Sophie's Mentertainment® Online Presents
Interview with Robin Byrd

Part I
Interview by Sophie

Editor's notes: Dear Readers, When I started in this business some 7-8 years ago, people compared me to two women, Dr. Ruth, probably because of my strong opinions in the area of sexuality, and to Robin Byrd. I wasn't very sure whether that was a compliment or an insult, so I never discussed it with anyone. For all intents and purposes, I had no idea who this Robin character was, and what she was about.

Two-three years ago, by accident, I had the opportunity to interview a big busted feature, at - of all places - the studio of the Robin Byrd show. I saw Robin; shot was roaming around, giving instructions, busy, animated, and then, when already in front of the camera, fixing her make-up, beginning to calm down, and beginning to smile.

I have to admit, I didn't like her. She reminded me of all the powerful women I had ever known, starting with my mother, who was so beautiful, next to her I looked homely, or as some people said, ugly. And she had the power to yell at me, call me names, strike me, when she wanted. I was always afraid of my mother. And I've been afraid of every powerful woman ever since. Robin seemed too gutsy, too self assured and confident to make me feel up to par.

People kept on telling me: You should interview Robin Byrd... You should go on the Robin Byrd Show. But I "knew" that she didn't like me, that she would never want me on her show.

I saw the show a few weeks ago, when Poison was on, and finally decided to go for the interview First I asked a writer to set up an interview; she probably won't say no to a guy. But that fell through, so I kept on calling. Finally we set the time and the place. I knew what I wanted to talk about, I had a ride to traffic jam hour's Manhattan... and then the traffic interfered. I was about to be an hour late. I ask my ride "Do you think she is waiting for me? Because if I were her, I wouldn't." When I saw her in front of the Downtown/Uptown Cafe on Second Ave, joking and socializing with a man, I was very surprised. There she was, tanned, blonde, casual, and pretty, waiting for little old me. I couldn't help but feel very grateful. The rest is history. I love the woman, I respect her. Here is a transcription of our taped conversation. It is shortened a bit, otherwise it would be the longest interview in history. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed being there.

Robin:

Well, hello. I am ready for your questions.

Sophie:

Here we go. Just like in Mentertainment I don't to do interviews the way everybody else does.

Robin:

Oh, you're certainly not like everybody else. You've come a long way. I remember even when I used to dance, Mentertainment was just coming out.

Sophie:

When was that?

Robin:

Yes. 8 or 9 years ago.

Sophie:

Where did you dance?

Robin:

Well, Cheeque's, Uncle Charlie's, the Gin Mill. It was in Linden, near General Motors? One girl on stage, one girl altogether.

Sophie:

Why were you dancing in Jersey?

Robin:

Because I didn't want to take my clothes off. I was doing adult films. I went from adult film to dancing. I realized, after two and a half years, that I didn't want to take my clothes off any more for a living. And I loved to tease. And I am a real good dancer. People tell me my feet never touched the ground. Cheeque's would have me there just to prove that they were a good club!

Sophie:

Tell me, how long have you been on Manhattan Cable?

Robin:

I've been on Manhattan Cable for twenty years. I started in 1976. First I wasn't on with my own show, called the Robin Byrd Show.

I also had an experience with the Internet recently. I played with a computer the other night. I took my show; took the cable from the cable box and stuck it into the computer and hooked into one of the web sites on the Internet. Not many sites take nudity, but one of them did, and we did it. I got such a high from being on the Internet. Sharing my little secret with more than just the New Yorkers, but the rest of the people in the country, to give then that choice, that freedom of choice, that is supposed to be the American Way. I don't know, but that could be my next step. I don't know what I want to do.

Sophie:

Why do you call it your "little secret?"

Robin:

(laughs) Because if I call it a little secret-people will be the first to spread it out and make it a big-big secret. And that's how I became so popular. Besides the frontal nudity on my show, and besides being the personality that I am. I believe that if you tell people that you have a secret and tell them not to tell anyone, they are on the phone telling everybody. In the beginning of my show I used to say I am New York's best kept secret, spread the word, they'll do. It is as simple as that.

Sophie:

So you were thinking, here I have this show, I am paying for it myself, how should I get publicity. What trick shall I make up?

Robin:

I went to school for advertising and in the back of my head I had it, that if you have a good product, the product sells itself. My product must be very good because it speaks for itself. Everybody loves it, when I walk down the street people go "Oh, we really love your show!" So when you are treated like that you know that you have something good.

I do not stereotype people, I have naked men for women, naked women for men, naked men for men, and naked women for women. And I have chicks with dicks, which is women with penis, and that's always an attraction, I have something for everyone, and I don't seem to preach to you. I don't tell you: you have to watch this because it's healthy for you, I say, "Look, here it is, you have the freedom." I tell you, "hi there, get comfortable, snuggle up to your loved one, if you don't have a loved one you always have me, Robin Byrd," and I mean it. I really mean it. Because when you are sitting at home, you have nobody, and you love seeing somebody who smiles in front of you instead of telling you "this one was killed" and "that one is dead" No, I say "I am here for you and you are here for me," and this is what people want to hear. They love things like that. It is a very personal show, and nudity is very personal to begin with. Some of the people who watch my show for the first time are shocked. And then they watch for the second time with one eye open. And then the third time with both eyes open, and by the fourth time they are turning their friends onto it saying "watch" and then the friends are going through the whole process "oh, my god, this is so shocking, this is on cable? and you don't have to pay for it?"

Sophie:

So, do I understand, that the fact that there is no agenda helped you to become popular?

Robin:

Yes, you are right, there is no agenda. The only agenda I have is that you play safely. That you use a condom, you use a dental dam. And that you must go and brush your teeth while I am putting on my lip gloss and come back with your dental dams, or your condoms.

Sophie:

What is a dental dam?

Robin:

Shame on you! Sophie, you don't know what is a dental dam? I should hope so! Unless you are celibate. The dental dam is a rectangular piece of latex and you put it on a woman's or your own vagina when you are going down on another woman, or when a man is going down on you or another man. It is for your own health! For your own sake.

Sophie:

Why would I want to lick a piece of latex?

Robin:

You have to understand that I started to do this show in the 70s and in the 70s AIDS was not an issue. But in 1977 I started advocating condom use. I started with condom awareness. I had a jelly bean jar, big jelly bean jar, and my local pharmacy type drug store donated a lot of condoms, because we had no budget, they gave us a lot of condoms, and we did a contest "Guess the number of condoms in the jelly bean jar" and you won a prize. A lot of people don't understand that safe sex can be fun. And then in the 80's AIDS started, and then even more, and I let people know, "Use your rubbers. Don't only have them, use them!"

Sophie:

Do you think the majority of the people who watch your show are people who don't have sex?

Robin:

Both. I think that some people that watch me, have sex around my show; I think that some of the people that watch me have solo sex, while watching the show, I think that some of the people may not have sex, they are the voyeurs, I encourage people to snuggle up next to their loved ones. So just the snuggling alone can start it. I've spoken to people that couldn't continue watching the show because they were making out with their wives. I also have a show for gay men.

Sophie:

You do?

Robin:

Yes. Robin Byrd's Men For Men. What's really great is that the show does bring people more together. And if you don't have a love, there are a lot of people who lost their loved ones to AIDS, or they broke up. I was raised with the television. Television was my babysitter. My mother went to work and that TV, that babysitter was right there. And I would be watching television later on in my adulthood and there was nothing on. It was all violence. It was all stupid. I wanted to give an alternative to television. Television worth watching for adults. People would feed you so many serious things late at night I would have nightmares because of the seriousness and the movies. I wanted to turn you on and tuck you in. My show didn't start with guests. My show started with me reading a bedtime story to you.

Sophie:

So there you are, a kid whose babysitter is the TV.

Robin:

Okay.

Sophie:

And you don't like what goes on in television?

Robin:

Well, yeah later on in life.

Sophie:

Later on in life. So when you were a kid eighteen roughly...

Robin:

When I was eighteen I started doing my show. Now how old am I now. Never mind. Never mind. I know how old I am but never mind.

Sophie:

No I don't worry.

Robin:

Fantasy is usually ageless.

Sophie:

You look wonderful.

Robin:

Thank you.

Sophie:

And you could dance and you know that.

Robin:

Thanks.

Sophie:

What bra size are you?

Robin:

Now I'm a 38C.

Sophie:

C?

Robin:

Maybe D. I think I'm a D. They're all mine. Thank you. And I got the hips to prove it. Usually when you've got the tith... When I first started dancing I was a 34B. When I first started the show I was very thin and I started working out. I would dance all day and then come home and work out at the gym to a point where I was almost competing and then I had a car accident. I've always said that I got my bigger breasts these days from the osmosis from touching all the bigger boobs and mine just started growing. So I'm starting to touch smaller boobs now so they're starting to shrink again.

Sophie:

You're very playful.

Robin:

I think that's what people like about me. I don't think about being playful when I'm talking to you. I just think that life is too short and it should be enjoyed. And I love playing with words. Like with my song Baby Let Me Bang Your Box. It's about a piano. But because I'm down there in people's bushes and playing around, people think it's about a pussy but it's not. It's about a piano. So I like the entendres of our language. People have told me that I'm very profound.in my thinking and my words. I think I'm just normal. This is the way I talk and maybe I see it a little differently. Maybe I see everything a little differently, sexually, than anybody else.

Sophie:

Actually I think that you see with your eyes. That's the real big difference.

Robin:

I see it and I don't think that it's so shocking so I see it openly. I think that's the difference. I mean when I used to dance I used to love to see the guys' faces. Their jaws dropping. The things I-I mean I didn't do anything outrageous but in Jersey you had to wear stockings and they hated those nylon pantyhose stockings. The reason why you had to wear stockings was so that you couldn't show pubic hair. So what did I do? I've been waxing for years. Oh, is that what they're worried about? Pubic hair? I don't have any. And so I would take dollar bills and tie them on my g-string and see the guys go nuts to see how many I could tie up. Well I would tighten them up and you would get like thirty in the front and then I would take them and push them all around to the back so they'd have to give me thirty more so that they could fill it up to see how thin it really was. That type of playfulness is me. That's the way I am. The bar owners used to get so nervous. But I was their cleanest dancer. I never flashed my boobs and things like that. And I used to really dance. Like I said my feet never touched the ground. That's what they told me that I was like the true bird. I flew across the stage all the time. And then later I started to wear knee pads. And the club owners hated that because it wasn't so sexy but the customers loved it because more knee pads more padding you had on your knees the more outrageous you could dance you know? And I'd jump up high and fall flat down on your knees and then come up again and then running and into a split and then fall down on your knees again and they love things like that. I loved to entertain. That is what people enjoy from me, the fact that I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it for the sheer entertainment value of it for the people to enjoy. If I don't enjoy it then I know nobody else is going to enjoy it. When I envisioned my show I envisioned what I wanted to see on television. And then I would do it.

I don't like stereotypes. Probably because people have stereotyped me. Oh there's that girl with that sex show. Oh there's that whore. I mean I still can't live down the fact that I had done adult films. That's what I'm trying to but for the past twenty years I've been doing and pioneering cable television. You would think that when they write about me they would write about the fact that I'm a pioneer in cable television doing an adult show. However they go "the porn queen," "the porn star." I was never a porn queen. I was never a porn star. I had small little roles. I didn't want to be a star. I'll give you a little history. I ran away from home when I was thirteen. I didn't have an education. I decided to go and get a diploma. So I got a GED, got into college. Went into college.

Sophie:

Where did you go at age thirteen?

Robin:

I went to a girlfriend's house who lived here in the city.

Sophie:

Did that help you?

Robin:

Her house was so big her parents didn't even know I was there for the first two months. We came and went when they were sleeping She had her own entrance. It was almost ideal for a runaway.

Sophie:

So you did that for two months?

Robin:

And then they discovered that I was living there and she had explained that I was having problems with my mother and they let me live there.

Sophie:

Then you went to school you got a GED...

Robin:

I got a GED, a General Education Diploma. And I went to school for advertising but the school didn't have an art department and I was into the art end of advertising. So I went to school across the street at the School of Visual Arts; took some classes. I had no money so I decided to model nude for the artists. I used to take classes and I used to hate the way the models would stand there and sit on their pedestals and stools and they had a non-inspiring look about them. I thought: "This isn't inspiring me. This isn't making me a greater artist. But if the person who was there that I was supposed to be drawing was expressing their interest in what they were doing and enjoyed what they were doing I would enjoy what I'm doing. So that was my beginning of nudity and... And so then it's the same thing with television. It was the same. It all fits in then. Then you'll understand how...

Sophie:

Yes.

Robin:

And me watching television this is so uninspiring. I want something to inspire me to want to go to sleep and have nice dreams and whatever. So because I had done the nudity and the artist modeling there was a contest called The Miss All Bare Contest 1976.

Sophie:

All bare?

Robin:

All bare contest. It was held at the Beacon Theater. It was 1975 and I entered. Because there was a big prize and I figured I got a great body. Why not. You know? I'm not ashamed of my body. And you had to do something really inventive. So everybody had a little thing to do. Some people danced. Some people sang. Some people came on with a group. I did a thing called Mary Hard On. Mary Hard-On. Remember Mary Hartman?

Sophie:

No. I came to this country in 1985.

Robin:

So this is before your time then in the country. I forgot who the actress was who did it. But anyway she was-I don't know-her character. So I figured her character doing phone sex. The Mary Hard-On, Mary Hard-On. Well, I didn't win. But I was very inventive and High Society Magazine contacted me to model. I had modeled in the Christmas issue in 5, right after the contest. And the modeling nude, taking pictures and getting paid more than five dollars an hour was a real inspiration to me. Besides that I could look good and I could get paid for it and that was really the beginning of my adult career that I didn't know that I was going to have. But I knew that I could never work for anyone. I knew that I was too headstrong to take anybody else's instructions or orders and that I needed my own little thing that I could control myself. And so after the magazines-I did I think two magazines, uh, I loved sex. I was the orgy queen. And I was having sex with a lot of people that were in the business already. There weren't too many people in the business in the seventies. You could count how many people in the adult industry there was. And I started to do films in 1979. I guess from '75 to '79 I was doing school. I was really into orgies. I was having sex with people in the industry. And my girlfriend was an agent at the time. Her name was Sandy Fox She told me. "Girlfriend, if you're going to be giving it away for free you might as well get paid for it. Because you're having sex with the same people who are doing the business and you love it so much." And in those days they wanted people who enjoyed sex but could act. And I could act. But they didn't want people to act like they were enjoying sex. They wanted the authentic stuff. So in the old days they used to say okay have fun and they would roll the cameras while you were having fun. And that's how I started my adult career. Career. Listen to that. My adult venue.

Sophie:

How long was it?

Robin:

Two years. Two and a half.

Sophie:

What can you fit in two years?

Robin:

Well we used to do films back then. Those were films before they had the videos.

I always knew that I wanted to entertain. Even from the time I was six years old I would stand in front of the television and my mother would be watching television and I'd stand in front of it and perform in front of the television and she'd go "go on get out of the way." But I'd be there dancing to Clay Cole's Music Hour. You remember that? That was something on an old dance show like Dick Clark. And I knew that I wanted to entertain. I didn't know how. I didn't know if I was going to be a musician or what but I knew that I wanted to entertain. I guess I found my niche. Lots of people are very entertained by the show.

Sophie:

You stopped a little bit short of saying how this whole TV thing came up.

Robin:

Oh.

Sophie:

That's one thing. Also, there is a contradiction. So you have no problem taking your clothes off. But then, as a dancer, you didn't want to take your clothes off. How come?

Robin:

Because I wasn't getting paid as much as I was getting paid to take my clothes off completely. You see I was getting paid five, six, seven hundred dollars, seven fifty a day to take my clothes off. Of course I was also having sex.

I started the show after I had danced, I was dancing and I think maybe once or twice a week and one of the producers who I used to do loops for-what they called the peep show loops-he had asked me to co-host the show.

Sophie:

What is this peep show loops?

Robin:

They're films. In the old days they used to have these peep shows where you could go and look in this little square room and see part of the film and you'd put tokens in and every pretty much like a-

Sophie:

Was that made specially for the peep show?

Robin:

Yes, they just did short little movies. Short little 8 mm movies that they sent to Europe. They used to call them Swedish Erotica films. And they said, "Don't worry they're not going to be showing in the United States. They're only going to be shown in Europe. We're doing it for Swedish Erotica." I'm like "oh yeah, sure, fine." So I did those. And he had asked me to host a show called Hot Legs where Vanessa Del Rio was a host. Gloria Leonard was a host. Leslie Bervey was a host. They used to take turns and alternate because they were doing films.

So Vanessa, Gloria and Leslie were all of the West Coast and I was here and he begged me, begged me, begged me. His name was Bobby Hollander. He said "Please host the show. I have nobody to host the show." It was a half hour show called "Hot Legs." Please host the show. Please host the show. I'll do anything. I said "Well, does it pay?" And he says no. And I said "Well, forget it." And this was when if you said you were on cable it was worse than you saying you were a prostitute.

Sophie:

Really?

Robin:

Oh. Cable was the worst! It was like you were a hash slinger or something. And he begged me. He says, "look I'll pay for your cab fare and I'll give you a little something. Please, please do this for me. Do me a favor." That's all the club owners' famous words, "do me a favor." I said "okay." I have this thing where I can't really say no to many things. I said "okay I'll do it for you once." The reason why I didn't want to do it was not because it didn't pay. It was because I used to see the abuse that the hosts used to suffer when they would open up the phone lines. Because it was the time where your television has been talking to you for years telling you what deodorant to wear, what food to eat, what to sleep on, what to sleep with. Now it is your opportunity to tell the television. This is 'new media' where you can call up and you can talk to your television and tell your television where to go. And believe me, people were telling the television and those poor women where to go and what to do. I just didn't want that abuse. I'd rather walk across the street than be abused by anybody. I could abuse myself better than anybody and I'm not going to let anybody abuse me. Well one thing led to another and I went down to the studio and we showed the little film clip of somebody masturbating or some silly little film clip that would lead into these phone calls. And then the phones started ringing. And then it was time.

Sophie:

So really it was your job to get the phones ringing?

Robin:

Just to be on the phone live in front as the host of the show. So okay I'll buckle my seat belt and I said okay and you're the first caller. And the minute they'd answer they're like "Wow you're so beautiful. Wow, we love you. Wow, you're so great." And I went, "wow." I'm thinking to myself "I was never called beautiful ever in my live. And I was never called great. My mother used to always say I was going to amount to nothing. I was going to be a nobody. I was going to die. You're no good. Here these strangers are saying how beautiful I am and how great I'm doing" and before I knew it, it was becoming like, wow this is very nice. "I like this." And so he asked me to come back again the next week. And I did this for six months because the other girls decided they weren't going to come back.

Sophie:

The viewers were different with them?

Robin:

They verbally abused them and they were nice to me.

Sophie:

What was different about you?

Robin:

I don't know. This is something that's very interesting. I can go on the air and people will never-well, if I deserve it-like if I've been overweight and I'm just like sloggy or something, somebody will come out and say "wow, you're fat." But that's the worst thing they'll say to me. People do not say bad things to me. Which I'm grateful for. But other people they will be the first to say you're ugly, you're disgusting, get off the air. And I see producers these days hire hosts that try to be like me and they just can't cut it. It's just not the same. And they attract those abusive calls. I don't. But other people do. I don't know what it is. Except for the fact that I don't abuse my viewers. I don't think that they're perverts for watching or that it's disgusting. It's all natural. It's all normal. It's all healthy. I don't know. I don't know what made them get all these bad phone calls but they did. And I started seeing that people were loving me and I never got that attention. So I did it for about six months and then I came down to do the show again and the studio said that there's no show. "What do you mean there's no show, I'm here." And they said, "Well, the guy who's producing it, left. Unless you want to pay the bills. He owes us a lot of money." And I said, "Well, why should I pay somebody else's bills. Those aren't my bills." And he said "Well, go to the cable company and straighten it out with them." And I went to the cable company and I told them "I want to do the Hot Legs show." And they said "Well, if you want to do the Hot Legs show you have to go and pay the existing bills, the past bills because he owed the cable company too. Not only the studio but you got to pay for the cable company time." I said "I'm not paying anybody else's bills. And they said "you can't have the Hot Legs show, but you can produce your own show in that time slot." And I said "Well, produce my own show? Be the producer of a show? What does the producer do?" I didn't know what a producer did and I said okay. I'll produce my own show. And I was given a half hour so I went on the air again. (She looks at the tape recorder) Are we still turning?

Sophie:

Yes. Very much.

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