COCKTAILS WITH PORN LEGEND RYAN IDOL

Porn superstar Ryan Idol became something of a legend in the late 1990s a couple years after his last celluloid cum-shot. Addicted to booze and narcotics, he dove through the window of a NYC brownstone and slammed into the pavement 3 1/2 storeys below. By all accounts he should have died.

Instead he laid in a coma for five days and, on March 22, 1998, at "4:23 am," had a near-death experience.

"When I woke up I knew within a couple days that i tried to take my life, which I'm really embarrassed about,' Idol - who will greet his fans at a public Q&A session at famed West Hollywood nightclub Micky's on May 12 - told me a couple years later. "My memory didn't really come back until 18 months later in bits and pieces but I realize now that a lot of other porn stars have been successful at killing themselves and I [too] should have died."

Ryan Idol back in the day
(Photo courtesy David Forest)

Idol then says, "I have lived for a reason."

What that reason is, Idol - born Marc Anthony Donias, and star of such gay-porn classics as Idol in the Sky and Idol Country - didn't seem quite sure of.

But what he is sure of - and what his appearance at Micky's tonight underscores - is the great, um, sucking sound of California's multi-billion-dollar porn industry.

When I asked Idol why he moved to L.A. in the first place, in his Boston accent, he began singing Looking For Love In All the Wrong Places.

"I think there's a melting pot of lost souls who gravitate towards the XXX business because it's the fastest way to get a fix," Idol says. "You think you're getting what you need but you're just masking your probelms. I don't have a really tightknit family.I had childhood issues - abandonment, not being loved - and I was a lost soul. That's why I joined the industry. I was looking for family - which I found, by the way - and I learnt nothing in life is easy,that family issues are one of the more challenging things. I was addicted to alcohol and i was using narcotics and i didn't want to grow up. So I dove out a window."

Idol went on to star Off-Broadway in the touring stage production of Making Porn and made his Broadway debut in a 2007 revival of Terrence McNally's play The Ritz, a farce set in a NYC bathhouse (the original 1975 production won Rita Moreno a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez).

Idol's theatre career, I told him, appears contingent on his exposing his big dick onstage. After all, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what audiences want of their idol.

"I don't have a problem with nudity if it's part of the storyline," Idol replies. "I even improvised a part in Making Porn where I whack [my penis] on each thigh. I mean, everybody is so goddamn uptight about sex and I wanted to inject some humour. After all, we were all born nude."

David Forest with Ryan Idol
(Photo courtesy David Forest)

After all these years Idol remains a slick and consummate pro. But his rags-to-riches-to-redemption story sounds like he'd also make a great motivational speaker. So I tell him. After all, maybe that's the reason he's still alive.

"I take that as validation," Idol says thoughtfully. "I once thought I was lacking. Now I know better and have no intention of going backwards."

Ryan Idol appears at showbiz legend and Hollywood porn super-agent David Forest's weekly Thursday evening Cocktails with the Stars Q&A meet-and-greet at West Hollywood nightclub Micky's (8857 Santa Monica Blvd) on May 12 beginning at 6 pm PT (free admission). Forest once claimed when Idol was working in the porn biz that he managed Idol's career as an escort, with Idol allegedly bringing in $1,500 for a four-hour session. You can check out David Forest's porn stars at www.thepremiereartists.com.

The official Ryan Idol website