As one of the iconic gay porn actors of the 1980s, Mickey Squires cornered the butch erotic aesthetic. From early stills to classic loops from Colt Studios, and a dozen more films, Squires continued to embody masculinity with an edge.
Now, as himself, Richard Bernstein is far from bashful about his erotic work. He's also proud of his more than a dozen magazine covers, and in his 70s is still enjoying life, as proven by our phone conversation while he was vacationing in Amsterdam on a theater and museum-hopping journey.
Ryan A. White and Alex C., the directors of "Raw! Uncut! Video!" (2021), a documentary about Palm Drive Video and its cocreators Jack Fritscher and Mark Hemry, and "Big Sur Gay Porn," now have Bernstein/Squires as their new subject. The first fundraising event for a new documentary about 1980s porn star Mickey Squires will be at the Bob Mizer Foundation on Saturday, Oct 5.
Wohler Films is currently in post-production on the film, titled "Mickey & Richard." In order to raise completion funding, they're collaborating with the Bob Mizer Foundation and Bijou Video to host a fundraiser.
The event includes the opportunity to meet Squires/Bernstein at a sneak-peek screening of a ten-minute rough cut excerpt. Squires' iconic scene from "J Brian's Flashbacks" (1980, filmed in Muir Woods) will also screen, followed by a Q&A with Bernstein and the filmmakers, with T-shirts and photos for sale, too.
In our conversation, Richard Bernstein seemed delightfully spry and proud of his heritage in becoming now-vintage gay porn favorite Mickey Squires, and happy to be the subject of a new film.
What started as a simple dare to pose nude became an introduction into the world of X-rated filmmaking.
After a string of feature films and videos, Squires' later videos continued sporadically until 2001 with Butch Bear. Bernstein later worked for years in the hotel industry, and now lives in Palm Springs. The self-titled "Sondheimaniac" (he coined the term) shared stories from his adult adventures, and his life after it.
Found community
"I'm proud that I was part of that," said Bernstein of his sex work. "I was working for 20th Century Fox Distribution in the early '70s. I got a job very young. They moved me to San Francisco to be the sales manager, the year before the gay sexual revolution in San Francisco."
"I was working on my body. I knew that was really important, getting men. I saw what stopped men and what didn't get men back. I got caught up in the gay sexual revolution and became part of it; it was my life. I was really happy to be a part of it. I mean, I know it turned out to be disastrous for many people. I'm HIV positive."
But back then, Bernstein had found his community.
"My friends were my team," he said. "We worked out together. We ate at the same restaurants, we hung out. We had sex together. We did everything together. And I was proud to be a part of a team because growing up as a kid, I was not athletic at all."
The youngest of three brothers, with a single mom whose husband had died when he was five, Bernstein became interested in the performing arts while growing up in North Long Beach. His brothers were more into athletics.
"I would choreograph ballets and conduct orchestras and fantasize about all kinds of things when I was a kid." he said. "That's where my head was, not in sports."
Although born Jewish, Bernstein never took to religion, saying, "My mother never even had me bar mitzvahed because she was just tired and I didn't care. The only thing she ever said to me is to never renounce what I was born into. And I never have. I've gotten a little more religious, a little more into Yiddish and the fun part of being a Jew, but never religious."
Hoedown
After the San Francisco clone cliques became too claustrophobic, Bernstein moved to Los Angeles. He connected with the owners of The Probe, a popular disco. His first modeling job was actually not nude, just a flyer for the nightclub.
"It was a Hoedown Party, sort of a farmer's thing," he recalled. "I had a farmer's hat on and had some straw in my mouth, and that was the very first time I got photographed. I don't think I got paid for it, but I think I got a free membership."
Soon afterward, he got his first offer to pose nude, saying, "If people wanted to take pictures of me, how flattering, and that made me feel included."
Although those shots were rejected by Playgirl for him not being "pretty enough," his second shoot fared slightly better.
"A friend had me over to his house in West Hollywood and he had some cowboy hats, me sitting on a wooden horse. He took really some very good pictures of me, which I would love to see, but I never saw the originals. He didn't pay me. But he had friends who saw those pictures and they wanted to hire me as an escort. So that started my escorting career, which I was fine with. If people wanted to pay me to have sex, I was all for it. I don't have any complications about it."
By day, Bernstein pumped iron with friends at Jim Morris Gym on Santa Monica Blvd., run by the gay Mr. All America bodybuilder.
"It was like the mecca for gay muscle, and I was in my element," said Bernstein. "I really was. I loved that place. And I became friendly with Manfred Spear, who was a Colt model, a big muscled German guy. He introduced me to Jim French."
Bernstein had previously been rejected by Lou Thomas, a Target photographer in New York City. But after that gig came to nothing, he ended up unintentionally being hired by Thomas's rival, Colt guru Jim French.
Colt on course
Before his first film, Bernstein had been cruised at a nightclub days before his shoot.
"This very hot guy kept looking at me, and I kept looking at him, and we circled the bar all night, not knowing who each other were. I didn't have sex because I was told not to before filming."
That man turned to be Jack Packer, his scene partner in "The Come On."
"That was his Colt name," said Bernstein. "I don't know his real name, but that was the only film that I did that loved. Every moment, we had real sex. Jim just said, 'Go at it, guys. I'm just going to walk around and film you, because you guys know what you're doing.'"
"And we were really into each other. That was the only film I ever did that I really enjoyed doing. We were in this house where, by the way, I had had sex with the owner a year earlier, not knowing it was going to be the house where I had my first performance."
In another Colt short film, his partner, Clint Lockner, performed as a policeman.
"That's why that scene was really hot, because we already really wanted to have sex with each other. Also, he was a real cop in life, which was a turn-on for me. And that was a really hot session."
Bernstein continued living in LA, "going to the gym, being very gay," and worked at The Pleasure Chest on Santa Monica Boulevard. Porn films in those days were only short film reels, so a friend of his brought a projector to the shop and showed one of his scenes on a wall.
Cover story
Bernstein continued doing still photography, making the cover of almost 20 adult magazines. This added to his popularity in escorting.
"I knew I had an iconic look," he said. "I cherish that, but I didn't rub it in anybody's faces. I would meet my clients, and they were very excited. And then we ended up talking and whatever for the rest of the evening, and they'd say, 'You're not your image at all. You're really nice!'"
His hustling and modeling continued to be that, just a side hustle. There were moments of glory, like when his films were shown in actual theaters.
"The most I ever got paid, I believe, was $800 for two days work," said Bernstein. "I was sometimes the star, so I got paid. My name was above the title. That was decent money for having sex and being paid."
Bernstein also shared a bit of history he has with this paper, the Bay Area Reporter, which used to publish extensive porn reviews.
"John Karr wrote a scathing review of one of my movies because I didn't have a hardon during the whole film," Bernstein recalled. "The films, remember, were work, and it was tough to stay hard, unless it was really somebody I was turned on by. It wasn't easy for me to get hard. But put me in front of a still camera and I have an instant hardon."
"Anyway, he criticized me for not having a hardon. I used my hand to jerk off, and you couldn't see my dick, so I thought, 'I'll show him.' One of the pictures, I think Michael Bales took of me, was a full hardon. I sent that to John, writing, 'Here, look. I have a hardon. This is what it looks like.' He wrote a very nice recommendation later, not a retraction, but he got the picture."
Bernstein is elated that he is the subject of the upcoming documentary, and has already shot most of the footage with the directors. Bernstein is included in their previous film, ""Raw! Uncut! Video!"
"I just had such a good time with them, and they were so nice and so sweet, and so accommodating and young, and so interested in who I was and what I have to say. When they said, 'We want to do a documentary about you,' I thought, 'Huh, what is there?' I have no idea what they're doing. And I almost don't want to know, because I want to be surprised."
'Mickey & Richard' sneak peek and fundraiser at the Bob Mizer Foundation, October 5, 5pm to 7pm, 920 Larkin St. $20 suggested donation.
www.bobmizer.org
www.rawuncutvideo.com
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