Los Angeles—1997 to 2001
Regeneration
Like all of my previous relationships, my marriage with Deborah simply burned itself out. I have no doubt that the greater responsibility for this happening falls with me, but in the end it was mutual. Deborah always had a tendency to become hurt over nothing. Since her feathers were so easily ruffled, I had to be very careful about anything I said to her, like I was walking on eggshells. Eventually, I would avoid talking to her unless it was absolutely necessary.
It had become obvious that she was unhappy with our life as it was. So was I. Being stuck in a dead-end ten-to-seven job selling cameras didn’t help matters much. We rarely spoke to each other, and when we did, it would inevitably end up in an argument or sometimes even a violent shouting match.
If either of the kids were present, they would quietly retreat to their rooms to leave us to work out our problems in privacy. But we were no longer able to work them out. When animosity like this grows between two people who once cared for each other, they tend to hurt each other over trivial matters. Such was the case with us. I carried on with my life as best as I could. As that wonderful old character actor Chief Dan George said in The Outlaw Josey Wales: “endeavor to persevere.” I was endeavoring and persevering, but I wasn’t particularly thrilled with our life.
Finally, our relationship became so hostile that we couldn’t even bear to be in each other’s presence. Things had not only become increasingly uncomfortable for us but for Kerima and Preston as well.
The time was long past due for us to go our separate ways. I began making plans to move out, but work kept me so busy that I procrastinated about finding a place. One day, I returned home from work to find my stuff packed and waiting for me on the floor of the foyer. “It just isn’t going to work out,” Deborah said.
“But I haven’t found a place yet,” I said.
“Well that’s your problem, isn’t it?” she said.
“I guess this is pretty final, then.”
“It is.”
After Deborah and I separated, I still had to give her most of my salary for child support, and since rents in the area were so high, I had to move in with Valerie in El Segundo. Deborah would show up every payday to collect my paycheck, and she also took possession of our only car, so I had to take buses to and from work.
I had not used public transportation since I was in college, and after the life I had lived before, this was quite a comedown for me. If anything, my life had managed to go from bad to worse. But I accepted it all stoically. If anything, I knew that if I just hung on, I would weather this storm.
On Sundays, I would get to visit my children who by now, of course, were no longer children. Deborah would usually let me use the car to take them out to lunch or drive them somewhere. But as time passed, I became so busy that my visits became less and less frequent. Finally, Deborah called me and said, “I think you should be taking a more active role in raising your children.”
“I thought they were already raised,” was my lame and guilty answer.
“You know what I mean, or at least you should.” She was beginning to make me feel pretty irresponsible. “You should talk to them,” she said.
“Talk to them?”
“Yes, get to know them better.”
“I know them.”
“You think you know them. They’re no longer children any more. They’re growing into young adults.”
“I’ll take them out to dinner sometime,” I promised.
“Where will you take them?”
“I don’t know. A steakhouse or someplace.”
“You know that Kerima’s now a vegan, don’t you?” she asked.
I didn’t. “What the hell’s a vegan?”
“They’re vegetarians that practice an extreme form of vegetarianism.”
“You mean they won’t even eat a vegetable that may have suffered pain when it was being picked?”
“Something like that,” she answered.
Deborah was right. I needed to see my kids more often, to keep up with who they were and what they wanted and what they were doing. The guilt trip that she had laid on me had proved effective.
One Sunday, toward the end of 1997, Deborah decided she was coming with us to the movies. Now that we were no longer living together, most of the animosity between us had dissipated and we were on much more cordial terms, but her wanting to take us all to the movies surprised me. She wanted to see a film that I had never heard of before called Boogie Nights.
The director credit on the film read Paul Thomas Anderson, who I realized was the same person who had made a film I had seen earlier that year and liked a lot called Hard Eight. Imagine my surprise when the story that unfolded on screen began to depict scenes that seemed somehow familiar and yet were not familiar.
This film was about the porn industry, and Mark Wahlberg’s character was obviously based on John Holmes and Burt Reynolds’ director character reminded me of myself in many respects. What the hell was going on?
And then my jaw dropped as the scenes of the film within a film were obviously almost direct ripoffs from my old Johnny Wadd films. I was bowled over by a scene that virtually duplicated part of the interview that I, along with John Holmes, had given for Julia St. Vincent’s pseudo-documentary Exhausted.
When the lights in the theater came on, I sat there stunned. Deborah turned to me and asked, “Well, what did you think about it?”
“I enjoyed the movie,” I responded, “but it wasn’t very accurate, was it? I mean about how the business really was back then.”
“It’s a Hollywood version of what happened. A lot of poetic license involved. But there’s no doubt that Burt Reynolds was playing someone based on you. Does that bother you?” Deborah asked.
“Not really,” I replied. “What does bother me is the way he shot those films in the movie looked like amateur night in Dixie. It just wasn’t that way.”
“It’s the Hollywood perception of how it was.”
“I suppose,” I said. “Still, the guy that made the film is a really good director. Did you see Hard Eight?” Deborah shook her head and I told her, “See it.”
Kerima and Preston seemed bored.
The last time I saw my dad was when the family got together in Farmington, New Mexico, at the end of May 1999, to celebrate his eighty-sixth birthday. He had grown older and much thinner than I last remembered him to be, but he was still energetic, loud, and full of life. He seemed happy to be reunited with his grown children, grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren.
The members of my immediate family—Stephanie, Valerie, and Jenilee—had come with their own spouses, children, and children’s spouses. Only my younger brother Brian, who had passed on, wasn’t there, but his ex-wife came to the reunion along with two of her sons.
It was a joyous reunion for many reasons. I hadn’t seen most of my family for a good many years, and it was wonderful to feel a part of a much larger whole and to be unconditionally accepted for who I was. My brother-in-law Bill Woodward, who knew that I worked as a film director, came up to me with a question: “I was wondering about something,” he began. “I know they’re two different jobs, but what exactly is the the difference between a producer and a director?”
The only response I could think to come up with at the time was, “The producer is paid to worry and the director is paid to think.”
We held a picnic dinner along the bank of the Animas River outside of Aztec. There was a lot of food, and, since I was really hungry, I gorged myself shamelessly. Later, I walked down to the bank of the river to smoke a cigarette, since everyone in my family there were non-smokers.
Soon my father joined me. We’d never had a lot to say to each other ever since I’d grown up and left home. I was at a loss for words to begin a conversation, but thankfully he started it.
“You really ought to give up those things, son,” he told me. “Cigarettes will kill you. You also ought to watch your cholesterol intake.”
I smiled at him. Even though he was long retired he was still offering his advice as my dad and doctor. I took another puff of the cigarette before putting it out and field-stripping it. “Everybody dies, Dad,” I said to him. “You can either die healthy or happy. Which one do you think I’m going to choose?”
One day, I noticed a woman kept staring at me as if she recognized me. Finally she came up to me and said, “You’re Bob Chinn, aren’t you—you used to direct movies?” I told her that I was, and she told me she was a Japanese-American newspaper journalist and writer, Coco Olsen, and that aside from writing for one of the local newspapers she also wrote articles for Cult Movies Magazine. She asked if she could do an article on me for that publication.
“I don’t think anyone would be interested in reading an article about me,” I told her, “and I’m also a pretty reclusive person. I tend to shy away from interviews.”
I told her why and she said, “There’s a statute of limitations, you know. And besides, what you were once doing is a legitimate business now.” Coco was very persuasive, so I consented to an article and interview. She also wanted me to meet the editor of the magazine, Michael Copner, who she said was very familiar with my work.
All three of us met for dinner at Musso & Frank’s. We sat in the very same corner booth where Deborah and I had had our first date. After Coco introduced us, Michael Copner said, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“You look familiar,” I said. “I know that I’ve met you once before.” It turned out that I had, at Dick Aldrich’s film distribution company in the San Fernando Valley many years before, where Michael had helped with the bookkeeping and the handling and shipping of the film prints. Before he had come to Los Angeles, Copner had been the manager of one of Roger Forbes’ theaters in Seattle.
Coco’s article about me was published in Cult Movies Magazine, followed by a longer feature article by both Coco and Michael called “The Boogie Days and Nights of Robert Chinn.”
There were more dinners at Musso & Frank’s and other restaurants, and more taped interviews and more articles began appearing. Soon, they had enough interviews for a book. In the process of all this, we became good friends.
One day, I got a phone call from an old friend, the producer, director, and documentary filmmaker Cass Paley. “Bob Chinn,” he said, “you’re a hell of a hard guy to track down.” Others would also soon track me down.
One was another old friend, Bill Margold. “Bob,” he told me, “the Free Speech Coalition wants to honor you with the Anthony Spinelli Lifetime Achievement Directors Award at their Night of the Stars event on August seventh at the Sheraton Universal. Will you attend?”
I agreed, but after I hung up the phone, I immediately began to regret my hasty decision because of the lengthy public transportation I would need. Fortunately, by the time August 7 rolled around, Deborah took pity on me and said that she’d drive me there.
It was the first adult film event I had attended in many, many years and it proved to be an interesting one. When it came time to present with me with my award, Bill Margold made a long speech extolling my virtues as a compilation of scenes from a lot of my old films flashed across the large screen behind him. After I accepted the award and said a few quick words of appreciation, I sat down next to Deborah, feeling like some kind of washed-up old has-been. Did all these young people in the industry now regard me as some kind of dinosaur? I wondered if this was the way the aged movie pioneer D.W. Griffith felt as he walked the streets of Hollywood in his old age, all alone and forgotten.
Then an actress named Nina Hartley came over to my table and introduced herself. “I was just getting into the business when you were getting out,” she told me, “so I never got a chance to work with you.” This was totally unexpected, and it made me feel much better about everything. She continued, “But you know, I’ve always wanted to, and I have a couple of feature projects that I’m supposed to be making for a company called Adam & Eve. So would you be interested in directing them?” That invitation took me aback even more. Maybe I wasn’t such an old dinosaur after all.
Thinking that Kerima and Preston would soon be needing money for college, I told her, “Yes, I would.”
Deborah wrote the scripts and served as the producer for the two Nina Hartley features, Bad Penny and Hardbound.
It had been around thirteen years since I last directed an adult film.
It was now a business more than ever, and I was simply one of hundreds of directors grinding out new product for a market that was verging on the brink of being oversaturated. I made these features as I had made my other projects: heavy on story with the required amount of sex scenes. I would also quickly learn that the improvements in the video production equipment were truly remarkable. Shooting with the new digital video camera was so easy it was akin to falling off a log. I was surprised to find that I had nothing against shooting on video.
At that time, the production honchos at Adam & Eve Productions were grooming a new performer named Dale Dabone for pornstardom, and they wanted him to be in the two Nina Hartley films. They flew Dale in from North Carolina and he played the male lead in both features. Nina Hartley proved to be a wonderful and capable actress, and she was a true delight to work with.
The exteriors for the Nina Hartley shoot were all done on location at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills. It was a location I had used before, and I had a standing town set that worked very well for both of the pictures. Most of the interiors would be shot on Bob Gallagher’s small sound stage in North Hollywood.
Whenever I begin a sound stage shoot, I usually arrive very early so I can check out the sets that have been put up and plan my shots on that particular day.
On the first day, I arrived to find that Nina was already there, sitting in her car and reading a book while waiting to begin the day. I was truly impressed not only with her enthusiasm and work ethic but with her remarkable intelligence as well.
She proved to be excellent at following direction and would unhesitatingly do whatever I asked her to do without question.
Strangely enough, I was neither nervous nor apprehensive about directing once again after a hiatus of thirteen years. Directing is like riding a bicycle—you never really forget how to do it.
Since this was my chance at making a comeback, I wanted to do the job right. For the first of couple scenes, I carefully set up the shots and gave very detailed directions to the crew and the cast. Things were moving slowly, but I thought that I could make up for it later.
Deborah, who was the production manager, came up to me and said, “Bob, everyone knows you’re a great director, but the thing with this project is for it to finish in time and on budget.”
“You’re being sarcastic,” I responded.
“Not about it being finished in time and on budget.”
I had wanted to infuse these two comeback features with some passion, but on the budget that I was provided with, I just didn’t have the time. Once again, I found that I had to simply do the best job I could with what I had to work with, which was a shame. If I had enough time to work with Nina and the others, we could have made something far better.
A project with Russ Hampshire’s VCA Pictures followed next. I met with Russ at his office in Northridge and he introduced me to Jane Hamilton, who was a production executive for them at that time.
Jane was the former New York pornstar Veronica Hart, and this was the first time that I ever met her. Fortunately, we had a mutual admiration society.
“So what are you going to make for us?” she asked.
I had dusted off the old unfilmed Johnny Wadd script Magnum Love, updated it, and kept the title but changed the name of the lead character from Johnny Wadd to to Peter Magnum.
“For the detective, you’re probably going to want a guy with a big cock,” she said.
“That would be the idea,” I responded. “You have any suggestions?”
“There’s a guy in the business named Billy Glide,” she answered. “He might work for that part.”
I had worked with Billy on the previous shoot, and while he was far from the Peter Magnum character that I had envisioned, he certainly had the physical attributes for the part. I told Jane, “OK, we’ll give him a try.”
So Billy Glide starred in the title role along with Stacey Valentine in her farewell porn picture with VCA before she retired. I was also able to talk the former Golden Age adult film star Veronica Hart to appear in a small non-sex cameo role. I had always wanted to work with her.
When I needed someone to play a tough, aggressive lesbian broad in a fight scene, my stunt coordinator George Adams introduced me to his good friend Klaudia Kovacs.
Klaudia was an attractive Hungarian brunette who seemed to be a pretty straight person, so I told her “This is a triple X film, you know, so do you have any reservations about appearing in it?”
“It’s cool, just so I don’t have to take off my clothes or screw anyone,” she replied. And even though she wasn’t one, she assured me that she could play a mean bull dyke. I was totally convinced when I saw her come out of makeup.
Deborah managed to set up a two-feature back-to-back shoot for me to direct for Wicked Pictures, and she also wrote the scripts. These features, starring the 1998 AVN Female Performer of the Year Stephanie Swift, were titled Gen Sex and The Spa. Deborah also took on the non-sex role of the television producer in Gen Sex, and I ended up doing a very brief walk-on cameo as a television director.
Deborah had managed to score an actual small television broadcast station as a practical set for Gen Sex. Most of the other interiors would be shot on a sound stage in the San Fernando Valley.
The second feature, The Spa, took place in a fancy Beverly Hills spa where the rich and horny whiled away their afternoons in the pursuit of all kinds of hedonistic pleasures.
With five new features under my belt by the turn of the twenty-first century, I was now well on my way to making another comeback, doing back-to-back feature shoots just like the old days. I guess I wasn’t down for the count quite yet.