The Other Hollywood (40 page)

GINGER LYNN
:
I found another ad in the paper that said, “Figure models wanted: five hundred dollars to five thousand per day.” It was for Jim South’s World Modeling in Van Nuys. When I went in, there were two photographers there, and they took Polaroids of me.

RHONDA JO PETTY
:
Max Baer would call me and just want to know what I was doing and what film I was working on. Then one time I was really sick, and you know what Max did? He sent somebody to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription and bring it to my house.

I really liked him because he didn’t really expect anything from me. He’d just call me and say, “How you doing? Me and Nick Nolte are here together. You going to come party with us?”

And I never met him in person, ha, ha, ha, because I would never go! But we continued that phone relationship for about a year.

GINGER LYNN
:
One of the photographers I met through World Modeling was Steven Hicks. We did test shots for
Penthouse,
and while we were waiting for the answer, Steven was going to Mexico for two weeks. He said to me, “Don’t shoot for anybody while I’m gone.” But I was brand-new, and I didn’t believe him. You know, “Wait
two
weeks”?

Then Suze Randall came in and said, “I’ll shoot you now.”

GLORIA LEONARD
:
Robin took me to lunch at a restaurant, which was a romantic, dimly lit grotto. They showed us to a private room to conduct the interview.

We were sitting next to each other in a banquette, and in his clipped English accent, he asked, “Do you wear black panties?”

I was intrigued that somebody would have such naughty nerve. And I said, “I think I have a pair on right now.”

He said, “Would you think I was terribly brash if I asked you for the pair you’re wearing?”

I said, “Yes, I would, but if you’d like them…”

I thought it might enhance his article. So, very discreetly, I wiggled out of my panties under the lunch table, and Robin put them in his pocket.

Robin Leach was a wonderful lover. He was sensitive—he wasn’t in a rush—and he was very big on foreplay.

GINGER LYNN
:
Suze shot me for
Penthouse
. Steven was very upset, but the layout was held for several months, which is very common. At that point
Penthouse
wasn’t using women who’d done adult films as centerfolds.

RHONDA JO PETTY
:
There was this one party in the Hollywood Hills—I don’t know how I ended up there, but I did—and Tony Curtis was there. I knew Tony; he would come to the porn sets sometimes. Anyway, he was smoking cocaine, and he’s got himself locked in the bathroom, and he’s threatening to commit suicide. It took them like two hours to talk him out of the bathroom.

GINGER LYNN
:
Between the time that Suze shot me and my first layout came out, enough months had gone by that I had begun to do adult films.

KELLY NICHOLS
:
I met Warren Beatty through my friend Ingrid, who was a model. But I was still shy, and everybody comes up to celebrities and bugs them. If you just walk up, celebrities just see a set of tits. They want to fuck you. Then you’re saying platitudes out of your mouth that
they’re not even listening to. I liked to be listened to, and I like to make a difference.

KRISTIN STEEN (FORMER ACTRESS)
:
I had been called by Shirley MacLaine’s brother—what’s his name? Warren Beatty.

It was fun getting called by Warren Beatty while my boyfriend was there. He was calling to invite me to his hotel room for a party.

So I went, but he wanted to have a party with these two other girls who were there, and I was very insulted by that. I wouldn’t have minded having a party just with him, but not with these two other girls. I mean, come on. So I just got up and left.

KELLY NICHOLS
:
I just said hi to Warren Beatty—nothing else. But Ingrid had dated him in New York, and she just loved to fuck Warren Beatty. But she never dragged me into it—she was a really good friend.

See, there was a point where the whole idea of star-fucking just seemed like a really cool thing. But I always felt I was kind of excluded because I’m very shy.

SHARON MITCHELL
:
I hooked up with Warren Beatty through Tracey Adams—who he kept for a while—while Tracey had a gay relationship with the same woman for years. It was pretty much a secret because nobody talked about sex with movie stars. It’s just an unspoken code that you don’t, you know? You could be shooting dope with the Rolling Stones—but you’d never hear me say that.

KRISTIN STEEN
:
The two girls with Warren Beatty were beautiful—models or something. I thought it was so weird because I was this skinny, flat-chested chick, and I didn’t think I was pretty or beautiful or glamorous. I think he was just calling random women.

I wasn’t insulted to find out that that was all he wanted, but it was disappointing. You know, like, “This is the world?”

SHARON MITCHELL
:
I met Warren a couple of times, and we chatted and became friends. Did he come on to me? I can’t answer that, but Warren seemed to know a lot about the porn business. He asked a lot of questions—but not in that fancy, asinine way that most people would bug the living shit out of you. And he knew a lot about sexually transmitted diseases, ha, ha, ha.

VERONICA HART
:
We’re all just real people. I think we’re all pretty up-front about what we do. Maybe it’s because we’re already exposed. You see us without our clothes on. You see us in our most intimate moments, doing stuff everybody else tries to keep secret.

SHARON MITCHELL
:
It always struck me that you can’t make friends with the people in Hollywood because you can’t get close to them. I mean, I thought
I
had barriers; these motherfuckers built the wall. You really couldn’t get close to these people—they gave new meaning to the word superficial—
and
they had money.

JIM SOUTH
:
There’s a lot of regular movie stars that are really, really, really into the porn business.

TIM CONNELLY
:
We call them “porn marks.”

CLEVELAND/LOS ANGELES
1982

NEW YORK TIMES
, JULY 26, 1978: REUBEN STURMAN AND SIX OTHERS ACQUIT TED
:
“A jury in Federal District Court, Cleveland, that acquitted seven persons of obscenity charges, wrote to Judge William K. Thomas a message saying that they do not believe the average person is capable of having a shameful interest in sex.

“Reuben Sturman and six of his employees were acquitted. They had been charged with shipping obscene materials across state lines.”

RICHARD ROSFELDER (IRS SPECIAL AGENT)
:
I remember reading in the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
that Reuben Sturman was found not guilty of obscenity—it may even have been front-page news.

I mean, everybody figured Reuben would be found guilty of obscenity. No one expected the acquittal—the agent or the prosecutors or the Strike Force or the public or the media.

NINA HARTLEY (PORN STAR)
:
I met Reuben Sturman a couple of times, and he was very nice to me. I knew the importance of who he was; I knew the significance of him wanting to shake my hand and give me a compliment.

But he thought I was a silly hippie girl because to me sex is utopian, not just a business. And he took it to the whole next level—in terms of sex being a vital business.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
They had interviewed jurors; they were talking about the confusion in determining what obscenity is. And there had been some problems during the trial, where one of Sturman’s associates was found in contempt for saying something to a juror.

NINA HARTLEY
:
I was more fired up with my youthful enthusiasm for my chosen field than Reuben was. I just talked to him about what I hoped to do with adult material—that I liked making this for couples—and Reuben was looking at me like, “I don’t understand who she thinks watches this. I mean, it’s lonely, single guys.”

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
How the Reuben Sturman obscenity prosecution in Cleveland ended up with a Strike Force, I’m not sure. But it was the United States Department of Justice Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, which had eighteen Strike Forces in the United States: New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, Kansas City, Buffalo, et cetera, and all of them answered directly to Washington—and to the attorney general.

NINA HARTLEY
:
But one does not argue with Reuben Sturman; one listens respectfully to his opinion. It was earlier in my career, and since I was living my dream, I was happy.

Reuben was at the end of his career: “Done that, been there, seen it, got the T-shirt,” you know? Age and jadedness versus youth.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
I felt pretty bad for the prosecutors and the FBI agent, who had worked really hard to put together a case. But I also appreciated that the acquittal created an opportunity for me to do my thing.

BOBBY ELKINS
:
Was I competing with Reuben? Well, I was with Danny Apple, and what made Danny Apple was the bookstore on Hollywood and Western—that bookstore made so much money.

This old Jewish guy had wanted to sell it to me—because it was in between a pool hall and a bar that I owned—and he wanted $18,000 for the place. I was negotiating with him when Danny came in and bought it. From that moment on, Danny Apple became a millionaire.

CALIFORNIA ORGANIZED CRIME CONTROL COMMISSION: APPLE, DANIEL JAMES
:
“Apple was sentenced to state prison in 1954 for burglary and robbery. In 1967, he became active in the Los Angeles pornography industry and is now considered to be a major pornography dealer in Southern California. As of May 3, 1977, Apple had recorded with the Los Angeles county clerk seventeen book or magazine stores. He has business connections with the New York Carlo Gambino Mafia organization.”

BOBBY ELKINS
:
They want to own you, but I wouldn’t let them buy in. I said, “Look, I got partners,” and I mentioned a few people.

Vince DiStephano and I were really close friends. They whacked Bobby DeSalvo, and they were gonna whack Vinny. They said that he took money; I really have no idea if he did or not.

UNITED STATES PROSECUTIVE MEMORANDUM, JANUARY 1980:
VINCENT JAMES DiSTEPHANO, aka “Vince”: “Born 12/7/31 in New York City. Last known address: 17248 Barnestown St., Granada Hills, California. DiSTEPHANO works as a manager for LOUIS and JOSEPH PERAINO at Arrow Films and Video, Los Angeles, California.”

BOBBY ELKINS
:
They put a contract out on Vinny. It was the old man, Anthony Peraino, Sr., and the son, Butchie, and the other son, Joe the Whale.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
My partner and I went to the Sovereign News Company to inform Reuben Sturman that he was under investigation. When we got there, we walked up to this guy who was cleaning the snow off his windshield, and he asked, “Can I help you?”

It was really nasty out—the snow was blowing and stuff—and I said, “Yeah. We’re looking for Reuben Sturman.”

He said, “Go ring the buzzer on the building over there.”

So we rang the buzzer and said, “We want to talk to Reuben Sturman,” and this guy said, “Well, he just left.”

That had been Reuben, cleaning his windshield. This would’ve been sometime after the acquittal because during the whole trial, Reuben had a goatee, which was uncommon at the time. So Reuben had shaved everything off, and he was waving and smiling as he drove away down the street.

We never did hook up with him.

BOBBY ELKINS
:
The Perainos all went back to New York, and they let Vince run Arrow Films. They closed Bryanston Films down, and then they said, “Vince, we found this place in the Valley.”

It was when I was out of the business. In fact, when I went back over there, Vince was called back to New York, and they had a guy at the airport waiting for him, and we thought they were going to kill him, so we stopped him from going to the airport. We caught him in time and told him not to go there. Vinny’s still alive.

ROGER YOUNG (FBI SPECIAL AGENT)
:
Rosfelder started Sturman around 1978, and I started the Sturman case around 1982. Once we knew about each other, Rosfelder and I coordinated our efforts nationally. Rosfelder went overseas and worked the financial part, and I worked the “Interstate Transportation of Obscene Matter” part.

HAROLD LIME (PORN PRODUCER)
:
Reuben Sturman gave me my start. Did he give me permission to exist in this business? Yeah, he was the Godfather.

GLORIA LEONARD
:
Reuben was like the granddaddy of the porn business. He threw some fabulous New Year’s Eve parties.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
Reuben had a three-day event; the tradespeople from all over the world would come to Cleveland for his infamous Christmas parties. It was a real big-time affair. And then when Reuben bought his big mansion out in Shaker Heights, he had the big party out there. Robert DiBernardo was among the guests.

BOBBY ELKINS
:
Yeah, some kid told me that Reuben was connected to DiBe. Steve loved DiBe. He used to go to New York to see him, and evidently DiBe loved him, too. Everybody liked DiBe; he was a pretty good guy. And DiBe was a real good earner. He was big—one of the biggest.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
Was Reuben Sturman the McDonald’s of pornography? Yeah, I would have to say so. He took a hamburger and marketed it in a way that was fairly successful. But his choosing to be involved in the production and distribution of pornography had as little to do with pornography as it did in my investigating him. He did it because he was looking to make a buck.

HAROLD LIME
:
Reuben financed a lot of my movies—
The Ecstasy Girls
,
Abandon by Night
, and
Society Affairs
. That’s why I did
Society Affairs
with Harry Reems—because Reuben wanted to get a “name guy.” And I guess nobody wanted Harry, so he was flattered.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
Before Reuben’s 1978 trial and acquittal for obscenity, the Strike Force had asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Sturman’s tax evasion, which included allegations of Swiss bank accounts, phony names, and stolen passports.

ROGER YOUNG
:
Reuben Sturman’s goal was to have a piece of every single hard-core video sold—so that any time anyone sold a video, he would get a dollar or two out of every single one.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
Reuben Sturman’s ego required that he fall victim to some vast government conspiracy to bring him down. It’s almost laughable.

I was in the office of the attorney in charge of the Strike Force, who appreciated that probably within a few short months, Sturman would be in prison for God knows how many years. But the attorney basically agreed to allow the tax investigation to go forward, as a courtesy to me—a young, naive agent.

Nobody got up after the acquittal and screamed, “LET’S GET THE TAX GUYS TO GET HIM IF WE CAN’T GET HIM!”

ROGER YOUNG
:
Did Rosfelder go to the Swiss government and get them to open Sturman’s bank accounts? Yes.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
The Sturman tax case was the first time in history that
the Swiss government produced bank records under the “Organized Crime Exception” to the treaty. And that would support the conclusion that the United States—as required under the provisions of the treaty—presented information to the Swiss government that proved Reuben Sturman was involved in organized crime.

REUBEN STURMAN
:
I paid a million in taxes every year, but there was a couple of million I didn’t tell them about.

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
He had about fifty Swiss bank accounts. I don’t know how much money he had—millions, anyway. He estimated his net worth at $250 million.

REUBEN STURMAN
:
I should have paid my taxes.

ROGER YOUNG
:
Reuben was kind of a straight Jewish guy from a nice neighborhood in Cleveland. He taught aerobics at the YMCA, bowled a lot, and had season box tickets to the Cleveland baseball stadium.

Then he fell madly in love with Naomi Delgado. Reuben said the reason he put money in Switzerland was so that he wouldn’t have to give any to his first wife.

BILL KELLY
:
Pornographers used to come around Reuben’s office and throw bags of money at him. Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand—it would stack up like it did in the
Deep Throat
case.

ROGER YOUNG
:
After Reuben got divorced and moved his headquarters to North Hollywood, he was out jogging all the time. We think he was trying to keep up with Naomi, ha, ha, ha. Naomi is very good-looking, and Sturman was basically infatuated with her. He even had a face-lift to look younger for her.

We knew that Naomi had family in Mexico and that Reuben was trying to promote her singing career.

NAOMI DELGADO
:
How long did I know Reuben prior to our marriage? Ten years. He had two homes, one in Cleveland, Ohio, and one in Van Nuys, California. In Sherman Oaks, on Waddington Street. I never lived in Cleveland with Reuben.

ROGER YOUNG
:
Naomi had ulterior motives that Reuben didn’t know about—like bringing her whole family up from Mexico as soon as they were married. Aunts, uncles, mom, dad, and all their kids—and all their kids’ kids.

As one person explained it to me, “Roger, just be thankful that you’ve never met her because she is your worst nightmare.”