TARZANA, Calif. — Blue Iris, best known as a member of Howard Stern's Wack Pack, is on life support at Tarzana Medical Center after suffering a heart attack that cut off the flow of oxygen to her brain, causing irreversible damage.
Having gained notoriety on "The Howard Stern Show" for starring in a slew of so-called "granny porn" (some of her titles including Heatwave's Old Grannies Young Panties 2, Extreme Associates' Cock Smokers 39 and Shooting Star's 50 Plus Video Magazine 3), Iris went on to embark on a jaunt doing stand-up comedy. She recently returned to porn, however, making her final appearance in Erica McLean's upcoming Hustler Video release Hardcore Circus.
McLean has been sitting bedside with Iris' husband Ron in her hospital room the past two days, and according to McLean, Iris has been unresponsive since yesterday. She has been kept on life support, McLean said, in wait for her son, who is expected to arrive today.
"Technically she's still alive, but her soul has transcended," McLean told AVN. "They have her eyes taped down, and she's not moving at all. I kept Ron company, that's why I've been there. He's in shock, he doesn't want to let her go. But her heart and her brain can't take anything more."
McLean met Iris at a gay pride parade last June, and the two became fast friends.
"We were on the back of a float together, the Patients for Medical Marijuana float," McLean remembered. "She was my inspiration to do Hardcore Circus. It's sort of like Wizard of Oz, where I dream it, and Blue Iris was my Auntie Blue in it, and she's in my dream and she's with this midget. She was instrumental in saying, let's work on this together. We were going to go on Howard Stern together to release it on the air June 16."
In coming to know Iris, McLean learned that she was a strong advocate for psychiatric patients, having been unnecessarily subjected in the 1970s to shock treatments in a mental healthcare facility.
"From then on, she reinvented herself and reinvented herself, because when they do that to you, it changes you forever," McLean said. "She wanted to change it so that three people have to sign to put you into a mental institution instead of just one person. She was always talking about it."
Once she reinvented herself as Blue Iris, McLean said, she'd found her true identity. "She wants to be remembered as Blue Iris. When the paramedics came, they asked her name, and she said Blue Iris. That's who she is, and she will be remembered for her infectious laugh and her wackiness. She was a good friend to me, she would call me every day and say 'I love you.' She was my buddy, and no matter what, she will always be forever in my heart."
McLean said that those wishing to pay their last regards should in lieu of flowers make a donation toward funeral expenses. For details on doing so, contact Gary Garver through his website, www.exscape.tv.
McLean also noted that a portion of the profits from Hardcore Circus, which already were to go toward assisting AIDS victims, will now also in part go toward care for the mentally ill, in Iris' honor.
"It's the last movie that she made, and she's really proud of it," McLean said.
"The last thing I said to her was 'I love you,' and she said 'I love you,' and that was our last conversation."
See some more photos of Blue Iris here.
