Today, I received some very sad news via the community based news site Digg. This weekend, Gerard Rocco Damiano passed away after complications from a stroke. He was 80.
What's that? You don't know who that is? Maybe his alias, Jerry Gerard rings a bell. No? Ok... how about Linda Lovelace? Jerry Gerard was the pseudonym for Gerard Rocco Damiano, the man who brought to life the quintessential bad 70's porn. Yes, you know it now. You know the movie of which I speak. The man who gave us Deep Throat is no more.
There's an excellent article at Time's website. Entertaining to be sure, the article even has critical review of the merits and shortcomings of two of the best known porn movies of all time; "Deep Throat" and "The Devil in Mrs. Jones". From the time article:
The movie had no-name stars — in fact, fake-name stars: Herb Streicher was going by Harry Reems, and Linda Boreman by Linda Lovelace. The writer-director, a Bronx hairdresser who'd never done a porno feature before, called himself Jerry Gerard. This was early 1972, and the people making hardcore sex movies considered themselves lucky to exhibit their wares legally, let alone have their real names on them. All "Gerard" had was a cute idea for a porno comedy, and a leading lady with a special talent. He also wanted to change the movie's title, from The Sword Swallower. The producer objected that no one would understand the new title. "Don't worry," the director replied. "Deep Throat will become a household word."
Every once in a while, an artist gets an inspiration that changes pop culture. Even if he's a slop artist, and the inspiration is a movie about a woman with a clitoris in her throat. Such a one was Gerard Rocco Damiano, aka Jerry Gerard, who died this weekend in Fort Myers, Fla., at 80, from complications after a stroke. With Deep Throat and his second film, Devil in Miss Jones, Damiano launched the 1970s movie craze of porno chic.
If you were to ask, is the world a better place now that he's gone, I'd say, well, not really, it hasn't changed a bit. If you were to ask if the world was a better place because of him, I'd say, most definitely. He helped bring sexuality to the front of American consciousness. Sure, the movie was exceptional. Exceptionally bad, that is. But either way, he did change the way mainstream America thought about porn and adult sexuality, for good or ill.
Either way, he did change the way American Mainstream thought, and thus, has earned a place in History, even if it is a dubious place at best.
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