The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz (20 page)

“So you thought he was going to invite you up to his bedroom, too, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “I was kinda hoping. It would’ve been nice. I mean, I was fooling around with her, too.”

He laughed and shook his head, amazed that I had not yet figured out what was so obvious to everybody else.

“Oh, Ronnie,” he said. “He threw you a bone.”

I
t wasn’t all parties and gang bangs. I was still one of the busiest actors in porn, performing in more movies than there were hours in the day. And as if my schedule wasn’t hectic enough, I was even starting to dabble in directing. My directorial debut,
The Casting Couch
(which starred me in the title role), was a huge hit. Later on, a producer named Mark Carriere hired me to direct for his company, Leisure Time Entertainment. Mark appreciated me because I was able to deliver what we called “one-day wonders.” I could direct a film in a single afternoon, bring it in under budget, and provide him with enough scorching scenes to use and reuse in countless other compilation videos.

But my first love was still acting, and it allowed me to express myself creatively in ways that directing didn’t. I had my favorite filmmakers, like Hal Freeman, who always cast me in his popular
Caught from Behind
movies. They were usually campy and goofy, and they allowed me to show off my comedic skills, especially when he let me play the perennial lead role of Dr. Proctor.

In September 1983, I took my motorcycle out to Rancho Palos Verdes, a southern suburb of Los Angeles, to appear in Hal’s latest sequel in the
Caught from Behind
series. But as I pulled around the corner to Hal’s house, the streets were lined with police cars.

I kept right on driving. I didn’t even slow down long enough to get a better look. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see actresses being led outside in handcuffs. If they saw me speeding past, they were kind enough not to say anything.

I went straight to a gas station and called Hal at his home. I didn’t really expect him to pick up. For all I knew, he was in the back of a police car, being hauled off to jail. When I heard his voice, I contemplated hanging up, just in case the phones had been tapped. But I needed answers, and that overrode any sense of self-preservation.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked him.

“So you saw?” he said. “I was going to call you, but I assumed you were already on your way over.”

“There are cop cars everywhere. Did something happen? Is everybody okay?”

It never crossed my mind that the cops were there for anything having to do with the porn shoot. John Holmes and the Wonderland Murders were still fresh in my mind, and I was terrified that something similar had happened to Hal.

“They busted us for pandering.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“It’s part of some new antipimping law. I don’t know, my lawyers are looking into it. But it seems serious.”

“We’re not pimps,” I said. “This is ridiculous. Since when does making a movie mean that you’re involved in prostitution?”

“Since today, I guess.” Hal sighed, and I could tell by his voice that a part of him was more afraid than he was letting on. “The times are changing, my friend.”

And so they were. More than any of us realized. The ground under our feet was shifting, and it was only a matter of time before it gave way entirely.

Promotional photo for
Bad Girls II.
(Courtesy Collectors/Gourmet Video)

chapter 8

OF VICE AND MEN

“Was it really necessary
to break down the door?”

There were sixteen police officers in the living room of my rented house in Laurel Canyon. Which is odd, given that the so-called “criminals” they were there to arrest, which included my entire cast and crew, totaled no more than five people, including me.

Detective Como glanced down at the door that his officers had ripped from its hinges. “Sorry about that,” he said with a half smile.

“Y’know, we would have opened it for you. All you had to do was
knock
.”

Como just shrugged. “What can I tell you?”

“You do realize that I’m going to have to pay for that, don’t you? That’s coming out of my salary.”

Como’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d be worried about something besides the door.”

I was directing a film called
Fade to Black
. We were almost finished for the day when the cops came storming in, literally kicking down the door and causing such a ruckus that it was like a small hurricane had singled out our house for destruction.

There were so many voices yelling at us to freeze we weren’t quite sure who we should be listening to. Were we supposed to freeze for the eight cops standing in front of us, the six cops behind us, or the cops who were still filing into the room? The actors looked at me, hoping I might have a better idea. I just rolled my eyes and lifted my arms halfheartedly into the air.

“Could you maybe tell your boys to put down their guns?” I asked. Most of the cops yelling freeze were heavily armed. It wouldn’t have made much sense otherwise. Needless to say, they had us pretty well covered.

Como nodded, and the cops immediately holstered their guns. “My apologies,” he said. “It was our understanding that there were firearms on the premises.”

“Hey, the only gun here is in my pants.”

It was a smart-ass remark, and not the sort of thing you probably want to say when your living room is filled with police officers, but I was feeling cocky. I had done nothing wrong. I was shooting a porn film. So what? As far as I knew, that wasn’t against the law.

I tried not to think about Hal Freeman. It’d been almost three years since his arrest, and although he had not yet served jail time, it was starting to look grim.

It had all started with David Roberti, a Democratic state senator who created an antipimping law in 1982 to crack down on the city’s streetwalkers. The law required a minimum three-year sentence for anyone convicted of “pandering,” which was just a fancy legal term for selling sex for money. This gave the Los Angeles district attorney an idea. The new law, he reasoned, could be used to target porn. If selling sex for money was illegal, it could be argued that pornographers—who paid actors to have sex—were also guilty of pandering. The city hoped that by criminalizing the industry they could force it out of L.A. completely and make it somebody else’s problem.

But before they could scare the industry into packing up shop and skipping town, they needed to show that they were serious. And that meant making an example of somebody.

Hal Freeman was the first filmmaker to get busted. He was charged with five counts of pandering—one for each of the female performers in his film. Nobody really understood why the men weren’t charged, but that’s L.A. logic for you. When the case went to trial at the Van Nuys Superior Court, Freeman was found guilty on all counts. The judge refused to give him the mandatory three-year sentence, calling it “cruel and unusual punishment.” Instead, he was sentenced to ninety days in jail and a $10,000 fine. Freeman’s lawyers took the case to the California Court of Appeals and lost again. There was talk that Freeman might take it all the way to the California Supreme Court, but very few people expected his case to be accepted. Or if it was, that he would win.

Since then, several other porn productions had been raided, and mine was just the latest. I probably should have been more scared than I was. But because Hal hadn’t given up, I didn’t see any reason why I should either.

I watched from the couch as officers interviewed my actors—all
two
of them—asking about their involvement in the film and taking down names and phone numbers. The actress was already in tears, and God knows what she was telling him. The other officers were searching the house, collecting whatever money they could find and confiscating the camera equipment.

Como was standing in the corner, talking with another vice detective named Navarro. They were whispering something, pausing every so often to shoot a derisive glance in my direction. Well, I thought, if these two were in charge of the sting operation, I might as well be friendly and introduce myself. Know thy enemy and all that.

I wandered over and asked if I could help with their investigation. They could confiscate everything and ask as many questions as they wanted; I wasn’t going to admit to doing anything wrong.

“Will you be making any arrests today?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent and casual.

“Not today,” Navarro said. “We’re just taking names.”

I looked over at the six officers interviewing my actors. “So how many cops does it take to write down some names, anyway?” I asked.

Como smirked. “Very funny,” he said.

I pointed to a gaggle of officers who were standing in the living room, watching a baseball game on TV. “And what about them? Are they here on ‘official business,’ too? Or is there just no cable down at the station?”

Navarro was not amused. “Why don’t you just back off and let us do our jobs?”

“Sure, fine, don’t mind me. You obviously know what you’re doing. If you need any snacks or something, just let me know.”

One of the officers who had actually been searching the house walked over with a handful of papers. Como leafed through the stack, which contained my production notes and copies of the script. It wasn’t anything you wouldn’t find on any movie set.

“If you’d let me know what you’re looking for, I could probably save you some time,” I offered.

Como ignored me and continued thumbing through the papers. He raised an eyebrow and held up a dog-eared notebook. “What’s this?” he asked.

Fuck!

It was my address book. My most cherished possession. The phone numbers of everybody I knew in the world were somewhere in that book. Granted, most of the numbers were written in an indecipherable scrawl, so it was doubtful that Como would be able to make much sense of it. He’d need an expert in cryptography to decode my handwriting. But still, if I lost that address book, I would be in serious trouble. It was the only copy in existence, and some of those phone numbers weren’t replaceable. I couldn’t function without it.

“That’s nothing,” I said, trying to snatch it away from him. “Just some notes. Nothing you’d be interested in.”

My crew, treacherous bastards that they were, began snickering. Como turned to them with an inquisitive look. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“He doesn’t want to lose his phone book,” the cameraman remarked.

Como grinned widely at me. “Oh, he’ll lose it all right.”

My calm and cool demeanor had evaporated. I pleaded for Como not to take it. I’d tell him anything he wanted to know, just as long as he didn’t confiscate my address book. For the love of God, not
that
. It was too much. It was inhumane. He might as well have told his officers to pull out their weapons and riddle me with bullets.

Despite Navarro’s protests, Como allowed me to copy down a few numbers before they took it away. It was still heartbreaking, but it was better than being left destitute.

“I think that about covers it,” Como said as the officers carted away boxes of evidence. “We’ll probably call you tomorrow and have you come down to make a statement. Do me a favor and don’t leave town. I don’t want to chase you all over California.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ll be there.”
*

Stuart Goldfarb, my lawyer, accompanied me to the police station the next morning. They filed formal charges and put me in a jail cell until my lawyer could post bail. Como didn’t bother to frisk me.

“There’s no point,” Como said. “I know from our informants that you don’t touch drugs. Congratulations.”

I should have guessed. Somebody had squealed on us. “You wouldn’t want to give me a name, would you?” I asked.

Como just smiled.

“Nice try.”

After I was out, the wheels of justice moved slowly. I appeared in court for a few preliminary hearings, which were mostly for me to hear the charges and make a “not guilty” plea. Nobody seemed to be in any big hurry to try the case. Even the assistant district attorney might have known it was ridiculous. When the judge scolded her for arriving late to a hearing, she muttered under her breath, “I was working on a
real
case.”
**

I wanted to get back to business as usual, but my lawyer advised me against it. “Just lay low for a while,” he said.

“I have to make a living,” I told him. “I can’t just stop making movies altogether.”

“Well, if you have to, at least do it outside of L.A. These guys are keeping a close eye on you. I’m sure there won’t be a problem if you shoot a film out of town.”

“Did they tell you that?” I asked.

My lawyer nodded. “They implied that.”

H
ello, Ron. Nice to see you again.”

Como and Navarro were standing at the door. At least they were courteous enough to knock this time.