Ron Jeremy: Hollywood hard man

For a guy who’s verifiably had sex with more than 4,000 women, Ron Jeremy seems desperately eager to impress. Just not with his tardiness. After three days playing phone-tag across Los Angeles, the 55-year-old actor finally arrives at my oceanfront Santa Monica hotel almost two hours late for our breakfast appointment.
Short, portly, moustachioed and scruffily-attired, the world’s most unlikely porn star shoots the receptionist a filthy look as he ambles into the lobby to greet me. “Hey man, I’m so sorry I’m late,” he apologises in a broad Jewish-New-Yorker accent, “but I rang here and SOMEONE – yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, lady! – told me the address was in the highs not the lows. I was driving the wrong fuckin’ direction for half an hour!”
I assure him it’s no problem, though in fact it is. I’m flying back to Ireland this afternoon, and my California-based sister and her children are due to arrive in an hour for a quick family get-together before I leave. The photographer also has to go, so, with no time for a proper shoot, we hastily convene by the hotel pool for a quick snap.
Ron has a photographic suggestion. I’m to hold my hands about ten inches apart (roughly indicating the length of his infamous penis), while he stands beside me, sympathetically holding his fingers much closer together. “I do this ‘comparing sizes’ picture with everybody,” he tells me. “It’s just a thing that I always do.”
In case I don’t believe him, he pulls a copy of his best-selling autobiography, The Hardest (Working) Man In Showbiz, out of the plastic bag he’s carrying and opens it to the photo section, entitled ‘Famous Friends’.
“Look, here’s me with Keith Richards... Samuel L. Jackson... Rick James... Brad Pitt.” He turns the page over, pointing each picture out to me: “Johnny Depp... Chris Rock... Ice-T... Robin Williams... Axl Rose.” He flips the page again: “Debbie Harry... Fred Durst... Robert Evans... Tommy Lee... that was taken at the Playboy Mansion... look, there’s me with Sting... Moby... Dustin Hoffman – I was in a movie with him, you know ... Sean Penn... Stevie Wonder.”
I’m getting the, em, picture at this stage, but he turns the page again anyway: “Look, here’s me with Ed Norton... Bobby Brown... Linda Blair... Mickey Rourke... Heather Locklear... Jerry Springer – I’ve been on his show four times... Matt LeBlanc... Kid Rock.”
This is getting a bit much. “Ron!” I say. “I’ve already read your book. I’ve seen all these. Can we just take this photograph and get on with the interview?”
“Sure, sure,” he says. “But, you’re Irish right? Look at this one!” He skips a few more pages. “That’s me and Colin Farrell. He’s from Dublin, right? That was just after he finished shooting Miami Vice.”
“Cool,” I say. “Now can we just take the picture?”
“Oh, one more thing!” Ron reaches back into his plastic bag and removes a small frame. “Look at this! I gave a lecture at Trinity College Dublin and they gave me this. You know Trinity College, right? Really famous place, right? I was a big hit there. Full house. They gave me this after.”
Closer inspection reveals that it’s an honorary scroll from Trinity’s Philosophical Society bearing his full name, Ron Jeremy Hyatt. “I’ve got a few of those at home from different colleges and universities,” he tells me. “I’ve even spoken at Oxford University. You know, in England? Oxford University?”
“Ron, please!” I plead. “Can we just take the fucking picture?”
“Oh sure, no problem!” He puts the bag down and we assume positions. As the photographer snaps away, Ron asks me, “Hey, do you know those Rodge and Podge guys? I was on their TV show in Ireland. It’s a really big show, right?”

A few minutes later, Ron walks into my hotel suite. I’d been planning on doing the interview downstairs, but he’s already been asked for an autograph by a passing guest (“Happens all the time, everywhere I go!”) and time is too tight to risk any further interruptions. Besides, the breakfast room is closed.
“Hey, this is a nice room!” he whistles, approvingly. “How much you paying to stay here?”
“I’m not really sure,” I admit. “Someone else is picking up the tab, but I think it’s about $800 a night.”
Ron does a wildly exaggerated double-take, slapping one of his heavily bejewelled paws to his forehead: “EIGHT HUNDRED BUCKS A NIGHT!!! ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME???” He sighs dramatically and claps me on the back. “Hey, next time you’re coming to LA, gimme a call. I’ll get you a hotel just as nice as this for three hundred dollars. I know some really cool places.”
Do you not have a place of your own in LA?
“I’ve got a place in Queens with my dad, and I’ve got a condo here,” he explains. “But I stay in hotels all the time, anyway.”
It turns out he’s carrying some small gifts for me in his plastic bag. There’s a bunch of novelty St. Patrick’s Day greeting cards, all of which feature over-the-top images of Ron wearing lurid leprechaun costumes on their front. He also gives me a packet of Ron Jeremy cigarette rolling papers (inside of which is a tasteful photograph of him shoving his massive penis into a woman’s mouth: ‘HEY, BABY... SMOKE THIS!!’).
Always hustling, Ron puts his name to a wide variety of products – from skateboards and clothing to beef jerkys and hot sauces. Unfortunately, the line of Ron Jeremy 10” cigars has recently been discontinued because of the smoking ban.
Also in the plastic bag is a DVD copy of The Boondock Saints, the 1999 gangster flick in which he has a small role. Although Ron holds the world record for the most appearances in adult movies (so far he’s made more than 2,000), he’s also shown up in a number of mainstream flicks.
“This movie never got a proper theatrical release but, according to Variety magazine, it’s one of the biggest selling straight-to-DVD titles of all time,” he informs me. “It’s got a whole bunch of Irish actors in it. Guys like Willem Dafoe, Sean Patrick Flannery and Billy Connolly. I play a gangster in it.”
“Well, I’ll look forward to watching it,” I say, putting my hand out.
“No, I wasn’t giving this one to you,” he says, putting it back into the bag. “It’s my only copy. But you really should check it out sometime.”
Last night he was at an industry party in the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd for the launch of his most recent film (he’d invited me, but I hadn’t been able to attend). Despite its title, Homo Erectus isn’t actually a porn film.
“It’s a National Lampoon comedy,” he explains. “You should’ve been there last night – it was a great party. It’s got an amazing cast. Talia Shire is in it, you know from Rocky? And Gary Busey. And Ali Larter, of course, who’s had two hit films – Varsity Blues and Resident Evil. She was also a cover of Cosmo. But when she did Homo Erectus, she’d only done Varsity Blues, she wasn’t that famous. It’s a caveman comedy. It’s really funny. I play Oog, the best friend of the lead actor. Now, the guy who produced it had an Academy Award for Charlize Theron. He did a film called Monster. The director was Adam Rifkin, who’s written for Spielberg and for...”
And on he talks, unstoppably. It’s quickly becoming obvious that Ron doesn’t just shamelessly namedrop every second or third sentence. Like an overexcited child, or coked-up comedian, he’s also an uninterruptible, natural born motor-mouth. Fortunately, he seems a very likable one.
“Here’s a funny story,” he says. “You’ll love this. Ali Larter wouldn’t do press for the movie. Who knows why? Now she got big – Heroes is a huge hit on TV. You get it in Ireland? Have you heard of it? It’s, like, huge – HUGE!! Anyway, they pushed back the release of the movie for a year, and then Gary – Gary Busey – says to me...”
Several minutes and many namedrops later...
“So to get even, someone at National Lampoon took a picture of me and Ali side by side, sitting in our chairs during the making of the movie, in our caveman attire. But they superimposed my schlong coming outta my pants. And it’s so hysterical! And it’s not mine! First of all, mine is bigger, number one. It’s not pointy, number two. And, number three, I wouldn’t have my penis out during THE MAKING OF A PG-RATED MOVIE!!”
I thought it was an R-rated movie?
“It only went R after National Lampoon took it,” he explains. “They asked for a lot more boobies to be in the film. Because they do R-rated films. But it was made as a PG. And I’m not gonna have my thing out! I wore a jock support! I was careful not to have my thing fall out of my caveman shorts. So I’m looking at it, going ‘WHAT?’ They did it because they were pissed at her. And she’d a lot of reactions to it. Her press people were really pissed off that she’d actually posed next to an adult film actor with his thing outta his pants. It was so funny. And then somehow Perez Hilton got hold of the pictures. You’ve heard of Perez Hilton? He’s got this celebrity website, right? Millions of hits! MILLIONS!!”
We’re suddenly interrupted by a knock at the door. Room service have arrived with Ron’s breakfast – a large pot of coffee and a blueberry Danish. I’ve signed for it and the porter is gone before he realises that the coffee pot is only half-full.
“Look at this!” he sighs, disgustedly. “Look at this! It’s not even half-full. I love that. They’re charging 800 bucks a night and they’re skimping on the coffee. I’d love to know what this cost... what did you just pay for this?”
“I think it was $25 plus tip,” I tell him.
“Ha, ha! Oh my God! I’m not all that cheap, but I laugh my ass off at what these places charge!”
Surely you’ve made enough money over the years not to have to worry about such things?
“Yeah, sure. I could afford to stay here – a lot. But I wouldn’t be caught dead. You see, I happen to be... hang on... A-JEW!!!!!! Excuse me! Sorry, I sneezed! But I look around for bargains a little bit. I think it’s part of my training. But 800 bucks a night, 25 bucks for coffee... sheesh!”
He grabs my digital recorder off the table and speaks directly into it: “Make a note of that, folks! Okay, that was $25 for a coffee AND A DANISH!!! You charge 25 bucks for this, you wanna bring Jesus Christ along to heal people at the same time. Holy shit! What we were talking about anyway?”
Sensing an opportunity to try and actually get some control over the conversation, I ask when he lost his virginity.
“I was 16 or 17. I don’t remember exactly, but it was with a girl named... well, I’ll call her ‘Marge’. In the book I called her Maggie, as a courtesy. Marge was the first. And it’s a true story, I put the rubber on backwards. Because I didn’t know that you unravelled it onto the penis. I unravelled the whole thing first and it wouldn’t go on, so the lubricated side was against me, not her. So then when I put the penis in the edge of her vagina, I’m going back and forth – and I basically screwed the rubber. That was the part that was lubricated.”
Were you always aware that you were so spectacularly well-endowed?
“Not so much,” he shrugs. “I mean, I saw in gym classes, some of these black basketball players who were kind of built like me. I was like, ‘Hey, maybe I should play basketball, I’m built more like those guys’. But they were dangling, they weren’t hard. And I read that Xaviera Hollander, you know that famous hooker who writes for that magazine in Amsterdam, she said that often white men might be smaller in the flaccid state but when they get hard they catch up. So I couldn’t tell for sure.”
He did have his suspicions, though. After all, he could auto-fellate (something he’s since demonstrated in numerous movies). “I knew I could kiss it,” he admits. “And that was a bit weird. But I didn’t have to be hard to do that. I could just bend over and give it a kiss. I had a weird conversation with my dad about that. I was in boy scouts, bending over to tie those high shoes, I was always able to kiss my schlong. I was going, ‘I wonder if that’s normal?’
“And I was talking to my dad on the telephone and I asked him. First thing he says to me, ‘Is anybody else in the room with you?’ I says no. He says, ‘Good! Listen, let me explain to you, it’s not really good or bad. It’s not abnormal. It’s just not really necessary. Because when you get to be 18 years of age, you’ll find girls will kiss it for you’. That was the conversation.”
Despite his obvious advantage, he says he wasn’t a particularly big hit with the girls as a teen. “I was a little bit chunky. They used to tease me going, ‘Ronnie Hyatt’s on a diet/ Isn’t that a riot?’ But I wasn’t that heavy. And my parents gave me a very good physique. Because they were very healthy. But all through my teens, I worked summers as a waiter in the Catskills in these old Jewish hotels, places like the Paramount and the Concorde. I did all right with the women there.”
When was the first time you watched a porn movie?
“I guess I was maybe 19 or 20 years old,” he recalls, tearing off a mouthful of Danish. “My dad and I, believe it or not, saw Devil And Miss Jones and Deep Throat, the two old, old ones from the early days in the ‘70s. And I went to see them never realising that six or seven years later, I’d be doing porn myself.”
You went with your dad?
“Yeah, people say it’s kinda weird, but, you know, we had heard of these and we weren’t going there to get turned on.”
This was in a movie theatre?
“Yeah, they didn’t have DVDs or VHS back than. In fact, I think dinosaurs might’ve been on the earth, too. It was way, way back.”
And did you... ahem... jerk off?
He waves a hand: “Nah, that would’ve been too weird. We weren’t going for that reason. We were going to see how these films are made. It was more out of curiosity. I was going to major in theatre at Queens College and it was just a curiosity thing. Because we knew they weren’t using professional actors. We were laughing the whole time. Because there was all this big hubbub, all this press about these films that got prosecuted.
“It was current events, you know – in the news. And Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine had all put their names behind friends of the court, called an amicus brief, to help [actor] Harry Reems in his battles. This is all in that new movie that came out called The Making Of Deep Throat. So it was like, wow, they busted a movie! It was showing at the World Theatre and a judge got rid of Deep Throat, took it out, it was banned. So the headline in the New York Post was ‘Judge Cuts Throat – World Mourns’. That was brilliant.”
At the time, Ron was studying theatre in Queens College. After graduation, he went on to do a Masters in Special Education. Although he’d always dreamed of being a actor, he started off his professional life teaching handicapped children.
“I still have a teaching license – it’s permanent, but I probably could not teach elementary school at this point. They’d be afraid I’d go up in front of a class, drop my pants, and go, ‘Hi boys and girls, say hello to Mr. Happy!’ Ha, ha! What the world needs is more ha-penis!”
Despite all the jokes, it’s obvious that Ron really enjoyed his teaching years. “It was nice. It was rewarding. I took the kids on field trips – learned about firehouses, banks, stuff like that. I’d just put ‘em in my car. You could do riskier things back then. Nowadays, if you want to take any kids in your car, you’ve probably got to get a million permits, fire marshals, police escorts. Back then, I’d just say, ‘Get in the damn car!’ and take them anywhere. It worked out really, really good.
“I still feel I should do something for that world, now that I’ve made money. I’m not sure what it’s gonna be yet, but it’s gonna be something. I feel like I kinda deserted that world. And I liked it. It was just that I wanted to act my whole life, so I just quit teaching when I got the opportunity.”
Ron’s acting career began to take off in 1978, when his then-girlfriend sent a naked picture of him in to Playgirl magazine. His 9.75-inch penis (“I don’t mind if you wanna round it up to 10!”) proved a big hit with readers. So much so that his grandmother, Rose, had to temporarily move out of her apartment. Playgirl had listed his name as ‘R. Hyatt of Queens’, and the poor woman was plagued with phone calls and unwanted late night visits from cock-hungry young females.
“She had to move out of her house after a day – for a month! My father told me, ‘If you wanna get into this naked, crazy business, so be it, but if you use the family name again, I’ll kill you!”
Pretty soon some unusual offers began to come in, and Ron decided that he did want to get into this crazy, naked business. He swiftly abandoned his teaching career to become a porn star.
“It wasn’t so much the money. Porn wasn’t my first choice. I got my Bachelors in acting and I did theatre off-Broadway. One of my teachers, by the way, was Joel Zwick – who directed My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He had a thing called Café Le Moma in New York, and he taught me at Queens College – movement. So I had a lot of professional instructors. And I got my degree. I was doing off-off Broadway. And the job market is horrible, you really starve.
“So when my ex-girlfriend sent that picture of me into Playgirl magazine and they published it, I thought being nude wasn’t so bad. That was back in 1978, my very first photograph. It’s in my documentary [Being Ron Jeremy], if you saw that.”
His first decent offer came from a reasonably well-known, low-budget, B-movie director named Jim Sandberg. Ron thought this could be his big break, but then Sandberg informed him that he’d recently decided to finish with B-movies and become an X-movie director instead.
“I asked my dad his opinion. It was a way to get some acting. Back then there was no videos, it was all theatre. And there were storylines. They had scripts sometimes, you know, so you felt like an actor. You’d work 10 days on a movie like Bad Girls, Fascination, Amanda By Night, Co-Ed Fever, Sizzle, I could go on and on and on – you’d work nine days as an actor and then one day you’d have sex. So you felt kinda like an actor. Maybe I was justifying or rationalising to myself, but I felt like an actor. Nowadays, most of the scripts are like, “Here’s a dollar, here’s a cup of coffee – blow me!” There’s no dialogue. It’s changed a lot.”
Resolutely straight – he doesn’t touch drugs or men – Ron has since gone on to appear in well over 2,000 adult movies. Most male porn careers end at the age of 36, but thanks to his amazing cock control and stallionish stamina (he can go hard or soft in an instant, always ejaculates on cue, and once fucked 14 women in a row for a film called Put It In Reverse III), he’s still going strong.
There used to be an industry joke that went, “there are three things some female porn stars won’t do – bestiality, sadomasochism and Ron Jeremy.” He’s learned to laugh about his lack of obvious sex appeal: “Hey, I’m living proof that anybody can get laid! I used to be thinner, but I made the move from the gym to the buffet.”
He tells me that one of his weirdest porn experiences came when he was filming a movie on a yacht off the Majorcan coast. His co-star was seriously seasick, but the show had to go on. “Rather than blowing me, she was blowing chunks,” he laughs. “I was having sex with her from behind while she was throwing up over the side of the boat. The director had to film all her reaction shots later.”
Of course, although it’s what he’s most famous for, nowadays there’s far more to Ron Jeremy’s career than just porn. In addition to his occasional mainstream movie roles, music video appearances (he’s been in videos for Moby, Mercury Rev, Guns N’ Roses and many others) and merchandising, he’s recently added ‘reality TV’ star to his chequered CV, following well-received stints on hit shows The Surreal Life and The Farm.
Despite all of his success, he’s furious that his old alma mater has more or less disowned him.
“Queens College doesn’t acknowledge me in any of their literature, and it kinda makes me angry. They’ll list bestselling authors – I’m one, but never once got in there. They’ll list people who have good careers – Jerry Seinfeld and Rodney Dangerfield went to Queens, a lot of the writers at Paramount went there. And I’ve done a lot of mainstream stuff as well, but they never acknowledge me. They only ever contact me to give money to the alumni association. I just reach into my pants and go,‘Here’s your money right here!’
“It’s like I don’t even exist. They don’t even acknowledge me as a writer. How many people are bestselling authors on the New York Times list? And my book came out the same time as Hilary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s – all these non-fiction books. That wasn’t easy getting that [points to ‘New York Times Bestseller’ strapline on book cover]. I had to turn down all the lesser stores and just do autographs and signings at the stores they track. I didn’t do any discount stores or any Hustlers [stores]. I wasn’t interested in the money, I wanted to get this – bestseller.”
He goes to pour another cup of coffee, but there’s only a dribble left in the jug. Once again, he screams directly into the recorder: “JESUS CHRIST!! EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS A NIGHT FOR THIS!!! IT’S NOT MY MONEY – AND I’M STILL PISSED OFF!!!”
Queens College may want nothing to do with him, but Ron spends a lot of his time debating in other universities.
“Debating has been a big part of my life. Go to a computer, put in my name and the word ‘college’ and you’ll see. It’s huge! Five thousand kids sometimes, big turnouts. The computer will even tell you about this one time I started a riot because some kids couldn’t get in. They had to take me home in a police car. Susan Cole, the feminist, said, ‘Ron, you’re a damn rock star!’ It was so funny.”
Needless to say, it was a pornography debate that brought him to Trinity in 2004. “I had some fun in Ireland!” he laughs. “They kept asking me when I spoke at Trinity College, ‘Are you gonna make a porn film here?’ So just to have some fun and scare the bejaysus outta the church, I was saying yeah. Because Ireland’s got a very powerful church. You guys didn’t even have legal rubbers until recently! So you guys are one of the most prudish countries in the world. And I respect that. So I said maybe I’ll find some beautiful green fields in Ireland with the ocean in the background and just shoot a softcore. Nudity only. No hardcore, no sex. So I was very specific about that. I didn’t wanna say ‘Hell no!’
“But they kept asking me questions like, ‘Are the Irish girls pretty enough?’ I was saying of course the Irish girls are gorgeous, of course I could do a porn from here, but you guys are a little bit prudish compared to the rest of the world, so I don’t wanna offend community standards. Why do I have to go where I’m not wanted? There’s gorgeous scenery in other parts of the world, too – and I could always fly Irish girls to America anyway.
“But I’d do a nude movie – you know, a real strong R-rated. Boobies bouncing and girls running through fields with sexy bodies. But no penetration. None of this! No [makes popping sound with his cheek]. None of that. I wouldn’t be caught dead shooting a porn movie in Ireland. Why risk the law on your case? Even in America, I just shoot in LA and New York. Cause some states have a problem. Like the Bible Belt.”
When Ron speaks at American universities, he’s usually debating feminists or members of the XXX Church (an anti-pornography Christian group).
“I’m probably the number one defender of porn in America right now,” he says, proudly. “Martin Bashir, who interviewed the Queen of England and Princess Diana and Michael Jackson – which he got sued for – flew to Yale to mediate my debate with the XXX Church. It was on Nightline and CNN!”
Funnily enough, he maintains that he gets on extremely well with his debating opponents.
“In a way, I respect what they’re doing. They’re doing what Jesus would’ve done. If you think there’s a problem, go to where the problem is. All these other Christians who hate porn, they tell their church how bad it is. They don’t have to tell them, they already agree. Craig Gross, the founder of the XXX Church, goes right to where supposedly the problem is. He tries to get people out of the biz, counsels girls and all that. He’s really a great guy. We’re actually really good friends, though you wouldn’t think so when we’re on stage.
“But the way I see it, it’s a freedom of speech issue. It’s secular, it’s not religious. People who hate porn, 99% of the time come from a religious background. That’s not what makes these countries great. These countries are based on separation of church and state. You can love religion or not, it’s your choice.”
Not that Ron has anything against religion. “I have a lot of religious friends. Tammy Faye [the late evangelist who appeared on The Surreal Life with him] was a great friend of mine. And I believe in the man upstairs. I do have a relationship with him. A lot of people in porn do. They have families. And they don’t think that the Lord has a problem with consenting adults having consenting sex for consenting adults to watch. Let me know where’s the problem?
“But if you’re gonna follow the Bible to the letter... at these debates, one of my favourite bits, is when I say to these religious types, ‘Now you don’t like premarital sex of any kind, do you? You don’t believe in any kind of sex before marriage?’ and the people I’m debating say yes. So then I say, ‘I’m glad you said that. With a show of hands, who here in the audience has ever had sex outside of marriage?’ There’s usually about 5,000 college kids in the audience and every single hand goes up. I look at the person and go, ‘I’m not your problem! Thank you! Limousine! Where’s my cheque?’ They can’t beat me! Ha, ha!
“Seriously, though, I really don’t think the Lord above has a problem. Nobody’s doing anything to hurt anybody, it’s all just entertainment. And my other logic is, anything I do – you do. And that means you, too. You’re a journalist. I’m not sure how crazy you are in your personal sex life, but I probably do the same things you do. I probably do the same things everyone else does. Just because I have a camera rolling, I’m a bad guy?
“I even say this to Craig Gross. He’s been with one woman his whole life. He was a virgin before he met her. But we’re probably about the same. I’ve had sex with about 4,000 women, he’s done his wife about 4,000 times. Same thing. Same amount of pop shots! So there’s nothing unusual in what I do.”
The conversation ping-pongs for a while. He’s against the Iraq war (“Bush is probably the worst president we’ve ever had – though, in fairness, he’s been good to Israel!”); he doesn’t have a current girlfriend (“Relationships are hell – especially when you’re in my business. I do have a turtle, though!”); he was a great friend of the late Mo Mowlam (“We sang a song together on The Frank Skinner Show”); the lowest point of his life came watching his mother slowly die (“I was 26 and it was just awful to see this grand woman get struck down with Parkinson’s Disease. Actually, Janet Reno has it – and I spoke to Janet about it, I met her. And Michael J. Fox. To see a woman who was so phenomenal was just so sad”).
The telephone rings. My sister and her family have arrived and are waiting for me downstairs. I ask them to give me a few minutes.
What are your ambitions now, Ron?
“Just to continue acting,” he says. “I’m doing it. I’ve got a lot of big films coming out, I’ve got more TV shows coming out. The Surreal Life really opened a lot of doors for me. Because it was always a thing of, ‘We can’t put a porn star in a steady role in a TV series on network TV’. But Surreal Life took a chance – and that was a WB network. It got the highest ratings ever for that time slot, and they gave a lot of the credit to me and Tammy Faye, the evangelist who I got along with.
“You know, here’s a porn star and an evangelist becoming friends. She used to go on Larry King and even say, ‘I love Ron Jeremy and his pet tortoise’ – cause my turtle was on the show, too. And Tammy helped me feed the tortoise, she said prayers over the tortoise, too. She used to say to me, ‘Ronnie, tortoises have souls, too’. She was so cute. You know who Tammy Faye is? What a sweet lady. She died. A real hunny-bunny. So it opened up a lot of doors.
“But to finish your question. I love performing and I love being an actor. That’s my desire. So if I could just get acting work. If you were sent down by the Lord or a clairvoyant or someone who could see the future, and said, ‘Ronnie, you’re gonna do like two or three films every year – one for Spielberg, James Cameron and all those other major directors, you’re gonna work for’. I’d probably give up touring, give up doing the debates, and I’m done, that’s it! I’ll go to the beach and hang out with friends, play with my turtle, play with my buddies and just do that. Because that’s all I want to do – just act, act, act. Films are the best, then TV, porn if nothing else comes along.”
Are all of your friends celebrities or do you have any normal mates?
“I’ve a mixture of both,” he shrugs. “But you know, like, a lot of them are Hollywood friendships; they’re not really that great a friend, but they can help your career. I hate to say it, but in Hollywood it’s so important. Acting, music, sports – they’re not like any other career on this planet, because everyone wants to do it but there’s very few jobs available.
“You wanna be a doctor, lawyer, teacher or whatever, you go to school, work damn hard, study your shit, don’t go to discos, study, study, study, get good marks in a good school, you’re gonna succeed. You go to Harvard to study law, I don’t give a fuck if you’re the bottom of your class, you’re still gonna get a job. Some things have a set programme that works. Here’s a formula – it’s going to work.
“Acting? No! Music? No! You can spend 20 years at Lee Strasberg and get a doctorate in theatre or classics, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna get a job.
“Look at Cathy Moriarty. She’s working as a waitress and then Martin Scorsese sees her, thinks she has a great look, and gives her a job as Robert De Niro’s wife in Raging Bull. Next thing you know, she gets famous. And she tells the whole world that. And all the people who spent years studying Strasberg – learning how to do jazz, tap, modern dance, ballet, choir lessons, singing lessons – are going, ‘She’s a WHAT? She’s a WAITRESS?’
“So acting is based on a lot of luck and also on your connections. I call them ‘Hollywood friendships’. Because you know they wouldn’t be your friend if they weren’t in a position to help you. I’m friends with a lot of directors. A couple of them would be my friend no matter what they did for a living. But some of the directors I’m really good friends with, I’m only friends with because they’re directors. They could probably spit in my eye and I’d say, ‘Thank you, can I have another?’
“The old joke in Hollywood is it’s not who you know, it’s who you blow,” he continues. “That’s if you’re a girl. As [comedian] Carrie Snow used to say, ‘If I could blow my way to the top, I’d already be there’. As a guy... actually, it’s the same thing if the guy is gay. Nah, I’m kidding. It’s just a lot of hustle, a lot of real hard work.
“But I don’t knock myself for this because it’s necessary for my career. If someone’s an asshole, but can really help my career, I’m gonna continue being their friend. So it’s hypocritical in a way, but what you gonna do?”
On that note, we have to leave it. There’s so much more I’d like to ask Ron Jeremy, but I haven’t seen my sister in months. He fully understands – and apologises once again for being so late.
“Hey, what’s your sister’s name?” he asks, as we walk towards the elevator.
“It’s Emma,” I answer.
“Hmmm... Emma... Emma,” Ron stares off into space as if he’s trying to remember something. Then he clicks his fingers and goes, “Yeah – did her!”
I give him a mock glare, and he playfully punches my shoulder. “Hey, you didn’t mind that, did you? I use that line with everyone! It’s just a thing that I do. There was this one time I met Coolio and...”