Porn Valley- I’ve seen Henri Pachard www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=10754 in the best of times. I’ve seen him in the worst of times. Now I’m seeing him in the better of times. A couple of months ago, to look at him, you wouldn’t have given Pachard a chance in squat to beat cancer. He was frail. Thin wisps of hair were trying to grow on his head after grueling sessions of chemo and he was hobbled by a foot cast.
Other guys the same age- 68- might have packed it in. Except Pachard kept on working through it. The hair is back in full pompadour. Last week he moved into a new house with his wife Dolores and this morning he lights up a cigarette.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he whispers conspiratorially. “Of course the whole world will know after this.” Pachard’s puffing the cig like a 1940’s P.I. He’s roaring at his little joke.
The last time we had a chance to chat at length was maybe two years ago- before Pachard found out he had The Big C and we talk a little about that. Pachard was first detected with colon cancer.
[He warns me to get my asshole checked yearly.]
“They took it right out and I didn’t have to have any chemotherapy or any radiation,” he relates. “Fine, no problem. In the meantime while I was in the hospital, I couldn’t open my jaw. I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to eat bites of food. They said antibiotics will take care of that. Five days of antibiotics, I still couldn’t open my jaw. I go to a dentist- no problem. He said we’ll take out a wisdom tooth, five days you’ll be fine. Seven days I couldn’t open my jaw. Finally they said, well, we’ll take you to an oral surgeon. Good. I go to an oral surgeon, I can’t open my jaw. Oh, no problem.
“They said you have an infection and this antibiotic will get rid of it. Seven days, I can’t open my jaw. Finally they cut out part of a tumor, send it in for a biopsy, and, sure enough, it’s a squamous cell carcinoma in a very aggressive advanced stage. They take me in for immediate surgery. They take out part of my jaw bone, replace it with my leg, put a tube in my stomach so I can eat and give me a tracheotomy so I can breathe. Now my head’s the size of a basketball. Finally I’m out of the hospital. I see a radiologist, an oncologist, a blood doctor and they set me up for chemotherapy to burn all this stuff out.
“I was able to swallow before the radiation even after,” he relates. “But not good. I was able to eat something. Half my diet was through my mouth and the other half was through my tube. But the radiation keeps a lasting, lingering effect. It keeps shutting me down. A year from now I’ll be lucky if I can cough. God help me if I should have to vomit, I’ll drown. I won’t be able to get it out of my mouth.”
Pachard’s an obvious example of life’s ironies, having had this booming voice and compelling oratory which could intimidate a room. I remember a time he verbally kicked the shit out of Jerry Butler on a set when Butler was doing his usual acting up But now Pachard finds it difficult sometimes to talk. Even more difficult to swallow. Though he still manages a good rousing laugh from time to time.
“I’m not afraid of death or dying,” he shrugs. “It’s a very undignified process, especially with cancer. That scares me. Being dead is dead. I’m okay with that. It’s not a matter of how many years you live. It should be a matter of how you live the years.”
And in his, Pachard became one of the true legends of the business.
“You made me a legend back in the Eighties when you wrote about my bathroom sex scenes,” he acknowledges graciously. “You bowled me over.” Pachard’s just wrapped up shooting a scene for Rob Spallone Thursday morning between Tony Eveready and newcomer Aziza Diamond. Later, Pachard kids with her. He thinks she’s “magnificent” because of her attitude and sexual appetite.
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life,” he tells Diamond.
“Provided I’m dead by Tuesday.” Pachard revels in gallows’ humor.
“For the record, I feel good,” Pachard states conclusively as I warn him about the ciggies.
“Put it this way,” he answers. “I can’t swallow. I can’t eat. I can’t drink. I can’t talk very well. I can’t bullshit the girls.” Otherwise, he feels great.
“All I got left is smoking,” he reasons. “If it kills me, it kills me. But meanwhile I’m having a good life. I’m uncomfortable with my face being numb and I can’t speak as well but I’m having a good life. I’m working again.”
I tell Pachard how I always regarded him as the industry’s Cicero- the supreme orator.
“You had that command.”
“I used to,” he concedes, sadly. “That was my Marine Corps training. I always had a good way with the words. I had a good voice. I went into the Marines when I was 17. I joined the reserves then I went active right after high school when I was 18. I did military reserve time until 1955. And I think part of my living is because of that training and the fierce resolve I have. As you get older you don’t take things for granted any more.
“Although I get tired. God, I get so tired. After two scenes I want to stop shooting but I can’t. People would think I’m wussing out so I push out the next two scenes. Today I’m shooting five.”
Pachard is more than thrilled about his new town home- something he wanted to give Dolores.
“She’s a good woman- she took care of me when I was sick,” he says. “She’s great. I want to work another ten years so I can get that mortgage way down and she’ll have some equity in it. She’ll have something for all her trouble. She did not get the best of me. She says she did. She got the worst of me.”
Pachard and Dolores met ten years ago when he was working for LBO shooting fetish movies.
“She came in one March day, looking to do movies,” he recalls. “She’s 40 years old, a big breasted black woman and with a very limited income. Ten years ago a black woman [in the business] could not work all that much especially if she was over 30, let alone 40. I didn’t have any work for her but I asked her to have dinner with me. She said fine where shall I meet you? I said, my house, I’ll cook you dinner. She came over. I made dinner. Instead of making my usual sleaze move, I didn’t know what to say. I just blurted out, stay with me. She said we’ll see what happens tonight. And she never left. That July we got married. We had some great times.”
I wonder if he still gets aroused after shooting porn- and Pachard’s career has spanned five decades.
“Not as often or as much or as intense as I used to,” he answers. “Either I’m more discerning, or more jaded or less interested or all of the above. I try to shoot fast. The girls always amaze me. I try to find something different in each girl. Today they’re so young, they don’t really excite me that much. Now we’ve got a lot of 40 year-old women in the business. So I like doing that. I don’t know why I’m more attracted. Probably because I feel I have a slightly better chance of scoring with them than a girl who’s 20. It’s hard enough when you’re old enough to be a girl’s father, let alone her grandfather.”
Pachard expresses his interest for getting back more into the porn loop. He has a series idea to pitch and wants to talk to a few people about it.
“I talked to my son about shooting it for me and he’d love to do it,” he says. “Maybe I’ll stop shooting myself, get in front of the monitor like I used to and direct.” Pachard figures by the time he’s 78 he’ll be too tired to work.
“I can’t play golf any more,” he also announces. “I had to give away my clubs. I’m crippled from the leg. And I used to play touch football on the lunch breaks when we were shooting. The crew and cast would go outside to play football. That was back in the Eighties.”
“Maybe a lot of people don’t realize that you were the guy who was nasty before nasty got invented in this industry,” I tell him.
“I was doing that wasn’t I?” he says. “But it was the dialogue that did it. Now I think the girls are better looking and more abundant. And the sex is more extreme and there’s less pubic hair to deal with. And I guess that counts for something but there’s no mind fucking. Most of the time. And most of these kids don’t know how to act. Some of the men are very good actors. But most of the women are not.
“To get them to play roles, you got to bring back the time when they were children and used to play make believe. Then they had a role to play. Then you’d be surprised how good they can be if they get that back in their minds. Get them off the script and get them to make eye contact. Then these kids can act. Once they realize they can do that, it gives them a different sense of dignity.”
Asked about some of the hottest women he’s ever shot, Pachard names Nikki Sinn, Colleen Brennan and Jacqueline Lorians. Pachard reminds you that he and Sinn had an affair going on at the time.
“Those were some women I had intimacy with,” he freely admits.
In the early Nineties it was Pachard who started up Rosebud along with Alex deRenzy and Mike Rubenstein. Rubenstein was the youngster of the group being only 21.
“Me and Alex wanted to do something and I had a lot of other people interested,” Pachard recalls. “When I brought the kid in, no one wanted anything to do with him because he was too young, they thought. Except Alex. And what was good for Alex was good enough for me. We formed a triumvirate and Alex thought up the name Rosebud. I put up most of the money because I had money after my father passed. We shot up at Alex’s place and Alex did most of the shooting. I filled in the X’s and O’s so to speak and the kid was setting up sales.
“Before you knew it we were starting to make money and to keep busy I’m shooting for other people because I had nothing to do. One day I get a phone call from Rubenstein. He said, this is a hard conversation. It’s going to be tough. He wanted to buy me out. I said this isn’t a tough conversation. It’s a joyful conversation, let’s talk. So he made me an offer.”
According to Pachard the negotiations went back and forth, back and forth, Pachard always wanted twice whatever figure was put on the table. Finally they agreed to one.
“And Mike never missed a payment,” he says. When his son Jason wanted to begin a line shooting young amateur black girls, Pachard told him there was only one guy he could recommend – his ex partner, Rubenstein.
“He won’t screw you- and sure, enough they were together for ten years and my son made a fortune with them,” Pachard adds. “Eventually Mike sold Rosebud, then he sold Devil’s Film. I don’t know what he’s doing now except maybe counting his money. He was very good- you could take his word to the bank.”
I was curious how Pachard met Rubenstein since I remember Rubenstein from being at some industry poker games back in those days.
“He was in the music business and he was managing a group in San Francisco,” Pachard recalls. “Andy Anderson was the leader of that group and to this day is still with Devil’s Film. They wanted to make a rock video. Somebody told them what you need to do is get a guy who can make pornography, shoot films and keep a low budget. We made a rock video. And I didn’t tell anybody for the longest time I did a rock video because I needed the money. I made about $10,000 shooting that video and it came in handy. All my friends were involved- Patti Rhodes managed it; Freddy Lincoln played a small part; we had it taking place in the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. It was fun. We shot it for two days and had a ball.”
As far as getting deRenzy involved in a prospective company, Pachard said it was easy because he and deRenzy were very tight.
“After Mike bought me out, he then bought out Alex after which Alex died. He died shooting for Mike whenever he needed some money. So we never had a falling out. When Alex died, Mike threw a memorial service and paid for the whole thing. There was a lot of people there and it was very generous of Mike to do that. I was close to Alex and got a few people to come up to San Francisco.
“It was then I realized when Alex and I laughed so much,” Pachard continues. “We’d be on the phone and he’d laugh and laugh. When I’d see him in person he’d laugh and I realized because of a motorcycle accident he had his face rebuilt. He couldn’t smile but he could laugh. And that was so infectious. I loved Alex. I wish he had stayed alive. His widow is gorgeous- Mrs. deRenzy. I had fantasies about her after Alex died. I’m ashamed to say it. I was married to Dolores but I had fantasies about Carol.”
This is the first I’m hearing of this and I’m sure Pachard’s got a lot more where that reflection came from.
“I’m trying to get a book written,” Pachard states as if reading my mind.
“People keep urging me to write a book.” To that end Pachard’s been compiling articles he’s written. [He wrote a pornographer’s journal for AVN for awhile].
Raven Touchstone has been writing a book as well and Pachard hopes maybe she’ll help him assemble photos for his book.
“She’s got some great ones,” he says. “And I need an editor- somebody who knows how to write and wants to make some money.” Pachard gives me a dig in the ribs.
“We’re going to cut a deal,” he tells me. “I’d be honored.”