[thunder rumbling]
[airplane droning]
[instrumental music]
[Mark Cromer]
The premise was 16 years ago.
Could a virus, a
sexually-transmitted virus
finally accomplish
what 35-40 years
of vigorous prosecution
by the United States
Justice Department couldn't?
And that is, end as we knew it,
the multi-billion dollar
commercial pornography
industry in the United States.
It was a real moment, sort of,
the Cuban Missile Crisis,
if you will,
for the-for the porn industry.
It was sort of,
"Wow, what's gonna happen?"
"This is scary."
The holy water the holy
holy water
Wash down over me
The holy water the holy
holy water
Wash down over me
I've been wicked
yup I've been wicked
Just the same as anyone
And I can't see the sun
By the '90s,
the industry had risen
to total acceptance
in society's eyes.
I'm afraid
Of the Karma Thunderbolt
The Karma Thunderbolt
The Karma Thunderbolt
[Bill Margold]
We were no longer outlaws,
we were a common acceptable
commodity.
We were being marketed
everywhere,
we were being sold everywhere.
There was this
whole mainstreaming
of porn that happened
in the late '90s.
[upbeat music]
In preparation, you followed
around a porn star?
His name is Ron Jeremy.
That is the first naked lady
in the history of radio.
Ginger Lynn would show up
for a signing.
And you have 500 guys at the
door waiting to get a signature,
and maybe 30 girls.
This was a profound
cultural shift
in an amazingly
short amount of time
since Hugh Hefner had launched
"Playboy" in his kitchen.
[Tom Byron]
When I got in the business,
I actually thought that
the two industry would
eventually merge
because that seemed to be
where it was heading.
The budgets were getting
bigger,
the acting was getting better.
And I thought, I could end up
doing a fuckin' three-way
with Robert De Niro.
[instrumental music]
I actually thought that.
In 1991, there were 1200,
uh, adult videos
produced per year.
By the time of 1998,
we were easily up to
six or seven thousand per year.
It went from being
family and friends,
and it became a business.
[Mark Cromer]
Porn really, as a-a massive
national industry, took off.
[vocalizing]
[Jim South]
When video was introduced,
the industry exploded.
Those were the days where
the, the money really flowed.
It wasn't bad at all.
Continuous adult
entertainment 24 hours a day.
Welcome to the
"Erogenous Zone" on Spice.
[man on TV]
Hard bodies on Playboy TV.
[vocalizing]
Great money.
The '90s were awesome, right?
I-I think I was, I was making up
to like almost 70,000 a year,
just performing.
I'm Jenna Jameson,
and I'm an adult film star.
-This girl could be a model.
-Thank you.
I mean, she doesn't have
to be in porno.
I'm taken care of--
Oh, you mean,
you're makin' a lot of money?
Well, I'm under contract
with Wicked Pictures.
Yeah, but, well,
how much money could they p...
I heard some girls only get,
like, a $150 a picture.
Oh. Oh, no, no.
-You get tons of money?
-I get... Oh.
Why would I be doin' this
if I wasn't?
[Stern]
I don't know.
I think that I was a very
different kind of porn girl.
I looked at it
in a different way.
It wasn't about the money.
I was in college,
and I had a full-ride
scholarship to college.
[man]
Your major. Go ahead, Tricia.
I'm majoring in pre-medicine.
I want to go to medical school
and be a doctor.
[Tricia Devereaux]
So, it wasn't about paying
for college
or anything like that.
It was about, I had been that
perfect little Stepford child
when I was young,
you know, perfect grade As
became a med-school student,
was a national level musician
that traveled
across the country, um,
and to Europe, um,
so, it was kind of empowering.
I mean, I was kind of
definitely that college nerd
that nobody would have ever
expected it of,
and everybody always used to say
that I was like the girl
that shouldn't be doing this
that was awesome at it.
I had never been with anyone
until I got engaged
to my husband.
It was,
it was definitely exciting.
[upbeat music]
[Ginger Lynn]
I just had the best time.
I'm thinking, "Oh, my God,
I'm being paid to do this
and I'm having
the best time of my life?"
Yes and yes.
[screaming]
[Tricia Devereaux]
There was a core group.
-Hi, Mom!
-We knew each other.
We trusted each other.
[Bill Margold]
I referred to all
of them as kids.
I referred to them all
as "Over-aged juvenile
delinquents"
in the playpen of the damned.
To me, every person in this
business stopped growing
at 12 years old.
Come on, Gary, we started.
I just love these long,
hard round things.
The family of X is really
a dysfunctional family.
We have the bond of knowing that
we were the rebels,
and we did this thing.
I'm not a boy scout.
-I'm a do-gooder.
-Sixty-nine.
You are a do-gooder.
Could you do me good?
To me, it's almost like being
a member of "AA,"
but you never stop drinking.
And the winner is...
Tom Byron!
[crowd cheering]
I'd like to thank every
beautiful woman
I've ever put my cock inside.
It's a business that allows you
to remain a fuckin' child.
[chuckles]
I never met a girl
who got to the point
quite so fast.
[Tom Byron]
I used to want to get high
and fuck girls, and do these
cool little movies,
and, you know, have this
fucking easy, great life.
[moaning]
It's good. It's good.
[Mark Cromer]
There was almost a Peter Pan
like quality to we're off in
never-never land.
[Bill Margold] They don't
have any responsibility,
that's part of the nature
of a great adult performer.
They can't spell the word
"Tomorrow."
They have no idea
about the future.
They live for the moment,
and they live for the glory.
I have something to show you.
July "GQ."
-Yeah.
-There she is.
Six hundred and twenty men
in one day.
We knew what life was like
for the rest of the world.
[Jim South] They were making ten
times, twenty times the money
they would normally make
for a regular job.
So they partied more,
they got more days off
'cause they don't need to work
seven days a week.
[Mark Cromer]
Work, I mean it was a bit
of a party,
it was a bit of a bacchanal.
It was a bit of a scene.
[scatting]
[vocalizing]
No man's in the nighttime
The logic of my town
Yeah cruise like
in the nighttime
The logic of my town
Yeah fools like
in the nighttime
The logic of my time
fools like in the nighttime
[woman]
Kaitlyn Ashley.
[crowd cheering]
The best day of my life.
Let's go
There was certainly
a carefree atmosphere to it,
and there didn't seem to be any
sense of impending disaster.
Nobody seemed to see
that we weren't in a tunnel
and whatever light
we were lookin' at
wasn't really
a train barreling down
the tracks at them.
I've done more mainstream films
now than-than adult films.
And I was cast in a series
called "Wing Commander."
Mark Hamill's the leading man
in-in the series.
So we're getting ready
to do the scene
and the producer comes over
and says,
"Your agent's on the phone
and we need to talk."
You're teasing me. Stop it.
[Ginger Lynn]
Mark Hamill had refused
to kiss me because he was afraid
he was gonna get AIDS.
Um, I'd like to thank all
my fans out there.
You guys are great...
Everybody in that business
at that time was whistling
past the graveyard.
You think it could never
happen to you.
We have a disease here.
And we have no cure.
[man on TV]
Indeed for the foreseeable
future throughout the world,
the number of people
dying from AIDS
will continue to increase
dramatically.
An epidemic that is
still raging out of control.
You are doing nothing!
We need action!
It's time to put up
or shut up, Bill!
[woman]
Sit down!
A Manhattan project on AIDS!
Research, we need it now!
[people clamoring]
The-the backbone of pornography
was denial about HIV
in the '90s.
There's no fucking doubt
about that.
There's no doubt about it.
[Bill Margold]
HIV has never really
frightened me
because I believe
it was a chemically-bred
form of eugenics
perpetrated on society
by governments desirous
of ridding the world
of three factions
that nobody would give
a shit about.
Homosexuals, intravenous drug
users, and minorities.
We were all very much in denial
and fuckin' tortured by it.
[Ginger Lynn]
We never really worried
about it in the industry,
and I think the general
consensus
was that HIV was a gay disease.
The gay people
are giving their blood
knowing that it is
contaminating people...
Nobody wanted to hear it,
nobody wanted to talk about it.
It was, like, "Let's just not,
let's just ignore it."
It didn't concern me so much
where I didn't want to perform.
I wanted to perform.
[Ron Jeremy]
I was scared of getting HIV.
And then I realized, and-and I-I
explained to girls I work with,
if I haven't had a problem now,
being probably
the longest running guy
in the business.
I still do scenes even today.
I mean, obviously
I have the lifestyle
that doesn't lead to HIV,
'cause I woulda
had it by now.
I was afraid of HIV the first
time I ever heard of it.
Federal health officials
consider it an epidemic.
Scientists say they are dealing
with some new deadly
sexually-transmitted disease.
[Tom Byron]
I thought that was God's
or whoever's ultimate
fuckin' joke that,
"Here I am,
fulfillin' my life's dream,"
and a fuckin' deadly disease
drops out of the fuckin' blue
that kills you in two weeks.
It scared the
fuckin' shit out of me.
I kinda figured,
"Oh, if you're getting tested
for something and it turns out
fine, then you're fine."
-Huge dick.
-Be very afraid.
[Tricia Devereaux]
So, it completely
minimalized my concerns.
I'm ashamed to admit it, that's
what I, that's what I thought
"Eh, you're not gonna get it
unless you're a junkie."
And even if you're a junkie,
if you're sharin' needles
that's when you get it, or if
you're doin' that gay stuff,
you might get it too,
but nobody's doin' that,
so, yeah, everything's cool.
How wrong we were.
[instrumental music]
[Mark Kernes]
There were a couple of cases
of people I know
who died of HIV.
We're not sure where those
people contracted their HIV,
but it generally
was not on the set.
I don't tell him how to edit.
[Mark Cromer]
It-it was John Holmes.
And he doesn't tell me
how to fuck.
[Mark Cromer]
And his contracting HIV
and developing AIDS...
-You do have it?
-I've got it.
That brought it,
however briefly,
into maybe the
national consciousness,
and then it went away.
[Michael]
He was doin' gay movies
or doin' gay stuff off-screen,
and he was a junkie.
-Do you take drugs?
-No, I don't take drugs.
I don't even like aspirin.
[Mark Cromer]
I think the industry looked
at it as kind of an outlier,
a one-off.
Or we dodged a bullet.
No one really was looking at,
"Okay, John Holmes,
the poster boy
for commercial pornography
in the United States is dead
and he's dead because of AIDS."
Um, what does this mean?
It's like there's a giant
hourglass somewhere
rapidly pouring out the sands.
[instrumental music]
[Bill Margold]
Holmes dies and the industry
breathes a sigh of relief.
We then sort of
forget about HIV.
[instrumental music]
Hi.
[Sharon Mitchell]
People wanna turn
a blind eye 'cause there's
money to be made.
They all have to pay.
So, who the fuck
wants to talk about HIV?
[Tom Byron]
If you talk about it,
you're not put on
the fuckin' list.
Troublemaker!
You're a troublemaker.
We don't talk about that.
Fuckin' do that line
and shut up.
Just fuck, get it on camera...
Get a little girl-girl, maybe a
little blowjob with you.
-I need to go and do my...
-Okay.
[Mark Cromer]
There's a discardability
of the performer base
in the industry.
[man]
Were you a sick fuckin' animal
before you got in this business?
[Mark Cromer] Having said that,
I'm ambivalent
at best about whether or not
condoms can and should be
mandatory in porn.
Condoms, man!
It's repression, man!
Just another tool
of the establishment
just to bring us down!
Condoms are a violation
of the vicarious thrill
that we provide the audience.
Use one or get none.
[narrator]
"Sheik. Get some."
It's like getting some oration
about morality
in-in a porn scene,
it's a total downer.
Condoms destroy porn.
[Bill Margold]
The orgasm, the money shot
into the face of society
is exactly what this business
is all about.
No one wants to see a condom
because a condom
connotes reality.
And we're not reality.
We are a fantasy.
This industry is a carnal
version of Disneyland.
[imitating seals barking]
[Sharon Mitchell]
The sex was selling
because there were no condoms.
And it was
a tremendous amount of money
because it was
the precipice of the internet.
People just knew,
it was a whole new era.
New technology permits us to do
very exciting things
in interactive, erotic software.
I still jerk off manually.
Wave of the future, dude,
wave of the future...
Technology drove us into the
'90s...with computer sex.
[Mark Kernes]
The internet was really just
beginning to get
its sexual chops on.
The internet, digital video
disks, and who knows what...
And remember who is
on the backs of all technology?
The pornographers!
The internet is for porn
The internet is for porn
[woman]
What are you doing?
Why do you think
the net was born?
Porn porn porn
You have to remember,
the internet is not
a regulated environment.
[upbeat music]
[Mark Cromer]
It's like a flywheel,
it creates its own momentum.
Now we want more.
We want whatever fetish.
We want whatever desire
catered to.
[man on TV]
Wow. They're, like, really soft.
[Ron Jeremy]
More and more public revealing.
More and more porn films.
They wanted to see more kink.
It's 24 hours live hardcore.
-Live? On the internet?
-Yes. Yes.
The ensuing glut of commercially
made and sold pornography
gave way to a tsunami
of cheap shot-on video,
sold on video productions.
For event-styled shows like
this, if you're high-end film...
About three of those a month...
About four of those a month...
[Mark Cromer]
The excitement of pretty girls
getting screwed by handsome guys
wore off.
In the popular culture,
there was this trend...
Do the extreme!
[Michael]
For, like, extremes.
I can do this.
[Michael]
All of a sudden, it's not
a regular soft drink,
it's an extreme soft drink!
[man]
If you're gonna do it,
dew it extreme!
[Michael]
The X-games, professional
wrestling is getting more
extreme.
All this kinda, like,
swap-meet level entertainment.
You know, porn, like anything
else, picks up on this.
[instrumental music]
[David Foster]
The truth is that in your face
vileness is part
of the schizoid direction
porn's been moving in
all decade.
For just as adult entertainment
has become more mainstream,
it has become also
more extreme.
[woman laughing]
[indistinct chatter]
We're gonna have a little
gang-bang goin' on.
In the mid '90s, in the late
'90s, it was changing.
It was getting riskier,
and so many more people
because of the video boom
and the internet now,
it was just getting riskier
and riskier.
[Mark Cromer]
The glut of it
led the industry...
[man]
Can somebody get a dick?
To decide we have to start
showing our consuming public
in the United States things
they haven't seen before.
I'd like you people to be
original and different.
We have to show them
new and exciting
and, quite frankly,
evermore debauched scenarios.
[upbeat music]
[man]
We're doing a good thing,
and we are gonna take it
to more limits.
I can't believe
we get paid for this.
[crowd cheering]
Directors had to
keep pushing the envelope.
Anal became a phenomenon at that
period of time in the '90s.
Best anal theme feature,
best anal sex scene in a video.
Best anal sex scene in a film.
"Butt-Slammers."
"Gluteus To The Maximus."
-"Sodomania 21."
-"Sodomania 22."
"The Anal Diary Of Misty Rain."
-"Butt Row, Unplugged."
-"The Anal Food Express."
"Butt-Man."
"Ben Dover's Little Smartasses."
-"Bottom Dweller Five."
-"Corporate Assets."
"Ben Dover Babes."
I'm here for "Anal Graveyard."
Anal's the hot thing,
everyone's talking anal tonight.
Movie doesn't have anal sex?
It's not...
You can't even call it porn.
They were so fascinated with
a-all this unprotected
anal stuff,
and ejaculations in the eye, and
this and that, and bukkakes...
cum, cum, cum, cum, cum.
[man]
It was absolutely the industry
saying, "It's no longer enough
to make 'Debbie Does Dallas.'"
"It's no longer enough to make
'Wanda Whips Wall Street.'"
"It's no longer enough to make
'The Devil In Miss Jones.'"
We need to show them something
that is absolutely Roman.
In its size, in its scale,
in its scope,
in just the outrageous,
outlandish nature of it."
It's about,
"We are in the Colosseum,
and the gladiators
are down below."
Most guys I ever did was 466.
[man]
Wow.
This is my chance to be
at the top of my profession.
Call me crazy, but 2000 guys,
you're not gonna be on top.
[all cheering]
This is about spectacle.
This is spectacle porn.
We're having the
world's biggest gang-bang.
Will history be made, or will
the men go limp under pressure?
I never have
a chance to shake
A money-maker
It's all go meek to me
[Mark Cromer]
This led to the rise
of such surreal events
as "Gang-Bangs."
Uh, 100, 200, 300...
[man]
The last gangbang was cut
a little bit short because
Annabel Chong said
that the guy's fingernails
were bothering her.
The point here is
to break the record.
We're gonna
assassinate the record.
Yessiree, we're gonna beat
the gang-bang records.
What we're going to achieve
today is 300 men...
[crowd cheering]
I got
a pleasure appointment
I'm cashin' in the chips
And I'm goin' to
A pleasure appointment
with you
[instrumental music]
[crowd cheering]
Oh, my... The-the type of
behavior that was going on
in the late '90s was a recipe
for HIV transmission...
And that's the truth.
[Ron Jeremy]
It was actually the late
great Bobby Astyr, who was
a porn star and a comic one,
and he said that,
"Why is this business
getting more into anal sex,
when, at the same time
HIV outbreak is all over
the world."
[man]
They have had no luck.
Short of driving a train up
someone's ass.
It was very, you know, it was-it
was very frightening.
[Mark Kernes]
Part of the problem in those
early days is that producers
generally did not look
at performers' HIV tests.
Some of them did,
but very few of them.
[Sharon Mitchell]
The testing protocols
of that time were people going
to the county health clinics
or the methadone clinics,
or getting tested for free
and exchanging tests.
I'm working with
John West today,
so I'm going to show him
my test results.
So, it was on
an individual level,
people that presented their test
and expected from other people.
John will now show me his test
dated August 4th, and I...
[Sharon Mitchell]
But the tests were from
different clinics, they weren't
under the same roof.
It was catch-as-catch-can.
[Michael]
When I'd go onto sets,
most of the time, nobody was
showing any kind of paperwork,
it was just,
"I'm here, let's get it on."
[Mr. Marcus] We'd all show up
all with a test
and there'd be a stack
of piece of papers,
and then there-there'd be
a production manager
who would, you know,
"If anybody wants
to see the test,
they're over here."
Most of the guys would go
focus on the girl.
That is not a system.
That is not a protocol.
So a system had to be
put in place.
And we're here
at AIM Healthcare.
[Bill Margold]
We then create "AIM."
The Adult Industry Medical
Healthcare foundation
to make sure there'd be more
coordinated testing.
Get early-detection HIV tests.
[Mark Kernes]
Sharon Mitchell, who at that
point was still an actress
and eventually went on to get
a doctorate in Public Health,
was hired by Bill Margold
who ran Protecting
Adult Welfare.
I had went back to school,
for a while,
and I gravitated
toward HIV research,
and I'm asked to
start a clinic.
[Mark Kernes]
And so AIM was formed,
and became the testing facility
for the industry,
and just everybody went there.
We tested all the guys.
[Dr. Tom Horowitz]
She became our go-to person.
We're here to make sure that
your tests are current,
and everybody has a safe,
great time.
She had credibility
in the industry.
She could to the actors
and look eye-to-eye
and say, "I've been there."
I know just how dirty
people can get.
[Bill Margold]
We'd been taking something
called the "ELISA Test."
It might have been
every six months
to every three months.
This would tell us we were okay,
and we could go bang
our brains out.
[Sharon Mitchell]
The ELISA HIV test isn't really
the most suitable for the
adult entertainment industry
simply because it could take
up to six to nine months
in some people to show up.
They were really
basically useless,
and something was about
to happen.
When you have an exponentially
large group of folks
fucking for a living
without condoms,
something is about to happen.
It is precisely at that moment
that that outbreak occurred.
[rock music]
[Luke Ford]
It was thought inevitable
that the industry would get
infected with AIDS.
It was just kinda taken
for granted.
Society's always been ready
to put us under
a tombstone of HIV.
[Luke Ford]
In 1995, Barbara Doll,
a beautiful blond French
porn star tested HIV positive.
Then, in February of 1997,
Nena Cherry tested HIV
positive.
And then you had Jordan McKnight
in, uh, summer of 1997.
And there was a lot
of uproar and concern.
And then everything was quiet
for another six months.
Then, uh, came the big one.
So, '98 comes along,
and I'm getting,
I'm getting sort of these
strange rumblings about HIV.
-Tell me your name?
-Hi, I'm Tricia Devereaux.
-And where are you from?
-I'm from Ohio.
And I moved over out here
a couple years ago
and now I live here
in Los Angeles.
[Tricia Devereaux]
In 1997, I had actually left
the business for a couple
of months
and I had a very normal job,
and then they found out
that I had done porn,
and, um, asked me to leave.
And I was, like, "Okay, I'll,
you know, get,
go get another job,
and, you know, maybe I, maybe
I'll do a few scenes, you know,
this or that,"
just get, you know,
kind of a head start
back in life.
So, an editor for a magazine
asked me to consider working
for a director that I hadn't
worked for before,
and I ended up saying, "Sure."
Um, it was actually
the director that did
the "100 Men Gangbang" movies.
So, I went to site,
it was, like, October,
maybe November of 1997.
The guy that I was supposed
to work with, um, got sick
or didn't have a clear test
or something.
And so they said,
"Oh, well, your-your agent
has this other guy available."
Partway through the scene,
they asked if it would, could be
an internal cum shot.
I had looked at his test,
I saw the word "Undetectable"
and I was like, "Cool."
[man]
Do you like an audience?
[Tricia Devereaux]
I don't like when I'm by myself.
I don't like being alone.
[mellow music]
When I found out that I had HIV,
I thought, "What, like...
Whe... What did I do wrong?"
I mean,
my first reactions were
obviously shock, um...
And I knew that my life
was never gonna be the same.
[moaning]
[man]
It is not hard to see where
porn is eventually going
to have to go
in order to retain its edge
of disrepute.
It's clear that the real
horizon, late '90s porn,
is heading toward,
is the snuff film.
This created shockwaves
throughout the industry
because we-we hadn't
had a working actress
who was suffering from
an infection, really ever.
This one appeared to be
on the set.
She got back in the business,
she had HIV.
People really freaked
over Tricia
'cause they really liked Tricia.
The winner is...
Jeanna Fine
and Tricia Devereaux!
[crowd cheering]
Nice girl.
I really wanna thank, um,
Elegant Angel
for hiring Jeanna
to work with me.
It was incredible. I just...
She worked a lot,
performed in,
you know,
some of the harder scenes.
She was on that cusp
of being extreme.
I'm gonna play teacher today.
We kind of very quickly went
into panic slash control mode.
You know, this is not gonna
happen again!
But if it does, we're going to
find out the very next day.
[Mark Kernes]
So, it was announced that there
was going to be
an industry-wide meeting
because they couldn't
figure out
where Tricia'd gotten it from.
We went to VCA who had
the largest warehouse
and 300 people came.
Place was packed,
it was full of industry people.
There was, like, the, it was
really hot, people screamin'.
[Michael Louis Alba]
It scared 'em.
There was definitely
a sense of fear in that room.
There was a certain amount
of panic.
They were comin' out with new
drugs, but it was still
kind of a death sentence.
[upbeat music]
There were a lot of rumors
about how you could get HIV.
But one thing the performers
knew was
it was a deadly disease,
and the other thing
they knew was
they didn't want to have it.
I was told to bring these
life-saving drugs
to Dr. Whoppers.
I'm Dr. Whoppers.
[comical music]
Recess is over
in the playpen of the damned.
We now had to realize that maybe
we could get sick.
[Mark Kernes]
At that point, everyone
had to come in for testing.
In particular, a-a kind of a new
form of HIV test
called the PCR DNA.
The ELISA test just looks
for HIV antibodies,
with the PCR DNA,
it looks for the virus itself.
And you'll find it,
if it's there, within 14 days.
We decided to implement
this test on everyone.
[Mark Kernes]
At that point, Sharon Mitchell
and Bill Margold begin creating
what they call genealogies.
That's basically a list of
people Tricia had worked with
and then once
Sharon had those names,
she did genealogies
for those people.
[Bill Margold] You start
with the first person,
you go to second
generation, third generation,
fourth generation
and then it's over.
A...
It's sort of a tree diagram.
You know, so and so
work with so and so
who work with so and so,
and they all had to be tested.
[Sharon Mitchell]
We had to go back six months
with Trish,
and thank God for Trish
because she was very copious
in her note-taking
in her partners.
So, I had her partner list
to go on
and I found another,
a month later.
Yes!
[moaning]
Oh, yes! Oh, yeah! Oh, oh, yeah!
[instrumental music]
[moaning]
Ooh, yes.
Yes!
Pretty extreme.
It's like there's regular sex
and there's anal sex
and she's doin'
an anal gangbang.
Now she shattered.
In early 1998, the cases just
started falling one a month.
[Sharon Mitchell]
We had Trish and then we had
Brooke Ashley a month later.
Caroline a month after that.
Then Kimberly Jade after that.
Pretty eyes, wild girl,
wild girl.
From Europe, wanted to work very
hardcore, really loved sex.
A lot more open to tryin' new
things, very aggressive.
[instrumental music]
-It was...
-It was...
-Crazy.
-Crazy.
Girls were coming up positive,
right and left.
And nobody could figure out
what the fuck was going on.
We all came up with these
justifications, these denials
like, the porno business does.
We said
"Tricia Devereaux is..."
"She got drunk
and fucked a bunch of guys
at a Matt Zane party
and that's how she got it."
And, uh, Brooke Ashley,
she did drugs
and she was a hooker and she
musta got it that way.
And Caroline, she was probably
a hooker, everyone's a hooker
and that's how they got it.
You know, it wasn't
in the business, you know...
It's no longer
a one case phenomenon.
Now there are whole bunch
of cases...
They were blindsided.
You know, nobody foresaw
what was going to happen.
[Bill Margold]
Shit hit the fan because
people were tryin' to remember
who they had
had sex with,
and not everybody remembers
everybody they've had sex with.
If you're dealing with risky
sex, anal shit,
you know, you're dealin' it
with an HIV positive person,
you're fucked, man.
Remember, this was back
when a guy would be
perfectly healthy one week...
Doctor, do you think
he'll make it?
You see him two weeks later,
he's knockin' on death's door.
[man]
He doesn't look too good.
It was knockin' down
motherfuckers left and right.
You look like
you're doing pretty good.
It was just, like,
"What the fuck, man?"
I mean, one of those women
literally tried
to jump out the window
when I gave her results.
And the fuckin' press
was disgusting.
[male reporter]
We're attempting to determine
the extent of HIV infections...
[male reporter]
This week another adult
performer tested positive
for the AIDS virus.
The industry must protect
those that are employed in it.
[stammers]
Vans lined up, people outside,
trying to film people and...
I mean, I literally
caught someone
trying to shove a camera
into the window of the bathroom
where we were taking
urine samples.
It was just horrible.
Fear was running rampant.
It was fucking mayhem.
Panic in the street.
People just forgot themselves.
Every month there was another
girl until there was five of us.
It appeared that we had a
full-scale outbreak developing.
It was complete and utter panic.
-Panic.
-Panic.
-Panic.
-Panic.
It was an onslaught.
There were a lot
of frightened children.
[instrumental music]
All of a sudden you realized,
"Wow! This is real.
This is real life."
If ya think about it, one
person working with one woman
or two women who is popular,
that can spread so quickly.
[Mark Kernes]
In 1998,
within a five-mile radius
of this building
probably 75% of all
the adult videos
in the country were produced.
I mean, we're talking
exponential growth here.
[Michael Louis Alba]
There were several people
that were testing positive.
And it doesn't take a genius
to figure out
this could be a big problem.
One needn't have the gift
of a prophet
to see the evermore
outrageous numbers
and the situations
that were being depicted
to assume that if somebody came
into that very tightly
controlled and cloistered group
of performers,
if you had a patient zero,
the resulting explosion
had the potential to be massive.
[instrumental music]
The free-wheeling days of the
X-rated industry exploding
into a billion dollar thing,
something had
to come crashing down, man.
Everybody has to pay
the fuckin' piper
and-and-and AIDS
and HIV was that.
[Tom Byron]
That was the first time
that HIV had touched us.
Remember that, I mean,
that's the biggest fear
of-of the business...
was that disease,
that fucking thing.
It-it just spun people's minds,
like, what, you know,
"What the hell
is going on here?"
[Tom Byron]
We created this illusion
that we all had sex
with each other
and nobody had sex with anyone
outside the circle
and therefore we were all safe.
[Mark Kernes]
At that point, we-we didn't
know what the source
of the HIV was,
we didn't know how many people
were infected,
we didn't know how they were
being infected even.
Nobody could have seen
this happening
and not know
where it came from.
I was racking my brain
and tryin' to figure out
when and where.
[Bill Margold]
We can't seem to put our
finger on it that people
are coming down with HIV
one after another after another.
[Ron Jeremy]
We can't locate
who is giving out HIV
like a-a raffle ticket.
The very incestuous,
tightly-knit
nature of the industry posed
I think a-a different set
of challenges
for dealing
with this outbreak of HIV.
[Sharon Mitchell]
I was piecing together
a very giant puzzle.
There were a lotta common
partners.
I had to go back six months.
I had to go back to 425 people
and test them and multiply that
by six different types
of testing and efficacies.
[Michael Louis Alba]
The one person that hasn't
been tested is Mitchell's
ex-heroin shooting buddy,
Marc Wallice.
[Mark Kernes]
The one person who showed up
on all of those lists
and he was the only one, was
Marc Wallice, who at that point
had not come in for an HIV test
with PCR DNA
even though he had been
requested to do so.
[instrumental music]
[Mark Kernes]
Marc Wallice was a very
popular performer
and he performed
in a lot of X-rated movies.
[instrumental music]
He was very popular.
Marc was a mainstay
in the industry.
Marc was liked by everybody.
Who doesn't love Marc?
[instrumental music]
Certainly, in LA one
of the top performers.
[instrumental music]
[Marc Wallice]
I love bein' a porn star.
Man, it was great.
Don't think you could ever
get any better than that.
The winner is...
Misty Rain and Marc Wallice.
[Michael Louis Alba]
A lotta the women
that worked in LFP
that maybe weren't even
associated
with the adult end
of the stuff we did
loved Marc Wallice.
There would always be this
timid knock at my door,
"You wouldn't happen
to have any movies
with Marc Wallice in 'em,
would ya?"
[instrumental music]
He was with me for so long,
he was almost
like an adopted son.
He was one of those
old school guys
that had been around forever...
I really, really liked
Marc Wallice.
He was one of my favorite guys.
You know, girls loved him.
He had a little banana boat
shaped penis,
which was so easy to work with.
Good-lookin', and girls I knew,
they always spoke highly
of him as well.
[Bill Margold]
Marc Wallice seemed to be
the most carefree,
irresponsible,
out for the pure joy of it
and I think
the most vulnerable.
He was sort of a rattling cage.
I remember that when Viper
worked with him
she said that he had a strange
death wish about him.
Well, there is a arrest warrant
for you in Shelby County.
[Tom Byron]
I met Marc Wallice...
Can't we work something out?
Probably a few months
after we got into the business.
No, ma'am, afraid we can't.
The law is the law.
Are you tryin' to bribe
a peace officer?
[Tom Byron]
We were kinda like the hot
young kids on the block.
We had an apartment
right off Sepulveda.
He's definitely my best friend.
100 percent.
[instrumental music]
I get into business
as a serious life choice.
We're ever in your debt.
I don't know if he meant to
find himself in this business.
I think it was an opportunity
for him that he took.
He wasn't like me. He didn't,
he didn't seek it out.
I didn't mean any harm.
It was there, so he found it
and I don't think he had
a high opinion of himself
for making that choice.
I think he wanted to be...
I'm not sure what he wanted
to be, to tell you the truth.
[instrumental music]
There were rumors goin' around
that it, that it might be him.
And I was, like, "Uh, nah, it's
fuckin', you know, Marc."
[Ron Jeremy]
Tom Byron and Marc
lived together, and Tom,
and this is very poignant,
I think,
Tom had warned one of the girls
not to work
with his roommate, Marc.
The only thing I knew about Marc
is that he would disappear
for days at a time
and come back.
Sketchy that I knew
that he-he liked
to go off and binge drugs.
He loved to smoke cocaine.
Loved it.
[instrumental music]
In April of 1998, my sources got
coming to me and saying
"Hey, it's Marc Wallice,
he's the one behind it.
Now, there are girls
who won't work with him."
"He's dangerous and he needs
to be stopped."
I posted that on my website,
April 23rd, 1998,
and everybody went crazy.
[phone beeping]
Marc Wallice called me
said, "You did me wrong
and this is not true."
But it wasn't incandescent rage
that I was dealing with.
It wasn't what you would expect
from an innocent man
who'd been totally wronged.
It was way too reasonable.
He hadn't been tested,
he hadn't been tested.
It got to a point where
everybody in the world
had been tested that was
involved in all those lists
and still Wallice
hadn't been tested.
[Luke Ford]
Marc Wallice did not want
to come in for a PCR DNA test.
He did not, he was avoiding it.
So, Sharon Mitchell let
Marc slide on getting tested
for a long time.
[instrumental music]
He told me that he had a...
He had a test from his doctor
and I took that at face value.
She told me that she had asked
him several times to come in
uh, but they were friends
and, you know, he assured her
that he had been tested
and he was not HIV positive
and for a while she accepted it.
I love Marc and it's no secret
that we had been lovers
but it doesn't mean I'd let him
get off the hook.
Would you relax?
This chick sniffs clues
and then weeds them out
like a bug.
As the weeks dragged on,
she started to worry, I think,
and she became more insistent
that he come in for testing
with PCR DNA.
[instrumental music]
[Marc Wallice]
I was bein' asked to come in
and take a test,
and I was busy.
I was doin' this. I was
doin' my show. I was editing.
I just couldn't make it down.
I said, "Okay, I'll get there,
I'll get there," and he called
me couple days later.
"I'll get there." I just didn't
think it was important.
I didn't think it mattered
because I knew
I wasn't positive.
Is this some kind of a joke?
I didn't even give it
a second thought.
If the industry says "Herschel,
you need to come in
and take a test today."
I say "For what?"
They say, "Because of this."
And I say, "Okay. I'll be in."
"I can't come in today,
I'll be in tomorrow."
You-you don't fuck around
with that.
Goddammit!
Fuck, she's gonna get me.
Goddammit. What the fuck!
[woman]
She doesn't even know
who you are.
[Sharon Mitchell]
I'm into this
testing protocol
for eight or nine weeks
and I'm down flipping
the last few people
that haven't been tested.
And...this is it.
You know, I knew it.
It has to be, like, who,
you know, like, why don't...
Why doesn't he come and show us
that it's not him?
If that's, if that's what it is,
it'll take
simply take a blood draw
for him to show us
that it is not him.
And he couldn't be bothered
to do it.
I was kinda buried in editing.
[Marc Wallice]
It was maybe two weeks,
maybe two weeks and I just
kept putting it off.
And it's not really
worth my time.
[Tricia Devereaux]
Maybe he really
was just that much
of a fucking piece of shit
and selfish asshole.
To hear that you had worked
with five girls that all came up
HIV positive
and you were the only person
who had worked with all five
of those girls is,
maybe he's just stupid.
It wasn't at the top of my...
It wasn't a priority.
It didn't seem necessary
and it didn't sound urgent
from them. "Oh, Marc!"
They just said "Marc, you need
to come down."
"We need to get another test."
I just thought
it was another test.
[Sharon Mitchell]
It was clear that Marc was
avoiding it every which way
and I'm calling him
as my friend
and he's giving me
the jive talk, it's bullshit.
And I know something's wrong.
Something was clear,
you know, clearly wrong.
[Luke Ford]
He would dissemble,
he would lie.
He would push it off.
He-he found it insulting.
He was at that point editing
a series that he was doing
that he was doing
for Elegant Angel
and claimed that he was not
performing and that he hadn't
had on-camera sex for a while.
So, he didn't have to present
any test that he claimed
that he hadn't even worked
with these women...
Just anything to deflect it
from him.
Um, I don't have an answer
as to why Marc would refuse
to get a test.
He knew something was up
obviously.
He knows I've got him
by the balls.
[Marc Wallice]
So then after the weekend,
Patrick Collins called me
and said, "Marc, Sharon has
called you three times
to come down to AIM
to take a test."
And he tells me,
"You have to do that
or the cops are gonna come
to your house."
I go, "What are you
talkin' about?"
He says,
"Just go take the test."
-This is the police.
-Alright, alright.
Get your fuckin' hands up.
You with the bad haircut,
up against the wall.
I'm not workin' today.
I'll go down today.
Be there in ten minutes.
[engine starts]
Uh, you know, I'm not proud
of what I had to do
but, I had to...
I had to go to Patrick Collins
who he was working
for as a director
and tell him what was going on
and what I suspected.
And I had Patrick hold out
$10,000 and say he was going
to meet him in a van
and I put him in the van
and I basically fucking
kidnapped Marc to draw his blood
because he was that reluctant.
I know that's not ethical.
I'm telling you
that's what I fucking had to do.
It was the only way
I was gonna get proof.
Um, I'm not really proud of that
and I really haven't
talked about that,
but...I had at this point,
like, 425 people at, at risk.
And I already had four girls,
you know, grow in numbers
every week, I'm finding...
[sighing]
What the fuck would you do?
You know...
Uh...he was not happy
that night.
But it came back
that he was positive.
He was clearly
patient zero in this.
[instrumental music]
[Marc Wallice]
Fuckin' Sharon.
She didn't do that.
That never happened.
Kidnapped? Thrown in a van?
Brought to AIM?
Fuckin' Sharon Mitchell.
Wow. Wow.
It took really the insistence
of Patrick Collins
to get him to come in
for testing,
uh, and, you know, at that point
they found his infection.
And since he was really
the only thing in common
with all of the women who had
turned out to be positive,
it's accepted fact
in the industry at this point
that Marc Wallice was what
they call "Patient Zero."
The person who had it first.
[telephone ringing]
[Marc Wallice]
I got a call from Jim.
I go, "Hey, Jim, what's up?"
And he said, "You're positive."
And I don't remember anything
because I don't remember
anything
at that moment.
[Tom Byron]
I fuckin' remember the day
it happened,
he just kept sayin'
"It's all over, man.
It's all over, man."
"It's all over."
And then he, uh,
he went on another drug binge.
I-I-I was so incredibly
distraught during that period.
You have no idea.
I still...
To this day, I still...
[sobbing]
[instrumental music]
[man]
Not unlike certain other
culturally marginalized guilt,
the porn industry is occluded
and insular in a way
that makes it seem
like high school.
There are cliques,
anti-cliques, alliances,
betrayals, conflagratory
rumors, legendary enmities
and public bloodlettings.
You're either in or you're not.
So, Sharon Mitchell announced
at an industry meeting
that Marc Wallice
was patient zero
and that he was HIV positive.
This was a difficult time and
I had to reveal what happened.
[Marc Wallice]
Sharon announced
to all these people
that I'm HIV positive.
It was like public knowledge
that I was HIV positive.
I had to do what I had to do
and, and I know Marc's
a big enough man
to understand that.
[Marc Wallice]
Sharon Mitchell exposed
my medical records
without my permission.
Sharon Mitchell...
Sharon Mitchell broke the law
and she'll be prosecuted
for that.
That was an evil thing to do.
I hung him by the balls.
My job was to get him in there
to get that fuckin' blood...
To tell the industry
what was goin' on.
Marc Wallice was fucked
[Luke Ford]
once Sharon Mitchell said
"We think he's patient zero."
From then on he was,
he was fucked.
I mean, you need
to have an unbelievable
public relations team to try to
turn around that narrative.
I've got four
and five chicks crying
because they were unaware
that they were at risk.
And that's just as
fuckin' ugly, isn't it?
I get so nervous, you know.
I'm so scared--
[Sharon Mitchell]
I had to tell these women,
"I'm sorry...you got HIV."
I'm sorry.
Are you, like, a real doctor?
[woman]
Don't be so scared,
it's alright.
Um, you know what?
-Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
-Fuck you...
[Mark Kernes]
After it was discovered,
he was HIV positive
and it seemed pretty likely
that he was patient zero,
he became incredibly defensive.
I don't exactly know why.
I walk out the door
and I realize
"Shit! Everybody knows
I'm HIV positive,"
when that's supposed to be
a private diagnosis.
I don't know what you're sayin'.
So I can't answer you back.
You know what?
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
At one point he claimed
that he probably got it
from Tricia Devereaux,
the first person
who showed up HIV positive,
but that I think was ruled out
by tracing the genealogy.
He said "I think, maybe,
you know, maybe the girls
gave it to me."
I haven't done nothin'.
It's part of what made
the industry hate him.
[Jim South]
All of a sudden,
people didn't like Marc.
This rumor was going around.
That rumor was goin' around.
And he sort of disappeared
for quite a while.
He became vilified
and-and he, he withdrew.
He, he hid for a while.
I just didn't know what to do.
What else...
what would you do?
-Amaze.
-Amazing.
What would you do if you were
famous or popular?
Just wanna thank everybody
involved in the movie
and of course, Ms. Serena.
Then you're in the limelight and
everybody knows who you are
and everybody
loved your work...
Yes, I would
especially like
to thank my buddy, Marc.
And all of a sudden
this guy infected...
all these girls.
Holy shit!
It was a dream.
[Tom Byron]
All these questions started
coming out and it was just,
it was fucked up, man.
And the thing that made me have
to cut off contact with him
was his tests.
In 1998, there was a male actor
who was HIV positive
who was going to county health
clinics and forging his tests.
I discovered that this man
gave six women HIV.
People were still tryin' to
figure out what was going on.
And one of the reporters
from AVN was very diligent
about saying
this doesn't make sense.
When Marc Wallice was discovered
to be HIV positive
with PCR DNA, he showed
Sharon Mitchell
and other people
in the industry
a copy of an ELISA test
that he had.
He had this test
from, uh, early March
that said he was HIV negative.
"Look, here's,
here's my HIV test.
I'm not positive.
I'm not infected."
So, is Marc, like, modifying
his test results?
[Mark Kernes]
His test looked okay,
but it was from
a testing organization
that virtually no one else
in the industry used.
And when myself and my then
editor, Mark Logan,
went over to, uh,
that testing facility
and spoke with the doctor,
we got a look
at the original test.
It said, he was a woman.
It said he was
a 49-year-old female.
And on the test
that Wallice showed us,
it said he was a male.
So that test had been altered.
He was faking his tests.
[instrumental music]
It was like a fuckin'
nuclear blast.
[instrumental music]
It was a complete fuckin',
like... What?
Is Marc a monster?
I was chilling.
I almost shit my pants.
They look at his tests
and it says
he's a 49-year-old female.
And the address for the testing
center i-is wrong.
[Mark Kernes]
Wallice's test had the clinic's
old address rather than
its current address.
The clinic had moved from there
a year before Wallice's test.
So the test that Wallice had
been presenting was different
from the one that the clinic had
in its files.
That, of course, raised even
greater suspicions
and we got the test directly
from the doctor
who was running that clinic.
So there's no question
that the test
that we saw was
the legitimate one
and apparently it had been
altered by Wallice.
[instrumental music]
[Tom Byron]
I knew the guy
better than anybody
and I'm going...
I-I didn't believe it.
I never changed the results
of any tests.
It was clearly forged.
[man]
Do you remember
what part was forged?
Yeah, uh,
where it says negative.
I changed the female to male
because I didn't want
to show up with a test
that said female on me
and I didn't even think that
"Oh, wait, it's got
my name on it."
That's just a typo.
I researched it.
I called the doctor.
I did background work
It was a forged test.
I'm telling you,
they were forged results.
I'm absolutely positive.
I never changed the results
from positive to negative
which is what people say I did.
Hindsight is
a motherfucker, man.
Because probably a year earlier
he got busted.
He had changed the date
on a test
and somehow he got
called on it.
[Luke Ford]
In 1996,
he was written up in AVN
for changing dates
on his HIV test
for VCA and De Renzy
productions.
He could have been doing this
for two years prior.
It's unbelievable, man.
Geez.
[Marc Wallice]
Every 30 days,
you need a new test
and I had to work tomorrow.
Grab my test, grab my wallet,
and today...
Oh, shit. It's a day late.
And I remember
somebody gettin' turned away
from a job because their test
was two days old over date.
So I just changed
the-the one to an 11,
just added a number to it.
So I was able to
work on that day.
And then got a new test
the next day.
He was not fictitiating
his results,
he was fictitiating the date
the test was taken.
It's bad, if he's saying
he was altering his tests,
because it's just bullshit.
You know what you have to do.
You oughta know
what you have to do.
You have to make sure
you're current.
I said, "Dude, that's not good.
You know, why'd you
do that, you know?"
And he said "I didn't
have money for the test."
which kind of was weird.
I was kinda like, "Whoa, dude
the fuckin' test, what's it's
$35. I mean, what the fuck?"
I couldn't even think of
changing the...
You know, I mean,
it was I'd miss the job.
This was unheard of,
this was not something
that I know anyone else doing.
I couldn't give you an example
of anyone else
to change the dates on their
test, I'm sure it happened.
I mean, I-I-I hadn't heard
of it. I'd never done it.
Did that mean he was
doin' it all along?
-I don't know.
-Actually, proactively...
-That's weird.
-Go in and change a test.
To even take that hack...
Man, it's bad.
[Tom Byron]
If I didn't have the money
to go get a test, I'd go
to my agent and say,
"Jim, front me $35
so I can go get a test,
so I go get a test."
You know what I mean?
So, altering, I...
No, I don't think anyone
ever did.
Forging test is fucked.
Shouldn't be ever
forging tests, period.
To even go there,
you're way off the line, man.
You're way off the line.
I didn't give it
a second thought.
I didn't think I was doin'
anything wrong.
I just changed the date
on a negative test.
However long
he was forging his tests
and apparently HIV positive,
he knew he had somethin'.
No one forges their tests.
No one would even want
to be questioned.
They...
You're-you're thinking,
I hope they don't see it.
I hope they don't see it.
I hope they don't see it.
You better have something
to say for yourself,
you fuckin' scumbag.
No one else was forging tests.
I never forged a fucking test.
I was, like, working as much as
anybody back then.
I'm not defending Marc,
but God bless him
he stayed so screwed up
on drugs.
I'm not excusing if he did
what they say that he did
but anything is possible
with him
as screwed up as he
used to be.
[instrumental music]
[Mark Kernes]
It came out that
he was a gay escort
and essentially
prostituted himself.
He had done gay porn.
I knew he liked to walk
on that wild side.
[Marc Wallice]
No, no fuckin' way.
A gay out call? No, no.
What for? What for?
[Jim South]
With the amount of money
Marc made,
I mean, I kept this guy busy.
That's why
it doesn't make sense
about the out call stuff.
[Tom Byron]
He disappeared
for days at a time
and would come back
where I knew
he had been gettin' high.
And when you do cocaine
and you do crystal meth,
you do things that
you would not normally do.
And I also knew that he was
fond of shooting cocaine.
[instrumental music]
[Marc Wallice]
I did dabble with needles
maybe three times
and that was with coke,
not heroin
and that was on my own.
Never with anybody.
[Herschel Savage]
What's the difference how
he contracted it?
Either way, he was not
living a smart life,
just leaving yourself open to
that kinda debauchery and shit.
I mean, your body's truly your
temple if you're a porn star.
You gotta be clean, man.
[Mark Cromer]
He never seemed to suggest
directly where he thought
he got it,
which I thought
was interesting.
He never said, "You know,
I think I got it from X."
He never did.
[instrumental music]
[man]
How do you think you
contracted HIV?
I don't know.
[man]
You must've been curious.
I didn't think about it. I
didn't want to think about it.
How he got it? I don't know.
But he certainly
did have enough behaviors
that he could very easily
have contracted it.
So, on the one hand, uh,
you know,
I'm as compassionate as anybody
else for somebody who has HIV,
but on the other hand, I'm aware
that he faked a test,
that he, you know, tried
to deflect the possibility that
he was patient zero, he tried
to deflect that completely,
he blamed other
people for this,
when I think he knew
that he was HIV positive
or at least suspected it, and
that's why he faked his tests.
Marc said that he never knew
that he had HIV,
that everything on the test,
of, it's saying that
he was a 44-year-old woman,
the fact that
he went to a clinic
that didn't even exist anymore,
that all of those things
are a complete coincidence.
That, him not going
to get a DNA test
was simply because
he couldn't be bothered to.
Well, that shows how much
he cared about our family.
[instrumental music]
He betrayed the rest of us.
He was blowin'
people's lives away, man,
left and right.
That's so fucked up.
The narrative was...
he was a monster.
There's nothin' like
the presence of evil
to shake a few bricks loose
from a solid foundation.
He knew that
he was positive and...
he fuckin' worked anyway.
And he fuckin' infected
all these girls.
People were after him and Marc
was absolutely
fuckin' terrified.
It was like "Frankenstein."
With a fuckin' torch and there
chasing the poor fucker up
that castle, you know?
There he is!
[Sharon Mitchell]
I just felt like that was Marc
running up that tower,
being scared of the fire
and Marc just thinking...
"Fuck, it's just me. Marc."
[upbeat music]
[gunshots]
Can we point now
at Marc and say
"This is a man of such
unfathomable evil?"
And that's what
the industry did.
They went from
Marc is our friend
to he is not one of us,
and he is the one responsible
for wreaking havoc
on our beautiful industry.
The film generated a lotta
money for a lotta people.
[Luke Ford]
If it wasn't for Marc,
everything would be
blowjobs and lollipops.
[gunshots]
[instrumental music]
You have to realize
this man was absolutely
fuckin' terrified.
[Luke Ford]
The dominant view
was that he was a sociopath,
that he knew he was
HIV positive
and that he was passing it
along to girls in the industry.
[Herschel Savage]
How the fuck do you
do that, man?
What are you sayin',
maybe she won't get it?
What the fuck is
wrong with you, man?
[upbeat music]
You have to fuckin'
have a line!
Or, like,
I'm fucking her life up.
And if you don't have a line,
you have to, like,
displace your personality
and just
become a zombie,
emotionally and say
I gotta cover myself,
I gotta cover myself!
[Bill Margold]
He was being bandied about
as a criminal, as a murderer,
as an assassin.
-Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!
-Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
He was just infecting
girl after girl.
He's a serial killer just
trying to get away with it
for as long as he could.
[Bill Margold]
If he had been all
of those things,
and one of the girls
had found out
that he absolutely knew,
one of those girls could've
easily made a phone call
to some boyfriend who woulda
blown Marc's brains out.
[Ron Jeremy]
If any of the girls were Italian
you would not be talking to Marc
on this documentary.
I made my bones
while you were sniffin' out
your first piece of pussy.
[Sharon Mitchell]
I know people wanted
to hang the guy.
It was ugly.
[gun firing]
[upbeat music]
[gun cocking]
[gunshots]
[audience cheering]
I watched an entire industry
turn their back
on someone who was a huge,
huge, huge influence
in the adult industry.
To this day, his name is not
spoken in this fuckin' business.
I can't take this anymore.
[Mark Cromer]
He seemed so stunned
that the industry
could turn on him.
He'd just been cast out from...
a group of outcasts.
What'd you guys
just win for here?
-Couple sex scene.
-It was real.
It's a hard pill to swallow
when you've made as much money
for so many people
as Marc did...
Alex Jordan, "Body And Soul."
[Sharon Mitchell]
To be ridiculed
and humiliated.
I haven't been close to anybody
like this in so long.
I cut off communication
with him, 'cause I, I...
It was hard to deal
with the fact that your...
Your friend had
a potentially fatal disease,
and because I was so closely
associated with him,
I was sort of being
dragged into
what he was going through.
The sense of betrayal
was very clear.
I just cut off contact.
He-he called my
answering machine.
He said "I just want to
hear it from you."
I didn't call him back.
I didn't have the balls.
They haven't... I haven't
talked to him since.
[Ginger Lynn]
I don't know if you've ever
been in a position
where you're so down,
you're so depressed,
you're so lost,
you have no money, you have no
food, you have nowhere to live,
everyone's turned
their back on you.
What do you do?
Marc Wallice disappeared.
He went into
a-a downward spiral.
[Marc Wallice]
After I found out I was
HIV positive,
I packed a bag, called a cab,
checked in a hotel.
[instrumental music]
Yeah, it was rough.
He was a man on the edge
and he understandably
had a suicidal impulse,
you know.
"Let me just end my life."
[Marc Wallice]
I spent the next
month and a half doing
as much coke as I could,
just never running out.
Scoring every couple days,
havin' it delivered,
and just hoping I wouldn't
wake up the next day.
But, uh...
that didn't work.
[man]
Do you feel that you
betrayed him?
How can I not?
You know...
Uh... I... Of course I should've
been there for him.
He was my friend.
[woman on TV]
Choose adult entertainment
24 hours a day.
Adult entertainment
24 hours a day.
Adult entertainment
24 hours a day...
Adult entertainment...
Adult entertainment...
-You look fabulous.
-Adult entertainment...
Adult entertainment...
Adult entertainment
24 hours a day.
Adult entertainment
24 hours a day.
-Money.
-Money.
Shut...
[Tim Tritch]
Marc Wallice may indeed be
patient zero for all these
people getting infected.
But, and this is a big but...
I know for a fact
that neither of those tests
are forgeries.
I came in with AIM around 2001.
And-and it was through AIM, and
talking with Sharon Mitchell
that I'd learned
about all of this.
One day, she told me,
you know, the whole story
of what prompted
the whole beginning of AIM.
And she told me
about this guy forging tests
and I kinda realized,
"Hey, this is that thing
that happened
when I was working at TCL
and MSI and Bio Cipher."
And I began to look into it
myself from then.
And I went, "Hey, these were,
tests weren't forgeries."
The 49-year-old female day
was just
part of that thing
that happened one day
when I had to put
that whole crew together
to fix all these reports.
And then,
I looked at the other report
that said the location
was different.
And I said, "Yeah, that's when
they closed their location."
And we took all the stuff
over to the other location.
These are not forgeries.
On the Lord above,
I'm tellin' you the truth.
I did not want to get bad news
about Marc 'cause I liked Marc.
But the doctor himself's
a forgery.
There's a couple things
that don't fit.
Perhaps now that I look at it.
But I saw that this was done,
so I thought, "Oh, wow."
[Tim Tritch]
One of those tests had
information on it that said
he was a 49-year-old female.
There was a mix up of papers
in our laboratory that night.
The person inputting
information made a mistake
and they'd flipped over two
pieces of paper at one time,
and without matching up
the numbers,
simply put in
another patient's information.
And as a result,
34 patients that night
got the wrong
patient information
put into the computer system.
One of those patients
was Marc Wallice.
[instrumental music]
I did personally see
Marc Wallice's original test
which we obtained at the clinic.
I asked the doctor.
I said to the doctor, "Can there
be any other mistake?"
And he goes, "No, no.
That had...
This test is the problem."
[Mark Kernes]
Again on the original test,
it said he was
a 49-year-old female.
Actually, I know the name
of the 49-year-old female.
I-I know her name because I was
the person who was in charge
of fixing that whole mess.
[Bill Margold]
I can't tell you how many
females came back as males,
and males came back as females.
-But it was common.
-It-it wasn't uncommon.
Let's put it that way,
there were mistakes.
[man]
Can you explain why Marc's
test would have had the address
for a clinic
that had closed
a year earlier?
Uh, North-East Valley Clinic
had three clinics at one time.
Each clinic had
a separate account number,
so that all of the results would
go back to the proper clinics.
When one clinic closed,
they took all of the laboratory
supplies that were in there
to one of the other clinics.
They also took
the requisition slips,
and eventually,
someone used those slips
with that address on it.
When that location closed,
the laboratory updated
their computer system
so that any outstanding result
from that account number
and from that location
would go to one
of the other locations.
So it was actually
just a simple thing of
the requisition slip for the
laboratory from that location
being brought over to one of
the other locations.
How did they fuck up
this one guy?
How does that fuckin' happen?
What...
I mean, talk about a...
That's a weird thing to happen,
don't you think?
You know, because of who he is.
[Tim Tritch]
He fit in the genealogies,
he had a past history
of altering that test.
I think that was a real big
factor in it,
and so they thought
this is a smoking gun,
he used an old test or something
and forged
the dates on that again.
And I believe
that past bad act
had a lot to do with people
assuming that
he had done it again.
I don't understand
how he would've gotten away
with his tests for two years.
[Tim Tritch]
He had to be showing tests
to work in all
of these previous shoots.
And I assume they were all
showing he was negative.
-You've been working a lot or...
-Yeah.
These were ELISA tests
at the time.
The initial ELISA
can have a false negative.
[Tim Tritch]
It's rare, but Marc Wallice
might've just been
one of those people
who may have indeed
been HIV positive,
but his body just did not
develop the antigen
that would make an ELISA test
show positive.
[man]
This is called
a False Negative test result.
[instrumental music]
[Luke Ford]
It is entirely possible that
Marc Wallice might've
had some ELISA tests for HIV
where it showed up negative
when he was in fact positive.
It's very, very rare
that a person
who has HIV would not
have sero-converted yet.
Um, so they would not
be coming positive
on the ELISA tests
that they were doing.
Oh, yeah, he could've gone
six months
with negative tests
without knowing.
[instrumental music]
[Tim Tritch]
A routine window
for this ELISA test
they say can be
up to six months.
And if they say it's
up to six months, well...
it can be possibly,
in some people,
be even longer than that.
I think it's still
really unclear
when Marc Wallice
was actually infected.
Marc Wallice was a very active
performer in 1997 and before.
So what about all the other
women who worked with Marc?
[Ron Jeremy]
Barbara Doll claims that
she got HIV, uh, from Marc.
Hi, there. I'm Marc Wallice.
Hi. I'm Barbara Doll.
It appeared to me that
he was the most likely source
for Barbara Doll's infection.
-She requested us.
-Yeah. Specifically.
[Luke Ford]
She was infected in 1995.
But HIV is very difficult
to transmit.
-She likes us.
-And...
[Luke Ford]
So it doesn't surprise me
that Marc could work with women
and they not get HIV.
[man]
Having a low viral load
decreases the risk
that you will pass HIV
through sexual contact.
[Tom Horowitz]
Is it possible
for one encounter
to cause an infection? Yes.
Is it possible for there to be
hundreds of contacts
and no infection? Yes.
The person who has
a non-detectable viral load
is much less likely
to transmit the virus.
It's possible that
he had a viral surge
and then being a healthy man
could have went down
to a normal level for a while
and not infected anyone
and resurge.
So it is possible.
Is it possible? Yes.
Add in the whole wrong age,
wrong clinic
all the waffling and change
the stories about what happened
and it definitely brings up
a lot of red flags in my mind
about had he seen a test
that said something different.
[Tim Tritch]
According to Marc Wallice,
he never started HIV treatment
until after that PCR test
with Sharon Mitchell.
Boy, you'd think someone would
have started treatment for it.
He was an adult, if he had HIV,
he was gonna get treated.
Unfortunately, nothing works.
You wouldn't have a miracle drug
on you by chance, would you?
[mumbles]
I don't think that
the possible explanations
explain his behavior.
If he had gotten his HIV test
when everybody else did,
Brooke wouldn't have HIV,
Caroline wouldn't have HIV,
Kimberly wouldn't
have HIV from him.
So he was still negligent,
and his behavior is not excused.
I can tell you, I can tell you
from the bottom of my heart,
I did not infect these women...
knowingly with HIV.
Whether or not
what he says is true,
the amount of selfishness
could only come from a person
who just has no humanity.
And I'd never had a word
said to me from him,
certainly not
"I'm sorry this happened."
Um...nothing. Not a single word.
That-that--that's an indication
of guilt to me
in not taking responsibility
for something because
to not have that
sense of remorse
except to feel "Woe is me,"
um... "Poor me.
Fuck...my fucking life,
you know?
Fuck these..."
It's just, it just shows a...
a lack of humanity and...
Just think about being a victim
and never being apologized to.
Just to live with the fact
that this guy
fuckin' infected them with HIV
and he never fuckin'
said I'm sorry.
Look at the fuckin'
health issues I got now,
look at the meds I have to take.
You don't think these people
are thinkin' about that?
Believe me, every fuckin' day
of their lives.
I honestly believe Marc
never conscientiously worked
knowing that
he was HIV positive.
[man]
And that's just a gut feeling?
It's a gut feeling
that if Marc had realized
he was HIV positive,
realized that his life was over,
he would've ended his life.
I think Marc
woulda killed himself.
I can't deal with this anymore.
I need to get out,
and I have something.
I absolutely believe that
Marc Wallice is responsible
for my HIV infection.
[instrumental music]
[woman]
When you came in, was there
something unexpected that,
like, surprised you?
Um, I was real surprised
at how much I liked everybody.
I mean, I wanted
to sorta hang back
and just treat this
as a business and that's it.
But I liked everybody,
so I moved out here,
and I never wanted
to do that, but I did.
He absolutely deserves
every bit of karma
that will come to him someday.
[instrumental music]
[man]
Do you think that he knew
he was HIV positive?
[Tricia]
I do think that, most likely,
he knew.
[man]
So you think that he was
intentionally infecting women?
I don't know. I don't know.
I know that he was
in denial for sure.
In one way or another,
in denial
that he wouldn't get caught,
or in denial
that I can't possibly
be the person.
But like I've said a few times,
I know that
there are at least three girls
that would not have HIV today
if he had not been
in denial about something.
[instrumental music]
I-if it's true that he really
didn't know and this happened,
he would be devastated,
and not for his own
personal misfortune,
but for theirs. And to me
that's the greatest
indication of guilt,
because it's your behavior
post blow up
that shows who you are
and, and what you did.
[Mark Kernes]
Is there definitive proof that
Marc Wallice was HIV positive
and faked his test
in order to conceal that?
I don't know for sure,
but it certainly seems likely
considering, you know,
the entire concatenation
of events
that took place
around that time.
You gotta understand there's a,
there's a tremendous
emotional quotient here.
A tremendous
emotional quotient.
And it has to do with shame,
and shame is something
that's a reality
within all of us to a degree
in the adult
entertainment industry.
Could I have done better?
Could I have been a real actor?
Could I have been different?
Shit, I did a few gay movies
to pay the rent?
Do I have to hide anything?
Oh, my God. Fuck.
I've got HIV.
I can't, I can't let this out.
I can't.
They'll blame me,
they'll hoist me on a petard.
I'm going to be
the "Frankenstein" monster.
We have to remember
where my friend Marc was at.
He was at a fuckin' dark,
scary place.
And he knew it.
Um...
Ah, once you're called
patient zero in HIV
outbreak in the heterosexual
porn industry,
I mean, sure, you can fight it,
but, I mean, you know,
you're fucked.
[scoffs]
You're fucked.
[man]
Where would you be today
if you had never contracted
the HIV virus?
I would've been...
[scoffs]
I'd have been doin' really well.
I would probably have
if not a million,
a couple million in the bank.
I'd be running
my own company,
like a lot of my peers
are right now.
And instead, I'm living
in a trailer park,
on disability and...
by the 25th of the month,
I don't have a penny left.
[Herschel Savage]
You know, in reality,
if somebody does something
so fucked up to other people,
and they have to live out
their whole life,
maybe a worse sentence
than death.
But did Marc know he was sick?
That's the question.
[instrumental music]
[Bill Margold]
People who get sick, get sick,
and there's a defense
for all of that.
And if you get sick,
and you're not even knowing
what's going on,
how can you be blamed?
And I think that the
adult entertainment industry
was running out of people
to blame
for all the problems
we were having.
We didn't know how exactly
to cope with it
and Marc was easily
a scapegoat for it
because Marc was fragile
and Marc couldn't fight back.
The industry had every incentive
to say
there was one rogue performer
and one bad guy
and he was responsible
for what happened here
because they knew that
this was the type of thing
that could blow up
and shut down their honeypot.
[man]
Regulation may be needed
in the industry to make sure
that people are safe.
We've got this thing
under control,
we don't need more
government intervention,
we don't need
more government regulation,
we don't need more scrutiny
from the mainstream media,
we don't need any bad news.
This is just one rotten apple.
It was such
an un-unforgettable year,
both tragic and exhilarating.
E-everybody was looking
for a source to blame,
so we could
close the book on it.
[Jim South]
Do I feel that the industry
threw him under the bus?
Absolutely, and stepped
on the, the accelerator.
They hung this dude
out to dry, man.
[man]
Today's adult industry
is still hypersensitive
about what it perceives
as fascist attacks
on its first amendment
freedoms.
[instrumental music]
Our nation is in
desperate need for healing
and repentance from sexual sin.
Animals have more protection
in the making of films
than porn performers.
[man]
Porn is now a hard-lobbying
political force
no less than GM or RJR Nabisco.
[indistinct shouting]
The industry was coming
under a lot of scrutiny
for this going on and they
needed to get it over with.
And if they could say, "Hey,
we found the guy who did it,
he's no longer performing,
we're all good to go now,
everything is safe again."
That's what the industry
needed to do and...
without really looking into,
without really asking
the right questions,
they weren't able
to clear Marc Wallice,
therefore they found him guilty.
He could be completely innocent,
or he could not be.
Nobody knows but him. I...
That's the bottom-line.
[Mark Cromer]
Whether or not Marc Wallice
intentionally thought
he was exposing
any of the girls
that he's accused of,
I, I'm not convinced of that.
I think the truth
is somewhere in the middle,
I think the truth
is a lot closer to
he had his own sets of worries,
his concerns
and my sense of it is,
he probably didn't know
that he was infected with HIV,
but he kinda didn't
want to know for sure
until he could no longer get out
of taking additional tests,
and, and then it-it hit him
like a-a ton of bricks.
[instrumental music]
There you are. I found ya.
I'm not saying
his actions weren't reckless.
We'll, we'll never know.
No one can tell you
except Marc Wallice,
what he knew,
and when he knew it,
and he has to live with that,
and, um, hopefully he can.
[instrumental music]
Well she's on
the dance floor
At your local juke
Tryin' to sweat
a bunch of fools
She done already took
But when that gal gets down
You can't help but stare
'Cause that frame's lit
smokin'
Like a signal flare
She's on fire
Ooh she's on fire
Lord that girl is smokin'
On fire
Light 'em on up
she's on fire
We tried to look away
we all tried to be cool
But she had an ass
As thick as an army mule's
She asked out for a drink
just a battin' those eyes
We all was reaching
for our wallets
Man she's a light
she's on fire
Ooh she's on fire
Oh that girl is smokin'
on fire
Light 'em on up
she's on fire
That girl is on fire
[instrumental music]
With a smooth proposition
She's got you in hand
I hear you say
you don't care boy
Are you a man
she's on fire
Ooh she's on fire
Ooh she's on fire
Ooh she's on fire
Ooh help me
she's on fire
She's on fire
Ooh she's on
Fire
She's on fire
That little hussy's on fire
She's on fire
She's on fire
She's on fire
[indistinct chatter]
[instrumental music]
[laughing]
[laughing continues]
[indistinct chatter]
[laughing continues]
[woman]
Did I mention we don't take up
much space on the road?
[laughing continues]
[woman]
Yeah, did you mention that?
[instrumental music]