John Curtis Estes was born in the humble rural hamlet of Ashville, Ohio in the balmy August summer of 1944. His father, an alcoholic railroad worker, quickly abandoned his child and most likely started a new family in some other town. John lived with an older brother and their mother Mary, who married Harold E. Holmes in 1946. He was also an alcoholic and a womanizer, who kept odd hours and would come home late at night, drunk, and treated the two children as nothing more than another surface to puke on. Mary divorced Holmes, as he wasn’t a very good role model for her kids. She was a religious zealot who sent her sons to a Southern Baptist academy hoping that they would enter a seminary upon reaching legal age. If she hadn’t married Harold Bowman, the history of underground cinema would have been irrevocably altered. At first, home life was as idyllic as their humdrum existence could get.

Soon, living conditions became unbearable when young David was born and became the center of attention, leaving John to be nothing more than a punching bag whenever Harold decided to go on one of his violent drunken rampages. At the age of 16, John retaliated and shoved Harold down a flight of stairs. After spending the night on the streets of Ashville, John returned home the next day when his stepfather was at work and issued an ultimatum to his mother: either he would stay home and end up killing Harold, or Mary would sign a waiver allowing her son to drop out of school and join the Armed Forces.

Estes spent three years stationed in West Germany serving in the Army Signal Corps, living an interesting but ultimately unfulfilling life. The rigorous structure of military life wasn’t made for him, and so upon being honorably discharged in 1964, he headed for the bright lights of Los Angeles as if they were a beacon directing him toward his destiny. John worked a number of odd jobs, none of which suited him: office temp, postal worker, door-to-door salesman, attendant at a Coffee-Nips factory. During his tenure as an ambulance driver he met his first love, a nurse by the name of Sharon Gebenini, in late 1964; by August of ’65 they would be happily wed.

Married life for the Estes family was wonderful for a brief time: John was loving and attentive, Sharon was ever loyal and the sex was fantastic. Forces beyond their control would soon tear them apart. After his right lung collapsed during his stint as a forklift operator, John would spend great deals of time convalescing at home. When that got boring he would socialize with some of his work buddies at a club for card sharks. He was hardly a born gambler, and was a bit out of his element. Then, as luck would have it, an enterprising producer was using a urinal beside John, and prying eyes couldn’t help but notice John’s distinctive equipment. The keys to the illicit world of pornography were within his grasp, and John would enter this seamy pool in the shallow end; low-paying gigs for cheap spank rags and eight-millimeter “stag films” were a decent source of supplemental income, that is, when the producers were honest enough to pony up cash for their cast and crew.

Obviously, Estes was a sex fiend, and offers for work of that nature were never in short supply. It was only a matter of time before John could no longer keep his second vocation a secret from Sharon. One night, he sat down with his wife and told her bluntly: “I’m a porn actor, and I want to keep on being one.” This was just one step removed from prostitution, as far as she was concerned, and the novelty of married life soon gave way to a frigid, distanced relationship. On the flip side of that coin, the newly introduced MPAA ratings system offered a window into the legal exhibition of pornography:

There were more opportunities to show off his skills than ever before. John appeared in innumerable cheapo productions for fly-by-night companies and reputable X-rated production houses alike.  His psuedonyms were wildly varied yet similar in nature: John Duval; Big John Fallus; John Rey; Bigg John; John Helms; Jack Himms; Long John Wood. He’d use different stage names throughout his career, but for the majority of his productions he adopted his first stepfather’s surname and became John C. Holmes. In 1971, he would have a fateful meeting with the esteemed adult film director Bob Chinn; initially offering to be a crew member, Chinn and his producer turned him down … before considering his potential as a performer. One look at John’s tool was all it took to launch his legendary career.

All the preceding information has been more or less true. After this point, things become a little hazy as far as distinguishing fact from fiction. While the luridly entertaining Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes does an admirable job tracking down Holmes’ surviving acquaintances and setting the record straight, there’s no denying that the man immediately ascended to mythical status, and his reputation may or may not have been erected on hyperbole and his ever-mounting ego. We will examine his various lies in due time. His filmic record cannot be distorted or hyped up; it is what it is, nothing more, nothing less than the lowest form of exploitation catering to an audience’s base desire for titillation.

Bob Chinn had loftier goals in mind: create a character with more substance than your average woodman, and put him in a story that would be compelling without hardcore sex scenes. Enter the fictional creation of Johnny Wadd. Part hard-boiled detective, part master cocksman, his capers became an instant sensation.

Wadd, the documentary, splices in numerous scenes from the Johnny Wadd “mysteries”, and while for the most part they are unintentionally hilarious thanks to skid-row production values and primitive fight choreography, Holmes sticks out as a more than competent improvisational actor. Perhaps he could have seen modest success as an honest straight-up thespian were it not for his insatiable carnal appetites. Folks like Paul Thomas Anderson, Kenneth Turan, Larry Flynt and smut pioneer Al Goldstein have nothing but genuine praise for Holmes and his screen presence, and it’s quite clear that the Wadd films benefited from the perfect synergy between character and performer. Swedish Erotica producer Bob Vosse goes so far as to compare him to Elvis Presley, and Goldstein proclaims Holmes “should have been a Kennedy.”

Audiences demanded more Wadd, so Chinn and crew immediately shoved more adventures down the pipeline:

Through the early 70s, Holmes’ career swelled to unimaginable magnitude, his star rising as he appeared in numerous other plotless porno flicks, which was still highly illegal. Sometime in this halcyon cocaine-free period, J.C. was detained by the cops and forced to choose between the lesser of two evils: either be sent up the creek sans paddle, or work as an informant for the L.A.P.D. In the first of many absurd twists of fate, Holmes not only became a stoolie, he relished the chance to act out his own Johnny Wadd fantasies in real life. While he mingled with drug dealers and his own trusted industry associates during the day, he would undergo a strange nocturnal transformation into John Holmes, Man of Mystery. His innate charisma and networking skills allowed him to get the skinny on competing low-rent XXX producers, getting friendly with them before ratting to the cops.

Holmes’ cooperation with the cops resulted in dozens of arrests and prosecutions, which had the added bonus of removing competition from the porno playing field. Wadd scores major points by getting a one-on-one with Vice Squad detective Tom Blake, who has nothing but praise for his erstwhile informer, even going so far as to spectulate on Holmes’ theoretical career as a vice cop. Prognosis was damn good on John’s skills as a stool pigeon, which kept him out of jail and fattened the wallets of his employers. Best of all, John got to play-act as a tough guy, a hard-boiled Raymond Chandler protagonist, a fearless macho man: everything he was not.

Somehow, through all of this, his marriage with Sharon was still limping on. Their off-and-on relationship lacked the passion of their early days, and John didn’t seem to care that Sharon was, for all intents and purposes, a kept woman, like another concubine in his harem. Perhaps he felt entitled to a swinger’s lifestyle; after all, this was the 70s and everyone was lettin’ it all hang out. In her shadow-shrouded interviews, she expresses nothing but regret for the relationship she could have had in a hypothetical universe, where her husband was not the most recognizable porn actor in the entire world.  John’s cavalier attitude towards the marriage reached its zenith when, in 1976, he brought home his 16-year-old mistress Dawn Schiller, who was homeless at the time.

Schiller remembers this period as a sunny, warm and beautiful time in her life, where she had a roof over her head and the love of none other than Johnny Wadd. But this was not to last; Sharon kicked both of them out in disgust. J.C. and Dawn would soon be living a destitute lifestyle, with the two of them bouncing between cheap motels and selling themselves on the street to support their ever mounting cocaine habit. John would allegedly force Dawn into prostitution and even gave her a beatdown in full view of motel staff and guests. Perhaps he fancied himself a pimp and was enacting another fantasy. Perhaps it was the coke. Perhaps it was love.

It was a demented relationship, at any rate, and Dawn was rescued by concerned motel staff and put on a plane for her native Florida. Within days of being at her parents’ house, she would recieve a tearful phone call from Holmes begging her to return. What made her come back to L.A. to start this miserable existence anew? John craved a stable relationship, yet his lifestyle would make such a thing impossible between all the film shoots and cocaine-fueled orgies that lasted all through the night and into the morning.

Holmes is depicted as both loathsome and pitiable, just an average Joe who hopped aboard a crazy rollercoaster and refused to get off, swept up by the spirit of the times and the rush of cocaine. None of his actions, especially when dealing with the warped relationship with Dawn Schiller, are excusable or even understandable. Part of what makes Wadd so fascinating is that all these facts are unadorned and free of analysis. When things get too lurid, there’s always some funny film clip to liven things up.

The 1981 biography/snow job Exhausted: The Story of John C. Holmes, directed by adult performer Julia St. Vincent, is a prime example of J.C. at his most narcissistic and self-aggrandizing: “Bigger than a breadstick, smaller than a compact car,” he quips; he must have had hundreds of these flattering comparisons floating around in his spaced-out subconscious. His interview segments are flat-out hilarious, full of boldfaced lies told with an absolutely straight face. He tells a decidedly different tale about his origin as an adult film performer, he claims to have slept with 14,000 women (a mathematical impossibility), he claims to have serviced a member of the English royal family. Holmes claims to have a degree in physical therapy from UCLA, when in fact “the closest John ever got to UCLA was breaking into cars in the school’s parking lot,” according to one of his close friends. Exhausted is a smutty and shallow work, clearly made by someone who was hopelessly in love with its subject, but its peek behind the scenes of the production of pornography is invaluable and endlessly fascinating.

A textbook sociopath, Holmes actually believed in his own myths and helped to propogate them, embellishing when necessary. Wadd is at its best when demythologizing the mighty Holmes, cutting him down to size and revealing him as the insecure drug addict he actually was. Various attempts at legit business ended in ignominious failure; “Just Looking Emporium”, a combination used furniture store and locksmith service started with his half-brother David, a short-lived production company called Penguin Productions. He began drifting toward a life of crime, running vast quantities of drugs and skimming cash from high-dollar deals. His involvement with Eddie Nash and the Wonderland Gang would lead to a ballsy theft and a vicious quadruple homicide.

Undoubtedly, Holmes was at the very least an accessory to the grisly murders; it was with his assistance that the four hitmen hired by Eddie Nash were able to access the Wonderland apartment. Further speculation about the case is kept to a minimum, blessedly, and so began the slow and steady decline of John C. Holmes.

Wadd is excellent investigative journalism, reporting the facts with as little spin as possible. There is no voiceover narration and the story is told entirely with interviews from Holmes’ many friends, enemies, and business associates. Co-directed by Wesley Emerson and a partner who chose to take an Alan Smithee credit, this would hint at some disagreements behind the scenes, which is odd because the film is focused, slim and efficient. Nobody passes judgment on John, even when recounting the bad old days of drug addiction and fleabag motels. An account of Holmes frittering an entire day’s worth of shooting by free-basing cocaine in a closet inspires more laughs than despair, and even the aftermath of the Wonderland murders becomes funny when J.C. and Dawn take an impromptu cross-country road trip.

Is John Curtis Estes a mythical icon, or just a holy fool? Wadd passes no judgment on its subject, which may irritate some viewers expecting this warts-and-all portrait to focus exclusively on the warts. His downfall is as tragic as it is predictable; unprotected sex and drug abuse are not a good combination. John Holmes was just another one of Estes’ alter egos, a film star stud who never tired of pleasing the ladies; unfortunately for John C. Estes, Holmes took over and started a self-destructive descent into a whirlpool of excess. Wadd can’t resist giddily wallowing in the sleazy atmosphere of the 1970s, where most of its running time is spent, but it treats the harsh 1980s with a gravity reserved for true-crime documentaries. Emerson’s technique is conventional, even invisible, edited with a hurtling speed with too many candid photos and smutty film clips to count.

In the words of Chuck Stephens, Holmes lived life to its fullest “until one thousand and one triple-X-rated nights swallowed him whole.” Wadd is both an unsparing depiction of an excessive lifestyle and a surprisingly sympathetic character study of an innately tragic figure. Make it a double bill with the rose-colored Boogie Nights for a three-dimensional peek into this funky, sexy, glorious, and sadly short-lived period in cinematic history.