LAS VEGAS — Adult industry veterans Ron Jeremy, Tom Byron and Karen Stagliano (a.k.a. Tricia Devereaux) shared behind-the-scenes stories with fans at the 2009 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo seminar "Let Me Tell You About The Time."
Arriving late, Jeremy exclaimed, "No food?!" and spun around as if he was going to march right back out again. While Byron briefed Jeremy on the seminar topic, Stagliano related the story of her entrance into the business.
Stagliano reminisced with Byron about performing with him in the first movie he directed (1996's Cumback Pussy from Elegant Angel Productions), and Byron went on to muse about working with Ginger Lynn, Traci Lords and Careena Collins.
Jeremy and Byron devoted a lot of the seminar to recalling brushes with the law in the days when shooting porn was illegal. Both told stories about trying to evade surveillance and being on sets that got busted. It was always the same two agents on the trail, they said, and when a bust happened, it was full-SWAT-style, with guns drawn — something they could never comprehend.
During one such encounter, Jeremy said he asked the agents why they had guns. When the law enforcement team claimed to have heard about weapons on the premises, Jeremy grabbed his crotch and replied, "Here's my only weapon!"
The panelists debated the accuracy of director Paul Thomas Anderson's mainstream film Boogie Nights, on which Jeremy served as a consultant. The consensus from the insiders was that the movie depicted certain aspects of the period very authentically, but did not reflect the reality of the adult industry as a whole.
"It was an accurate depiction of John Holmes," said Jeremy. Byron suggested that some elements of the film hit closer to home than Jeremy would admit. "Coke was huge in the '80s, everybody did it," he said. "I did it."
All three panelists talked about superstars they discovered. Stagliano named Sasha Grey as a girl whose potential she spotted immediately, casting Grey in husband John's Fashionistas Safado as a last-minute replacement.
In the closing thoughts of the seminar, Byron remarked: "Just the fact that a business exists where a man can make money having sex with beautiful women is a beautiful thing."
