Jack Wrangler
Encyclopedia
Jack Wrangler was an American
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 actor of gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 and straight adult film, theatrical producer
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...

, and director. Open
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....

 about his homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 and adult film work throughout his career, Wrangler was considered an icon of the gay-liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...

 movement.

In 2008, a feature-length documentary film, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon is a 2008 feature documentary film about the life of Jack Wrangler, produced and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures...

, was released documenting his careers both off and on the stage.

Wrangler's longtime companion, whom he was married to for the last 15 years of his life, was singer Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting was a singer of American popular music and country music who first made her reputation during the 1940s and 1950s.-Youth:...

.

Early years

Wrangler was born John Robert Stillman in Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

. His father was Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 film
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 and television producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...

 Robert Stillman, who produced such films as Champion
Champion (1949 film)
Champion is an American film noir drama based on a short story by Ring Lardner. Filmed in black-and-white, it recounts the struggles of boxer "Midge" Kelly fighting his own demons while working to achieve success in the boxing ring. The drama was directed by Mark Robson, with cinematography by...

, Boots and Saddles
Boots and Saddles
For the 1957-1958 syndicated western television series starring Jack Pickard, Patrick McVey, and Gardner McKay, see Boots and Saddles .Boots and Saddles is a bugle call sounded for mounted troops to mount and take their place in line....

, Second Chorus
Second Chorus
Second Chorus is a Hollywood musical comedy film starring Fred Astaire, Burgess Meredith, Paulette Goddard, Artie Shaw, and Charles Butterworth, with music by Artie Shaw, Bernie Hanighen, Hal Borne and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The film was directed by H. C...

, and Home of the Brave
Home of the Brave (1949 film)
Home of the Brave is a 1949 film based on a 1946 play by Arthur Laurents. It was directed by Mark Robson and stars Douglas Dick, Jeff Corey, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy, James Edwards, and Steve Brodie...

and produced television series such as Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...

.
His mother, Ruth Clark Stillman, was a former dancer in Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...

 musicals.

Stillman began his acting career at the age of nine in the television series The Faith of Our Children (1953–1955). The series, which starred Eleanor Powell
Eleanor Powell
Eleanor Torrey Powell was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.-Early life:...

, was a syndicated religious family show that won five local Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

s.

He became aware of his homosexuality when he was 10 years old.

Stillman graduated in 1968 from the College of Speech with a degree in theater from Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

, Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

.

Adult film

Despite his good looks and acting skills, Stillman found only limited early work in Los Angeles, California, and New York City on the stage and as a model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 and dancer. One of his first roles was in Douglas Dean Goodman's play Special Friends, one of the first gay-themed plays by a gay playwright to be performed in San Francisco, California. He played a former prostitute from Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 who becomes a bad go-go dancer in California, in a role which required extensive nudity. He finally settled in New York City and found work as a bartender
Bartender
A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...

 and go-go dancer
Go-Go dancing
Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at a discotheque. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s when women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City began to get up on tables and dance the twist...

.

In 1970, he made his first appearance in a male strip show
Striptease
A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...

, using the name "Jack Wrangler." (The pseudonymous last name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...

 was taken from the label on his Wrangler-brand work shirt.)

Wrangler was approached to appear in gay pornographic films by Magnum Studios, the pioneering gay adult film studio and magazine publisher, after studio heads saw a poster for Special Friends featuring him semi-nude. His first gay porn film was 1970's Eyes of a Stranger
Eyes of a Stranger (1970 film)
Eyes of a Stranger is a 1970 American pornographic film directed by Fred Clay and Abe Rich and produced by Ken Green....

(also known as Eyes of a Gay Stranger; Magnum Studios), one of the first hard-core gay adult films to be released commercially in the United States. Wrangler performed in gay pornographic films for several reasons. First he saw them as culturally subversive and politically liberating:
"At the time we were all trying to find out who the hell we were as individuals, what we wanted specifically on our own terms, who we wanted to be, what our potentials were, what our differences were, what made us unique… And I think that's why the XXX-rated films were important, because it was like, Oh, my God, there are other people who like the same things as me, like leather, or being blown on a pool table. [Laughs] It was a start—literally stripping ourselves naked and trying to begin from there."
Second, he "wasn't comfortable in his own skin" and wanted some adventure in his life.

During his adult-film career, Wrangler appeared in 47 films. Among his more notable gay films were Kansas City Trucking Co.
Kansas City Trucking Co. (1976 film)
Kansas City Trucking Co. is a 1976 gay pornographic film and the first in what has come to be known as directors Sam and Joe Gage's "Working Man Trilogy". The film was produced in San Francisco, and starred Richard Locke, Steve Boyd, and Jack Wrangler...

, Hot House, Sex Machine, and A Night At The Adonis
A Night At The Adonis (1980 film)
A Night At The Adonis is a 1978 gay pornographic film by legendary director Jack Deveau. The film stars Jack Wrangler, Chris Michaels, Big Bill Eld , and Mandingo...

.

In 1978, Wrangler made the move to heterosexual-adult film, making his debut in China Sisters which included his first sexual encounter with a woman on film. He quickly made a number of well-known and popular straight-adult films, including Jack and Jill, Roommates, and The Devil in Miss Jones 2. He was a favorite of director Chuck Vincent, the critically acclaimed, openly gay director of some of the top straight-adult films of the 1970s and 1980s. Vincent's films subvert straight porn's traditional focus on the female body by focusing on Wrangler's body and fixing the viewer's eye on the male (rather than female) sexual experience.

As Wrangler, he became an icon of the gay-liberation movement. His popularity as a gay-porn star was so great that "Jack Wrangler" was prominently mentioned in playwright Doric Wilson
Doric Wilson
Doric Wilson was an American playwright, director, producer, critic and gay rights activist.He was born Alan Doric Wilson in Los Angeles, California, where his family was temporarily located. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he was raised on his grandfather's ranch at Plymouth, Washington on...

's 1984 play, Forever After.

Theatre

Even as Wrangler was achieving fame as one of the first iconic gay-porn stars, his acting career also blossomed. He co-starred alongside playwright and actor Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick (playwright)
Robert Patrick is a gay American playwright, poet, lyricist, and short-story writer and novelist. He was born Robert Patrick O'Connor in Kilgore, Texas, USA.-Personal life:...

 in Patrick's 1979 play T-Shirts at The Glines
The Glines
Founded in 1976 by John Glines, Barry Laine and Jerry Tobin, The Glines is an American not-for-profit organization based in New York City, New York, devoted to creating and presenting gay art to develop positive self-images and dispel negative stereotyping....

 theater in New York City. In 1985, Wrangler wrote the book
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 for the musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 I Love You, Jimmy Valentine – which starred Whiting. In the mid-1980s, he appeared in the play Soul Survivor, a comedy about a gay man whose lover has died of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

.

By this time, however, Wrangler's adult-film career was tapering off. He published his autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, The Jack Wrangler Story, or What's a Nice Boy Like You Doing?, in 1984. But Whiting demanded that he give up his porn career and live erotic shows. In 1986 at the age of 40, he appeared in his final adult picture, a straight-porn film titled Rising Star (Caballero Home Video).

Wrangler turned his attention to Whiting's career and cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

. He became a board member of the Johnny Mercer Foundation
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...

 after its founding in 1982, and worked to promote Mercer's music. He wrote and produced a 1985 cabaret show for Whiting which featured Mercer's music, and in 1996 co-wrote and produced Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: The Jazz Concert (inspired by the Mercer music used in the film, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). A year later, he helped conceive the 1997 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...

 Dream, which starred Whiting and contained many Mercer songs. Wrangler conceived the idea of a ballet based on Mercer's 1946 musical St. Louis Woman, which was performed by the Dance Theater of Harlem in 2003. Wrangler was also a promoter of the cabaret singer Carol Woods
Carol Woods (performer)
Carol Woods is an American performer. In February 2008 she received a standing ovation during the 50th Grammy Awards broadcast singing "Let It Be" from the soundtrack of the film Across the Universe, with Timothy T. Mitchum...

, writing and producing several shows for her between 1984 and 2001. Wrangler also wrote, directed, or produced a number of other plays, musicals and revues, including The Valentine Touch, The First Lady and Other Stories of Our Times, and Irina Abroad!

Wrangler authored a column on health and fitness, "Wrangler's Weights and Measures", for the short-lived, gay-lifestyle magazine Au Contraire in 1979.

Personal life

In 1976, Wrangler met singer Margaret Whiting. She was 22 years his senior. They met in a nightclub, and Wrangler later recalled: "I was with my manager when I looked over at Margaret, who was surrounded by five guys in a booth. There she was with the hair, the furs and the big gestures. I thought, 'Boy, now that's New York! That's glamour!' I had to meet her." Their romance began a few weeks later.

The couple was strongly criticized for the relationship, and Wrangler was accused of "turning straight" and entering the relationship simply for money. However, Wrangler always considered himself homosexual. "I'm not bisexual and I'm not straight", Wrangler later said. "I'm gay, but I could never live a gay lifestyle, because I'm much too competitive. When I was with a guy I would always want to be better than him: what we were accomplishing, what we were wearing—anything. With a woman you compete like crazy, but coming from different points of view, and as far as I'm concerned, that was doable."

Nonetheless, the early years of their relationship were difficult, as Wrangler and Whiting struggled with Wrangler's homosexuality. When Wrangler shouted at her in a restaurant that he was gay, Whiting responded, "only around the edges, dear." The couple was married from 1994 until his death.

In 1980, Wrangler, his step-grandmother, and his manager were attacked, pistol-whipped
Pistol-whipping
Pistol-whipping is the act of using a handgun as a blunt weapon, wielding it as if it were a club or blackjack. "Pistol-whipping" and "to pistol-whip" were reported as "new words" of American speech in 1955, with cited usages from 1940s...

, and tied up by six burglars at his step-grandmother's home in Bel Air, California. The robbers made off with more than $250,000 in furs and cash.

In 1998, Wrangler and Whiting filed a $3 million lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 against New York City when Whiting tripped on loose pavement and broke her hip. Their suit claimed $2 million in damages for her injuries and $1 million for loss of conjugal relations
Human sexual behavior
Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons...

.

In 2008, a feature-length documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about Wrangler, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon is a 2008 feature documentary film about the life of Jack Wrangler, produced and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures...

, premiered at Newfest and received the GayVN Award. It was produced and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz
Jeffrey Schwarz
Jeffrey Schwarz is President & CEO of Automat Pictures, a Los Angeles based entertainment company specializing in the production of studio EPKs , Blu-ray and DVD content, original television programming, and feature films....

 of Automat Pictures
Automat Pictures
Automat Pictures is a multi-award winning entertainment production company based in Los Angeles, which specializes in EPK, Blu-ray and DVD Added Value, as well original television programming, web content and independent feature film production....

. and is distributed by TLA Releasing
TLA Releasing
TLA Releasing is a US film distribution company owned by TLA Entertainment Group. In March 2011, a new LLC was formed for the operation. Its primary output is LGBT-related films from all over the world under the "TLA Releasing" label, as well as horror films under the label "Danger After Dark"...

.

Wrangler died on April 7, 2009, at the age of 62 from complications from emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...

.

Selected filmography

  • Eyes of a Stranger
    Eyes of a Stranger (1970 film)
    Eyes of a Stranger is a 1970 American pornographic film directed by Fred Clay and Abe Rich and produced by Ken Green....

     (1970)
  • Kansas City Trucking Co.
    Kansas City Trucking Co. (1976 film)
    Kansas City Trucking Co. is a 1976 gay pornographic film and the first in what has come to be known as directors Sam and Joe Gage's "Working Man Trilogy". The film was produced in San Francisco, and starred Richard Locke, Steve Boyd, and Jack Wrangler...

    (1976)
  • A Night At The Adonis
    A Night At The Adonis (1980 film)
    A Night At The Adonis is a 1978 gay pornographic film by legendary director Jack Deveau. The film stars Jack Wrangler, Chris Michaels, Big Bill Eld , and Mandingo...

    (1978)
  • Gemini (1979)
  • Jack and Jill (1979)
  • Hot House (1980)
  • Sex Machine (1980)
  • Wanted (1980)
  • Roommates (1981)
  • The Devil in Miss Jones 2 (1982)
  • In Love (1983)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK