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George Payne (actor)

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George Payne
Born (1944-02-07) February 7, 1944 (age 80)
Ohio, United States[1]
NationalityAmerican[1][2]
Other namesGeorge Bell, John Lance, George Payne, George Anderson, George Paine, Mike Payne[2]
Height5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) [2]
SpouseDiane
AwardsXRCO Hall of Fame (1999)[3][4]

George Payne (born February 7, 1944) is an American actor and retired pornographic film actor.[5] He found early success as a swimsuit model and was featured in Physique Pictorial. Payne began work in the adult film industry in The Back Row in 1973 opposite actor Casey Donovan. He was featured on the cover of the LGBT magazine The Advocate the same year. He later starred with Jack Wrangler in Navy Blue in 1979, and in Centurians of Rome in 1981. Payne later transitioned to straight roles in the adult industry; his work is considered part of the Golden Age of Porn. He was inducted into the X-Rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame in 1999.[3][4]

Early life and education

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Payne was born on February 7, 1944, in Ohio and moved to Palm Springs, California, for schooling.[1][6] He grew up in a steel mill town in Ohio.[7] His family has roots in Yugoslavia and Croatia.[7] His father originally came from Tunisia prior to immigrating to the United States.[7] He served in the United States Air Force and subsequently studied in university after discharge from the U.S. military.[6]

Career

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Payne moved to New York to work on a career in male swimsuit modeling.[8] During the mid-1960s, Payne was featured as a male model in magazines including Physique Pictorial.[9] Payne entered the porn industry in 1973 with the gay movie The Back Row by Jerry Douglas.[10][11] He starred opposite Casey Donovan, as a newcomer to New York from Montana exploring the gay sexual society of the locale.[10][12] There was no spoken dialogue in the film; Payne and Donovan had to interact through gestures and choreographed interactions to display their emotions.[10] He initially marketed himself towards a gay audience.[5] He was featured on the cover of the LGBT magazine The Advocate in 1973.[13] Payne had an acting role in the 1974 film Death Wish starring Charles Bronson.[6] He starred in the 1976 film Kiss Today Goodbye directed by Francis Ellie alongside Peter Zass, as a blue-collar contractor who has a relationship with a staid man working in finance.[14][6] Payne starred opposite actor Jack Wrangler in the 1979 film Navy Blue.[15] He also starred in the infamous Centurians of Rome in 1981.[16][14] He played the character of Demetrius in the film, in a production compared to a photo shoot for Physique Pictorial.[17] Regarding his work on Centurians of Rome and during this period of his career, Metro Weekly called Payne a "70s gay porn icon".[14] Payne's work in the 1982 film Corruption was selected as part of the Anthology Film Archive collection Porn Noir.[18] His acting work took place within the Golden Age of Porn.[11][14][19] Payne was interviewed by The Rialto Report as part of its documentation of the golden age of the adult film industry; Payne was regarded as among "some of the industry's biggest and most influential names of the era".[20]

He transitioned over to the straight side of the industry eventually, along with colleagues Casey Donovan and Jack Wranger.[21][11][9] Payne gained notoriety for his intense portrayal of psychopaths in several Avon BDSM "roughie" films.[11][9][14] Barbara Nitke recalled Payne was known in the industry for his skill at improvisation during filming, "George was famous for his ad-libbing."[22] He retired from hardcore porn in 1988, at which point he had starred in more than 180 films in the industry.[11] Writing in The Advocate in 1988, journalist Susie Bright placed Payne's work among the "megastars of gay erotica", including Casey Donovan and Scott Taylor.[23] He continued making appearances in non-sexual BDSM roles until 1997 before leaving the industry entirely.[11] Payne was inducted into the X-Rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame in 1999.[3] In 2019, he made his mainstream acting debut in director Nicolas Winding Refn's television series Too Old to Die Young.[24]

Personal life

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Payne dated actress Vanessa del Rio when they starred in films together briefly in 1976.[25] Payne became acquainted with a woman only known as “Diane” in the 1990s during a period where she was employed in mainstream cinema working as a casting agent.[11] They subsequently married and resided together in Queens, New York, before moving to Florida in 2015.[11]

Awards and nominations

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Year Ceremony Category Work Result Notes
1985 XRCO Award Best Supporting Performance, Male Viva Vanessa Nominated [26]
Male Performer of the Year First Time at Cherry High, Viva Vanessa, Sex Spa U.S.A. Nominated [26]
Best Copulation Scene First Time at Cherry High (shared with Tanya Lawson) Nominated [26]
Best Kinky Scene Viva Vanessa (shared with Vanessa del Rio, Renee Summers) Nominated [26]
1999 XRCO Award XRCO Hall of Fame Body of work, inducted Won [3][4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Fairbanks, Harold (11 April 1973), "Ohio's George Payne on the road to stardom", The Advocate, no. 109, p. 25, ISSN 0001-8996
  2. ^ a b c "George Payne iafd page". Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d "Masseuse 3 and Café Flesh 2 Top XRCO Awards", AVN News, archived from the original on 11 March 2018, retrieved 2 September 2015
  4. ^ a b c Stone, Jeremy (1999), "The XRCO Hall of Fame", Adam Film World Guide 2000 Directory of Adult Films, Los Angeles, California: Knight Publishing Corp, p. 285, OCLC 213355581
  5. ^ a b Landis, Bill (12 December 1995). "Body for Rent: A Journey Through the Ruins of the Porno-Chic Empire". The Village Voice. pp. 31–36. ISSN 0042-6180.
  6. ^ a b c d "Kiss Today Goodbye" (PDF), Gay Crusader, no. 35, San Francisco, California: Crusader Press, p. 3, October 1975, OCLC 55943779, archived from the original (PDF) on 14 February 2019, retrieved 15 November 2020
  7. ^ a b c West, Ashley; Bowen, Michael (10 March 2013), "George Payne: Wild Man of Porn", The Rialto Report, no. 2, archived from the original on 29 October 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  8. ^ Escoffier, Jeffrey (19 October 2010), Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore, Running Press, pp. 107–108, ISBN 978-1458779885
  9. ^ a b c Landis, Bill; Clifford, Michelle (2002), Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square, Simon & Schuster, pp. xv, 44, 140, 152, 202, ISBN 9780743215831
  10. ^ a b c Escoffier, Jeffrey (January 2017), "Sex in the Seventies: Gay Porn Cinema as an Archive for the History of American Sexuality", Journal of the History of Sexuality, 26 (1), University of Texas Press: 88–113, doi:10.7560/JHS26104, S2CID 152203364, retrieved 15 November 2020
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Kernes, Mark, "Golden Age Appreciation Fund Seeks Help for George Payne", AVN News, archived from the original on 15 November 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  12. ^ Capino, Jose Bernard (1 January 2005), "Homologies of Space: Text and Spectatorship in All-Male Adult Theaters", Cinema Journal, 45 (1): 50–65, doi:10.1353/cj.2006.0003, S2CID 191485252, retrieved 15 November 2020
  13. ^ "Newcomer George Payne", The Advocate, no. 109, 11 April 1973, ISSN 0001-8996
  14. ^ a b c d e Hereford, André (7 September 2020), 12 Vintage Gay Adult Films Everyone Should See, Jansi LLC, archived from the original on 23 September 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  15. ^ Powell, Ryan (2019), Coming Together: The Cinematic Elaboration of Gay Male Life, 1945-1979, University of Chicago Press, pp. 171–173, ISBN 9780226634371
  16. ^ West, Ashley; Hall, April (9 March 2019), "How a Bank Robber Made the Most Expensive Gay Porn of All Time -When George Bosque stole $1.85 million and went on the lam, he invented a new identity—as a movie producer with bags of cash and a dream to film a Roman-themed porn orgy.", The Daily Beast, archived from the original on 3 November 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  17. ^ Blanshard, Alastair J. L. (2015), "The Erotic Eye: Cinema, Classicism, and the Sexual Subject", in Ingleheart, Jennifer (ed.), Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689729.003.0014, ISBN 9780199689729, archived from the original on 15 November 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  18. ^ Pinkerton, Nick (28 March 2014), "Porn Again: Nick Pinkerton on 'Porn Noir' at Anthology Film Archives", ArtForum, archived from the original on 15 November 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  19. ^ "Blonde Ambition Platinum Elite Collection", XBIZ News, 10 September 2010, archived from the original on 15 November 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  20. ^ Maranian, Matt (5 March 2020), "If you loved HBO's 'The Deuce,' The Rialto Report will leave you spellbound", Boing Boing, archived from the original on 4 August 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  21. ^ Marks, Laura Helen (2013), Erotic Transgressions: Pornographic Uses of the Victorian, Louisiana State University, pp. 176–178, archived from the original on 22 March 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  22. ^ Kaufman, Frederick (October 2005), "Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the frontiers of pornography", Harper's Magazine, vol. 311, no. 1865, ISSN 0017-789X, archived from the original on 26 January 2020, retrieved 15 November 2020
  23. ^ Bright, Susie (27 September 1988), "Hell-Bent for Truth: Christopher Rage, Maker of Erotic Videos, Takes Art and Passion to the Outer Limit", The Advocate, pp. 79–80, ISSN 0001-8996
  24. ^ Refn, Nicolas Winding [@NicolasWR] (August 29, 2018). "Dear Friends... The legendary George Payne has now joined the show!" (Tweet). Archived from the original on August 30, 2018. Retrieved August 30, 2018 – via Twitter.
  25. ^ Gurley, George (20 November 2007), "Don't Blame It on Rio", The New York Observer, archived from the original on 27 January 2015, retrieved 15 November 2020
  26. ^ a b c d "The 1st Annual XRCO Awards 1985 X Rated Critics Organization", XRCO Award, 14 February 1985, retrieved 15 November 2020

Further reading

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  • Fairbanks, Harold (11 April 1973), "Ohio's George Payne on the road to stardom", The Advocate, no. 109, p. 25, ISSN 0001-8996
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