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WAKEFIELD POOLE: We were
having coffee and he said,

You know, congratulations,

you're going to get
that Broadway show.

Joe Layton said you
were the best dancer

that he'd ever
auditioned on Broadway.

So you're a shoo-in.

I thought of myself as an
experimental filmmaker,

so I didn't think of
myself as a pornographer.

I thought of myself as someone

who was learning
how to make movies

and I knew it was pornography

but I didn't think
of it that way,

and I didn't approach
it that way.

We were freebasing

and when you start to freebase,
the cocaine goes like that.

And you sort of, like,
get your little

box with all your
memories in it,

and when you're ready for
them you open that box and

and they're all there and the
tears come flooding out.

As I said once in an
interview, I am the movies.

My brain is just loaded
with memories from movies.

And the main thing
about bottoming out is

you know you're bottomed
out when you're useless.

There's no friendship.

There's no responsibility
to other people.

There's nothing.
There's only the pipe.

It's a miracle I'm sitting here.

It's a miracle I'm not dead.

DAVID SUSSKIND: Wakefield
Poole, you make dirty movies.

I make erotic films, yes.

- Are they the same thing?
- It's hard to define, David.

I want to make artistic films.
I want to make erotic films.

Films that aren't dirty.

A film that you could
go to see and say

"That is a beautiful film."

I just feel that
there is a time now.

That's why I put my
name on my film.

It is my name, and I
am subject to arrest

because I have my
name on the film.

They can come and get me right
here, and take me out this door.

And I can spend up to
seven years in jail.

But it's something
that I believe in.

I think it is one of the most
beautiful things in the world is
sex.

Man is not lofty,

as we always believe that man
is, or we try to make man.

DAVID SUSSKIND: You're
saying that indulging

pornographic appetites

is a cleansing act, a
mind-cleansing act?

- I think it can be, in
the right direction, yes.

LINDA WILLIAMS: There's a
special sensibility in this work

that is rare in the field
of pornographic film,

because all you have to do
in pornography, really,

is deliver

the cum shots, the positions.

It'll sell if you do that.

And so everything that he
did, he didn't have to do,

and that makes it all
the more wonderful.

Boys in the Sand was
an epic movie.

I mean it really was the first
thing that had a story,

a star, somebody you
could identify with,

and I think that's what made it
the important film that it was.

It really was our
lives, put on screen,

and in a coherent fashion.

And I think that was what
was important about it.

ROBERT W. RICHARDS: Yes,
I saw Boys in the Sand

when it was the sensation
of New York City

at the 55th Street Playhouse.

WAKEFIELD: I've been
through this before.

The same, same streets.
7th Avenue.

The buildings are all different
because the time is different.

When I did Boys in the
Sand, I did the same thing.

I got out of a cab in front
of the Wellington Hotel,

went around the corner 7th
Avenue and 55th Street.

And right there on a sign

was my name, big as life:

Wakefield Poole's
Boys in the Sand.

With the bad breaks
also come good breaks.

I've been fortunate and
unfortunate enough to have both.

Many times.

And there come
points where you say,

Gee, can I survive this?
Is it worth it?

Well, when I was about...

I guess from the time
I was like, 5 or 6

when I was smart enough

to know if you put me in
a seat to stay there.

So he could take me to the
movies in the afternoon.

My father was a policeman.
I forgot to tell you that.

So I got into the movies free.
So I could go every day.

And he would pick me up and
give my mother a rest, I guess.

I had two sisters
in school already.

And we only had
three movie houses

in Salisbury, North Carolina.

And he would take
me to one one day,

one the next day, and
one the next day.

And by that time they only
played two or three days

I could start all over again.

Yeah, I saw a lot of movies,
and they're all in my head

and I think back to those
days a lot of times.

What would my life
have been like

had I not been so
influenced by movies?

What if he had taken me to
the ballpark every day?

Would I have been a
different person?

But I knew Bette Davis and
Joan Crawford and Lana Turner,

and all those people, you know,

way before someone of my
age should have known it.

I sang a lot... just around
the house and everything.

And I had an aunt who
was my father's sister,

and she was an organist.

She set it up that I would sing
at church. And I was so small

they had to stand me
up on a piano bench

in front of the congregation.

And I sang "God Bless America."

The adoration that
came afterwards

was just unbelievable.

I don't think I ever
sang again in public

until I moved to Jacksonville.

I went to a radio station

that had a program
called Crusader Kids.

I went out a lot by myself,

downtown, and I
would walk around.

8, 9 years old, but
I was very independent.

I found out about this
program and I went up

to the radio station,

and I went in, found
a woman in a studio

and I said, I've come
to sing on the radio.

And she happened to
be the piano player

for the Crusader
Kids, and she said,

"Well, let's just have
you sing a little bit."

And she started and she said,
"What do you want to sing?

And I said "Ah, Sweet
Mystery of Life."

[Old recording of
Wakefield singing ]

"Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life,
at last I've found you..."

She got me in the right key
and we sang and she said,

"You know, I think we might be
able to work you in today."

And it was a contest,

and I won, I think, third
prize the first time.

It was a 13-week cycle

and then they would call you
back for the semi-finals.

It was like American
Idol today,

but on a radio show and local.

And every 13 weeks I would
go and be on it again

and work my way up
to first place.

And then I started
winning first place

and they started
using me for promos.

It was great. I got my
own little fan base.

And then my voice
started to change,

and I started to crack.

My mother got a phone call.

It was from a woman
called Katherine Bagaley.

She ran the Bagaley Juvenile
Theatre, and she said,

"I heard that Wakefield's no
longer going to sing

because his voice is changing

and he's going to need something

to put in place of
that for an outlet."

And she said, "I would like

to give him a scholarship
to my school

and he can come here and study
dancing and dramatics."

And I never paid for a
dancing lesson.

I never bought a
pair of dance shoes.

They were all bought for me

by Mrs. Lake, who was
the piano player.

She took me on and
became my mentor.

And she said, "Oh you
need a new pair of shoes?

Come on, let's go get you
a new pair of shoes."

And the two of them were
just wonderful to me.

Three years later, I
was teaching for her

at 11 or 12 years old.

I stayed with Katherine
Bagaley until I was 17.

I was asked to dance

for another dancing
school in Jacksonville.

Because Katherine Bagaley was
not a real ballet teacher

and I wanted ballet.

Then I evolved to
another teacher.

And I went to Betty
Ogilvie's school

and started working with her and
choreographing ballets for her

and then we got into the
Ballet Guide of Jacksonville.

Suddenly I had national exposure
in Dance Magazine.

I choreographed a
fabulous ballet.

Eventually I was told
by Edward Caton,

who was a very famous
choreographer and teacher,

"Wakefield, you're too
good for Jacksonville.

It's time to come to New York."

And I remember it
was raining, and

Mrs. Lake, the woman
who had started me

you know, buying my
shoes and everything,

and my mother and father,
took me to the airport.

And I said goodbye.
Got on the plane.

Boom.

I knew my life would
never be the same.

Yvonne Chouteau in the
Ballet Russes film

said something that is so true:

when you decide you're going to
devote your life to something,

you have to give up something.

And she said, "I
never ever forgot...

my family. I never
stopped missing them.

I never stopped wanting to
experience things with them.

But I had to do it."

I remember on the
plane thinking,

That's it. That's all you're
going to have of your family...

what you've had... and what
you've had is wonderful.

Now you must keep in
good touch with them,

and pursue what you
have to pursue,

and make it worthwhile
what you've given up.

And immediately the first day
I could I got myself together

and I went to the Ballet Russes
school and I walked in and said,

"Here I am, I'm Wakefield Poole.

Is Mr. Caton here?
He told me to come

and he would give me a
scholarship for the school."

And she said,

"Oh, Mr. Caton has gone to
Caracas to choreograph a ballet

and he won't be back
for three months."

Well my heart just fell.

And I thought, "What
am I going to do?

How am I going to live
for three months?

I guess I'll just get a job and
I won't be able to study."

He came to the Ballet Russes
de Monte Carlo School

and I was teaching there.

He did the class
and he was good,

and I said, "Don't worry
about him. He's fine."

Put him on the roster. Give
him a full scholarship,

and he can take any class
he wants, any time.

And that's the way it started.

So then I just filled
up my schedule.

I did get a job working at the
Hotel St. George in Brooklyn

as a night auditor.

I'd go to work at
11 PM in Brooklyn,

and then I'd work until
eight in the morning.

I'd get on the
train, I'd go home,

and I'd sleep for a
couple of hours.

Then I'd get up,

go to the Ballet Russes
school, and study all day.

And the last class I took
was six o'clock at night.

And that was Freddie
Franklin's class.

A lot of times he'd throw me
out because I'd be so tired

I couldn't even hold
on to the barre.

So I would sleep
all weekend long

and I'd try to catch up
from the previous week.

But I did that for about
a year and a half, and

studied every class I
could possibly take,

until they did the Ballet Russes
auditions and I was accepted.

FREDDIE FRANKLIN:
What can I say?

There was a sort of a
rounded education,

as far as the Ballet
was concerned,

which is not only the
classical end of it,

there was the
character end of it,

because we did a lot
of character work.

They all had to be capable of
doing all of these things.

And if necessary, a little
musical comedy thrown in.

So it was sort of an all-around
affair in those days.

After that rigorous routine

of getting ready to
get in the company,

and then the rehearsals and
learning all the ballets,

It was so exciting.

It was like everything
I'd ever imagined.

And the minute we
got on the road,

that all stopped.

It was ... get on the bus at
eight o clock in the morning.

Ride on the bus until we got
to the city we were going to.

Get off the bus.

Get into our hotel rooms.
Put our bags down.

Go out. Have a bite to eat.
Get to the theater.

Do a barre, maybe,
if you had time.

Warm yourself up.

Sometimes we didn't have
time to warm ourselves up.

Sometimes we put our
makeup on outside

because there were no
lights in the dressing room.

We'd get out in the sunlight and
we'd be putting our makeup on.

I felt my technique
beginning to slip

and suddenly my double tours
to the right were gone.

I couldn't get them back.

Finally at the end of the season

I had had it.

I told them I wasn't going to
return, you know, in 1958.

Then I came back to New York

and went out and
toured the Orient with

Rod Alexander's Dance
Jubilee as a dancer.

GEMZE DE LAPPE:
Dance Jubilee was a

State Department
tour that we did,

starting in Greece, working
our way across the map,

up and down, up and down.

Greece to Japan in ten months.

They paid all expenses
and we got paid.

I mean what better way to
see the world than that?

Plus we were treated like
royalty by all the embassies

and all the heads of state

when we went there because

we went through the
State Department.

Actually it was mandatory

we attend all these functions.

We had to do everything
they told us to do.

GEMZE: And wound up in Hong Kong

and they went on to Okinawa.

By that time Rod was
really mad at me

and I couldn't stand him.

I was dancing with
Rod Alexander,

so I had the brunt of his being
a difficult person to be with.

WAKEFIELD: Because Rod Alexander
was... he was a taskmaster.

And you'd do everything
over and over and over.

He'd give you five-minute
breaks and no more.

He was really a
terror to work for.

GEMZE: And then when Rod was
being unreasonable,

Wakefield was our
union representative,

and he really was very
strong and courageous,

because Rod could
be very vindictive.

He had a lot of the dancers
cowed, but not Wakefield.

And I always felt that I had
somebody I could rely on

to protect me as long
as Wake was around.

And then I started
doing Broadway shows

and television,

and ended up assisting Joe
Layton on several shows.

Oddly enough, I seem to have

attracted all the
leading dancers

who became directors,
choreographers on Broadway.

Wakefield was one of them.

I was doing Michael
Bennett's income tax.

I was doing Eddie
Villella's income tax,

from New York City Ballet.

And directing No Strings
in London. Things like that.

Wakefield embodies the
highest principles

of a theater artist.

The dedication, the discipline,
the integrity, the commitment,

the standard of excellence.

Everything being focused on
doing the best possible work

to really give an
audience something.

To really give something.

And that's why I've always
admired him so much.

Some of the income tax

clients were getting
to be quite successful

and I started managing their
money, paying their bills,

and becoming a business manager.

I started with these people at
the beginning of their careers.

There wasn't
a lot of income.

My main job was to
keep an even keel,

to pay bills,

and make sure there was enough
money for the rent each month.

We devised an allowance.

In other words, you would
get $25 dollars a week

no matter what was going on.

The peaks and valleys
were kind of leveled out

so that there was
no hassle about

what's happening next week.

I think I met Nancy when
I was in No Strings.

I'd probably seen her before,
but never really talked to her.

We did a television
show together

when I was asked to come in as
a replacement for Garry Moore.

We used to go out and
drink after the shows

or after the tapings.

Suddenly we were together a lot,

and one day I invited
her home for dinner.

She never left.

I fluted mushrooms and
peeled mushrooms for her

and she said the minute she

saw me peeling mushrooms,
she fell in love.

It was immediate, my
attraction to her.

I think she felt the same way.

One night she said,

"You haven't asked me to
marry you in a long time."

And I said, "Okay, you
wanna get married?"

She said yes.

People were stunned,

because they had no idea we
were going to get married.

We had a nice
wonderful marriage.

As I said we were
together for four years.

A very exciting time.
Very, very happy

and we had no big knock-down,

drag-out fights...
nothing like that.

It was a wonderful experience.

As far as thinking of
myself as bisexual,

I never thought about it.

If I got an erection
and I was with a girl,

and I liked her, I would
want to make love to her,

and there was no Oh
my god this is a woman.

Am I going to be heterosexual?

It never entered my mind.

Oh, I had emotional
relationships

with men back in high school.

Men that I met

and had sex with in
outrageous places

and he would say, Come
over to my apartment.

And then I would
start seeing them.

Once I liked somebody, and
enjoyed sex with them,

if the opportunity arose I
would have a relationship.

I mean I remember
going to high school,

when most girls had their
boyfriends' pictures

in the back of their notebooks,

I had a picture of a guy
who was a hairdresser

or a hat designer
or whatever he was.

When I got back from London.
- directing No Strings

at the point I was in my career

I was trying to make the
jump from performer

to director/choreographer.

And the No Strings
directing thing

I thought would really help me.

I remember getting a call.
It was my agent.

He said, "Dick Rogers called.

You've been offered
a Broadway show.

Do I Hear a Waltz?

They need someone to
do the musical staging

because John Dexter, the
English fair-haired boy,

was going to come over
and direct the show.

Mr. Rodgers was so impressed

with the way you did
the London company."

MARY RODGERS GUETTEL: My
father was very neurotic

and, I think, a
very unhappy guy,

unless he was writing music.

And then he would be quite happy

to set the telephone book.

So I thought, well,
my career is on the way.

I had meetings about
Do I Hear a Waltz?...

I met John Dexter

a nasty, vicious man
from the very beginning.

Stephen Sondheim, I
remember the first meeting,

and he was very attractive,

but he had on a grey
suit and he had ashes all over

and he smoked a lot and

I guess from the
cigarette in his mouth

and playing the piano,
the ashes would drop.

MARY: Prior to their
being in rehearsal,

the decision about whether Steve
would get to do the score,

which he wanted to do

Arthur Laurents
really disappointed

Steve a lot, I think,

by deciding that he wanted
to go for the big name.

And meanwhile my father

was eager to have
a project to do.

Steve and Arthur were
both friends of mine,

and continued, god knows
why, to be friends of mine,

when they began to work
together, the three of them.

It got very ugly. It really did.

Nobody behaved very well.

Including my father.

John Dexter took me
into a little room

and he said some very
nasty things to me,

like I'll tell you when
to open your mouth

and I'll tell you
when to be around,

and I'll tell you what
I want you to do.

I was to be the
Choreographic Associate.

It was a made-up title.
Never been used before.

Wakefield Poole:
Choreographic Associate

to John Dexter.

He was an egomaniac. He was
the meanest man in the world.

We would be having a
meeting in the theater,

and I would be standing
sort of behind to his side,

and he would put his
hand behind his back

and motion for me to get away.

And then I realized he was
excluding me from all the things

because the ideas I would give
him, he would give to them.

Then when we ran into trouble

it was a very
unpleasant experience.

Very unpleasant. And it
all emanated from John.

Right before our
gypsy run through,

before we left out of town,

he called Elizabeth Allen

a fucking pig or
something like that,

right to her face
in front of people,

and of course she
flew off the handle.

They didn't speak
from that moment on.

They never spoke another word.

We had just gotten ready

to go out of town to do
our first performance

and the star of the show and the
director were not speaking.

We finally got the
show on in Boston,

and one night, Jerry White,
Richard Rodgers right hand man,

came over to me and he sat me
down on the lip of the stage

and he said, "We're not going to
need you anymore.

We're calling in Herb Ross."

He said, "We're going to put
some dancing in the show,

and we're afraid to go
with you for the dancing,

and John would prefer,
blah-blah-blah."

And I said, "Well,
this is silly,

I love Herb Ross,
I've worked for him.

I know the show,
back and forwards."

I said, "Let me stay on. You
call Herbie, and ask him

if he'd like me to stay
on and assist him.

I'd be more than happy to do
that

and then I'd be able
to stay with Nancy."

because Nancy was in the show.

"And I don't want to
go back to New York

and have people say I was
fired for incompetence.

I'm fired because you don't
trust me.

It's not because I
did something wrong.

So he did and it worked out

and through my
determination I stayed on.

The show got better

and John Dexter sort of began to
fade out into the background.

Then after we opened in New York

to mediocre reviews

we knew it'd get a run
for at least a year...

I got a call from

the Stage Directors and
Choreographers Union.

MARVIN: SD and C were going to

save Wakefield and
sue Richard Rodgers

for the money that
he would normally

be entitled to as an
assistant choreographer.

The producer was doing a
number calling him something

else so there would be
no residual royalty.

They said, "Is your
stuff in the show?"

And two numbers that I
had done, originally,

Herb never touched, and
they were musical numbers.

They were my numbers,
so they said,

"They're in the show,
and you should be paid

and we're going to sue

Richard Rodgers and the
production company

for your back royalties."

I said I didn't want to have
anything to do with it.

And they said, "You
have no choice."

When they did the lawsuit,
Stephen Sondheim, Herb Ross,

all the people connected
with the show refused

to come in and testify.

Everyone hated the
experience of that show.

Nobody wanted to come
back and talk about it.

I lost the case,

and it got around that I
thought I was something

and I sued Richard Rodgers.

I couldn't get
interviews for anything.

Things got worse and
my manager Martin,

he was able to support
me during that period.

Nancy started working
more and went out on tour

and that was the first time
we'd really been separated.

That's when our marriage
began to fall apart,

which so many marriages
do in show business

because you just aren't together

and when you aren't
together, you grow apart.

After four years we separated,

and after another four
years we finally divorced.

So I started doing a lot
of industrial shows,

and they were very lucrative
and I was very good at it.

Once you get into
that element, then

you're sort of out of the
Broadway thing again.

I was living on 72nd Street.

I had a wonderful
apartment on 72nd Street,

and it was very close to
the Continental Baths.

Because I was devoting all
my time to other things

I didn't have time to go to
bars, so I was a bath person.

I liked the baths. I didn't
like to waste any time.

I went to the baths one night
and I met this redheaded guy

and we went around, we were
looking for a threesome.

Suddenly this guy appeared
and that was the one.

So we have a little
thing, the three of us,

and then later on in evening
we repeated the thing,

and then Peter and I were
together alone the third time

so finally I said, you
know it was in the morning

and I said, "Why don't
you come home?"

And he came home with
me and spent the night.

We went home and made breakfast

and actually spent
the day together,

and he never left.

He had this apartment
on 14th Street

and he'd go home and
change his clothes,

and eventually he gave up his
apartment and moved in with me

and we were together
almost 8 years.

The first thing I noticed was

he had this friend,
Peter Schneckenberger,

who was really quite a dish.

MARVIN: Peter, Peter, Peter,
Peter.

He was a bit of a princess.

Spoiled, and quite opinionated,

and very influential
in Wake's life.

He was very grounded. He
was very knowledgeable.

WAKEFIELD: It was just magic

and he was an
incredible human being.

I mean, I've known a lot of
smart,

intelligent people in my life,

and Peter was like a computer.

He had things in his mind.
He didn't look that way.

He looked, almost like a
hustler. He really did.

He was very attractive and
very secure in his attitude.

But then when I got to know him,

his intelligence
was unbelievable.

He sort of became my mentor.

He got me involved in art
and we would go to museums.

I mean, I appreciated art, but

I never went to
museums and galleries

and we started doing
that every Saturday.

The first time I walked
into Andy Warhol's exhibit

at the Whitney Museum, and
my breath was taken away.

I'll never forget
the feeling I felt

when those elevator doors opened

and I saw the
purple cow wallpaper

with all these gorgeous
colors and flowers.

Absolute sheer
beauty and ecstasy.

That's what art is, what
makes you feel elevated.

Better than just a human being.

Peter and I would
go to the park,

and I started experimenting
with the camera.

And I did a lot of funny, silly
little things like that.

I played with the camera
and then I got the bug.

And I was totally mesmerized

by looking through
the lens of a camera

and what power it gave you,

and also how helpless you feel

and how the camera
just takes over

and just bypasses your brain

and suddenly your
hands and your eyes

are doing things your brain
is not even thinking about.

Peter was working with Roger
Puckett and Yvonne Puckett

at the Triton Gallery.

He had started
working with them,

in fact he bought
into the business.

ROGER PUCKETT: It was a
theatrical poster gallery.

We sold theatrical posters.

But we also were
into the art scene.

We sold other artists as well.

The thing that helped, that
Peter brought to Triton Gallery,

was the headiness of that time.

Andy Warhol,
Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns,

all of those artists

were out there and he
was familiar with them,

and he was able to take the
influence of what was going on.

Pop Art, and bring
it into the gallery.

We had Vittorio Fiorucci,
who was an artist,

and he had created a
series - ten prints,

and we wanted to make a big
splash and get some publicity.

And Wakefield said,
I can do that.

I did a cut-out.

I cut out his little character
who was in all the posters,

and I did an animated film

where the little character is
walking

all over the posters
and everything.

We decided we would
do a show for him

called Images in Motion.

He brought in dancers
to illustrate

some of the prints that
Vittorio had done,

that were actually strippers.
It was wonderful.

I remember him having
the flashing lights

and the girls on the stage.

Plus he had Fiorucci's designs
flashing in the back,

going at all times
and everything.

We sold a lot of prints
actually because of that.

We got a lot of publicity.

The show was wonderful

and so the next year,

Roger asked me to do
one for David Byrd.

Well I met Wakefield
through Roger Puckett

at Triton Gallery.

Somehow

I met Roger because
of poster art.

I was doing posters for
the Fillmore East

for Bill Graham.

I was the only poster artist
at the Fillmore at the time.

Roger Puckett started
getting me jobs,

doing posters for shows.

They told me that Hal Prince

was producing a musical
called Follies.

I was teaching tap
dancing to the

principles who were going
to star in Follies,

before they started rehearsing.
Michael Bennett said,

I know you're a good tap
dancer... will you please?

And I needed some
work at that time.

Would you please teach
them a tap class?

And they had already
paid fifteen artists

to do sketches.

So Roger said,

"Well, if he does it for
free, can he present?"

And they said, "Oh, of course."

Through a really
quirk I found out

that his three
posters for Follies

had been rejected.

One day Hal Prince walked in.

I said, "Hal, what is wrong with
those posters of David Byrd's?

They were three of
the best posters

I've ever seen in my life."

He said, "I never saw them.
I'd like to see them.

Can you get them to me?"

And I went right to the phone
and I called Roger and said,

"Call David and tell him to get
those things over to Hal."

A couple weeks later, I was
teaching the class again.

And Hal came back and this
time he motioned to me.

And there was the face

with the crack across it.
And David got the job

and it's one of the most famous
Broadway posters ever done.

He started doing theater
posters, became very successful.

Thanks to Roger Puckett
and Wakefield Poole,

you know, it made my career.

I did this gallery
show for David Byrd

and it was probably the best
thing I've ever done in my life.

It was about 40 minutes long.
I used 16 projectors.

I ran them all by
hand, Peter and I.

We did all the slide projectors

like a piano, and we
had numbers on them.

The basic structure was
the same and we had music

that we had to match.

But if certain things
wouldn't happen

and the projector wouldn't
go right at the same time...

So it was very
exciting to watch.

But I had a framework, which
was all David's posters.

Every time you saw it,

it would change. It would
give you something different.

Something might draw your
attention over to this screen,

cause there were
multiple screens.

Sixteen things going
on at one time.

It was phenomenal,

if I do say so myself.

But I do say so because

I had Leonard Bernstein
come and sit on the floor,

I had Stephen Sondheim
come and sit on the floor,

I had Alexis Smith come...

All these famous people
from every Broadway show.

We had this little tiny space,

maybe 6 feet wide and 3
feet in the front of us

and all the projectors
were all around us.

We were all enclosed
by a curtain.

So Roger opened the curtain

and said, "Someone
wants to see you."

And there was Stephen
Sondheim, Michael Bennett.

I seem to remember it was Jerry
Robbins or Leonard Bernstein,

or both, I don't remember,

because Stephen was the
primary one in my vision.

He was the first one.

And he looked at me and he said,

"Wow. I didn't know
you had it in you."

And I looked at him
and I said, "I know."

It was the biggest accolade,
I could ever expect.

Stephen saying,
"Hey. It's okay."

I sort of realized that,
hey your Broadway career

is not what you thought
it was going to be.

And I began to accept that,

and therefore I saw the
passageway to somewhere else,

and that was through film.

I went to see a film

and the guy who made it if
he sees this, he'll kill me

called Highway Hustler
and I went with five friends

and it was one guy's birthday.

And during one of the sex scenes

they were playing "June
is Busting Out All Over."

And I was laughing.

One was sleeping. One
was bored to death.

And I just said, "You know,

someone ought to be able
to make a porno film

that is attractive and that
no one's degraded in."

I just decided to do it.
Bought a Bolex camera

and shot the first segment
of Boys in the Sand.

FELICE PICANO: Gay
men who made money,

when they succeeded they
either took

a house in the Hamptons
or a house in the Pines.

It was the wonderfully
exotic aspect of it being

off of Long Island.

You had to get on a
boat and go away.

Once Long Island was
no longer visible,

hidden by a thin mist or a fog,

you were floating on
an island of your own.

WAKEFIELD: I had been to Fire
Island before that summer

with Michael and Tom.

Being from Florida,

I was used to sun
and sea and sand.

But this was different. This
was sun and sea and sand

and not a lot of straight
people walking around.

And I felt very comfortable.
I felt a relief of pressure.

I felt no insistence that
I act a certain way.

I was able to just
become a kid again.

And in becoming a kid again

I began to have dreams and I
began to have aspirations

and it built up my
confidence again.

And I started to
get creative ideas

and started to let that develop.

Suddenly that took
over my psyche

and made me think of myself
as a different person

and in a different way...

And take my creativity

and channel it into a new
way of bringing it out.

So Wake was getting into debt
and he was uncomfortable with it

and he was shooting little
films on Fire Island

and I said, God
what's Wake doing

playing around on Fire Island

and I'm paying the bills.

WAKEFIELD: And during
that whole summer

I would have to go back into New
York, sometimes during the week

and take care of some
business and be with Peter,

because Peter was working, and
I'd be with him a few days.

And then we'd go back
out for the weekend,

and then depending on what I
had for the following week,

I might stay out
with Ed Parente,

because Ed Parente stayed at
the house the whole summer.

He never went back and forth.

Michael went back
and Tom went back,

because they both had jobs.

So my friendship with Ed
Parente grew enormously

because I would spend sometimes
three days with him alone,

out on Fire Island

and we would get
our butterfly nets

and go out into the Meat
Rack during the daytime

and catch butterflies, which
Ed used in his artwork.

He wanted to...

He had done one sort of twenty-
or thirty-minute segment,

and he wanted to do
two more and have

a film... enough for a film.

And he needed,

I think four thousand
dollars more to finish it.

WAKEFIELD: Then when
people saw it they said.

Gee, it's really good, you
should go on and expand it.

I talked to the guy who
had done it and I said,

Would you sign a release and

if it works we will all
take a percentage?

And he said no. He wanted
some outrageous sum of money

and I said, I can
shoot it again for that.

CASEY DONOVAN: A
friend of Wakefield's

called me and this mutual friend

knew that I had done
this X-rated movie

and he said, I have this
friend named Wakefield Poole,

He used to be a dancer and
a director, choreographer,

and he's doing some
experimental movies

on his own, out on Fire Island,

and I know you just did
this hardcore fuck film

and would you be interested
in being in it?

I said, "Well you know, maybe.

I'd like to meet him, and
maybe see what he's done."

And the rest is history.

WAKEFIELD: I showed him

the first segment, filmed
with somebody else.

CASEY: I was very impressed.

WAKEFIELD: And
said I ll do it.

And in re-doing it, we
changed a few little things.

I put a few more little trips
in and we changed the ending.

So instead of Peter
putting on his clothes

and walking down
the beach again,

he runs into the ocean
and disappears,

and Calvin puts on
Peter's clothes

and he walks down the beach,

and it goes into
the next segment.

I didn't go out to Fire Island.

I was not involved physically
with the production

and I agreed I would do
it and he would do it

and my name wouldn't come up

because I was this

very important business
manager and we couldn't...

Who knew about porno movies?

It was just these terrible
loops with funny music.

And we moved right along here.

What Wake was doing,
was bringing in

was very impressive.

Everybody liked it that
saw pieces or all of it.

We actually shot it over a
two and a half month period.

But each section we did...

in sequence... we did
them in sequence...

We did one in June, one in July

and one at the
beginning of August.

It was really like a series
of successive Mondays.

And when you see the
film, you can see that

because it was my first film

and I didn t know anything
about making films,

It gets a little better.

By the time I got to the
third one, I almost knew

what I was doing by the time
I got to the third one.

I remember we were
working on the title

and I did come up with the
title Boys in the Sand

because at the time Boys
in the Band was this...

I think it was an
off-Broadway hit.

We decided to call
it Boys in the Sand

because of the Fire
Island location.

My partner Marvin Schulman
lived at 145 West 55th Street,

which was right
across the street

from the 55th Street Playhouse.

So naturally when we were
looking for a theater to use

we went to the 55th
Street Playhouse.

At the time we took
over the theater

they were playing Chinese films.

Four wall deal. We
get the four walls

and a film operator

and a box office attendant

and everything else is
ours... our expense.

Wakefield and Peter's
friend designs the logo

and I called the Times,
The New York Times,

and I found out that
you could do an ad

for anything as long as
you don't say anything.

In other words it
said All-Male.

We had some screenings.

It's amazing how when you
have something really good,

the word gets out.

We opened on, I think,
a Friday at noon.

By about 11, 11:30, there
was a line at the theater.

By the time we opened, there
was a line up to 7th Avenue.

It was unbelievable.

ROBERT W. RICHARDS: Everybody
wanted to see it.

And there were lines constantly.

I, of course, was in one.

And I remember seeing
it in its first week

and the theater was
just jam-packed.

And it was a lot of money. It
was five dollars a ticket.

And I think the going rate
at the movies was $2...

$1.75, $2, $2.25,
something like that.

Variety reviewed it,
I remember that,

and loved it. He gave it
a really nice review.

The word of mouth
was phenomenal.

All the gay papers reviewed it

and we were on our way.

It was a New York phenomenon.

It was to gays what Deep
Throat was to straights.

But there were as many women,
really, as there were men.

Couples and everything...

because it had
become mainstream...

a very odd phenomenon.

Oh it was all over New York. I
mean everybody in New York...

it was in the papers
and stuff like that.

I don't remember any of that.

It wasn't all over my part
of New York. I don't know...

But it didn't it was...
Oh really?

well, I hope he
made a lot of money

out of the porn film,
was my reaction.

It was in the trade
papers and such.

One of our dates, I have to
go back a little bit, was

I took Roger to see Boys
in the Band ... the play.

And down the line, we hear,

Did you know Wake
has done a movie

called Boys in the Sand?

and we thought, Oh god,
that sounds great,

that's so cool.
Boys in the Sand.

Doesn't that sound good?
You want to go see it?

So we went to see it.

JOE GAGE: And I think
it gave the audiences...

made them comfortable about
going to see something...

There was a certain amount
of respectability around it

that made it okay to just be
adventurous and go and see

what he was up to and what
this picture was all about.

And it was a little bit
different than we had expected,

but I thought it was great,

and Roger was a little more, I
don't know, laid back about it.

I was! Yeah, I was we sat
in the third row!

over to the side... and it
was Boys in the Sand...

boys in the aisles,
boys everywhere!

DREY SHEPPARD: A lot of seat
switching and you know

people meeting in
the back it was...

but it all seemed unsleazy.

- And this was the first time
ever. - It was!

There had never been
a Boys in the Sand.

There had never been
anything comparable to it.

It was taking all of the shame

out of the sexual act
that was being filmed.

It was fun. It was sex positive.

It was opening a big
door into gay life.

And I think that people
weren't used to seeing

beautiful men in
porn at that time.

Now suddenly you had
Fire Island and

the ocean and glamorous houses.

There were many reasons
for its success.

Primarily, I guess,
being Casey Donovan.

CASEY: Well, I'm always
pleased when people come up

to me in a bar or on the
street or something

and they ask me if
that's who I am.

And they say, You know,
yours was the first

porno film I've ever seen.

And I'm always very kind of
glad for that fact,

because I thought if it's going
to be the first gay porno film,

it's a film I m very proud of

and I'm glad they saw that
one to start off with.

WAKEFIELD: I can't
even begin to tell you

how many people said that the
movie changed their life.

It made their life better.
It made their life easier.

It made their sex better.

They were more content
with who they are

and who they were
going to become.

If I say to you that
my original intention

was to make a pretty
pornographic film

how can I possibly deny
that I am a pornographer?

I was an experimental filmmaker.

I never called myself an
experimental filmmaker.

I never called myself
a pornographer,

but once I had made
Boys in the Sand,

I was a pornographer.

It was out there.

People suddenly knew
me as a pornographer

not as an up-and-coming
Broadway director,

or as an up-and-coming
choreographer,

and once you're labeled
something, you're labeled it.

I always say, "Once
a pornographer,

always a pornographer."

That's not the way I feel, but
that's the way the world feels.

So I said to Wakefield,

"I think you're
crazy to do this.

I mean you're absolutely nuts.
You do a porn film

and you will never be
hired in theater again.

Casey, or Cal, he could
have been

a Robert Redford-type movie star

and simply because he was
gay he was ostracized

and never became that.

I think Boys
in the Sand is

certainly a better
film than Deep Throat.

but it's a better film than most

pornography that was made
in those early years

the years that came to
be called porno chic.

I think that gay pornography

certainly compared to
straight pornography

had a much greater impact on
the community that it served.

I think that not only
was gay pornography

kind of better made
from the beginning

and more aesthetically inspired,

it actually mattered more to
the people who watched it.

Because it was a
kind of validation

especially if you were from,
let's say a small town

and you came to where it was...

where you really did have
to be in the closet.

And we're talking, you know,

let's say Boys in
the Sand... 1971...

just a few years
after Stonewall

and so to go to the big city

and to see a screening
of Boys in the Sand

was possibly a
momentous experience

for many people who saw it.

In the days before video,

the two ways that filmmakers
could make their money was

theatrical distribution

and then chopping
the films up into,

I believe there were like
11, 10 minutes pieces.

and releasing them out
on 8 millimeter loops,

when people still had their
home movie projectors.

MARVIN: It was three
reels for 99 dollars.

And we were inundated.

We basically made
most of our money

selling the 8mm films.

I mean we were just shipping
them out, shipping them out.

They were such a big demand.

Because we only played
three or four large cities

but we were getting stuff from
Oklahoma and North Carolina

I mean, all over...
Alaska, Canada!

So that was a big, big income,

big number for us.

I bought a Mercedes,

and actually that was the
car we used in Bijou.

[Proplusive classical music]

[Various bits of music as the
radio dial moves across
stations]

[Rock music]

[Car screeching to a stop]

MARVIN: I was in Los Angeles,

and we were talking
about Bijou.

I don't know how far
along it had gotten,

but nothing was shot.

So I had this date
with Bill Harrison

and I called Wake and I said,

We ve got our lead
man for Bijou.

I mean he was Robert
Redford at 25,

and tall and charismatic...
wonderful.

Hello?

So that was a wonderful period.

I came back and we started
working on Bijou.

I hired Bill Harrison
not knowing he had

an enormous appendage.

A third leg.

I had no idea.

But I saw a picture of him, and
I talked to him on the telephone

and it worked. I have a
funny thing. I really know.

I'm good at casting. I know
when something's going to work.

and I hired him sight unseen.

It was a lot easier. I
mean, we had more money.

We had recognition. People
were taking us seriously.

DAVID BYRD: Bijou was a
different kind of film.

It was much darker

and of course no
one at that time

had ever seen such an endowment,

though we were all hoping
that they existed.

I was given press
passes to seen Bijou

and I had never
seen a porno film.

I invited a gay friend
thinking he might enjoy it.

The male star had
this enormous penis.

I thought it was special
effects or something.

Fred said," No, no,
no it s real."

I said, "He must get
a lot of dates."

And Fred said, "No, not
everybody has Blue Cross".

I think Bijou is just
an amazing film.

When I first saw it

the first time I saw it... I
was just knocked out by it.

I think it s very
powerful visually.

I think the story element...

from the moment it opens up

on that street, when he's
walking down that street

it draws you in immediately
and it holds you.

The sex scenes were really

it was the pepper to the
salt of Boys in the Sand.

It was the dark element

which really did exist
all around town.

Wake called me and I
went up to see him

and he screened
Bijou for me.

This is the first time...
I have been making...

may I use the term "fuck films?"

You can always cut
it out, right?

for the last
six, seven months,

and I'd necessarily had to watch

some footage though I'd
not watched a lot of it.

But this is the only time in
my life that sex on a screen

ever actually triggered
my dirty little tickle.

Made an erotic
reaction within me.

And that film was just
so freaking powerful.

On so many levels.

LINDA WILLIAMS: To me
Bijou is a revelation.

To me it's a revelation

that Wakefield Poole
was a great filmmaker

and not just a one-shot wonder.

That there are these two films.

And I'm particularly impressed
that Bijou is from 1972

because that is the same
year as Deep Throat,

it is same year, in my way
of thinking about things,

it's the same year as
Last Tango In Paris,

and I think that this is
the moment historically

when American audiences
at least are faced with

a kind of both artistic

and crudely pornographic
forms of sex.

Simulated in the
case of Last Tango

but frequent and
important in that film.

Hardcore in Deep
Throat and Bijou

looking just at 1972

but important and frequent and
it's what the films are about.

These are films that are about
sex. And American audiences,

still segregated, I think,
in this hetero/gay way,

were sitting in movie theaters

and getting aroused
to hardcore sex

in ways that they had

never done before - in
public kinds of places.

Where was that shot? I d
really be interested to know

In my old apartment, and
Calvin's old apartment,

because he took it over when
I moved to San Francisco

FRANK: The illusion of film.

I mean that looks like it could
have just been filmed anywhere.

That is just remarkable.

WAKEFIELD: Well, the living
room was 24 by 18

with 24-foot ceilings

and we just blacked it all out
and brought in all the effects.

And I did no lab
work on that film,

all the effects were in camera.

The sculpture which he
touches is this big.

Boys in the Sand
and then Bijou,

and that was the first real
money I'd ever earned,

and I now had, probably,

maybe $150,000
dollars in the bank,

and that was a lot of money.

Michael Bennett lived next door.

I got him the apartment
next door to me

on 55th Street,

and he had done a number
of great musicals

Follies, Promises,
Promises

and they never ran,
they never took off.

Michael now has this
idea to do a musical

based on the lives
of chorus dancers.

He presents this to Joe Papp,

down at the New York
Shakespeare Festival,

and Joe Papp, the producer,
is very interested,

and he sets up a workshop
to develop the material.

Everyone's getting a
hundred dollars a week.

That was the deal.

We'd gone through all
the Promises money

and whatever money
Michael had earned,

so I was paying his bills,

and the only money I had
was from the two films,

the porno money.

The porno film money.

So when it opened on
September on Broadway,

of course all the
debts were paid back,

but the money that
I lent Michael

was all from Boys in
the Sand and Bijou.

I started collecting art,
and thank god for that

because that was my
social security.

All the art I collected, the
entire time I was with Peter,

saved my life many times.

If I needed something,
I sold

at one time I had all
ten Marilyn Monroes by

Warhol, and I bought
them for $5,000 dollars.

MARVIN: He was buying pop art by
artists who were just emerging.

It turned out the value of the
art was million dollar values.

He was buying Andy
Warhols and...

you name the pop artist
and he was buying them.

By now,

Deep Throat had opened.

There was a lot of talk of
litigation, of censorship,

of shutting down the theater.

The success of
Deep Throat was

scaring a lot of people.

And Wake came up with the
idea to do a softcore film

no hardcore. It
wouldn t be X-rated.

I got an idea of making
a film about the Bible,

three stories from the Bible.

In the Bible the women
are always the culprits,

they're always the evil ones.

They're the ones who
make bad things happen.

Eve tempted Adam with an apple

and they got thrown out
of the Garden of Eden.

EVE: I'm so hungry.

WAKEFIELD: Bathsheba took a bath
and flashed herself to David

and we know that story.

For example, Delilah has
two blue little people.

They're her servants.

One of the little people
steals Samson s knife.

and runs down this bazaar

And Samson chases him to
get the knife back,

catches him, gets the knife,
takes him by the throat,

lifts him up in the air,

and chokes him to death,

and then drops him, kicks
him, and walks away.

Delilah comes and
picks up the midget.

So she decides the revenge

is going to be for
killing her servant.

So she goes out and
she tempts him,

and she sees him in a market and
she lures him back to her place.

She drugs him, right
in front of his eyes.

She pours a potion
into his glass,

so he drinks it and
they cut his hair.

And I have the other
little person come down

and she's the one
who cuts the hair,

and Delilah is giving him head.

I think doing the third film

would be an entrée into real
movie making, real production,

just the next step up.

We had one of the most
talented guys around

and he certainly could do it.

WAKEFIELD: I was basically
trying to do a film,

and to learn more,

and to make a really
highly polished 16mm film.

I had the best people in
New York working on it,

because they got
interested in the project,

the costumers and set designers,

and I had Richard
Avedon's makeup man,

and all working for peanuts,

because they were
interested in the project.

I got a call from
Wakefield Poole

whom I knew through
Marvin Shulman

who had been our tax accountant
back when I had been married,

before I fell into the
sewer of pornography

in New York City.

But he called and asked if
I would like to do a film,

and I had no idea you
know what kind of film,

and of course the kinds of films
that I was doing at that time

were strictly hardcore,
no question about it.

Starting with The
Devil In Miss Jones

and then for the
year following that

I made, oh god, I
think 72 films.

72, 74, who's counting?

I was just flummoxed and floored

and so flattered that this
filmmaker, this auteur,

this incredible man whom I
had admired as a dancer

dancer but from a
distance, you know?

That he wanted me to be in his
movie, and not only that

he gave me the script to read.

He hadn't said
anything about it,

and I read it, and I realized

that not only was it
not a porn movie,

but it was just a gem.

I just couldn't believe that
this was happening to me.

It was so, so
freaking wonderful.

I was invited down
to one filming,

down in Little Italy,
which was for the Bible.

I was there for the David
and Bathsheba scene,

which is really just a
comic scherzo in this film

and I remember going
out on a Sunday afternoon.

Now don't talk out on the street

about what we're doing
inside this building.

It was like a little garage.

GEORGINA: Having been rather
involved in doing movies

that you know you were lucky
if there were two lights,

along with the camera,

to get to this elaborate set,

and have makeup and hair people
there to just make you gorgeous

and wonderful... and costumes
and the whole thing,

And everything was just...
you know, I felt like I was

back doing Sweet Charity
or Hello, Dolly!

or one of those again.

It was just so professional
down the line.

Wakefield was stepping into
another world by increments.

And it was lavish.
It was very lavish.

And I thought, since it
was kind of a spoof,

that I would do Kate Smith
as the Virgin Mary,

shuffling off to Buffalo

with the Baby Jesus in her
arms who was smoking a cigar.

And wearing sunglasses.

That was my take on the movie,

and I thought it was
irreverent enough

to get the right reaction.

And he did this because
we wanted people to know

it wasn't really the Bible.

It was Wakefield Poole's Bible.

Nobody got that. It
was too esoteric, I guess.

The movie didn't work. We
were discriminated against.

We got an X-rating from the
MPAA. It was not hardcore.

There was frontal
nudity from Adam

and one quick shot like that
of Samson, and that's it.

When I did Adam and Eve, people
just saw two young people

and they didn't think that
this is the first time

two human beings ever
touched one another,

two human beings
ever felt a mouth,

ever felt anything.

It was too intellectual. So
people looked at it on a surface
level.

People came to see it, they
expected to see Georgina Spelvin

even get double-dicked... I
don't know what.

She was so great in the movie
and people were disappointed

because I made it,
she was in it,

they thought and it was
X-rated. they thought

it was gonna be... you
know, and it wasn t.

It didn't run anywhere.
Nobody was interested.

It just didn't work.

It was what I call my
masturbation film.

It was my jerk-off movie.

I spent about $125 - $150
thousand dollars on the film,

just to see if I could
make a beautiful movie.

Basically.

It's a slow movie.

- You have to work in the movie.
FRANK: And sit back.

You have to just sit back
and relax and look at it.

And I wanted to just
experiment with that

and let my mind go and
create something different,

and a different
outlook on the Bible.

And I was hyper-religious,
you know.

FRANK: I think you
succeeded though.

I think so and I think the
film will find its place

because it's a good film.

It was a difficult time
because we were spoiled.

We had such great success
with the first two films

and we didn't have that
buzz going with the Bible.

People had trouble understanding
why we were doing it,

what we were doing... and...

A definite art film.

You could say it comes out of
Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks"

and "Inauguration of
the Pleasure Dome."

It comes out of Jack Smith's
"Flaming Creatures."

But also the casting was so
marvelously ahead of its time.

It was so diverse without being
self-consciously diverse.

It was a Benetton ad

before anybody ever
thought of Benetton.

LINDA WILLIAMS: I can
see why it was a flop,

but it's a whole lot of fun.
It's a fun flop.

WAKEFIELD: I was disappointed. I
was disenchanted with New York.

And coming off a flop.

Peter wanted to move to San
Francisco, all of a sudden.

He had been there to do some
business for one of the films,

to take one of the films out
to be shown in San Francisco.

And I didn t know
this at the time

but evidently he met somebody.

Peter and I went out
to start things going

to set things up

just took our art and our
records and our books.

When I got there the first
thing I did was make a film.

It was the Gay Parade day,

and Peter and I
said, OK let's go.

And Harvey Milk said, "I'm
going to be there at my kiosk,

so meet us at so and
so and you can shoot

from our vantage point."

Because he had a little
Castro camera store

and they did a place where...
a little kiosk

where they were selling film and
stuff to guys taking pictures.

Well, actually on that day Peter
came and introduced me to Rusty.

Then it turned out that
they were having an affair

and I didn't know about it and
then finally I did realize it.

When it came time

and I knew the breakup was
there between Peter and I

I hadn't seen him in
a couple of days,

and he came back to my...

our apartment in San
Francisco, and I said,

"You know Peter, I don't
think we're happy,

and I think this is the time.

I think we should sit down
and split everything up.

You want to be with Rusty and
you should go be with him."

And of course he started to
cry and I started to cry,

and we went right down the list
of what we had, and he said,

"Well, you take the Marilyns,
I ll take the so-and-so."

and we split the art
right down the middle.

And he got back in the van and
took off and that was it.

After the Bible I had
to make another movie,

and I made a movie
called Moving,

which I made in San Francisco.

And I made that
just to make money.

MARVIN: That was done to supply
film for the mail order
business,

which it really did.

We sold a lot of that.

WAKEFIELD: That was like
my swan song with Peter.

Peter and I had just broken up.

And Peter said I ll do
one more movie for you,

and then I'm not doing
any more movies.

And so I made Moving for
again $4800 dollars,

which is what I made
Boys in the Sand for,

and I went from $130,000 back
down to $4800 for Moving.

Well as it turned out
while we were there,

Michael Bennett started
working on A Chorus Line,

and A Chorus Line
became a big smash,

and Marvin said,

"I really don't want to do
the porno business anymore."

I could understand why
he did not want to

cast any aspersions on Michael

or the production
company or anything,

saying, "Oh that
manager does porno."

For whatever reason, we parted.

So there I was now in San
Francisco alone...

no business partner, no business

no backing for a new
movie I wanted to do.

So I got really desperate and
one of my neighbors did cocaine,

and we started spending all day

just doing coke and
talking about film.

Then suddenly I got a
call from Ed Parente,

who had done the poster
for Boys in the Sand

a very dear friend

and he said, "I heard
you and Peter broke up."

He said, "I'm coming
out to stay with you."

So he came out and we
were getting it together.

And his friend
Michael Monroe said,

I have someone that
you should meet.

He's really... you know, I
think you would like him.

This guy came in, his
name was Paul Hatlestad.

And I fixed dinner. We
had a lovely dinner.

After dinner we sort of
just fell in together

and it was two lost
souls coming together.

We formed a relationship
almost immediately.

And he was very
gregarious, Paul.

Totally unpredictable,

which fit very well
with me at that time.

And then suddenly
Michael Maletta,

who was a hairdresser here
in New York, a good friend,

he moved out.

And suddenly everyone was
following me out there

and my whole group of friends
was all there again.

People came out here

and saw that it was an easier
life and it was more fun.

A lot of people came out here

because they didn't want
to work, basically.

And New York City was
such a hustle town

and it was beginning
to get expensive.

Rentals were going up.

New buildings were no
longer rent controlled.

And people who didn't want to
have full-time careers yet,

or who wanted to party more, I
think decided to come out here.

And people who were tired of it

of New York for one
reason or another.

To be in San Francisco in the
70s was very exhilarating.

We were expected to pursue
as much sex as we could.

This was the flowering
of the Stonewall moment

which gave gay men

the first chance
in their history

to develop their own views

of their sexuality

which previously had been
handed down by straight people,

and also to enjoy the freedom

of being out in America.

We became very friendly
with Peter and Rusty...

my ex-lover and his new lover.

And they had opened a little
storefront on Market Street.

They were selling
some of the stuff

that Peter and I had
collected in our careers.

The things that we split up.

They opened their
little antique store

and they called it Hot Flash.

And they had a Lichtenstein
explosion in the window

and a silver ball and they lived
in the back of the store.

Paul was a real entrepreneur
and he had made a lot of money

opening a store
called Now and Then

in Minneapolis,

which was the first
head shop in America.

So he was progressive. You knew
he was thinking. He was bright.

Like Peter he was brilliant.

We got together with
Rusty and Peter and said

"We'd like to take Hot Flash
and move it to a new place

and really do a number on it."

We had a friend who bought
the building for us

and it was a pre-quake building.
It was a hardware store.

And of course Paul
had friends of his

who were used to doing
things like that for him

come in and design the
interior of the store.

So we did all the
work ourselves.

We had an art gallery.
We had a beauty salon.

We had Lalique mirrors.

We had marble French candy
counters.

We had Poo Poo cushions.

We had everything. It was
like walking into a circus.

What an incredible place, you
know? It was very playful.

It was kind of like a tchotchke
store/art gallery/hair salon.

I'm not sure what
they specialized in.

They had everything.

It was sort of space age
toys and housewares and art.

We had people come into
the store and they said,

"Can't we just give you
something? We can t afford to
buy anything

We can't afford to buy anything,

but God, this is so fabulous,

can't we just
donate some money?"

And we said no.

So we started putting little
things

that they could buy for a dollar

and we had little plastic cases

that they could put their
joints in, you know?

And things that would
appeal to the people

in that area right there
in the gay ghetto.

We had quite a few people
come in and bring things.

We go on buying trips.

For example, the circus show.
We started about six months ago

and the word got around

and collectors started
bringing things.

I'll trade you a fat
lady for a turkey boy

or I'll do this, you know?

And it gets around and
suddenly it snowballs.

WAKEFIELD: I remember the night

that the Anita
Bryant thing broke

and everybody sort of
accumulated in the Castro.

ANITA BYRANT: If we
were going to go on a

crusade across the nation

and try to do away
with the homosexuals,

then we certainly would have
done it on June the 8th

after one of the most
overwhelming

victories in the country.

WAKEFIELD: And there
must have been about 50 of us

all crammed in this
little courtyard

and we were all sitting around
trying to decide

what we were going to do
to combat this evil bitch.

During our discussion, Harvey

leaned over to me and
he whispered in my ear.

He said, "We have to be
very careful, you and I.

Well, we're very out there

and this is going to
be a very hard time."

I didn't remember that until
after Harvey was assassinated.

Then I realized what
he was talking about.

Because I was an
out there gay.

And there weren't that many
out there gays at that time.

Harvey lost the lease
to his camera store.

Paul went out

and he leased a building across
the street from Hot Flash

and he told Harvey, "You've
got Castro Camera.

You don't owe me any rent."

Harvey was running for his
position as supervisor

and he said, "This is my
contribution to your campaign."

The more the store
worked and everything

we got heavily into drugs again.

Of course everyone was
doing drugs then.

Paul had never done cocaine
and I got him doing cocaine.

Suddenly all your
friends,

you're all doing cocaine.

It was the 70s. It was a party
and everybody was invited.

And you know... a lot of drugs

I wouldn't take out garbage
without poppers in my pocket.

I kept this up for
a couple of years,

and then I finally
blew out my nose.

I mean my nose was just scabby
and I couldn't breathe,

and I said, "I'm giving it up.
I'm giving up cocaine."

And then I ran into someone and
he said,

"Oh, I've got this new thing.

You take the cocaine, and
you process it with ether,

and you smoke it in a pipe

and it is the best high
you've ever had in your life.

And it's called 'freebasing'."

And of course it was a godsend.

I didn't have to
snort it anymore.

Hey! I don't have to
give up coke. Hey!

But the problem is, you buy it

and you get half of what you
got when you got before,

so it's more expensive.

And it is the greatest drug
I've ever had in my life.

And if it didn't
put you to ruin,

everyone in the world
should be on it.

It hits something
within the brain.

You get it once,

and I watched people search
for that moment again,

for days on end.

And it didn't happen. You
got it that one time.

There's a thing called
the chrome tunnel,

that when you got a
really first class hit,

you were rushing a
thousand miles an hour

through this chrome tunnel.

It was a magnificent ride.

And it was all here.
It was all you.

That was the most
insidious thing about it

it hitting that particular
thing within the brain

where it was... I want more.

And everybody owed
everybody else money,

and we were running the store

but we were making $28.32
a piece out of the store.

After about a year and
a half, two years,

I left the store
and did Take One.

DUTCH: I couldn't believe how
well you looked on television.

WAKEFIELD: OK Joey,
would you take it back

to that point we talked about

and let me know when it's done.

DUTCH: You do look
good on television.

RUDY: It's a big wow.

DUTCH: There's a
certain excitement

WAKEFIELD: I got very
into Altman and very into

some other filmmakers

and tried to experiment.

So that you just sit and watch
and don't try to understand

because if you get paranoid,
you're going to lose.

Just look at the picture
and what you get, you get.

If you read a book,

you might skip a few
words here or there.

You might skip a
sentence here or there.

You might drop it and come back
and skip a whole paragraph.

But you still get the book.

So if you just learn to
look at film that way,

Just look at the film. Don't
try to figure it out.

Just look at it. And
you'll get what you get.

And that's all you're
ever going to get.

All the people in the
film give of themselves,

and tell who they are, and
who they are sexually,

and are proud of who
they are sexually.

And I'm in the film as
well, and I'm proud

that I make fuck movies.

WAKEFIELD: I had to go to
Los Angeles at one point,

and I drove to the
store, Hot Flash,

and they said Paul s across
the street at Harvey's.

So I went across the street and
they came out and talked to me,

out on the street, and we were

talking and laughing,
and I said,

"Well, I gotta get out of here

if I'm gonna get
to Los Angeles."

And Harvey said, "Oh, I
got a joke to tell you.

What has 200 legs
and is purple?"

And I said, "I don't
know." And he said,

"The victims of Guyana."

And I looked at him and I said,

"Harvey, that's the worst joke
I've ever heard in my life.

You should be shot."

And I drove away.

And two days later,
Harvey was assassinated.

In 1978,

there was a horrible collision
of the Jonestown Massacre,

which greatly affected
San Francisco,

and then, a week later,

the assassination of
Moscone and Milk.

And San Francisco went into
a massive nervous breakdown

in 1978

that went through the
winter and spring of 1979

and the White Night riot.

We tore up the town

in response to the
Dan White verdict

of 7 years for manslaughter
for killing Harvey Milk.

When Harvey Milk got killed,

they made Hot Flash
the command center

for all the energy that
was out in the streets.

DAN: The night of the
Harvey Milk street party,

which was the night right
after the White Nights Riot,

what people didn t know was,

because there was rioting
the night before,

in the entire periphery
of the Castro was cops,

from every corner.
You know, just...

in reserve, in hiding.

It all had been very carefully
calculated to be there,

be unseen, in case
something went wrong.

They wanted something very
neutral presented in the window.

So we set up a Scrabble board

and played Scrabble in
the window all night.

With people going by.
And it worked.

DAN: And that was
their way of saying,

You know people, chill out.

This is the time to really
pull it in. You know?

And we did go through
with the street party and

it was thousands of people.

And it didn' t go wrong.

It was a very beautiful night...

a great tribute to
Harvey s birthday, 1979.

The year after he was killed.

Paul stayed with the store
a little while longer,

and then he left because
the excitement was gone.

And he just started
dealing full time.

When Marvin broke
up our partnership,

we took over the 8mm,
so we formed our

Irving Corporation there

and he started
running my company.

Eventually we owed the
supplier of our 8mm films.

We owed them a lot of money. We
couldn't get more prints and

it's amazing

once you start to tumble and
you start to bottom out,

it just goes and goes
and goes and goes.

And suddenly you're
doing nothing but

looking for drugs, doing drugs,

and trying to find money
to buy the drugs.

When people are doing drugs
they're not really relating.

There was just no relationship.

Better not to take the
calls, or not to call.

Yeah, there was a very
long period of no contact.

It was unbelievable. It was
really, really unbelievable.

Very, very distressing.

This was a man who
was brilliant.

Great film director,

and here he was...
running a shop,

or not running a shop

and just drugged out in god
knows where in San Francisco.

And everything came to a stop.

You know he did
Bring Back Birdie.

Joe Layton hired him

to help with the
multimedia on that,

because he was so savvy.

I got a call from Joe, saying

"Michael and I are going
to do another show.

We'd love you to be with us."

The show was a sequel
to Bye Bye Birdie.

He sent me a script

and I gave him some ideas
about going very multimedia,

and using video.

So they hired me to do
the video sequences,

and to assist Joe and to
co-choreograph with him.

So, I mean, I had my plate full

and here I was a druggie.

And thinking, This is my chance.

He'll pull me through it.

Joe will bring me back

and help me get
through this impasse

and help me clean myself up.

But what I didn't know was
that Joe was an alcoholic,

and he was saying to
himself, I need Wake.

Wake will come in, he'll
make it all right.

He'll make everything
right for me.

Make everything
right for the show.

And neither one of us knew

that the other one was in
the position we were in

and so it was disaster
from the very beginning.

And we got through it.

I mean, I would go home and
I would do my freebase,

and Joe would go home and

well actually he would have
his vodka at the theater.

The real loser was Chita,
because she is so wonderful

and we gave her shit to do.

I mean, it was just awful.

So she bit the bullet and
we went on with the show,

and it opened and
it was a big flop.

Right in the middle
of the previews,

Page Six came out in
the New York Post,

and it outed me.

I didn't know about it and
I came into the theater

and I could feel the difference.

And posted on the board

somebody had taken
it and cut it up and

put it on the bulletin board

that everyone looked
at when they came in.

And the whole thing
it was underlined.

And here I was
working with 8, 9,

you know, 14, 15,
16-year old kids

and it all changed and

and I went back to the pipe
and smoked myself silly

and that was the end
of my participation.

Eventually I said to Paul,

"Hey, the train's in the station
and we ain't going nowhere.

So we better get out of here.

And we better go somewhere where
we can just be the two of us.

Not know a drug dealer. Not
know how to get any drugs.

I packed everything we had left

in a Vuitton trunk that I had.

Took Paul by the hand and
I had no place to go.

I didn't tell any of my friends
I was coming back to New York.

I was too embarrassed.

And I went to a man who was
distributing my movies.

He had been ripping
me off for years

and I came back and I said,
"I need some money from you.

I know you're selling my movies,

and I'm tired of
this $200 a month

you're sending me.

I know you're making
money on them."

And I would sit in his office
until he wrote me a check

every month.

It was just enough to pay
for a cold-water flat

I had rented on 28th
Street and 9th Avenue.

I was the only English-speaking
person in the building.

There were no bathrooms
in the apartments.

They were all in the hall.

My bathtub was in the kitchen.

And we stayed in bed,

and we watched
television and ate pasta

and Paul was very sick,
too, with liver condition.

And we were trying
to get off of drugs.

And we did it alone.
We had no help.

We had no supplementary
drugs to ease it.

We just cold turkey-ed.

For three months we were in
that apartment, doing nothing

and Paul was sick.

You know, mice running
around the floor.

It was horrendous
and, as I said,

I still hadn't called
any of my friends.

And eventually I started
dabbling in movies again.

And I got in with Male Express

and started making
movies for them.

So I became really a
salaried pornographer,

instead of making

the kind of movies
I usually made.

I was stuck to a certain budget.

This is the way we do things.

And I had to audition
people for the first time

and tell them
to drop their pants.

It was, you know, a
little degrading

but that's the way it works.

WAKEFIELD (Off Camera): Okay, I
wanna stop you one more time.

It was a little too
fast, the walk.

ACTOR: A little too fast?

WAKEFIELD: Yeah, you were a
little too anxious.

It's all right.

It was good up until there.

Let's go again and
we'll keep it rolling,

and re-slate.

ACTOR: We'll do the whole
thing over, or...?

WAKEFIELD: Yeah, and
then we do pickups.

Paul ended up going
back to Minneapolis,

because I couldn't maintain

trying to make a living for
us and taking care of him.

And he went back to his
home in Minneapolis and

pulled himself together
and he started working

for his old boss in
Minnetonka again,

and so he started to pull
his life back together

while I was pulling
mine back together,

even though we were
separated again.

He would have mileage from the
business travels that he did

and he would fly
me to Minneapolis.

I would go out for the
weekend to see him

and I would cook him meals.

Because if I weren't
there he wouldn't eat.

So I would go out and fill
up his freezer with food

and we would have a
weekend together

and then I would get on
the plane and come back.

Eventually Paul got even sicker

so I went to Minneapolis, to
take care of him for a year.

I gave up everything
and I went out there so

he would work and he
supported me again,

while I was taking care of him.

That's the only way he was
able to keep working,

and he would come
home at night and be

hardly able to make
it to the bed.

And he was very, very sick.

I took him right to the hospital

and they wouldn't let
me in the hospital.

[Sighs]

Everything's a fight, you know?

So I said, "If you
don't let me in,

I will take every
penny I can muster

and I will sue your ass

because this is my friend and
I'm going to be with him."

And once we got upstairs,

the nurses were
unbelievably kind.

One day the doctor came in and
looked at Paul and he said,

"I'm sorry, there's nothing
we can do for you anymore."

Paul was expecting it, but it
really threw me for a loop.

We were all around his
bed, when he died.

But I had told everyone,

I want it to be easy for him.

No "Oh my darling,
don't leave me!"

None of that.

And everyone acquiesced

and at one point his
mother went, "Oh..."

and I touched her
hand and she stopped.

And...

we heard the thing go
down and he was gone.

With his death, there
suddenly ended a whole period

because I had already lost

all of the other friends
that I had in San Francisco,

and my second group of
friends apart from New York.

And they were already gone,
so suddenly Paul was gone,

and he was the last of
my California friends.

Even though Paul
didn't die of AIDS,

it was as devastating
as if he had.

Oh I could go on and on
and on for a long time

just naming the people.

There was Ed Parente
and Cal Culver.

Tom Stribling
and Michael Maletta.

Peter Fisk and Rusty Dragon.

Michael Bennett. Frank O Dowd.

Bill Harrison.

It's really too hard.

I was helpless. I didn't
know what I was going to do.

I didn't know how I
was going to live.

I was 50 years old

and no chance of making
any money, no job.

I wasn't prepared. I
graduated high school

and I went right onto Broadway
and the ballet companies.

So I didn't go to college.

I was not hirable.

So I thought, "What
am I going to do?"

And I thought, "What do
you like to do?"

And I remembered,
I love to cook.

I'll go to cooking school.

So I applied for a Pell
Grant, and I got it,

and then I needed some more
money to supplement that

and I called my old
friend Marvin Shulman,

and I hadn't talked to him while
I was going through all this,

lived four blocks away
from me for a year.

And I didn't even call them

and let them know I
was back in New York,

until I could present
myself like I used to be.

The cooking school
was something

It wasn't a big deal.
It was a short term,

he was going to get
a job cooking.

And he was a
phenomenally good cook.

WAKEFIELD: And there I
was in cooking school

with 18 or 19 year old people

and when they said, "Who is

Walter Poole?" because
that's my first name,

and they said, "Oh, that's the
old guy down at the end."

There were only like seven
people in my class,

of which only three
of us graduated.

I got a job working
for Annemarie Hueste

who was Jackie Kennedy's chef.

When I was let go
from Annemarie's

because of the stock
market crash at that time,

and that's who we
dealt with basically.

So I went to work for Calvin.

I worked at Calvin
Klein's for 15 years.

I was in my 15th year.

But thank god I did or I would
have had no retirement.

I knew if I retired

I couldn't stay in New York.

And New York is
where my heart was.

When I did go down to Florida,

because I said "I can't
stay in New York."

I pay $2100 a month for
a 1-room apartment.

You know? In the
middle of the Village.

It was a very good location,

but I couldn t pay that

on a retired salary, even
with what I had.

So I decided to go
home to Florida

and spend some time with
my family that was left.

My sister and her children
and their children.

CRAYTON ROBEY: I was invited
to join the committee

for the Fire Island
Pines Film Festival.

They were making recommendations

for programming
here on the Island.

We could do this
fantastic screening

and that way we could introduce
this monumental work,

Boys in the Sand,

to the younger community.

The older community can
reflect on the time

on the time and it could
just be a real celebration.

And it just seemed
like the perfect fit

for the Fire Island
Pines community.

Well, this did not go over
really well with the board.

They had sponsors

and there were a couple of
committee members that objected

to it because of its
sexual content.

And they thought that it was
below community standards.

But they did acknowledge
that it was important

and that it was a piece
of Pines history.

But they could not program it.

And that pissed me off.

And something just
went off in me

and said "I've got to
make this happen."

And so, Philip Monaghan, who

has this fantastic
house where one of the

I guess, climatic moment
of the movie was shot in,

I partnered with him to produce
this event for the charities

for the FIPHOA
Charitable Foundation

and for the Pines Care Center.

You know, we weren't
taking anything in.

This was all for the community.

But we had a fight to
get it to play here.

Boy, is it built up around here.

The trees and everything.

I used to have friends who
had a house back there.

Mr. Poole. Philip Monaghan.

I'm Crayton's partner
in this project.

Welcome to the Pines.

And sometimes you
have to just push

forward when you know
when something is good.

You know, our history is not
taught in fucking schools.

It's not taught in churches

and obviously they don't want it
taught now in Fire Island Pines.

And it's unacceptable to me.

And if we are not allowed
to share our history

and our stories here,

in this predominantly
gay community,

in the summertime,
then it's a problem.

And my neighbors
that opposed this

they're not homophobic.

They just don't
really see the value

of this particular story
and the importance of it.

You know what's funny?
I think this is it

but it didn't have a wall there.

I'm not sure. Could
possibly be it.

See that house behind there?
Behind that wall?

And it was very
simple, very plain.

There was no fence
around the house.

You walked right up the deck
and right to the front door.

That's where Michael Maletta
and Tom had their house

and they invited us out
to the island.

This is where it all
started, in this house.

They invited us
out for a weekend

and we stayed the summer
- Peter and I.

It's very complex, you know.
It's a small community

and everybody is so
passionate about it,

but I think that sometimes
people...

people let their
egos get in the way.

People let their egos get in the
way.

And that is... that's a problem.

Some things are
just not about ego.

Showing Boys in the Sand
in Fire Island Pines.

Having Wakefield Poole
come back to the Pines,

return to the Pines,

where he made Boys in the
Sand,

which put the Pines
on the map globally,

is important stuff.

This is it,

except there was more
deck over there.

But that's gone,
but that's okay.

Yeah, right there is where
Calvin sat on the edge

of the pool and threw
the pill into the pool.

Do you have the Italian
suddenly appear in the pool?

Does that go with the house?

Well, I'd love it if it did.

I could probably raise the rent.

It was a wonderful
experience, this whole thing

and the dog, the Afghan here

was a big part. She
belonged to Ed Parente.

The more I talk about
it, the more I realize

Ed had wonderful things
and input to this movie.

Like all of my friends
did at that time.

I couldn't have made it
without all of them.

Calvin, and Ed and Peter and...

Yup.

Sometimes it's hard.

WAKEFIELD: Hi there...
ROBIN: I'm Robin Byrd.

WAKEFIELD: Robin Byrd!
ROBIN: Nice to meet you!

Give me a hug, girl. I used
to watch you all the time.

[Applause]

CRAYTON: Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen.

[Applause]

We're so excited you
guys are here joining us

for this special screening

of Wakefield Poole's
Boys in the Sand.

As a gay man I wasn't
born at this time.

I'm a beneficiary

of a lot of hard work.

And some of you are
beneficiaries.

Some of you are legends.

And I don't know anything
about the period,

so I'm going to ask Mr.
Ron Martin,

who has been leading
this community

for the past four
years in FIPHOA,

and really over the
past thirty years,

to come up and just talk a
little about the period

and introduce our
man of the hour.

Ron Martin.

[Applause]

Thank you, Crayton.

First of all, let me welcome
all of you to Whyte Hall.

It goes without saying I think
probably most of you know

that there's been a
little bit of controversy

around this event tonight.

First of all, I would
like to thank Crayton

and Philip Monaghan for having
the courage to persevere

the last couple of weeks.

[Applause]

And to make this happen,

because it really is a kind
of a special event,

I think, for the Pines.

We had a big crowd at the
first showing tonight

and as you can see the
building is still standing.

[Laughter]

And I can report to you that
everyone remained fully clothed

[Laughter]

there was no one wearing

[sounds of disapproval and
booing from the audience]

Well, you know, it was
the early showing.

[Laughter]

I think people who were
here in the last screening

saw the importance
of this, in terms of

the history of our community

and also for the history
of our gay culture.

The film had such a huge
impact on this community,

on Fire Island Pines.

Gay men all over the
world saw this film

and immediately wanted
to come to Fire Island.

As many of you know who
were either here...

those of you who go
back as far as I do...

or those of you who have
heard, during the 70s,

the Pines became an
international destination.

And it was really, I believe,
because of this film.

And it changed so much of the
world's perception of gay men,

because the people who saw it,

saw gay men in a
very different way.

This was two years
after Stonewall.

So, it is really my
pleasure and such an honor

to welcome back the man who
was responsible for that,

coming back to the Pines,

thirty nine years later
from when he filmed it,

please welcome Wakefield Poole.

[Applause]

I'm really overwhelmed with
what transpired this weekend.

What has happened here
with the controversy

is why I made this film.

And I want to thank you
all for coming here

and making this all worthwhile,
this 40 years worthwhile.

It's the ultimate of what
I wanted this film to do,

and that is not only
to make controversy,

but to overcome the controversy.

When I first came
to Fire Island,

I felt free for the
first time in my life.

I didn't feel like a minority

and I wanted everybody
to suddenly feel that.

And I said, "I can make a movie

that no one will be
ashamed to watch."

I think I achieved that goal,
because you're all here tonight.

[Applause]

I don't know how I've gotten
through all this stuff.

I don't seem to be stronger
than anybody else that I know.

I've certainly been dealt a lot
of blows that a lot of people
haven't.

But I love life.

And there come points
where you say,

Gee, can I survive this?
Is it worth it?

And I always said yes.