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Eric Danville
Wrangling The Girls of Penthouse
Eric Danville has been a pornographer for almost two decades,
toiling for such legends as Al Goldstein and Bob Guccione. He’s
currently employed at the new Penthouse empire where he presides over
Penthouse Forum and the recently revamped Girls of Penthouse. In
between all his porn video reviews and Pet interviews he found the time
to write the world’s most encyclopedic book on Linda Lovelace and turn
it into a screenplay. He has a few clever and writerly words with
ErosZine on herding cats, conspiring with Pets and whether those
letters are really real.
ErosZine: You’ve worked in publishing for your entire career. Give us a brief resume.
Eric Danville: “Sex and drugs and rock and roll” is a battle cry for
some people, but for me it’s all in a day’s work. In the late-80s I got
my first real job as managing editor at High Times. After about three
years of enforcing deadlines and attending pro-pot rallies, I worked on
a classic rock magazine called Masters of Rock, which dedicated an
entire issue to one classic rock act at a time—John Lennon, the Doors,
Led Zep. Then I got into porn. First for the publishers of High Society
for a start-up mag called Hawk, then I left for a job at Screw. After
putting in my time there I went to Penthouse to work on Penthouse Forum
and Girls of Penthouse, where I’m now managing editor.
EZ: Was it like herding cats being managing editor of High Times?
ED: I wanted to work there since I was 14, but there were times when
I’d rather have been herding cats. Despite its fantasy image of being a
happy hippie environment because of the subject matter, HT was very
cliquey and in its own way quite evil. All the people I worked with,
many of whom I remain friends with, were incredibly talented and
dedicated writers and artists—sometimes more than the magazine
deserved. But various personal and political relationships up there
made things really difficult. Power struggles, political posturing and
editorial in-fighting made what should have been a dream job more of a
nightmare, and before I lost what was left of my mind after three years
of pettiness and egos, I split.
EZ: You’ve worked for some real characters. What was it like working for Al Goldstein?
ED: Exactly like you’d think it would be! Al can be an incredible
scumbag sometimes—most times, actually—but if nothing else he’s
basically true to himself and what he says he stands for. But he also
demanded honesty from his writers, which is the most liberating thing a
writer can have given to him. Especially if someone else is picking up
the lawyers’ fees.
EZ: Any hilarious stories about the Screw offices?
ED: Plenty. One was captured in the film Screwed, a documentary about
Al. The office porter at the time was vacuuming under Al’s desk when
all of a sudden BOOM! He knocked over Al’s shotgun, which of course was
loaded, and blew a hole in the side of Al’s desk the size of your fist.
Luckily he didn’t get hurt, and Al didn’t charge him to have the desk
fixed. Another time when we were getting ready to cover the 1992
Democratic National Convention—all the editorial staff had NYPD Press
cards—we realized that we needed an extra floor pass for our camera
crew. Al had one of the art staff make a phony one, which frankly
didn’t look too good. Not surprisingly, the guy carrying it got caught
at the door and was ejected from Madison Square Garden in what sounded
like a hilarious scene. Al made it up to him by sending him out to
dinner on the company. That was Al’s favorite show of
largesse—rewarding people with food. What a shock, huh?
EZ: Penthouse Forum is famous as the dirty letters magazine. Are the letters real?
ED: Yes, the letters are real. We don’t have time to sit around making
that shit up! Whether or not the stories really happened is another
matter. I learned that after I was editing one letter that went kind of
like, “My name is Cindy and I’m a cheerleader at a large Midwestern
university…” We always change the names and home cities on the letters,
and when I went back to the envelope to see where the letter came from,
the return address was, like, San Quentin. We get lots of letters from
prisoners.
EZ: How is your Forum different from previous incarnations of the magazine?
ED: Before I became managing editor it was mostly just the letters,
which is certainly what it’s known for, but we’d been talking about
getting back to its non-fiction roots. The reason the mag is called
“Forum” is because it’s traditionally been a place for people to voice
their questions, opinions and experiences with matters sexual. I
decided to put some more reader-friendly articles and such back in it,
as well as the advice columns and informative pieces Forum had always
been known for and which are really its strength.
EZ: From the perspective of a porn movie reviewer, how has porn changed over the past decade?
ED: There’s too fucking much of it. There was a great time in the early
to mid-90s when the home video revolution meant that anyone with a
video camera, a tripod and some balls could become a porn star! Those
were the great days of the amateur porn revolution. The porn that came
out of that may not have looked the prettiest, but the sex was raw and
it was real and it was hot, created for the love of the act and only
partly because of the monetary payoff—the real “money shot” for most
producers. Well, just like big record companies swallowed up the
“college rock” movement of the 80s, Big Porn swallowed up the amateur
scene in the 90s. That meant that any idiot with a video camera could
be a director, and most of them suck. In terms of the product itself,
several things have happened. Since there’s so much being produced, the
law of averages says that most of it will be of low-quality, and it is.
Also, porn companies now cater to all different types of fans, from
those with bad attitudes towards women who negatively refer to their
stars as “sluts” and “whores” to those who like to see beautifully
crafted examples of people having sex.
EZ: How many videos do you think you’ve reviewed?
ED: I’m probably hovering around the 500 to 600 mark—not including
those I watch in a more amateur capacity, for my own enjoyment.
EZ: You’ve revamped The Girls of Penthouse. Tell us how the magazine has changed.
ED: GOP used to be mainly a picture mag, with six or seven photo
layouts from our archives. A few years ago I did an all-Jenna Jameson
issue with an interview and filmography and that sold pretty well, so
this past year I’ve made it into more like a fan mag about the Pets. We
have a great asset in our Pets, and GOP is now the best way for their
fans to get even closer to them. Even Playboy doesn’t have a magazine
like that.
EZ: You get to chat with all the current Pets and feature past Pets as well. Who have you featured recently?
ED: We have the group of current Pets who have appeared in Penthouse
over the past year or so and who do personal appearances for us. I love
Jamie Lynn, a real sweet and smart gal who’s the 2006 Pet of the Year.
The current issue has a cover article on Cassia Riley, who I always say
is like Mary-Kate to Jamie’s Ashley. We also profile Elizabeth Hilden
in the new issue; she’s the 1997 Pet of the Year and is one of the most
popular Pets we’ve had. Last issue we had a new photo layout featuring
Aria Giovanni that was shot by another Pet, Taylor Wane. The next issue
has a story about Julie Strain and also Cheyenne Silver, who’s just
getting over a near-fatal auto accident.
EZ: What sort of articles and features do you have?
ED: There are still five hardcore photo layouts in every issue, but we
also do feature articles and profiles catching readers up with Pets
they haven’t seen in a while. There are also shorter pieces, like
“Pets’ Sounds,” which is a list of what songs a particular Pet is
listening to; “Chatroom,” where Pets answer questions that fans email
to them. One of the funnier things we do once in a while is “Pets’
Pets,” which has Pets posing with their dogs or cats or whatever.
EZ: You also wrote and self-published a book about Linda Lovelace. Tell us about the book.
ED: The Complete Linda Lovelace is everything you’ve always wanted to
know about the Deep Throat star and more. I looked at the LL myth from
a couple of different perspectives, and with a little bit of research,
some healthy skepticism and some good old-fashioned conjecture, tried
to get her story straight. I tracked down all her 8mm films, reviewed
about three dozen books she’s in, lots of movies and even a bunch of
songs about her. I also got the first interview she gave to a porn
writer since she was in the business, almost 25 years earlier.
EZ: You brought her out of “retirement” and got her to pose for Leg
Show, essentially getting her “back into porn.” How’d you pull that off?
ED: I just asked her. Linda was pretty open to the idea, surprisingly.
She realized that people actually get into the porn business because
they want to, and that if it was a person’s choice, it didn’t have to
be a bad thing. When I told her she’d only have to wear lingerie, she
said yes almost immediately. The amount of money they offered her
didn’t hurt either. Shit, I’d have posed myself for that money.
EZ: What was Linda like?
ED: She was a bundle of contradictions. She was media savvy but very
innocent; trusting but suspicious; self-determined but completely
malleable. I could have fucked her over royally if I’d wanted to, and
it would have been really easy. All in all she was a very nice lady who
was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or vice versa, depending
on your opinion of her. Plus she smelled nice.
EZ: Any book projects in the works?
ED: A couple. I did the as-yet-unreleased “The Complete Patty Hearst,”
which is the same kind of analysis of America’s favorite 70s kidnap
victim as the Linda book. I’ve been making notes on updating “The
Complete Linda Lovelace,” from which I’ve also written a screenplay.
I’m outlining a set of memoirs which will be my various adventures
written as a novel. Plus I’m also planning a children’s book about my
dog, Noodle the Poodle. That’s turning out to be the hardest thing yet!
[Written July 2006]
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