Page 32 - AVN May 2013

Who's Who.05.13 4/18/13 5:17 PM Page 32
IN MEMORIAM
Harry Reems of ‘Deep Throat’ Fame Dies Adult actor turned real estate broker succumbed to pancreatic cancer
Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Dreyfuss and Gregory Peck—came to Reems’ defense.
He was convicted in April 1976, but the conviction was overturned the following year after the courts
ruled his involvement in the movie took place before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Miller v. California
ruling on obscenity. He was granted a new trial, but the charges were dropped in August 1977.
“Harry was really the public face of the first real obscenity trials,” said Paul Fishbein, president of
X3Sixty Network and founder of AVN. “He’s never really gotten the credit for being the man who stood
up and took the bullet when President Nixon went after Deep Throat. He was the poster boy of the
screwed-up government attempt to censor free speech, and never got his due.”
Ron Jeremy, who got started in adult in the late 1970s, said he was occasionally mistaken for Reems
because the two shared similar physical features.
“Two Jewish boys, ya know?” he told AVN. “I enjoyed working with Harry; we did a few things
together. And I enjoyed hanging out with him. I remember one time I was at a restaurant with Harry
and Jamie Gillis when Paul Fishbein came in to talk about this magazine he was starting, called AVN. We
were just three Jewish boys there, hanging out, looking at pretty girls.”
David Bertolino, playwright of The Deep Throat Sex Scandal, said he interviewed Reems several times
during the two-year period he was researching and writing the play, and found him a bit of a dichotomy.
“He would tell people he wasn’t a famous person because he wasn’t in the industry anymore,”
Bertolino told AVN. “He would tell interviewers he didn’t want to talk to them and didn’t want to talk
about his role in the industry, but then he would be on the phone with them for an hour talking about
just that. He even changed the name of his real estate company from Herbert Streicher Realty to Harry
Reems Realty, but he would say he didn’t want anything to do with the industry.”
Regardless of his conflicting feelings, Reems was still the face of the fight for free speech, Bertolino
said.
“I am so proud and happy to have written this story glorifying him and his role in that fight,” he said.
“President Nixon, the highest person in the land, made it a point of targeting Harry Reems, and he really
took the bullet for not just the industry but for the fight for free speech.”
Reems struggled with alcoholism and drug abuse for years, and eventually left the adult industry. He
started working on his sobriety in 1989, started a new career as a real estate broker, got married and con-
verted to Christianity. In recent years, however, he has revisited his porn past in documentaries and news
interviews, including Inside Deep Throat, which Reems discusses in this 2005 IGN interview, and press
ADUL T WHO’S WHO
Portrait of Reems by Canadian painter Denise LaFrance, who interviewed the actor for her
book-in-progress, The Golden Heart & Soul of XXX. To read the interview, go to AVN.com.
Porn performer Harry Reems, who gained worldwide infamy as the star
of the film that gave birth to the adult movie industry, Deep Throat,
passed away last month in Salt Lake City, Utah, after an extended battle
with numerous health problems including pancreatic cancer. He was 65.
Reems, neé Herbert Streicher, was born Aug. 27, 1947, in the Bronx,
N.Y.
According to published reports, Reems was admitted to the VA
Hospital in Salt Lake City on March 5 because of jaundice from liver
failure. Family friend Don Schenck said he slipped into a coma on
March 15 and died at 2 p.m. Mountain Time on March 19.
side Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat, and his following turn the next year
opposite Georgina Spelvin in the equally classic The Devil in Miss Jones,
both directed by Gerard Damiano.
Reems’ life was celebrated in the stage play The Deep Throat Sex
the first and only actor to have federal obscenity charges brought against
him for appearing in a movie.
outraged by the charges and arrest—among them Jack Nicholson, Reems was thrust into the public spotlight after his 1972 role along-
Scandal, which dramatizes the legal ordeal he faced in the mid-’70s as
His appearance in Deep Throat led to his arrest by the FBI in July
1974 and indictment in June 1975 on charges of conspiracy to distrib-
ute obscenity across state lines. Many mainstream celebrities who were
32 | AVN.com | 5.13
about the forthcoming film Lovelace, a biopic of his Deep Throat co-star Linda Lovelace.
Before his entry into adult films, Reems served briefly in the U.S. Marine Corps and received an hon-
orable discharge. He had worked on an acting career, appearing mostly in off-Broadway theater, before he
began appearing in stag films to support himself. He eventually went on to appear in more than 130 fea-
ture-length adult films between 1971 and 1989.
According to Schenck, Reems was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this past summer after suffering
for the past few years with peripheral neuropathy and emphysema, which forced him to retire from the
real estate business. After being admitted to the hospital earlier this month, his liver and kidneys began to
shut down.
Reems is survived by his wife of 22 years, Jeannie. A memorial for Reems took place March 23
following a performance of The Deep Throat Sex Scandal in West Hollywood, Calif. To read about the
evening and also a lengthy interview with Reems conducted by author and artist Denise LaFrance, go to
AVN.com.
and didn’t want to talk about his r ol e in the industry, but
then he would be on the phone with them for an hour
talking about just that. He even changed the name of his
r eal estate company from Herbert Streicher Realty to
Harry Reems Realty, but he would say he didn’t want
anything to do with the industry
”He would tell interviewers he didn’t want to talk to them
eases