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Ron Jeremy: My Life as a Porn Star If gold medals were handed out for making porn movies, Ron Jeremy would function as the all-time champ. He has made close to 2,000 of them, including On the Loose mainstream movies, such as The Boondock Saintswith Willem Dafoe. well as about 100: Viva Ron Vegas and San Fernando Jones and the Temple of Poon, as He tells the story of his XXX-rated profession in a steamy new book, The Toughest (Working) Guy in Showbiz: Horny Girls, Hollywood Nights & The Rise of the Hedgehog!(Harper). And yes, it's illustrated. TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs talked with Jeremy from his Hollywood home: (View the 100 best movies of all time.) TIME: How did you get your start in the porn business? Ron Jeremy: Like many Jewish boys, I was working up at the Paramount Hotel in as a server, the Catskills and the maitre d'. I was doing theater, and it was a very difficult situation, especially in Ny, where you couldn't be an extra unless you were part of the Screen Actors Guild. I was making no cash. We concurred — my girlfriend Alice and I — to take some pictures in the deluxe wing of the Paramount. We knew girls could do Playboy and that might lead to a career in theater, film. I thought I'd try it out and at the least get some sort of exposure, pardon the pun. So my girlfriend shot the photographs and sent them to Playgirl. I thought perhaps they'd consent to bring me to L.A. for a layout, and while I'm in L.A. I will try to acquire some work in Hollywood. Subsequently Playgirl called and they said we've bad news and good news. The bad news is they weren't going to fly me everywhere. The good news is that they were going to use the pictures we'd shot. (See pictures of Pinup Queen Bettie Page.) How did the people respond to the photographs? I'd used my actual name: Ron Hyatt, from Queens, New York; likes to go hang gliding and sailing when he gets the chance, and working on his master's degree in special education. Lots of folks looked up R. Hyatt in Queens, New York, but they were getting my grandmother, Rose Hyatt, who lived downstairs. My poor grandma had been woken up night and day, largely by guys. Playgirl likes to believe that their audience is largely girls, but no, no, the bulk is not heterosexual. My poor grandma had to move. Then my dad sat me down and said, "I do not know what cockamamie business you are getting into. You might like to do something, good, you are an adult, but do not you ever use the family name again." Therefore I used my middle name, which is Jeremy. What was your course to the porn business? I quit because no cash was being made by me teaching. http://celebritynews.io/kate-hudson-split-from-matt-bellamy-revealed/ After Playgirl I went to see a filmmaker I knew. Joe said he just did adult movies, so I said that's kind of sleazy. Then I starved and did theatre for several months. Therefore I believed and went back to Joe, it is so good. I asked my family what they thought and they said, [ we ] aren't mad about the idea but if you really need to do if you believe it may be a shortcut to the mainstream, this go ahead. So Joe place me in Tigresses, my first adult film and Other Man eaters. I spent an hour in cosmetics and they never once saw my face. Were you embarrassed during the filming? Yes, a small. There were some professionals there who had done it for a while. I was not getting the liftoff as quickly as they did. It was obstructing. It's amusing because now, years later another man does and when I am not taking Viagra, I'm still not fast to the punch. I'm the slow man on the totem pole. It was embarrassing because I wasn't used to being naked and having sex in a room full of individuals. Were your buddies shocked that you're doing this? Where I had been working as a waiter for a great number of years of my life, the funniest dialogue came in the Catskills. They had this thing called "Bungalow Bunnies," where the girls would stay up in the Catskills and their husbands would leave to work. They didn't really care because they were doing the same thing in Manhattan back with their secretaries if their wives were messing around. We were up in the Catskills, and I had a very good sex life, to the stage where when I was to dinner and told the maitre d ' I was with a girl. He said, and I remember his exact words, "Anybody else I would forgive but with you it's like brushing your teeth. You're late; you are being docked pay." Then when they heard, Ron's doing pornography, they said, "That's not a big shock, is it?" What did you love about making these movies? This might seem cheesy or corny, but I just loved performing, doing dialogue. All my buddies were doing theatre off-off Broadway and I was doing movie. Yes it is porn, but it goes into theaters. They had acting back then. They had scripts that are big. There were no videos back then, no DVDs, no Internet. I came at a time they called the Golden '80s. Did you enjoy the sex or did it become tedious? I did to an extent. The acting I always loved because it's taking on a function, but the sex was 50-50. There is always a little nervousness which you are going to be nude in front of a room full of a few makeup artists and men. You did some conversation and then they might say, "OK, Ronnie, let us go." It was somewhat uncomfortable in the beginning, but once your body and your head told you you have done it before, you are able to do it again. It became kind of fun. (View TIME's sex covers.) What type of folks were in the industry? In the '70s it was a hippie-dippie-sexual-revolution-Woodstock kind of show. Flower children in many ways. Marijuana smokers, though once in a while you'd find a pill or cocaine. Most of them had been to faculty. Some have come from broken homes, some from abusive homes. After I lecture in colleges what I tell kids is that porn is mostly a microcosm of Hollywood. There were kids who wanted to do something insane and goofy. Some were celebrities who wanted to go like me, for an acting career, and settled because acting was merely a murderously difficult thing to get into. It's thousands of people pursuing so few occupations, with everyone driving a taxi, working as a server. Did you get wealthy doing it? I did not much through porn but on account of the advertising that came from pornography: the rolling papers, the penis pills — which I'm on a lot of infomercials for — the skateboards and the Tshirts made me fairly wealthy. Additionally the reality shows, which came because of porn in Europe and both here. I crack jokes, go to topless clubs and bare nightclubs and do a burlesque act while the girls are stripping. I make jokes and then we do autographs, meet and greets, like the ambassador of good will. That's added real good money to the bank account. (Read TIME's 1970 article, "The Rich Pornocopia.") Maybe you have been able to have romantic relationships? It is very, very hard. The majority of unions around the world don't work, which is really sad because they can work, if you take a look at statistics. Now let us go to pornography. Very rarely do they continue quite a while. There are a few I'm proud of that are going strong, but it's so difficult because you need to have the alternative lifestyle attitude. I do not understand if we were meant to be completely monogamous. Early cultures were not; Greek, Romans, some Asian societies nowadays, but it's the Judeo-Christian mindset that came along that made us feel guilty of straying. Your wife could be loved by you to pieces and it is only your genitals that are doing the traveling, but it is a challenging thing to comprehend. You are able to be not monogamous and monogamous. I believe Viagra is one of the greatest gifts to monogamy. You may not desire it to be with the blonde down the street or get a lap dance, but you may need Viagra to be with your wife who's 50 or your wife of 20 years. (View images of famous couples.) Are you still doing any porn? I just did one a day or two past, a gain for a great Ny director who has serious colon cancer. We all did a free porn film. I have done a sex thing with a sweet girl named Candy, she is really here because we did a scene and she's staying over. (Giggling in the background.) I will be also doing a horror film in Arizona called Blood Moon Rising. Can it be still interesting? I'd never admit this, and my dad warned me of this, as you get older but the libido does lose just a little. Nature is unkind! As you get into your 50s, as you get older, it is more attempt to enter liftoff. It's not to the point where it's a chore because then I simply wouldn't do it, and it is a small stress, although I am 55. I do not have to do porn anymore for reasons that are financial. However, I like to stay present. I do not need to be an ex-porn star.