In the September issue of Best Life, ”Mad Men” star Jon Hamm, who plays ad exec Don Draper on the show, reveals that before he hit it big in Hollywood, he worked as a set dresser on soft-core porn movies. “It seemed like a wonderful way to spend 12 hours a day, five days a week for $150 a day … nonunion, no benefits. … Hollywood, baby!” he recalls. Nowadays, Hamm’s not alone. More than a few Hollywood players got their start working in the X-rated industry–and they aren’t ashamed to admit it. After the jump, find out who made their mark in Porn Valley.
1. Sylvester Stallone: Before Rocky was Rocky, he appeared in a porn movie called Party at Kitty and Stud’s, www.xxxdeepthroat.com
Party, indeed. For his leading man part in the role of Stud, a 24-year-old Stallone made $200. After the actor became famous, the movie was reedited and released as The Italian Stallion, of course.
2. Francis Ford Coppola: In his early years, this five-time Academy Award winner directed a series of soft-core skin flicks. Between stints as a UCLA film student and making low-budget horror movies for Roger Corman, Coppola shot porno long before he shot The Godfather.
3. Thora Birch: Birch didn’t get her big break in a XXX-movie, but both her parents are former porn stars. Her mother was a ‘70s adult performer who appeared in 20 movies, including Deep Throat and opposite John Holmes in The Erotic Adventures of Candy. Her father was #12 in Deep Throat.
4. Dita Von Teese: Back in the days before she graced the pages of Vogue as a fashion icon, before she married Marilyn Manson, and before she climbed to fame as a burlesque dancer, Von Teese bared it all in a series of hardcore, girl-on-girl movies. In Pin-Ups 2, she got Sapphic with actress Anita Blond.
5. Scotty Schwartz: Remember the kid in A Christmas Story who got his tongue stuck to a frozen pole? That kid was Scotty Schwartz, a child actor who grew up and, looking to change his image, starred in his own X-rated biopic: Scotty’s X-Rated Adventure. On set, he reported, “I sank just about as fast as the Titanic.”
6. Jenna Jameson, Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn: Apparently, it’s a lot easier to go from adult director to Oscar winner than porn star to Oscar-winning actress. So far, Jameson, Lords, and Lynn are the adult stars who hold the crown in crossover achievement, but it remains to be seen whether or not roles in Zombie Strippers, John Waters movies, or Metallica music videos a mainstream career makes.
7. Barry Sonnenfeld: You’ve probably seen Men in Black, but chances are you’ve never seen any Sonnenfeld pornography. Once upon a time, he confesses, he directed nine movies in nine days. “It was so unerotic,” he opines today.