Charlie LaTour writes: Gene, It was so great that you mentioned Milton Ingley in your very funny article about the new Gilligan’s Island parody in AdultFYI.

www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=29049

As part of the “good ole’ days” crowd I follow your website regularly, especially as you have been so kind to my good friend Ron Sullivan. You are a good man, Gene.

I just loved your description of the Gillies Island, filmed at Adventure Studio in Queens. As you may or may not remember I played Mrs. Thurston Howell III, (a red haired Mrs. Howell??) Bianca played Mary Anne and Lynn Lemay played Ginger. Rick Savage, Scott Baker, Jean Val Jean and Scott Irish, were the Captain, the Professor, a native and Gillian, in that order.

Poor Thurston died in the ship wreck so all Mrs. Howell had left was Thurston’s money, along with a built up sexual thirst for Gillian, the Captain and all the Island men, which she moved quickly to quench. Poor Vince Benedetti never, and I mean never, got all the sand out of the studio. It was a part of the building forever. (They actually trucked in tons of sand and just spread in on the floors!) The fun of the movie was the campy, low budget concept.

I can tell you that we must have laughed for hours at some of the antics. Seeing Scott Baker sit in the sand singing about plastic palm trees was about as funny as a movie set gets. All ad-lib, I might add. In the middle of a scene Uncle Milton would just break out in laughter, jump up from the director’s chair and run onto the set with another stupid idea that just brought the cast to laughing fits. That was all part of Uncle Milton and the fun we had. It wasn’t about the money, it was the fun of making a movie. There was a sequel to that movie that was actually very hot, but for some reason, the guys who funded the movie never released it in the US.

I sat with Milton while he edited the movie and I can actually say it was a real laugh-fest. While some in the business took themselves too seriously, for this shoot and cast, this is what the earlier days of porn were all about. If we laughed we were sure the viewers would laugh. Whether it was at us or with us did not matter, because we made them laugh and brought them some adult entertainment at the same time.

Thanks again for mentioning the film and the late Milton Ingley. I miss his contagious laughter and his brilliant wit. Once again, thank you for your support and kind words about Ron. I did call him a few months ago and he was shocked to hear from this Philly girl, but we spent an hour or so remembering the fun times. We fondly remembered sitting on the roof of Gloria Leonard’s apartment building in Manhattan on a July 4th watching the fireworks on the river. We had just finished shooting a 35 mm film that took eight full days and we were just letting loose. Ron set off a few fireworks in the industry himself and he should be proud of his body of work. His comment to me when we hung up the phone will always remain with me. He said, “Hey kid, you survived and prospered. You had fun and never took yourself too seriously. That in itself is a major achievement”.

Thanks again, Gene. Keep up the good work.

Your ole’ pal. Miss Charlie Latour

Gene sez: Thank you for the kind words, Charlie. Those were the truly fun days of porn.