June 6, 2008

Vintage Gay Porn Star Jack Wrangler in Gay Film Festival Documentary

Jack Wrangler's name keeps popping up in more and more of my vintage gay porn collecting excursions. He appeared in 85 movies, but it seems like 85 thousand! The following article from GayVN Magazine is the first time I recall him referred to as "openly gay". Perhaps I never read it closely, but always thought he avoided the label or at best, considered himself "gay for pay". Those of us with functioning gaydar always knew better, but Jack Wrangler came from the old school where you never actually said the word. (For the record, Lily Tomlin, Calvin Klein and Jody Foster have never officially come out either.)

‘Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon' Exposes the Man Behind the Screen Idol
Jack Wrangler, a trailblazer in gay porn, is the subject of a new mainstream documentary. By: G. Zisk Rice

NEW YORK - According to people who knew him, John Robert Stillman was a bit of a sissy as a kid. He was artistic and sensitive, and that sort of behavior was frowned upon in boys growing up in the 1950s and '60s.

As it turned out, Stillman wasn't a sissy - he was gay: unabashedly, unashamedly gay, and in a very masculine way.

The scion of a Hollywood family - his father was a film and television producer; his mother a former Busby Berkeley dancer - Stillman naturally gravitated toward show business himself. Although he was talented and saw some success as a child actor, as an adult he began to believe legitimate theater wouldn't take him where he wanted to go as quickly as he wanted to get there.

Out of that realization, Jack Wrangler was born.

An icon of '70s gay erotica, Wrangler was blond, ruggedly handsome and buff and had a personality as smooth as silk and as macho as any straight matinee idol's. He wasn't just another good-looking guy willing to have sex on film, either. Wrangler had star quality.

He also had a commitment to the gay community.

Openly gay Wrangler "was a hero to gay men who were just coming out," said Jeffrey Schwarz, the producer-director of Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, a mainstream documentary about the life of the man's man that will premiere Saturday during the LGBT film festival Newfest in New York. "His fantasies were macho guys, so that's what he became. He played against stereotypes. He helped to give men the confidence to be themselves, because he was confident in who he was."

According to Schwarz, Wrangler was the first gay man to brand himself as a porn star and get his name above the title of many of the 85 films in which he appeared. That wasn't his only first in the industry, though: Jack Wrangler also was the first gay adult star to find laudable success performing sexual roles in straight adult films. He appeared opposite actresses like Samantha Fox, Candida Royale and Gloria Leonard - and his gay fans followed him, Schwarz said.

"In fact, he lost his straight virginity on-screen in The China Sisters," Schwarz noted. "And all the women who worked with him loved him. He's very self-deprecating, and he understood women's perspectives. He was very attentive to them."

That Wrangler could be successful in gay and straight films at the same time is testament to his acting skill, Schwarz said.

Jack Wrangler "was very intentional about what he did; the persona was a deliberate invention on his part. He looked at [performing in gay cinema] as an acting challenge. Now straight porn - that was real acting."

Today, at 65, Jack Wrangler no longer is involved with the adult industry in any capacity. Although Schwarz said "he's very comfortable with his past; he doesn't try to hide it," Wrangler moved back into the mainstream theater world after making his final appearance in an adult movie in the 1980s. He since has written music and scripts in addition to producing and directing Broadway musicals. He and his wife, the celebrated 1940s pop singer and actress Margaret Whiting, have taught singing and acting classes and are tireless supporters of the arts.

That's right: Jack Wrangler, a decidedly gay man, married Whiting, a straight woman, in 1994. The couple met in 1976, when she was 55 and he was 33, and they have been inseparable ever since. According to Schwarz, Wrangler and Whiting are thoroughly devoted to each other within a relationship based on friendship and love, not sex.

"They are true New York showbiz royalty," Schwarz said, and he wants the rest of the world to re-discover them, too. He's hoping Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon will cement Wrangler's place as a bona-fide hero of American culture.

"He's part of American history, and certainly part of gay history," Schwarz said. "As a gay man, the film was important to me, but it should be important for so many other reasons. Jack's story is a great story - it's kind of like the American dream.

"I want Jack to be put on the pedestal where he belongs," he continued. "Often, gay porn is dismissed as a genre, but the people who were making those films [in the '70s] were very brave. The films gave us confidence to come out. Jack was very conscious of that. He was a hero and a role model to an entire generation of gay men."

Following its premiere at Newfest, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon will receive screenings at Frameline in San Francisco in mid-June and during Outfest in Los Angeles in July. Schwarz said he is "in talks" with mainstream companies about widespread distribution.

The documentary features cameos by Christine Ebersole, Bruce Vilanch, Chi Chi LaRue, Michael Musto, Gino Colbert and Candida Royale, among others.

Posted by lavenderlounge at 4:35 PM

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