The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz (27 page)

“So what do you want to do?” I finally asked her. Her bags were packed. The apartment was empty. All that remained was for one of us to make the first move and leave.

“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “Meet a nice guy. Maybe get married.”

“So marry me,” I offered, kind of half seriously.

She tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a hiccup. “No offense, Ron, but you’re not the marrying type.”

That wasn’t true. I wasn’t the
monogamous
type, I’d give her that. But I wasn’t totally opposed to the idea of marriage.

“Can we talk about it?” I asked. “This doesn’t have to be over.”

She looked at me with so much tenderness I wanted to pull her onto the bed with me and just kiss her. But it wouldn’t have made a difference. Somewhere in her head, she had already left me.

R
onnie, what’s wrong?” Mimi asked, gazing down at me with her toothy smile. “You’re turning blue.”

When Como and Navarro walked into the bedroom, knocking so casually you’d think we’d been expecting them, I just about had an aneurysm. I was cuddling with a lady friend named Mimi, and the moment I saw them standing in the doorway, I threw Mimi to the side and pulled the blanket over me. Como walked over to the bed and sat on the edge, patting the mattress like he was testing its buoyancy.

“I’m a little surprised,” he said, winking at the cameraman who was cowering in the corner. “This seems like a small-time operation for a star of your stature. What, you couldn’t afford a full crew?”

“What are you doing here?” I grumbled at him. “Didn’t we win?”

It was true. Both of the pandering charges against me had been dropped. And it was all thanks to Hal Freeman.

Hal had taken his case to the California Supreme Court, and in late August 1988, his conviction was overturned in a 7-0 decision.

“In order to constitute prostitution,” the court had decided, “the money or other consideration must be paid for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.” Using this logic, the payments that Hal had made to his performers for the film
Caught from Behind 2
were nothing more than “acting fees,” and the director did not “engage in either the requisite conduct nor did he have the requisite [intent] or purpose to establish procurement for purposes of prostitution.”

In a single morning, pornography had become legal in California.

It had a domino effect on the rest of the industry. Every other porn director like myself, who had seen his sets raided by vice cops and been slapped with pandering charges, were suddenly in the clear. Our cases were dropped; there was no longer a legal precedent for convicting us. Freeman had cleared the way for hundreds of adult filmmakers, making the world safe for porn again.

So what the heck were Como and Navarro doing in Mimi’s bedroom?

“Relax,” Como said. “We’re not here to bust anybody. Now that you guys are all legal and everything, we’re just checking in to make sure you have the right permits.”

Como put his arm around me and gave my shoulder a tug. “You’re with the big boys now, Ronnie.”

Navarro took some of the porn stars aside and asked to see their IDs, just to make sure they were over eighteen. But as he was checking, he noticed me slipping something under the mattress.

“By the way,” Navarro said. “You wouldn’t happen to have your address book on you, would you?”

“Very funny,” I snarled.

“Is that what you’re hiding under there?” he said, lifting the mattress and peering underneath. “You worried that we’re gonna confiscate it again?”

I gave them the permits, but I wasn’t happy about it. Though I was thrilled to be legal finally, I thought it was unfair that we were treated like a big-budget Hollywood production. If you had money to burn, as many of the Hollywood studios did, you could afford a few extra thousand dollars for permits and insurance. But for a porno shoot, which usually operated on a shoestring budget, it was enough to break the bank.

The vice cops weren’t harassing nonunion indie films, demanding to see permits. I believe that they singled us out because we were doing
porn
, and they were just annoyed that we’d beaten them. If they couldn’t bust us for pandering anymore, they’d use any loophole they could find to hassle us and make our jobs more difficult.

And they weren’t just nailing us for permits. In the hills of Laurel Canyon, which is considered a fire zone area, a film production was required to have a fire marshal on set at all times.
*
We had to pay a fire marshal $600 a day. Six hundred goddamn dollars! Back then, the girl doing anal wasn’t getting $600.

Before long, the administrative vice unit in California closed its porn doors for good, I believe. Without the big, bad porn industry to pick on anymore, the cops were forced to chase street prostitutes, gangsters, and drug dealers (which should have been their focus in the first place).

I saw Como a few years later, outside a Hollywood nightclub.

“Tell me the truth,” I asked him. “How much did you really know?”

“You mean about Hawaii?” he said. “We knew everything.”

My jaw dropped as he told me about our every secret location, every backwoods home and remote beach that we’d ever used for that shoot. We’d found places that weren’t on any map, so secluded and inaccessible that even a Navy SEAL wouldn’t have been able to track us down. We scaled dangerous hills, traveled through forests, swam into underwater caves. But Como knew about it all, every twist and turn, every descent into deep valleys and shadowy crevices, right down to our last carefully guarded step.

“How come we never saw you?” I asked.

“Oh, Ronnie,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “We didn’t
want
you to see us.”

Of all the cops in the world to be chasing us, it was just our luck that the man on our trail was a surveillance genius. He even taught surveillance at the police academy.

In fact, years later through him I was invited to Officer Don Smith’s retirement party. I was out of town, but I believe I signed a card.

It was the least I could do for a friend.

With a young Charlie Sheen.

chapter 11

HOLLYWOOD NIGHTS

I have paid for sex only
once in my life, and it was all Charlie Sheen’s fault.

During one balmy summer night—I believe the year was 1989—Charlie invited me to a party at his Hollywood Hills home. I arrived with two of my roommates, Heather Hart and Devon Shire, who both wanted to meet Charlie. Charlie—who, I’d like to add, was single at the time—had also invited over a few friends, most of them young and attractive and with stomachs so tight you could bounce a quarter off them. We nibbled on snacks and watched some television, and soon people were pairing off and disappearing into any spare bedroom they could find.

My lady friends didn’t waste any time making friends. I caught one of them in the Jacuzzi with a guy, and the other somehow ended up making whoopee in a utility closet. Before long, a hot blonde number sat next to me on the couch and started kissing my neck, which seemed as good an indication as any that she was looking for more than casual conversation. I took her by the hand and led her to the nearest bedroom, and we spent the next few hours playing Naked Twister.

By four
A
.
M
., the party was finally beginning to wind down. I walked my new blonde friend to the door, where Charlie was waiting to say good-bye. As I stood there and watched, Charlie kissed her on the cheek, thanked her for coming, and slipped a wad of bills into her hand.

I wanted to kill myself.

Charlie closed the door and turned back to me. I must have gone pale because he grabbed my shoulders like he thought I might keel over at any moment.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” he asked. “You don’t look so good.”

“I-I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head.

“You had fun with her, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

I’ll admit it; it was a blow to my ego. I’d never paid for sex before, much less had a friend pay on my behalf. Besides, Heather Hart and Devon Shire weren’t there for business. They were just having fun.

“I thought you were having a good time,” Charlie said, still stunned by the disappointment in my face. “We could all hear the two of you going at it back there. What’s the problem?”

I could barely find the words. “Was…was she a…a
working
girl?”

Charlie smiled, finally understanding. He put an arm around me and patted my cheek.

“Aw Ronnie,” he said. “You thought she
liked
you.”

M
oving to Hollywood was the best thing ever to happen to my social life. I wasn’t what you’d call a couch potato when I lived in New York, but the Los Angeles nightlife was unlike anything I’d experienced before. During the late 1980s and early ’90s, the Sunset Strip was a nonstop celebration, a Mardi Gras party that never ended. At legendary clubs like the Viper Room, the Rainbow, the Roxy, and Gazzarri’s, you could catch the biggest names in rock performing every night, and flirt with big-haired beauties in spandex pants. If the nightclubs weren’t enough, there was sure to be a party happening somewhere, usually attended by enough celebrities to fill an entire season of
Love Boat
episodes.

It was an era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and I was a big fan of at least two of those things (no drugs).

I never turned down an invitation to a party in Hollywood. Some of them were amazing. They were bacchanalian revelries that lasted all night. And some of the parties were, sadly, duds. Over the years, I’ve developed a set of guidelines that I use to determine whether a party is worth my time or if I should make a mad dash for the exit. And, charitable fellow that I am, I’m going to share it with you.

REASONS TO STAY AT A PARTY
THE FIVE-POINT PROGRAM

1. 1. Good food
   
2. 2. Great entertainment
   
3. 3. Women I could maybe have sex with
   
4. 4. Directors or producers or agents who might be able to help my career
   
5. 5. Celebrities, or anyone I can later brag about having met
   

This last point is particularly important. I’ve learned long ago that it never pays to be the most famous person in the room. If I’m at a party and I notice that everybody wants to pose for photos with me, and I’m the only one among them who has had an acting job that didn’t involve hawking used cars on a local TV commercial, it’s time to make up an excuse and get the hell out of there. “Oh, I forgot to feed my pet tortoise.” Whatever. I’m out of there.

But even when I’ve been fortunate enough to stumble across a party filled with bona fide celebrities, that doesn’t mean they’ve necessarily wanted to meet
me
. As you’ll see by the pictures in this book, I’ve rubbed shoulders with hundreds of celebrities over the years. Some of them have even run across the room to shake my hand. I’ve met John Travolta, Keith Richards, Johnny Depp, Ice-T, Samuel L. Jackson, Willem Dafoe, Nancy Sinatra, Billy Joel, and Tony Curtis,
*
to name just a few. But for every celebrity who got a kick out of meeting me, once in a rare while there have been a few who’ve treated me like a walking petri dish of disease.

I’ve experienced my fair share of disses. And, weirdly enough, they weren’t always the most famous person at the party. I would expect somebody like Brad Pitt to ignore me, if only because he’s such a big star and has better things to do.
**
No, the actors who’ve dissed me were usually the lesser knowns.

People like Katey Sagal.

David Faustino,
***
an actor from the Fox sitcom
Married with Children
, invited me and my two roommates, Heather Hart and Devon Shire, to visit the set and meet the rest of his cast. He introduced me to Ed O’Neill, the show’s star, and I helped myself to the complimentary wine-and-cheese buffet backstage. At one point, Dave pulled Ed aside and whispered, “Should we bring him over to Katey?”

Ed started giggling. “Yeah, yeah, do it,” he said.

Katey played Peg Bundy, a white-trash housewife with a gravity-defying perm and leopard-skin tights. She seemed like a talented comedienne, and I always liked meeting good performers. But something about Ed and David’s reaction should have warned me that the feeling would not be mutual.

David took me over to Katey, who was standing nearby with a group of her girlfriends. David introduced us, and I told her that I was a big fan of the show. “You’re just terrific,” I said. “A great actress.” I held out my hand, hoping she might take the hint and shake it. But she just looked down at it like I was holding a steaming pile of dog crap, and turned back to her friends.

Devon Shire wanted to throw her drink at her, but I stopped it. “People have the right not to like me,” I told her. I ran back to Ed and David, who were laughing in the corner like a couple of teenage pranksters.