Original subtitles

Man: If one respects...

what you do, what you represent and how you speak,

how you carry yourself,

you don't have to be overly macho, you don't have to be...

over-complimentary.

Gain her respect... and that's treating her as an equal.

Don't bullshit her. Treat her as a human being.

Treat her as you would treat yourself.

As soon as you have that respect from her,

she'll treat you with the same respect that you show.

Then you fuck the shit out of her.

John was to the adult film industry

what Elvis Presley was to rock and roll.

He simply was the king.

(woman moans)

He was the one and only king. No one else measures up.

He was the king.

John Holmes was the biggest male star that there was.

He wasn't that good looking, he wasn't that smart, he wasn't that brave.

He just had a huge dick and he could fuck.

I'm talking about a dick from my elbow down.

John had multiple personalities.

He was very sweet and gentle.

John was a jerk.

I never knew John when he wasn't doing drugs.

What actually was in his mind as he saw four people slaughtered?

John had an extremely low self-esteem.

He was an interesting man... very sociopathic.

He back-handed me in the mouth so hard that...

my tooth went through my lip.

Real deep.

He was proof that all men are not created equal.

Thank God for John Holmes or I wouldn't have a job this year.

We would say something like, "What do you think you are, John Holmes?"

And everyone knew what that meant.

Man: When they look at this industry in a hundred years again,

his name and pornography...

it's the same.

Man: You can mention a lot of porn stars from today's world

that the housewives in the middle of America

wouldn't know what you were talking about,

but you say "John Holmes" and everyone knows.

He was a little boy with a big dick

that discovered a pot of gold at the end of his zipper.

I asked him, "How long do you want to do this?"

'Cause a lot of people in the hardcore field wanted to get out.

And he looked at me and said, "Until I'm dead."

As long as there's been film... almost...

people have been wanting to put sex on film.

In the early '60s, the X-rated films of the time

were really "nudie cuties."

The other source, of course,

was the not-so-legal, under-the-counter,

8mm black and white that people showed at home and that kind of thing.

That was the starter of it.

Man: It was 8mm stag movies we called it then.

At that time they were very hot...

and very, very much in demand.

Perry: Oftentimes you'd be jumping on trampolines or in a swimming pool,

and most of it was bare breasts and you couldn't show pubic hair.

That was the days when you wore the black socks, the fake moustache...

- you know, those days. - Nowadays it would be on TV...

probably on the Disney Channel.

The changeover came in 1969,

when it went to hardcore. Everything changed at that point.

Man: I made the very first hardcore films in the United States.

I immediately went to jail.

And there was a lot of big money. People couldn't believe

that we actually showed insertion.

We actually showed the penetration and oral copulation.

We actually showed that.

People couldn't give up their money fast enough to see these.

I was shocked out of my life to see real sex on the screen.

Man: People actually saw themselves the first time having sex...

and they... "Oh, this isn't weird what we're doing."

So it was a really interesting sub-culture, 'cause it was like...

like being in a place everyone else wanted to be but you were there.

But you were young and you didn't know you were there,

so it didn't matter to you, 'cause it was fun.

It was a nice way to have a lifestyle that wasn't working at a bank.

What had been the life-threatening plagues of syphilis and gonorrhea

that had scourged humanity for two, three... 5,000 years,

were done. You take a pill.

Unwanted birth? Have an abortion.

Easy and accessible.

There was no reason for my generation to not fuck around.

As a result of what's come to be called "The Sexual Revolution,"

adults felt more willing to experiment with viewing films like this.

This became something that any adult,

if he or she were were of a mind to, could go see.

I thought... and we all did, I think, when we were doing those things...

aside from making money,

that we were doing something to further...

freedom of speech and expression.

Man: I think the '70s were a good time to be in the porn business.

The '70s obviously followed the '60s... the hippies, the war in Vietnam.

There was real belief that making a fuck film was a political statement.

At that time, back in the 1970s and early '80s

the production of porno films was a felony

which you could serve up to three years in jail for this crime.

The vice squad in Hollywood...

they were pretty organized,

and it was a legal battle the entire time.

But, you know, it was an amazing thing how

the producers, directors and the actors stuck together.

They helped each other.

The cops were the bad guys.

What they do in the production of films...

they will tell the actors and actresses

to go to a restaurant at a certain time and wait.

Vosse: And we would meet at various places, get in the car,

go somewhere where we'd have another car stashed,

get in that car, go to a different place,

no one knew where the location was going to be.

They would try to follow us, they would try to catch us.

I was arrested for conspiracy to commit oral copulation

because I was directing the film,

and that made it a felony rather than a misdemeanor,

which everyone else... the actors and actresses would be charged with.

Yeah, we were subject to go to jail a lot...

for different things.

The thing that saved us

was a young attorney who took up the First Amendment...

the right, you know, to free speech,

and started working with pornography cases.

Man: What the Founding Fathers tried to do

was ensure that there would be free speech, whatever its form,

and I think that's the beauty of the First Amendment.

It is so...

simple.

It simply says we need to be free,

we need to be able to express ourselves in all ways,

and government shouldn't step in and take that away from us.

So it covers everything. And it'll cover computers

and all the rest of it as time goes on.

I think it's the most important amendment to the Constitution...

and it gets its vitality and meaning

from the unrestricted right of free choice...

not necessarily my right to produce adult material,

but the right of some individual out there

that may want to have access to this material.

Two individuals came on the scene... one was Betty Paige,

and the other was John Holmes.

And what happened was

Betty Paige became a personality, if you will,

associated with the adult world.

John Holmes became a male personality associated with the adult world.

Man: I think John Holmes is the single most recognizable name

in the history of the business,

and he of course took the industry from the back alleys of Hollywood.

Flynt: John Holmes, his name is synonymous

with the adult entertainment industry.

I think his participation

was legendary and always will be

for decades to come.

Man: He was the first.

And you can't replace the first, even though somebody can come along

that could be even better.

But once you lay the first foundation, you're the guy it's all built on.

And again, John was... he had the package.

That's why he could never... he will never be topped in that sense.

What was so fascinating about John Holmes

is the fact that he had this gigantic penis.

He was a skinny guy with this huge schlong.

No matter how you slice it when it comes down to porn,

that's what people really seem to get a kick out of.

You can have all the good looking guys with the body-builder physiques...

guys in the audience want to see this gigantic penis

going into some cute little blonde or brunette.

The reason he became an icon, first and foremost,

is the obvious anatomical factor.

It was the size that made him a household word

more than anything initially.

That's what I saw when I looked at John Holmes...

when you see some of the early films that he made,

and you see his face and he's really like, kind of cute, you know?

He's like a little kid almost, you know?

He's oh so gangly. He's like a geek, you know?

Like just a geek, but he's got this big dick.

When I first saw his cock, my reaction was...

I didn't know what to do.

I was like, "There's no way that thing's getting up in me."

Wow!

Woman: As... as the joke goes,

if John ever got fully erect, he'd lose consciousness

from lack of blood to the brain, because his dick was that big.

And it's true that his cock was never hard.

It was like doing it with a big soft of kind of loofah.

You know, it was actually 131/2 inches long,

'cause John measured it many times for many people that didn't believe him.

Man: I was always fascinated with Johnny because he had everything I didn't have.

He was hung like a horse, I'm hung like a squirrel.

He had what all the guys dream about...

we're all size queens, size kings.

Would I trade my little, meager Jewish cock for his cock?

Yeah, fucking A, I would, and I'd throw in my kid too...

and a house and three ex-wives.

The man said you had a big gun under there... I had no idea.

When you saw a woman who was working with John for the first time...

her excitement, her fear, her anxiety

was palpable and unbelievable.

- How long is that thing anyway? - Ohhh...

a little bit longer than yours.

Probably about...

14 inches, give or take a couple of inches maybe.

This was the moment in a woman's life

when she found out if bigger was better or not.

There was no other test to be taken.

This guy's a bull.

I mean, he's hung like 14 inches long.

Pacheco: Every woman who made a name for herself in this business

sooner or later was ritually enlarged by Mr. Holmes.

It was a magical moment that first time.

Some women just found God and were gone.

- (moaning) - They had reached the promised land

and their scenes are magnificent.

Then there was the other crowd...

their faces more looked like somebody who's a...

it's a constant medical kind of exam,

where they're wondering when the pain's gonna start.

And those are kind of odd.

And then there's the last grouping that went,

"Get this out of me! Now!"

But they were magical to watch, no matter what happened.

And Holmes leaves us this legacy.

I'm not sure why people were so fascinated with the size of his penis,

I just know that they were,

and I know that it was a great marketing "tool," if you will.

My name is John C. Holmes. I am something entirely unique.

Why unique? Because I've got the biggest cock in the business.

It's almost like John Holmes had this big, huge, perfect penis

that everybody remembered... and plus, he wasn't threatening.

He didn't swag... he tried to be swagger, but he was a joke.

He was the kind of guy that men liked

because he was kind of goofy and loving

and soft inside...

and everything but some dick-waving stud

that he really was the ultimate example of.

I mean, he was the colossal king of all penises...

that most people had ever seen in their life.

And the fact that somebody discovered him and made him a star

in an industry that was on the cusp of worldwide recognition,

was just, you know, the right place at the right time.

Amerson: I first met John in 1969,

while casting for some still work... magazine stuff...

at the "Crossroads of the World" on Sunset Boulevard.

We had an open casting call.

It was towards the end of the day,

and in walked this skinny, really skinny, kid,

with somewhat of an Afro haircut,

and he didn't look like the type that we could use.

My partner said, "Go and take a Polaroid of him anyway.

Have him go in the back room and take his clothes off,

take a Polaroid, say, 'Thank you very much,' and that's the end of that."

We went in the back room, he undressed and turned around.

I had a Polaroid, and I looked, and I said, "You're going to be a star."

And that's how I met John.

John was... thanks to the creator, Bob Chinn,

John became instantly identifiable through one of his characters...

the infamous detective Johnny Wadd.

- Mr. Wadd, I presume? - You presume correctly.

I first met John...

when this scruffy looking guy walked into the office...

scruffy looking, had this big Afro hairdo and everything...

asked for a job as a crewmember.

Said he was a gaffer. I said, "Well, we have a gaffer."

He says, "I'm also a grip." And I said, "We have grip.

We don't need any crew people."

And then he told me he was an actor.

And I said, "Well, what have you done? Show me your credentials."

And he showed me his credentials.

My partner and I sat down and said,

"You know, we can make a film with this guy."

And he said, "God, what a wad that guy has."

And I said, "Let's call him Johnny Wadd, make it a private detective thing. "

And, as you know, it went over big and John became a star behind the name.

So we wrote the first script on the back of an envelope,

and I think we were shooting a couple of days later.

We shot it... two days later.

My appreciation of an X-rated film was predicated on

if you took the sex scenes out, would you still have something

that was marginally watchable,

that it had a plot that went A, B, C, all the way down?

I'm going to be nice and I'm going to ask you one more time...

- where's Ringo? - Go to hell, motherfucker.

And the Johnny Wadd films really lived up to that.

And I really think that they sort of set a standard

that a lot of other filmmakers emulated

and hoped to achieve.

...you bastard! That should put you out for a couple of hours.

What about me?

You interrupted us making love, and I'm still horny.

All right, baby, to celebrate wrapping up the case,

I'm going to fuck you like you've never been fucked before.

Chinn: After I hired John at the unheard-of price of $75 a day,

since we were paying everybody $50 a day at the time,

we shot a film called "Johnny Wadd,"

which was a one-day shoot, $750.

I sent it out just like I sent out all the other films.

And New York is our biggest market...

and so they called within two weeks after they received the film and said,

"We want more films with Johnny Wadd."

And I said, "Okay, okay." So next week,

I called John, hired him, did "Flesh of the Lotus."

In those days, it took one day to shoot the film

and I could have it developed the same night.

We cut the original, and it was out on the market

within a few days.

Within a week after it was shot, it was playing in the theaters.

I don't know what made the Wadd films a success.

I tried to do something different than people had been doing at that time.

It was the first series, actually, that anyone had tried to make,

and I wanted some kind of continuity. And I thought by doing

a series of films with some kind of continuity in the character,

people might enjoy it a little more.

Margold: The Johnny Wadd character, is the first continuing character

the first serialization of a character. You know, the stories were detective...

semi-detective noir-type stories.

Hard-bitten, smoked a cigarette...

shot a few people... not very well... and fucked them a lot better.

I'll come straight to the point, Mr. Wadd.

- Johnny. Call me Johnny. - Johnny.

You have something that I want.

I cannot possibly imagine what I could have

that you'd be interested in.

- (loud moaning) - Sager: The Johnny Wadd character

was indeed a character. It was a bad character,

but it was something more.

I still don't know who would ever watch a film from beginning to end.

When I watch... when you watch some of the clips from the John Holmes...

from even like, pick like "Jade Pussycat."

Yeah, okay, it sucks some of the times,

and there's some cheesy dialogue and everything else,

and there's some goofy stuff going on.

All right, Mr. Wadd, get those hands up.

Pang, get out of here.

Frankie, you always seem to show up at the most opportune times, don't you?

So it seems, John. So it seems.

You know, Frankie... there's a girl standing right behind you,

and she's got a gun pointed right at your back.

And I won't give you odds that if you don't hand me that gun

she won't blow a hole right through you.

Anderson: And there's some real bad supporting players... just bad.

But something you notice with John Holmes

is that even as he's sort of suffering through

and stumbling over some of this bad dialogue that he's required to say,

just plot stuff that he's got to get through,

he really can deliver it in this kind of natural, easy-going way.

He was not a bad actor. He was really pretty good.

There's moments where he'd sort of genuinely seem so relaxed,

and seem sort of improvisational and very natural.

Hey, man, you got a dollar for a burger and a cup of coffee?

Yeah, I just happen to have one dollar, man.

Hey! You got another quarter for dessert?

You better get away from me.

I'm gonna give you a set of knuckles for dessert. Now beat it.

In a different set of circumstances or something else,

he really could've been quite a good actor.

Well, you know something?

It looks like the game is over, bitch. And I think you lost.

He wasn't a great actor by any means,

but he had a natural ability to fall into a character

and make it his own.

Amerson: We'd run into people at maybe a hockey game

and they would refer to him as Johnny Wadd

and didn't really think about John Holmes.

He became Johnny Wadd in his own mind.

Right about this time, John was busted for pimping and pandering.

And when offered the choice between going to jail

and becoming an informant, he chose to become a snitch.

Blake: We did a lot of cases. He was very cooperative

and he enjoyed being Dick Tracy or a cop.

He loved... he liked that role of investigating,

and getting information and passing it on.

He really got into the role of informant,

fancying himself a Johnny Wadd in real life,

forming a close bond with Tom Blake, the vice cop who was his handler.

He would tell us who would be shooting the porno films...

who were the producers, who were the directors,

sometimes who were the money people backing these films...

when the films were being shot,

where were the people being picked up at...

the actors and actresses.

Sager: It's kind of ironic in a way when you think about it.

He was a guy who was credited with single-handedly

bringing the industry to the public's attention,

and simultaneously, he was having all those other stars busted.

It was almost as if he was creating a ground for himself

to be the only living star.

John was absolute dynamite.

I was probably one of the busiest investigators in LAPD.

My crew... I had about five or six people.

We were kept hopping and doing investigations

because of the information John fed us.

Kept us real busy. Did a lot of search warrants,

and it was enjoyable working for him.

Goldstein: He almost has mythic... stature to me.

He's almost a god.

Because he walked among us with that massive tool...

banging on the floor. He was like some huge dinosaur...

you'd hear the "thump, thump, thump."

But it was his balls hitting the ground.

It was that dick hitting the ground.

The myth that created John Holmes was...

was my doing, it was a form of advertising.

It was a form of selling his character.

Most of the things that were discussed about John were not true.

John was, in reality, an average person

with an extra large appendage.

I knew how to package him and what to do with him,

what direction to guide him in. I was John's manager and his agent

his entire career.

So we got together and we came up with a number of different things

about him being a gigolo, about him flying to Europe

and turning tricks with wealthy women around the country.

It all added to his box office, if you want.

After all, making money was what we were all about.

I did the orgy trip for two or three years, almost every weekend.

And between tricks and freebies

and the girls in films and...

keeping track of the films and averaging out how many girls

you go to bed with in each film helped a lot.

It's slightly over 14,000.

Goldstein: The people who think that John Holmes slept with 14,000 women

are into... are into numbers. That's like thinking

that the Indianapolis 500... everyone of the 500

really gives a shit. It's just a number's game.

And John wasn't a basketball player,

so I don't think he had sex with more than, maybe, 7 or 8,000.

But it's a nice story. We love our stories like that.

Man: Johnny's claim of 14,000 women sounds like a nice round number.

I'm surprised he didn't say 20,000 women.

Amerson: If you do the math, you'll find that's probably impossible.

We came up with... originally, it was going to be over 1,000 women.

- John had a proclivity for... - Oh yeah!

... bullshit, if you will.

And the numbers kept getting bigger. As years went by

the numbers kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger,

and John soon lost sight of what story he told to who

about how many women he'd been with.

But it's impossible to have sex with over 14,000 women.

Sager: I think the public wants to know that he slept with 14,000 women.

They don't really want to know it was probably this many,

or he didn't enjoy it. People want to have their fantasies.

Woman: How did you get started in these films?

I was going to UCLA,

and I was starving to death.

What were you taking?

A graduate in physical therapist and pediatrics is what I wound up being.

- You have a degree then? - I was... oh, yeah.

I graduated.

One of the rumors was that John graduated from UCLA.

The closest John ever got to UCLA

was stealing something out of a car in a parking lot.

John didn't go to UCLA.

John quit school in the ninth grade.

Everything in life is an act... everything.

- Do you like the acting? - It's the performance that counts.

He did tell a lot of mythological-type stories about himself, you know?

And you never know on these things whether they're true or not.

He talked a lot about...

being hired for stud services by varying people,

and yeah, they were great stories, they were fascinating.

It's really... it was impossible then and it's impossible now

for me to know how much of that was true.

But he clearly liked talking about himself.

You know, he was an actor, he liked playing this part,

and I don't know, he may even have believed it.

No, he believed his own bullshit a lot of times.

I remember there was one story that...

that I came up with,

that once a year he would fly to England,

and a rich woman in England would pay him $10,000

and pay for his flight and everything else.

And each year he would go, she would put another diamond

in this diamond dragon ring that he wore.

That, in fact, was bullshit, but the public loved it,

the public bought it.

John and I were fishing one day, we were out in a boat

and we were talking about the old days and some other things,

and he said, "Remember when I used to go to England once a year?"

I looked at him and I said, "John, you never went to England once a year. "

And he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "We made that up."

He said, "Oh, yeah."

He did believe a lot of his own press.

Vosse: Almost no one knew John socially.

John had no social life...

and very, very few friends. He didn't want you to be his friend.

I tried to be John's friend. I can't say I was ever John's friend.

I shot more, much more than half of the films

John ever made in his life. I shot them.

And John never trusted me, but he never trusted anyone.

He didn't want friends, and he didn't trust anybody.

And I'm not saying he's wrong. I never had John's home phone number.

In all of the years, over 20 years of working with him,

I would have to go through an answering service,

leave a message, and he would call me back.

And this is true with everybody.

He'd..."Swedish Erotica" did not have his phone number

in all the years and money we paid him,

we never had a phone number for him.

You really cannot trust anyone about anything 100%.

It's lonely, but it's just one of the sacrifices you have to do

to be successful in the field.

I always thought he was a really terrific person myself.

He treated us all so wonderful, he was really nice.

He was very tender, very sweet, very sensual.

John was really a nice guy.

There's no one that knows John better than myself.

He never considered anyone in the business his friends.

He used them,

just as he felt he had been used.

You know, everybody was assigned

either to the name of dirt, slime or bastard.

We're not talking about bastard in a nice way.

John grew up in Ohio, kind of as a country boy.

Sharon: He grew up in rural farm country in Ohio,

the youngest of four children.

I think it was shortly after...

probably about the time John was three and a half or four...

that his mother separated from her husband.

His father was an alcoholic,

and John could only tell me

that he remembered arguments and yelling

and his father falling across beds

and vomiting all over the kids.

John wouldn't touch alcohol until he was well into the porn business

because of thoughts of his father.

Mary had not worked. She was a housewife up until that time.

And they became a welfare family,

moved into a project in Columbus, Ohio.

It's shortly after, I believe, John was eight or nine

that his mom remarried.

And they moved from Columbus to a rural area

called Pataskala in Ohio.

John discovered the woods and the streams and fishing

and, you know, frogging and what have you.

I think it was probably about two years after that

that David, his half-brother, was born.

Harold, you know, was really good to the kids until David came along.

David was his, and these other four children weren't his,

and "I don't have to be nice anymore."

And because John was the youngest,

he took the brunt of Harold's anger.

He was the one who was always getting beat up

because he wasn't smart enough to get out of the house when he saw him coming.

Not a happy childhood.

Things escalated when John reached his teenage years

to where Harold was backhanding him, you know,

off a chair, across the room, this type of thing.

John went into the army at the age of 16,

after Harold threw him down the stairs.

He got up off that floor and decked Harold.

And I think he spent probably about two days away from home,

went to his mother when he knew she was home alone,

then he said, "I'm going into the army.

I need you to sign me in.

I am not going to stay in this house, or I will kill him."

Two weeks later he was in boot camp.

He did boot camp, and from there was sent right to Germany.

He was in the Signal Corps,

and most of the time he was in Nuremberg...

almost that full three years.

When he came back from the service, he spent, I believe,

about 10 days in Ohio.

That was all John needed.

You know, to see Mom.

And he said, "I'm going to California."

And he did.

He really never bore any ill will

to any of his family

other than his stepfather.

His father... his own father...

you never talked about him.

I think John looked upon him as being the cause

of all the things that happened to the family.

I don't have any brothers or sisters.

- Woman: You have none? - No.

- I thought you had some. - Nope. No brothers, no sisters.

- Are you lying? - No.

Amerson: John had so many stories about who he had been,

who he was, what he was doing.

All the stories were designed to cover up his pain.

John had a very painful childhood.

There's so many different stories about where he came from and what he did.

John himself at times didn't know who he was,

so he created a persona

to be a certain person for a certain time period.

So that's why he was able to lie, to dance.

He always needed to be somebody else.

That way he got out of the pain...

that he was experiencing.

He'd been in California probably about a year when we met.

John was married to a very straight woman

who was a nurse.

And he was an ambulance driver when he met her.

And he courted her in a very sort of sweet way,

with picking flowers out of the house next door

before coming to her house,

and bottles of Mateus Ros�.

I first met John just after Christmas...

the Christmas of '64.

One thing led to another and he had no place to live,

so he moved into my apartment.

He was very young, very immature at that time,

but very sweet.

We were married five months later.

John was still underage, so his mother had to sign the papers

allowing him to get married.

John entered his marriage with Sharon with a feeling of hope.

He was looking for the love that he had never had as a child.

He was young, goofy, attentive and romantic.

We were happy together, there's no doubt about that.

He was very, very sweet. Always had an arm around you,

holding hands.

I think he would've done anything for me.

John worked driving a forklift truck

at a meatpacking place in Cudahy.

He had a collapsed lung because he drove the forklift in and out of the freezer,

and he got some lung complications from that.

Sharon: He had three pneumothoraxes,

which are complete lung collapses,

within a space of seven to nine months.

The doctor tied it in with the extreme cold

and felt that John should look for something else.

And while he was recovering,

he would go to a poker palace in Gardena.

He loved poker,

which he had learned how to play very, very well in Germany.

And occasionally he'd go for an evening.

And he met someone in a bathroom there who said,

"Oh!" and talked him into doing some stills.

- How about the girl next door? - It was the third year in college.

The girl next door asked me if I wanted to make $100.

And I said, "Who do I have to kill?"

$100 was a lot of money back then.

- How long ago was that? - She said it was for a stag film,

and the producer was looking for somebody who was...

overtly large.

- So I said, "Sure." - And personality?

I wasn't planning on going into political sciences,

so I figured, "What's it matter?" So I made a stag film.

How did she know you were "overtly large"?

We used to borrow things from each other...

cups of sugar, breadsticks, an occasional fuck.

Sharon: He was in the bathroom with a tape measure.

And he said, "I think I found what I want to do.

I want to do porno. "

And I said, "Magazines, movies?" And he says, "Both.

Wherever it'll take me."

I was appalled. I'm sorry, I was appalled.

Didn't sound like something one would want to make one's life work,

but what do you say?

I told him I wasn't particularly happy about it.

This is one step up or one step below prostitution in my mind.

You know, this is what ran through my head.

And I said, you know,

"Are you asking for permission?"

And he says, "No, I'm going to do this."

I mean, it kind of leaves you speechless, you know?

It takes a while to react because you don't believe you're hearing this.

You know? At least I didn't.

I thought, "Maybe passing fancy."

Sharon's relationship with him was very normal.

He was her first,

and she sort of was marked with that her whole life.

She never married again.

She always had a fondness for him.

Sharon: So it slowly but surely kind of eroded

my feeling for him.

I still loved him,

I still cared enormously for him,

but I did indeed feel

that this was still a passing fancy.

I always thought it might change.

I think I hoped, you know, that it would change.

My first impressions of John were that he really wasn't too bright,

he really wouldn't stay in the business very long.

He was very nervous. He just didn't seem to fit.

He was like an awkward kid. He was like a fish out of water.

He just didn't know what to do.

(laughing)

You got an awful pretty pussy.

Oh, thank you.

I tried to tell him way back when he decided

he wanted to make this life work,

do you really want to use your name, you know?

We can come up with something.

And he said, "No, this is what I'm going to be about. "

I'm going to use my name. "

This probably is my only shot at being famous for something.

I think this was one way of his establishing

in everybody else's mind that he truly was proud of what he was doing.

He seemed very excited at doing what he did.

He seemed very proud of it, he seemed very excited

at the effect it had on people.

He talked about how this was kind of acting

like any other kind of acting,

and that the emotion you aroused with these films

was as valid an emotion as arousing tears or arousing laughter.

He was a real zealot for this kind of work.

Couples have been married any number of years, with children.

Sex to them was him getting on, him getting off.

Oftentimes the woman had never achieved a come... a climax.

After going to these films, and after seeing

that there is nothing wrong with sex

or watching these films and using them as a stepping-stone

toward their own sexuality,

we've helped quite a number of people.

Goldstein: In effect, every manifestation of this man's life

was a lie, was a distortion,

was a duplicity.

We enter a quagmire of deceit.

And the one truth was he had a big dick.

He could come on cue.

And that was his claim to fame.

He was a refugee from a freakshow.

Sharon: He was very possessive of me from day one.

He wanted limited contact with people...

the people he worked with, I never met them.

But I knew them all by name.

No one in the business knew about me.

This was both his desire and mine.

I wouldn't know anything about how great he was.

I have to take everyone else's word for it

that he was great in the industry.

I've never seen a porno film in my life,

so I've never seen his films.

He knew it wasn't something I was happy about

and that I was interested in. It's hard to stomach

that this is what your husband does for a living.

Perry: I met John a long time ago.

When I was talking about in the beginning,

I met John sort of in the beginning.

John was just a neat guy.

I liked him very much, he was very polite,

a real sweetheart, easy to work with.

Occasionally an actress would come to me

and say they didn't want to work with him,

they were afraid of his... incredible size.

Please, Mr. Wadd, not that. It's too big.

And then on the other side of the coin,

there were a few actresses that came to me and said,

"Please! I want to work with John. I love him! I wanna work with him."

When Serena brought me into the cabin, I couldn't believe my eyes.

He loved the adulation, you know, because...

it didn't matter what kind of people felt he was famous,

or what he was famous for.

This built up his ego...

what little there was of it.

He really felt he had nothing else to give.

Because of his unique attributes,

he felt, you know, this was something he could excel in.

It's just it was kind of...

kind of sad.

- I don't come at home. - Woman: Why not?

It's 'cause I'm not getting paid.

That's awful. What about your old lady?

- I don't have one. - You don't?

I have bunches of them.

It probably would sound very strange to people that John and I

we were more friends, we were no longer lovers.

I had reached the point where I couldn't handle it

and a physical relationship.

I was literally eating my own guts alive

because of the emotional upheaval of my trying to deal with the situation.

I couldn't handle it anymore.

This was somebody I hardly knew anymore.

And I told John, I said, "John, we have to talk, about something.

What you're doing is ruining my health."

I said, "I have no problem with your living with me, "

but I said, "I don't want anything to do with you physically.

I'll do your laundry, I'll be your mother, I'll be your confessor,

I'll be your sister, I'll be your friend,

but I don't want to be physically associated with this."

And I said, "I'm married to a hooker."

You know? And I said,

"I'm not comfortable with that."

We slept in the same bed, you know,

we hugged, you know, we kissed. We still felt...

intimate with each other, but not sexually intimate.

I couldn't deal with it any other way.

And he respected that.

Man: He was tired of being wanted just for his big dick

and all that stuff, and needed for that.

That gets on you, and that wears on you,

and eventually it can destroy you.

Sharon: I was John's safe house

and the only person he could really be himself with,

could show his vulnerability.

I mean, this low self-esteem was there, you know?

And I don't think anyone else was aware of it

because John had developed a different persona.

"This is John Holmes who I have created."

And this is the side that those people saw,

they didn't know about the other side, you know?

And I don't think they knew his capabilities,

as far as what he could do artistically,

other than than what was artistically pornographic.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

- Basically? - Yeah.

- Fuck. - That's all?

Well, occasionally I eat pussy.

Mr. Holmes, I mean, isn't there anything

that you're interested in that's not sexually oriented?

No.

Sharon: I think if he could've done anything,

he would have liked to have gone into furniture...

making his own furniture.

He could work anything in wood

and literally was pretty much self-taught.

Could've built, you know, a house,

from the foundation up.

And then there was... in the middle of this marriage,

and his beginning to be a porn star,

there comes along this young, underage girl

that he starts falling in love with and having an affair with.

Dawn came into our lives, I think, in about 1976.

She had come from Florida with her father,

a sister and a brother.

Dawn: I can remember the first time he saw me. He looked me up and down,

and he asked me how old I was. And I said, "15."

And he went, "Mm, mm, mm.

Too bad." And he started laughing

and turned on his heel and walked out.

She was 15.

Skinny, skinny 15.

John started his seduction scene...

probably about six months after that.

Dawn: I mean, he courted me. This was a courting,

and it lasted about, I think, a good six months.

Always with my sister. She was like a chaperone.

And it got to the point where he had to pay her in Snicker bars.

Armloads of frozen Snicker bars

he'd just dump there so she wouldn't bitch.

(laughs)

I couldn't quite understand how she'd gotten

caught up in everything that she did,

trying to imagine being a 15-year-old

introduced to sex in a van by John Holmes.

Dawn: He set it up at the beach... where it just so happened

that my sister wasn't there...

and he asked me to go camping by myself.

It was like we both knew...

that is was the night, you know?

We went to Malibu, to Zuma Beach,

And we went to Leo Carillo, we got a campsite there.

It was perfect.

It was just really... it was very magical.

And without saying anything, I think he got down from that rock

and just took my hand and we walked to the van.

That was the night. He was extremely gentle,

and extremely... just... awesome.

I felt as if I was his newborn child or something.

That's how precious he treated me.

Sussman: He was a magic guy. He'd take over a situation.

If he was in a mood that was good, he'd just like,

"Man, I think I'll take everyone out to dinner."

He just was really generous.

He wanted to involve people in his life that he liked.

He trusted very few people,

and if he trusted you, he'd trust you with everything.

I always wanted to meet him.

It was John Holmes and the "Super Sex Queens."

I was hoping I'd, you know,

get to feel his cock.

And he always liked to pick one woman he was going to go down on,

and it was me/ Yay/ (laughing)

He was fun.

Vosse: John worked with a few girls a number of times.

But for the most part,

he really didn't like to work with a girl but one time.

I always thought my... my job at "Swedish Erotica"...

my main job was to find new girls to feed the monster.

Day after day I would interview

and find these girls.

He particularly liked short, dark-haired girls.

And I'm gonna give him credit,

he was the best and the easiest to work with

in the sense... from the girls' point of view.

Extremely gentle.

I never had one girl complain

or didn't... wasn't willing to work with John again.

Woman: Working with John was...

definitely unpleasant.

He was rude, insensitive.

I could say a lot of things.

He just didn't want to be there. He didn't like what he was doing.

He had a real Jekyll/Hyde personality.

On the one hand, he could be very sweet,

very nice and a very nice friend.

And I never was victim to any of his moodiness,

other than the fact that he knew

he could throw his weight around on the set.

So if he didn't want to do something, if he wanted to stop,

that shoot was shut down. So he did throw his weight around.

He had a big ego

and it could get unpleasant.

He had a tendency to lie.

He loved lying. It's...

He would keep lying even if you knew he was lying

and he knew you knew he was lying.

Block...

an idea or a movement.

Bob will put the final touches on what the camera needs for editing,

what the final say-so in the scene is.

He allows me to block my own sex scenes though.

- Woman: Do most people do that? - No.

I think there's only two or three directors I can do that with.

- Why do you do that, Bob? - Allow him to block his own sex scenes?

Well... I don't allow you to block your own sex scenes.

See, I don't tell him how to edit,

and he doesn't tell me how to fuck.

John could put out so much bullshit.

(chuckles)

John used to get people to stop smoking.

John smoked five packs a day.

John would say to a girl on the set for instance,

"That's really gonna kill you. You don't need to smoke anymore. "

He would say, "Gimme those, I'm gonna throw them away. "

He would take two or three packs away she had in her purse, and her lighter,

and put them in his briefcase and tell her he was going

to destroy them or throw them away. John always had cigarettes.

(laughing)

People believed him. A lot of people adored him.

They looked up to him like he was all-knowing,

that he was wise.

I moved into their spare bedroom.

We all lived in a larger two-bedroom unit.

John and Sharon had the master bedroom and I had the spare room.

My private understanding of our relationship

was that I was his mistress and we all lived together,

and that was that.

I accepted that was good, because I loved Sharon at that point.

I wouldn't want to be without her either.

Dawn was like a daughter to me. We had a separate relationship.

And I wasn't aware of the complete involvement.

And you know, we became really good friends.

I was trying to show her that John wasn't God Almighty.

And I guess to a 15-year-old... and this sort of thing...

when he was showering her with gifts and presents

and telling her how wonderful she was...

she would've done anything he wanted

and eventually did do anything he wanted.

Dawn: I believed everything he said. I was in love/

I had no idea what was going to hold the next day,

I just knew I couldn't be without him.

It was like I had to be with that person,

and the feeling was returned, as much as he could,

aside from his work and aside from his wife.

Chinn: When I first met him,

and when I made the first few films with him,

he wouldn't touch any kind of drug.

Like marijuana? No. Alcohol? No.

He wouldn't drink, he wouldn't smoke grass.

- Woman: Do you take drugs? - No.

- Never? - They take me.

No, I don't take drugs. I don't even like aspirins.

I am a kind of a...

healthy person.

John had a drug problem.

John smoked marijuana starting maybe in 1972.

And it got to be more and more.

John wouldn't do any other drug except marijuana.

John always carried a quart

of J&B Scotch in his briefcase.

Always. He was never without...

without Scotch. Never.

Sharon: His brother David introduced him to marijuana.

And it escalated. Things just went from bad to worse.

Amerson: All the time John was smoking marijuana, there was cocaine around.

It was like a commodity in the adult film business.

People were paid in cocaine.

John, however, would not do...

didn't want anything to do with anything except marijuana.

It was standard. Everyone had cocaine,

everyone had some heroin, everyone had whatever they did.

PCP, Speed... whatever it was,

people carried this around.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying we needed it to perform in the movies,

I'm just saying that we kind of preferred it, you know?

That's what it was.

We carried it one step further than the '60s.

It was free sex,

and... and a lot of drugs.

It was a sign of the times

that everyone was packing whatever their preference was.

And we would all share.

We were good that way.

About 1975, '76,

John got turned on to cocaine.

Dawn: I think things went downhill when cocaine got involved.

That was the drug he could never kick,

that was the one that he liked the best.

That's the one I like the best. It's a very addictive drug.

And I became addicted with him and he kept me fed.

I mean, he made sure I had that bit to keep me along with him,

because he didn't want to be alone.

I think he became bigger than himself...

and he got real spoiled.

He was a guy getting $1,000 cash a day in a lot of situations.

You know, just, in those days, that was...

huge amounts of money.

Then for a few years...

John started cocaine almost on a daily basis.

And then John got introduced to freebase.

Why do you stay in the bathroom for five hours at a time?

- On set? - I don't know, it's a shitty habit.

I've got... (laughs)

I don't have a habit of doing that. Sometimes I hide in other places

so that they can't find me.

But usually the bathroom is the only place with a lock on the door.

We were on a set once

and John was... it was his turn to work

and we looked all through the house and couldn't find him.

Everyone on the set had thought that John had went out...

for lunch and was coming back.

I was looking all over for him. He had to be on the set.

It was one of those things where you had to wait around forever.

And we were waiting and waiting and waiting,

and it was getting darker and darker and darker.

No one knew where he was. The crew was having a fit.

They shot everything else they could've possibly shot.

I looked outside, I looked everywhere. His vehicle was still out in front.

And then we heard a little "Ahhh!" scream from one of the bedrooms

and some woman had opened up a closet

to get changed or to get something, retrieve something,

and there was John in there with a base pipe, getting high.

He had been on the set all day.

Small closet. John was rolled up in a little ball in the closet.

I remember John was hovered and cuddled in like a fetal position.

And he was afraid.

And he wouldn't tell me what he was afraid of, he was just afraid.

John: As I lay there, I was wondering

how long I could go on at this kind of pace.

Would I wear out? Would I be old before my time?

Would there come a day sooner or later that I couldn't get it up again?

He had problems maintaining an erection

when he had done so much cocaine, so...

that would take a lot of time, a lot of patience,

and I just didn't have the time or the patience

or the budget to deal with that.

Amerson: John had a choice every morning when he woke up,

and it was which dealer to call.

His life got to be that hectic with drugs.

He still tried to work. He got a reputation that...

actually people didn't want to hire him anymore.

One day we caught him with cocaine on the set.

I flushed it down the toilet and said, "John,

you can't do this."

And he became petulant, and wouldn't work,

and it cost us a lot of time.

I said, "John, I haven't paid you yet. Finish the film,

get your money and do whatever you want. "

But from that point on, I just couldn't work with him

because it was just too difficult.

Sharon: He couldn't get work

or enough money out of work to support his habit.

It's when he began robberies,

and he began pilfering out of our house.

You know, this sort of thing... out went the china,

out went the jewelry. You know, this sort of thing.

In one month's period of time, he took our credit cards

and charged $48,000.

Jewelry, furniture, televisions,

et cetera, et cetera.

And what he was doing was selling them.

It just really didn't bother me at that point,

because he was out of control.

And the less I saw of him, the happier I was.

I would tell the people, "Put away your money,

put away any jewelry... antique jewelry particularly...

or even any drugs. Don't leave them out."

The problem was, those were John's three favorite things.

He was such a charmer. He'd steal from one girl,

and give it to that girl the next day, or someone else.

Amerson: He did this freebasing until he died.

And as far as I'm concerned,

it's one of the reasons John got involved

in the criminal activity he did... to pay for his habit.

He went to running drugs for the mob, if you will.

He did that. He did mule drugs to pay for his habit.

He started taking me with him...

when he went on runs. I never went into anybody's home.

Sager: The stories she told... spending two days in the car

waiting for John, being inside having a drug binge,

and she's got a six-pack of Diet Coke and a can to pee in,

and her little Chihuahua Thor to keep her company,

she was a sort of a very touching victim, who again...

as oftentimes victims have a sort of Patty Hearst syndrome,

where they identify with their captor.

Dawn: I would be in the car...

sometimes 48-hours worth of activity in a home...

and he'd be in and out and going off in another car and then coming back

and I knew what the people looked like who lived there,

but I was never introduced to them or their names...

except for Eddie Nash.

Blake: I heard that he got involved in narcotics,

and was running around with some people

like Eddie Nash and that group of people,

that were not only involved with dope, involved with arson,

robberies and everything that goes with narcotics.

Once he got involved with that,

John was a lost cause.

As the money and drug situation became more desperate,

John turned to pimping Dawn.

Oftentimes he chose Eddie Nash,

who was the easiest turnaround between the drugs and the money.

He basically sold me for dope.

He needed to get high and...

he just... he gifted Eddie with me,

the teenager, in trade.

It almost became a classic pimp/hooker scene

where the pimp would be pissed that he sold his woman

for the money that he wanted

and she would end up getting back-handed for it.

He backhanded me in the mouth so hard that...

that my tooth went through my lip here.

Because I guess there wasn't as much cocaine as they originally bargained on.

Sharon: She became his punching bag.

As things really got bad,

both with the drugs and approaching the time of the murders,

basically everything that was wrong in John's life

was her fault, not his.

He may have wanted to punch me out, but was terrified of me.

Dawn: Then he had outbursts...

that had become rough... shovings and pushings

on top of just blatant cruelty...

you know, emotional cruelty...

that was just coming out of him that was not there before.

Probably there all along, but the drug brought it out.

The whole idea of somebody's running around doing crack every 15 minutes,

cooking it themselves...

the whole idea of what drugs and sex

and how they work together, and what drugs unleash...

in a sense, porn is just the unleashing of the darker tendency

of men and women

that is the same tendency that's unleashed

when you do a drug like cocaine

that lowers your inhibitions and stimulates the possibilities

of what things you could possibly do.

The problem with people that do this business is they never think it'll end.

You think it's going to be $1000 a week forever.

It doesn't work that way, and life isn't like that.

And people don't do that 'cause it's a fantasyland business.

Sager: The pimping, the drug runs, the staying in the car...

I think this was really the beginning of the end for Dawn.

He asked me to draw his bath and I drew his bath.

He asked me to go get a cup of coffee,

and he gave me the moment to take a break...

to make my break... and I ran.

I ran... I ran down to the nearest business,

and it was a Denny's.

I tried to call my mother. I did call my mother collect,

and she said she would send a ticket to the bus station in Glendale.

There was a little old man in the Denny's,

and he saw that I was... I must have been crying,

I really don't remember. I told him what was happening,

and that I didn't know what to do. He says "You can sleep on my floor

if you let me touch your butt." (chuckles)

And I said, "Is that all?" (chuckles)

So I made it... I got away. I got away.

But he wheedled his way back in.

He had talked me into coming back,

and I flew down. He met me at Burbank Airport.

Immediately, the first thing he did was...

he picked up somebody else's baggage off the lift

and walked out with it.

He left me in a motel. And what I realize now was the time

when the robbery of Eddie Nash's place was taking place.

Sharon: It was in the early morning hours,

nothing was moving in the streets, and he came knocking at the door.

And this was the first time I had literally seen him since March.

And he was covered in blood.

He asked if he could come in, and I said, "Yes. What happened?"

He looked me straight in the eye and he said,

"I was at a murder and four people were killed in front of me."

Then he proceeded to tell me

about the robbery that had occurred the day before, that he set up,

and was carried out in a demeaning manner to Eddie Nash.

And that these people that had cut him in for drugs and money

that were stolen from Eddie Nash were killed.

Blake: They made the plan that he would go to Nash's house,

spend some time up there. And about 2:00, 3:00 in the morning,

would leave with the back-door slider open.

And these guys from Wonderland Lane would come up there.

And all they were supposed to do is take the dope and the money,

and some jewelry and whatever, and split.

I knew he was running around with Nash and that group of people

before the murders went down.

Man: Eddie Nash was a target suspect

in the organized crime division.

It was known...

and felt that he was involved in these murders.

I knew he owned a lot of adult nightclubs,

was involved in the adult nightclub business...

nude bars and things like that.

According to John, he was one of the big people

in the Israeli mafia, had a lot of power.

And he had a lot of clout in politics,

in the fire department and supposedly the LAPD,

the ATF... he had all these connections.

He came in and he pulled out of his briefcase

the largest pile of cocaine I've ever seen in my life.

I didn't question the pile. I know this to be...

the loot, you know, his cut of the robbery.

We just got high. We just got way high.

When he went to go pick up his messages

at his answering service in Santa Monica,

he got in the car and there was a gun put to the back of his head.

Blake: Nash says, "Hey, I know what happened.

And you're going to do what you did

for those guys on Wonderland Lane what you did to me."

Nash says, "And if you don't do it,

I'm going to kill your wife,

your friends. "

Dawn: And he was forced

to let the murderers into the Wonderland Avenue house,

because he had the security entrance pass.

So John said he went up, back to Wonderland Lane,

and went up there and was buzzed in by the people

because he knew them real well.

Coen: He...

let the killers in with the intent...

that everyone inside the house would die.

Blake: John let them in.

John knew who went up there,

and the next day that people were dead.

Sharon: He was... according to him...

was thrown up against the wall and held there

while two of the three people he took there

carried out the murders.

I just..."You stood there and you watched this?"

And he says, "Yes." And I said, "People...

these people were your friends. " And he said "They were dirt.

They were filth, " you know?

"And it was them or me."

He said, "I want to go ahead and get clean

and I need a couple of hours sleep. Is that okay?"

And I said, "That's fine."

Thinking, "Jesus, how can I get him out of my house?"

He slept for a couple of hours, left probably a little bit after 6:00.

And he said, "I'll call you in a couple of days."

And I said, "Take care of yourself."

Dawn: Just before he came back, the news was on.

And they were pulling the bodies out of Wonderland Avenue.

Reporter: One by one, the four bodies were removed

from 8763 Wonderland Avenue.

Dawn: I've sat in front of that house many times in the car.

I knew the house,

and my heart just went into my gut,

because I just knew there was something wrong.

He got back and I didn't say anything.

He just looked exhausted.

He took a couple of Valiums and laid down and went to sleep.

He tossed and turned and he screamed.

He screamed, "Blood, blood, there's so much blood. "

And that was the final, like, you know, gut stabber for me.

He slept for a day or two, and that's when...

the door was kicked in and we were arrested by the police.

They took us both in, they separated us,

and they grilled us about the Wonderland Avenue home.

John was trying to work out a deal with the police.

And he called and said,

"Will you come? Because I'll need you. "

Dawn: They drove us down

to the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

He says, "Hey, if I testify against these people

or say anything, Sharon's gonna be dead,

the rest of my family and my friends are gonna be dead.

What do I accomplish?"

So he says, "I'm gonna take my chances.

Hey, you can put me in a jail, you can do whatever.

I'm gonna take my chances."

He says, "Tom, I'll deny I ever talked to you about what I told you."

Under the guise of turning State's evidence,

John bought for himself some time in a safe house,

first at the Bonaventure

and then at the Biltmore Hotels in downtown LA.

He stayed there a few days with Dawn,

I think hatching up what he was gonna do next.

He never had any intention of helping the police with this case.

After about, I think, three days of this,

between the Bonaventure and the Biltmore,

John came in and he says, "Well, that's it."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He says, "They're letting us go. We gotta run.

We have to run. "

He said, "I need to...

I need to get stuff together because I need to run,

because the police are going to be after me.

And he said, "Worse than that, Eddie Nash is going to be after me. "

Dawn: Within 24 hours of our release from the Biltmore,

John and I took off. We left Los Angeles.

He turned back into his old...

I mean, there was no drugs and he was his old self.

You could talk to him again.

The personality was coming back.

The situation was still fucked up,

but his personality was back. He was that loving guy again

that could crack jokes and make you laugh,

that you knew that could just make the room glow.

We drove through Vegas.

I waited in the parking lot there,

because he wanted to go in and play roulette.

He just wanted to put one bet on aught... double aught.

It was his favorite spot.

We got to his sister's house in Montana

and she let us stay for a couple days.

A couple of days later we got a phone call

from his mother in Ohio,

telling us the FBI was just there

and they were looking for him.

And they were probably on their way

to his sister's in Montana, where we were, next.

That was our clue to pack up our bags

and get the hell out of there. "Where are we gonna go?"

I said, "I was raised in Florida. Let's go to Florida."

That seemed far enough away... the whole opposite end of the United States.

Somewhere in there, "The Great Escape"

became "National Lampoon's Family Vacation."

They stopped at all the tourist attractions along the way...

the Grand Canyon, various other things,

seeing the sights, taking their time going to Florida.

Getting in towards Mississippi and Louisiana

we were running out of money,

so he started thieving cars that were parked at the motel

for anything he could again.

It was a process back into the old self.

Sharon: Tom Lang and his partner came to my house

wanting to know if I knew where John was, and I didn't.

I assumed he might go back to Ohio for a short period of time.

But I had no idea how he would go or whatever.

I didn't want to know.

You know, and I told them straight out,

"I have no idea. Yes, he did leave.

Yes, I did give him money."

You know, because I wanted him gone.

Dawn: We made it down to Florida.

And we went to North Miami.

And we stopped at one of the cheapest hotels there,

the Fountainhead Hotel on Collins Avenue.

It was a rundown, kind of transition hotel.

There was some prostitution activity on the streets there at night,

and on the beach,

and there was an X-rated motel across the street.

It came to the point where he was...

he was being dominating again

and insisted that I just walk out on the beach

and turn a trick

for some extra cash.

He started to get violent again at that point

because he didn't like me going out and being with other people.

It was his possessive nature.

It started back into the old arguments

of I was... I was dirty and I was corrupt,

and I wasn't any good.

He wouldn't touch me until... until I'd like,

stripped down and like been in the tub

with hot water, just to like to purge myself

of all sin or something.

I mean, it just got... it got very twisted.

He started to hit me again, and my world crashed,

again, around me.

It was...

"Oh no. Now there is no hope because I can't blame the drugs."

Dawn turned John in in Florida

where he was arrested.

He had beat her up

and someone offered her a way out.

Dawn: He was running after me, and he caught up to me

just in front of the snack shop by my hair,

and yanked me down to the ground and jumped on top

and just pummeled the hell out of me...

in front of everyone.

The next day, a few minutes after he left,

there was a knock on the door, and it was Big Rosie the manager

and a few others that had lived there...

Joe from the snack shop and another lady, Louise,

who's a stripper.

And they just took over.

They walked in, they said, "Grab your things,

get your dog, you're outta here."

And got into a car and, boom, was gone.

I mean, it just happened so fast.

After a couple of days, there was a call.

And this was the last time I ever spoke to him.

And I cried when I heard his voice, and he was crying.

And he said, "I know what I did was wrong, and I'm sorry. "

I'd heard this before. This is the old story.

He said, "I'm sorry."

He said, "Can I please just see your face just one more time?

That's all I'll need. That's all I'll ever ask of you again."

And I said, "No. I'll never let you see me again,

where you can touch me, where you can hurt me. "

Her brother contacted her via the police.

They evidently knew where she was but they didn't know where he was.

Her brother met her at a park

and told her that the police were there in the car that he had come in,

and they wanted to talk to her, explain to her

about how many people were out there looking for him,

and said, "Do you want him to die?"

You know, "He's safer with us."

So she basically told them where he was.

It wasn't something that I liked doing,

but it was the only thing left to do.

Or that I could do, you know?

I had no other choices, I was just resigned to it.

I said, "He's at the Fountainhead."

I said, "After you've arrested him,

call me and let me know that everything's okay.

That's he's safe. " It was the next day, I believe,

or that evening when Tom Lang called me at the number that I was at

and he told me, he says, "Well, we got him,

and we're about to get on a plane and go to California.

And he was kind of expecting us.

He kinda looked relieved a little bit,

and he's okay."

And so I said, "Thank you."

That was the last.

That was the end.

Sharon: Then he called me and he said, "Well, I'm here."

I said, "Yes, I know you are."

He said, "I need you to come and see me."

And I said, "For what reason?" And he said,

"You're the only person I know who doesn't want something from me."

This didn't involve anything more to me than time,

so I granted him that.

I think he kind of drew on my strength, if you will, to get through the trial.

Woman: He talked easily to me.

I wouldn't say he was extremely bright,

but he was very street smart.

He knew about people

and how to handle people.

Very manipulative and very charming.

Both Earl Hanson and I were the attorneys for Holmes.

I thought he was very astute, and I thought that he...

could form an opinion about people

with just a short period of observation.

He did contribute to his defense, not only for...

in the preparation, while he was in jail,

but even through the voir dire of the jury.

So he was an interesting man.

Very sociopathic,

which simply means that...

he could use anybody, in any way,

to his advantage without feeling any kind of guilt.

There was a fingerprint, or fingerprints.

There was blood and it was on the headboard near one of the victims,

but there was no bloody fingerprints. I remember quite clearly

that was the impression, perhaps,

that some had in the courtroom before it was clarified by the defense.

The indications were that...

Holmes was holding the bed frame

with the victim just on the bed,

and that he was beating the victim with his right hand.

It's a left palm-print.

John was up there all the time.

There would be nothing unusual

having John's handprints all over the house.

Because he visited these people on a daily basis.

One of the interesting aspects of the trial...

again, it predates the OJ trial by 15 years...

it's the first time video evidence was brought in.

Eggers: There was nothing in the videotape that connected John

to the... to the murders.

I think that probably was...

the first instance of videotape being used

in a major case in the United States.

But California is the place

where I'm surprised not only did we see the tape,

I'm surprised it wasn't turned into a musical.

He made it quite clear to us that he wasn't going to take the stand.

It's always nice, especially in a case like this

that is completely circumstantial, to have a defendant...

in this case Holmes... take the stand.

I would have loved to cross-examine him.

Loved to.

He was an actor.

He would act by sitting in the chair...

crying at the appropriate times.

The poor-pitiful-me attitude would emanate.

I wanted him on the stand so badly I could have tasted it then.

Eggers: My partner Earl Hansen

very cleverly and very ably

in closing argument

argued that there was no intent to commit murder.

With a gun to your head,

the only intent you have

is probably to save your own life.

And the jury either bought it,

or just felt that I didn't prove my case.

I can't see him doing it.

As the law states, you don't really have to do anything in a crime

to be guilty of the crime, especially a murder.

We the jury, in the above entitled action,

find the defendant, John Curtis Holmes, not guilty of murder.

Eggers: The jury felt that there was no proof

that he was involved,

that he had an intention to have them killed.

And that's why he was found not guilty.

I didn't think he probably bludgeoned them,

but I would not have been surprised had he been there.

I think the jury came back with the right verdict.

Oh, he was thrilled. He was thrilled, of course.

I went to the jail when he got released that night.

I took him out of the jail.

And John called me that night. He called me twice that night.

And wanted to see me and I said no.

Asked me...

if he could come back or if I would go with him,

that he would try to make another life somewhere else

and get out of the business.

And the first time in my life I ever used the word "fuck,"

I said, "Get the fuck out of my life."

I said, "I've lived with enough upheaval,

and there'll never be...

a life for us together, because you can't change. "

My life was about life, not about death and drugs

and porno and that sort of thing.

I didn't want to do this.

I couldn't provide any kind of a support for him anymore.

That basically was the last time we ever spoke.

Reporter: Are you afraid at all? Afraid for your life?

Sure. Of course. I'll keep a very low-key figure,

but, I mean, I gotta go back to work.

The first day he was out, he came to my house

and got back involved in the business.

Sharon: I know that he had been looking for Dawn.

If he could have found her, if there was any way to find her,

he would have found her.

He wouldn't have married a porno queen. (laughs)

He would've wanted somebody that would have been separate.

The first movie that John made after he got out of jail

was for Hal Freeman in San Francisco.

That's where John met Laurie Rose.

Laurie was known as the... the "butt queen"

of the porno industry.

That was what her specialty was.

Well, according to that bulge in your pants,

it looks like maybe I should relieve some of the pressure.

Laurie: I met John on the set of "Marathon" in San Francisco,

early 1983, and I didn't know what to think about him at first.

I thought, "Oh my God, should I take a gun?

John Holmes is going to be there."

Amerson: She said, "I really want to meet John.

And I really want all that." John thought it was amusing,

thinking that it wasn't going to happen.

So off camera, they did that and it did happen.

- (moaning) - She fell in love with John.

John came back and told me about Laurie Rose,

had no respect for her whatsoever, really had an attitude.

I remember walking up,

and I go, "Hi, I'm Misty Dawn."

And he was very, you know, being the prima donna.

"Hi, nice to meet you," you know?

There was an instant attraction.

Oh yeah!

She was a repeat performance of Dawn.

Part of the attraction was the fact that her name was Misty Dawn.

He was trying to find the only other person

that could give him the support that he needed.

And I guess she was young, impressionable,

and she fell for the myth and the whole ball of wax.

But things progressed really fast with us.

I think I met him in January,

and I had moved in by March

up at Bill Amerson's house.

There were times during the summer

where I would hear a voice from the bedroom saying, "Bill, Bill,"

and John was out swimming in the pool.

I would go back in the bedroom and she would be laying there naked,

tied up, where John had had an orgasm all over her face and walked off.

That's how much John loved her.

John tried to run over her with a car twice in the driveway.

She had insurance. He wanted to collect the insurance money.

John had a heart of gold. He was a great person.

I mean, he was great to me.

That's the one thing I admired about John.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt

he would have taken a bullet for me any time...

as a woman, that made me feel good.

Amerson: John liked her because she was nasty,

and that's his word. She would do anything.

Anything.

Leslie: He sort of went into a shell.

He just was different after he came out of jail, I think.

Any time you leave and come back,

it's like you got to start all over again in a way.

And you can never catch up to the same groove that it was before.

All you can think about are tongues...

thousands of hot, horny tongues.

And the tongues are making you so crazy, all you can think about is sex...

wet, warm, moist sex.

(John mimicking Japanese)

Holy Ben Wa balls, Dickman. What does that mean?

I'm not certain, Throbbin.

It's something I read on the back of a ginseng box.

Ah, so.

I don't know, things changed. Video came in,

and people... the budgets were lower.

John Holmes was making $1,000... a scene,

in the late '70s, early '80s.

And when he came back, I think he was lucky if he made 300.

Well, we had planned on getting married for years.

We did it in Las Vegas...

took a flight out there one morning.

I got a phone call from Las Vegas one afternoon, from John,

who obviously was stoned.

He appeared to be just really out of him mind.

And he said, "I think I got married."

We did go gamble for our honeymoon.

What were we gonna do for a honeymoon at that point anyway?

He says, "I don't know, I think I married that...

I think I married Misty."

And it almost seemed like it was a shock to him.

It was like we didn't believe him.

Woman: He said, "I just found this picture on my coffee table.

And I'm in it and Laurie's in it,

and she said it was our wedding picture.

I need you to help me out with that. I don't remember."

Amerson: John was up to taking 50 Valiums a day.

50 Valiums. 5010mg Valiums a day...

which would... should kill people, but it didn't.

His cocaine would elevate him so much

that he needed that much Valium to come down.

So they in fact did get married.

Denise: There is a wedding picture though, however.

John's looked better, I think, in pictures.

Sean: She was like a gnat,

sort of buzzing around all the time

and trying to get in the middle of things.

John was really harsh to her.

She was definitely in his life,

but I don't think as a partner, as a life partner.

Amerson: But as far as it being a love story that Laurie portrays,

that's nonsense. That's bullshit.

Hi, I'm John Holmes.

I've been in the adult motion picture business a good number of years,

and I've seen some very crazy things happen.

Fernando: I remember John walking on the set,

and having that incredible fit.

I've never seen him angry,

but he was upset because he wasn't the star of the movie.

Bill Margold was.

It was a little bit tough to see this,

because he wasn't the stud that I used to know.

He was completely different,

staring off in space a lot. He was talking to himself.

It's like there's a giant hourglass somewhere,

rapidly pouring out the sands that people have to...

to achieve what they want out of life...

the fame, the fortune, the success. Even the sex.

He was on a spiral that couldn't stop.

It just was unfortunate.

He didn't want to get off the trolley.

He was like a rock star, though, see? He did the same thing rock stars did.

Just, you know, go up high and burn out.

You can't get back in the atmosphere...

don't know how to do that.

John and I initiated HIV testing

for the adult performers.

We were the very first ones to insist that they do that.

Prior to this, no one really cared much about it.

So to show the performers that we were really serious,

John and I both took the AIDS test together.

And we both came back negative.

Um... so the next time, I think four or five months later,

we took another test because we were going to do it every six months

to show the industry we weren't afraid of the tests, we're okay.

My test came back negative, John's came back positive.

I was with John at the doctor's office

when the doctor informed him that he was HIV positive

and explained to him what conversion was

and explained to John that he could live another 15,

maybe 20 years, if he changed his lifestyle.

The doctor told John that he should stop smoking cigarettes,

stop drinking and stop doing drugs,

start taking vitamins and watching his diet.

Laurie: The minute he found out, his whole theory was

"I can't have sex anymore."

That was his life...

whether it was on film or off of film.

He didn't want to live. He didn't have the desire.

He knew he was gonna die.

Didn't hear what the doctor said.

He just didn't hear what he said.

So that's... that's a sore...

(sighs) That's a sore spot with me.

John could've lived had he not been that reactive.

John, being as reactive as he was,

immediately doubled what he drank,

doubled his drug usage,

went to smoking five packs of cigarettes a day.

Drank a quart of Scotch a day

and just didn't give a shit about anything.

Duke: I think the first thing that I can remember hearing about

was Dad telling me that John had colon cancer...

or they thought he had cancer.

They weren't exactly sure what he had.

He didn't want to bring anything down on the industry.

So he came up with that he had cancer... colon.

And I'd sit there and I'd listen to him spin his tales.

"Oh, they took out six feet of my intestines. "

(chuckles) You know?

I didn't know what was going on. I just know every time I saw him

he was sicker and sicker.

He was just joking around saying he's got a bad virus, got the flu.

Duke: He was getting more and more out to lunch.

You sort of could see that he was...

Iosing grasp of a lot of things. His stories became a lot wilder.

He really didn't know what was going on at that point.

He was losing it more and more.

But, you know, he was in pain.

Denise: He was getting very, very skinny and very, very distorted,

but all the time just making jokes

and trying to protect me and my feelings

and that everything was fine,

but obviously I knew things weren't fine.

Mitchell: I could tell there was something wrong with him,

that he was very sick, by the pallor of his skin,

by the loss of his hair, by the gauntness of his face,

and by his weight and structure. I knew that he was sick.

Fernando: There was a lot of rumors about...

how he contracted AIDS.

Amerson: There are rumors that John had sex with men.

We made one gay film

called "The Private Pleasures of John C. Holmes. "

He, in fact, had sex with Joey Yale... one performer...

where he performed anal sex with Joey Yale.

But he really didn't like that and it took us a half a day

to shoot that particular scene.

He just couldn't... another bad pun... he couldn't get into it.

(laughs) So John, in fact, was not gay.

Laurie: He asked John to do a few gay films.

He wasn't gay by any means.

It really wasn't something that turned him on.

He didn't have anything against it,

but it just wasn't his pleasure.

Right away I had a feeling that he was probably shooting.

I didn't think it would be...

from sex.

Sharon: John would never have shot up, I can tell you that.

Absolutely never.

This man could not stand a needle in any way.

Terrified of them.

Terrified of them.

So I never... I knew it was not that way.

It had to be sexually transmitted. There was no other way for it to be.

I've had people tell me that they used IV drugs with John.

And my answer to that is, "Bullshit."

John absolutely did not use IV drugs.

You know, if all the rumors that were spread about me were true,

it would wear to a nubbin.

Sharon: I've no doubt about the fact that indeed

he felt that everything that happened to him

from the time our marriage ended

to the time he died,

that everything was the business's fault.

What he really valued in life

was gone.

And it was their fault, not his.

After John was diagnosed with AIDS,

he wasn't working on films.

I heard he went to Italy, knowing he had the virus.

He'd been offered this film in Europe.

And he talked to me about it.

"It's a lot of money. We could really use the money right now."

(woman speaking Italian)

Translator: I have no idea what his life was like,

but when we shot the movie together, he was a real gentleman.

I can't say anything bad about him.

He couldn't really get a job in America. He did the gay movie.

He supposedly got the virus in jail. His lover died of it supposedly.

He went to Europe to work with Cicciolina, possibly Tracy Adams,

and possibly Amber Lynn.

He just figured "If they don't get it from me,

or if they don't already have it, they're gonna end up with it anyway."

I know he fucked Cicciolina 'cause she told me about it

when I was in Italy, years and years later.

(Cicciolina speaking Italian)

Translator: I didn't think he was sick, but I could tell he had some problems.

I had no idea why. I thought maybe he had a touch of the flu.

Yes, he did work with Cicciolina.

And yeah, he took his risk, but...

he just figured everybody in the business

was gonna die of AIDS at that point,

because everybody had sex in circles, you know?

In this industry.

(speaking Italian)

Translator: If John Holmes had known in America

of his sickness or of his symptoms,

John would have thought to use some precautions,

to use a prophylactic.

Jeremy: That's kind of mean,

that he knew he had it and went to work anyway.

From which case, if that's true,

if there's such a thing as heaven or hell...

Sharon: He was certainly capable

of exposing hundreds of people to AIDS

and feeling, "I'm gonna get mine back."

That's why he could steal from people in the business

and not have any qualms about it. It's payback, it's revenge.

What was in value of his life...

he was gonna get back at people one way or another.

Whether it was stealing something from them,

or potentially exposing them to death,

you know, and whatever.

Conscience... not something he had.

I don't know of anyone that has died that he...

was with sexually...

after he found out he had AIDS, including me.

I asked Bill Amerson, and Bill said that they did know.

I asked "Why didn't you stop him from going?" He said, "I couldn't stop him."

I said, "Why don't you call and warn them what's coming across the ocean?

That would've stopped him. Hey, AIDS coming across!"

Laurie: He needed... we needed the money.

He needed the money. We needed the money.

That was all there was to it.

Thinking about John Holmes and his last days

makes me a little bit pissed off.

People just basically discarded him.

I think that I saw a lot of people pull back,

in a lot of respects, because of our own ignorance.

Nobody knew really what was going on about it,

but we knew that he had it, and we knew that we didn't want to die.

Laurie: He was very hurt at the end.

He felt like people had turned their backs on him.

His whole attitude was, "God, I've made these people all this money,

and they won't even return my phone call."

And that was basically his attitude.

He was very hurt by it.

I said, "Are you in a lot of pain?" And he goes,

"Yeah, I'm in a lot of pain, but the worst pain is

that nobody cares about me anymore."

Duke: John was in the hospital,

and Misty had a restraining order about us going to the hospital.

I don't know if she went to that extent, but I know we were not allowed there.

She apparently...

decided that it was... that John wasn't allowed visitors,

or that our family wasn't to be involved in his life whatsoever.

And since she had his last name, she had the right to do that, I guess.

The reason I didn't let the Amersons in was because I didn't trust him... them.

I didn't trust anybody at that time.

And I especially didn't trust them at that time.

At one point, I know that John had called and asked

for us to come to the hospital to see him before he went.

And that Misty had called

and my sister got the message, I think, on the machine,

and said that we were absolutely not to see him before he passed away.

Who knows what was going on in his head?

But he just kept waiting for us to come and see him,

and I guess he didn't know we couldn't.

I called the attorneys who represented him in the murder trial.

And I said, "This is Sharon Holmes."

And I said, "All I need is verification that he is dying of AIDS.

I don't want to know where he is.

I don't want to know anything else

other than, 'Is this true?"'

And he was kind enough to tell me, yes, it was true.

I don't even know if it was maybe 10 to 14 days later that, you know...

it was announced that he had died.

Denise: In the morning, there was a phone call on my machine from Laurie.

She says, "Your godfather died last night

and you didn't even care enough about him to see him in the hospital."

And she hung up the phone.

And, uh...

Or "You didn't give a shit enough about him to go see him." One of those.

And that's how I found out that he had died.

I will never forgive what she did.

I will never excuse what she did and I'll never understand it.

Laurie: It was John's request. He was adamant about it.

He did not want a funeral. He was cremated.

I had viewed his body before they put him in the oven.

Laid a picture of Jesus on his heart

and watched them wheel him in.

His mother and his half-brother David and I

went out on a fishing barge out of Oxnard.

And we didn't say anything, we just...

tossed it over, you know?

And our thoughts were inside of us, but...

you know, there was no funeral.

Denise: John had wanted to be buried, and he wasn't, he was cremated.

I guess she took it upon herself to make that choice.

And that's what she did before we had a chance to go and say goodbye.

Laurie: I wasn't aware that there was even a memorial service.

Nobody invited his widow. (laughs)

But I wouldn't have gone anyway.

Denise: We needed some kind of closure.

We wanted to have something for him, so my father planned a memorial.

It was only going to be for, you know, family and close friends.

And it was beautiful and it was very heartwarming.

My dad wrote a eulogy that was beautiful.

And we got to say goodbye as best we could.

I just wanted to say goodbye to my godfather, you know?

And...

His passing away

was like my dad dying,

because...

at the time previous to that, when he was in my life,

he was the person that took care of me.

He was the person that made sure I had something to eat.

He was the person that

would let me know when I had done something wrong.

He was the person that I respected the opinion of.

It was just the end of an era. Like John Wayne dying, you know?

Chinn: When I found out that John had died, I was...

very surprised. He told me he had cancer,

but I was surprised to find out that he died of AIDS.

When I had heard that he died,

my reaction was very sad and terrified.

I thought, "Oh no, this is the antichrist of the industry.

This is it, this is the other shoe that we all knew was going to drop."

And by some miracle, that did not happen.

I believe that the death of John Holmes

was the start of HIV testing in the industry.

Goldstein: So it's, to me, surprising

that he came, and he came and he came

and he went and the world goes on.

And for me, he's part of my history,

because to me, he is the most important person in the business

other than Linda Lovelace, who at least blew me.

Amerson: He was like a little brother to me.

The death of John Holmes

really hurt me,

and it still does.

I guess in spite of all...

the bad things I've said...

'cause he's had good and bad, a lot of it...

I really loved the guy.

Sharon: I felt bad that he allowed himself

to die in this way.

I had always hoped that he actually would find

there was something else he could do with his life.

Amerson: John Holmes was a country boy

who just wanted people to love him.

He wanted to be liked by everybody.

It's basically the young kid with a dream,

who gets that dream and then it spirals out of control.

I don't think there's anything within John Holmes' story

that actually strays from the clich�. That's not to say that it's negative.

It's a fact. It's true. That's what happened to him,

was this very clich�d sort of thing that happens over and over again.

It doesn't just happen in porno,

it happens anytime anybody gets any kind of success.

It's a very slippery thing to deal with. Do you know what I mean?

It's especially slippery if you throw drugs into the mix

and if you've got a 13-inch dick and that's all anybody cares about.

It's a real American story, this story...

what happened to John.

Goldstein: Bottom line was,

he was, I think, the man who towered over the business...

not just with the girth of his cock,

but he was the most interesting story in the world, and fascinating.

And the tragedy of his end... he should almost be...

he should almost be a Kennedy.

I think the value of John Holmes to all of us

was as an ultimate porn star

with the ultimate weapon,

who was yet, kind of touchable

and a little bit of a sad sack, and kind of a loser.

John was the ultimate cocksman,

but somehow, he wasn't so much of a personality or a threat

that all men couldn't love him and identify with him,

and maybe sort of project themselves into his body

for the purpose of the fantasy.

He was at the right place at the right time,

and he was kind of the right guy for the job.

He was an everyman's gigolo, a polyester smoothie.

His life had no meaning to him. He'd do what he had to to survive.

If you call that living,

then I guess this was the only way he could live.

So he chose his path and I chose mine, and I lived and he didn't.

John had a heart as big as the world. He would do anything for anybody,

except himself.

I loved you.

I'm two different people. I am myself,

whom I portray on a natural level,

just acting idiotic and being natural.

And then the other person is a fantasy, is...

it's a figment of somebody else's imagination.

I am what you want me to be.

If you are envious of what I am, or do, or can be, or I have,

then that's part of the mystique of why you pay attention to me,

and that makes sales,

and makes people go to films and buy films.

If you enjoy watching what I do, that is an interest level.

Everybody has, or sees into, that character which I portray,

which is not me. I'm... I'm just like anyone else.

That's just somebody on film. I'm sorry about that.

It's tough making the split sometimes.

Mitchell: He was funny, he was a wonderful person.

And his persona was big as life.

I know where to find him... I can always press play.