IR: As I watched the documentary "Inside Deep Throat" I saw it partly as a history of the time, but I also saw it as partly as your personal history. Could you talk a little bit about how your life has changed in the three decades since "Deep Throat" was released?
HR: Well, it's really the only story I wanted to tell. The only thing I could contribute to the [documentary] was certainly some memories about the production of ["Deep Throat"] and who the actors were and where the locations were at, but that's not why I did the [documentary]. I did it because the directors were willing to let me tell my story in hopes that it might help some others. And my story starts off as an Off Broadway--an Off Off Broadway--actor who needed to supplement his income. And a fellow actor told me, “I know where you can make a hundred dollars in an hours' work." And this was an era in time when there were no feature-length pornographic films. They were all the black-and-white ten-millimeter stag films. So it was a very anonymous experience.
You know, I both had sex and I got paid for it, but nobody knew I was doing it until "I Am Curious (Yellow)" [a politically oriented Swedish-language film that was shown fairly widely in the United States beginning in 1969] challenged the existing obscenity laws and was found not to be obscene because it had social redeeming value. So suddenly all the filmmakers that were doing the stag films were now doing feature-length films, and they always had a doctor standing there in a white coat saying, "If you're having problems with sex, here's how you do it." And that was the socially redeeming value at the time. "Deep Throat" came along, and it was the first movie, and the only movie, to really spoof what we used to call the "white coaters," the doctors standing there in white coats. It was an absolute spoof on social redeeming value. And that's how it got its notoriety.
IR: I think that's probably as good a place as any to end it. Good luck with the upcoming DVD release, and thanks a lot for your time.