Porn Star John Holmes

Wonderland/Down the Rabbit Hole

THE RABBIT

Some Boogie Nights can take more of you than you can afford to give. I guess Holmes could have said like Iggy  in Cry for Love ”Sometimes my self-respect took second place”. Now let’s be clear, this is not about sex is a bad thing and going all ”judge mental” This guy was not better or worst any of us. It’s just his story and happens to have a bad ending like so many others…. I just want to tell his story because it touched me and keeps on reminding me how close we all are to falling onto our knees, no matter how good we are at something, how gifted, how special or how well off in life we may be or seem to be….  How all those little everyday choices we matters. 

     In the early days of his career, Holmes was mostly starring in loops under various names so it is rather hard to say in how many since he appeared under various names, constantly changing it until he stuck to Johnny Wadd. He was wanted and noticed not only for his ability to maintain an erection but also because of the size of his ”most precious and valuable accessory” reported to be 13 inches to it’s fullest extend althought numbers vary.

     In 1971, Holmes’ career really began to take off with a porn series built around a private investigator named Johnny Wadd, written and directed by Bob Chinn. The success of the  film Johnny Wadd created an immediate demand for more Johnny Wadd films so Chinn followed up the same year with Flesh of the Lotus. Most of the subsequent Johnny Wadd films were written and directed by Chinn but it’s the success of Deep Throat (1972), Behind the Green Door (1972) and the Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and the fact that porn became chic and that the beginning of The Golden Age of Porn, although its legality was still highly contested,  that gave him all the fame and fortune one could hope for. He was even arrested for pimping but he avoided prison time by becoming an informer for the LAPD. Using his status as an informer, it is alleged Holmes systematically had his competition in the porn industry arrested, although there is no substantiated evidence to support the claim that anyone in the adult industry was arrested as a result of Holmes’ efforts.

THE HOLE

By 1978, Holmes was reputed to be earning as much as $3,000 a day as a porn performer. Around this time (the late 1970s), his consumption of cocaine and freebasing  was becoming a serious problem. Professionally, it affected his ability to maintain an erection, as is apparent from his flaccid performance in the 1980 film Insatiable. To support himself and his drug habit, Holmes ventured into crime, selling drugs for gangs, prostituting himself to both men and women, and committing credit card fraud  and petty thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTFMYmdfgpUheft. In 1976, he met 16-year-old Dawn Schiller who became his girlfriend. After Holmes became desperate, he prostituted both her and himself, and he it was said he would often beat her in public.  Long story short, John made a ton of money. He started doing drugs. He started really screwing up and pissing people off. A lot of people didn’t want to work with him anymore. During his drug period, he hooked up with some loser dealers that lived in a house, in the Hollywood Hills. 

WONDERLAND

The Wonderland Gang was centered around the occupants of a rented townhouse at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles: Joy Audrey Gold Miller, William R. DeVerell (Miller and DeVerell were a couple), David Lind, and leader Ronald Launius. All four were involved in drug use and drug dealing.

On June 28, 1981, the group met with friends Tracy McCourt and Holmes himself. They had decided to rob the home of Eddie Nash, née Adel Gharib Nasrallah, another drug dealer and wealthy owner of several Los Angeles-area night clubs. Holmes, whom Nash had befriended, visited the house, ostensibly to buy drugs. While at Nash’s home, Holmes unlocked a back door; he then left Nash’s home and reported back to the Wonderland gang.

The next morning, June 29, DeVerell, Launius, Lind, and McCourt went to Nash’s house. While McCourt stayed with the car, a stolen Ford Granada, the other three entered through the unlocked door. Invading the home, the trio handcuffed Nash and his live-in bodyguard, Gregory Diles. During the course of the subsequent robbery, the group took money, drugs, jewelry, and threatened to kill Nash and Diles. They then went back to the Wonderland Avenue townhouse to split up the money.

Nash suspected Holmes had been involved and ordered Diles to bring Holmes to his house. Diles found Holmes on a street in Hollywood wearing one of the rings that had been stolen from Nash and brought him back to Nash. Nash directed Diles to beat Holmes until he identified the people behind the robbery; the beating was witnessed by Scott Thorson, former boyfriend of Liberace, who was making a drug buy at Nash’s home.

In the early morning of July 1, 1981, two days after the robbery, an unknown number of assailants entered the Wonderland Avenue house. DeVerell and Launius were present, along with Launius’ wife Susan and Lind’s girlfriend, Barbara Richardson. Each occupant present was bludgeoned repeatedly with what was later determined by the medical examiner and detectives to be a striated steel pipe. Susan Launius was the only one in the home who survived, albeit with serious injuries. A left palm print belonging to John Holmes found on the bed railing above the head of Ron Launius gave homicide detectives reason to believe John Holmes was present at the site of the murder. Holmes denied participation in the killings or being there when the murders happened.

According to court testimony, David Lind survived because he was not at the house at the time of the murders, having spent the night at a San Fernando Valley motel with a prostitute and consuming drugs there. Shortly after the news media reported the murders, Lind contacted the police and informed on Nash and Holmes, thus giving them a start to their investigation.

Although Holmes did not participate in the robbery, Nash apparently suspected that Holmes had a part in it. After getting Holmes to confess to his participation, and threatening his life and that of Holmes’ family, Nash exacted revenge against the Wonderland Gang. In the early hours of July 1, 1981, four of the gang’s members were found murdered in their hideout. Holmes was allegedly present during the murders, but it is unclear if he participated in the killings.

Holmes was questioned regarding the murders in July 1981, but released due to lack of evidence. Holmes refused to co-operate with the investigation. After spending nearly five months on the run with Dawn Schiller, he was arrested in Florida on December 4, 1981 by former LAPD homicide detectives Tom Lange and Frank Tomlinson and returned to Los Angeles. In March 1982, Holmes was charged with personally committing all four murders. On June 26, 1982, Holmes was acquitted of all charges except contempt of court. The Holmes Murder Trial was a landmark in American jurisprudence, as it was the first murder trial in America where videotape was introduced as evidence.

Last Days On Earth

In February 1986, six months after testing negative for the virus, Holmes was diagnosed as HIV positive. According to Laurie Holmes, he claimed that he never used hypordermic needles  and was deeply afraid of them. Both his first wife, Sharon, as well as Bill Amerson , separately confirmed later that Holmes could not have contracted HIV from intravenous drug use because he never used needles.

During the summer of 1986, Holmes was offered a substantial sum of money by Paradise Visuals (who were unaware of Holmes’ HIV-positive status) to travel to Italy where he filmed his last two porno movies. The penultimate one was, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress (originally released in Italy as Carne Bollente) for director Riccardo Schicchi . The film starred Holmes, the later Italian Parliament member  Iiona ‘Cicciolina’ Staller, Tracey Adams, Christopher Clark , and Amber Lynn. His final film was The Devil In Mr. Holmes, starring Tracey  Adams, Amber Lynn, Karin Schubert, and Marina Hedman.  These last films created a furor when it was revealed that Holmes had consciously chosen to not reveal his HIV status to his co-stars before engaging in unprotected sex for the filming.

Not wanting to reveal the true nature of his failing health, Holmes claimed to the press that he was suffering from colon cancer. Holmes married Laurie Rose on January 23, 1987 in Las Vegas , after confiding to her that he had AIDS!

John Holmes died from AIDS-related complications on March 13, 1988 at the age of 43. His body was cremated and his widow, Laurie, and his mother, Mary, scattered his ashes from an urn at sea off the coast of  Oxnard, California.

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