Harry Reems, 1947–2013

Herbert Streicher never intended to be a porn-film superstar. In 1972, the struggling stage actor was hired as a lighting technician on Deep Throat, a low-budget adult film about a woman, played by Linda Lovelace, who discovers that her most erogenous zone is at the back of her throat. When the leading man failed to show up, director Gerard Damiano cast Streicher instead and gave him his porn name: Harry Reems. The movie became an international hit, and made Reems—with his thick black mustache and luxuriant chest hair—a symbol of ’70s masculinity. “You could call me the Shirley Temple” of porn, Reems told an interviewer at the time.

Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, Reems was, by his own account, “a shy kid with a lot of pimples and a big nose.” After high school he enlisted in the Marines, said The New York Times, “where he cultivated the strong, sinewy body that would become his calling card.” In the late 1960s, he acted in off-Broadway plays, but, needing cash, he also took parts in short, plotless pornographic films known as “loops.” Deep Throat was a step up: It had a soundtrack, costumes, and an actual plot of sorts. The film “became the first aboveground sensation in movie pornography,” said Time.

Reems was paid just $250 for the film, which grossed more than $600 million, said The Independent (U.K.). There were other compensations, including parties at the Playboy Mansion, throngs of adoring women, and roles in other raunchy hits, including The Devil in Miss Jones (1973). But in 1974, the FBI arrested Reems and others associated with Deep Throat on charges of conspiracy to distribute obscenity across state lines. He was found guilty in 1976, and became a First Amendment cause célèbre. Hollywood stars including Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Gregory Peck funded an appeal, and in 1977 Reems’s conviction was overturned.

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But by then “the damage to his personal life had been done,” said the Los Angeles Times. Reems became a “2-quart-a-day vodka drinker,” begging on the streets and sleeping in dumpsters. The boozing didn’t stop until the late 1980s, when he entered a 12-step recovery program in Park City, Utah. He converted to Christianity, got married, and found respectability as a real estate broker. Although he shaved off his mustache for his wife, he kept the name Harry Reems. “I didn’t want anyone coming up to me and saying, ‘I know who you really are,’” he said. “And nobody likes the name Herbert anyhow.”