Praise for The Devil Digital Proofer and John Holmes The Devil and John H... Authored by Mike Sager “The Devil and John Holmes” is one of the most terrific sagas 6.0" x 9.0" (15.24 x 22.86 cm) we have ever published.” Black & White Bleed on Cream paper 182 pages —Jann Wenner, editor and publisher, Rolling Stone ISBN-13: 9780986267918 “I can recongnize the truth in these stories—tales about the ISBN-10: 0986267910 darkest possible side of wretched humanity. Sager has obvi- ously spent too much time in flop houses in Laurel Canyon.” Please carefully review your Digital Proof download for formatting, —Hunter S. Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las grammar, and design issues that may need to be corrected. Vegas and Hells Angels We recommend that you review your book three times, with each time focusing on a different aspect. “In his audio commentary on the New Line DVD release of ‘Boogie Nights,’ P.T. Anderson cites as a major influence reporter Mike Sager’s article in the June 15. 1989 Rolling Check the format, including headers, footers, page Stone, ‘The Devil and John Holmes’.” 1 numbers, spacing, table of contents, and index. —Stephen Lemons, Salon.com 2 Review any images or graphics and captions if applicable. 3 Read the book for grammatical errors and typos. Once you are satisfied with your review, you can approve your proof and move forward to the next step in the publishing process. To print this proof we recommend that you scale the PDF to fit the size of your printer paper. Praise for Mike Sager “Mike Sager writes about places and events we seldom get “This collection of pieces by Mike Sager is just brilliant— a look at—and people from whom we avert our eyes. But brave, written with soul and beauty, and unflinching in the with Sager in command of all the telling details, he shows us depiction of a real America that needs to be revealed. Bravo history, humanity, humor, sometimes even honor. He makes to Sager for being one of the few writers left willing to do it.” us glad to live with our eyes wide open.” —Buzz Bissinger, author, Friday Night Lights, on Wounded —Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of What Warriors It Takes: The Way to the White House and Joe Dimaggio: The Hero’s Life “Mike Sager’s keen, journalistic eye and unique voice transfer to fiction with highly entertaining results . Deviant Behavior “Mike Sager writes with uncommon grace and, always, with is a street-level, symphonic portrait of an American city.” respect for those whogive him their time. His stories cut to —George Pelecanos, author and producer, The Wire and the bone of our common humanity.” Treme, on Deviant Behavior -—Paul Hendrickson, author, Hemingway’s Boat and Sons of Mississippi, on The Someone You’re Not “Sager plays Virgil in the modern American inferno . Compelling and stylish magazine journalism, rich in novel- “You know those engrossing books that keep you up all istic detail.” night? Don’t pick this one up if you have somewhere to be -—Kirkus Reviews, on Revenge of the Donut Boys the next morning.” —E Online.com on Scary Monsters and Super Freaks “Nobody alive today is writing better long magazine pieces than Mike Sager. If you want to find out what the gold stan- dard looks like, or if you just want to read a breathtaking portrait of our motley nation, buy this book.” —Kurt Andersen, author, True Believers, host of Studio 360 Other Books by Mike Sager Non Fiction Scary Monsters and Super Freaks Revenge of the Donut Boys Wounded Warriors The Someone You’re Not Tattoos and Tequila: To Hell and Back With One of Rock’s Greatest Frontmen Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists Stoned Again: The High Times and Strange Life of a Drugs Correspondent Fiction Deviant Behavior, a Novel High Tolerance, a Novel The Devil and John Holmes – And Other True Stories of Drugs, Porn and Murder. By Mike Sager Copyright © 2014 by Mike Sager All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro- duced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, record- ing, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in the United States of America. Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN-13: 978-0-9862679-1-8 ISBN-10: 0986267910 Cover Illustrated by Siori Kitajiama, SF AppWorks LLC Cover Designed by Siori Kitajima, SF AppWorks LLC http://www.sfappworks.com Formatting by Siori Kitajima for SF AppWorks LLC Formatted by Ovidiu Vlad Published by The Sager Group LLC [email protected] Holmes Movie Posters courtesy John Kirsch, Separate Cinema. Dedication Table of Contents To the editors who have blessed me during my magazine career Foreword by Max Linsky .................................................................. 1 with the gifts of assignments, enablement and daily bread. Author’s Introduction ....................................................................... 3 And most specifically: Rudy Maxa, Jay Lovinger, Bill Regardie, Jack Limpert, The Devil and John Holmes ........................................................... 13 Jeff Stein, Bob Love, Bob Wallace, Alice Gabriel, Jann Wenner, John Holmes was a porn star. Eddie Nash was a drug lord. Robert Vare, Eliot Kaplan, Lisa Henricksson, Art Cooper, Terry Their association ended in one of the most brutal mass McDonnell, Bill Tonelli, Josh Schollmeyer and most especially, murders in the history of Los Angeles. First published in Peter Griffin and David Granger and the entire staff at Esquire, Rolling Stone in June, 1989, the story inspired the classic 1997 to the present. movies Boogie Nights, with Mark Wahlberg, and Wonderland with Val Kilmer. The author’s version with restored cuts and updates, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of publication. Bonus Features: More True Stories of Drugs, Porn and Murder Little Girl Lost ................................................................................ 83 Savannah was a gorgeous porn starlet, among the first of the luminescent Vivid Girls, with a taste for handsome rock stars, fast cars, expensive designer gowns . and copious amounts of drugs to quiet her demons. When things fell apart, she could see only one way out. Deviates in Love ............................................................................111 Swingers like to say that when you enter the door of the orgy room, you leave your clothes and your labels behind you. Welcome to the Elite International Couples’ Fantasy weekend in Pensacola, Florida, where anyone can be a swan. Foreword The Porn Identity ......................................................................... 135 et’s be clear: Sager couldn’t have screwed this up if he tried. When his wife decamps from the household, leaving his L “The Devil and John Holmes” has everything you could life and his bank account in tatters, our hero takes a much- want in a magazine story: Sex, drugs, murder. A fourteen-inch needed assignment traveling the country in search of . penis. It had to be great. There was no other way. retired porn starlets. From Nina Hartley’s toy-filled dungeon, But here’s the secret. For all the freebasing and the to Kay Taylor Parker’s spirit-filled studio, to Asia Carrera’s blood, the satin bikini briefs and decorative human skulls, the split-level hideaway in the mountains north of Las Vegas . porn and the binges and the deathbed confessions, “The Devil How one man got his mojo back. and John Holmes” is a love story. At least it is in Sager’s hands. I interviewed Mike last winter for our podcast. The Permissions .................................................................................. 166 plan was to discuss his greatest hits and I expected to spend much of the time talking about “Holmes”; I was desperate About the Author .......................................................................... 167 to hear the director’s cut you’re about to read. Before we sat down, I even asked him to make sure I eventually moved About the Publisher ..................................................................... 168 onto other questions for fear that I’d spend the whole time talking about the story, a favorite of mine since I’d first read it a decade before in Mike’s Scary Monsters and Super Freaks collection. We never got there. Instead of dissecting his stories, Mike preached the gospel of listening. For two hours, in a sweaty room with my dog baking under the table, he made the case for why a good reporter must first be a good person. We talked about empathy and fear and insecurity and using every last bit of yourself to see things from someone else’s point of view. About love, really. John Holmes was a shithead for much of his life. He got people killed, beat women, stole, lied, cheated. Tough guy to love. And yet there were two women who did just that, each 2 The Devil and John Holmes in her own way, and each to her own great detriment. Sharon Holmes saw her husband as a desperate, lonely kid who needed a mom. Dawn Schiller, who was drawn into Holmes’ Author’s world at just 15, saw him first as a god and later as the Devil. Mike was the first reporter ever to interview Sharon and Dawn. He didn’t need to. Without a word from either of Introduction them, the tale you’re about to read would still be a thriller. The most prolific male porn star of all time gets caught up in a gruesome murder, set against the drug-fueled hedonism of he Devil and John Holmes” was my eighth story for 1970s Los Angeles. It’s magazine gold. T Rolling Stone, my second as a contract writer. It was 1989. But for Sager, that wasn’t enough. There were people I was thirty-two years old.