CHATSWORTH, Calif.—Director Phil Marshak, best known for his Golden Age films Dracula Sucks (aka Lust at First Bite), Olympic Fever and Intimate Lessons, passed away Sunday evening after long suffering from leukemia, diabetes and heart disease. He was 80.
Brought up in the Bronx, N.Y., Marshak's limited X-rated filmography between 1978 and 1985 accounted for several major milestones in the history of adult cinema: Dracula Sucks marked the debut of porn icon Seka, and Olympic Fever was the set upon which Ron Jeremy both earned the nickname "The Hedgehog" and first kissed his own penis.
"What I would call Marshak would be the Samuel Fuller of X," contemporary Bill Margold, who appeared in several of Marshak's films, told AVN. "People who know cinema will understand what I mean by that, 'cause he was an outlaw. He was just a joy to be around, and he was always thinking much bigger than he could achieve. I knew him from when he first entered into the X-rated industry with Lust Flight 2000, which wasn't very good, but then he became more and more ambitious. Easily the most important [of his films] was Dracula Sucks—you take a look at the credits in that movie, you have nine Hall of Famers. You will never have another movie like that.
"I was honored to know the man," Margold continued. "Phil and I had a lot of fun making movies. He gave me free rein—much of my stuff in Intimate Lessons is on the cutting room floor, including the famous chicken scene, the sauna bath scene, the whipping scene, all gone because I just pushed the envelope and he allowed me to. He gave me an envelope and let me tear it apart. I'll put his body of work up against anybody's, including the sainted [Anthony] Spinelli, because Marshak made movies that were real Saturday afternoon matinees for adults."
Marshak's son Darryl, who worked at his father's side on all his adult movies and went on to become a prominent agent in mainstream Hollywood, reflected, "All I can say is that when we stopped doing it, it was the end of an era. I was very proud to do them, I never looked at them as dirty or illegal. I just got into another part of the business and Phil just kind of faded into the background. But he's legendary. I mean, I don't know what to say about my pops, except I wish he made more movies."
Darryl Marshak does say plenty about his father in an as-yet-unpublished biography which opens with the rumination, "I just wanted my dad's love, period, and I would do anything for it. I sold drugs for him, made X-rated films with him, became a big Hollywood agent (to make him proud), stole money, hurt people, dropped out of school—all so I could run with him and live his dreams and get the love that I wanted as a kid."
Meanwhile, Ron Jeremy shared a story about Olympic Fever that he says he's not sure either Marshak ever knew. Explaining that he'd affected a Russian accent for his role in the movie, he recounted, "I was hanging out with Robin Williams and Sam Kinison—of course I'm name-dropping—at Cafe Campus in uptown New York, and Robin had just done Moscow on the Hudson. And we were sitting around this table having a bite, and we were talking about porn films, and Robin goes, 'Yeah, I saw your film Olympic Fever.' I said, 'I know you saw that film, because that's how you did the research to have your accent perfect in the Russian movie.' He goes, 'Thank god, Ron, I'm telling you if it wasn't for you, I never would have had that accent right.'
A private memorial service for Phil Marshak will be held this Sunday.
