The Rialto Report

Who was the original actor cast in the lead role of the golden age blockbuster, The Devil in Miss Jones [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2015/09/19/devil-in-miss-jones/] (1973)? Not Georgina Spelvin [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2013/05/19/georgina-spelvin/], the talented doyenne of adult films who starred in many pre-video era features, first in New York then in California, and who was the eventual star of the film as ‘Miss Jones.’ No, Gerard Damiano first chose another actress, Sue Flaken [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0280936/], to fill the role, only to change his mind at the last minute. The movie went on to become one of the biggest hits of the era, making Spelvin one of the most famous of the first generation of porn stars. The sliding doors moment changed Georgina Spelvin’s life forever. But what of Sue Flaken, who was instead relegated to a minor, non-speaking part in the film? Who was she, why did she miss out on the life-changing role, and what happened to her afterwards? The answer includes supporting involvement for Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Lee Jones, Georgina Spelvin, Harry Everett Smith, Al Gore, the Chelsea Hotel, Joe Sarno, Terry Southern, industrial quantities of hallucinogenic drugs, and much more. This is the untold story of ‘Sue Flaken.’ This podcast is 35 minutes long. ——————————————————————————————————————————- sliding doors /ˈslīdiNG dôrs/ plural noun definition: a seemingly insignificant moment that has a profound and lasting impact on a person’s life or the trajectory of a relationship. These moments, while often unnoticed, can dramatically alter the course of events and significantly affect future outcomes. * What if Franz Ferdinand hadn’t been shot, and the event that triggered World War I hadn’t happened? What if young Adolf Hitler hadn’t been rejected twice from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and instead had gone on to became an artist instead of pursuing politics? Butterfly-effect inflection points which, if they had turned out differently, might have caused a different world. Or another example, only less consequential perhaps: what if Gerard Damiano [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2022/01/16/gerard-damiano/] hadn’t decided at the last moment to promote Georgina Spelvin [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2013/05/19/georgina-spelvin/] from her role as the cook for the cast and crew on The Devil in Miss Jones [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2015/09/19/devil-in-miss-jones/] (1973) and instead given her the starring role? The story is oft-told: Damiano was shooting the follow-up to Deep Throat [https://www.therialtoreport.com/deep-throat-50/] (1972) in a converted apple-packing plant in Milanville, Pennsylvania, and needed someone to provide craft services for the long-weekend location shoot. He offered the job to Chele Graham, an ex-Broadway chorus girl who’d featured in stage productions such as ‘Cabaret’, ‘Guys and Dolls’, and ‘Sweet Charity’ before being timed-out by her age – she was a near-ancient 36 by the time of ‘Miss Jones’. Chele accepted the catering job, needing the money for a film collective that she and her lover were setting up in lower Manhattan. Damiano had already hired someone for the all-important lead role of Miss Jones – a newcomer named Ronnie, an actress he was raving about – but by the time production started, Chele had become Georgina Spelvin and assumed the role of Miss Jones, instantly creating one of the more memorable characters in adult film history – as was borne out by the contemporary critics. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, “‘The Devil in Miss Jones’ is good primarily because of the performance of Georgina Spelvin in the title role. Miss Spelvin, who has become the Linda Lovelace of the literate, is something of a legend. There burns in her soul the spark of an artist, and she is not only the best, but possibly the only actress in the hardcore field.” Addison Verrill writing in Variety wondered, “If Marlon Brando can be praised for giving his almost-all in ‘Last Tango in Paris,’ one wonders what the reaction will be to ‘Miss Jones’ lead Georgina Spelvin? Though she lacks the specific sexpertise of Linda Lovelace and she’s no conventional beauty, her performance is so naked it seems a massive invasion of privacy.” So the sliding doors of history closed shut, Georgina was unexpectedly immortalized as an improbable sex star, and Damiano had another sex film hit. History is often written by the protagonists, but truth is most often found in silence and the quiet places. Everyone else has told their story about the film, so what about Ronnie, the original Miss Jones? When Georgina was catapulted into A-lister sex-film stardom for the next decade, Ronnie disappeared without a trace. She became a parenthesis in a footnote to the appendix of adult film history. Who was she, and what happened to the original Miss Jones? Devil in Miss Jones [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Snip20250421_3.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Snip20250421_3.jpg * Gerry Damiano had rated Ronnie highly: “She’s really a dynamo,” he said to Harry Reems, the movie’s male lead, who wrote about her in his autobiography, ‘Here Comes Harry Reems’ (1975). Gerry continued, “She’s voluptuous, she’s got a wild afro-cut, and an ass that just won’t quit. Ronnie was enthusiastic about being given the Miss Jones role too: “I can fuck and suck better than any woman doing this shit,” Harry said that she told everybody. But the reason that Georgina took her place has been a mystery for decades. In fact, there are three versions on record. Firstly, in her autobiography, Georgina claimed that her getting the part was all a happy accident: she’d been meeting with Damiano to discuss the food: “We discuss how to feed 17 people for three days on $500. An actor arrives to read for the part of Abaca. Gerry asks if I would mind reading the part of Miss Jones with him since I’m just sitting there.” She remembered that Damiano was so impressed with her read-through, that he offered her the part. Harry Reems’ recollection was different, claiming Georgina was only given the lead role when Ronnie was diagnosed with a dental issue two days before the production started: ‘“How’s Ronnie going to do blow jobs with an impacted wisdom tooth?” I asked Gerry. Good question. Gerry threw in the dental floss. Ronnie was out and Georgina Spelvin was in.” The last version comes from fellow ‘Miss Jones’ actor, Marc Stevens – aka Mr. 10½ on account of the supposed length of his furious fescue. Marc remembers the last-minute change the most prosaically in his memoir: “(The film’s production had) the usual whining, ego-tripping, and petulance endemic to film. Ronnie decided, all of a sudden, she didn’t want the starring role. (Instead) she wound up blowing me in another scene.” It’s true. Whatever issues Ronnie had with motivation – or her teeth – she did in fact appear in ‘Miss Jones’, in a smaller, sex-only role, partnering with Georgina Spelvin to give head to Marc Stevens. She appeared in the credits as ‘Sue Flaken.’ It remains among the only feature film footage of Ronnie, and she’s an electric presence. (She appears as ‘Teri Easterni [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2797809/]‘ in The Birds and the Beads [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180532/reference/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_1] (1973), and supposedly made brief appearances in two other X-rated films: Lloyd Kaufman [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0442207/]’s The New Comers [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144463/reference/?ref_=nm_knf_t_2] (1973) (tagline: “The First X-rated Musical!”) and the one-day wonder, Sweet and Sour [https://www.iafd.com/title.rme/id=524f3335-f319-40fa-82b9-e6ee6bb72b2e] (1974), but both are virtually unfindable today.) In ‘Miss Jones’, she’s filmed in a single spaghetti-western-style close-up. Her face is framed by a thicket of coal-black curls, and punctuated by roundly incredulous eyes to which an immaculately-applied smokey-eye contrasts with Georgina’s 1970s porno-blue eye shadow. Ronnie smiles a lot, showing off detergent-white teeth like a suburban neighborhood picket fence. Sexually, Ronnie steals the scene, performing enthusiastically, selfishly even. Her sequence exists within the film to show Miss Jones making up for having been a virgin for too long – but, just like Ronnie’s unknown life, the scene exists in its own microcosm, unconnected to anything that precedes or follows it. And then Ronnie disappears behind the sliding doors, and is never seen again. Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-1973-Devil-In-Miss-Jones-0056.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-1973-Devil-In-Miss-Jones-0056.jpg Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-1973-Devil-In-Miss-Jones-0050.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-1973-Devil-In-Miss-Jones-0050.jpg Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-1973-Devil-In-Miss-Jones-0038.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-1973-Devil-In-Miss-Jones-0038.jpgSue Flaken (left), and Georgina Spelvin, in ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’ (1973) * Whenever I met people who’d been present on set with Ronnie for those few short days – people like Gerry Damiano, Georgina Spelvin, Harry Reems [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2022/04/17/harry-reems-3/], Levi Richards [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2018/08/26/levi-richards/], and others – I always made a point of asking about her. Remarkably, given that they’d all known her for such a short period several decades earlier, everyone still had a memory or two concerning her. And many of their memories were the same: Ronnie was beautiful, exciting, but unpredictable, wild, feral even. She wasn’t part of their usual repertory group of performers, but rather teetered around the edge, maverick and unpredictable. No one had any idea what her second name was. Then I met Jason Russell [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0751220/], former husband of New York’s first porno star, Tina Russell [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2016/08/21/tina-russell/], and sometime adult film actor himself. I interviewed him in his Florida home towards the end of his life, when his world-weary, tobacco-stained cynicism betrayed his every statement. “Ever hear about ‘Rabid Ronnie’?” he non-sequitured with a jaded sigh at the end of the day. I perked up. You mean the Ronnie who was in ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’? Jason mumbled back, “Yep, that one. She was a trip. Whacko. Insane. I wrote about her in Tina’s book. Only worked with her once. It was on the set of Joe Sarno [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0765430/]’s Sleepyhead [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128536/reference/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_10] (1973). Crazy chick. Fierce. Almost killed the whole film.” I pulled out a copy of ‘Porno Star’ (1973), Tina Russell’s autobiography that Jason had ghost-written, and found the description of events. “Halfway through the first day, one female member (Ronnie) of the cast announced, “I’m tripping my brains out!” She proceeded to flip out to the point where she caused herself and many others a lot of pain, and cost the budget at least $2,500 to $3,000. We had to find a replacement for her role overnight, and re-shoot with the new girl all that we had managed to shoot the first day. This was only the second time that such a situation had occurred in the three years that we have been working in the business. We all went home with grueling tension headaches.” What happened exactly, I asked? “Acid, I’m guessing. She dropped a tab, and she was gone. She lost her mind. She was like a wild horse. Flared nostrils and violent eyes.” Did you ever come across her after that? “Nooo. She vanished. She’ll be long dead now, I’m sure. She was an acid casualty, you know? People were experimenting with drugs a lot back then. They’ve always done that. But we didn’t knew the limits, so we were guinea pigs for some of the newer drugs. And some people paid the price. I guess Ronnie was one. I still think about her some times, and wonder about how she ended her days.” Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Sleepyhead-01.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Sleepyhead-01.jpg * The film that Jason mentioned, ‘Sleepyhead’, was Joe Sarno’s first as an explicit sex film director after a prolific decade making films that managed to insert tense erotica into humdrum black and white existential kitchen-sink dramas. When I heard Jason’s story, Joe was still alive and we were friendly. I called him, and he remembered Ronnie and the ‘Sleepyhead’ incident well. Joe recalled he’d been wary of the newly-formed X-rated acting fraternity, and decided he needed to hear them all read before casting any of them. So he held an old-fashioned open-call audition in his apartment, and Ronnie turned up. Good actors in porn in the early 1970s were as scarce as a polyester suit without a wide collar, and Ronnie immediately stood out to him as a talent. She was attractive too, firecracker small, with an impish grin. Joe was impressed and took Ronnie aside. They hit it off, and she distractedly told him she’d attended all the prestigious acting schools in the city, and was now fielding a number of promising theater offers. Joe was skeptical of her claims but offered her a principal role in his plot-driven narrative, and Ronnie accepted gratefully. Two weeks later, the Ronnie who turned up for the first day on set was a different character: “She seemed drunk, stumbling around and acting unsteady. Her make-up was a mess and she clearly wasn’t prepared for the day’s shoot. So I sat her down and waited to see if she got any better – but it just got worst. I’ve never understood drug-taking so I was bewildered when she started hallucinating and arguing angrily with invisible people who weren’t there. I was worried about her sanity. We tried shooting a few scenes with her and made some progress, but then she got out of control and I had to let her go. We started again next day – this time without her.” A few months after I spoke to Joe, he was clearing out cabinets in his apartment and came across a collection of old paperwork and ephemera relating to his career: scripts, actor resumes, and stills. In amongst the ancient history was a familiar face. It was Ronnie’s headshot – with her full name and performing experience. Her address, albeit several decades old, was also shown: The Chelsea Hotel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Chelsea], New York City. Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-ronne_copy.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-ronne_copy.jpgSue Flaken’s headshot * My first call to Ronnie wasn’t a positive one. At first, I couldn’t even figure out why I should call her. There were plenty of other people whose film experiences were more significant and meaningful, so why Ronnie? Then one day, her headshot fell out of a file in front of me and so I decided to act on impulse. Another sliding door moment perhaps. I found a phone number for her online. She was no longer living at the Chelsea, having seemingly married and moved down to Florida many years before. I called and introduced myself, and gave a reason for my interest. You know: the usual waffle we’ve all approached complete strangers with – you start by asking about acting in a famous pornographic film decades earlier, you throw in a reference to a potentially mind-altering mushroom-mind-trip that people still remember, and close by telling them about a recently-discovered headshot lying long-forgotten in a drawer. In other words, a pretty standard opener. I heard a sigh at the other end of the line before a tired voice: “And so… the call I’ve always expected but forever feared is happening right now,” she said with resignation. Silence, followed by more waffle from the caller, this time the predominant theme being backtracking, reversal, and retraction. Ronnie sighed again. “I like your English accent,” she offered eventually. I explained I was intrigued with knowing more about her early life and her brief involvement in adult film. “And what is going to happen to the information?” she asked. It didn’t have to go anywhere, I said. This was a just curious inquiry about a small part of her life. “I don’t want it told,” Ronnie said. “It’s not something I share with people. Even with those who are close to me.” I left my email address in case she changed her mind – and the conversation ended. A few months later, I received an email from her: “I’ve wrestled with the idea of sharing details from my life. I felt that they were too private to share with you. Hence, the hesitation and late response. But I have come to realize that your heart and spirit are in the right place, and therefore I wish to help you. “But know this: the only reason I’m telling you is that you are anonymous and therefore I don’t feel it will have any effect on my life. You’ll be like a canyon that I whisper into. The sounds will disappear with the wind and leave no trace.” So we started talking. “What is it you want to know?” she asked. Chelsea Hotel [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Chelsea_Hotel.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Chelsea_Hotel.jpgThe Chelsea Hotel, New York City * Ronnie’s life started in 1947 – born in a Manhattan hospital, raised in East Rockaway on Long Island, and by her teen years becoming a self-described Jewish American Princess. Her father was heavily involved in community theatre, and occasionally ventured into film, once appearing in a movie with Kim Novak. Ronnie caught the performing bug from an early age and joined every stage production she could find. For as long as she could remember, she wanted to be a famous movie star. Dad took note and enrolled her in elocution lessons followed by acting schools in the city throughout her high school years. Ronnie showed talent, and was granted a place at the Stella Adler Studio where she studied for several years. Opportunities started to spring up that were as exciting as they were varied: she modeled for Spiegel’s Catalogue, she was hired as a singer in a Harry Belafonte show that premiered at a Brooklyn night club, she did skits on stage with Bette Midler, took acrobatic dance lessons with Joe Price, the legendary director of the Dance Master Association, she did voiceover work with Chuck McCann, and found time to briefly date both preeminent teen idols of the time, Paul Anka and Frankie Avalon. As some of the work was in Hollywood, she got a local manager in California, attorney Jimmy Talbort, who also managed Redd Foxx, but Ronnie’s main interest was in live theatre, preferring drama plus the occasional comedy. In 1966, she embarked on a Theater Studies degree at Queen’s College, at the same time she was attending the Herbert Berghof Acting Studio. She started dating her high school boyfriend, a smart Long Island kid named Jimmy who got accepted into Harvard. Ronnie visited him often and hung out with his two roommates, Al and Tommy Lee. They’d later become future politico, Al Gore, and ‘Fugitive’ actor, Tommy Lee Jones. The four of them formed an inseparable group for a short while. Ronnie spoke proudly about her young life, still amazed that the people she mixed with would become such successful professionals in various roles. “We had the world at our feet,” she smiled. * And then the craziness began. To quote Ronnie quoting Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. It started in 1969, after graduating Queens College, when she moved to Manhattan to pursue an acting career. I asked how serious she’d been about acting? It was always my intention and interest to act. In retrospect, I realized later that it was more of an interest than an intention. I’d been fortunate. Up until then, everything had been handed to me on a plate. I had a lot of acting offers and I thought life was easy. But I started to let people down. What does that mean? I wasn’t a serious person. I was a wild child. Your teen years don’t strike me as having been crazy. So… was there a turning point? Yeah. I met Harry Smith [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Everett_Smith]. Harry Everett Smith, the artist and poet? (laughs) Yes, though he was more than just an artist-poet. He was crazy, an eccentric, larger-than-life persona who’d been one of the most prominent figures of the Beat Generation scene in New York. He made underground films, was an early hippie and a spiritual guru, he put out records, collected esoteric objects… and he collected people too. Harry Smith [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Harry-Smith-01.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Harry-Smith-01.jpgHarry Everett Smith Drugs were important for him as well, weren’t they? He was heavily into anything mind-expanding, and he loved the creative possibilities of hallucinations. And you knew him well? Very. At first, I was a member of Harry’s ‘tribe’. Then we became close and we spent a lot of time together. He lived in the Chelsea Hotel, and after a while I moved in with him. We lived together in the legendary Room 731. I got caught up in all the craziness that surrounded him. And that included the drugs and the mind-trips. What was the Chelsea like at the time? People romanticize it now because so many famous artists, singers, and writers lived there. And it’s true, people like Patti Smith, Mapplethorpe, Hendrix, and Bob Dylan were there when I was there, so that was exciting. But in reality, it was also an insane asylum for incorrigible drug addicts. Sadly, I fit right in. I became a big druggie. A major drug user… How so? I spent all my time experimenting with drugs. Hallucinogenics: LSD, mushrooms, acid, peyote. I did it all. All the time, too. I think I must have dropped about 500 tabs of LSD that first year. As I say, I never make the same mistake twice: I make it six or seven times, just to be sure. How were you supporting yourself? I survived off very little. Harry didn’t have much money, but he was so well-known that even when he couldn’t pay his rent, the Chelsea management couldn’t touch him or throw him out. His notoriety also meant that the best drugs came our way too. Did you mix with the other Beats? Oh sure, it was a close group. Harry’s best friend was Allen Ginsberg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg], so we spent a lot of time with him. Through them both, I got to know Gregory Corso [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Corso], the poet. Gregory lived in the Chelsea too, so I’d sometimes take refuge in his place when it got too much with Harry. The problem was that Greg struggled with alcohol and drugs as well – because he was so lonely and damaged. It was a loving, talented, but strange and dysfunctional gang. Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Allen_Ginsberg_26_Gregory_Corso2C_New_York_City2C_May_1985-1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Allen_Ginsberg_26_Gregory_Corso2C_New_York_City2C_May_1985-1.jpgAllen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso What was it like being on the inside of their group? On the one hand, I was excited. These were men whose works I had read and whose philosophy and thought I had admired. And all of sudden, I was there, listening to them, learning, and being part of their lives. But then there was a melancholic desperation to them as well. Why so? They were older than people I’d hang out with – Harry was about 25 years older than me, Gregory was, maybe, 15 years older. By the late 1960s, they were men without a time. They’d preceded the whole hippie thing: in fact, their philosophy had, in part, led to the hippies, and they were revered by the young counter-culture – but now they also felt old and marginalized. So they doubled down, and became more into drugs and drink. Were you doing much theater during these years? As much as my drugged-out state would allow…. I did plays all over town, many of them small, experimental productions for no money, and I continued my acting training at the La Mama Plexus workshop. That was a notoriously difficult, taxing, emotional process… even if you were in control of your faculties. And I was spiraling… How long did you live at the Chelsea? I got my own room there after a while. I became involved with another writer, Terry Southern [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Southern]. He’d written a racy book, Candy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_(Southern_and_Hoffenberg_novel)] (1958), and then became a screenwriter of a bunch of counter-culture films…   Dr Strangelove (1964), Barbarella (1968), Easy Rider (1969), and others. What was he like when you knew him? He was basically an alcoholic and an amphetamine user, and was becoming less reliable as a result… which meant he was less in-demand with filmmakers and so he had money problems. We partied hard. In 1970, Southern wrote a novel, Blue Movie [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Movie_(novel)], about the production of a high-budget pornographic film which starred major movie actors. Yeah, he was fascinated with sex films. Obsessed. He talked about them all the time. When the first sex films started appearing in theaters – I mean real sex – he took me off to a Times Square cinema, and we went to see one. He watched them all the time. I dunno, perhaps he normalized the whole idea for me. ‘Blue Movie’ was the result of his interest, but it was a flop and didn’t sell well. It was a shame, because he was an incredible talent. Stanley Kubrick loved his work. Terry Southern [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Terry-Southern-01.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-Terry-Southern-01.jpgTerry Southern (left), with Rip Torn * If Ronnie spoke about being a casualty of the 1960s drug culture, the 1970s were the brutal hangover where life really went downhill for her. I asked her about whether ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’ was her first direct experience of working in the adult film industry. At first, she brushed off the questions blaming drugs and a poor memory. I have a very scant recollection of my days in the porn industry. At that time, I was still using LSD heavily, and that creates these large black… blank periods in my memory. Do you remember if it was your first sex film experience? I have a feeling that it was not. Whether I had made a feature, or two, or whether I just some of those individual scenes that were shot on a hand-held portable camera, I’m not sure. I think I did something before ‘Miss Jones.’ What do you remember about the ‘Miss Jones’ shoot? I recall Gerard Damiano, the director. He was kindly and paternal – and serious too. I think that I was supposed to play the lead, but something changed at the last minute. I don’t recall what it was. One story was that a problem with a wisdom tooth? I have no recollection of that. Do you remember the scene that you did with Georgina Spelvin? Hardly. I do know that on set we improvised a lot, and I remember helping Gerry set up a scene or two by sketching out detailed improv scenarios. I was used to doing that at the Stella Adler Studio so that was straight forward. Do you remember anyone else from the production? I recall Georgina as being an older, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense broad. I remember Harry, the lead in the film. I think I worked with him in a few films. It’s a blur. I also recall a beautiful petite French girl that I acted with. Who would that be? Did you remember being aware of the commercial success of ‘Miss Jones’? Only much later. A few years later in fact. I had no idea what the name of the movie was when I made it, but it dawned on me much later.  I was horrified when I realized. I’ve still never seen it. Did anyone ever recognize you from your appearance in it? Not that I’m aware of… Do remember appearing in any other adult films? I vividly recall a director named Joe Sarno who I worked for. He lured me in by insisting that his films were soft porn, not hard porn. He liked me, so he gave me a prominent acting role. I liked him too. On the first day, we were shooting a scene and I was wearing a white fur coat with black spots. I was tripping on LSD. A really heavy trip. Long story short, I cost Joe at least a full day’s shoot because of something I did. What was that? It’s painful to remember. I did the sex scene, and I had fur all over my face. Then I took some of the white substance… use your imagination… and I smeared it all over the camera lens. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was hysterical. That didn’t go down well… Do you remember Joe’s reaction? Joe was the nicest, most down-to-earth person. I had great fondness for him. He took me aside and told me that I did not belong on a porno set. He said that I was a nice Jewish girl, and had too much class to be in this environment. He told me to go home and think seriously about what he said. And what was your reaction? I did what he told me to. And I don’t believe that I ever graced a porn set again. Sue Flaken [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-DMJ-03.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/RR-DMJ-03.jpg * The most painful part of Ronnie’s life came after the X-rated films. As she tells it, she was still living at the Chelsea Hotel, struggling to find work, and dealing with increasingly severe addictions. With dwindling options, she was kicked out of the residence, and resorted to couch-surfing at the apartments of people she barely knew. Eventually she turned to escorting and dealing drugs. It was a dangerous combination. If she wasn’t risking her life being beaten up by johns or drug gangs, she was getting into trouble with the law. She suffered physically, was arrested on a semi-regular basis, and was banged up for weeks in prison, but somehow managed to avoid lengthy jail sentences. Ronnie’s discomfort talking about it was plain: “Short story, I turned to sugar daddies and more dealing. I still have a hard time sharing many of the shady experiences from my past. They’re both shameful and immoral. I was raising holy hell. Those were the bad old days for sure.” Remarkably she still acted on occasion, mainly in theatrical productions but sometimes in bit parts in movies such as ‘Lords of Flatbush,’ (1974) notable for early starring roles for Sylvester Stallone and Henry Winkler. The film earned her SAG membership, but it was too late: “Much to my regret, I had to accept it just wasn’t in the cards for me. The promise I had shown had evaporated – and together with it, all the opportunities, hope, and dreams. I was lost.” It came to a head when Ronnie experienced a complete breakdown, both physical and emotional, followed by period of mental illness. Recognizing that she needed a complete change to save her life, she moved to Florida and trained as a teacher, gaining a doctorate from the Union Institute & University, an organization was based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. She married, and resumed a limited acting career finding work in commercials and training videos for bodies like the Miami Police Force. Her resume’ at the time described her as being available for look-a-like work too – for anyone wanting a Sophia Loren, Marlo Thomas, Isabel Allende, Judge Judy, Bobby Gentry, Barbra Streisand, and Marsha Clark. She became a Certified Drama Teacher, school counselor, and motivational speaker who spoke about her first-hand experience with drug addiction, mental illness, and recovery: “I truly have gone through a complete transformation in my life. It was a time that I was not proud of,” she repeated to me. * I kept in touch with Ronnie ever since our first calls. We’d exchange emails, holiday cards, and invitations to visit each other.  Mostly we’d talk about what was going on in the world or in our lives. Sometimes she asked random questions about people in the adult film industry: “How is Harry Reems? How does he feel about the films he made?” She’d ask about Joe Sarno. “Where does Joe live now? Is he happy? Please give him my love if you speak with him again. And, most of all, thank him for getting me out of the porn business.” Occasionally, we returned to talking about the details of her early life, and we pondered the vagaries of existence. The various sliding door moments that could have completely changed the way her life turned out. And she still couldn’t fathom just how her life would’ve been different if she had been ‘Miss Jones.’ Once she called me and asked me about the plot of ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’: “It’s about a woman who lived her life as an innocent virgin, but she wants to have a second go-round before she goes to hell – is that right?” Yes, I replied. The tagline of the film was ‘If you have to go to hell, go for a reason.’ Ronnie replied: “I’m the opposite of her then. I’d like a do-over where I don’t do all the crazy things.” * Every so often, I asked her if she’d be interested in talking more publicly about her life experience in adult film? Could I write an article about her life, for example? The answer was always the same: “I am so ashamed of it all. It’s embarrassing. And no one would be interested anyway.” I assured her she had nothing to feel guilty about, and that she’d lived more interesting lives than a room full of other people. “Wait until I die,” she’d laugh. “Then I really don’t care what you do.” Are you serious, I asked? “Yes,” she said. “Wait until then. After that… well… my life has to have counted for something, it has to have had some meaning. It wasn’t just a serious of sliding door moments, right?” And then she’d sign off her emails in the same way she always did: “Life is good. You must take care. Ronnie.” * Ronnie passed away in February 2025. * The post Sue Flaken’s Sliding Doors – The Mystery of the Original Miss Jones [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2025/04/27/sue-flaken/] appeared first on The Rialto Report [https://www.therialtoreport.com].

In the first part of our interview with Susan Hart [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366539/], we heard about Sue’s early years in 1970s Los Angeles, growing up in a strict Catholic family, running away from home when she was 15, and becoming involved in a bad relationship. She escaped – into the army of all places, before finding a different kind of home, of sorts, as a prolific performer in the early adult video industry. But what is unusual and remarkable about her story is that Susan is willing to tell it at all. As you will hear in this concluding episode, Susan left Los Angeles in the late 1980s and pursued a professional career, living in constant fear of being confronted by her past. When we contacted her, we had no idea that it would bring out many of her worst fears. This is Sue’s story. You can hear the first part of our interview with Susan Hart here [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2025/03/09/susan-hart/]. This podcast is 60 minutes long. —————————————————————————————————————————————- SUSAN HART: ADULT INDUSTRY PHOTOS Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-77.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-77.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-70.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-70.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-68.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-68.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-60.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-60.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-55.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-55.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-57.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-57.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-53.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-53.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-54.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-54.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-51-1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-51-1.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-46.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-46.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-38.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-38.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-37.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-37.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-31.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-31.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-22.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-22.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-14.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR-Susan-Hart-14.jpg * The post Susan Hart – Confidences and Confidence, Part 2: Podcast 150 [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2025/03/16/susan-hart-2/] appeared first on The Rialto Report [https://www.therialtoreport.com].

Perhaps one of the less obvious aspects of The Rialto Report is that it may lead to the impression that people involved in the adult industry forty or fifty years ago are all pretty comfortable talking about their pasts and have led serene lives, free of incident, since they stopped making sex films. After all, our podcasts and interviews are filled with people talking pretty openly about their experiences. In fact, quite the opposite is normally the case. You see, the truth is that the majority of people we approach – actors, directors, producers – are usually rather keen to not go public with their memories. And that’s understandable: despite the length of time that’s passed since their images and names were splashed across posters and theater screens, the reality is there is still a very real stigma in current day America for something they did all those years ago. The result is that, sadly, these voices are largely absent from the selection of oral histories that we present in The Rialto Report. So all that begs the question: why on earth did Susan Hart [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366539/] agree to an interview? You see, Susan was a prolific actress in the California video explosion of the mid 1980s. She appeared in a hundred or so movies and countless spreads in men’s magazines. She had an interesting backstory too: a Latina from Los Angeles, the product of a Catholic upbringing, she joined the Army to break free. Then, she became an adult film performer and later was approached to take part in a sting operation against the sex film business. She was pretty, happy-looking, popular, and we always wondered about her. So we sent her a letter. Little did we realize that she’d spent the last 40 years terrified that her past would catch up with her, and that her biggest nightmare was someone like us contacting her and asking her to reveal who she was, and is. But we spoke, and Sue agreed to tell all – including exploring how she feels about it today. She still can’t quite understand why she did adult films, but we hope she’s happy about this interview. This podcast is 60 minutes long. —————————————————————————————————————————————- SUSAN HART: PERSONAL PHOTOS Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Girl-6.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Girl-6.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Girl-2.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Girl-2.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Kid-Baseball.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Kid-Baseball.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Pre-Teen-Bikili.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Pre-Teen-Bikili.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-5.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-5.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Army-2.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Army-2.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-4.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-4.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Lakeside-3.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Lakeside-3.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Lakeside-2.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Lakeside-2.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Bike.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Bike.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Beach.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Beach.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-6.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-6.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Lake-Small-Animal.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Lake-Small-Animal.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-2.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-2.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Fancy-Dress.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Fancy-Dress.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Baseball-Cap.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Baseball-Cap.jpg   Susan Hart [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Teased-Hair.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/RR_Sue-Young-Woman-Teased-Hair.jpg * The post Susan Hart – Confidences and Confidence, Part 1: Podcast 149 [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2025/03/09/susan-hart/] appeared first on The Rialto Report [https://www.therialtoreport.com].

Previously on Chasing Butterflies – Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida: After Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/13/dolores-carlos/]’ retirement from acting in South Florida nudie films in the late 1960s, she still remained close to her circle of Cuban filmmaker friends, and none more so than José Prieto [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/27/jose-prieto/], Greg Sandor [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0762075/], and Rafael Remy [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1394747/]. They would still meet regularly, and all three took an active interest in her daughter Marcy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/11/03/marcy-bichette/]’s well-being. From time to time, they would joke about the fortune teller that the three men had consulted when they escaped from Cuba. Greg Sandor had moved out the California and had indeed found the money and respect that had been predicted for him. Similarly, José Prieto had found a degree of fame and notoriety following the success and outcry that followed the release of films he made, such as Shanty Tramp [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060968/reference/] (1967) and Savages from Hell [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063554/reference/] (1968). The only exception to the mystic’s forecast was Rafael Remy: he’d fared well and was not seeing the trouble and strife that had been foreseen in his future. Rafael had lived a lower profile existence but with more regular work than his two friends: due in part to his jack-of-all-trades skill-set and willingness to get involved in anything, he was always in demand. He was a cameraman, editor, lighting, gaffer, soundman, and production manager who was cheap and could always be relied on to deliver a decent job. But as the 1960s turned into the 70s, the film business was changing: the innocent exploitation films that had greeted them when they arrived from Cuba were giving way to more explicit sex movies whose legality was questionable, and Rafael was suddenly being offered an altogether different kind of job. Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many people involved in the Florida film business of the 1960s and 1970s. Their overlapping personal histories reveal an untold chapter of adult film history – and the hidden role that Cubans played in shaping it. These are some of their stories. This is the concluding episode of Chasing Butterflies, Part 4: Rafael Remy’s story. You can listen to the Prologue: Dolores Carlos’ story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/13/dolores-carlos/] here, [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/13/dolores-carlos/] Part 1: Manuel Conde’s story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/20/manuel-conde/], Part 2: José Prieto’s story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/27/jose-prieto/], Part 3: Marcy Bichette’s story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/11/03/marcy-bichette/]. With thanks to John Minson, Tom Flynn, Ronald Ziegler [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0956140/], Leroy Griffith [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341563/], Veronica Acosta, Marcy Bichette [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0080961/], Mikey Bichette, Lousie ‘Bunny’ Downe [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0235905/], Mitch Poulos [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0693677/], Sheldon Schermer [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771088/], Ray Aranha [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0033068/], Manny Samaniego, Barry Bennett [https://m.imdb.com/name/nm2692189/?ref_=tt_ov_st_1], Randy Grinter [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342492/], Herb Jeffries [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0420370/], Tempest Storm [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0832626/], Chester Phebus [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0679705/], Michael Bowen, Norman Senfeld [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0784231/], Richard Falcone [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0265968/], Lynne O’Neill [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8591608/], Something Weird Video [https://www.somethingweird.com], and many anonymous families and friends who have offered recollections, large and small, over the years. This podcast is 45 minutes long. * 1.    RAFAEL REMY, THE FORTUNE-TELLER’S PREDICTION – AND EMILE HARVARD In the late 1960s, Rafael received a called from someone called Emile Allan Harvard [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0692374/]. In a strong Eastern European accent, Harvard explained that he was new to Florida and was looking for a film man: someone who knew how to put a movie together, someone who knew where to find actors, crew, locations, and equipment. Harvard had heard that Rafael could be the man to assist him, and that Rafael was a man with expertise who’d built an extensive network of contacts in the years since he’d arrived penniless from Cuba. But Rafael was wary: he asked around about this new arrival in the state, but could find no one who knew anything about Harvard. Rafael was right to be cautious: Harvard was a mysterious hustler with an unusual history. Emile Harvard was a Romanian Jew, who’d started his adult life in 1930s Bucharest training to be a cameraman. And then in the build-up to World War 2, Harvard became a spy for the British. It was a volatile period in Romania as the country’s fascist dictatorship was aligned to Nazi Germany and the government was suppressing any opposition by force. Despite the dangers, Harvard loved the subterfuge. He was given a cover profession to conceal his espionage activity which was to be a newsreel cameraman for British Movietone News. He used these media credentials to gain access to key government sites and report on them to his British paymasters. It was a perilous assignment, but one he performed with alacrity. Romania was a key supplier of the oil for the Nazi war effort and so he also gathered information on the refineries and transport routes. Then he captured footage of Romanian military operations, like airfields and supply depots. But Harvard never seemed happy doing the same activity for long, and soon he was suggesting ways that he could sabotage Nazi efforts. His motivation was less born out of deeply-held ideological convictions, but rather out of a love of excitement and intrigue. A later acquaintance described Harvard as “an enigma, rather than a real person, a shady, shape-shifting person with many identities, a man who you felt you could never truly know.” The useful life of a spy is a limited one – and in 1943, his cover was blown when Harvard apparently blabbed to someone he shouldn’t have and was reported to the authorities. Life In Romania was suddenly impossible for him so his British employers moved him to Tel Aviv, a city then in British-administered Mandatory Palestine, where he got married and had a daughter, Esther. When the war ended, Harvard obtained Israeli citizenship before moving to Canada, first Montreal, then Toronto, where he started a career as a TV producer and director. He formed several small-time companies, including Harvard Productions, ostensibly to make television series for the American market. His wartime activity may have been over, but in truth Harvard still enjoyed living a partly fictional life, and with each career move, he inflated the achievements on his resumé which he generously shared with the press. He frequently spoke about working for MGM for twelve years, producing content for NBC, CBS, and Pathé, and having a successful career in Hollywood – none of which was true. Emile Harvard [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20240912_2.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20240912_2.jpg A few years later, without any major credits to his name, Harvard decided on a radical change of direction: after a vacation to see his brother in Miami, Florida in 1960, he was inspired to announce that Harvard Productions was planning a Florida-themed club in Toronto to be called ‘Oceans 11’, after the Rat Pack movie that had hit the cinemas that year. It was to be an exclusive, high-end, rich-members-only place, which he described as a “health and entertainment” club. The Florida theme meant palm trees, a glass sun-roof, a 500-seat restaurant, nightly entertainment, and a swimming pool with a state-of-the-art wave machine – all to be housed on the top three floors of a Toronto office building. “It will be just like Miami Beach,” Harvard told the newspapers, who lapped up the project with excitement filling pages of breathless newsprint. It was ambition on a grand scale, the kind that comes from someone with a big imagination, not to mention someone whose own money is not at stake. Sure enough, the project failed when it was the funding failed to materialize, and so for Emile Harvard and Harvard Productions, it was back to square one. Emile Harvard [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1960-06-25-National_Post_Sat__Jun_25__1960_1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1960-06-25-National_Post_Sat__Jun_25__1960_1.jpg Just like the wartime spy Harvard had been, the next years were spent donning various different identities and promoting different business schemes. Some seemed serious, others were harebrained. They included hawking time-share properties, selling Jacuzzis, and offering dubious healthcare products (“at last a cure from embarrassing itching!” read the copy for one innovative cream.) Perhaps part of his success came from his appearance: Harvard was a tall, distinguished, and earnest-looking man who projected intelligent seriousness. But in 1967, Harvard was in the news again, this time posing as a doctor, prescribing Belltone hearing aids, and persuading pensioners to sign up for exorbitantly-priced payment plans. He was arrested and charged for his involvement in the fraudulent scheme. Each time he was embroiled in a scandal, Emile Harvard somehow managed to wriggle out, and re-emerge a year or two later involved in another dodgy deal. The irony was that he was never afraid of the media. Quite the opposite: he was first in line to give newspapers interviews and quotes, just as long as they spelt his name correctly. * 2.    EMILE HARVARD AND ‘FEAR OF LOVE’ (1970) And so, in the late 1960s, on the lam from his latest scam, Harvard turned up in Miami, in his early 50s, with his wife and two teenage children. This time he decided to return to his first love – filmmaking. A cursory glance at the local theater scene in South Florida convinced him that he needed to speak with the most powerful and influential player in town – and that was Leroy Griffith [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Griffith]. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1973-02-21-The_Miami_News_1973_02_21_1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1973-02-21-The_Miami_News_1973_02_21_1.jpg Griffith’s theater business had come a long way since he moved to Miami in the early 1960s and bought the Paris Theater staging burlesque shows with Tempest Storm [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_Storm] before meeting Dolores and moving into the sexploitation movie business with men like Manuel Conde [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/20/manuel-conde/]. By the early 1970s, Griffith’s empire had grown to 12 adult theaters, including the Paris, Roxy, and Gayety theaters, and 15 adult book stores in the area, and he claimed to have produced 30 softcore adult films too. By now, Griffith was a well-known figure in Miami, though he was at pains to point out, in an interview in 1969, that he made films that specialized in ‘nudity’ and not ‘exploitation.’ ‘Exploitation’, he explained carefully, referred to “torture, fetishes, and lesbianism”, subjects that he just wouldn’t touch. Leroy Griffith [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1969-02-24-The_Miami_News_Mon__Feb_24__1969_.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1969-02-24-The_Miami_News_Mon__Feb_24__1969_.jpg Griffith was intrigued by Emile Harvard: here was an older, seemingly sophisticated European, who boasted of a successful Hollywood career and wanted to make films for him to exhibit. Griffith told Harvard to speak to José Prieto and Rafael Remy, two men who would give him a crash course download in Florida low-budget filmmaking. So Harvard did, and came away impressed with both the Cubans’ experience. But Harvard explained he wanted to make a different kind of flick. He didn’t want to join the crowded field of slasher films, biker movies, or nudie-cuties: he wanted his films to go further and push the envelope. In short, he wanted to put sex up onscreen. Real sex, sex that happened before your very eyes. Harvard formed a company, set up a small office, and offered José and Rafael in-house jobs working on his upcoming sex film projects. José was unsure. He didn’t seek film work as much as Rafael, happy to pick up temp jobs outside of the movie business when he needed money and wait for movies that interested him. He also wasn’t sure about making more explicit sex films. They were still illegal, right? He’d had enough of hiding and fleeing from government interest, and now he preferred to keep his head down and enjoy a quiet life. But Rafael felt differently. This could be a new income stream: the films would be cheap, so there would be more of them. That would mean more regular and reliable paychecks. He was in, and he persuaded José to give it a try as well. In early 1970, Harvard – using the nom de porn of ‘Emilio Portici’ – made their first feature, Fear of Love [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164585/reference/] (1970). Harvard directed, José shot it, and Rafael, the production manager, corralled the available Cuban film crew from Calle Ocho to help out. It was a cash-in imitation of a recent sex documentary called Man and Wife [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066055/reference/] (1969) which had been hugely successful. ‘Fear of Love’ was a similarly pseudo-instructional tale of marital problems caused by sexual woes that are resolved by a marriage counselor – and it too played well in Leroy Griffith’s adult theaters. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Fear-Of-Love-02.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Fear-Of-Love-02.jpg * 3.    ‘FEAR OF LOVE’ – THE LIVE SHOW Leroy Griffith took note of the film’s success, and had an idea: he had a string of former burlesque theaters, so he suggested that Harvard convert the movie into a risqué live performance piece. Griffith even promised he’d finance a theatrical run on the stage at the Roxy, one of his Miami theaters. Fear of Love [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1970-09-30-The_Miami_News_1970_09_30_25.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1970-09-30-The_Miami_News_1970_09_30_25.jpg Harvard liked the idea, and the stage show opened in September 1970, advertised as “an educational drama in two acts.” The cast included one Barry Bennett [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2692189/?ref_=tt_rv_t0], a fresh-faced 25-year-old New Yorker, in the central lead role of the sex counselor. Barry had studied acting at college, and Harvard had taken a shine to the kid, offering him the chance to star in movies soon to be made by his newly-formed company. Barry had just proposed to his girlfriend, and wasn’t sure that sex movies were for him, but he jumped at the chance to have a starring role in this high-profile stage production. One of the first people in line to see ‘Fear of Love’ onstage at the Roxy was the Miami Beach mayor. He wasn’t impressed. He reacted by writing a letter to the Dade County Grand Jury declaring that the play showed “live complete nudity, simulated sexual intercourse, and homosexuality among females.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, it also had an “extremely thin plot.” At first, it seemed that the play’s run would be allowed to continue as a Miami Beach Municipal Judge ruled that it was not obscene. But then the performance was busted, and Leroy Griffith and six cast members were arrested when they left the stage. They were ordered to get dressed, and taken to Miami Beach police station where bonds were set at $2,500 each. Griffith was booked for operating a building of lewdness, and the actors for lewd and lascivious conduct. Barry Bennett was arrested, even though he was the only actor who didn’t take off his clothes, and he was charged with participating in an obscene performance. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1970-09-24-The_Miami_Herald_1970_09_24_54.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1970-09-24-The_Miami_Herald_1970_09_24_54.jpg Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1970-10-06-The_Miami_Herald_1970_10_06_22.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1970-10-06-The_Miami_Herald_1970_10_06_22.jpg The performance resumed two days later, whereupon the vice squad burst in – and arrested everyone all over again. Griffith protested loudly as he was led away, “People are being robbed out on the street, and yet you guys are in here?!” To which the arresting officer replied: “I think that people are getting robbed every time they watch this performance.” The result of the legal kerfuffle were two 30-day jail sentences and a $600 fine for Griffith, $300 fines for the naked cast members, and a $150 fine for Barry Bennett. When I spoke with Barry years later, he remembered that it was a serious moment for the cast. They were facing jail sentences for simply acting on stage. In October 1970, Leroy Griffith reluctantly took the play off the schedule, and his theater returned to playing adult films. As a sidenote: Griffith was getting beaten up from all sides. In 1971, he stopped showing adult films in some of his theaters so that he could exhibit the feature film ‘Che!’ (1969) starring Omar Sharif. It was an intentionally noncommittal version of the Cuban revolution that recounted Che Guevara’s transformation from doctor to political revolutionary in Fidel Castro’s coup. The movie greatly displeased many of the Cubans in Miami, especially those in the filmmaking community who’d worked on Griffith productions – and they retaliated in force. There were bomb threats, physical violence, and even an incident when a Cuban turned up at Griffith’s office brandishing a gun. It was all too much for the theater owner, and so Griffith decided to go back to the safer activity of exhibiting sex films. * 4.    ‘FEAR OF LOVE’ – ON TOUR! Meanwhile, Emile Harvard wasn’t entirely disappointed at the controversy caused by the ‘Fear of Love’ production: he’d arrived in Miami with a splash, made some money, and was now ready for the next step. Griffith and Harvard felt there was more mileage to be obtained from the stage play so they convinced Jack Cione [https://www.pbs.org/video/long-story-short-leslie-wilcox-long-story-short-jack-cione/], owner of the Forbidden City Theater in Honolulu to put on ‘Fear of Love’ in a two-week run starting January 7th, 1971. Harvard flew over to Hawaii, and took some of the same actors from the Florida production, including Barry Bennett. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20240912_13.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20240912_13.jpg Harvard was smart enough to know he had to play up the play’s socially redeeming features, so he gave interviews in Hawaii claiming that “a group of eight psychiatrists came to see the show and they said they were sorry it couldn’t have been seen on-stage 30 years ago – as it would have saved a lot of marriages.” But Harvard wanted to have his cake and eat it: when ‘Fear of Love’ opened, billed as “direct from Miami Beach”, it was also described as “a graphically nude work” and “the most shocking we’ve seen.” The campaign worked: ‘Fear of Love’ was a sell-out twice a day for its engagement. It was reviewed in the local newspapers as “a two-act play, seven actors, serio-comic dialogue, and a lot of simulated sex,” and the TV news ran several features on it. From Hawaii, Harvard took the play to San Francisco when it had a run at the Basin Street West Theater. Harvard heard that the local cops had been tipped off about the play’s run in Hawaii, and they were primed to bust it – so he tweaked the title, calling it ‘For the Love of Love’ in an attempt to throw them off the scent. It was a good idea, but the police were wise to his tricks and the play was busted on opening night, and three of the cast were cited for obscenity. The theater manager panicked and canceled the rest of engagement. Harvard was undeterred and just moved it down the road to the Encore Theater, where it opened in April 1971. Harvard downplayed the hiccup, maintaining that the Basin Street Theater shows had just been rehearsals intended for a private audience. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20240912_4.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20240912_4.jpg Once again, Harvard granted interviews to the local newspapers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, and once again he exaggerated the success of the play, saying that it had played for two months in Miami, seven weeks in Honolulu, and would transfer to Washington DC next. Now he boasted his own experience included “33 years of Hollywood and 122 major feature-length productions, eight television series, awards from the Vatican and the Edinburgh Festival, and a track record that included working with Universal, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox.” He claimed the reason he used a fake name ‘Emilio Portici’ was not because his stage play was pornographic, but rather because he was in the middle of “negotiating a major deal with MGM” and didn’t want to jeopardize it. All the bluster and boasting worked: the stage show was a hit again, and additional midnight performances were added to the twice-an-evening offering. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1971-01-09-Honolulu_Star_Advertiser_1971_01_09_17.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1971-01-09-Honolulu_Star_Advertiser_1971_01_09_17.jpg At the end of the San Francisco run, Harvard decided to retire the play: it had had a good run, but it was expensive to produce, flying and accommodating his actors and crew, and paying for potential legal fees to defend lawsuits. He decided to focus his efforts and money on his fledgling film studio. In mid-1971, he returned to Miami, and dedicated himself to his new activity: making sex films. * 5.    RAFAEL REMY AND EMILE HARVARD – THE MIAMI XXX FACTORY So you may be wondering what this all has to do with Rafael Remy. After all, this is meant to be his story. When Harvard got back to South Florida, he called Rafael, now his go-to film man, and explained the plan – and he wanted Rafael to be his right-hand man. His business model was simple: with the help of Leroy Griffith, Harvard would finance and produce sex features and shorts that he would send to labs up in New York for processing where they would then be distributed to theaters across the country. Harvard set up a studio at 1238 North Miami Avenue, and formed an inner circle of trusted associates that would deliver an inexpensive, rinse-and-repeat formula that would maximize profits. This small group consisted of Rafael, who would also be production manager, main cameraman, and editor; Jack Birch [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0083262/], a pockmark-faced wannabe actor who had aspirations to be a Jack Palance-style on-screen heavy, and Jack’s girlfriend Carol Kyzer [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0175485/], a quiet, blonde, part-time model who’d done topless layouts for Bunny Yeager; Brad Grinter [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342489/?ref_=nm_pdt_pa], a veteran of the horror film scene in Florida who had just made Flesh Feast [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065727/reference/] (1970), a terrible movie whose one claim to fame was its star, 1940s bombshell Veronica Lake; Brad’s son Randy [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342492/], a 22-year-old who would be Rafael’s assistant; Harvard’s daughter, Esther [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6467284/], who was given the job of office manager; and finally there was Barry Bennett, the young actor who would take the lead performing role in the films. Carol Connors [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-IMG_9462.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-IMG_9462.jpgCarol Kyzer, photographed by Bunny Yeager Barry had an additional role – and a critically important one: he was the one who’d take the films to the labs in New York to get the film stock processed and the prints cut. It was a risky assignment: the U.S. Supreme Court still hadn’t come up with an agreed-upon definition of obscenity and so interstate transportation of pornography was a dicey proposition with offenders facing years of imprisonment. But Barry wanted the extra cash that Harvard promised him – so he figured he could deal with the dangers. Due to the potential illegality of what they were all doing, most of the group took different names to mask their involvement: Harvard reverted to his ‘Emilio Portici’ identity, Rafael Remy became ‘Roberto Raphael’ – if he had a credit at all, Brad and Randy Grinter used any name – just as long as it wasn’t theirs, and most of the time it wasn’t, Jack Birch had a variety of Western-macho names like ‘Jack Colt’ or ‘Michael Powers’, Carol Kyzer became ‘Carol Connors’, a name that she would use for the next decade, and Barry Bennett took the name ‘Marc Brock.’ Harvard would be the nominal director of the films, but in practice, he would share the responsibility with Rafael. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1971-02-15-The_Miami_Herald_1971_02_15_47.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1971-02-15-The_Miami_Herald_1971_02_15_47.jpg For the next three years, Harvard’s studio churned out sex films on a regular basis: titles like Penny Wise [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254674/reference/] (1970), The Good Fairy [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261713/reference/] (1970), The Eighteen Carat Virgin [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164557/reference/] (1971), Mary Jane [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0143624/reference/] (1972), Your Neighborhood Doc [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154015/reference/] (1972), School Teachers Weekend Vacation [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127802/reference/] (1972), and Female Stud Service [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276957/reference/] (1972). Most of them were made according to a template loosely agreed with Leroy Griffith: each feature film would be roughly 65 minutes long, and would cost less than $15,000. Most were shot in Harvard’s small studio at 1238 North Miami Avenue, though they would occasionally venture out into fancy houses like a Coconut Grove mansion belonging to a friend of Harvard, Sepy Dobronyi. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241109_3.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241109_3.jpg Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Mary-Jane-01.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Mary-Jane-01.jpg Nearly all of them starred Barry Bennett, who, as ‘Marc Brock’, quickly became Florida’s leading male porno star. He wasn’t the most charismatic performer you’d ever seen but he could be relied upon to use his improv and comedy skills to fill the holes in the scripts. Many of the movies also featured Jack and Carol, who soon became a married couple. All the films did ok but none were spectacular. Rafael worked hard behind the scenes, and nearly all of the crews consisted of his old Cuban friends, including José Prieto who came onboard for an occasional job. Randy Grinter remembers Rafael telling him that the softcore sex film business In Florida had been built by Cubans, and now it was Cubans who were responsible for the hard-core films too. And then in 1972, Deep Throat [https://www.therialtoreport.com/deep-throat-50/] became a national smash-hit: it had cost $25,000 and had made several millions for the New York mob that distributed it. It was essentially a New York film: the financing came from the Brooklyn-based Peraino family, and the director, stars, and crew were mostly New York-based. But Emile Harvard didn’t view it that way: ‘Deep Throat’ was shot in Miami, making ample use of the exteriors and locations that he normally used like Sepy Dobronyi’s pad, and two of his featured players, Jack and Carol, both had roles in it. For someone who had labored for the previous two years to make money in the business, Deep Throat’s wild success felt a kick in the teeth to Harvard. He was mad and resolved to get even. Crew members who worked with him remember him shouting, in his thick eastern European accent, about the fact that the success should have been his. Harvard reacted swiftly, increasing production, widening his distribution, and expanding his business: the least he could do was to cash in on the new bigger market that ‘Deep Throat’ had created. * 6.    XXX, AFTER ‘DEEP THROAT’ (1973) Emile Harvard and Leroy Griffith were strange bed-fellows, but their relationship was symbiotic and so they had regular contact about the sex film market – and how to exploit it. For example, Griffith suggested ripping off ‘Deep Throat’ by making a movie called Dear Throat [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135361/reference/] (1973) saying that people would see the ads in the newspapers but not realize that they were two different films with similar names. Harvard obliged, making a cheap knockoff starring, who else?, Marc Brock and Carol Connors. It was blatant plagiarism, and so Harvard used a different name for the film – P. Arthur Murphy [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5741702/?ref_=tt_rv] – fearing reprisals from the mob owners of ‘Deep Throat.’ It was one of an increasing number of different identities he started to use, as the legal heat increased around adult films. Thirty years after the war in which he’d hidden his identity to work undercover, Harvard still seemed incapable of living a simple life as himself. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Dear-Throat-01.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Dear-Throat-01.jpg Not that he’d grown afraid of publicity: Harvard gave a number of interviews to newspapers and magazines. In one of them, he used the name ‘Bruno’ – much to the amusement of the Cuban crews. One interview quoted ‘Bruno’ (“in a guttural European accent”) as someone who “used to be big in Hollywood” and that he was “only turning out this stuff between engagements.” The reporter was even invited to Harvard’s studio where he reported that all the technicians were Cuban, and that “Bruno’s studio contains, as scenery, an office desk, a couch, and a bed: the three essentials for a porno movie.” While he was there, Bruno warned him not to speak loudly as he was making a “quality movie” and the actors “are very sensitive about what they have to do.” Harvard may have been unhappy about missing out on the ‘Deep Throat’ deep cash, but he was still doing pretty well – a fact that was evident to many of the Cuban crew, as one of them remembered: “Emile was a very different guy to us Cubans, but he liked us and always had work for us. He paid by the hour in cash at the end of each day, but we never hung out with him or anything like that. And we could all see that he was making big money.” It was true: Harvard made no attempt to hide a pretty luxurious lifestyle – he lived on Palm Island, a man-made development, situated between the city of Miami and its glamorous suburb of Miami Beach. The area was famous for its celebrity residents, and neighbors had included gangsters Al Capone and Meyer Lansky, and the non-gangster, TV presenter Barbara Walters. Harvard drove to work every day from his large house in a new cherry-red Buick Centurion, and often talked about eating at Miami’s finest restaurants. It may have irritated some of the Cubans who worked for Harvard, but Rafael Remy was happy. As Harvard’s number two, he was faithful to a fault, despite the difference in the money they were earning. Rafael had become the glue who held everything together and he kept people happy. He ran a tight ship, making sure they had a right-sized team for every shoot, choosing actors and crew carefully, and making sure everyone was paid. In 1973, Harvard confided in Rafael that he felt fatigued. Worse he’d started feeling pain in his joints and bones. He figured he was just getting old – he’d recently turned 60 – and said he wanted to take a step back and delegate more of the filmmaking to the others, like Rafael himself, Marc Brock, and Jack Birch. When I spoke to Brock many years later, he remembered the change in how Harvard operated: “Emile was a control freak, and then all of a sudden, he handed the reins over to the rest of us, and so we started to alternate the directing duties.” * 7.    ‘DADDY’S RICH’ (1973) – AND THE (NEXT) CUBAN REBELLION In October 1973, Harvard got Marc Brock to shoot his latest film, Daddy’s Rich [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2266703/reference/]. Marc was a reliable sex performer, having appeared in most of Harvard’s features and loops, but the Cubans on the crew knew he was a sloppy operator, being regularly picked up by the cops for petty misdemeanors like shoplifting, a small stash of weed, and minor DUIs. Marc put together a rough budget for the movie, but it was higher than normal. The film wasn’t materially different from the rest of Harvard’s efforts, but somehow Marc convinced a distracted Harvard that he needed more money this time. For a start, there were ten crew members – more than double the normal number – and there was an inflated cast of nine. Then there was the location: Marc arranged with Sepy Dobronyi that they would shoot most it in the same Coconut Grove house where ‘Deep Throat’ had been shot the previous year. Rafael argued with Marc that there was no need for the exterior location, but Marc was adamant. And then Marc withheld payment from the Cuban crew after the first day. Harvard had always treated everyone fairly and so the crew were suspicious Marc promised that everyone would be paid the following day, but the Cubans were unconvinced, a clash erupted, and they nearly came to blows. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241108_2.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241108_2.jpgSepy Dobronyi’s house, venue for the filming of ‘Deep Throat’ (1972)… and ‘Daddy’s Rich’ (1973) One of the crew that I spoke to years later remembered what happened next: “One of the guys, a grip on the shoot, took exception at Marc Brock after that – big time,” he said. “This grip was a new guy, and he was a hothead who liked to overreact. Next day, when the grip didn’t show, I called him up, and he just said, ‘Fuck Brock’. When I told him to do the right thing and come to the set, he threatened to call the cops and tell them about the shoot. We didn’t really believe him but we kept an eye out for the police that day.” Sure enough, halfway through filming, Rafael noticed a cop car slowly coming up the road towards the house. He shouted in Spanish “Get the hell out of here now!”, and the crew scrambled their equipment together, much to the confusion of the semi-clad actors. Remarkably all eight crew on set that day made it out over the rear hedge, and down the lane, where they jumped into cars and fled the scene. They left Marc with Stan, his assistant director, as well as six actors, in the house – who were all arrested. Marc and Stan were charged with manufacturing obscene material, while the actors were charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, and indecent exposure. Sepy Dobronyi, the owner of the house, wasn’t helpful, making a statement to the newspapers that he was playing tennis at a nearby park at the time – and that the actors had broken into his home at which point his house guests had called the police. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1973-10-31-Tampa_Bay_Times_Wed__Oct_31__1973_.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1973-10-31-Tampa_Bay_Times_Wed__Oct_31__1973_.jpg Harvard, fearful of negative publicity for his business, called Leroy Griffith for help. Griffith snapped into action dispatching his main attorney, Alan Weinstein, to the precinct. Weinstein had been getting Griffith out of scrapes for years, including helping out when ‘Fear of Love’ had been shut down. Weinstein got everyone out of jail – and threw in an indignant statement to the press: “The police had no right to be on the premises,” he said. “There were more cops involved in arresting people taking pictures than there are on a murder case. Someone’s priorities are out of whack.” The arrests caused a mini-media storm in the Miami newspapers, and for a few months, Harvard had to curb back his movie production schedule. Harvard blamed Marc Brock: he’d once viewed Brock as a protégé and an investment for the future, and so he’d ignored Marc’s legal indiscretions because he was essential in transporting the films up to the labs in New York, as well as being a reliable performer in front of the camera, but Harvard had had his fingers burned by this. When Harvard looked into the finances of the film and saw that Marc had been using the inflated budget to line his own pockets, pilfering money for himself, he called Marc and told him he was fired. * 8.    TROUBLE IN WONDERLAND By 1974, it seemed that the immediate hardcore boom after ‘Deep Throat’ was starting to subside, and some of the players who’d been involved were looking to go legit – or at least, go more legit than being underground producers of hardcore smut. Leroy Griffith still played Harvard’s XXX films in his theaters as a cash cow source of income, but he was branching out in other directions. For one thing, he decided to revive the burlesque variety shows that he’d pioneered in Miami in the 1960s, this time opening a big production, ‘Hello Burlesque’ in Miami Beach with strippers, comedians, and music acts. Leroy Griffith [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1974-11-15-The_Miami_News_1974_11_15_26.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1974-11-15-The_Miami_News_1974_11_15_26.jpg Harvard was looking to diversify too. He’d acquired theaters of his own, including the Cameo at 1445 Washington Ave, and when he and Rafael Remy had to put their sex films on hiatus, they decided to make a different kind of film. Or as Harvard bellowed one day, “Let’s make a serious movie!” Harvard’s daughter, Esther, had written a sensitive script called ‘Of Gentle Heart’ about an escaped convict who befriends a young boy. It was originally intended as a touching character study, but when Harvard got his hands on it, he couldn’t help himself. His exploitation instincts returned, and he renamed it Fugitive Killer (aka Fugitive Women) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137624/reference/] (1974). Rafael was on hand as always to oversee the production. When the film was released, after a gentle opening on a wholesome and bucolic farm, it turned into a rape and murder exploitation film. Marketed with the catchphrase, “Once he started, he couldn’t stop! If he didn’t rape you, he killed you,” the film was a bizarre mess, and despite being distributed by Harry Novak’s Boxoffice International Pictures, Inc., it failed to raise much interest. Fugitive Women [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1975-12-12-Clarion_Ledger_Fri__Dec_12__1975_.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1975-12-12-Clarion_Ledger_Fri__Dec_12__1975_.jpg It turned out that the film’s lack of success was the least of Harvard’s concerns. They say that bad news comes in threes, and it was certainly true for Harvard in 1974. He’d already scaled back his sex film production as a result of the bust of ‘Daddy’s Rich’, when he lost his son, Roy, who died after a short illness. Then, Harvard received an explanation for the fatigue and pain he’d been experiencing: he was diagnosed with bone cancer. He began treatment immediately, and told Rafael they had to put all filmmaking on hold. Another surprise awaited him though. In April 1975, the FBI turned up at his front door to arrest him: they’d been tipped off by a source that Harvard had been transporting pornographic films between Miami and New York. Two films were specified in the indictment: ‘Valley of the Nymphs’ and ‘Ball and Chain’, which were described by the FBI spokesperson as “really raunchy stuff.” Harvard faced five felony charges relating to “substantive conspiracy counts of interstate transportation of obscene matter,” two of which carried penalties of five years in prison. Arrest warrants were issued for three other people: two of them were Harvard’s New York associates, Charles Abrams and Sidney Levine, who had taken delivery of the films over the years when Marc Brock smuggled them into the city. Both Abrams and Levine were taken into custody. But the final arrest warrant was for Rafael Remy – except that Rafael got away. Somehow, after Harvard was arrested, he got word to Remy and told the Cuban of his arrest. Remy drove straight to Miami airport and left the country, flying to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, to avoid the Feds catching up with him. What nobody realized – not Harvard nor Rafael – was that the FBI source, the person who had alerted the authorities to Harvard’s pornography operation, was actually Marc Brock. After Brock had been arrested on the set of ‘Daddy’s Rich’ – and then fired by Harvard, he’d panicked. He already had a string of minor arrests to his name, and now feared that this time the judge would throw the book at him. So Brock decided to get his revenge on Harvard, and bought some protection for himself, by spilling the beans on how Harvard’s sex film business worked. Brock laid out how he personally shipped films to the New York labs, where prints were struck and shipped to theaters across the country. In return for singing, Brock was granted immunity from prosecution. Three months later, Remy tried to slip back into Miami. He didn’t want to involve family, so he needed someone to stay with. Of all the people he could have contacted, he called Marc Brock, unaware that Brock was working with the FBI. And so, when Remy landed at Miami airport, they were waiting for him. An additional charge of fleeing arrest was added to Rafael’s woes. Rafael Remy [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1975-07-11-The_Miami_News_1975_07_11_5.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1975-07-11-The_Miami_News_1975_07_11_5.jpg As for Harvard, he was understandably nervous: he was the ringleader and owner of the business, the man controlling all the moving parts, and the mastermind behind the operation. So he did what he always did when he was in a bind: he hustled. Harvard told the Judge that his bone cancer was terminal, and that jail time would be dangerous to his health. He said that the real criminals were actually the two aging New Yorkers, Abrams and Levine. They were the ones who distributed the films far and wide, whereas he was just a cog in the machinery. In short, Harvard pleaded guilty and offered to testify for the government. The Judge consented, and Harvard was set free. [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1975-11-19-The_Miami_News_1975_11_19_5.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1975-11-19-The_Miami_News_1975_11_19_5.jpg After a life of bluffs, double bluffs, and downright lies, this time Emile Harvard was telling the truth about his health. His bone cancer quickly got worse, and in 1976, his health deteriorated. He died that August. Rafael Remy was eventually let off when the charges against him were dropped. Marcy Bichette, the daughter of his old friend Dolores Carlos, had put on a rock show to raise some money for his legal costs which made the ordeal easier. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000037.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000037.jpgMarcy Bichette But he was now in his early 50s, and he’d had enough. Within the previous two decades, he’d gone from having a promising career in films in Cuba, working on global productions like ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ (1958) and ‘Our Man in Havana’ (1959) to fleeing Cuba to escape Castro’s revolution, and ultimately making a home in Florida sex films – all the way from the softcore tease days to now being arrested for hardcore films. He often joked that he couldn’t escape the fortune teller’s prediction that had foretold trouble and strife for him, but he consoled himself that he’d lived a full life. Now he wanted the easy life. * 9.    AFTERMATH And so, the late 1970s marked more or less the end of the roads for the band of Cuban filmmakers who had revolutionized sex filmmaking in Florida. Dolores Carlos was living a quiet life still working in the bank, married, and with a new family. Her daughter Marcy toured with her band Bitter Sweet, until, by 1981, when the travel and late nights became too much. She’d been on the road for years, hadn’t had a break, and the lounge scene was dying. Marcy was 30, and figured it was time to accept that the acting and music dreams were over. She found a place in Miami not far from Dolores, and they remained close seeing each other often. Later on, they would go see Marcy’s step-brother, Dante Bichette [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Bichette], play baseball when his team came to Florida. Dante was an outfielder for various teams, and was a four-time All-Star and contender for the Most Valuable Player Award in Major League Baseball. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000026.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000026.jpgMarcy and Dolores, early 1990s Marcy got work as a bartender, giving much of her spare time – and money – to local animal rescue centers. In 1983 she got married. The guy developed a drug problem, and though she stuck around for three years, his habit effectively ended the marriage. They divorced, and she never saw him again. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR3-mem_000029.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR3-mem_000029.jpgDolores and Marcy, mid 1990s From time to time, Dolores hosted reunions for the old Cuban gang, and they’d get together and swap stories. Gradually the reunions became fewer and less well-attended as one-by-one the various friends died. K. Gordon Murray, the exploitation film man, known for re-dubbing and re-releasing foreign fairy tale films for U.S. audiences, and who’d been the first person who had trusted Dolores as a potential filmmaker, ended up getting into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service. They seized his films and took them out of circulation. Murray protested his innocence, but the case dragged and, in 1979, before it could come to a conclusion, he died of a heart attack. As for Manuel Conde, after leaving Florida in the 1960s, he settled in California where he embarked on another stage of his sex film career by producing and directing hits such as The Danish Connection (1974), Deep Jaws (1976), and The All-American Woman (1976). By the early 1990s he’d developed dementia and he died in 1992. José Prieto and Raphael Remy, the two inseparable Cuban friends who’d escaped their homeland after Castro’s takeover, both passed – Raphael, relatively young at 60 years of age, in 1984, while Prieto died an old man, two decades later. In 1996, Dolores became sick and was diagnosed with cancer. The first person she told was Marcy. Marcy was heartbroken, but she immediately called each family member to tell them the news. At first the signs were good, and doctors hoped they had caught everything in time, but it was a false hope. It was a painful, drawn-out process, and Marcy did everything she could to make it easy for her mother. The family rallied – one family member admitted they all pulled together for Marcy’s sake as much as anyone else – but it was to no avail. Dolores died in January 1997. She was 66. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000029.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000029.jpgMarcy and Dolores, mid 1990s * 10.    ENDGAME In 1999, Marcy married her boyfriend, Tom Flynn. They’d met a few years before, and their first date was going to midnight mass with Tom’s mom. They become inseparable: Marcy had found the relationship she’d always wanted. She stopped bartending so she wasn’t out at night and could spend more time with Tom. She took up a new career – perhaps the one to which she was best suited of all: she became a pet stylist and groomer. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR3-mem_000061.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR3-mem_000061.jpgMarcy, dog groomer Tom had proposed to her at the Hollywood Beach Hotel in Miami. The venue was significant: Tom’s parents had met there when they’d both been employed by the hotel years before. Not only that but it was also where Tom had been conceived when his folks had taken refuge in one of the rooms during Hurricane Diana, a fierce tropical storm back in 1960. The hurricane happened to hit Miami the night of Marcy’s tenth birthday. So it made sense that their wedding took place there as well. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-mem_000006.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-mem_000006.jpgMarcy and Tom, wedding day Marcy and Tom spent the next two decades happily married in South Florida. Tom knew a little about Marcy’s films, and sometimes asked about her past but she didn’t talk about it much. The present and the future were more important to her. Marcy did appear in another film, ‘Marley and Me’ (2007) with Owen Wilson, where she had a fleeting, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it walk on part. And then three years ago, Marcy was diagnosed with colon cancer, the same that Dolores had. Marcy passed away in May 2021 at the age of 70. She was cremated and her ashes scattered at, where else, Hollywood Beach Hotel, where she and Tom had got engaged and married. I took Tom out for dinner recently and told him some of the stories I’d learned about Marcy, her mother Dolores, and the people they’d known and worked with. He was surprised to find out about it all, and shook his head in sad happiness hearing stories about her. Most of all though, he just missed Marcy. “I always wonder what I did in a previous life to deserve her,” he said. “I must’ve done something right somewhere along the way. She was a good person, and she was chasing butterflies to the very end.” Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR3-mem_000015.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR3-mem_000015.jpgMarcy and Tom * POSTSCRIPT The United States has always been a nation of immigrants – some of whom, like the Cubans in this series arrived in the country fleeing from adversity. The vast majority have helped drive business creation, fuel innovation, and fill essential workforce needs, all core principles of American values. Their stories are often overlooked, but worse, all too often they’ve been maligned and mistreated. I’m an immigrant, and at the naturalization ceremony, the presiding officer will tell you that now you have become an American, the most important thing you can do is to hold onto where you’ve come from: the culture, the customs, the food, and the way of life. If you can do that, you’re told, you’ll be preserving what truly makes America great. You’ll be keeping this a nation that is welcoming of differences, diversity, and inclusion. People like Dolores Carlos, Manuel Conde, José Prieto, and Rafael Remy who came to this country, and chased butterflies of their own. * Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000095.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR2-mem_000095.jpgMarcy * The post Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Part 4, Rafael Remy’s Story – Podcast 148 [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/11/10/rafael-remy/] appeared first on The Rialto Report [https://www.therialtoreport.com].

Previously on Chasing Butterflies – Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida: You may remember Marcy Bichette [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0080961/]’s start in life from our earlier episodes: she was born Marcelle Denise Bichette in St Petersburg, Florida in August 1950 to a young married couple who had distinctly different ambitions in life. Her father, Maurice Bichette, had married looking for a settled, quiet existence, but her mother, Dolores, wanted to live her life moving in the opposite direction. Dolores had come from a protected, patriarchal, patriotic Cuban household, and she longed for the excitement and glamor that she saw onscreen in her favorite Hollywood movies. Maurice and Dolores’ marriage couldn’t, and didn’t, last. They divorced, and Marcy lived with her father and his new wife Mary, while Dolores, moved to Miami to pursue a modeling career. Dolores did well, changing her name to Dolores Carlos [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0137743/], her photos featuring in magazines and newspapers, winning beauty contests, and then, starring (and being arrested) for a hit nudie film, Hideout in the Sun [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053908/reference/]. The success of that film led to her appearing in other films such as Pagan Island [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054154/reference/] (1961), Diary of a Nudist [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054809/reference/] (1961), and Blaze Starr Goes Nudist [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053658/reference/] (1962) in quick succession, and thereby becoming the unofficial pin-up queen for nudists. But perhaps Dolores’ biggest impact came in the way that she became a tireless advocate, promoter, and organizer of the Cuban immigrant film talent that had arrived in Miami, a group of people keen to make a new life in the U.S. after escaping the Castro revolution. Her friendships with local film producers and theater owners like K. Gordon Murray [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0615096/] and Leroy Griffith [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Griffith] kick-started the American careers of many of these Cubans in Florida, including men such as Manuel Conde [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0174300/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm], José Prieto [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9446677/], and Rafael Remy [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1394747/]. The only downside in Dolores’ new life in the early 1960s was that she was separated from her adored daughter Marcy, a problem that she longed to fix. Over the last twenty years, I’ve tracked down and spoken to many people involved in the Florida film business of the 1960s and 1970s. Their overlapping personal histories reveal an untold chapter of adult film history – and the hidden role that Cubans played in shaping it. These are some of their stories. This is Chasing Butterflies, Part 3: Marcy Bichette’s story. You can listen to the Prologue: Dolores Carlos’ story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/13/dolores-carlos/] here, [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/13/dolores-carlos/] Part 1: Manuel Conde’s story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/20/manuel-conde/] , and Part 2: José Prieto’s story [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/10/27/jose-prieto/]. With thanks to John Minson, Tom Flynn, Ronald Ziegler [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0956140/], Leroy Griffith [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341563/], Veronica Acosta, Marcy Bichette [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0080961/], Mikey Bichette, Lousie ‘Bunny’ Downe [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0235905/], Mitch Poulos [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0693677/], Sheldon Schermer [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771088/], Ray Aranha [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0033068/], Manny Samaniego, Barry Bennett [https://m.imdb.com/name/nm2692189/?ref_=tt_ov_st_1], Randy Grinter [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342492/], Herb Jeffries [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0420370/], Tempest Storm [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0832626/], Chester Phebus [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0679705/], Michael Bowen, Norman Senfeld [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0784231/], Richard Falcone [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0265968/], Lynne O’Neill [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8591608/], Something Weird Video [https://www.somethingweird.com], and many anonymous families and friends who have offered recollections, large and small, over the years. This podcast is 39 minutes long. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000019.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000019.jpgMarcy Bichette * 1.    MARCY BICHETTE, BEGINNINGS After the divorce, Maurice had quickly remarried. This new wife was his third and final: his new bride, Mary, had already been married four times before, and together they would enjoy, or rather endure, a decades-long relationship. Mary was a difficult character and Marcy, her step-daughter who lived with them, would suffer as a result. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000055.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000055.jpgMarcy, age 7 Maurice and Mary quickly started another family, which would grow to include three children of their own, Maurice Jr, known as Mikey, Valerie, and Dante. Mikey, the oldest of the three, remembers growing up with his step-sister Marcy as being one of the best parts of his childhood. Marcy was eight years older and took over maternal tasks from Mary, such as playing and dressing him. The kids also remember Dolores coming to see Marcy whenever she had breaks from modeling and filming in Miami: they loved Aunt Dolores’ visits and all her glamorous, exciting stories. Needless to say, Maurice’s feelings were less enthusiastic – he still didn’t approve of Dolores’ lifestyle – but his problems with his ex-wife didn’t stop them both from being close to Marcy. Everyone recalls Marcy was his favorite out of all the kids – in truth, Marcy was everybody’s favorite – and, despite their separation, Maurice and Dolores doted on her. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR4-mem_000052.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR4-mem_000052.jpgMarcy and Dolores For someone who’d had an unconventional home life, Marcy seemed the most normal girl in the world. Family members today describe her as an unusually gentle and thoughtful person. They talk about her kindness and the way she saw the good in everything and everyone. She was unfailingly happy and positive. She never had a cross word or thought, never had an argument, and made everyone feel special. One person however wasn’t a fan, and that was her step-mother, Mary. Mikey, Mary’s eldest son, pulls no punches in a description of his mother: “My mother could be a bad person, a monster at times. She resented the attention and love that Marcy had – especially from her father – and so she made Marcy suffer, and treated her terribly. But how did Marcy respond? Marcy respected my mom no matter what: she never reacted, never said anything bad against her. She just bore the brunt of all the evil and turned the other cheek.” Mary’s neglect of Marcy continued when Marcy developed an infection in her heart in 1959, and spent four months recovering in hospital. Marcy returned home with a permanent heart murmur and more ill treatment from her step-mother. It got so bad that her father Maurice eventually called Dolores, and they agreed that Marcy had to move out, go down to Miami, and start a new life living with Dolores. It was heart-breaking for Maurice and his other children who never forgave Mary for her behavior. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000050.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000050.jpgDolores and Marcy, hospital in 1959 Dolores however was over the moon. Sure, it could’ve been a difficult situation for her: Dolores’ career was taking off – and hers was hardly a kid-friendly lifestyle. She was appearing in racy, not to mention scandalous, nudie films, arranging meetings for her coterie of Cuban filmmaker friends, and hustling her own sex film projects around town to potential financial partners. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-IMG_7901-1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-IMG_7901-1.jpgDolores, photographed by Bunny Yeager It made their everyday life complicated, but Dolores and Marcy both loved the new arrangement and Dolores relished living with her daughter in her small apartment on NW 1st St. And despite her physical distance from her father, Marcy called Maurice every Sunday without fail, something she continued to do for decades. However busy she was, Marcy made regular trips to visit him and his family, where she loved taking care of her step-brothers and sister. Despite her parents’ acrimonious separation, Marcy harbored no favoritism, loving them both equally as if they were still together. In Miami, Marcy started attending the city’s Senior High School where she fit in immediately. She was popular there, acting in the lead roles in high school productions and playing the piano and guitar in music groups. She had a sweet singing voice, and teenage friends still remember her carrying a guitar everywhere. She loved singer-songwriters and sung in music groups, transforming Dolores’ apartment into a rehearsal space for her latest musical project. She was Dolores’ daughter in every way, loving performing and dreaming of a career in show business. But her biggest passion was animals, especially dogs, and she spent hours training them and playing with them. She signed up for animal welfare organizations in her neighborhood, always taking in strays. One of her friends said of her: “Marcy had such a passion for life and animals, and everyone loved her. I almost hate to say it because I’d love to give you some gossip or salacious stories, but that’s the truth. She was a sweetheart. I still picture her running around the back yard as a teen chasing butterflies.” Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000041.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000041.jpgDolores and Marcy * 2.    DOLORES CARLOS – THE NUDIE QUEEN SINGLE MOTHER In the mid 1960s, Dolores told friends she’d never felt happier and yet somehow, she still felt strangely unfulfilled. Deep down, she knew she couldn’t live this life forever. Time moves slowly but passes quickly, and she wanted to remain relevant and use her accumulated knowledge and connections to create a more lasting career. She argued that she’d made as many films as anyone else, she had well-connected and powerful friends, and she could mobilize a Cuban film crew at the drop of a hat, so why was it so difficult to get someone, anyone, to take the chance and invest in her? She wondered out loud about whether it was because she was a woman, or a Latina, or that she was in a business that prized youth and beauty – and there she was, a single mother now in her mid 30s. Or perhaps it was because everyone still thought of her as being just a sex film actress? She knew that success was a double-edged sword – on the one hand, she was still offered plenty of nude film and modeling work which helped pay the extra bills after Marcy moved in, but it also perpetuated the stereotype of her as being just a sex object. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-IMG_7900-1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-IMG_7900-1.jpgDolores, photographed by Bunny Yeager She did much more than that, she said, and the variety of her work did have a striking range: she was called upon by film production honchos like K. Gordon Murray to assist and advise in their film productions; she advised theater chain managers like Leroy Griffith on new film ideas; she found work for scores of Cubans; and she’d started writing film scripts and movie pitches. She knew she was appreciated, admired, cherished even, but whatever she did, she never seemed to be able to parlay her success into a more profitable, respectable, and permanent career: “I could be a powerful rocket, but at the moment, I’m a failure to launch,” she told a friend. And Dolores worked more regularly than most. In the 1960s, she appeared in a lengthy sequence of sex films that reads like a history of South Florida sexploitation: there was Bunny Yeager’s Nude Camera [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057906/reference/] (1963) – a Barry Mahon [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0537069/] effort which featured many models shot by Bunny Yeager [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Yeager] including Dolores’ friend Bunny Downes; she work again with Doris Wishman [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0822555/] in Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056015/reference/] (1963), shot at Sunny Palms Lodge nudist reserve; there were two more Barry Mahon films – both nudist roles – in Crazy Wild and Crazy [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059067/reference/] (1964) and International Smorgas-Broad [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173928/reference/] (1964); a rare though brief role in a mainstream film, How to Succeed with Girls [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0150987/reference/] (1964) – perhaps interesting mainly for the presence of future Golden Girl, Rue McClanahan; then a part in Eve and the Merman [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0136814/reference/] (1965) where she was typecast as a pin-up; and then the lead role of sorts in The Beast That Killed Women [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058955/reference/] (1965), a breathtakingly strange film by returning champion Barry Mahon, about a rampaging gorilla who disrupts the calm of a Miami nudist resort – this time Spartan’s Tropical Gardens Nudist Camp – by kidnapping and murdering nude women. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-Snip20241008_1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-Snip20241008_1.jpg She wasn’t short of male attention either: when she and Bunny Downe appeared as two of the nudists in Herschell Gordon Lewis [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0504496/] and Dave Friedman [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0293354/]’s Goldilocks and the Three Bares [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057111/reference/] (1963) – Dolores had a brief, behind-the-scenes fling with the film’s star, Joey Maxim, the recently-retired but still handsome heavyweight boxing champion from the 1950s. All the experiences were fun, all kept her in the public eye, and all paid a little spending cash, which was increasingly important as Dolores’ savings had started to dwindle – but she wanted, and needed, more. While Dolores was toiling in Southern Florida’s exploitation film business, her teenage daughter was an interested and empathetic observer. Marcy may have made life more costly, but she had become her mother’s best friend. Marcy could see the pleasure her mother derived from performing and putting films together, and friends still talk about how the two would talk together about all aspects of the production, distribution, and exhibition of Dolores’ films. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000053.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000053.jpgMarcy And then Dolores did make a film of her own. It was produced with a close friend, Richard Falcone [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0265968/?ref_=tt_rv_t8], with whom she’d acted on the set of her first movie, ‘Hideout in the Sun’ (1960). Falcone was a polymath – if a polymath means an Italian who combined being a property developer, interior designer, bodybuilder, butterfly collector, the founder of Sunshine Beach Naturist Club in Tampa, and a keen photographer who snapped primarily nudist pictures to sell to naturist magazines. There was a reason for them making the film. Falcone had gone through a tough time after appearing in ‘Hideout in the Sun’: in 1961, he’d been arrested as the supposed mastermind of a prostitution and pornography ring when police broke down his door and confiscated all his nudist photos. Falcone insisted he was entirely innocent and said that this was a simple case of harassing an honest man who just happened to have an alternative lifestyle. But this was the early 1960s and Falcone was fighting a losing battle to make his case. The media coverage treated him as a pervert which in turn caused him to lose his real estate business, his photography job, and then his apartment lease. No matter that the charges were eventually thrown out when the initial police search was deemed unlawful. Dolores, ever the supportive friend, was one of the few who remained by his side helping him rebuild his life. One of her ideas to get him out of the hole he was in was for them to make a film together, and they hatched a plan to produce a nudist movie based on a script that Dolores had written, Naked Complex [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057351/reference/] (1963). The story was admittedly contrived: Johnny is a playboy and an expert at sports – from water skiing, golf, and racing cars, but he’s hopeless around women. Somehow, after being humiliated by the newspapers who reveal his inadequacy, he crash-lands his personal airplane on a remote island where nude women cure him of his problem. It wasn’t ‘Gone With The Wind’ but it was exciting for the pair to be putting their own movie together for the first time. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1963-12-05-The_Miami_Herald_Thu__Dec_5__1963_.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1963-12-05-The_Miami_Herald_Thu__Dec_5__1963_.jpg Dolores assembled an entirely Cuban production team to shoot the movie, and gave acting roles to some of her Cuban friends from Little Havana, including a female snake dancer who’d just arrived from Cuba smuggling her three exotic serpents into the country. They shot the story at – where else? – the Sunshine Beach Naturist Club, the nudist resort which Falcone had founded. Oh, and Dolores starred in the movie as well, of course. Their film wasn’t hit – or even that great, but the budget was minimal, Dolores had shown she could both produce and star in a movie, and it made a little money. Unfortunately, the experience still failed to open any new doors. Chastened by the experience, Dolores sat down with Marcy to figure out next steps. The truth was that she didn’t have a lot of money left in the bank, and she was getting aged out of the nudie films that had been such a cash cow for her. She needed a new plan. It wasn’t a decision she wanted to take, but Dolores decided she had to get a more regular paycheck. And so the Queen of the Nudies took a position as a teller in a local Miami bank. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000052.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000052.jpgMarcy * 3.    ‘THE NAZI FILM’ When Marcy was fifteen, she asked Dolores if she could get some semi-professional acting work. Dolores had seen Marcy’s talent in school plays and so took her for an audition at Miami’s Merry Go Round Playhouse Theater on Miracle Mile in the Coral Gables neighborhood. The Merry Go Round was a staple of Miami’s theater scene, part of a broad trend at the time to present plays ‘in the round’ – a more immersive experience by placing the stage at the center with seating surrounding it. Marcy was transfixed by the theater from the first moment she saw it – and the Merry Go Round management liked her too, offering her a contract to appear in their children’s productions. Marcy snatched the opportunity and started appearing in bit parts straight away. She was mentored in the theater by a black actor, Ray Aranha [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Aranha], a local probation officer who did acting in his spare time. Ray was a decade older that Marcy but he saw that her talent and enthusiasm made her a natural, as he remembered years later: “Marcy was a ray of sunshine. I couldn’t help feeling happy whenever she walked into the room. She was a rare person. And she was a talented actress… I used to coach her and read lines with her: she took direction well, and we were all convinced that she was going to end up in Hollywood starring in movies someday.” Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000086.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000086.jpgMarcy, at the Merry Go Round Playhouse Marcy loved the theater, and it wasn’t long before she started to pester Dolores for film roles too. Her father, Maurice, was horrified at the thought of his daughter appearing in sex movies, and made Dolores promise that she would keep their daughter far away from the sex film business. In 1966, Dolores became friends with Norman Senfeld [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0784231/], a virulently anti-Castro Nicaraguan, who she met in a bar in Little Havana. Senfeld was an ardent activist who was intent on raising awareness of the evils of the Cuban regime, as well as raising money to overthrow it. The Cuban expats liked him, even though there were rumors that he was involved in some illicit money-laundering activity to fund his efforts to subvert and destabilize Castro’s government. Senfeld told Dolores he wanted to move into films and maybe she could help him. He said he was impressed with her extensive connections. Together they formed a company, called Stage Four, with another wannabe filmmaker, Bobby O’Donald [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0640706/]. The new company was set up quickly, suspiciously quickly in fact, and from the start it seemed to be awash with cash. The mystery was where the money had come from. Friends of Dolores from this time still speak about their surprise – and suspicion – at the large sums of money that Senfeld and O’Donald, two inexperienced and unknown newcomers on the film scene, had available to make their films. In April 1966, they made a film called Full House (later renamed ‘Mafia Girls’) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243398/reference/]. Dolores got Manuel Conde onboard to shoot it, which was his final film before he left for California. The movie was about a crime syndicate in Miami Beach that extorts politicians by filming them at sex parties, and Dolores had a starring role taking time off from her bank job. Despite its supposedly large budget – and extensive press coverage, the resulting film seemed to disappear without a trace, with a number of its crew claiming, years later, that it was never actually released theatrically. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1966-04-22-The_Miami_News_1966_04_22_25.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1966-04-22-The_Miami_News_1966_04_22_25.jpg For their next movie, Dolores volunteered a script that she’d been developing for years. It was supposedly an action-packed exploitation thriller that was far from the nudist camp flicks for which she was known. She’d already pitched different drafts to her usual trusted benefactors, men like K. Gordon Murray and Leroy Griffith, but they showed little interest in financing it. The script was called ‘Revenge of the Swastika’: it told the story of the Miami branch of the American Nazis headed up by a Colonel von Stissen who was supported by his right-hand gal, Major Olga. (Bear with me here.) Their fascist group is about to launch ‘Operation 11’, a plan that will destabilize society and bring them to power. First, they have to take over the William Penn hotel in Miami and hold the vacationers and staff hostage. The twist was that the FBI had already infiltrated the group of Nazis and was aware of their plan, but they decided to wait and see how the insurrection would play out. Got that? Quite how much of this plot was Dolores’ work or how much was embellished by Norman Senfeld after he got hold of it is unknown. Senfeld himself described the story as a metaphor about authoritarianism, and by implication, the Castro regime that he despised. He agreed it should be the next Stage Four production. Dolores was amused by Senfeld’s political interpretation but pleased that her script would finally be made into a feature. If you wanted to be generous, you could say the story was ahead of its time, as nazi-sploitation films like Love Camp 7 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063242/reference/] (1969), Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071650/reference/] (1975), and countless others would follow in the years ahead. But in truth, this was a bizarre story that was every bit as strange as it sounds. The film was shot in the second half of 1966 – but with a different title, Storm Troopers U.S.A [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130759/reference/]. By the time of the shoot, Dolores was no longer a producer, but involved instead, behind the scenes, as a production manager though she received no on-screen credit. The shoot received a large amount of press coverage in the local newspapers, with Miami residents complaining about the unannounced extras wearing Nazi regalia who suddenly appeared on their streets. The producers proudly stated that the film would be released within 90 days – though they admitted it probably wouldn’t be seen in Miami theaters. Dolores had an acting part in the film, and they found a role for Marcy too, her first appearance in front of the camera. In fact, both can be seen in stills from the movie wearing Nazi armbands – though neither of them featured in the credits. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1966-09-21-Newsday_Suffolk_Edition__1966_09_21_62.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1966-09-21-Newsday_Suffolk_Edition__1966_09_21_62.jpg Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-RETURN-OF-THE-SWASTIKA.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-RETURN-OF-THE-SWASTIKA.jpgDolores, on set of Storm Troopers U.S.A. in 1966 The finished film was heavily padded with stock footage from World War II and was nothing like the serious action thriller that Dolores had originally intended it to be. Worse, it did exactly what she vowed not to do and it succumbed to amateurish sex film tropes. What happened next is another mystery. What is known is that, just like ‘Mafia Girls’, the movie disappeared and doesn’t seem to have been released theatrically. And there’s a strange postscript twist to the story: for years to come, Dolores claimed she made a large sum of money from the film. In fact, she claimed the money was so substantial that she used it to buy her first home, which enabled Marcy and her to move from their small apartment to a comfortably sized house at 3790 SW 121st Ave, Miami in 1967. This story became part of family lore, and for years, they would all talk about how “the Nazi film” that no one ever saw had made Dolores a small fortune. This made some friends skeptical, suspicious even, and there were rumors that the film had been made as a front for money-laundering activity. Others wondered if Dolores’ windfall was actually a hush-money payment she received when she discovered that the company was involved in illegal activity. So what is truth behind what happened to the film, and the source of the money that Dolores said that she received? A few years ago, I tracked down and interviewed the director, Norman Senfeld. He spoke at length about how he got to know the Miami Cuban filmmaking collective through Dolores and his anti-Castro activism. He spoke fondly of her, and the few films they made together. He said that both ‘Mafia Girls’ and ‘Storm Troopers U.S.A.’ had indeed been released in theaters at the time, and he claimed that he had bought Dolores out of Stage Four, the film company they created, so that he could exert greater control. But when I asked about where the company’s funding had come from, and about the rumors of money-laundering, Senfeld claimed it all happened a long time ago and that he couldn’t remember much anymore. I pressed further suggesting it was strange to have made two films – that received much so publicity – but that didn’t seem to have been released. And what about the large payoff that Dolores received that enabled her to buy a house. Senfeld claimed ignorance, and then quickly and quietly made his excuses and hung up. I’d like to claim to have found the answers but, for now at least, the story remains a mystery. Senfeld died in 2016. As for the Stage Four production company, it came to a sudden end in 1968, when Bobby O’Donald, Senfeld’s partner, was arrested for owning what the feds described as an obscene pamphlet. It turned out the booklet in question was nothing more than the pressbook for their next film, Night Hustlers (1968). Whatever the merits of the case, the accompanying scandal signified the end of the film company. As for Dolores, she went back to her job working as a teller in the bank. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1968-02-03-The_Miami_Herald_1968_02_03_26.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1968-02-03-The_Miami_Herald_1968_02_03_26.jpg * 4.    MARCY BICHETTE: THE FILM ACTRESS While Dolores was busy juggling her 9-5 job with occasional film work, she was unfailing in her support of Marcy’s regular acting roles in children’s plays at the Merry Go Round Playhouse. Marcy was now 16, and had progressed from walk-on parts to lead roles, garnering good reviews in the local newspapers. And when she wasn’t acting, she was singing in a band that covered 1950s and 1960s rock n’ roll standards and volunteering at animal rescue centers. She’d also started modeling. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000055.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000055.jpg Just like Dolores had done fifteen years previously, Marcy’s modeling work led her to enter beauty contests – with some success. Dolores saw a chance to help advance Marcy’s ambitions, so she called up Bunny Yeager who’d photographed her for various pin-up magazines at the start of her career. Bunny suggested something different – her first mother/daughter pictorial. The shoot took place on the sidewalk by Miami Beach in December 1966. The resulting bikini photos are as unglamorous as they are touching: Dolores looks very much the older, wiser mother, and Marcy the self-conscious, awkward, but pretty and happy-go-lucky teen. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-Dolores-and-Marci-001.png]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-Dolores-and-Marci-001.pngDolores and Marcy, photographer by Bunny Yeager in 1966   Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-Marcy-02.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-Marcy-02.jpgMarcy, photographed by Bunny Yeager in 1966   Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-IMG_9458.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-IMG_9458.jpg Dolores also found another film role for Marcy, through her long-time friend, Louise ‘Bunny’ Downe. In the years since they started in sex films together, Downe had started working exclusively for Herschel Gordon Lewis, the Florida-based director, who was making a name for himself as the ‘Godfather of Gore’ through a series of gory and grisly, low-budget, splatter films. Downe had worked on the script for their next film, The Gruesome Twosome [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061733/reference/] (1967), about a demented elderly woman who has her mentally challenged son kill and scalp various young women to use their hair for her wig shop. Downe told Dolores she had a role for Marcy – and Marcy jumped at the chance to be in the movie. She loved it too: no matter that the production was a pantomime of incompetence at times, with supposedly dead bodies blinking and breathing after their bloody demise. The film set was exciting – and Marcy wanted more of this in her life. Back at the Merry Go Round Playhouse, Marcy was now impatient. She’d been in a movie, and was growing tired of the children’s matinée parts. She wanted to be involved in the more senior productions of the theater. Marcy spoke to her friend Ray Aranha, the probation officer/actor who she trusted and who helped guide her developing acting career. Ray’s presence was always calming and he reassured her: there was no need to hurry. She was talented, she’d been identified as an actor the theater wanted to develop, and more serious roles would come her way. He would personally make sure of that. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000087.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000087.jpgMarcy, at the Merry Go Round Playhouse And then Ray’s theatrical career blew up in his face: newspapers ran stories about his appearance in Shanty Tramp [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060968/reference/] (1967), a sexual film of miscegenation that was shocking Florida. The scandal led to him being fired from his day job and hounded out of the south Miami theater scene. Dolores and Marcy were particularly shocked by the events: it had been Dolores who had recommended him for the role, and she felt personally responsible, and Marcy had lost someone she viewed as an older brother. Both of them were devastated. When I spoke to Ray years later, Ray still spoke warmly, though sadly, of his friendship with Marcy, wondering what had happened to her in the years after the scandal. But if the fall-out from ‘Shanty Tramp’ had been a firestorm causing the lives of some of the protagonists to be affected forever, others were quietly pleased with how the film had been received. The three people behind it, producer K. Gordon Murray [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Gordon_Murray], director José Prieto [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9446677/], and writer Reuben Guberman [https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0345547/?ref_=nmbio_ov], saw their film break out of the usual ghetto of B-movies and into the mainstream, and that meant mucho boffo at the box-office – as they probably don’t say in Cuba. For the writer, Reuben Guberman, the question was slightly more complicated. Guberman, you may recall from the last episode, was the New Yorker, the ex-hamburger cook, drive-in restaurant manager, radio announcer, newspaper editor, and one-time political candidate, and as pleased as he was with the outraged reaction his script had elicited, deep down he had loftier aspirations to be a serious writer. Sure, he was happy to write another potboiler, but he wanted some critical admiration too. So he decided to seek redemption by writing a play, ‘Social Trip’, which would be a morality piece warning kids against the dangers of drugs. As usual, Dolores was on hand to help, and she arranged for the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse to put it on in January 1968 – with Marcy in the lead role, of course. It may have been a cynical ploy for Guberman to rehabilitate himself – but it worked. Dolores pulled strings to get the newspapers to run positive stories about how instructional and moving the play was, and many who had attacked ‘Shanty Tramp’ now came out to endorse and praise the new play. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1968-01-08-The_Miami_Herald_Mon__Jan_8__1968_.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1968-01-08-The_Miami_Herald_Mon__Jan_8__1968_.jpg Meanwhile, K. Gordon Murray was waiting in the wings. After ‘Shanty Tramp’, the only question he had was how could he follow it up – and produce another profitable smash hit? Murray asked, nay demanded, a new script, and so Guberman offered him something he’d written called Savages from Hell [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063554/reference/] (1968). It was a biker movie about a vicious gang who pick a violent fight with a farmworker and his family. Murray liked it enough and offered it to José Prieto, by now his go-to director. José assembled a crew consisting almost exclusively of Cubanos to film it, including his best friend Rafael Remy [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1394747/?ref_=tt_rv], who did the cinematography and editing. Of course, Dolores insisted that there was a prominent role for Marcy in the cast too, alongside Cyril Poitier, brother of Sydney. ‘Savages from Hell’ was released in a blaze of publicity, with lurid posters blaring that the film “Makes the Hell’s Angels look like Boy Scouts!”. In truth, Guberman’s script was an under-cooked effort lacking the elements that had made ‘Shanty Tramp’ so enjoyably bad, and it would be his last involvement in film. The movie failed to attain the success of their previous effort, the only semi-scandal being a lawsuit from American International who sued K. Gordon Murray for imitating its biker films. The movie was notable for one reason, however. It was Dolores’ last appearance in front of a film camera. It was a small role as a redhead at the Roadhouse bar. She was in her late 30s now, with a steady job at the bank, and happily living in her new house financed by ‘Storm Troopers U.S.A.’. She’d also just got married, and she figured it was finally time to settle down. Savages from Hell [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241103_1.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241103_1.jpg * 5.    MARCY IN THE 1970S Marcy had made just two films – three if you count ‘Storm Troopers U.S.A.’ – but after she turned eighteen, she started getting more offers. The problem was they were nearly all for sex movies and Marcy was more interested in stretching her acting abilities. She had no judgement against the increasingly explicit trend in movies – after all, she knew her mother had made a career out of the early nudie-cutie films – but as Dolores kept repeating to her: “I made those films so that you don’t have to.” Also, Marcy had seen how Ray Aranha had been hounded out of theater work after the sexual shenanigans of ‘Shanty Tramp’ – and she didn’t want the same to happen to her. After she graduated high school, many of her friends on the theater scene encouraged her to go west and try her luck in Hollywood. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000054.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000054.jpg The Miami theater world was small, they said, and she had the attributes that could make her a star. One was a fellow Merry-Go-Round Playhouse actor, Mitch Poulos, still a character actor today having appeared in shows like ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, ‘Arrested Development’, and ‘The Office.’ Mitch was a few years younger than Marcy – and was part of the children’s theater group. He remembers Marcy as a combination of a caring older sister who’d protect him when drugs were being passed around backstage, a talented actor who he still believes could have been a star, and a beauty who looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor: “She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he said, “voluptuous, talented, elegant, and with a sweet, kind heart.” Despite all the encouragement to leave for California, get an agent, and try her luck in the film industry, Marcy was happy in Miami and so decided to stay. Besides, the Merry-Go-Round theater director had started casting her as the lead in nearly all the company’s adult plays. Mitch Poulos remembers: “The theater played into her beauty, and they started choosing plays and roles that specifically accentuated her good looks.” Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000085.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000085.jpgMarcy, at the Merry Go Round Playhouse Looking through the theater records today, it’s clear that Marcy was the undoubted star of the repertory company, acting and appearing in an eclectic selection of works – often receiving glowing reviews in the newspapers. And there were lots of plays: starting in 1968, she starred in the political work – ‘Mac Bird’; plays that were transfers from Broadway like the comedy ‘Thurber Carnival’; melodramas like ‘The Man’; ‘Madness of Lady Bright’ – where a review described her as “effective, and tightly disciplined”; ‘Oh Dad, Poor Dad’ – where the review described “beautiful Marcy Bichette, a talented character actress”; Neil Simon’s ‘Star-Spangled Girl’; the Barbra Streisand role in ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’; Spider Lady in ‘Superman’; lead roles in ‘Rashomon’; Maleficent in ‘Sleeping Beauty’; Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’; Mary Poppins; and Desdemona in ‘Othello’ to name but a few. Sometimes she appeared in other Miami theaters’ productions too, such as the Jane Fonda leading role in ‘Barefoot in the Park’. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000084.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000084.jpgMarcy, at the Merry Go Round Playhouse For each play, Dolores was in the front row, always Marcy’s biggest cheerleader – but she was perhaps proudest when Marcy was approached by Las Mascaras, the largest Spanish-language theater group in Florida. The troupe had been started by two Cubans, Salvador Ugarte [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0880072/] and Alfonso Cremata [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3506922/] in 1968, specifically to keep alive the culture and traditions of Cubans who had fled to the United States. Dolores loved the troupe’s vision, and offered them her services, which included raising money for the company. Marcy starred in their production of ‘Gaslight’ at the Merry Go Round Playhouse. Marcy was a hit in the play, and she and Dolores became close friends with Ugarte and Cremata, and supporters of their work. Dolores Carlos [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000025.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000025.jpgDolores and Marcy, c. 1971 Marcy wasn’t overly ambitious, but she liked staying busy, and when not acting in theater productions, she continued to pursue music and modeling. She was desperate to go to Woodstock in 1969, but her father vetoed the idea, saying he was worried about the drug scene. For Marcy, it was a blow: she’d been saving up her money from the Merry Go Round and doing modeling jobs for the newspapers in which she would appear as a daily temperature girl showing the expected weather on the beach – just as Dolores had done years before. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1972-12-30-The_Montreal_Star_Sat__Dec_30__1972_.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR-1972-12-30-The_Montreal_Star_Sat__Dec_30__1972_.jpg Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000040.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR2-mem_000040.jpg * 6.    MISS LESLIE’S DOLLS (1973), AND BEYOND By the early 1970s, the three Cuban friends, José Prieto, Gregor Sandor, and Rafael Remy, who’d escaped the island ten years earlier, were still close. Sandor had spent most of his time in California, building a successful career in film that would lead to jobs such as shooting Monte Hellman’s cult hit ‘Two-Lane Blacktop’ (1971) and Brian De Palma’s ‘Sisters’ (1972). The three amigos would get together periodically, often having reunions at Dolores and Marcy’s Miami place. Dolores would sometimes invite the rest of the Cuban contingency of filmmakers as well for a day of food and drink. She was an expansive host, serving large portions of lechon asado, ropa vieja, and arroz con pollo, with guests drinking Cuba libre, Havana Loco, and El Presidente’s late into the night. Rafael Remy was a frequent visitor, and had become close to Marcy. He’d known her since he arrived from Cuba, and was a passionate supporter of her acting, often accompanying Dolores to watch her at the Merry Go Round Playhouse. He also encouraged her music aspirations, suggesting she write her own songs, and he found places for her to gig too. Ironically one of the venues he found for her to play regularly was Tom’s Bar, a country and western roadhouse in Davie. It was where ‘Shanty Tramp’ had been filmed – the same bar that had not allowed Ray Aranha to enter on account of his race. It was at one of Dolores’ open house gatherings in early 1971, that Rafael suggested they all make one last film together. Rafael said he would produce and write it, José could direct it, Gregor could shoot it, all their other Cuban compadres would join the crew, and he would write a role for Marcy. Rafael said that it would be their collective swansong to the Florida scene, and it would be the strangest film anyone had ever seen. Everyone had been drinking too much that night, but they all agreed it was a great idea. A few weeks later, when everyone had forgotten about it, Rafael shared his script for Miss Leslie’s Dolls (1973) with José, and José was shocked. Rafael had been true to his word: his vision was indeed bat-shit crazy. It told the story of a young professor and three of her students who are forced to seek refuge at an isolated farmhouse one night due to bad weather. There they encounter a transvestite who collects the bodies of biological women, with the aim of transferring her spirit into them. Or something like that. The plot read like a mash-up of ‘Psycho’ (1959), ‘Glen or Glenda’ (1953), ‘Thundercrack!’ (1975), and ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ (1975), with some ‘Scooby Doo’ thrown in for good measure. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241102_6.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241102_6.jpg Yes, José found it weird, but he was amused by it too. Dolores read it, and thought it was a hoot. She said she had the perfect actor for the strange drag-queen lead role of Miss Leslie: her friend Salvador Ugarte, the founder of Las Mascaras, the Spanish-language theater group with whom Marcy had worked. Rafael loved the idea and snapped Ugarte up. As always, the crew consisted mostly of Cuban expatriates. The film shoot took place in the summer of 1971 and lasted six weeks – longer than the regular schedules for run-of-the-mill exploitation films. Marcy loved making it, and often spoke about the pleasure of working with her mother’s Cuban friends who she had grown up around. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241102_5.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241102_5.jpgMarcy in ‘Miss Leslie’s Dolls’ (1972) The resulting film, that hit theaters in late 1972, is like few others. Sure, it’s clearly a low-budget production with cheap sets and stilted dialogue (Rafael Remy’s halting English still wasn’t fluent – and it shows in the script), but ‘Miss Leslie’s Dolls’ is consistently bizarre, well-shot, campy, entertaining, and unique. There are certainly highlights, one of which is Salvador Ugarte’s performance. Here was a serious theater actor dedicating his life to promoting Cuban culture, dressed as a woman in a cheap blue dress and sporting a pronounced five o’clock shadow. To matters each more incongruous, he had a dubbed female voice in the film – an unusual touch enabled by the experience that Rafael and José had had working with K. Gordon Murray’s dubbing team when they first arrived from Cuba. Marcy’s fresh-faced performance shines as always. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241102_3.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-Snip20241102_3.jpgMarcy (in green) and Salvador Ugarte in ‘Miss Leslie’s Dolls’ (1972) ‘Miss Leslie’s Dolls’ was perhaps too unusual for its time, perhaps too unusual for any time. It received a limited release in the U.S. before being the supporting feature in a bizarre double bill with The Erotic Adventures of Zorro [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068545/reference/] (1972) in the U.K. in 1973. For all Marcy’s acting talent, the sad truth was that she was missing the boat. She was simply in the wrong part of the country. Few films were being made in South Florida and Marcy didn’t have an agent to follow up even if there were. But if ‘Miss Leslie’s Dolls’ was strange, Marcy’s next and final film was even more off-the-wall. Coming off stage at the Merry Go Round one night, she was approached by two men who introduced themselves as film producers. They said they were making a South American horror film called The Swamp of the Ravens [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070508/reference/] (1974) (aka ‘El pantano de los cuervos’) and wanted to fly Marcy down to Guayaquil in Ecuador, to be the female lead in their Spanish-U.S. co-production. Marcy had just gone through a relationship break-up and thought the break from Miami would do her good. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1974-Pantano-de-los-cuervos-El-aka-The-Swamp-of-the-Ravens-7849-0009.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1974-Pantano-de-los-cuervos-El-aka-The-Swamp-of-the-Ravens-7849-0009.jpgMarcy in ‘Swamp of the Ravens’ The resulting film is a disturbing tale of zombies, necrophilia, and autopsy footage. The film died a death, receiving a limited release in outposts that included Mississippi and Texas, and failed to advance Marcy’s film career. Years later, Marcy remembered little about the experience, except for the fact that she was dubbed throughout the film apart from one blood-curdling scream when she wakes on a mortuary slab. Somehow, it was a fitting but sad end to a once-promising career. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1974-Pantano-de-los-cuervos-El-aka-The-Swamp-of-the-Ravens-7849-0020.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RR-1974-Pantano-de-los-cuervos-El-aka-The-Swamp-of-the-Ravens-7849-0020.jpgMarcy in ‘Swamp of the Ravens’ * 7.    MARCY BICHETTE AND BITTER SWEET The Ecuador experience left Marcy feeling jaded about acting. She still loved being on a theater stage, but it had all started to feel restrictive and limiting compared to the freedom of playing music. Rafael Remy, always her trusted advisor, suggested she form her own band, so in 1973, she formed Bitter Sweet, a four-piece group, with Marcy playing acoustic guitar and keyboards, and she had her new boyfriend Chester, on bass. For the next seven years, she became a full-time touring musician, traveling up and down the state, playing gigs from Key West to Tallahassee. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000057.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000057.jpg The band hit the road hard: it was a relentless and thankless slog which included playing the Holiday Inn scene, performing from 8pm-2am every night. Mitch Poulos, her old acting friend from the Merry Go Round Playhouse remembers going to see her and coming away impressed with the show – and Marcy’s talent. The group would mainly play covers, with Marcy’s vocal style coming off like Linda Ronstadt. The band became popular, and developed its own following – so they recorded some demos.   This is Marcy singing Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams recorded around 1978. She sent the tracks off to a hot shot producer in Nashville. He replied straight away: he loved Marcy as a singer, he said, and wanted to fly her in to try out some new songs. Only snag, he wasn’t interested in the rest of the band, so Marcy turned the offer down. They were a unit, she said, and she wasn’t interested in success if it was without the guys she’d spent so much touring with. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000018.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000018.jpg Another time, Criteria Studios in Miami got in touch: they’d seen Marcy at one of her shows and wanted to explore working with her. That was a big deal: the Eagles had recorded half of their ‘Hotel California’ album in the studio, and bands like Black Sabbath and the Bee Gees also made hit records there. The band went over and played for the in-house producers, but it was the same story. Criteria just wanted Marcy – and she wanted her band. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000024.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR1-mem_000024.jpg Whenever the band were close enough, Dolores would come out and see them play – as would José Prieto and Rafael Remy, always supporting their quasi-adopted daughter. One show in particular was unusual – and important to Marcy: it was a show that she did especially for Rafael. It wasn’t a regular gig: the purpose of this one was to raise funds for an attorney to try and keep him out of jail. Rafael had been arrested for distributing hardcore films that he’d also been involved in making. It seemed like the Cuban fortune teller from all those years before had been right: Rafael Remy’s film work had indeed led him into trouble and strife. Marcy Bichette [https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000027.jpg]https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RR3-mem_000027.jpg * Tune in next time for the final episode of Chasing Butterflies: Rafael Remy’s story – and the birth of Florida hardcore. * The post Chasing Butterflies: Stories of Cubans in Exploitation-Era Florida – Part 3, Marcy Bichette’s story – Podcast 147 [https://www.therialtoreport.com/2024/11/03/marcy-bichette/] appeared first on The Rialto Report [https://www.therialtoreport.com].