Noel Bloom, one of the founders of the adult video industry, is returning to it after more than 15 years with a new company, Maximum Xposure.
Maximum Xposure’s first releases, in June, will be an all-sex tape, Anal Cum Drippers and a she-male title, How to Treat a Lady. Bloom told AVN.com that both are products he acquired just to get the company off the ground. But he has already begun to produce new movies, the first of which are due to ship in late summer.
Bloom was the founder of Caballero Home Video, one of the very first companies to open up the adult video market in the mid-1970s. He and his father had been selling a series of silent loops, 150 of them, called Swedish Erotica.
“Since we shot on 16mm, we just put them on video, added music to them, and there we were, in the video business,” he said.
Fueled by Swedish Erotica’s success, Caballero rapidly became the preeminent porn studio, releasing a string of hits with superstars like John C. Holmes, Marilyn Chambers and Seka.
Concurrently, Bloom bought a general release company, Family Home Entertainment, which licensed cartoons and children’s features from Hollywood studios. He recalls that at one point in the late ‘70s he owned both the biggest X-rated and the biggest G-rated home video companies in the world.
In 1987 Bloom sold Caballero to Al Bloom (no relation) and Howie Klein. A bit later he sold 50 percent of FHE to Carolco, which had produced the Rambo movies.
“I thought it was a match made in heaven,” he recalls, “but then they brought in a guy named Jose Menendez… so a few months later I just sold out.” Not long after, Menendez and his wife were murdered by their two sons in one of the high profile crimes of the late 20th century.
Bloom started a new general release company, Celebrity Home Video, and then watched his market share steadily shrink as Hollywood studios realized what goldmines they owned and stopped leasing product to independents. He made some family related films and started Celebrity Duplicating Service for VHS duplication.
Now he’s back in adult, lured, he said, by “opportunity,” even though it’s a field that’s considerably more crowded than when he left it. For the time being, he’s maintaining an office at Leisure Time Entertainment.
Contact Noel Bloom at (818) 781-2345, x254 or email [email protected] or [email protected].
