Porn Valley- A very disturbing episode crops up in the book The Other Hollywood. It’s the chapter dealing with the death of John Holmes.

I will quote from it and you can interpret it as you may but it certainly sounds that Holmes worked in Europe [a movie featuring Cicciolina and Tracey Adams] knowing full well that he had HIV but did it for the money.

Laurie Holmes states the following: “After John was diagnosed, he really wasn’t working on films or doing anything. Then he was offered this film in Europe, and he talked to me about it. It was a lot of money- money we could really use. Most of the actresses he was going to be working with were being flown in from out here [Los Angeles]. The theory was that he had gotten AIDS from inside the business. He just figured, if they don’t get it from me or they don’t already have it, they’re going to end up with it anyway- ignorance on AIDS was even within the business at that time. So he decided to do it. We needed the money; he needed the money.”

The chapter also offers speculation where Holmes might have gotten it from. Tim Connelly offers conjecture that it was Joe Yale:

“People who knew him [Holmes] a little better, who knew the history of him in movies, knew he’d fucked this guy Joe Yale in the ass in a movie, and this guy was one of the first guys in gay porn to come down with AIDS and die. So he probably gave John the disease.”