The Rialto Report

Imagine this. It’s one night in New York in 1974. You’ve partied with friends. You stumble home at midnight, turn on the TV and flop onto the couch. On screen is channel 35.  This isn’t the Partridge Family or the Rockford Files. Did you really drink that much? This was Midnight Blue , a one-hour, regular TV show that aired on Manhattan Cable. And it was like nothing you’d seen before. It was a cr...

We’re on vacation this week, but wanted to wish everyone a very happy Christmas from ourselves – and from two of our favorites… Johnnie Keyes and C.J. Laing (see below). We also wanted to close the year by telling you about ‘ Supporting Characters ‘, a podcast – where Ashley West from The Rialto Report was the interviewee this week . ‘Supporting Characters...

You’ve probably heard us say this before, but Keisha was a different kind of adult film star. She entered the business in the same era as the first wave of video girls who dominated the scene in the mid 1980s. Stars like Ginger Lynn , Christy Canyon and Traci Lords . She appeared in loops, videos, and feature films, as well as countless magazine covers and layouts. She did phone sex, ran her own f...

Jeanne Silver is a Rialto Report favorite and her interview with us remains incredibly popular. She was a firm favorite in films and magazines from the moment she arrived in New York in the mid 1970s, appearing in movies such as The Violation of Claudia , Water Power , Desire for Men , and Every Man’s Fantasy . We looked for Jeanne for almost 10 years before we finally found her. When we did...

Since the filmmaker Radley Metzger passed away earlier this year, we’ve received a lot of email asking if we have a podcast interview with him. In the last few years, we recorded several commentaries with Radley in which he spoke about his ‘ Henry Paris ‘ films in some detail – so instead of going over the same ground, we wanted to do something different. We decided that, rather than l...

For the last 25 years,  we have interviewed hundreds of people who were connected to the birth of the pornographic film industry in New York – from film directors to actors, theater owners and distributors, and a fair number of cops and politicians too. We wanted to make sure that the real story of the era was preserved – not just by journalists, academics, filmmakers or fans, but by the people wh...

If you were a male teenager in the mid-1980s, and you rented an X-rated video cassette by director Greg Dark , it’s likely that the song ‘ Electrify Me ‘ by The Plugz will still send a shiver down your spine. This was the theme to the Greg Dark ’s ‘ New Wave Hookers ’- starring Ginger Lynn , Jamie Gillis , and an underage Traci Lords . This film, and others by Dark, offered a radically...

The Rialto Report is on vacation this week, so we re-visit one of our most popular podcasts – the story of how we found what happened to Helga Sven , star of 1980s adult films and magazine layouts. We also spoke to a fan of hers who tracked her down and has his own unique story to tell. Tales of mid-1980s video porn, the Vegas mob, Stalin’s Red Army, John Holmes, child abduction, Frank...

Andrea True was a unique character. Here was an adult film star from the early days of the porn film industry who became an international superstar as a disco diva. She was a rare example of a cross-over – which is uncommon even today – of someone who went on to find success outside of the adult film industry, succeeding where so many others have tried and failed. But when her music and film caree...

In the 1970s, Andrea True was a rarity. She was a porn star that many people had heard of – even if they knew nothing about porn. She belonged to a select group of adult film actors whose names were widely known for a short time: Linda Lovelace , Marilyn Chambers , John Holmes , and yes, Andrea True . But Andrea’s fame was different. You see, most people hadn’t heard of Andrea because she’d appear...

Rhonda Jo Petty has long been a favorite at The Rialto Report . She started out on the West Coast in the late 1970s where film producers capitalized on her resemblance to Farrah Fawcett. One of her best-known roles was in Little Orphan Dusty (1978) with porn icon John Holmes . Then she moved to New York where she appeared in more films, while traveling the country enjoying great success as a featu...

In one of his first detailed interviews for many years, Tom Byron joins us to look back at one of the most prolific careers in adult film history. His life story resembles the history of the adult film industry since the beginning of the video age, during which time he’s won just about every kind of adult film award going and is in every Hall of Fame invented by the industry. He’s appeared in lite...

Henri Pachard was one of the most successful adult film directors in America in the 1980s and 1990s – making award-winning films like ‘ Babylon Pink ’ (1979), ‘ The Budding of Brie ‘ (1980), and ‘ October Silk ’ (1980). He worked with the biggest names and won just about every award there was to win in the industry. But back in the 1960s, Henri Pachard was just Ron Sullivan , and he was a yo...

The Rialto Report would never presume to express an opinion about the upcoming political elections in the United States. After all, we’re merely a site that seeks to preserve the oral history of early adult films. However we were interested to note that this summer Donald Trump signed a pledge to give serious consideration to appointing a Presidential Commission to examine the harmful public healt...

The 1980s were a tough period for the golden age of adult films. More and more movies were being made on video, with less care and much less money, and AIDS was becoming a major issue in society. To make matters worse, President Reagan ordered a comprehensive, and comprehensively biased, investigation into pornography. The so-called Meese Report was published in July 1986 and contained 1,960 pages...

Tiffany Clark was a memorable performer on the New York adult film scene in the early 1980s, a favorite stripper at the Melody Burlesk , and a ubiquitous presence on the party scene with her husband and fellow actor, Fred Lincoln . For a time they seemed to be everywhere – from swingers clubs like Plato’s Retreat or fetish venues like Hellfire, to writing, directing and producing their own success...

Some of the first adult movies that were made in New York in the early 1970s starred an attractive and slender woman with long dark hair. If you hung around long enough to read the credits, you’d see that she was called Tina Russell . For a short time in the early 1970s, she was the biggest name in adult films. She was the original porn star. Except that she was unlike other porn stars you may hav...

Vintage audio interviews with Lisa DeLeeuw, Jamie Gillis, and John Seeman. Conducted by Richard Pacheco. Since we started the The Rialto Report , several people have said to us, “Wouldn’t it have been great if you could’ve spoken with these adult film stars back in the golden age itself?” And sure, it would’ve been fun, but part of what I enjoy about our interviews is...

Eric Edwards is a true trailblazer of the adult film industry. He started his adult career in the 1960s and stayed in the business for four decades. He starred in silent loops and narrative features. He moved between acting and directing, softcore and hardcore, and the east and west coast industries. Since retiring from the business, things haven’t been easy for Eric. He lost his home and ha...

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Veronica Hart was a natural candidate for show business stardom. She was born and raised in Las Vegas, and had a natural talent for acting and dancing. But she was smart and adventurous too, and after graduating college in record quick time, she headed over to Europe where she settled in England. It was the time of Bowie and glam rock – and she wanted to be part...

Johnnie Keyes was the first black porn star, and from the moment he emerges in Behind the Green Door (1972), dressed in nothing but crotchless tights and an African necklace, nothing was quite the same again. There may have been more prolific or famous male adult film stars over the last 50 years, but has anyone made a more iconic entrance and statement? He was paired with Marilyn Chambers – the w...

Last week we presented a selection of pictures personally chosen by Barbara Dare from her collection – and have been amazed by the response. We received email from so many of you, all eager to know more about the elusive star of the 1980s who vanished from the scene almost 25 years ago. Barbara was a superstar of the adult industry in the 1980s video era. She started out in New York –...

João Fernandes was adult film’s first true cinematographer. He started in New York in the 1960s shooting black and white soft-core sexploitation films. Then he was the man looking down the camera when Deep Throat , Devil in Miss Jones , The Story of Joanna and other groundbreaking Gerard Damiano films were made. He worked with Doris Wishman , Armand Weston , Jonas Middleton and many others. He was...

We recently heard that one of our all-time favorites, golden age actress Miss Sharon Mitchell , has recently been going through a very tough time. The Rialto Report interviewed Mitch early in 2014 – and heard how she had struggled since the closure of her AIM organization a few years ago. In recent years she’s lived in a rural area in the country outside of Los Angeles where she has st...

April Hall of The Rialto Report writes: Aaah… Billy Dee . It’s complicated. I’d wanted to contact him for years. But accurate information about him was just difficult to find. He was one of my favorite porn actors – who got started in the golden age of adult films in the 1970s and survived into the video era of the 1980s. I heard he’d served in the armed forces during the Viet Nam years, or...