SEXIS WRONG

exploration, Africanus Sexualis. Alas, it was merely He and
She with a black couple in flagrante, and how! From 1969
through 1971, Marvin produced and/or packaged upwards of
twenty-five stroke films. He’d moved his offices and studio
to Hollywood Boulevard, to a complex behind the Adam &
Eve porn theater, which he’d bought along with the Tiffany
on the Sunset Strip.
Curiously, though, Marvin had little interest in sex.
“I don’t think Marvin has had one thought about sex with
anybody. He’s too busy counting his money and bouncing his
checks and stealing change from blind newsboys,” a business
associate remembers. 39 And it’s true. In contrast to
many of his peers, Marvin wasn’t a player. He was in the
dirty-book business, the skin-flick business in LA during the
late 1960s ferchristsake, and he didn’t care about sex. A porn
actress acquainted with him stated: “I wouldn’t know much
about him—he doesn’t like girls.” 40
Marvin wasn’t gay; he just didn’t get hot for anything that
didn’t have the Secretary of the Treasury’s signature on it in
black on green. He was, by all accounts, a very handsome
man, but a swinger he wasn’t. He was, in fact, a homebody,
and, given his closeness with a dollar, it should come as no
surprise that he was not extravagant. Evenings were spent,
for the most part, with his wife, daughter, and two sons. He
enjoyed a fine meal at a fine restaurant, which, considering
his childhood, is no shock. He didn’t drink. While a dapper
dresser, he didn’t go in for sartorial splendor, silk boxer shorts
aside. His home was relatively modest; no mansions for him.
The backyard barn had been converted into office space; later,
his film set. Milton Van Sickle, an editor who has worked
for almost all the major porn publishers, was wrong: Marvin
didn’t work out of a phone booth. 41 But there was a pay
phone in the offices of the Adult Education Institute. Visiting
and need to make a quick local call? On your dime.
It’s late 1970, early 1971. Art Kunkin’s dreams of a publishing
empire are evaporating before his very eyes. In addition to
Marvin’s printing plant, he’d bought two new,
very expensive Mergenthaler printing presses
and shipped them to Los Angeles from their
home in England. But he had no place to put
them. Idle printing presses with huge debt. The IRS on his
ass for back taxes. The Los Angeles Free Press was once
again about to go under. And Art was persona non grata with
every bank in town. Time to visit his benefactor and friend.
Marvin generously offered to cosign a loan for Art, up to
$150,000, the Free Press as collateral. Art told Marvin he
needed only $60,000. So, signing a note pledging the paper,
Art got his $60,000. Two months later, he ran out of money.
Marvin had asserted that “some people don’t know how to
screw,” but Marvin knew how to screw royally. He foreclosed
on the Free Press.
Within two months of leaving Milt Luros’ American Art Agency,
Brian Kirby went to work for Kunkin as associate editor—
later managing editor—of the Los Angeles Free Press. Within
a year, he and every employee walked out on the same day.
They’d just learned that Marvin Miller was the new owner of
the Freep, and though Kunkin would hold the title executive
editor, they wanted nothing to do with Marvin, a man Kirby
knew all too well from the porn trade. 42 The incident, however,
earned Marvin another footnote in American cultural
history: He made the cover of Rolling Stone. “Does Porn Call
the Shots at L.A. Free Press?” read the headline of the September
16, 1971 issue. By now, Marvin had set up another
corporation to umbrella his activities. Printed on the Freep’s
masthead without a trace of irony (readers are encouraged to
provide their own) was the new publisher’s name: “Therapy
Productions.”
Kunkin doesn’t blame Marvin at all for foreclosing on the
Freep; they, in fact, remained friends. So, when Marvin decided
to enter publishing again—under his Therapy Productions
imprint—he hired Art to write the text for a couple of
magazine-format books in his new series on the Mob, particularly
a title on the Mob’s influence in politics. Kunkin
was concerned. “Won’t that bother the boys in Chicago?”
he asked. Marvin told Art to step outside so he could make
a call. Five minutes later, he asked Art back in. “It’s okay,”
Marvin reported. “No problem.” While this was clearly showmanship
(though because of his background on the streets
of Chicago, he had many friends whose career paths strayed
from the straight and narrow), it does raise the question of
whether Miller was Mobbed up.
Man and Wife was the first of many
skin flicks that Marvin released.
The answer appears to be a qualified no: Marvin—as with
virtually every other pornster of the era—by need had to deal
with Mob-affiliated individuals. Ron Miller recalls an incident
when two Mobsters from San Diego paid Marvin a shakedown
visit. Marvin calmly picked up the phone, explained
the situation to his listener, hung up, and confronted the two
Mafiosi, who, upon hearing the name Robert DiBernardo,
blanched, apologized, begged Marvin’s pardon, and beat a
hasty retreat. Di B made a fortune distributing Marvin’s books
and most certainly didn’t want anyone to threaten the supply
of golden eggs from his goose; protecting him just made
good business sense, nothing shady about it. This was an example
of what has often been described to me as a “courtesy
THE MAN WHO SCREWED THINGS UP 247