Meet the Man Who Made San Francisco the Porn Capital of America 50 Years Ago (SF Gate)
Read the full article by Greg Keraghosian at SFGate.com
As those of us that are active participants in the adult industry enter 2020 with resolutions to conquer content creation and take hold of our individual burgeoning porn businesses, a very notable milestone for our industry’s history is coming to pass. We are lucky that we as modern day pornographers no longer have to worry about obscenity charges, police raids or ending up behind bars for our art. But there are those that paved the way for our current sexual freedoms that we quite honestly tend to forget. So let’s not. Alex de Renzy might not be a name that many recall, but it’s a name that risked it all in favor of the taboo. Fifty years ago, he screened the 1st hardcore porn to American audiences in San Fransisco. Fifty years ago he took a chance that many would not today. Fifty years ago, de Renzy opened up the potential for money-making through the depiction of “love-making” as it was so novelly referred to back then.~~Ll
San Francisco gets credit and blame for pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable business for everything from the Gold Rush to Airbnbs to $8 avocado toast. But often forgotten is this: Before Los Angeles became known as America’s porn studio, the real disrupting was done here.
Fifty years ago, San Francisco established itself as the porn capital of America – the New York Times and Dianne Feinstein called it such. This was largely thanks to a documentary made by a former craps dealer with a bad limp who would become the first porn millionaire. And he did it while facing regular police busts and opposition from local politicians such as Feinstein.
Alex de Renzy, then 34, released a documentary called “Pornography in Denmark” on Feb. 24, 1970 at the Presidio Theatre on Chestnut and Scott. The small room of San Franciscans became the first audience to watch a publicly screened hard-core porn movie in America.
De Renzy shot the movie on location in Copenhagen for $15,000. By the end of 1970, he’d made over $1.5 million off it, was living in a hilltop San Rafael mansion with two women and their kids, and he was the subject of major news features. He was, in a way, America’s first porn star, despite having none of the sex.
"That film broke the boundary," said Mike Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition, who made a 2011 documentary on porn in San Francisco called "Smut Capital of America." "Not only was it a legal success but also a financial success. That really pushed the door open for a lot of people."