got cut from the film?
There was a scene that was taken out before we started shooting with Buck and his
wife in bed trying to figure out how to make love. They knew how to have sex on screen,
but they didn't know how to make love.

What was your first acting role?
Templeton the Rat in Charlotte's Web. I was very serious. I remember sitting there
drinking some milk and looking at my lines. And thinking, "What does a rat like at a
fair?" And how does a rat feel about a spider?

What was the first porno film you ever saw?
Debbie Does Dallas. I went to one of my friends' house. It was, "Oooh. She's shooting
marshmallows out of there?! Whoa!" That was the last one I wanted to see for a while.

Could you ever do this kind of work?
I think there's something abnormal about being that intimate with somebody without
feeling anything. I think there's a heavy price to pay. None of those people have normal
relationships. There was one set we visited where this one girl, she would finish her sex
scene, then she would just go off in the corner and she was just masturbating the whole
time. And she's just, "I love it." She loves it and makes two grand a day?

[JoBlo]

Hey Brock, I sent ya an email last nite but not sure if you got it. Please send me an email to let me know if you did, if not, I will resend. Email me at joblo@joblo.com