from www.adultcybermart.com - Talk about a severance package.
In 1996 porn actor Steven St. Croix [pictured right] signed a contract with Vivid Video to appear in 33 movies and direct two feature films. Then Vivid immediately took out a $1M insurance policy on St. Croix's penis in case it got cut off.
It cost them $2,000 for a year’s coverage. True story. The reason for such precaution, according to Vivid, was AVN Hall of Fame inductee St. Croix’s penchant for riding motorcycles [he bought a Honda Shadow] and wanted to cover their butts against possible injury.
A clause in the policy stipulated that coverage is payable to Vivid upon “accidental bodily injury sustained from an accident which results in physical severance of his (St. Croix's) genitalia.''
As Vivid explained it, the policy was intended to protect the company against lost profits in the event St. Croix was unable to completely perform his contract.
"Unless you are an expert rider, buying a motorcycle is like buying a first-class ticket to the emergency room," Steve Hirsch stated.
"I asked Steven to forgo riding his motorcycle until our contract was up in December. He refused. The insurance policy idea came about as a way to balance out the increased risk to the business while allowing Steven to ride.”
When I first met Steven St.Croix, he was selling tape for Arrow when Butchie Peraino owned the company. Nobody cared dick about St. Croix’s penis then.
In porn, crazy things happen. Some performers wind up in a jail cell like gay industry icon Ryan Idol just did. Others, like St. Croix, wind up in France painting like Toulouse-Lautrec.
A perfect example of how a seemingly insignificant circumstance can alter your destiny is found in St. Croix’s resume. He was a gadabout. St. Croix toiled in the construction industry where you kind of follow the work.
He also had a job as a cook and a gig on a radio show where he did celebrity voice impersonations. Not to mention the fact that he danced in an all- male revue in Ft. Lauderdale. Make the smart ass comments as ye may.
In any event, St. Croix wound up in Los Angeles playing for a band, but that didn’t work out, either. He took odd jobs and landed at Arrow. Ron Jeremy who was shooting for Arrow at the time needed a production assistant.
St. Croix was available and when an actor scheduled for the shoot was arrested for outstanding traffic warrants, St. Croix offered to do the scene.
As the industry would soon learn, St.Croix was a very talented and versatile guy, much like Jerry Butler.
Dick Nasty, wherever he is nowadays. didn’t seem to think so. Nasty caused an uproar several years ago when he made a public comment diminishing St. Croix’s value to the porn industry because St. Croix allegedly wouldn’t work with the late performer Blue Iris.
“I think Steven St. Croix is a porn actor," declared Nasty.
"And I'm a porn star. And as such I will fuck anybody that I'm paid to fuck because that's what porn stars do. I don't think that Steven St. Croix could do it."
Meaning that St. Croix could only fuck the cutest and best-looking girls while being rendered impotent in the presence of sweat hogs.
"A true porn star will do every type of work in their genre,” Nasty continued.
St. Croix in his characteristically flippant fashion, tossed the whole issue out in the trash by saying he wish he could be Dick Nasty and travel anonymously among the porn community and not be recognized at parties or any other porn events.
Be careful what you wish for. Because, ironically, St. Croix wound up choosing the path of anonymity much like a man in the witness protection program.
St. Croix dropped out of the porn scene several years ago, and it was only because of an article this week on the ’Net that St. Croix resurfaced and his whereabouts determined.
A writer named James Altucher who has a column on www.businessinsider.com revealed that he had been in touch with St. Croix via email. St. Croix, writing under his own name Benjamin Banks, evidently complimented Altucher and told him to keep up the good work.
This prompted an exchange of emails in which St. Croix reveals that he’s now living in France, [the Cannes-Monaco area], is married and makes a living - and it sounds like a good one - painting. As in Van Gogh painting, not Sherwin-Williams.
Of his porn career, St. Croix writes: “It was fun! Lots of woman, getting recognized, drugs, easy life, travel. Eventually though, I grew out of it and wanted more in my life.”
St. Croix, who has no formal training whatsoever, explains how he got his start in the art world: "I knew a guy who was an artist who knew Pollock, Picasso, Clavé, and some other big painters. I sketched some things on a placemat in a restaurant in Nice, he looked at them, looked at me in the eye and said “You need to paint. You have a good eye.” A year later I picked up a canvas and paint and started on my living room floor. I just did it. I didn’t have the fear of not being good. My early work was cool , but I’m much better now I think.
“It’s very nice here but I’d like to expand to larger markets like Berlin NY and London. I’ve sold 18 of my latest series of 35 paintings. They average around €1600 for I meter square size. Now I’m doing 2 meter x 1.5 meter paintings. I like large paintings and I think there is a market there for me and a chance to get recognized in a few years.”
Actually, if one reads between the lines, St. Croix, who had a KSEX show, had been planning that move to Cannes after he attended the film festival there and reported thusly:
"The money that people have [in Cannes] that I don't have is absolutely gut-wrenching," St. Croix mused.
"On one hand it motivates to get your butt in gear and get yourself in a situation where you're making real money. It kind of motivates you to get your balls in gear. And I thought I had it going on with my BMW. When these guys are pulling to the docks with their $100 million yachts...."
A couple of months later, St. Croix was gone from the adult business.
While some performers like St. Croix survive the business and manage quite well, others like Ryan Idol, didn't.
There have been a couple of big power house names to emerge from the gay side of the porn business. Jeff Stryker [director John Walters called him the Cary Grant of porno] was one. Ryan Idol, one time the highest paid actor, was the other.
Over the years since his departure from porn, Stryker's been in an out of courtrooms over trademark, merchandising, and intellectual property issues. Which is amusing in a way because Traci Lords once described Stryker as handsome but dumb.
In another instance, Stryker, who had an office in the vicinity, fought a legal battle with the folk music nightclub, Kulak’s Woodshed, claiming that noise coming from the club was preventing him from completing his autobiography.
They must have done a good job because Stryker never completed it.
Rugged and very macho-looking, Ryan Idol will get to test his uncontested sex appeal during the next 15 years of possible incarceration. With a date for sentencing scheduled December 9, Idol’s been found guilty of attempting to murder his ex-girlfriend.
In 1998 Idol, by falling out of a window, made headlines by claiming that he had a near death experience. Evidently he wanted to share that moment with another human being. Which he did in September, 2009.
On Tuesday of this week, Idol, aka Marc Anthony Donais, 47, was convicted of attempted murder by a Sacramento Superior Court jury for smashing his girlfriend over the head with a toilet tank lid.
The attack occurred at the woman’s home on 48th Street in Sacramento. After confronting his former girlfriend for alleged cheating, Idol also punched her repeatedly.
According to testimony at the trial, the 41-year-old woman had broken up with Idol. She testified she moved out of their West Sacramento condo when Idol knocked on her door the night of the attack while she was taking a bath.
She told jurors she let Idol into the house and that he immediately told her he wanted to kill her. Idol testified at trial that he thought she had pulled a knife on him during their discussion in her bathroom and that he grabbed the toilet tank lid and hit her with it out of self defense.
Idol was acquitted on one felony charge and found guilty on four felony charges, including attempted murder. He was also found guilty of Battery Against Person Bodily Injury; Assault with a Deadly Weapon with Likelihood of Great Bodily Harm; and Corporal Injury on Spouse or Cohabitant.
This was hardly Idol’s first brush with the law. In 2008 he was linked to a scandal involving a charity formed by Birmingham, Alabama mayor Larry Langford.
Federal prosecutors, scrutinizing the disbursement of $1 million in taxpayer funds by the charity Computer Help for Kids, attempted to tie, though, unsuccessfully, personal credit card bills, expenses for ‘elaborate’ trips and checks to Idol. Under the deal, Idol was paid to repair computers and help set up computer programs.
Mayor Langford had proposed a new charity to the Birmingham City Council that would provide computers to local students. However, the HealthSouth Corp. filed a civil lawsuit questioning how their own donations of money and equipment were being used.
John Katopodis, an aide to Mayor Langford and an organizer of the new charity, was questioned in the civil lawsuit and that was how news of Idol’s involvement came to light.
Katopodis testified in his deposition that Idol was paid to help the Council of Cooperating Governments and the Computer Help for Kids programs, both of which were handling money and expenses for Langford’s computer initiative.
Idol received $5,000 from the computer charity and $25,000 from the council, according to court filings.
However Katopodis admitted under further questioning that Idol had no formal computer training, and explained that Idol ”repaired computers - he helped us, he traveled helping to try to set up computer programs in other areas among disadvantaged communities.”
Other than the fact that he was a former porn star, charges of wrong doing were never brought against Idol.
