Inside Harry Reems

 Watched a pretty good video of the life of Herbert John Streicher, who essentially was America's first male pornstar. He was a reluctant star at that, never intending at all to get into porn acting as he had his sights set on Broadway. That's a familiar story; one often told about young actresses who go out to LA to make it in Hollywood in TV or film, whichever comes first. Back in the early 70's porn was the domain of the Gambino crime family in New York City and consisted of peep show 'reels' of people screwing that were shown in creepy 'movie houses' and performed by prostitutes and guys off the street who needed the little money that was offered or just wanted to get laid. Porn had been that way for decades, probably from the moment Thomas Edison invented film and the motion picture camera. It was never legal in those years, so no one wanted to be a breakout star. The Gambino's changed that. They were making good money with the reels and stag films, but of course, they wanted more. 

A director named Gerard Damiano had visions of taking porn mainstream. Herbert was barely surviving in his quest to make it to Broadway and took a job with Damiano doing the lighting for a feature film in Miami to be called "Deep Throat". As the video told it, the guy hired to be the lead actor didn't show and Damiano frantically looked around the set, spotted Streicher and suddenly, a star was born. On the spot, Streicher gave himself a new stage name- Harry Reems- so his work that day could not be connected to his real pursuit of fame on Broadway. Herbert had a lot of body hair, so "Harry" tracked, and he would be doing some reaming and that was fairly clever too. Harry quickly learned his lines, and they got down to filming. The plot was that a woman (Linda Lovelace) went to the doctor (Harry) perplexed that she could only climax when she gave oral, and why was that? The doctor examined her and discovered that her clitoris was in her throat! It's always in the last place you'd look, right fellas? 

That was the premise of the film, Damiano's big jump into the mainstream, and- dammit- it worked! When it debuted in NYC, famous people like Jack Nicholson openly went to see it. Other stars too whose names I've forgotten since last night. Big time people though. Harry became an overnight sensation. The regular stars wanted to party with him. He hung out at Studio 54 and other such hotspots. People bought him drinks and gave him cocaine. This was fortuitous because, despite his fame, he was broke. The $250 he got for his role in Deep Throat was long gone. It had been a flat fee. Points and residuals were unheard of in the business then, and would be for years, especially while it was mafia controlled. A bigger cut after the success? FUGGEDDABOUDIT!

Harry's sudden success was a double-edged sword that he fell on. He had never wanted to do porn or be a porn star, but that was all the acting avail to him. He was known for that film and that mustache. Probably safe to say he invented the pornstache. Like so many young women would go on to discover, doing even one porn was a career killer. It made one marked.

Interesting though, the role that made him famous, really made him famous when, to deflect from Watergate, President Richard Nixon decided to crack down on smut and pornography. A law was passed in 1973 that gave states the purview  to decide what was pornography by their own standards. The republicans in charge of that went shopping for a city whose prurient interests would be properly offended by those of NYC. They found it in Memphis, Tn. Federal obscenity charges were filed- not against the powerful Gambino's who financed and greatly profited from the film and distributed it, or Damiano, the director. They decided to go after the low-hanging fruit of the actors. Amazing. 

Reems was on his own, but not for long. He was convicted in 1976 of conspiracy to distribute obscenity across state lines. For his appeal, Hollywood actors like Jack Nicolson (again) and Warren Beatty raised and donated money for his defense, probably recognizing that they were protecting themselves in the process because a conviction here would open the doors for the persecution of mainstream actors like them, if a government agency or a political group didn't like something they performed in. Pretty wise. With the help of Alan Dershowitz (yes, Captain Underpants) and his team he got a new trial. Dershowitz pointed out that Deep Throat was made in 1972 and the new law was made in 1973. In the law, there are no 'backsies'. As bullshit as the charges were, what Reems, Lovelace and others had done was not illegal when they had done them. The charges were dropped in 1977. Fuck Alan Dershowitz and his trumpiness now, but back then at least he believed in the Constitution and the 1st Amendment. 

So, trading on his porn fame he stayed in that genre, having nowhere else to go. I had heard of him but never seen him or Deep Throat. I looked him up on Pornhub a few years ago and was surprised at how average he was in the penis department. He was no Johnny Holmes. What I recall of Deep Throat itself, it was just stupid. It worked at the time because of the newness of the break into mainstream but would not cause any excitement now. I'm not size shaming him either. He was just a lighting guy who got impressed into service one day, not Joe Buck fancying himself a marketable stud. In preparation for writing this, I looked him and Deep Throat up on Pornhub this morning. No mention whatsoever. Whether that's a copyright thing or, simply, no one cares anymore, I'm not sure. 

Drinking and drug use followed him from the hobnobbing days of Studio 54, and he found himself broke and wasted on the streets of LA as his career faded. A doctor told him in direct terms that he was killing himself with drugs and alcohol. Quit or die. To that end, he went to a most interesting place for an addict to sober up: Salt Lake City, Utah. Well, he probably wouldn't be recognized so often there. He went back to being Herbert Streicher again. He met a nice Christian girl and they fell in love. I presume she was Mormon, given the locale. He eventually opened up about his past and she did not judge. With her help, he became a real estate salesman. They lived a good, quiet life until the damage he had done to his body caught up with him. Pancreatic cancer. 

Lance Corporal Herbert John Streicher died March 19, 2013, at the Salt Lake City Veterans Hospital. He had served in the Marines. The media was far more interested in the tragic death of Harry Reems the porn star, but he had died years earlier. Herbert John Streicher, the survivor, died at the age of 65, no longer tragic.