Jerry Butler: Young, Wild and Wonderful – Podcast 37

2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Jerry Butler’s autobiography, ‘Raw Talent’. It was opinionated, frenetic, controversial, and entertaining. Just like Jerry Butler himself. Love it or hate it – and many loved it, and many hated it – ‘Raw Talent’ was a revelation. For the first time, a book by an insider blew the lid off the inner workings of the adult film industry and dished the dirt on its stars. It was named after Jerry’s best-known film, which told the story of a talented but struggling actor who gets sucked into making porn films, winning the fame he craved, but losing himself along the way. It was almost like porn was imitating real life. Except, here’s the irony: Jerry Butler’s real life was more extraordinary and crazy than anything he played on the big screen. So what happened to the boy from New York with the raw talent? What’s his place in the golden age of adult film? And how does he look back on that period? On this episode of The Rialto Report, April Hall speaks to three people who know the Jerry Butler story intimately:     Jerry Butler and April Hall, May 2014   As an added bonus, writer Heather Drain from Mondo Heather has written an exclusive essay about Jerry Butler’s film ‘Raw Talent’ which we are proud to present here.       Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere?: Larry Revene’s Raw Talent By Heather Drain Fate’s an interesting creature. Mythological to some, a tangible reality to others and yet, a force that is going to come into play sooner or later. A tiny stroke of fate happened to me on my 18th birthday. Old enough to vote and getting lost in my favorite used bookstore. Like a moth to the flame, I ended up in the film section and standing out in black letters on a red colored spine was Raw Talent. I was not familiar with the book’s main author and subject matter, Jerry Butler, other than maybe the old soul singer though looking at the cover, I immediately knew they were not the same guy. Closer examination revealed that this Butler was a handsome, blonde New York actor with a lot of demons who worked in the adult film industry. There was something about skimming through this man’s words that pulled at me and needless to say, I bought the book. Immediately, I delved in and discovered a revealing, come hell or high water biography that was rivaled only by Klaus Kinski’s incendiary and tortured auto-biography, All I Need is Love. (Ironically, the latter is way more pornographic than Butler’s book.) A lot of controversy resulted with Butler’s lack of a filter regarding what he said about his fellow actors and actresses, though the finest detail is often the one that is most overlooked. There is no person that Jerry Butler is more raw and brutal about than himself. But all of that is for a different article. Raw Talent the book took its title from the 1984 film directed by the great Larry Revene and written by talented screenwriter Joyce Snyder.