John Leslie has died, it was announced today. Now I expect that a large number of you are thinking 'Who on earth was John Leslie?' Well, he was a porn star and one of the best. I think he's worth remembering, so if you are interested in learning why, follow me after the jump.
First of all, I haven't watched a porno movie in years, so don't go thinking I'm some aficionado or porn addict. I watched some when I was in my teens and then when I was 20, I shared an apartment with some other guys; one of whom had a cousin who owned a video rental store. He used to get free rentals and would always bring home a bunch of porn movies along with regular ones. A bunch of guys in their early 20's - well, lets just say there was often a porno movie playing on the TV even if no one was paying full attention to it. You can't watch that much porno without getting a bit jaded to the sex and then you start noticing other things. And what I noticed was that John Leslie was one of the funniest and most talented porno actors around.
By chance John Leslie happened to be in the first porno I ever saw and I can still remember some of his humorous lines from it. In fact, when I think of memorable lines I saw in porno movies, over 50% of them were spoken by John Leslie and were funny. I didn't know it at the time, but have since learned that nearly all of them were ad-libbed by Leslie himself. It's not like screenwriting is very strong in the porno industry (and nor do most people watch them for the plot) but a scene with John Leslie in it was worth watching just to see what silly things he might say.
John Leslie not only stared in a lot of porno movies, he also got into directing as well and was quite successful. Because he was an actor himself, he would give the actors he was directing a fair amount of leeway to bring whatever they might want to the picture. He took pride in his work both as an actor and director, wanting to put out a quality product. This attention to detail made him very popular to work with; given some of the characters in the industry, that's worth a great deal. It's also worth noting that he leaves behind a wife who he was married to for 23 years. When you think of the average relationship length in Hollywood and then add in the fact that John Leslie was in the porno industry to boot, this says something to me.
I know that some people find the porno industry degrading to women (or degrading in general) but I would challenge you to find a John Leslie scene where he's degrading anybody. Watch 'Sex World' and you'll see that he's mostly laughing at himself.
John Leslie died of a heart attack - were it not for the fact that it would be traumatic to his wife, I would hope that he died while making love. It would have been a fitting way for him to go. I wish I could list some of my favorite lines of his but they would either need context, be too racy for this site or both (mostly both.) If you ever saw a porno from the 1970's or 1980's, you probably saw John Leslie even if you didn't know his name. But if there was a funny guy in it who made you laugh, I'll bet that's who it was. RIP John, you will be missed.