Richard Pacheco was, in many ways, a wunderkind of the classic adult film era. Appearing in just over 80 titles, he scored a greater percentage of blockbuster hits in his career than just about any other male star of the era—and now, he's written about all of them, as well as his life leading up to and after them, in a massive autobiography penned under his real name, Howie Gordon, called Hindsight.
The book, which was released last December, is available in print and electronic versions on Amazon.com—but personally autographed copies are available from Gordon's own website hindsightbook.com. The site, which is well worth checking out, contains selections from the book's "Prelewd" as well as endorsements from a variety of folks both in and out of the adult industry, including Paul Thomas, Kay Parker, Georgina Spelvin, Candida Royalle, Annie Sprinkle, Wesley Emerson, Nina Hartley, Mike Horner, Chris Mann, Taschen Books' Dian Hanson and former AVN writer Ariel Hart—and a foreward written by Gordon's neighbor and good friend, Whoopi Goldberg.
Divided into eight parts, with as many as 60 (sometimes one- or two-paragraph) chapters in each part, Hindsight traces Gordon's sexual life through his own eyes and supposedly through the eyes of his agent Marty—it's unclear whether that's a real person, especially since Marty's interjections almost always undercut some point Gordon's trying to make—and even, once in a while, in one-on-ones with "God" aka "The Voice." But however Gordon frames the information (too often self-deprecatingly), it's an exceptionally good read, largely because he writes the way people talk to each other: conversationally, and with a good ear for the way different people express themselves, much of it taken from his apparently voluminous diaries—and the fact that he comes from a Jewish background adds a nice ethnic flavor to many sections. (Don't worry; he provides footnoted definitions of unfamiliar Hebrew/Yiddish words.)
If Gordon pulls any punches, we weren't able to find them. He talks freely about learning to masturbate, his earliest sexual (and near-sexual) encounters, his early habit of following girlfriends across the country and even into a commune, getting his first adult movie roles and the limp-dick-creating angst that accompanied some of his early attempts (in part because cameramen had to change film so often), his decision to leave adult performing, due in large part to the then-new HIV "crisis," and plenty more.
But beyond Gordon/Pacheco himself, this is a book about the times of his life: the still-raging Vietnam War of his youth, his brief attempts at drug use and even briefer dalliance with attending divinity school, the difficulties of auditioning to become a mainstream actor, the politics of sexuality (which didn't change much, no matter who party controlled Congress and/or the presidency), the rise of the women's movement, his appearance as a Playgirl centerfold—a concept unimaginable just a few years earlier, later college speaking tours with Nina Hartley and, again, plenty more.
The bulk of the book, however, focuses on Gordon's career in adult movies, from auditioning for Candy Stripers and getting blown by Nancy Hoffman, through his first introduction to fellow performers John Leslie and Joey Silvera (neither of whom, from the outset, liked him, though he did later grow them) and later, John Seeman and Jamie Gillis, with both of whom he became good friends; his decades-long relationship with director Anthony "Sam" Spinelli which continued even after Gordon's retirement, due in no small part to Spinelli's having cast him in the award-winning films Talk Dirty to Me and Nothing to Hide; directors Alex deRenzy and Cecil Howard, for whom Gordon had great respect—and, of course, the actresses. Gordon's worked with some of the best, including Candida Royalle in Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls, Jesie St. James in Easy, Kay Parker in Spectators, Georgina Spelvin in Dancers, Annette Haven in Seven Seductions of Mme. Lau, Marilyn Chambers in Insatiable, Shauna Grant in Bad Girls IV, Amber Lynn, Ginger Lynn, Janey Robbins, Lisa De Leeuw and Nina Hartley in the orgy scene in Ten Little Maidens, Sharon Kane in the little-seen Babylove and Beau, Seka in the never-seen Sunny Days—the list just goes on and on.
BTW, even present-day porn stars will probably want to take to heart Gordon's prescription, in Chapter 25 of Part 2, of how to make having sex on camera easier.
And then there's the photos! Gordon includes both "official" and behind-the-scenes images of many of the actresses, actors, directors, cameramen and other crew from many of the movies he appeared in, as well as reproductions of the marquee posters for the shows. There's even a reproduction of the front cover of the February/March 1984 issue of AVN (which Gordon calls "just a small newsletter coning out of Philadelphia at that point, but they were the future and they were coming on strong"), announcing the winners of the first AVN Awards, in which Richard Pacheco is prominently featured.
Anyway, the point is, we could gush endlessly about how informative, insightful and downright readable Hindsight is—but since we can't, we can only recommend that readers try a copy for themselves.
