We shouldn’t have been there.
In the summer of 2006, Vivid was shooting two “Debbie Does Dallas” remakes, one an altporn version and the other a very big budget Paul Thomas affair, set here in a graveyard in Whittier, CA.
It was the era of a love affair between Vivid and the production company World of Wonder, which had been and would continue to use Vivid for the larger goal of producing softball scripted exposes of the porn industry. When I asked Paul Thomas to sign my copy of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (he played Peter in the 1973 Norman Jewison movie), PT asked me to ask him again when the cameras were running.
This cemetery wasn’t a Hollywood Forever, where “Jaws” is screened on the side of Rudolph Valentino’s mausoleum and everyone thinks it’s awesome, but a family cemetery in a residential area ten miles east of Los Angeles. How was it that late members of the Morton, Bouey, and Steinberg families weren’t rolling in their graves at the sight of Sunny Leone’s French-Canadian vagina?
I don’t know. Maybe Vivid’s presence in that bone orchard, orchestrated by the man who betrayed Jesus, was proof that when you die, that’s all there is.
But who knows? Penny Flame was also on set that day, and now she doesn’t drink anymore.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Is the feature dead?
Gram Ponante is America's Beloved Porn Journalist
