What’s in a Name? Interview with Lethal Hardcore's Stoney Curtis

One of the high points of the annual AVN Awards is reading the nominees for Clever Title of the Year—a list that gets attention even from the mainstream press. And one company that keeps turning out candidates year after year is Lethal Hardcore. This year was no exception. Among the 15 titles nominated for the 2015 AVN Awards are two from the 10-year-old adult studio: My Black Stepdaddy Disciplined Me Now My Pussy Is Sore! and She Divorced Me So I Fucked Her Hot Slutty Attorney. Both emanated from the twisted mind of studio owner Stoney Curtis. AVN checked in with the 20-year porn biz vet, and it turns out he’s already working on a new batch for 2015. But first, a little back story. In 1993, Curtis debuted with the first of his mirth-inducing titles: Secret of Her Suckcess, with cast members that included Tom Byron, Bunny Bleu, Lana Sands and Peter North—the man responsible for getting Curtis in the biz. “I’m a Chicago boy at heart. I earned my bachelor’s degree in engineering,” Curtis said. After moving to Orange County, he met North and they became friends—though not right away. “I ran into Peter North several times, and he kept denying who he was to me. I ran into him in ’91, and he says I don’t know what you’re talking about—I never heard of a guy named Peter North. I said, ‘OK I’m sorry to bother you, sir.’ And I ran into him in ’92. He said, ‘You’ve really got me mixed up. I don’t know who this guy is. I don’t do porn. My name is Al.’ And I saw him in ’93. He said, ‘OK, yeah, you got me, I’m Peter North.’” Curtis recalled that although North was a big star, he tried to keep a low profile on his home turf in the OC. “Low key? You’re like the face of pornography,” Curtis laughed. “It’s a little too late for the low key.” Curtis said, “He introduced me to Jim South, who introduced me to getting girls. And then I had another guy at the time, Tom Stone, who was my mentor, kinda helped me get my first feature made, and then I was off and running on my own.” Curtis recounted the events on his first shoot, which took place at Max Hardcore’s house. “Tom shot all the dialogue and he literally hands me the camera.” Curtis was a bit taken aback, having never shot any footage, but Stone said, “You bragged to me about how much porn you like and how much you watch it. Just shoot it like you like it and use your camera as your fast-forward button.” Curtis recalled, “When I pictured it in my mind, that’s how I did it. I just picked it up and ran with it. … “I ended up selling [the movie] to VCA immediately, to Russ Hampshire,” Curtis added. “And Russ Hampshire liked my work so much that he ended up putting me to work on a bunch of features for VCA. … At that time Russ Hampshire was the big shot. He and Steve Hirsch. There was no Hustler, no Brazzers, none of those people existed.” Curtis soon learned he was in just the right place at the right time when he went to a party in Hampshire’s suite after an awards show. “I walked into the room and the VCA sales guys were on one side of the room with their wives, while on the other side on a poker table were “these three girls getting it on naked” while the VCA crew sat there smoking cigars, drinking martinis, playing cards and ignoring the girls. “I’m looking at this, going, ‘This is the job for me.’” Curtis founded his first company, Celestial Productions, in 1995, but he said that in terms of distribution, “We din’t know what the fuck we were doing.” In 1997 he began releasing product through Seymore Butts. “I did Hot Bods and Tail Pipe, and that’s where I combined hotrod cars and girls and all that stuff.” In 2004, when Extreme Associates, Anabolic and Max Hardcore were doing “hard stuff,” Curtis decided he needed to change his company name. “We went to Lethal Hardcore, and my first title I did for that was a pretty disgusting title—it was Anal Cumsumption.” Curtis did his own distribution for Lethal until 2007. “Then I signed a deal with Pulse, and I’ve been thrilled and very happy to be in business with Jim and Mark over there,” he said. Curtis gave AVN a sneak preview of his next outrageous DVD title: My Porn Agent Popped My Cherry. Inspired by tales of a talent rep back in the 1990s who would shoot “demos” with talent, he’s created a vignette series in which newbies are cajoled by unscrupulous (and surely unlicensed) agents: “I need to make sure that you can perform well and that you understand what they’re looking for, so you’ve got to do a sample scene with me first,” Curtis said with a laugh. “I’ve been hearing about that since 1996. Sometimes I sit on ideas for 10 years.” Though the man who inspired this DVD is long gone, Curtis said mischievously, “I think anybody who thinks sex isn’t being exchanged for favors in the porn industry is a little foolish. They’re trying to make it corporate, they’re trying to clean it up, but there’s still kinky stuff going on.” Also ahead, Curtis will be putting together his first big-budget adult feature film in early March. “It’s a futuristic project: The Matrix meets The Hunger Games meets The Twilight Zone. It’s got elements of bondage, elements of fetish, it’s got a great storyline—it’s all original.” Curtis talked about how the industry has changed and softened a bit with age. Back when he named his company, he said the market was driven by European sales and anal scenes were de rigueur. “If you had no anal, they’d pass. You had to have anal. Nowadays you don’t have to have it. There’s a lot of softer brands—Girlfriends Films is making money just from doing girls.” He acknowledges there there is more content oriented to couples “for sure. Bur I think it’s hardcore guy fans that keep it going. There’s so many different kinds of porn. And you can go to so many different places to find porn. Back in my day the only way you got seen was to put your shit out in a video store. That’s it. … It was a fight for shelf space. Now it’s a fight for internet bandwidth.” One thing hasn’t changed is the director’s ability to appreciate good performers. “I really like Maddy O’Reilly, I think she’s got an incredible sexual appetite, and she’s very professional,” he said, giving AVN a quick rundown on just a few of his favorites. “Anikka Albrite does a great job, Riley Reid does a great job—for a little tiny girl she’s quite sexual and is very experimental. Scarlet Red is just a doll. I really like Scarlet Red. Keisha Grey did a scene for me a couple weeks ago—fantastic. She can be real good too.” And he lavishes special praise on Veronica Avluv. “She’s a sexual beast,” Curtis asserts. “If you can judge people on sexual ability, I would say she’s doing advanced calculus. A lot of other girls are doing algebra sex—this girl’s into advanced calculus sex. She’s solving integrals; she’s not trying to figure out fucking basic algebra. She’s into very complex sexual scenarios, and quite creative.” Speaking of creative, Curtis gave a sneak preview of a title that he won’t release until February. We’re not going to spoil the surprise, but trust us, it’s got a laugh-out-loud rhyme that all but guarantees it a shot in the 2016 AVN Awards. This article originally ran in the January 2015 issue of AVN magazine.