Porn Valley- The Legs McNeil book, The Other Hollywood devotes something like four chapters to the making of Deep Throat, www.xxxdeepthroat.com.

Fred Lincoln notes that Butchie Peraino, who owned Arrow Productions and who put up the money for the movie, was a frustrated movie maker. “It’s kind of a sad story,” says Lincoln. “Here’s this mobster’s son who wanted to be an auteur, you know?”

Harry Reems’ recollection of Gerard Damiano, who would go on to direct the movie, was the stereotype of the second-string Hollywood director. “He had a gray goatee and a funny little toupee,” Reems notes. Lincoln mentions that Damiano tried to rip him off for twenty-five bucks on the movie Sex USA. Lincoln said he was promised $100 a day but was told by Damiano that the budget was really tight and could only pay him $75. Lincoln said he went to Butchie who told Damiano to pay him.

At the time he was interviewed, Peraino noted that Sex USA grossed something like $600,000 with an intitial investment of $12,000 to $15,000. With that kind of success he wanted to do another movie. Apparently a film titled Mona sparked his fancy and Peraino wanted to do a film similar to it.

Ray Pistol, the current owner of Arrow, states that Chuck Traynor and Linda Lovelace came to Butchie armed with the doggie movie. https://www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=8317, Butchie apparently telling them, “We don’t do that shit here.” Pistol says Butchie then threw them out of the office whereupon they ran into Damiano who was coming up an elevator. They had a conversation, and it was Damiano’s recollection that Lovelace was wearing army boots, an old army jacket and a wool cap over her head. Lovelace claims that wasn’t her style, that Traynor made her dress that way.

As Pistol tells it, Damiano, Lovelace and Traynor hit it right off the bat and went to a swingers club that night. Damiano apparently got a glimmer of Lovelace’s talent that night and went to Butchie the next day in an attempt to change his mind about hiring Lovelace.

Damiano originally wanted Lovelace for another project- a more elaborate kind of loop- basically a movie within a movie, and wanted Reems to do an anal scene with Lovelace for it. It was Reems’ impression, however, that Lovelace was very nervous. Suspecting that it was Traynor’s hanging around that caused it, Damiano sent Traynor packing and Lovelace eased up quite a bit.

According to Reems’ recollections, Lovelace was going to play a nurse and he’d be the patient. “My cock is wrapped up in bandages with a bow at the tip. My nurse pats my bandaged member, which is an enlarged and inflamed state.” Lovelace was then supposed to go down on Reems and then take it up the ass. According to Lovelace, it was something of a challenge to get the camera covering all the action and the angles.

Reems said when it came time for anal, Lovelace said she wanted to give him some more head, then completely consumed him. “My cock and balls and half my public bush were all engulfed in that cavernous, deep throat,” Reems recalls. Damiano says he had never seen anybody take a cock that deep before and described it as a frightening sensation. “But she kept going up and down all the way.” Reems says Damiano’s eyes nearly popped out of their skull.

“I think all of us knew that we were present at a significant moment in sexual history,” says Reems. According to Reems the scene they had just shot so impressed Damiano that it would later be included in what was to be known as Deep Throat. Peraino states that he got a call from Damiano the next day claiming what Lovelace had done was fantastic and that they needed to make a movie about Lovelace. Damiano says he was so knocked over by why she did that he wrote Deep Throat that weekend.

It was also Lovelace’s recollection that Peraino didn’t like her. “He didn’t want that sweet, innocent look that Mr. Damiano was going for. He wanted a bubble gum-chewing, bleach blond with large breasts. He thought his twenty-five thousand was just gonna go to waste.”

Damiano confirms Peraino’s first impressions when he first saw Lovelace in an army jacket and combat boots, that she wasn’t particularly sexy or exciting.

Lovelace said she could hear Damiano and Peraino going back and forth on the issue, Peraino insisting that it was only big tits that sold tickets. “Linda stays,” Damiano would shout back. It was finally agreed that Lovelace, or, rather Traynor, would be paid $1200. According to Lovelace,, because Peraino never actually heard her talk, she was required to recite Mary Had a Little Lamb.

“That was my screen test for Deep Throat,” she says. In two versions- a dramatic reading, then while laughing.