For the historians
Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 9:55 am
The following is a cut and paste from Luke Ford's website and is interesting from an historical perspective, although it rambles somewhat!! For the links go to Luke's site.
Britain's Top Male Porn Star Of Early 1960s
Sverre writes:
Hi Luke, mate.
I've lived in OZ, 35 years ago, ok? I speak 'strine. Been out surfing glam-girls/porn so my eyes are popping out. You can go blind doing this! I've checked out a few of your blogs 'over the years' and find that you are doing a good job. Impartial. Tell as is. My first impression is that most of the guys and gals are a bit screwy, nobody deliberately fucks for a living and on camera if they're halfway sane. Mind you, I worked in the London theatres, the Mermaid and the Garrick, for a couple of years, '60-'62, and a lot of stage/film/TV stars are a bit screwy too!
I'm out researching my murky past, hence the porno-surfing. I've been in touch with a few people in the biz, so to speak, enthusiasts, collectors etc., you'd be suprised what people are into for a hobby. For I used to be Britain's top porno-star. Nobody knows of me though, back in the late 50's, early 60's porno was very much under the covers and only rich people had projectors anyway. The films were mostly made to order, not sold under the counter. David Sullivan, the newspaper-magnate sold a lot of piccies under the counter, though. I vaguelly recall him. But even these were only available for wealthy customers, your average hairy-arsed worker barely earned enought to eat. So it's all gathering dust up in dusty lofts in Belgravia, why we can't find anything yet. Found a few girlfriends though. There were so many girls you can't but recall only a few. Luckily a lot of them were glam-models for Harrison Marks. Sometime, somewhere, some pics or a film will turn up.
Never saw any of it, you see. Would like to. I'm an' ol' git now, living on fading memories. I never earned a penny out of it. Lunch and free girls was it. It wasn't all work though, I do recall having a lot of fun, most of the girls were great. It actually started out helping Harley Street professors research sexual development and what sex was. Never been done before, you see, taboo subject even in medicine. The pill was on the way and they knew there was going to be trouble and needed to preempt any problems, psychological mainly. I wound up doing sex-shows, pics, and films for a while. I now understand it wasn't all research, somebody was making money out of this! Namely Harrison Marks, Sullivan, and the doctor seconded to do the research (so the others weren't obviously involved, they could be jailed not to mention struck off) Dr. Stephen Ward. He was expendable...
Miller, Asher (Jane's dad), Cilento (Diane's dad) Archie Macindoe (a silent partner, he agreed with the principle but daren't be associated, or struck-off, his burn-patients always came first). There were others who's names I can't now recall. We also were associated with forward-thinking people who formed a women and child-abuse support-group: Mary Whitehouse, Lady Astor, Mary Bell-Mills (actor John's wife) Claire Raynor (M.B-M's cousin) Honda roadracer Jim Redman's wife, Marlene, Lady Jacqueline Rufus Isaacs of Reading (lady-in-waiting to Anne) and, it later turned out, several of my teachers at school! One's wife started the group, went to school with Claire Raynor etc., etc., it grew from there. Both Mary Mills and Claire came over sometimes when I was making a sex-education film with Mandy Rice Davies, Claire more interested in our mental health. She quickly saw we needed no councilling, "This is a job, we volunteered for it, we bark at each other, yes, but we also calm down and talk our way through it, the sooner we do it - properly - the sooner we get out of here and back to a normal friendship," (for we decided we liked each other, we had a lot in common anyway, both well-read and intelligent people. And she had no real friends.... but via me began to make a few).
A lot of the dancer/singer/actresses in the theatres had to moonlight in Soho, the pay was very bad. Everybody knew, there are no secrets in showbiz. Meeting Gerald Campion (Billy Bunter?) who ran a streetside bar on Shaftesbury Avenue inbetween jobs, I often mulled over how we could buy a pub/restaurant/hotel for the girls to work in, thus avoiding working Soho. None of them liked it, though the stripping was apparently fun. Mmm...how to make money? Then one day Eddie Constantine visited (French gangster B-film actor). He was a lovely guy. He took me to lunch and told me the Cosa Nostro had asked him to offer me One Million Dollars to make a hardcore in colour, 35mm, for big cinemas all over Europe. Yippee!! But we couldn't find any cameras! The Brit industry used to borrow cameras from each other as it was, on a 'we need it back tomorrow to shoot OUR next scene', basis, 'and can we borrow one of yours as well?' On rainly days the phones ran hot with offers of cameras on hire, to make up the losses in not being able to film!
Me and the girls were all agreed we would make a costume-film that would knock your socks off. I can't recall the original titles but 'Cabaret' and 'Irma la Duce' were serious contenders, and also 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Cat on a Hot Roof', 'A Kind of Loving', and 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (the last two might not sell well abroad, but go a 'reet treat oop north'). All were agreed that it was a joint-effort, we would share equally according to what workload we each had (I would be writing the script and producing and would be paid a fee for this, on top of my acting fee). We decided that we would make about 3-4 films, then quit. By this time we all would have 20-40,000 Pounds each (depending on production costs) and being paid from a Jersey company ( I had access to top accountants who suggested this, all the rich do it to avoid tax) over a period of time would keep most of it. That's a couple of mill in todays money, enough to live well on the rest of your life. But there were no cameras available! I could get 16mm Jap cameras (met a guy from Canon, via David Bailey, who was into porno back home and was keen to do some films with me and some Japanese girls 'on tour in Europe'. I wasn't into bondage and I had no money for that, so it ran out) but the mafia moaned about that, my million was for the big film. George Raft said 'The Mob' were also interested (did you know he was a flamenco dancer of great repute, even in Spain? I liked him, he was a good man).
Well, to cut it short (it got very messy too) it all ran out in the sand. I still maintain that with half-a-dozen Jap 16mm's and some good lighting and equipment we could have made some good quality films and enough money for all. I even knew a mercenary (Black Jack Schramme from Katanga, the guy who bust the UN's ass and almost won the insurgance) who hired a chateau in France every summer for a training camp for his men (mostly ex-SS) and for his girls to kick back and sun themselves (he owned the redlight area behind Le Grand Place in Brussels). We could have made the films there. The guys would have made an excellent film-crew, disciplined, organised, trained to work together as a unit. Protection too, and extras, not all were gay.
Under organised conditions the girls in porno wouldn't be used and abused. But via your blog it sounds like the girls today would need good councilling even as normal citizens, let alone as help in the sex industry! The difference with us was that we were one tight, cohesive unit, living and working in the same town, we shared each other's problems, it was the only way for the girls to survive. Many outside that system, in the backstreets of London and other huge, dirty, towns in a depressed Britain, didn't have that. A lot died young. I saw the same thing in Sydney.
Attached is a pic of me as a lad. Ignore the 'Kungalv'. Also an interesting mag cover we've found. Printed in '63, there is an article using the notoriety of the Profumo Scandal to sell copy. The interesting thing is this: the pic is taken by Dr. Stephen Ward, the infamous sex-doctor of the scandal, as are the pics inside, it would seem (not seen them all yet). Somebody took either the negs or pics to the USA at about the time of the scandal. Lots of his stuff was sold or 'dissappeared' after his death, but when was this mag published, exactly? There is a problem here: the man entering the right of the lower right picture, the one with the car...is me. Why I know who took the pic (and a lot of other details involved). But...I also have been sent by a contact a photo of the cover taken with a digital camera that has vastely better resolution. The face of that man I say is me...isn't me. Somebody has forged the photo with another man's face. Why? The mag was only sold in the USA where nobody would notice little me as such? I understand the need to forge my pic if it was available in Britain, I would be recognised, the press would wonder who I was and try and trace me etc. I've had the pic looked at by 'certain people' (sorry, the www isn't secure) and they say it's hard to say definately from a copy of a copy of a...well, you get it. They would just love to see the original photo, somebody's done a really pro-job. But they do suspect the head of the 'subject' (me) is slightly suspect. I KNOW it is!
I happen to know who's head has been transposed over mine: Peter Rachman. The real Peter Rachman. 'Rachman' was an act, the little bald, fat guy most people know about, the one who died, was his double. Rachman's real name was actually Ilan Ram'el. If that figure was really Rachman he would tower over all in the pic, he was 6 feet 5 inches in his socks! The lad, me, is barely the height of a rather tall Maxine Miller (the girl in green) maybe 5 feet 9 inches (I got to 6 feet one later, I'm only 15 years old here).
I'd love to get pics taken from the same roll of film, the car shot was the last on that reel and the one's prior to it were hardcore from the night before. But it wasn't porno, not for me, not for the bearded guy in the pic. He was a war-hero, a captain on a warship that ran into a German cruiser in the North Atlantic one stormy day, both's radar not working what with the icing. Suprised, neither backed-off. The German was either sunk or was severely damaged, enough for the Navy to run him down. The British ship looked like a corkscrew, blown apart, burning, half the crew dead. Despite being raked by scrapnel all over his body, his cock and one testical blown-off, barely alive, the man in the pic, laying in agony on what was left of hid bridge directed his sailors how to sail a ship barely afloat back to port, not resting for a second the entire time. He got a medal for that. Then his wife left him, 'half a man as he was', and he only ever saw his daughter when she wanted money. A successful businessman now he was working himself to death. He was also going crazy. He still had an enormous sex-drive...but no cock. The top psychiatrists of the day, Professors Richard Miller and Richard Asher, aided by Dr. Stephen Ward, used me to find out how to give this man the orgasm he needed to relax. It's all in the head, you see. Tests with Ward (into alternate medicine) showed you could create orgasms using acupunture but this wasn't good enough, the poor man had to be able to do it himself, in his head. One of several times this picture on the mag cover was taken the day after such a session with Terry, Maxine and me (we used other girls too). The professors went home in the early hours, hoping they weren't seen, to mull over their observations. There were 2,000 others in Britain alone who were like this. The Captain was worried about MY well-being! I grunted rapidly "You fronted up for us when called for and paid a high price for it, why then, should I not front up for you now? Nobody's shooting at ME, forchrisssakes!"
I waited until I was alone at home and then cried.
I'd do it all again, just for that.
...Ta, mate. Beautiful piece of writing, if I say so myself, no wonder Ustinov was nervous of me. My failing is that I can't make things up, I need a basis to work off. Never did get going, we moved abroad and it would have taken years for me to adapt to the local scene, language etc. Got a job instead. I recall a very tall, slim Aussie that worked part-time for the mag Private Eye, owned by a good friend of mine, Peter Cooke (we shared the same zany repartee, wind us up and we went for hours!) a bloke from Kew in Melbourne, weird name of 'Berry' Humphries. He was a goer for the gals, but last time I saw him he was wearing a gold-lamee dress and into serious drag. Knew Lewis Morley so well he refuses to contact me. He has masses of piccies of me...and not all alone, ahem. I was the first model to pose in the 'Keeler Chair', for example, in the spring of '62. 'Berry' turned up and watched. It was difficult as I was at least 4" taller than Chrissie and didn't fit the pose as well as she later did.
I missed sending you my only pic from Australia, Berwick south of Melbourne. Big file from a slide.
Feel free to use any of my works if it fills a space. All I ask is that you ask around about the pics and films I suspect either Peter Lawford and/or Frank Sinatra took home with them. There are pics of Marilyn Monroe taken by Ward, and a film taken by Harrison Marks. They'll be safely locked away, but walls talk? My other contact in the US has been rather silent for a while, I can but hope they are still digging.
By the way, a friend of mine, Gary, overheard a conversation at Heathrow the other week. A bunch of guys from the USA were on their way to Uri Geller's house in Reading (west of London) for a conference and were deeply engaged in a chat about the black occult. Gary, a serious fan of the occult (having personal experiences he's trying to come to grips with) was suprised to hear Stephen Ward's name come up. He and Tommy Cooper (the entertainer) were high members of a secret masonic sect and are still talked about in awe by people in 'the business'. I knew about that, Gary now knows about that, it's how we met on the www. What shocked him was that they also mentioned ME. And they got my name right. I was refered to as 'the Ward Clan's sexual plaything.' Gary also said there were inferences that indicated that I was used for more than the black occult rituals I now recall being used for. This equates with the porno. He didn't know about that, other than Mandy. He was distracted and thus not sure, but he thought that I was known 'in the biz' as Sven. Sounds logical, my real name used to confuse people!
Britain's Top Male Porn Star Of Early 1960s
Sverre writes:
Hi Luke, mate.
I've lived in OZ, 35 years ago, ok? I speak 'strine. Been out surfing glam-girls/porn so my eyes are popping out. You can go blind doing this! I've checked out a few of your blogs 'over the years' and find that you are doing a good job. Impartial. Tell as is. My first impression is that most of the guys and gals are a bit screwy, nobody deliberately fucks for a living and on camera if they're halfway sane. Mind you, I worked in the London theatres, the Mermaid and the Garrick, for a couple of years, '60-'62, and a lot of stage/film/TV stars are a bit screwy too!
I'm out researching my murky past, hence the porno-surfing. I've been in touch with a few people in the biz, so to speak, enthusiasts, collectors etc., you'd be suprised what people are into for a hobby. For I used to be Britain's top porno-star. Nobody knows of me though, back in the late 50's, early 60's porno was very much under the covers and only rich people had projectors anyway. The films were mostly made to order, not sold under the counter. David Sullivan, the newspaper-magnate sold a lot of piccies under the counter, though. I vaguelly recall him. But even these were only available for wealthy customers, your average hairy-arsed worker barely earned enought to eat. So it's all gathering dust up in dusty lofts in Belgravia, why we can't find anything yet. Found a few girlfriends though. There were so many girls you can't but recall only a few. Luckily a lot of them were glam-models for Harrison Marks. Sometime, somewhere, some pics or a film will turn up.
Never saw any of it, you see. Would like to. I'm an' ol' git now, living on fading memories. I never earned a penny out of it. Lunch and free girls was it. It wasn't all work though, I do recall having a lot of fun, most of the girls were great. It actually started out helping Harley Street professors research sexual development and what sex was. Never been done before, you see, taboo subject even in medicine. The pill was on the way and they knew there was going to be trouble and needed to preempt any problems, psychological mainly. I wound up doing sex-shows, pics, and films for a while. I now understand it wasn't all research, somebody was making money out of this! Namely Harrison Marks, Sullivan, and the doctor seconded to do the research (so the others weren't obviously involved, they could be jailed not to mention struck off) Dr. Stephen Ward. He was expendable...
Miller, Asher (Jane's dad), Cilento (Diane's dad) Archie Macindoe (a silent partner, he agreed with the principle but daren't be associated, or struck-off, his burn-patients always came first). There were others who's names I can't now recall. We also were associated with forward-thinking people who formed a women and child-abuse support-group: Mary Whitehouse, Lady Astor, Mary Bell-Mills (actor John's wife) Claire Raynor (M.B-M's cousin) Honda roadracer Jim Redman's wife, Marlene, Lady Jacqueline Rufus Isaacs of Reading (lady-in-waiting to Anne) and, it later turned out, several of my teachers at school! One's wife started the group, went to school with Claire Raynor etc., etc., it grew from there. Both Mary Mills and Claire came over sometimes when I was making a sex-education film with Mandy Rice Davies, Claire more interested in our mental health. She quickly saw we needed no councilling, "This is a job, we volunteered for it, we bark at each other, yes, but we also calm down and talk our way through it, the sooner we do it - properly - the sooner we get out of here and back to a normal friendship," (for we decided we liked each other, we had a lot in common anyway, both well-read and intelligent people. And she had no real friends.... but via me began to make a few).
A lot of the dancer/singer/actresses in the theatres had to moonlight in Soho, the pay was very bad. Everybody knew, there are no secrets in showbiz. Meeting Gerald Campion (Billy Bunter?) who ran a streetside bar on Shaftesbury Avenue inbetween jobs, I often mulled over how we could buy a pub/restaurant/hotel for the girls to work in, thus avoiding working Soho. None of them liked it, though the stripping was apparently fun. Mmm...how to make money? Then one day Eddie Constantine visited (French gangster B-film actor). He was a lovely guy. He took me to lunch and told me the Cosa Nostro had asked him to offer me One Million Dollars to make a hardcore in colour, 35mm, for big cinemas all over Europe. Yippee!! But we couldn't find any cameras! The Brit industry used to borrow cameras from each other as it was, on a 'we need it back tomorrow to shoot OUR next scene', basis, 'and can we borrow one of yours as well?' On rainly days the phones ran hot with offers of cameras on hire, to make up the losses in not being able to film!
Me and the girls were all agreed we would make a costume-film that would knock your socks off. I can't recall the original titles but 'Cabaret' and 'Irma la Duce' were serious contenders, and also 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Cat on a Hot Roof', 'A Kind of Loving', and 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (the last two might not sell well abroad, but go a 'reet treat oop north'). All were agreed that it was a joint-effort, we would share equally according to what workload we each had (I would be writing the script and producing and would be paid a fee for this, on top of my acting fee). We decided that we would make about 3-4 films, then quit. By this time we all would have 20-40,000 Pounds each (depending on production costs) and being paid from a Jersey company ( I had access to top accountants who suggested this, all the rich do it to avoid tax) over a period of time would keep most of it. That's a couple of mill in todays money, enough to live well on the rest of your life. But there were no cameras available! I could get 16mm Jap cameras (met a guy from Canon, via David Bailey, who was into porno back home and was keen to do some films with me and some Japanese girls 'on tour in Europe'. I wasn't into bondage and I had no money for that, so it ran out) but the mafia moaned about that, my million was for the big film. George Raft said 'The Mob' were also interested (did you know he was a flamenco dancer of great repute, even in Spain? I liked him, he was a good man).
Well, to cut it short (it got very messy too) it all ran out in the sand. I still maintain that with half-a-dozen Jap 16mm's and some good lighting and equipment we could have made some good quality films and enough money for all. I even knew a mercenary (Black Jack Schramme from Katanga, the guy who bust the UN's ass and almost won the insurgance) who hired a chateau in France every summer for a training camp for his men (mostly ex-SS) and for his girls to kick back and sun themselves (he owned the redlight area behind Le Grand Place in Brussels). We could have made the films there. The guys would have made an excellent film-crew, disciplined, organised, trained to work together as a unit. Protection too, and extras, not all were gay.
Under organised conditions the girls in porno wouldn't be used and abused. But via your blog it sounds like the girls today would need good councilling even as normal citizens, let alone as help in the sex industry! The difference with us was that we were one tight, cohesive unit, living and working in the same town, we shared each other's problems, it was the only way for the girls to survive. Many outside that system, in the backstreets of London and other huge, dirty, towns in a depressed Britain, didn't have that. A lot died young. I saw the same thing in Sydney.
Attached is a pic of me as a lad. Ignore the 'Kungalv'. Also an interesting mag cover we've found. Printed in '63, there is an article using the notoriety of the Profumo Scandal to sell copy. The interesting thing is this: the pic is taken by Dr. Stephen Ward, the infamous sex-doctor of the scandal, as are the pics inside, it would seem (not seen them all yet). Somebody took either the negs or pics to the USA at about the time of the scandal. Lots of his stuff was sold or 'dissappeared' after his death, but when was this mag published, exactly? There is a problem here: the man entering the right of the lower right picture, the one with the car...is me. Why I know who took the pic (and a lot of other details involved). But...I also have been sent by a contact a photo of the cover taken with a digital camera that has vastely better resolution. The face of that man I say is me...isn't me. Somebody has forged the photo with another man's face. Why? The mag was only sold in the USA where nobody would notice little me as such? I understand the need to forge my pic if it was available in Britain, I would be recognised, the press would wonder who I was and try and trace me etc. I've had the pic looked at by 'certain people' (sorry, the www isn't secure) and they say it's hard to say definately from a copy of a copy of a...well, you get it. They would just love to see the original photo, somebody's done a really pro-job. But they do suspect the head of the 'subject' (me) is slightly suspect. I KNOW it is!
I happen to know who's head has been transposed over mine: Peter Rachman. The real Peter Rachman. 'Rachman' was an act, the little bald, fat guy most people know about, the one who died, was his double. Rachman's real name was actually Ilan Ram'el. If that figure was really Rachman he would tower over all in the pic, he was 6 feet 5 inches in his socks! The lad, me, is barely the height of a rather tall Maxine Miller (the girl in green) maybe 5 feet 9 inches (I got to 6 feet one later, I'm only 15 years old here).
I'd love to get pics taken from the same roll of film, the car shot was the last on that reel and the one's prior to it were hardcore from the night before. But it wasn't porno, not for me, not for the bearded guy in the pic. He was a war-hero, a captain on a warship that ran into a German cruiser in the North Atlantic one stormy day, both's radar not working what with the icing. Suprised, neither backed-off. The German was either sunk or was severely damaged, enough for the Navy to run him down. The British ship looked like a corkscrew, blown apart, burning, half the crew dead. Despite being raked by scrapnel all over his body, his cock and one testical blown-off, barely alive, the man in the pic, laying in agony on what was left of hid bridge directed his sailors how to sail a ship barely afloat back to port, not resting for a second the entire time. He got a medal for that. Then his wife left him, 'half a man as he was', and he only ever saw his daughter when she wanted money. A successful businessman now he was working himself to death. He was also going crazy. He still had an enormous sex-drive...but no cock. The top psychiatrists of the day, Professors Richard Miller and Richard Asher, aided by Dr. Stephen Ward, used me to find out how to give this man the orgasm he needed to relax. It's all in the head, you see. Tests with Ward (into alternate medicine) showed you could create orgasms using acupunture but this wasn't good enough, the poor man had to be able to do it himself, in his head. One of several times this picture on the mag cover was taken the day after such a session with Terry, Maxine and me (we used other girls too). The professors went home in the early hours, hoping they weren't seen, to mull over their observations. There were 2,000 others in Britain alone who were like this. The Captain was worried about MY well-being! I grunted rapidly "You fronted up for us when called for and paid a high price for it, why then, should I not front up for you now? Nobody's shooting at ME, forchrisssakes!"
I waited until I was alone at home and then cried.
I'd do it all again, just for that.
...Ta, mate. Beautiful piece of writing, if I say so myself, no wonder Ustinov was nervous of me. My failing is that I can't make things up, I need a basis to work off. Never did get going, we moved abroad and it would have taken years for me to adapt to the local scene, language etc. Got a job instead. I recall a very tall, slim Aussie that worked part-time for the mag Private Eye, owned by a good friend of mine, Peter Cooke (we shared the same zany repartee, wind us up and we went for hours!) a bloke from Kew in Melbourne, weird name of 'Berry' Humphries. He was a goer for the gals, but last time I saw him he was wearing a gold-lamee dress and into serious drag. Knew Lewis Morley so well he refuses to contact me. He has masses of piccies of me...and not all alone, ahem. I was the first model to pose in the 'Keeler Chair', for example, in the spring of '62. 'Berry' turned up and watched. It was difficult as I was at least 4" taller than Chrissie and didn't fit the pose as well as she later did.
I missed sending you my only pic from Australia, Berwick south of Melbourne. Big file from a slide.
Feel free to use any of my works if it fills a space. All I ask is that you ask around about the pics and films I suspect either Peter Lawford and/or Frank Sinatra took home with them. There are pics of Marilyn Monroe taken by Ward, and a film taken by Harrison Marks. They'll be safely locked away, but walls talk? My other contact in the US has been rather silent for a while, I can but hope they are still digging.
By the way, a friend of mine, Gary, overheard a conversation at Heathrow the other week. A bunch of guys from the USA were on their way to Uri Geller's house in Reading (west of London) for a conference and were deeply engaged in a chat about the black occult. Gary, a serious fan of the occult (having personal experiences he's trying to come to grips with) was suprised to hear Stephen Ward's name come up. He and Tommy Cooper (the entertainer) were high members of a secret masonic sect and are still talked about in awe by people in 'the business'. I knew about that, Gary now knows about that, it's how we met on the www. What shocked him was that they also mentioned ME. And they got my name right. I was refered to as 'the Ward Clan's sexual plaything.' Gary also said there were inferences that indicated that I was used for more than the black occult rituals I now recall being used for. This equates with the porno. He didn't know about that, other than Mandy. He was distracted and thus not sure, but he thought that I was known 'in the biz' as Sven. Sounds logical, my real name used to confuse people!