Buried Caesars by Stuart M. Kaminsky (Mysterious Press 1989)

And we went. Seidman trusted me enough to let me drive my Crosley ahead of him. We got to the Wilshire Station in fifteen minutes, bucking the traffic. The Wilshire had been the hotbed of police activity back in 1923 when my brother Phil joined the force. Phil had come in during Prohibition when the department was at its most corrupt. He became a cop the same month the city fathers appointed August Vollmer, the father of police science, to a one-year term to clean up the L.A.P.D. Vollmer, a clean-living police chief from Berkeley, got nowhere, and when his term was about to expire in September of 1924, billboards began to appear all over the city, saying: “THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER WILL BE THE LAST OF AUGUST.” And it was. I remember seeing the signs and asking Phil what they meant. I remember he rapped me in the head and told me to shut up.

The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry by Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne , Peter Pavia (Harper Collins 2005)

 

If You Can Make It There, You Can Make It Anywhere

NEW YORK CITY

1969–1970

HARRY REEMS (PORN STAR): In 1969, everybody in the East Village was going to make it as an actor. Whether you went to an anti–Vietnam War rally or a macrobiotic restaurant, all the talk was about auditions.

 

MARILYN CHAMBERS (PORN STAR): I grew up in Westport, Connecticut, about fifty miles west of New York City. When I was about sixteen, I learned how to write my mother’s name on notes to get out of school—and then I’d take the train into the city to go to auditions.

My whole growing up consisted of me in front of a mirror playing records like West Side Story and Bye Bye Birdie. I really wanted to be Ann-Margret, to tell you the truth.

 

ERIC EDWARDS (PORN STAR): While I was in college in Waco, Texas, I got a scholarship from ABC Television to go to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. They auditioned twenty thousand people from all over the country, and I think they picked sixteen people. I mean, this was the big point in my career, it was like a stepping stone—I was getting letters from Lillian Gish, from the president of ABC, from all these top executives saying, “You have received a scholarship to come to New York.”

In fact, Lillian Gish handed me my diploma. Henry Fonda was there backstage; I spoke to him in awe. I was, like, melting.

 

GEORGINA SPELVIN (PORN STAR): One of my first experiences in New York was when the state employment office sent me to see about a modeling job. It was a big, high-class studio, and I had to see someone with one of those hairdresser names: “Mr. Charles” or “Mr. Gary.”

After everyone else had left, he brought me into the studio and—through the course of taking many pictures—he eventually got me very drunk and nude and then he balled me. I don’t even remember how I got home; I passed out midway through the thing. But I never got the chance to tell him I had the clap, and I wondered how long it took him to find out and connect it to me.

Post Office by Charles Bukowski (Black Sparrow Press 1971)

I was casing next to G.G. early one morning. That's what they called him: G.G. His actual name was George Greene. But for years he was simply called G.G. and after a while “he looked like G.G. He had been a carrier since his early twenties and now he was in his late sixties. His voice was gone. He didn't speak. He croaked. And when he croaked, he didn't say much. He was neither liked nor disliked. He was just there. His face had wrinkled into strange runs and mounds of unattractive flesh. No light shone from his face. He was just a hard old crony who had done his job: G.G. The eyes looked like dull bits of clay dropped into the eye sockets. It was best if you didn't think about him or look at him.