Fred Halsted | |
|---|---|
| Born | Fred Charles Halsted (1941-07-17)July 17, 1941 Long Beach, California, U.S. |
| Died | May 9, 1989(1989-05-09) (aged 47) Dana Point, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Gay pornographicfilm director, actor,escort, publisher,sex club owner |
Fred Charles Halsted (July 20, 1941 – May 9, 1989) was an Americangay pornographicfilm director, actor,escort, publisher, andsex club owner. His filmsSex Garage andL.A. Plays Itself are the only gay pornographic movies in the permanent collection of theMuseum of Modern Art, where they were screened before a capacity audience on April 23, 1974.[1][2] A screening ofL.A. Plays Itself was sponsored by theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art on February 28, 2013,[3] and another took place on December 16, 2011, at the Los Angeles art gallery Human Resources.[4] His films have also been shown theNetherlands Film Museum and in competition atThe Deauville Film Festival.[5]
"Halsted more or less created the world of gay sexual art and experimentation. He then watched it, and himself, be destroyed byAIDS, a sanitizing of gay sexual tastes and the power of addiction."[6]
Halsted was a sex radical. He believed that the erotic is transgressive and sacramental, that it is inherently violent and involves acts of violation. "Sex is not 'coming,' that is superficial sex," he once explained. "Mine is personal cinema. I don't fuck to get my rocks off. In the best scenes I've ever had, I haven't come. I am not interesting in coming. … I am interested in getting my head off, my emotions off."[7]
Halsted was born inLong Beach, California, in 1941. His father, Milton William Halsted, worked in construction, and his mother, Lillian Halsted (née Samoyloff), was aDoukhobor and did agricultural work.[8] Milton abandoned the family when Fred was three.[9] His mother was remarried to John Knight,[10] who raped Fred when he was 8, which he described as "a turning point in his sexual identity."[11][12] He attendedhigh school inBakersfield, California, andSan Jose, California, and he described himself as a student politician, which led to his failing all his classes.[13] Halsted studied botany atCal State LA,[14] and subsequently worked as agardener[15] and was in the nursery plant business;[16] he owned a wholesale nursery inEl Monte, California.[17][18] He later said he looked back on his years as a gardener as the happiest days of his life.[19] He never held a regular job nor had aSocial Security number.[15] His long-term lover (though with interruptions) was Joseph Yanoska, who appears in his movies under the name "Joe Yale"; they were called "sadomasochism's heaviest couple".[20] Halsted wroteautobiographical pieces about hispromiscuous gay sex life.[21]
Halsted was a good friend ofKenneth Anger, and he lovedScorpio Rising.[22] He said that "I consider myself apervert first and ahomosexual second."[23] Also, he considered "sadism... more basic to my personality than homosexuality".[24]
The movie begins with a shot of a sign at the city limits of Los Angeles, giving its population at the time (2,535,700). An overheard conversation contains the words "Los Angeles stinks." Mists over the canyons ofMalibu are seen. Halsted, taking a walk in the forest, sees a naked blond, who offers togive him head. Their sexual encounter is interrupted by shots of approaching bulldozers. (Halsted was concerned about development destroying the wild areas of theSanta Monica Mountains.) In the second part of the movie, an older man (Halsted) tortures a young innocent (Halsted's lover Joseph Yale). A voiceover states that the youth is a cowboyhustler just arrived from Texas. The youth is bound, beaten, and kicked. At the climax, he isfisted, with a closeup of a can ofCrisco, usual lubricant for fisting at that time. (Yale refused to be fisted and a double was used.[25]) According to Halsted, this was the first time fisting was shown on screen.[12] At the end, he is bound and left helpless in a closet. The action is not one continuous scene; it is punctuated by Halsted driving throughGriffith Park, a gaycruising spot also featured inJohn Rechy'sCity of Night. In the park unidentified men appear, the camera focusing on their dirty pants, especially crotches ("baskets," ingay slang) and asses. There are also interspersed newspaper headlines about weird cults and theManson murders, ads pushing "101 varieties of meat", shots of hustlers, bums, vagrants, porn theaters. The film ends on shots of newspapers saying that a young man was found dead after being tortured.
According to the film's cinematographer "Tom", there was no screenplay. Random footage was shot, which Halsted was capable of sorting out and putting in a sequence.[25]
Halsted described it thus: "It was okay to be openly gay, but to get into S&M was another trip. One of the purposes ofL.A. Plays Itself was to get S&M and allied perversions out on the screen where people could look at them, think about them, analyze them, let it affect them, whatever they wanted, but not have it hidden anymore, and leave it open where people can deal with it easily."[16] He has been quoted as saying that the film was highly autobiographical.[18]
L.A. Plays Itself was a huge sensation when it opened in New York.[26] The movie was praised byFernando Arrabal,William Burroughs, andAl Goldstein, but was misunderstood by most homosexuals and film critics.[27] After seeing it, Burroughs sought out Halsted to discuss a collaboration (Terry Southern was also involved) to film Burroughs'The Wild Boys as a hard-core porn film. The project was abandoned as financially unviable.[28]
A 2003 documentary,Los Angeles Plays Itself, takes its title from Halsted's movie.
The film was restored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2020 and released on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD by Altered Innocence on December 28, 2021[29]
Sex Garage was a 35-minute black-and-white short. It was produced afterL.A. Plays Itself was completed, but before its release; it was intended to accompany the longer movie. It takes place in an auto repair facility (garage). As it begins a woman takes her car to the garage for service, and performsfellatio on her long-haired mechanic boyfriend. A male arrives with a car for service, scaring off the woman, who has just reached her climax. He starts servicing the mechanic, and is forced to put on the woman's discarded panties. A long-haired, bearded biker arrives, wearing a dirtyjockstrap. He fucks the man wearing the panties; the mechanic thrusts his head into a toilet. The biker ejaculates onto the motorcycle seat. Bach'sJesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, performed on a piano, is background music, as is "When Tomorrow Comes" byThe Emotions. There are many atmosphere shots of vehicles, of theHollywood Freeway, and of billboards onSunset Strip.[30]
The film was restored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2020 and released on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD by Altered Innocence on December 28, 2021[29]
Erotikus is a history of the gay pornographic movie, directed byTom DeSimone. It is narrated by Halsted, seated in adirector's chair, at first fully clothed, then naked, thenmasturbating. Adouble was used in the latter part, not out ofmodesty but to have a bigger penis and a more impressiveejaculation. He reaches a climax during amontage ofcum shots set toRavel'sBoléro.[31] According to the box cover of the Bijou Video release, Halsted, "dick in hand, narrates this survey of gay pornography, starting with the ApolloPhysique magazines, which eventually evolved into 8mmloops and eventually into hard-core full-length movies." It contains excerpts fromBoys in the Sand,Dust unto Dust,L.A. Plays Itself,Confessions of a Male Groupie,Tarzan the Fearless,Classified Capers,The Collection,Assault,One (the first orgasm shown in a gay movie), andYes (1969, the first explicit sex shown in theatres).[32][33] The climacticfisting scene fromL.A. Plays Itself was first included but deleted in later versions.[34]
Halsted never forgave DeSimone for reducing his compensation because a "double penis" had been used. Also, DeSimone reused the shot of theLos Angeles Times headline "New Weird Cult, Link to Tate Murder" fromL.A. Plays Itself but suggests, asL.A. Plays Itself did not, that there was a link between gayBDSM and theManson murders. This was offensive to Halsted, who denounced the film in conversation and in print.[35]
According toAl Goldstein, publisher of the pornographic tabloidScrew, "frame for frame, it contains more sex than any gay film ever released".[36]
Halsted's next feature,Sextool, was intended to be a crossover success. LikeL.A. Plays Itself andSex Garage, it was produced, written, directed, edited, photographed, and starred in by Halsted.[37] It is centered around a party where a relatively innocent-married young man discovers the diverse sex practices of a dozen people.Sextool explores a fantasy Los Angeles populated by policemen, boxers, leathermen, a sailor, and one questionably straight man squiring his Americantransgender paramour.[38] Whites are chauffeurs for the blacks, and two cops rape someone in the police station. The topic of the movie, according to Halsted, was "sexual politics."[39] It has been described as an "art work" and not immediately appealing to those who watch gay porn for sexual purposes.[40]
Halsted chose to use35 mm film, hoping the movie would get shown inart houses, but the film only puzzled or offended the theater managers. Few of the theaters that did show gay pornographic movies had 35mm projectors. As a result, the film received very limited distribution. The use of the more expensive film meant Halsted was not able to shoot much transitional material, leading to a choppy effect.[41]
The Museum of Modern Art, as a result of the success of the showing ofL.A. Plays Itself andSex Garage, acquired a copy ofSextool for its collection.[42]
The film was restored by the Museum of Modern of Art (MoMA) in 2020 and released on DVD,Blu-ray, and VOD by Altered Innocence on December 28, 2021.[29]
In 1976 and 1977 Halsted edited and published a magazine,Package, "A Journal of Men, Fact & Opinion," according to its cover,[43] containing sex news,contact ads, and stories of Halsted's erotic life. It is known to have published six issues.[44]
Halsted had an important role inEl Paso Wrecking Corp., the second of theWorking Man Trilogy directed byJoe Gage. After some drinking triggers a fight, Gene (played by Halsted) and Hank are fired from their job at theKansas City Trucking Co.. Determined to land some other kind ofblue-collar work, the two gay men begin looking and drive to El Paso but are often distracted by sex andwater sports with the men they meet on their job search.[45] Some of the scenes of the original movie are missing in recent video releases.[46][47]
"WhenEl Paso Wrecking Corp. first opened it caused big shock waves all across gay America, but since then it's picked up as easily as fashion, wear your jackets and chains. It's macho-ed up gay America which I think is a good thing."[48]
Halsted played ahustler in the playNews for Tennessee by Joseph S. Caruso, produced at the Pilot Theater in Los Angeles in 1978. His lover Joseph Yanoska also had a part. Halsted had acameo role in the 1979 movieDribble (later released asScoring).[17][49][50]
Halsted's, located at 2453 Glendale Blvd.,Silver Lake, Los Angeles,California,[51] was, as he himself described it, a naked industrial space transformed into "a stand-up fuck club". Founded by Halsted, his lover Joseph Yale, and David Webb,[13] the club had booths withglory holes,bunk beds, and asling. Its most distinguishing characteristic was four trucktrailers that were parked in the back inside a walled yard. (At the time, empty truck trailers were a popular venue for gay sex in themeatpacking district ofNew York City.[52][53][54]) The club only lasted about a year; Halsted admitted that "Los Angeles did not have enough perverts" to support the club.[55] Before it closed, he filmed thereA Night at Halsted's.
A Night at Halsted's does not have a plot; it consists of a series of sex scenes at the club of the same name, preceded by a brief introduction and followed by a similarly brief conclusion. Except for these two parts, the sound of the movie is all invoiceover.
The box cover of the movie states: "Only Fred Halsted could create a fantasyland where anything and everything goes, a place where you can meet the video stars of your dreams - and make them cum true! Glory holes, mirrors, slings, and other toys become a living playground for thisorgy of tight, glistening flesh. Fred Halsted's crowning achievement."[56]
Halsted was never to make another hit movie. "By the late 1970s, Fred was falling apart".[19] He used drugs and drank. His lover, Joseph Yanoska, died ofAIDS in 1986,[57] after having said to Fred "You did this to me."[58] Fred was despondent after Joseph's death.[59] He briefly advertised his services as an escort.[58] He died in 1989 of an intentional overdose of sleeping pills. His suicide note said: "I had a good life... I've had looks, a body, money, success and artistic triumphs. I've had the love of my life. I see no reason to go on."[14]
According to theInternet Adult Film Database[60] and theGay Erotic Video Index,[61] Halsted appeared in the following movies:
and he directed the following films:
He also appeared in the following compilations:
Fred's company Cosco distributed (and in most cases produced) twenty-four gay pornographic films between 1973 and 1985, such asCoverboy andRick Donovan Is... King Size (both in 1984 and directed by Joseph Yale), and manyshorts.[62]
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