by Zach Kincaid
He's a dancing man! The Astaire of anal, the Baryshnikov of beaver, the Gene Kelly of Kink -- and the winner of more readers polls than any other director as their favorite all-time favorite.
And just who is that titan of terpsichore, that swami of stylish sleaze and sophisticated smut? Why he's John Stagliano, of course, the 38-year-old reigning Sultan of Sinema, a mega-and-multi-talented actor/dancer/writer/cameraman/editor -- a virtual, but not so virginal, Orson Welles of onanists.
5’9 and 171 lb., with slooping Stallone-like eyelids, the genial genius of all things inguinal has given a lusting world such celluloid sexcapades as Shadow Dancers, Parts I and II; Dance Fire; Very Dirty Dancing; and Sex For Secrets; and the phenomenally successful The Adventures of Buttman series.
Reporter: John, when you direct, you also operate your own camera, don't you?
John Stagliano: Yes, unless I'm also in the scene. If I'm not in the shot, ninety-nine-and-nine-tenths of the time, I'm the cameraman. Unless it's something real simple I don't want to shoot. But if it's sex -- I'm always the cameraman!
Reporter: With "Very Dirty Dancing," you set sort of a legal precedent. I think it was the only X-rated film whose distribution a Hollywood major went to court to stop -- the makers of Dirty Dancing.
John Stagliano: Very Dirty Dancing, on a technical, story-wise, and acting/direction, whatever, level, is below most of what I've done recently. But it still had some really good elements in it.
And it had a girl who wanted to be the star of the movie, who I happened to be living with at the time, Valentina, who was also named Havana, at different stages in her porno career.
Anyway, that a made a big difference, with that particular movie. And the orgy scene was a lot of fun to shoot.
Reporter: How many films have you directed?
John Stagliano: Umnnnn, I can't give you an exact number, but a lot for my own company, but not many for others, where I was like an outside hired gun, a couple I even wrote the scripts on.
But those I don't consider my productions, basically because I was not in control of many of the factors involved.
I would have done them completely differently. I would not have done movies in that manner.
And I've done a few projects where I did about a half-hour of new footage for a compilation, where I tied together stuff. Some of that stuff, I think, is the best stuff I've ever done.
I did something called Awesome Assets, which, if anybody's ever seen it might think it's totally weird. It's about this guy who is similar to the enema bandit, who hangs out in an alley, and introduces some of these scenes.
Then, toward the end, he goes off on this adventure, with Viper. And that's really bizarre.
One of the best shots I think I've ever recorded on video is when this enema bandit character, who has tennis shoes and longjohns underneath an overcoat, and he has a cap on that says "Mr. Clean" on it, is walking down Hollywood Blvd. following Viper.
Well, we see Viper walk past one of the stars embedded in the sidewalk, in her high heel shoes with her tiger striped pantyhose -- her feet go over the star, in the same shot, and you see the tennis shoes come over the star, along with the overcoat -- and trailing along behind is the end of an enema tube, as it drags over the star. You had to be there!
Anyway, that works. And then at one point, when he opens his overcoat, inside the overcoat are enema bags, and all sorts of stuff. And his main toy, that he plays with, is an enema bag that has a doll's head and arms, whatever -- and it becomes, like, a voodoo doll! So the girls do whatever he wants. That worked as well as anything I've done.
Reporter: And how many videos have you performed, or fucked, in?
John Stagliano: Probably not as many as you might think. Definitely not as many as a lot of the other guys [like Tom Byron, T.T., Ron Jeremy, etc.].
Reporter: Didn't you start out, though, co-directing with that legend of looney lechery, Bruce Seven?
John Stagliano: Yeah, Bruce and I did four movies together. I did one movie before working with him, but Bruce was my cameraman on my very first project.
After that, Bruce and I decided that we thought a lot alike, and we'd work on some stuff together. We did Video Exclusive's first movie, right after that we did Star '84 --*of which, we're still owed five thousand dollars on. which was Mark Carrier's first video production.
Reporter: And that was with the lady he married, Tina Marie?
John Stagliano: Yes. And you might want to mention that Video Exclusives still owes Bruce and me five thousand dollars, and we think that Video Exclusives is a rip-off organization!
Reporter: One of my esteemed colleagues tells me that when you were growing up, and obviously not even in the Smut Biz, you were a big fan, or devotee, of porn. Is that true?
John Stagliano: Yeah! I've been jerking off since I was a little kid, and was always trying to find pornography. I mean, in
l966-67, I would ride my bicycle to the newsstands three or four miles away, inside Chicago. I lived in the suburb just outside, Evergreen Park, Ninety-Seventh and Francisco, or whatever. I would bicycle to Sixty-third and Ashland, just on the borders of the black neighborhoods, back in the '60s when it was kinda dangerous. This is when I was fifteen-years-old, something like that, sixteen -- just to get magazines to jerk off to!
I remember when I was sixteen or seventeen sneaking off to see "Sandy, the Reluctant Nature Girl," which was an old nudie, nudist camp movie, circa '68, I believe, '69 maybe -- some of the most intensely arousing experiences in my life, and jerking off in the theater under my coat!
Reporter: Just once or twice?
John Stagliano: Pardon me?
Reporter: Once or twice!
John Stagliano: Once or twice, what?
Reporter: The number of times you were beating your meat while watching the movie in the theater. How many times did you come?
John Stagliano: Oh, back in my younger days, it could be four or five. But generally speaking, one or two would be fine.
Reporter: Didn't anyone ever catch you?
John Stagliano: A few times.
Reporter: And what happened?
John Stagliano: I was arrested once, for jerking off in a porno theater. In fact, if you watch Shadow Dancers, that whole experience is recounted. At the beginning of Shadow I, and kinda toward the middle of Shadow I, and at the end, it's concluded and explained.
Reporter: What did the authorities do with you at that age, John, for whacking off in public?
John Stagliano: Well, I wasn't that young then. I was like in my twenties, at that time. And I was arrested and taken down -- you gotta see the movie!
Reporter: Okay, but did you get a police record for that?
John Stagliano: Oh, no, I pleaded no contest. I just got a lawyer, and they did a plea bargain. I pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
Reporter: You have the reputation for being one of the few directors in the Jiz-Biz who watches the movies of other X-Directors. True?
John Stagliano: I would say I'm certainly not up on watching other people's stuff as much as I'd like.
I have watched most of John Leslie's new stuff. I've watched bits and pieces of some of Henri Pachard's stuff, but I couldn't make an informed comment on it.
Bruce's stuff I watch, but I don't -- well, I will admit that I don't get off on other people's movies, much, anymore. I'm kind of more into -- I don't know, occasionally John Leslie will do a scene, you know.
I'd rather jerk off to a good magazine, though, sometimes. I just don't get off so much on other people's hardcore movies. I go to quarter-peek shows, and flip between machines. That turns me on more, because I find that most people don't walk into a scene that I'm interested in just sticking with. John Leslie did in the beginning of Hot Scalding, that first scene in that. But it's kind of rare.
I know that I try and make my scenes such that I can get off to 'em -- that's my goal! And I feel that I succeed, to a large extent.
Reporter: What magazines do you find best to pound your dummy to?
John Stagliano: Oh, Tail Ends, bottom fetish magazines. That's about it. Slick magazines.
Reporter: They're not even porn mags, there's no penetration.
John Stagliano: Oh, yeah -- no there isn't! Pretty girls, pretty bodies, that turn me on. It's just like the criticism of Gang Bangs, Part II, in HUSTLER, and another Flynt magazine. I believe [they] were reviewed by different people, but they both had the same criticism -- that [you should] "fast forward" through the first half hour of the movie until they start fucking.
I make movies the way I like to see 'em made! The people who say that, they're not looking at it from a fan's point of view. They're looking at it from their particular point of view.
Maybe they don't like that. But to say that it's totally worthless, puts it in the same category as say, maybe, a Paul Thomas dialogue scene, which is completely unfair and uninformative.
Reporter: What do you mean, exactly, regarding P. T.?
John Stagliano: Well, like Paul Thomas will do some long dialogue scenes in his movies -- which are not sexual at all! And which, you know, are not arousing.
When I'm doing my first seventeen minutes, before getting into any hardcore sex, when I'm doing that, I'm setting up three or four different scenes: I'm doing tease, I'm doing nudity, maybe a little bit of touching -- but there's a sexual content to all of it!
And there aren't any long dialogue scenes there! And all the dialogue that's there is done with the girl's butt in the same picture, or something that is arousing, also.
And I think that is not appreciated by some people, but by other people it is. Bill Margold [dean of porn historians and critics] gave me the same criticism about Shadow Dancers.
He said, "Well, it should have been a lot shorter, and so much of the stuff ..." Get into the sex, is what he's implying.
Well, when I would jerk off to movies, quarter-peek shows, and whatever, back to old film days, and even now X-rated movies -- I would be most aroused by the first part of the scene, the very beginning of a scene, when the girl's clothes first come off.
I would often, you know, purposely try and catch the beginning of quarter-peek show movies, just the beginning of the scene, simply because that was most arousing to me.
Reporter: What's your reaction to being voted Best Director by the fans over and over again?
John Stagliano: I think it's the best award I could probably get, period! It just tells me that people are watching my stuff, and liking my stuff. It's better, you know, than having Best Video, or Best Director, from an awards' organization, generally speaking.
Reporter: How often do you still masturbate?
John Stagliano: Oh, I don't know. Ah, everyday, pretty much, every other day.
Reporter: How often do you have sex during the week? Either on camera, or socially?
John Stagliano: Well, first of all, I don't work for other people, in movies. And I put myself in only one movie out of two, or three. And I only shoot once every couple of months.
So we're talking about doing one scene every three or four months.
Reporter: So, how often do you fuck in your personal life?
John Stagliano: Right now, maybe I'll average every day.
Reporter: How many pops per sex session?
John Stagliano: Well, every other day two pops per occasion, if you want to look at it that way.
Reporter: What's your favorite element of sex? Getting head, giving, fucking, anal, what?
John Stagliano: To tell you the truth, I'm more visual. I mean I don't know how blunt I can be in print, but I don't want to get anybody in trouble in Seattle.
I just went to Seattle for a couple of days, and in Seattle they'll do table dances where the girls will rub up against you. They're not supposed to do this, but there are many girls there who will reach down and be jerking you off, and grabbing your dick.
And they'll bend over right in your face. Probably the single most interesting thing in the world is to have a girl in high heeled shoes bend over right in my face -- with a nice, a nice ass, you know!
Reporter: And what are you eating at that time?
John Stagliano: I don't have to be eating, I just have to be looking.
Reporter: And jacking off?
John Stagliano: Yeah. Or having her jack me off. And having my nipples pinched by these girls, or something like that. They're putting on a show, in that personal way. Also the fact that we're not supposed to be doing it, they have to be hiding what they're doing -- all that adds a little element there.
I must say that that particular turn-on is as good as sex -- or better.
Reporter: Okay, do you like the naked ladies wearing a garter belt and hose with the high heels?
John Stagliano: I don't like frilly. I can get real particular with you. I don't like frills. I don't like lace. I like leather, a little bit. But, basically, what I like is tight, sharp looking clothes.
You know, skintight mini-skirts, skintight panties that fit tight over a girl's pussy.
Ummnn, stockings are okay, with the garter belt, that's okay. It's not a particular turn-on so much. But tease things, push-up bras, where the boobs are spilling out. Or little panties that accent the curves of a girl's butt.
Reporter: Do you personally enjoy doing anal with a girl?
John Stagliano: I enjoy looking at it probably more than I enjoy actually doing it. I certainly get turned-on if I put my finger in a girl's asshole sometimes.
Reporter: While you're fucking her?
John Stagliano: Yeah, while I'm fucking her, whatever, I'll make my dick harder. It just happens, you know.
I just happen to like licking girls' asses, and burying my face in girls' asses, and I like --
Reporter [cutting in]: -- Did you say "licking girls' asses"?
John Stagliano: Yeah -- that gives me a hard-on! Don't ask me why. I don't bother to think about it.
Reporter: So you like to give the ladies "rim jobs," oral/anal.
John Stagliano: Yeah. Burying my face in the cheeks of a girl's ass gives me a hard-on.
Reporter: Well, do you enjoy it when she runs her tongue up your asshole?
John Stagliano: Oh, yeah -- that's nice, too! Yeah, that can be a real special turn-on.
Reporter: How old were you when you nailed your first nookie?
John Stagliano: Oh, twenty-years-old.
Reporter: That late???
John Stagliano: Yeah. I tried earlier, but I never. I had a girlfriend when I was seventeen. We did real heavy petting, but she wouldn't let me fuck her. We're talking 1968 here, '69.
And the suburbs of Chicago are much more conservative than Los Angeles. No drugs, things like that. I didn't hear about marijuana until my senior year.
Reporter: How many women do you think you've drilled in your life?
John Stagliano: Oh, God! A rough guess? Ummnn, 250.
Reporter: That seems low.
John Stagliano: I don't know. I was a male stripper, too, for four or five years, you know. I'd count, and a couple of years in a row, I'd get up to about 30 -- then I'd fall in love for three months.
I was never completely promiscuous, in my life, and I'm still not.
Reporter: We all have flaws, John, and I'm sure you might overcome that one someday.
John Stagliano: I did work with some male strippers, one guy who bragged about the night he got his five hundredth girl -- but I've always had trouble completely sinking into that lifestyle.
I admire it in some ways. But I just can't do it.