Clive McLean Battles Cancer

Adult industry veteran Clive McLean, the AVN Hall of Fame photographer who has been a fixture at Hustler for the past 29 years, has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

McLean has photographed nearly every recognizable starlet in adult during his tenure at Hustler as Senior Photographer. In addition to his magazine layouts, he began directing videos four years ago, taking the reins of Hustler Video’s Barely Legal series. The 2004 AVN Award-winning Best Vignette series recently reached its 50th edition and has long been the best-selling line in the company's arsenal.

McLean, a former art school student who earned his degree in graphic design and journalism in the 1960s, has said that directing allows him to finish a visual story. “As a photographer, you always say it would be nice if I had a couple more pages,” he says. “It alleviates a little frustration because I can complete a story, even though it usually always end up with a facial.”

McLean also directs the girl/girl series Hot Showers and has helmed a handful of Barely Legal spin-offs such as Barely Legal On Vacation, Barely Legal in the City and Barely Legal Summer Camp.

McLean lives with his wife of 10 years and "right-hand woman," Erica, on a sprawling 3-acre ranch with 14 stables that overlooks Shadow Hills. Erica McLean works closely with her husband on every aspect of production, prompting him to say in a 2003 interview with AVN that she is "the dynamo behind the jewel." Their production company is called Rubber Duck, Inc.

The London native that is known as an approachable, good-natured man was the subject of a nationally televised profile on American Movie Classics called "The AMC Project: I Want to Be Clive McLean" last year. The program, which also included profiles on mainstream entertainment figures, was advertised in the July 2003 issue of Vanity Fair.

The original Barely Legal initially did not make for the easiest sell, McLean told AVN in an exclusive interview for the February 2002 cover story about the emergence of Hustler Video.

“It was a big yawn as far as distributors were concerned,” he said in December of 2001. “It only went out the door at 700-800, not really good. We had no sales people. But the repeat orders were absolutely astronomical on No. 1. We had 28,000 repeat orders.”

McLean also appeared last year at the beginning of the PBS "Frontline" documentary on the industry called "American Porn." He was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2001.