from www.adultcybermart.com – Everyone has their favorite Playmate. For Bill Margold, who’s co-hosting a three-hour show [11 am to 2pm PT] Saturday with Christy Canyon on Sirius’ Spice Radio www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=51573 it’s Connie Mason.
The show’s honoring porn veterans. I think posing naked includes Mason in that category, but I’m not sure what the official rule is.
I don’t remember Mason, now 74, so much as a Playmate but as one of the intended victims in the splatter epic Blood Feast. Mason actually has a non-speaking part in Godfather Part II, too, but she’ll always be remembered for being the babe who’s used as bait to capture the diabolical Egyptian caterer Fuad Ramses, a twisted film villain considered by many to be the prototype for the later Jason and Michael Myers characters.
“With Friday being Veterans Day I figured why not get as many of the veterans of the X-rated industry on for three hours,” says Margold, wondering who my favorite Playmate of all-time was.
For me it was Susan Kelly [pictured], now 73. Kelly was Miss May, 1961, and she’s the most memorable to me probably because that was the first issue I was able to examine forensically, stem to stern, and not have to look over my shoulder for a disapproving adult ready to grab it from me.
“Blood Feast was one of my mastubatory thrills, but Connie Mason was altogether different,” Margold comments.
Margold related his Mason fantasies to “a big happy cigar smoking man” named Dave Friedman who partnered with Herschell Gordon Lewis to produce such drive-in schlock as Blood Feast. And it was Friedman who arranged for him to meet Mason at the Hollywood premier of the documentary, Mau Mau Sex Sex. Margold remembers feeling gawky, sweaty and like a “complete idiot” standing next to Mason.
“Which is what we should be in the presence of our intimate idols,” he says in the hushed manner of total obeisance.
“All of a sudden I’m going that’s Connie Mason. I thought she was six feet tall. She was only five feet tall. I said where are your legs? She smiled. I gleefully admitted that I had jacked off to her image more than anybody else. She thanked me. I told her, you know why? Because you don’t see anything.
“Hers was the most modest centerfold of all time. I just took a look at that face and went nuts. According to Friedman she was the world’s worst actress, but who cared? I just liked looking at her. Hollywood Books and Posters is always trying to get her for events but she just doesn’t want to be bothered.”
With the death of another Playmate this past week, Cynthia Myers, Margold mentions that Myers wasn’t his “type”.
“I didn’t know what the hell was my type when I discovered Connie Mason in that centerfold and hung on to it for all those years,” he laughs.
Another actress who should have been a Playmate is Luana Anders who plays a murder victim [she gets hacked with an axe] in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13.
“Her death scene is unparalleled,” states Margold.
“Just the most incredibly erotic/terror scene of all time. Coppola was supposed to have directed it but they say Jack Hill came on to direct that scene because it has such controversy. It’s a wonderful movie. That’s the best erotic-terror scene ever shot. It’s just dynamite shit.”
Regarding the porn retrospective Saturday, Margold says his main motivation for doing it is Gloria Leonard, the grand dame of porn’s golden era.
“I hope she calls in,” Margold says.
“This show’s being done for her. She’s 3,000 miles away trapped in paradise. I don’t think I could live five minutes in Hawaii. There’s nothing there. I miss Gloria.”
Another porn vet Margold easily recalls is Rene Bond.
“She was such a wonderful woman. To me, when I first came into the business, she was like one of my godmothers. Sharon Thorpe was another treat and a joy to work with. I felt so at home with these kids and dedicated myself to perpetuating their memories. I’ve been so lucky to know these people and in some cases work with them. That’s what the ‘Legends’ and Halls of Fame are all about. You’ve got to continue to pay homage to the past.”
Nowadays it’s way different, but Margold describes his first years in porn as “very exciting”.
“It was fun for me in those days; now you’re older, and you get stupid responsibilities dumped upon you.”
Margold remembers when actor Stephen Furst [Flounder in Animal House] and his wife approached him.
“They were desperate to get into the business because they had no money,” Margold remembers.
“He was a naturally funny man, but I told him not to do it.”
At the mention of Linda Lovelace whose name is synonymous with anything that’s got to do with porn history, Margold and I are both of the opinion that neither of the two proposed Lovelace movies will ever be made.
“I don’t think Hollywood is going to look kindly upon anybody who plays in that movie,” he says.
“Because her career’s going nowhere, let Linday Lohan do it. Obviously the woman is doomed from the get-go, so how could it hurt her career? And she’s sorta pretty in her own battered puppy way as was Lovelace. I met Lovelace once when they premiered Deep Throat and I asked, this is what they’re excited about? Off screen I didn’t see anything to think about jacking off to.”
Margold describes Jenna Jameson as perhaps the last big super star porn will ever see.
“The other three on Mt. Rushmore, Marilyn Chambers, Ginger and Seka all earned their way by performing. Jenna was absolutely out of the publicity driven pea pod. A masterpiece of marketing by Wicked. There will never be another. When I inducted her into the XRCO Hall of Fame I told her you’re the last name brand in the history of this business. There isn’t any other name brand.
“I just want to find one last legend, but I don’t think there are any more left.”
[The call-in number for the Saturday show is (877) 205-9796.]