John Holmes (pornographic actor)

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John Holmes
Birthdate:	August 8, 1944(1944-08-08)
Birth location:	Ashville, Ohio, U.S.
Birth name:	John Curtis Estes
Date of death:	March 13, 1988 (aged 43)
Height:	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight:	165 lb (74.9 kg)
Eye color:	blue
Hair color:	Brown
Stage Name(s):	John Duval, John Estes, Big John Fallus, Big John Holmes, John 'Johnny Wadd' Holmes, John C. Holmes, John Curtis Holmes, Johnny Holmes, Bigg John, Big John, John Rey, Johnny Wadd, John Sacre, Bernard Emil Weik II, Long John Wadd
John Holmes at IMDb
John Holmes at IAFD
John Holmes at AFDB

John Curtis Holmes (August 8, 1944 – March 13, 1988) better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character in a series of related films), was one of the most prolific male adult film stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and pornographic feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s, including at least one gay feature film and a handful of gay loops. He was best known for his exceptionally large penis, which was heavily promoted as being the longest in the porn industry; although his manager, Bill Amerson, claimed to have seen Holmes measure it at 13.5 inches (34.3 cm), no documented evidence of Holmes' actual penis length exists. ^[1] Near the end of his life, Holmes attracted notoriety for his involvement in the Wonderland murders in 1981, and eventually for his death from complications caused by AIDS.

Holmes was the subject of an essay in Rolling Stone magazine in 1989 and at least two feature length documentaries, and the inspiration for two Hollywood movies, (Boogie Nights and Wonderland). A definitive biography, John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches, was released on August 8, 2008.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Porn career 2.1 Drugs and "Wonderland Murders" 2.2 Later years 3 Legacy 4 Personal life 4.1 Number of partners 4.2 The women in Holmes' private life 4.3 Penis size 4.4 Business activities and endeavors 4.5 Holmes mythology 5 Selected adult feature films 6 Biographies 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Early life

Holmes was born as John Curtis Estes in Ashville, Ohio, to Carl Estes and Mary Barton. He knew very little of his father, an alcoholic railroad worker who abandoned his family when John was an infant. ^[1][2] John's mother was a devout Southern Baptist, who regularly attended the Milport Chapel Church along with her children.

In 1946, John's mother married Harold Edward Holmes, and changed her children's surname to Holmes. His stepfather was an alcoholic, who would come home inebriated, stumble about the house, and even vomit on the children. Mary Holmes divorced her husband two years later, and moved with her children to Columbus, Ohio, where they lived on welfare for several years. When John was eight, his mother remarried to Harold Bowman. Shortly after, John and his family moved from Columbus and settled in Pataskala, Ohio. Holmes recalled that Bowman was a good father until his younger brother was born, at which point Bowman lost interest in his non-biological children and began neglecting them.^[1][2]

By the time John reached adolescence, Bowman began beating him, but Holmes, who by now had developed into a large teenager, fought back and knocked Bowman down a flight of stairs.^[2] John ran away from home at age 16, and after several days of living on the streets, returned home and informed his mother that if he moved back in he would kill Bowman. With his mother's written permission, Holmes dropped out of his junior year of high school and enlisted in the Army. After advanced training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, he spent three years in West Germany in the Signal Corps. ^[2] Upon his honorable discharge, Holmes moved to Los Angeles where he worked in a variety of jobs, including selling goods door to door and tending the vats at a Coffee-Nips factory. It was during his stint as an ambulance driver that he met a nurse named Sharon Gebenini in December 1964. They married in August 1965.^[3]

[edit] Porn career

"John Holmes was to the adult film industry what Elvis was to rock 'n' roll. He simply was The King."

—Cinematographer Bob Vosse in the documentary Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes.

For the next two years, Holmes and Sharon lived quiet, uneventful lives. Holmes found work as a forklift driver at a meat packing warehouse in Cudahy, California. However, the rigors of driving the forklift truck in and out of a large walk-in freezer and repeated exposures to inhaling the sub-freezing air in the freezer after being outside inhaling the desert-hot air caused severe health problems, leading to a pneumothorax (lung collapse) of his right lung on three separate occasions within a period of seven to nine months during the two years he worked there.^[3] While recovering from his illness, Holmes frequented a men's card-playing club in Gardena, where one evening, a still photographer standing next to him at a restroom urinal, noticed his extraordinary penis size and encouraged him to do pornography. During the late 1960s, Holmes initially did magazine work and an occasional 8 mm loop, keeping his work in porn a secret from his wife.

While the ad copy for his first few dozen loops rarely named him, those that did usually gave him a name that was nowhere near what his real first name was. In fact, one early "Swedish Erotica" brochure from 1973 has five Holmes loops listed, each of which has a different name referring to Holmes even though it is obvious from his facial features that "Fred", "Dave", "Rudy", "Big Dick", and "Stan" are all the same person.^{[citation needed]} In the early years of his porn career, Holmes was referred to as "The Sultan of Smut".

With the success of Deep Throat (1972), The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), and Behind the Green Door (1972), porn had become chic although its legality was still hotly contested. Holmes was arrested during this time for pimping and pandering, but he avoided prison time by becoming an informant for the LAPD.^[4] Using his status as an informer, Holmes systematically had his competition in the porn industry arrested, leaving him as one of the few free porn stars in Los Angeles.

In 1973, Holmes' career began to rise with a porn series built around a private investigator named Johnny Wadd. By 1978, Holmes was reputed to be earning as much as $3,000 a day as a porn actor.^[1][4] He starred at a time when personality could compensate for a lack of other aesthetic characteristics, and a certain amount of acting ability was still demanded of porn stars.

While his voice was arguably somewhat higher in pitch than one would expect for a "hard-boiled private dick," most film critics and fans agreed that Holmes did demonstrate enough acting ability to keep the character of "Johnny Wadd" from being merely a banal, one-dimensional parody of Raymond Chandler's creation, the tough and uncompromising private detective Philip Marlowe. By this time, his use of cocaine was becoming a problem, so much so that it was beginning to affect his ability to maintain an erection.

[edit] Drugs and "Wonderland Murders"

Holmes' drug use began to seriously affect his ability to perform in porn and compromised his ability to secure work, so to support himself and his drug habit he ventured into crime, selling drugs for gangs, prostituting himself to both men and women, and committing credit card fraud and petty theft. In 1976, he met a 16-year old girl, Dawn Schiller, who became his girlfriend. After Holmes fell on hard times, he later prostituted both her and himself. Dawn, who appeared in news stories as "Jeana Sellers"^[5][6] after Holmes allegedly once publicly beat her in Florida,^{[7][clarification needed]} is not to be confused with Holmes' second wife, Laurie Rose, a porn actress and so-called anal sex queen who was sometimes called Misty Dawn.

Holmes developed a close friendship with drug dealer and nightclub owner Eddie Nash, who supplied Holmes with drugs he desired, principally cocaine. At the same time, Holmes was closely associated with the Wonderland Gang, so called for the location of their hideout; a rowhouse located on Wonderland Avenue in the wooded Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles. Holmes worked for the gang, frequently selling drugs for them. After stealing money during a couple of drug runs, Holmes found himself in trouble with the Wonderland Gang. Allegedly in exchange for his life, he told gang leaders in June 1981 about Nash and a very large stash of drugs, money and jewelry Nash had in his house, and helped to set up a robbery which was committed on the morning of June 29, 1981.

Although Holmes did not participate in the robbery, Nash apparently suspected that Holmes had a part in it. After getting Holmes to confess to his participation, Nash allegedly exacted revenge against the Wonderland Gang. Two days after the robbery, in the early hours of July 1, 1981, four of the gang's members were found murdered in their hideout. This incident is now known as the Wonderland Murders. Holmes was allegedly present during the murders, but it is unclear if he participated in the killings.

Holmes was incarcerated in connection with the murders, but released due to lack of evidence. He spent six months on the run with Dawn Schiller, his girlfriend, but was arrested in Florida and returned to Los Angeles. Holmes refused to co-operate with the investigation and was eventually charged by the authorities with committing all four murders in connection with the robbery, but was acquitted.

Holmes then sought to reunite with Dawn Schiller, but she had gone with her father to Thailand, where she lived for nearly seven years. She did not return to Los Angeles until several weeks before Holmes' death in 1988.^[8]

When Holmes resumed work in porn in November 1982, the industry had already begun the transition from film to videotape. Work was still plentiful, but less lucrative and Holmes was no longer the premier male star. His drug use continued, as did the inconsistent performances on set. His inability to maintain an erection was a serious issue, and employers began opting for younger and more attractive talent who were more capable of performing sexually.

[edit] Later years

In 1985 he met his future girlfriend and wife, Laurie Rose, a.k.a. Misty Dawn. Rose and Holmes met on the set of the film Marathon. Dawn, who had a reputation as the "queen" of anal intercourse scenes in hardcore porn films, had been fascinated by the concept of anal sex with Holmes; the two had sex off-set and became a couple. ^[1]

In February 1986, Holmes was diagnosed as HIV positive. According to Laurie Rose, Holmes claimed that he never used needles and was deeply afraid of them. Both his first wife, Sharon, as well as Bill Amerson, separately confirmed later that Holmes could not have contracted HIV from intravenous drug use because Holmes never used needles.^[1]

During the summer of 1986, unable to find work in America, Holmes traveled to Italy where he filmed his last porno movies, one of which was titled The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress which starred the later Italian Parliament member Ilona 'Cicciolina' Staller. His final film was The Devil In Mr. Holmes.^[9] He continued to make public appearances at autograph signings as well as hosting video clips during 1986 and 1987, until his increasingly gaunt physical image began to give away the true nature of his health.

Not wanting to reveal the true nature of his failing health, Holmes claimed to the press that he was suffering from colon cancer. Holmes married Laurie Rose on January 24, 1987 when they supposedly eloped to Las Vegas for a quickie wedding after he confided in her that he had AIDS and wanted to marry her to cement their bond.^{[citation needed]}

During the last four months of his life, he was more or less bed-ridden constantly going to hospitals for treatment, though some sources^[who?] said that he refused treatment and just wanted to die quickly. John Holmes died from AIDS-related complications (according to his death certificate, cardiorespiratory arrest and encephalitis due to AIDS, associated with lymphadenopathy and esophageal candidiasis) on March 13, 1988 at the age of 43.^[10] His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of Oxnard, California.^[11]

[edit] Legacy

Holmes' widow, Laurie Rose, took the name Laurie Holmes and later published the book Porn King: Autobiography of John C. Holmes in 1998.^[12]

The legacy of John Holmes has become more renowned. A documentary on his wild life (Wadd—The Life and Times of John C. Holmes) has achieved cult status among certain late-night college campus independent film houses, and some elements of the film Boogie Nights were based on Holmes' life, including the Laurel Canyon "Wonderland" murders. That aspect of his life was presented in a biographical movie called Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer and released on October 17, 2003.

After his death, Holmes was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Adult film industry. It was accepted posthumously by his godson Sean Amerson, the son of Holmes' career-long manager Bill Amerson, who also delivered the eulogy at Holmes' funeral services.

Of the 2,500 porn film appearances John Holmes made in his lifetime, at least 60 to 70 percent of them are one-reel 8 mm loops or stag films. Since the majority of Holmes' loops and stag films have gone into public domain following the collapse of Caballero Control Corporation in 1990, there are efforts underway to locate all surviving 8 mm loops starring Holmes that he made during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s and convert them to DVD for posterity. However, since the life expectancy of most 8 mm films is very brief (due to the nature of the film stock used at that time), it is believed that the majority of Holmes' loops are forever lost.

[edit] Personal life

[edit] Number of partners

Penis length was not the only questionable statistic used in connection with Holmes. In 1981, he began to claim that he had sex with 14,000 women.^[4] The number had in fact been invented by Holmes to help salvage his waning image; initially, he was supposed to have claimed 1,000 women, but quickly began inflating the number to compete with Wilt Chamberlain. ^[1] To substantiate this number, and assuming Holmes' first experience with a woman occurred at 16 as he claimed, then he would have to had had sex with 666 different women a year—1.8 women a day—for the next 21 years. ^[13] Pornography historian Luke Ford calculated the number of Holmes' sexual partners over the course of his lifetime to be roughly 3,000.^[13]

[edit] The women in Holmes' private life

While estimates of his on-screen and professional sex partners range in the thousands, it appears that there were perhaps four or five women who actually were close to Holmes in his private life. Holmes was reputedly meticulous in keeping his professional and private lives separate.

• In August 1965, he married a young nurse named Sharon Gebenini.^[3] He remained married to her until their divorce was finalized on January 17, 1983.
• In 1975 he met Julia St. Vincent on the set of his blockbuster film, Liquid Lips, which was being produced by her uncle, Armand Atamian. Holmes and St Vincent stayed close until 1981 and the Wonderland affair. St Vincent produced the ersatz biographical film of Holmes' life, Exhausted.^[14]
• In 1976 he met a 16-year-old girl named Dawn Schiller, who was his girlfriend from 1976 through the Wonderland incident in 1981. She left Holmes in December 1981, when she turned him in to the police in Florida.
• In 1985 Holmes met his second wife, Laurie Rose. They married on January 24, 1987.

[edit] Penis size

Even after his death, the length of Holmes' penis was used to market Holmes-related material; at the premier of the film Wonderland, patrons were given thirteen-and-a-half inch rulers as gag gifts. ^[15]

[edit] Business activities and endeavors

In 1979, Holmes and his younger half-brother, David Bowman, opened a combination locksmith service and antique shop called the Just Looking Emporium. However, Holmes' drug usage soon took precedence over business matters and the company went out of business before the year was over.^{[citation needed]}

Later, after his 1982 murder trial and acquittal, Holmes began a business partnership with his manager Bill Amerson, as they founded and operated a production company Penquin Productions, where Holmes could be a triple-threat: writing, directing, and performing.^[16]

Despite the notoriety and infamy associated with Holmes, he also devoted much time to charities involving the environment. He was known to campaign and collect door-to-door for charities such as Save The Whales.^[17]

[edit] Holmes mythology

Holmes' career was promoted with a series of outrageous claims that he had made over the years (many made up on the spur of the moment by Holmes himself). The most outrageous ones include:

• Holmes lost his virginity at the age of 6 to his Swedish nursemaid, Freida.^[18]
• Holmes' penis was so big that he had to stop wearing underwear because "I was getting erections and snapping the elastic waist band 4 or 5 times a month."^[19]
• Holmes had degrees in physical therapy, medicine, and political science from UCLA.^[20]
  • Holmes was in fact a high-school dropout who never returned to college; according to Bill Amerson, "the closest John ever got to UCLA" was breaking into cars in the school's parking lot.^[1]
• A teenage Holmes played the role of Eddie Haskell in the TV series Leave it to Beaver. (The character was portrayed by actor Ken Osmond, who bore a resemblance to Holmes).^[21]

[edit] Selected adult feature films

Sex and the Single Vampire (1970) Johnny Wadd (1971) Flesh of the Lotus (1971) Blonde in Black Lace (1972) Tropic of Passion (1973) The Danish Connection (1974) Oriental Sex Kitten (1975) Tell Them Johnny Wadd Is Here (1976) Liquid Lips (1976) Fantasm ('Fruit Salad' segment) (1976) The Autobiography of a Flea (1976) Hard Soap, Hard Soap (1977) Eruption (1977) The Jade Pussycat (1977) Pizza Girls (1978) The China Cat (1978) Blonde Fire (1978) The Erotic Adventures of Candy (1978)

The Senator's Daughter (1979) Taxi Girls (1979) California Gigolo (1979) Sweet Captive (1979) Insatiable (1980) Prisoner of Paradise (1980) Aunt Peg (1980) Up 'n Coming (1983) Nasty Nurses (1983) Girls on Fire (1984) Looking for Mr. Goodsex (1985) The Grafenberg Spot (1985) Rockey X (1986) The Return of Johnny Wadd (1986) Saturday Night Beaver (1986) The Rise of the Roman Empress (1986) The Devil in Mr. Holmes (1986)

[edit] Biographies

• Exhausted: John C. Holmes, the Real Story (1981 documentary)
• John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches (2008 bio by Jennifer Sugar and Jill C. Nelson, Bear Manor Media)
• Wadd - The Life and Times of John C. Holmes (1998 documentary)
• The Devil and John Holmes by Mike Sager, Rolling Stone. June 15, 1989; reprinted in "Scary Monsters and Super Freaks" (2004).
• Porn King: Autobiography of John C. Holmes (1998).
• XXXL: The John Holmes Story (2000 documentary) ^[22]
• John Holmes: The Man, the Myth, the Legend (2004 documentary) ^[23]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Interview with the maker of the 1998 documentary
• John Holmes (pornographic actor) at Find a Grave
• Discussion of Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes, by Gary Morris, 2001
• Devil and John Holmes, by Mike Sager at Mike Sager Official Website

Persondata
NAME	Holmes, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Estes, John Curtis
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Porngraphic actor
DATE OF BIRTH	August 8, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ashville, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH	March 13, 1988
PLACE OF DEATH	Sepulveda, California