Posted by: Jeff Chatterton
A few weeks ago I posted about the upcoming documentary Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story, Chuck was the founder of the legendary Falcon Studios, a gay porn studio based out of San Francisco, and with the money from that company he also helped build the Human Rights Campaign, The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Gay and Lesbian Center of San Francisco, which bears his name, Charles M. Holmes. The documentary is being put together by the same team that made the short Smut Capital of America, Director Mike Stabile, Producer Jack Shamama, and Director of Photography Ben Leon. Right now the documentary needs our help! Just a few days are left on their Kickstarter page, which will go towards funding the completion of this important movie. I hope that you can donate a bit to help see this project gets finished, and check out some of the great gifts they are giving to backers of the project!
Earlier this week I asked Mike and Jack a few questions about Chuck, Falcon, and their love of porn.
Jeff: What first attracted you to this story?
Jack Shamama: Seven or so years ago when I started working for Falcon, every day I would walk past the a building called “The Charles M. Holmes Campus of the Center” (the somewhat lugubrious name of San Francisco’s Gay and Lesbian center, which was around the corner from my apartment at the time). It wasn’t until about six months later that I even realized that Charles M. Holmes was Chuck Holmes, the man who had founded the company I was working for. Suddenly I felt like I was living my entire life in the shadow of a man I knew nothing about. Immediately curious, researching him was surprised to discover that even though he had passed away only about five years prior, it was hard to find even the most basic facts about him aside from a few terse obituaries.
After asking around in the office, I found a couple people — his former executive assistant, for example — who had worked closely with Chuck over the years. They each had stories about Chuck that were simply jaw-droppingly amazing: the picture that started to emerge was of a man who was far more complicated than I had ever could have imagined. I knew right away that they had to be documented somehow. My original intentions were to compile these stories into an oral history — maybe a long article, maybe even book, but Mike had the idea of making it into a documentary. It all started from there.
Mike Stabile: Chuck helped build what we think of as the gay porn industry. Steven Scarborough (Hot House) was his lover and director; John Rutherford (COLT) his protege; Chi Chi LaRue shot for Mustang and helped field models. Bruce Cam (Titan) started as a cameraman for Falcon; George DuRoy (Bel Ami) started as Falcon International. Even Michael Lucas and Kristen Bjorn started as Falcon models. And if you talk to any of them, the influence is clear.
Chuck helped develop a look that, for better or worse, dominated gay culture for three decades. He was the first one to shave models; he was obsessive about clean feet and blond hair. For many gay men who came of age outside of gay centers like New York, LA and SF, it was like imprinting on a baby duck: the Falcon look was synonymous with what it meant to be gay.
Jeff: What’s one of the best anecdotes you heard about Chuck Holmes while conducting your research?
Jack Shamama: It would be impossible to pick just one, really. Like any respectable porn mogul in the late 70s and early 80s, Chuck had his fair share of drug-fueled sex parties. However, some of the most entertaining stories (for me) revolve around Chuck’s behavior in the office: Chuck would scream a lot, and would call certain employees by wildly inappropriate nicknames (inappropriate not by today’s sterile, PC office standards, but even by 1970s standards). If he wanted to drive a point home during a meeting, he would pound on his desk. One time he punched his desk so hard that he broke his arm. Even while it was in a cast, he couldn’t stop himself from punching and apparently kept re-breaking his arm. But even those on the receiving end of this name-calling and ire still talk about Chuck so warmly: “Oh, but that was just Chuck!” and “Yeah, he may have liked to scream, but he was really a pussycat!”, many interviewees have told us.
Mike Stabile: He also at one point threw a typewriter through a window. But the anecdote that always gets me is more heartbreaking. Chuck was a huge fundraiser for the Clinton campaign in 1992. And when he and the rest of the fundraisers went to Washington to meet the president, he was pulled out of line and told the president wouldn’t meet with him. According to John Rutherford, it broke his heart. They were happy to take his money, but didn’t really want to be associated with him.
Jeff: Did you know Chuck before he passed away in 2000?
Jack Shamama: No — neither Mike nor I ever met him. In ’97-’98 we worked in an office across the street from the Falcon offices and I remember we would go on smoke breaks and look over at their offices, hoping to catch a glimpse of a gay porn star going to pick up a check or something. Porn-wise, they were pretty much the only game in town, so you could imagine there was an aura, a mystique around Chuck and Falcon — not just for porn nerds like us but for any gay guy in SF.
Jeff: The LGBT Center in SF is named after Chuck Holmes, how much do you think he did for LGBT and AIDS related activism?
Jack Shamama: While alive, Chuck donated a huge portion of his wealth to GLBT and HIV-related causes. He was a major donor to the Democratic Party and one of the founders of the HRC. For several years after he passed away, all of the profits of Falcon Studios were given to The Chuck Holmes Foundation, which in turn, continued in Chuck’s spirit of giving. At the same time, Falcon was one of the last gay porn studios to make their models wear condoms, something that gay community criticized him for. So yeah — like every other aspect of Chuck’s life it’s complicated.
Jeff: Any favorite vintage Falcon Classics?
Mike Stabile: It is very hard for me to watch anything with Dick Fisk because I think he’s so hot. Editing clips from with Other Side of Aspen (1978) or Spokes drives me nuts. Even the old loops. One of the things we want to be able to do with this is restore some of these in HD. So often the transfers that were done are muddy and hard to watch.
And I LOVE Style (1982). Not only is it incredibly hot, It was styled by Bruce Weber’s assistant Kyle Martin and they literally bleached the feet. The clothes are all from Wilkes Bashford, there are orchids and art and it’s so different than the old sex-in-a-motel loops that dominated the industry until that point. The success of that movie really changed the industry.
Jack Shamama: Like many other gay men, the early Falcon movies were the first gay porn movies I ever saw, and so I have a strong emotional attachment to many of them. It’s sort of impossible to pick one, but a couple that immediately come to mind are “The Other Side of Aspen 2″, (which has been in my DVD player for the last 8 months) and the first one I ever saw, “In Your Wildest Dreams”, which is also one of the strangest. When I was re-watching it about 5 years ago, I noticed that the establishing shot of the “controversial” fisting scene at the end was of the apartment building I was living in at the time.
Jeff: Do you ever get tired of looking at dicks all day?
Mike Stabile: God no. There’s this porn addiction narrative — in part propagated by anti-sex advocates — that if you look at too much porn you go down a wormhole of perversion until only the strangest alien BDSM piss porn turns you on. But I can still get off to a nice chest, or the hint of a bulge, and frequently do.
Jack Shamama: Absolutely not! I’ve been obsessed with porn since the day I first found my friend’s dad’s Playboy magazines in his attic when I was 9 or 10. I love almost everything about working in this industry: The quirkiness, the drama, meeting new porn stars, writing scripts, never knowing what the day is going to throw my way. I still get a thrill whenever I open the door and walk onto a set. After writing GayPornBlog for eight years, I sometimes can feel a bit burnt out on it, and granted here are certain aspects of porn that become difficult to enjoy after working in the industry (for example its hard to jerk off to any scene that I’ve had a hand in producing or that stars anyone I’m friends with). Luckily, that’s a very small percentage of all the porn out there. If I ever get bored of gay porn I guess I’d have to get a job at a bank or something.
Seed Money needs YOUR Seed Money! If you can, please donate a few dollars to getting this project finished! You can see all the gifts they have lined up for backers, and more info about the Kickstarter HERE
