Gerard Damiano


Gerardo Rocco "Gerard" Damiano was an American director of adult films.
Damiano wrote and directed the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat, which starred Linda Lovelace. He also directed The Devil in Miss Jones, which ranked No.7 in Variety's list of the top-grossing pictures of 1973. Deep Throat came in at No.11 that year, its second consecutive year on the list. Damiano is one of the seminal directors of what is known as The Golden Age of Porn.

Biography

Early life

Gerard Damiano was born Gerardo Rocco Damiano to an Italian American Catholic family in the Bronx, New York City. When he was 6, his father died; his mother never remarried. He was a shoeshine boy in Times Square and worked in an automat. The day he turned 17, he enlisted in the United States Navy, and served for 4 years. After his discharge, at the age of 21 years, Damiano studied X-ray technology on the G.I. Bill, and was an X-ray technician at Jamaica Hospital, in Queens, New York. He then opened a hairdressing salon with a friend in New York City. Frequently overhearing sexual gossip, at the salon, it convinced him that pornographic films, made to appeal to couples, would be a commercial success.

Entrance into porn

Damiano took an interest in film-making after his accountant introduced him to a producer who was making a low-budget horror film. Intrigued, Damiano began helping out as he could on the set, and went on to work as a crew member on numerous New York sexploitation films in the late 1960s.

''Deep Throat''

He directed the famous film Deep Throat, which was released in 1972 and starred Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems. The film is regarded as pioneering, and its success, is credited with helping to launch the modern adult-entertainment industry.
Damiano was surprised that the film attracted such attention. The film was financed by organized crime, and Damiano did not benefit from the film's substantial commercial success.
Other notable films made by Damiano included The Devil in Miss Jones, Memories Within Miss Aggie, The Story of Joanna, Let My Puppets Come, Odyssey, The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue and Skinflicks.

Recognition in ''Variety''

In 1973, The Devil in Miss Jones made the Variety list of the top ten highest-grossing pictures of the year; Deep Throat, then in its second year of release, just missed the top 10, coming in at No.11 for the year. The Devil in Miss Jones racked up box office receipts of $7.7 million for the year, coming in just below the James Bond-franchise entry Live and Let Die and Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon. ''Deep Throat grossed $4.6 million for the year, placing it ahead of the prestige picture Sleuth, which featured Oscar-nominated performances by Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. In 1975, Inish Kae, the film's distributor, launched an ad campaign touting the movie for Academy Award nominations. The ads in the entertainment industry trade press touted Miss Aggie for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress.
Damiano often appeared in his own films in small non-sexual side roles, and used the names "Albert Gork," "Al Gork," "Jerry Gerard," under which name he had actually produced and directed Deep Throat,'' or "D. Furred." He directed more than 50 adult films during his career.

Personal life

He married three times; with his second wife, Barbara Walton, he had two children, Christar and Gerard, Jr.
Aged 18, Annie Sprinkle - then known as Ellen F Steinberg - began working at the ticket booth at the Cine-Plaza Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, when Deep Throat was playing. The film was busted, and when Steinberg had to appear in court as a witness, she met and began a relationship with Damiano, becoming his mistress. She followed him to New York City.
He was interviewed for the 2005 documentary ''Inside Deep Throat.''

Death

Damiano died on October 25, 2008, in a Fort Myers, Florida hospital, at the age of 80 years, following complications from a stroke he had suffered in September.

Filmography (partial)

  1. We All Go Down
  2. The Magical Ring
  3. Sex USA
  4. Changes
  5. Teenie Tulip
  6. The Marriage Manual
  7. Deep Throat
  8. Meatball
  9. The Devil in Miss Jones
  10. Memories Within Miss Aggie
  11. Legacy of Satan
  12. Portrait
  13. The Story of Joanna
  14. Let My Puppets Come
  15. Joint Venture
  16. Odyssey: The Ultimate Trip
  17. Joint Venture
  18. The Confessions of Linda Lovelace
  19. Skin-Flicks
  20. Fantasy
  21. People
  22. For Richer, for Poorer
  23. Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
  24. The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue
  25. Never So Deep
  26. Consenting Adults
  27. Night Hunger
  28. Whose Fantasy Is This Anyway?
  29. Throat 12 Years After
  30. Return to Alpha Blue
  31. Inside Everybody
  32. Flesh and Fantasy
  33. Cravings
  34. Forbidden Bodies
  35. Ultrasex
  36. Slightly Used
  37. Maximum Head
  38. Lessons in Lust
  39. Future Sodom
  40. Ruthless Women
  41. Candy's Little Sister Sugar
  42. Splendor in the Ass
  43. Young Girls in Tight Jeans
  44. Perils of Paula
  45. Dirty Movies
  46. Proposta oscena
  47. Just for the Hell of It
  48. Manbait
  49. Manbait Part 2
  50. Giochi di Coppia
  51. The Last Couple
  52. The Naked Goddess
  53. ''The Naked Goddess II''

Awards