>> De Renzy, also a prominant pornographic filmmaker between 1967-early 2000’s, would run the Screening Room until the early 1980’s, when it converted to gay porn and later gay live shows under the name of the Campus All-Male Theater. By 1986, it had been renamed Savages Theatre, still screening all-male XXX films>>
Some of this is inaccurate. It was not called the Campus in the early ‘80s. I was a cashier/projectionist there in 1981-1982. When I began in 1981, the theater was called The Screening Room and had been for some time. It was then a run-down porno theater catering mostly to old men. A few months into my employment, new owners, or at least new managers, from Chicago, came in and did a makeover, trying to transform it into a “hot” club that would attract a younger, trendier crowd. (This only partially happened; who wanted to go down to the dicey Tenderloin, when you could go to Folsom or Castro St. sex clubs, where the fee was also cheaper?) The place was repainted all in black and neon orange and renamed Savages. Live strip shows were held on the smallish stage below the screen. I often worked the lights from the projectionist booth upstairs. At the premiere of Savages, the porn star Richard Locke came and did a live show (and gave a safe sex talk — probably one of the first-ever). The basement was renovated and turned into a sort of sex club, with a maze, a wrestling pit with bleachers (for the “cock fight” wrestling matches), a giant bed, slings, etc. Most of the staff was wacked on meth and/or MDA. I must be the only one who didn’t die from aids or overdose.
>> De Renzy, also a prominant pornographic filmmaker between 1967-early 2000’s, would run the Screening Room until the early 1980’s, when it converted to gay porn and later gay live shows under the name of the Campus All-Male Theater. By 1986, it had been renamed Savages Theatre, still screening all-male XXX films>>
Some of this is inaccurate. It was not called the Campus in the early ‘80s. I was a cashier/projectionist there in 1981-1982. When I began in 1981, the theater was called The Screening Room and had been for some time. It was then a run-down porno theater catering mostly to old men. A few months into my employment, new owners, or at least new managers, from Chicago, came in and did a makeover, trying to transform it into a “hot” club that would attract a younger, trendier crowd. (This only partially happened; who wanted to go down to the dicey Tenderloin, when you could go to Folsom or Castro St. sex clubs, where the fee was also cheaper?) The place was repainted all in black and neon orange and renamed Savages. Live strip shows were held on the smallish stage below the screen. I often worked the lights from the projectionist booth upstairs. At the premiere of Savages, the porn star Richard Locke came and did a live show (and gave a safe sex talk — probably one of the first-ever). The basement was renovated and turned into a sort of sex club, with a maze, a wrestling pit with bleachers (for the “cock fight” wrestling matches), a giant bed, slings, etc. Most of the staff was wacked on meth and/or MDA. I must be the only one who didn’t die from aids or overdose.