LOS ANGELES — Acclaimed cult writer Brontez Purnell has penned a heartfelt tribute to legendary Black 1980s porn performer Gene Lamar.
In an essay for news and culture website Them, Purnell, who is currently promoting his new book, “Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse,” praises Lamar as a “vers” icon and highlights his “epic rise as the classic face of 1980s porn and his complete disappearance from the porn world in 2003.”
Lamar’s IADF page includes over 100 credits, most of them between 1985 and 1998, with a smattering listed up through 2005, though some could be reissues of earlier material.
“There was one man who had lurked in the shadows of my imagination for years,” Purnell writes of Lamar. He recounts a formative experience of seeing Lamar for the first time while watching “Soul and Salsa 2,” featuring a spectacular Black and Latino orgy.
“What made him noteworthy was that he was a vers Black actor, equally bottoming and topping in most interracial scenes, defying the industry trend of predominantly showing Black men topping in such scenarios,” he explains.
Purnell contacted a friend who worked as the archivist for classic 1980s porn studio Bijou Films, and dug up an interview with Lamar conducted after the first decade of his career.
“Through the conversation, I learned that Lamar was born and raised in Los Angeles — the Watts neighborhood, specifically — and was the third oldest of five brothers and sisters,” Purnell writes. “His mother was a vocal coach; he was also a singer. In the conversation, he asserts that he started as a runway and print model when he was 18. At 22, he married a woman, with whom he had one son. Elsewhere, he shared, ‘I like guys more so than women,’ though clarifies he didn’t get into gay life until he was 32.”
Much of Lamar’s work, Purnell notes, “hasn’t made it onto a digital file (and there’s quite a lot), rendering much of his legacy in a liminal space.”
Declaring himself a die-hard Lamar fan, Purnell shares a wish list of select titles he intends to procure in VHS, the only available way to experience his idol’s work: “Balls To The Wall 5: A Touch Of Salsa And Coffee,” “Best Of Blacks, Black And Packed 5,” “Black Balled,” “Black Balls 2,” “Black Bullet Video Pac 12,” “Black Heat,” “Black Secret,” “Cream And Coffee 5,” “Duo 1,” “Hot Chocolate,” “Hung And Dangerous” and “In The Black.”
Purnell concludes the article by thanking Lamar for bringing beauty into the world and offering “a sense of joy and erotic hope in a racist and homophobic world.”
To read Brontez Purnell’s “Searching for Gene Lamar, the Vers Legend of ’80s Black Gay Porn,” visit Them.com.