Wakefield Poole Talks About Fucking Rock Hudson and the Heyday Of Art Porn

With formulaic gay porn flooding every corner of the web, there could be no better time for the re-emergence of the great Wakefield Poole, the pioneering porn director whose films caused the sexual awakenings of millions of gay men all over the world.

When Poole’s groundbreaking first film Boys in the Sand was released in 1971, the sheer artistry at work, from the influence of Poole’s ballet training inherent in the film’s plot and style to the brilliant PR campaign and release strategy Poole and producer Marvin Shulman dreamed up, worked in tandem to produce a seismic shift in the world at large. Soon gay porn was being reviewed in magazines like The New York Times and Variety, forcing people to see all-male erotica in a joyous and beautiful way, rather than as something sordid and unnatural. Overnight, the golden age of gay porn was born. It was a period rife with experimentation, where filmmakers like Joe Gage, Jack Deveau, Fred Halsted, Jean-Daniel Cadinot, Peter de Rome, Steve Scott and Jacques Scandalari took the genre to dazzling new heights.

This year offers two major opportunities to re-consider the work of Poole and his impact on the gay porn industry. First, the cult and straight porn DVD distributors Vinegar Syndrome have issued the definitive restorations of Poole’s films: Boys in the Sand, Bijou, Bible!, and in November, Poole’s ultra-rare masterpiece Take One. The DVDs feature brand-new 2K restorations, all new directors commentaries, early never-before-seen short experimental films, and other extras produced by documentarian Jim Tushinski, who spent 7 years directing a thrilling new documentary about Poole’s life, titled I Always Said Yes: The Many Lives of Wakefield Poole. Tushinski’s documentary follows Poole’s unbelievable life: his early years as a child prodigy, days dancing with the Ballet Russes, Broadway career, adventures in the porn world and his despairing slide into drug addiction. The film premieres in Los Angeles on July 12^th at Outfest: Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival and screens at New York’s NewFest on July 28^th. Poole and Tushinski plan to be in attendance at both screenings.

Last week, I called Poole at his home in Jacksonville, the city where he spent his childhood and returned to in 2003. In the first part of our interview we talked about his early years, sexual experiences, cinematic influences, and the making of Boys in the Sand.

Adam: Hi Mr. Poole, first of all. Congratulations on the documentary. It’s terrific.

Wakefield Poole: Thank you. Jim did a nice job.

What was it like working on him to make it?

Long. It took us about 7 years. It was funding that was the hard thing, as it seems to be with most people making documentaries. We had to go for support from donors. Because it involved pornography we couldn’t get a lot of big grants. We got one grant of about eight-thousand dollars but the rest was privately from friends of mine and Jim’s. He went online and got stuff that way. We did it when we had the money to do it. We fortunately got off to a good start. We did interviews in New York, then we went out to San Francisco, and then to Los Angeles. We did interviews with people in three major cities. Jim had a lot of material to work with. He could have made three movies.

Well of course with your incredible life I’m sure that’s true. For me the film also could have gone on and on. But for you it really did go on and on, cause you lived it!

Still going, thank god.

Have you seen the film with an audience yet?

Yeah. We did screenings in Philadelphia and we went to Berlin for a work-in-progress screening. We went to Israel and had a very successful time there. They showed one of my films every night for seven nights and ended with the documentary. It was like a Wakefield Poole festival. I was very excited by the reactions we got.

 

Have any reactions surprised you?

No, not really. I’m amazed at how emotional some people get. A lot of tears. I said to Jim, “I always had a fun life. I had a good time” so I’m surprised people are so moved by it. Certainly I’m glad rather than people not being moved. But the response has been terrific. The Q&As we’ve done have been very rewarding. People have been very responsive and they want to know more even after it’s over.

One of the reasons I’m sure the audience is so moved by the film is the amount of time spent highlighting your early years as a child prodigy and a dancer with the Ballet Russes. It starts off the film and is one of the most moving and fascinating segments of your life. Do you still go to see ballet and take in dance and theater?

I’m still very interested. We don’t have a lot in Jacksonville. I’m in what I call the belt buckle of the Bible belt. We have a ballet company here and at Christmas we have two different Nutcrackers. We have a wonderful art school that has a wonderful dance department. But we don’t have a lot of theater here. We get road shows but that’s about it. I try to go back to New York about twice a year. But because of the film, when I’ve gone back, I have to do so many activities related to the film that I don’t have much time to do much.

Now last night I was reading an obituary for Peter de Rome, the French gay porn director, and in this obituary it said his films were among the impetus for you to make Boys in the Sand. I remembered that you always said seeing Highway Hustler, which you thought was just awful, was what really inspired Boys in the Sand. I was curious which was correct?

Highway Hustler is the one that did it. I had seen Peter’s films because Michael Maletta, a very good friend of mine whose house we filmed Boys in the Sand in, invited people over to his house. We dropped mescaline and smoked grass and Peter de Rome had his little 8mm camera and he showed his films and they were not hardcore. Very much like Pat Rocco’s films. Very nice vignettes, very unpretentious. We saw about six of his films and then went on and partied. That’s when I met him. And I had hadn’t seen him again until after Bijou was made. Jack Deveau who was another filmmaker who ran Hand-in-Hand films he took Peter on and put his films out on VHS. That’s what started it. When they called to ask me to be interviewed for Peter’s documentary, they said they’d come meet me in Germany, and so they did and I saw them again because I wanted to see them before I did the interview because I really didn’t remember them well because we were so stoned. He was an influence, I admit that in the film, but he didn’t inspire me to make Boys in the Sand.

How long before you made Boys in the Sand had you seen de Rome’s films?

I had already made two sections of Boys in the Sand when I saw Peter de Rome’s films. That same summer when my lover Peter Fisk, who starred in Boys in the Sand, and I went out to stay with Michael and his partner Tom on Fire Island, we filmed the first section and had to go back and re-do it again. So that one I did twice in one month and in July I did the second section and in August, right before the end of the season I did the last section and I had it ready for a December premiere. It was a good time. I really enjoyed it. We were experimenting and trying things. I had no idea what it was going to be. We just knew that people liked it and we did decided to make it into a feature because people liked it so much. That was one of the best summers of my life when I did that movie.

I’m curious, Boys in the Sand is sometimes improperly referred to as the first gay porn movie, but as you’ve pointed out there were other people making gay porn movies before it was released.

Definitely there were. But like, going back to Peter de Rome, they called him “The grandfather of porno” and they said, “Do you mind?” And I said, no, why should I mind? He was making movies — his little home movies — for ten years before me. The only difference between Peter and I is that I was not afraid. I took the step and put it out there. Here it is and this is what I’ve done and this is what I think people should see. I put my neck on the line and Peter didn’t. He preferred to take his films around and show them in people’s living rooms. That’s what he did for years and years. I told my interviewers that the reason Boys in the Sand is called the first film is we were the first people to treat it like a film. We didn’t sneak it into town and play it in some small dark little underground theater somewhere, or in a 25-cent machine. We treated it like a movie from the very beginning. When we did the first segment people said, “Oh it’s wonderful, I’ve never seen anything like it,” and blah-blah-blah and went on and on, and I said to my producer Marvin Schulman “Marvin, I think we should make a feature, and lets do it like a real movie. Put it into movie theaters and have a press agent.” And that’s what we did. We did a lot of social screenings. Robert. L. Green who was the fashion editor of Playboy, did a brunch and invited all these New York models and Cal [Casey Donovan] was there and he knew most of the people because he had did some modeling. People started talking about it. It was Christmas Eve and we made the buzz happen. People really liked it. Mixed people saw it together – men and women, we didn’t make it necessarily a gay event.

And you had an ad in The New York Times, which was a big first.

Yes, the first ad was in the Sunday Times right after Christmas and we took a sixth of a page in The New York Times. I was surprised they took it but they did. It said “All Male Cast in Color” and we put the show times because we wanted people to go see the movie. Beginning at noon, the next was 1:30 or 2:00, and then it just went on. People treated it like a real movie. We got reviewed because by screening it and giving it the respect it deserved, the press had to review it. They couldn’t ignore because there it was in The New York Times. We kept large ads in everyday. We’d change the critic quotes everyday. One day it would say “Casey Donovan is every gay’s dream” and the next day it would say “The actors look they were hired from DIAL-A-HUSTLER” we started making fun of ourselves.

So you were making up the quotes?

Oh yes, Harvey and I did the whole thing with our press agent. We had an ad agency and we did different ads because of the size. Our advertising budget was the biggest budget we had. It went on for 16 weeks. Variety did a huge article — a page and a half — on Marvin and I. It said “Amateurs Bring in Bonanza” because the first week we opened we were number like 46 in the top 50 grossing films in the US and we were playing only one theater. The buzz was great. We were very lucky. We had good taste. We dressed up the theater. Cleaned up the bathrooms. Put toilet paper and paper towels. We wanted to make it a place where people had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to go “Ew” about.

Obviously you didn’t live in a vacuum and there were people like Warhol and Jack Smith making films, and I’m curious if you had other cinematic influences you looked at while you were making your films?

Just films in general. I started watching films when I was old enough to walk, I saw just about every film that was made. In terms of experimental films, certainly Andy Warhol was a big influence on me. I saw all his films. Sat through Chelsea Girls twice, and I had seen some of Pat Rocco’s films earlier. A friend of mine took me in Los Angeles. I think I met him briefly. Fellini of course in terms of foreign films. I used to go to the Thalia quite often. I would see foreign films. I wasn’t married to Hollywood films. I loved them all. I loved movies. I loved the ability to escape.

Were Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger a big influence on your films as well?

Absolutely. I saw The Red Shoes when it came out about a dozen times. I was studying ballet here in Jacksonville and I took notes. I could re-choreograph the whole ballet because I took notes and studied the choreography. I was blown away by that element. And during one trip to New York to study, across from Schubert Alley there was a theater called the Bijou and there was a theater playing Tales of Hoffman, and it was like a road show engagement. You had to get tickets in advance like a Broadway show. And then Life Magazine did a huge article on it and talked about the effects and how they did it. Most of it was painted on the floor, and they shot it from above. He was a great influence. I also loved the one he made about the murder mystery, about a man who was filming people. Peeping Tom.

I see that in your films. The thing of the men coming out of the water in Boys in the Sand feels like your version of Michael Powell effect. Or in Bijou too, which has tons of wonderful trick effects.

He got me into experimental films. Once I saw what could be done in a camera. I wasn’t even shooting films then, I didn’t start shooting films until 20 years later but that whole thing was so present in my mind I never forgot what the camera was capable of even on a low budget. I even rented 16 mm films after I made Boys in the Sand. I’d rent prints of Ziegfield Follies. We would watch the film on a projector, and then we’d watch it in reverse, and it was incredible because the music sounded like a Strauss opera and the dresses would flow, but in a different way than you’d ever seen before. So I experimented with other films and the way they were projected. The camera’s an amazing thing. When you were able to take one and hold it in your hand and had access to it. I got the bug and very simply they just amazed me. And the funny thing is today I don’t even own a camera. I stil have the old ones but not a new one.

In this age when everyone has a video camera in their phones you don’t have one?

I have one on my phone, but I don’t use it for anything but taking pictures of my cats.

I’m wondering if there was an early film that you remember being physically turned on by?

That’s a really good question. I don’t know. I think I remember a film about Rome, about gladiators, I remember that being very exciting, but I don’t know what the name of it was. It wasn’t a Steve Reeves movie or anything like that. My old age makes me forget things. I saw a lot of very erotic movies. I thought Reflections in a Golden Eye was unbelievably erotic . I didn’t find Last Tango in Paris erotic. It was really made at the same time I was making my films. It all depends on the mood you’re in and who you’re with and if people are talking into the theater and whether you’re able to get into a hot mood. I’ve never seen it again.

One of the things I’ve always wanted to ask you about is the time you had sex with one of the most famous gay movie stars in history, Rock Hudson.

Yes, I did. I met him. Well I didn’t meet him. I was picked up by somebody else who brought me to his apartment. I didn’t know where I was going. I was at the Continental Baths and being my trashy self. This guy had been watching me and I was aware of him watching me for the last 45 minutes I was there. He finally came up to me and said, “Are you worn out?” And I said “No.” And he said, “Well I have a friend I think would like you. Would you like to come meet him?” I said, ‘I’m always up for an adventure.” We went up to this apartment, and I think it was on the East Side. Might have been around Turtle Bay. We walked in and there he was in a robe. After we finished I left, and there was never any mention of who he was. I never mentioned it. I played the game.

What was he like in bed?

He was very calm. Nothing frenetic about him. We did just about everything, I think. We never moved to a bedroom. We did it right on the couch.

Was he versatile? Did he get fucked as well as fucking you?

Yes.

Did he have a big cock?

Yes. Bigger than average I’d say. He definitely liked huge dicks. He was a size queen.

What was the etiquette around that like? When you slept with a famous person like Rock Hudson, who you knew was closeted, were you able to tell your friends? Or did you want to protect him?

Of course I told my close friends. I didn’t make it a constant topic of conversation. I didn’t tell many people at all and I was not going to include that story in my book, but I did end up feeling it was too good a story to leave out. It was very self-deprecating on my part because I was such a slut at the baths that night that his friend would know that Rock would like me because he liked slutty guys. I never had a problem sexually. I had a boyfriend when I was five.

Tell me a little about that.

I was living in North Carolina. My neighbor behind me. We used to play together. I really loved him. Until I was about 8 years old. I used to leave my bedroom, sneak out through the garden, and go to his house and knock on his screen and he’d let me in and we’d sleep together and in the morning his father would get up and go to work. He was a Pepsi-Cola distributor, and I would crawl out the window and our families never knew about it.

Was it pre-sexual?

We had our first orgasm together. Once of the hottest things in my book Dirty Poole is when Jack and I were playing one afternoon and our next door neighbor’s father had built a playhouse and it was very large, a little one room house, and he kept his hunting dogs in it and one day he was cleaning it out and it got very quiet and I felt sexual vibes even though I was only eight years old. He kept insisting that we come in. You had to go through this wire enclosure to get in and he was cleaning it out, and he masturbated for us. It was the first time I ever saw an orgasm. Jack and I were standing there with our mouths wide open. We’d never seen anything like it. He said, “Sit there and watch and one day you’ll be able to do it.” He went “Oh god, oh god, Oh Jesus!” I thought masturbation was a religious experience. It wasn’t until later that I discovered people awful mentioned God or Jesus when they’re having an orgasm. Then Jack came down to Florida right after I moved. I wrote little notes to him and he wrote back and I asked my parents if he could come down and it was right when the war ended, one night we were in the bed and this guy had shown us how to masturbate and finally one night we reached an orgasm. He’s straight now and had six girls. Still alive.

In Boys in the Sand, you have two couplings, two scenes where men magically appear out of bodies of water — first the ocean and then the pool. I’m curious where that idea came from. To me it feels like something that must have been in a dream from childhood. It has that urgency.

I’m a Pisces, number one. Water was very prominent that time. I was on Fire Island at length for the first time and it was just so wonderful out there. A fabulous place. The only time I felt more free in my life was when I was at Woodstock. Being a druggie and smoking grass. Walking around and smoking joints and taking acid. I felt very free. I felt the same thing going to Fire Island. You don’t feel any pressure. You can totally be who you are and not have to put any restrictions on yourself. The ocean was there, and we went to parties and swam in pools. I never had that fantasy. But when I was thinking about making a movie, my ballet training was in my head, my theatrical background. I thought if I’m going to make something, I want it to be pretty, to be a fantasy. Play on the fantasy element instead of realism. That’s where I came up with the idea of appearing out of the water and appearing out of the swimming pool. I thought that would be funny. I wanted there to be humor in the movie because gay people aren’t just sleazy and down and they have fun. God knows we have fun. So I wanted to do a thing that was funny. I really make fun of movies in the second section. With the calendar burning and floating across the pool. Recently, about three or four years ago, people started to laugh. I thought how fabulous that they’re starting to laugh in the middle of a porno movie. When he comes out of the water there’s a huge laugh. That was very important to me, to make it well rounded and have the fantasy. To make the first section very innocent. The second segment is about wanting to be established, have a lover, someone to spend your life with. And then the third segment is hedonistic.

Hedonistic, but also fantasy.

Yes. Still fantasy but showing what someone’s life was going to be like once they came out and started to live their fantasies. Fantasies were going to change throughout their life. That’s what hit with their life whether they knew it or not. It took them on a journey through life.

Do you watch porn now?

No. In the 1980’s I watched a few, and one they became so formulaic, and I’m not interested in anything, what do you call it? Gay for pay. I made movies about people who wanted to fuck with each other. Not just people who wanted to make money. People said, “What makes your films different from everybody elses?” I said, “The people that I used, really wanted to make love to the person they were with, or I didn’t use them. I made sure there was some chemistry there. I didn’t say, “Okay now you fuck him and now turn over and fuck him. Lick his ass.” I never did things like that. I made the things happen, and I was the director. I set up things myself. In Boys in the Sand, I didn’t have any camera boy or anything. When the people were making love I didn’t want to stop so they just kept on going and I changed the film and rewound the camera. When I came back they might have been doing something else that they weren’t doing before. I learned very quickly that you had to have cutaways to match the shots. Because you might not be able to if you had to stop and rewind the camera. That I learned immediately. Even though they would continue to have sex they would change it up. That’s what I liked about it was that they were going on a sexual adventure the way it would happen in your life. You just don’t go to bed with someone and turn them over and fuck them. You try something here, change your approach, do something different. You get that in my films, you don’t get that in these other films. It’s just blow each other for a little while, eventually it ends up in someone getting fucked. And then it ends. That’s what got me out of porno, from watching it.

Did you see the remake that Jake Deckard made of Boys in the Sand?* [Editor’s note: He’s referring to Men in the Sand.]

Yeah, I did. He called me and said I’m making a film to honor you and blah blah blah. He wanted permission and I said, “I don’t understand, are you remaking the movie?” He said, “No I’m doing it as an homage to you.” I said, “Well you can’t just remake the movie, unless you want to come up with some dollars or an agreement or something.” I said, “Talk to your lawyer about it and I’ll make some agreement about it with you. I’ll work with you.” Of course he didn’t. He sent me a copy of the movie and of course he didn’t even say anything about me in any of the publicity. He had nothing to say about me. So what he said he was gonna do was bullshit. He said, “I’ll make Boys in the Sand viable again.” That’s what he said. “I’ll make it reborn.” I thought well I’m just gonna leave it alone. I didn’t go in for any lawsuits or anything like that. But I didn’t think it was very good.

NEXT WEEK: IN PART 2 of my interview with Wakefield Poole, we discuss his masterpiece Bijou, his glorious straight flop Bible!, and if he’s really been celibate since 1980…

*Editor’s Note: This question was corrected to reflect an error in phrasing. It was Jake Deckard who made Men in the Sand and not Colby Keller. Colby never contacted Wakefield regarding this film.

Below, a clip from 2012’s Men In the Sand. Watch it all here.

 

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Adam Baran is a filmmaker, blogger, former online editor of Butt Magazine and co-curator of Queer/Art/Film. His short film JACKPOT, about a porn-hunting gay teen, won Best Short Film at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and was recently featured on The Huffington Post, Queerty, and Towleroad, among others. He is a features programmer at Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival and NewFest in New York. In his spare time, he complains about things to his friends. “Fisting for Compliments”, his weekly musings about the intersection of sex, art, porn, and history, will appear every Monday on TheSword. You can contact him at Adam@TheSword.com and follow him on Twitter at @ABaran999. Check out his previous columns in the Fisting For Compliments Archive.