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Exxxtasy Show, July 16-18, Chicago
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CINEMA SEEN - "Soul Mated" By William Margold I'm really getting tired of my idols dying! Now while the preceding may sound a bit pretentious, or pompous, or just plain pitiful, you've got to understand that there haven't been very many people who have impressed me. or who have made an impression on me during my first 60 years, and within the past year, four of them---actor James Coburn last November, author Leon Uris (this summer, about I lamented in my10-02 Cinema Seen column), professor Richard Dodge, who inspired me during my daze (sic) at Santa Monica City College, and most recently, vicarious thrill writer par excellence George Plimpton, have left this world a less sterling place to live in. While I was well into my seemingly eternal Hell of being a Detroit Lions (a Professional Football team, who by the way willing be playing, hopefully not the part of the turkey, on Thanksgiving Day, thus making this page even more painfully fitting) fan by the time Mr. Plimpton lived out the fantasy of playing quarterback for the Lions in 1963, and wrote "Paper Lion" (the film of which I reviewed in 1968 for The Santa Monica Outlook, and then parlayed into a relationship with Lyall Smith, the Lions' PR man), his innovative manner of doing things that every man dreams about, ignited me to take his act into the world of Adult Entertainment, way back in 1972, just as X was rearing its head (etc.). From my humble hardcore beginnings on a rug in a garage in Venice, California, all the way through performing in hundreds of films and videos, countless TV and radio talk shows, numerous classrooms, to testifying in front of a Congressional committee, I proudly labeled myself "the George Plimpton of Pornography"---all the while hoping that one day I would get the chance to meet the gentleman, and be able to tell him how much he meant to me. And that day came in January 1997 in Las Vegas during an adult industry convention, when thanks to the industriousness of Paul Wilson (who, with his brother Ray, have been faithful, patient, and remarkably generous supporters of my follies for well over a decade), Mr. Plimpton was brought to the Free Speech Coalition booth. Paul likes to gleefully relate how upon being introduced to the elegantly weary looking fellow, I was speechless to the point of looking addled. Humbled in his supremely secure presence, I frantically searched for the words and the actions to seize the moment. Pulling out one of my never-fail-to-get-a-reaction "God Created Man.William Margold Created Himself" business cards (silver with blue print---the Detroit Lions team colors), I handed it to him, and said, "I've been you in the X-rated world for the past 25 years." Seemingly unimpressed, and looking for a place to toss my card, Mr. Plimpton started to turn away, when I wisely added, "of course, you'll note that my card is in our team's colors." He looked down and fingered my card, and an image of Abraham Lincoln toying with a kitten flashed through my mind. Then he stared into my eager and awestruck face, and as eloquently as one can be when uttering only two words, said, "we'll talk." I sort of figured that that we never would. But at least I had had that one brief shining moment. However.in August of '97, he called me from his office in New York and we talked for over an hour. Of course we spoke a great deal about the adult entertainment business and how he had inspired me to "be him in X," and some of that conversation wound-up in a Nov. 1998 Men's Journal article. But more importantly, we talked about "our Lions"---and as true fans do, we cursed them, as much as we cuddled them, for they, for better, or for worse, were "our team." Although a generation apart age-wise, Mr. Plimpton was born in 1927, it's interesting to note that he was Phillips Exeter and Harvard educated, and if my father (Nathan Ross Margold, a highly respected Washington D.C. jurist) hadn't passed away in 1947, in all probability, I would have been. But fate intervened, and while Mr. Plimpton's playing field remained well above ground, and his actions were controversial only in the most good-natured manner, my creative juices flowed in the underground passages of society's daydreams, wherein I "lay" but was never "bored." By way of closing, I find it sublimely touching that the last time I saw George Plimpton, he was in the audience of an Actor's Studio segment (on Bravo), featuring the human (voice) counterparts of "The Simpsons." It is one of my all-time favorite TV programs. Mr. Plimpton had been a voice in a previous episode, most likely deriving yet another vicarious thrill, and although the camera graced him for only a split second, the look on his face was that of true contentment.and considerable pride. Well, Sir, now you belong to the ages. And while I figure that you are in the great end zone in the sky, preparing to write about the ultimate vicarious thrill, you are most likely getting to toss the football around with Bobby Layne in your spare time. When my time comes, I strongly suspect that I will be doomed to wind up on a field a little bit hotter, surrounded by TV monitors perpetually showing Lions losses. Printed in LA Xpress, 11-27-03 issue. end. |