LOS ANGELES — Pioneering adult performer George McDonald has passed at age 70.
Known for his role in 1972’s breakthrough title, “Behind the Green Door,” McDonald has been called “the first male star of the adult film industry.”
Ashley West recorded his memories of the star in a new introduction to a 99-minute interview with McDonald and noted that when he started The Rialto Report, George McDonald was one of the first people he wanted to include because McDonald was “an adult film star at a time when there were no adult film stars.”
“This was an era of shame and secrecy when no one used their real name, and most people didn’t use any name. But for a time, his name was everywhere — he once counted nine theaters showing his films in San Francisco at the same time,” West said. “He started in the era of short, silent 8mm films and saw firsthand the progression to full-length pornographic features within a couple of years. He was in the industry so early that one of his last films was the Mitchell Brothers’ ‘Behind the Green Door,’ which is often cited as one of the first adult films.”
West called McDonald “an All-American boy” who started life with a promising future. An intelligent, good-looking high school athlete who joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War, McDonald was interested in politics, but found a career opportunity in porn instead, performing in a variety of scenes for the West Coast’s early adult filmmakers, and as West recalled, “[headlined] a live sex show in Hawaii where he competed with John Holmes, and living a life no one that had ever really lived before.”
McDonald also wrote an autobiography called “Dirty Movies” and became involved in a variety of adventures along the way.
In the end, it was the little things, like his love of sending greetings cards, that friends remembered.
“He sent cards to everyone he considered a friend, for every single holiday you can think of — Christian, Chinese, Jewish, Indian, Mexican… you name it. That meant I got a card about every two or three weeks throughout every year,” West concluded. “Each one was a ray of sunshine that reminded me that I was friends with George McDonald. A good, good man.”
The Rialto Report interview with George McDonald is available here.