Porn star turned late night TV icon Robin Byrd: ‘Sex is a form of magic’ | Notes

Robin Byrd has no doubts about where his life story should end. “I think it should be in the Smithsonian,” he said. “I like to think big.”

But is such thinking “big” or just naive? After all, we are talking about Robin Byrd, the self-proclaimed “orgy queen” who is best known for encouraging the work of strippers and porn stars in a low-budget, TV show that she ran in the 80s and 90s that looks like it was shot by someone on a mushroom who was suffering from glaucoma.

For dedicated “Byrd Watchers”, however, there is more to this star than the description of his show might suggest. “He’s connected to a lot of important things,” said Jyllian Gunther, who also directed Byrd’s new HBO documentary, which was named after the theme song of his show, Bang My Box. “Robin represents sexuality and body awareness. He’s a gay icon, he fought for his first amendment, and he was the forerunner of YouTube and all the platforms we have today.”

“There are layers and layers to his story,” added the film’s director, Stephanie Schwam.

One of the most influential cases in these parts was the free speech case he initiated in the 90s that became controversial and important, went to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. He also became an advocate and promoter of safe sex at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, when few people talked about the disease, or sex itself, without fear and dread. In contrast, Byrd kept things positive and encouraging, consistently promoting the use of condoms and dental dams while demonstrating their appropriate use in many settings. In doing so, he became what the documentary’s directors call an “accidental critic”.

“Remember to wear your rubbers!” Byrd always talks on her show, mixing a fun mix of motherly care and badass whipping. The line showed his entire approach to sexuality as he played it, spoken in a searching and childlike voice. “That’s my opinion,” Byrd said. “Sex is a kind of magic, but most people don’t know it.”

That situation was evidence enough when we met for our interview at the SoHo, New York, home of an older brother, Gunther. When I arrived, Byrd was finishing up a photo shoot that showed him and the directors posing three in bed. “Come and come with us!” he said once. (I politely declined.)

For her personal photos, Byrd, now 71, has repeatedly volunteered to show off her legs. “I’m actually wearing underwear today!” he shouted, though I could tell he wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t been. During the shoot, Byrd laughed and laughed non-stop, just like he did on his show. However, when we moved into another room for the interview, he spoke honestly and openly about every aspect of his life and work that he could not do. He also wrote a lot that isn’t in the film, some that expand on a big part of his story that the doc covers but that few fans know about. For nearly 50 years, the “queen” has been happily married to a man named Shelly, who is now 87 years old. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s no ordinary marriage. “Who has a husband who films his wife having sex with Jeff Stryker?” He asked laughing at Byrd. “Shelly was fine.”

For many years he and Shelly were in a group with another woman who died. “He and I have sex with him,” Byrd said. “He loved it!”

Shelly appears in several parts of the film, even though she has been suffering from dementia for the past few years. Byrd said he was never asked if he wanted to be in the film. “If I had asked him, he would have refused,” he said. But “I’m a boss.”

He said he wanted her on camera because it was an important part of his story. On screen, they come across as funny, funny and cute together. “Fortunately, he still has the personality that he had throughout his life, which was fun and interesting,” Byrd said. “Dementia magnifies what you already were. If he wasn’t a good person, I would have left him. I have a lot of respect for myself.”

He had to develop a lot at a young age to survive a difficult childhood. Adopted at birth, Byrd was raised by a family living on New York’s Upper East Side. His adoptive father was an antiques dealer who sold pieces to stars like Jackie Gleason and Liberace and loved him unconditionally. “I was a daddy’s girl,” she said. His mother, however, “wasn’t meant to have children”.

He took her, Byrd believes, because the marriage was ending, and he thought it would be a good fit. “That’s the stupidest thing anyone would do,” Byrd said.

The family adopted a young woman, whom Byrd called “a bad seed”. (Sisters are not related now). Regardless, the couple divorced and when Byrd was eight years old, his father died of a heart attack. He was 39. “He smoked two or three packs a day and drank whiskey because my mother made him lose it,” he said.

After his death, Byrd’s mother was furious, telling him that he was ugly and that there was nothing he could do. Today Byrd believes that some of it was “because my father loved me more than him. Jealousy is an ugly thing,” he said.

He admits that part of his decision to live around pleasure and physical desire was “rejection. he said.

As a teenager in the late 60’s he ran away from home, walking with other stray children in Central Park. “I was a hippy kid,” he said with a laugh.

That’s when he realized he was bisexual. For a while, she had a boyfriend that her family lived with but later she looked for sex work to earn money, which she doesn’t regret at all. He said: “I knew what I had to do to survive and since I loved sex and teaching people fun, it didn’t worry me. I can erase the fact that a guy is ugly and fat if he has a lot of money.”

In the late 70s, she appeared in a number of pornographic films including, most notably, Debbie Do Dallas, a hit in theaters and one of the best sellers in the home movie industry. His debut on the small screen came at the dawn of television. To approve the growing system, the FCC required cable operators to provide channels for public use to democratize programming. What happened next wasn’t much higher than he might have expected. By reaching the community everyone can have a soapbox, based on the Babble platform which is today’s social network and YouTube. The development of cheap, portable video equipment made it easy to find. One interesting feature of the new format was the introduction of complete nudity for shows that appeared after 10pm. The producer of one such show, called Hot Legs, invited Byrd as a guest and that’s where he found himself calling. “Ah!,” he remembered, “I like how I look on camera.

She went to the medium very well, in fact, she created her own program in 1977. The Robyn Byrd Show began on Channel J in New York where she established her commercial image, which showed her in a black bikini with white nails, which she still sports. During that time, she made history as the first woman to bring adult entertainment to television. It was also new at the time for viewers to call in to talk to the host. He said: “For years, your television has been telling you what to eat, drink and buy. Now you can talk on your phone too – don’t hesitate!”

The message Byrd sent to viewers was always one of love and inclusion. After asking viewers to “sleep comfortably with loved ones”, she adds, “if you don’t have a loved one, you’re always with me.” The show’s camera work, which he oversaw, was feminine and wobbly in design, creating a kind of intoxicating psychedelia. “I loved how cold it was,” Byrd said. “It left things open in your mind.”

It also gave the show an air of kitsch which, combined with nudity, attracted gay men. To help the audience they began to have male strippers on a popular segment called Men for Men. At one point, they even started having pre-op transgender strippers. “Women with secrets!” Byrd said. “Being bisexual, it’s the best of both worlds!”

The show ran nightly and attracted such a large and loyal audience that, although it only ran in New York, it was broadcast nationally on Saturday Night Live. The win also brought news that Byrd had secretly married the closeted Barry Manilow. At the same time, the popularity of the show and its visual appeal reached the races of conservative politicians like Jesse Helms. Calling it “inappropriate”, he tried to cancel his show and other shows, including Screw Magazine’s Al Goldstein’s show. Even so, Byrd said he has no doubt he will win. He said: “I really believed in the law. And years and years ago the court considered that the human body is not inappropriate.”

When the court ended up helping him, he was still angry with the judges who didn’t, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who now refers to him as “that pig”. His struggle with such adversaries mirrors Trump’s recent efforts to block the shows of Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.

Despite their success, Time Warner Cable made it more difficult for them to keep the show by promoting it and adding more calls while also changing the rules for the technology they could use. His last video aired in 1998, although you can still find it reruns on 1820 in New York. In the years since Byrd retired, the world he knew has changed dramatically. They love the hustle and bustle of old Times Square. “It’s like Las Vegas now, more for tourists,” he said.

He is also happy, because of the sex of the 90s, the feelings that he had with Madonna at that time, even in Byrd’s view, “Madonna followed. me!”

For him, it is sad that today’s youth say that they are less interested in sex games than they were before. “Except for gay men, I don’t see people having sex at all,” he said. (Byrd has a front-row seat to such events from his home on Fire Island called The Pines, “near the zoo!” he exclaims).

The state of the supreme court today also affects him. He believes that it is unlikely that he will be able to support his case now. “Everything I fought for and achieved has been erased,” he said. “You can’t have a baby. Abortion laws are changing.”

Which helps him explain why he hopes viewers of the documentary — especially gay viewers — will appreciate the history it tells. He said: “Today gay people take their rights for granted. I’m glad they do but I want them to know their history and respect it.”

At the same time, he has found peace, although the events of the film show that it was necessary to satisfy the part of the directors. When asked if he could show her naked at her age, she hesitated at first. “I didn’t want people to see me like this,” said Byrd, who is 71 years old. “But then I asked myself, ‘What am I, a hypocrite?'”

Her next choice to show herself brings around the message of self-acceptance that always underlies her shows. “What you see,” Byrd said, “is me today – exactly as I am.”