Page 18 - AVN June 2015

WHO’S WHO
K-Beech (continued)
Besides Buck Adams, K-Beech also employed directors Big Man—“He shot our
black stuff”—and Rick Davis, but one of Beechum’s better known directors was
Cash Markman.
“Cash shot the whole Erotic Angel line, and he did those Star Trek parodies,”
Beechum recalled. “He’s a talented dude. You’ve got to give it to him, man. He
shot some big movies. Cash was good at scripts. Sometimes we’d come up with an
idea and tell him, and he’d go off and write the script.
“I’m usually that kind of guy, like when I was shooting with Buck, Buck was my
shooter; Cash was my shooter; Ricky was my shooter. I ran with them,” he added.
“We didn’t jump a lot of different directors. A lot of other guys would bring us
in movies and we would buy the rights to them and put them out, but I would
say those guys were my main shooters. I also had another guy shooting for me.
Remember Gary Orona? Tabitha Stevens’ husband. We used to do movie deals with
her too. We did a lot of deals for her because she was on the road dancing a lot.”
K-Beech’s two main imprints now are Lipstick Lesbian Entertainment and Sinful
Pictures.
“We put those two lines out, but the way the business is now, it’s a struggle.
The internet is a killer. Ever since the internet, it dropped our business by
probably three-quarters.”
But in addition to talented directors and top stars, Beechum attributes much of
his success to the team he’s built, many of whom have been with him almost since
the beginning.
“I have some of the best employees, people who have been with me 25 years
plus,” Beech stated with pride. “Carolyn Ward’s been with me for 25 years. She
was a sales person at Essex, and when I was in there and Jeff was going out of
business, she came over and she’s been with me ever since. Dave Wyne came over
from Western Visuals, from Elliot, in the days, and then Ray Burke, he was with
us in the old Essex building too. And Jeff Snyder, my general manager, he’s been
with me 25 years. He’s another Michigan guy; I know his family from Michigan.
And Joe in shipping has been here 15 years, so it’s a tight, good family.”
Beechum has not only employed plenty of well-known names, he’s also started
many in the adult business, including the men who founded New Sensations and
Zero Tolerance Entertainment.
“Scott Taylor from National used to work for me,” Beechum said. “He worked
for me back in the Essex building. He was a salesman; Dusty was his boss. We
laugh about that, me and Scott. … I’ve started plenty of people.”
Of course, that isn’t to say that the past three decades have been smooth sailing.
“I was indicted three times, but we beat the cases,” he chuckled. “This was the
early ’90s, I think.”
Beechum also recalled hearing details about Reuben Sturman’s trial in Indiana,
about how during his defense, Sturman’s attorney played all of the charged videos
for the jury—and also a number of Hollywood screamers like Friday the 13th.
“The guy played five bloody, gutty movies, and said, ‘Which one would you
rather have your kid grow up and watch? Sex or murder?’ And he won!”
Not only has Beechum never spent time in prison on obscenity, he’s even helped
some of his customers beat charges.
One of these was Family Video, which Beech supplies. ””They have 800 stores.
Six hundred of them carry adult.” Back in the day, Beech helped the company
out when a store got busted in St. Louis. He said to the brothers who ran the
chain, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll give you the ten grand; you just give me all
the business.’ I’ve had it ever since. They’ve had about three or four busts and
fought them and won, and now, they’re the last rental chain in the country that’s
still surviving and still doing numbers for one reason: Most of their stores are in
low-income cities or outside big cities where people don’t have cable, broadband,
internet, and they still believe that every Tuesday, they can still get the new releases
that come out. My brother does it in Michigan. He waits every Tuesday and goes
down and rents, still. They have three giant stores in my home town, Bay City.”
But video sales aren’t what they used to be. 18 | AVN.com | 6.15
“It seems like today, bro, all they ask is ‘How much? What year is it?’ If it’s
older than five years old, they don’t want to pay anything for it,” he scowled. “I
mean, I’d say a movie today has a lifespan of three years, and then it’s over. People
don’t care unless it’s got a Kardashian, a Hilton, a celebrity; then it’s got legs, but
who’s a star today? There are no porno stars today. I don’t know a girl who’s a
porno star. Jenna Jameson was the last big star.”
So last year, Beechum expanded his operation by partnering with Keith Gordon
of Bizarre Video, who owned novelty distribution company Joy Hollywood.
“We brought it in here, so now we’re in the toy business, so we’re kind of
expanding. Toys are good, but now they’re getting as bad as the DVDs. The
Chinese are coming in here and selling these guys’ products! I give it a couple
more years; all the manufacturers are already crying. … So the toy business is
going to get what video got from the internet; they’re going to buy from the
internet. … But we’re doing okay. I thought it would be bigger than it was, but it’s
got potential.
“You know, you go to the AVN Show, and like everybody said, you’ve really got
to look at the industry,” he added philosophically. “DVDs aren’t going anywhere
but you’ve still got to have them. Maybe the stores want to put more toys in, they
say, but if I talk to my five good buddies that own chains of stores, they’ve still got
to have DVDs; it’s 25 percent of their business, and it’s the most profitable part of
their business.”
And what videos are stores ordering from K-Beech?
“My biggest title that still sells today is that PornoMation,” he said. “We did
PornoMation 1, 2 and 3, and to this day, and that is still my top-grossing series.
It was an animated series, but not like this stuff you see from Japan; this was
animated by a couple that lived up in Washington, and they were creative as shit.
The characters looked very realistic, so we made a three-pack on them, and it’s
pretty cool. Those people were talented, dude, and I wish they’d kept doing it.”
anymore, but you can still
”You’re not going to make millions
make a good living …
and you don’t have the
FBI knocking on your
door, right?
—Kevin Beechum
Which brings us up to the present day. Beechum’s a family man, married and
the father of two sons, one of whom a Marine who has served in Iraq. The younger
one works in K-Beech’s internet department—KBeech.com, naturally—and is what
Beechum describes as a “race car drifter” who advertises K-Beech on his car.
But what does the future hold for Kevin Beechum?
“I’m hoping I can do another ten years in the business,” he said. “I don’t see it
going anywhere now. After talking to everybody in Vegas, the guys that are in it
now are in it to stay. The little guys are gonna fall by the sidelines and I think the
majority of the guys that are still in it are gonna make it. It’s just that you’re not
going to make millions anymore, but you can still make a good living, and it’s not
stressful and you don’t have the FBI knocking on your door, right? Those days
were a little tough.”
Beechum should know: He went through them all, up close and personal.
Go to KBeech.com to see the latest from this industry veteran.
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