Posted on 08/10/2004 8:19:17 AM PDT by dukeman
A former Colorado lawmaker and parole board chairman now works in the family business - but it's no dry cleaner or mom-and-pop restaurant.
These days, Larry Schwarz can be found at Platinum X Pictures, a hard-core adult-film company in California's San Fernando Valley.
Debbie, his wife of 24 years, is director of sales. Their 28-year-old daughter, Stephany, is co-owner and star of the company, where she goes by the stage name Jewel DeNyle.
"I feel no shame, as I have learned that what we do in our office is no different than any other business," Larry Schwarz says. "It is the adult-entertainment industry, and it's not violent like what you see in real-life daily news or in mainstream movies."
Schwarz says he works on the decidedly unsexy side of the porn business - managing the warehouse in Canoga Park, marketing tapes and DVDs, and overseeing payroll and collections - and spends no time on the production side, where the movies are shot and edited.
"It is not a porn shop, it is a warehouse distribution center, like any other, shipping VHS and DVD products - period," he says.
"It looks very much like a truck terminal without a dock. I'm still the same person as before, working with a different product and trying to do the best possible job and create profits. It's only different in the minds of those who wish to make it so."
People who knew Schwarz as a Republican legislator twice elected to represent a conservative House district in southern Colorado say they can't fathom his being part of the $6 billion porn industry.
"I could put my finger in an electrical socket and I wouldn't get this kind of a shock," says Ken Chlouber, the Republican president pro tem of the Colorado Senate, who worked with Schwarz on several bills and once wintered his burros on Schwarz's ranch in Wetmore. "If you knew Larry, none of this fits."
A former trucking company executive, Schwarz was tapped in 1997 by then-Gov. Roy Romer for a seat on the state's Parole Board. He was reappointed by Gov. Bill Owens three years later.
Then everything unraveled.
Authorities raided Schwarz's Wetmore home on Dec. 4, 2001, looking for child pornography.
According to court records, police removed cartoon books depicting children having sex and other items, including tapes of DeNyle from Schwarz's home.
Police also investigated claims that Schwarz had sexually molested family members years earlier.
No charges were filed, but Owens fired him from the Parole Board.
Schwarz says that after 15 months of unsuccessful job hunting, the position at his daughter's film company was the "only one available" to him.
Schwarz and his wife moved to Los Angeles in March 2003 to help Stephany, who was already an industry star, get her own adult-movie company off the ground.
Stephany, who refused to be interviewed for this story, spent nine years in the tiny town of Wetmore, 20 miles south of Cañon City. She is the biological daughter of Debbie Schwarz and was adopted by Larry while still a child. [Oh, tell me this guy hasn't been watching porno flicks of his adopted daughter. Ugh!]
People in Wetmore remember Stephany as a rowdy high school student, but Schwarz says he never detected signs that she was heading toward life as a porn star.
"I would much rather she were on the silver screen with Mel Gibson, but life happens not always as we wish," Schwarz says. "We both decided early on that it was better to be there for our daughter and help her avoid other situations which may have been even more devastating.
"When (Stephany) first told us what she was doing for a living, she stressed that she is who she is at home, and Jewel only while at work. She has done an outstanding job at maintaining that distinction throughout her career. We are proud of her."
Schwarz's willingness to further the adult-film career of his adopted daughter by marketing and distributing her films is baffling to some.
"When you have children, why in the world would you promote them doing pornography?" asks Norma Anderson, a Republican state senator and co-majority leader at the time Schwarz was in the House.
Schwarz says he played no role in Stephany's choice to enter the adult-film industry, noting that she decided to do so long before he ever joined her in California. And, he said, she recently decided to retire from performing.
Schwarz also said he isn't in the adult-film business for the money. While he wouldn't disclose his salary at Platinum X, Schwarz says it is substantially less than the $77,928 a year he earned on the Colorado Parole Board.
At work, Schwarz says he takes extra precautions with his daughter's image and "specifically avoids seeing her in anything she performs."
When it's time to choose explicit photographs of DeNyle for use in promotional materials, Schwarz says he refuses to take part.
"I think it's great that Jewel's parents have an open mind about their daughter being in the adult industry," says Michael Stefano, a co-owner of Platinum X and a performer in the industry. "Jewel is very close with both of her parents and would do anything for them."
It's possible that Schwarz, who calls his Platinum X family a "team of mother, father, daughter and associates," is breaking new ground in an industry that thrives on expanding the concept of what's acceptable.
To date, the phenomenon of parents working directly for, or with, their porn-star offspring is still fairly unusual, says Mark Kernes, a senior editor with Adult Video News, an industry trade magazine.
Schwarz's former neighbors in Wetmore aren't turning their back on him.
"I don't think there is anyone you can talk to up here that would bad-mouth him," says Cecilia Sanders.
A group of longtime residents that gathers regularly for conversation and coffee at the Wetmore Community Center recalls Schwarz as "nice" and "personable" and as a legislator who effectively looked out for the interests of Custer, Fremont, Teller and Pueblo counties.
However people categorize his involvement in the adult industry, Schwarz says he will never abandon his Republican ideals of self-reliance, lower taxes and individual freedom.
As for those who question his commitment to family values, Schwarz says the term has many definitions.
Schwarz plans to spend the rest of his working days with his family at Platinum X.
But he still manages to keep the state he called home close at hand, with pictures of cowboys, horses and cattle on his office walls and mountain scenes glowing on his computer screen.
And Schwarz vows to one day return to the state he loves.
It seems hearing your daughter's in porno and thinking "Can I get in on the merchandising?" is the essence of Schwarz.
SD
"My whole point is that I wouldn't *BE* in his position. I have serious doubts about a man who will take a job to help peddle his daughter's sexual exploits to the public."
I have a different view of this guy than most people on this thread I guess. It seems to me that he was a victim of unfortunate circumstances. When someone is investigated on charges like these, his reputation is ruined even if, as was the case here, NO CHARGES ARE EVER FILED.
The only reason he was investigated was BECAUSE HE was a Republican politician and his DAUGHTER was a porn star. In other words his reputation and career were ruined not because of anything he did, but because of what his daughter did.
To me it seems the least his daughter could do is give him a job after ruining his career and his reputation.
Therein lies the problem. He got away with these crimes before.......
What do ALL politicians, lawyers, corporate executives and people in the porn industry have in common?
They are willing to say and do whatever they have to, to get what they want!
Basically he made a lateral career move.
If you read the article and you don't think a person such as that is a rotten apple, we have different values.
All of which is irrelevant if you want to discuss ideas.
Is this about my values? Or do you want to discuss ideas?
So. . .daddy helping his daughter sell herself on the open market.
Sick.
What his daughter should have done is given up selling herself.
Agree
When you cite a socialist like Huben with approval, you join the DUmpster crowd, and should forthwith turn in your FR handle and take your place on the Democratic Underground.
I posted something by Robert Bork. I don't know who you are talking about.
I'm talking about the socialist site you linked to. The management has asked the patrons not to do that.
"What his daughter should have done is given up selling herself."
It would have been better if she had done that before his name was dragged through the mud. If she does that now, they will all be jobless.
I had no idea it was a socialist website. I don't even know who the person is but I've had my post pulled and will repost what I posted. That's Bork's words not some liberal socialist.
Robert Bork: Slouching Towards Gomorrah (a repost)
Libertarians join forces with modern liberals in opposing censorship, though libertarians are far from being modern liberals in other respects. For one thing, libertarians do no like the coercion that necessarily accompanies radical egalitarianism. But because both libertarians and modern liberals are oblivious to social reality, both demand radical personal autonomy in expression. That is one reason libertarians are not to be confused, as they often are, with conservatives. They are quasi- or semiconservatives. Nor are they to be confused with classical liberals, who considered restraints on individual autonomy to be essential.
The nature of the liberal and libertarian errors is easily seen in discussions of pornography. The leader of the explosion of pornographic videos, described admiringly by a competitor as the Ted Turner of the business, offers the usual defenses of decadence: 'Adults have the right to see [pornography] if they want to. If it offends you, don't buy it.' Those statements neatly sum up both the errors and the (unintended) perniciousness of the alliance between libertarians and modern liberals with respect to popular culture.
Modern liberals employ the rhetoric of 'rights' incessantly, not only to delegitimate the idea of restraints on individuals by communities but to prevent discussion of the topic. Once something is announced, usually flatly or stridently, to be a right --whether pornography or abortion or what have you-- discussion becomes difficult to impossible. Rights inhere in the person, are claimed to be absolute, and cannot be deminished or taken away by reason; in fact, reason that suggests the non-existence of an asserted right is viewed as a moral evil by the claimant. If there is to be anything that can be called a community, rather than an agglomeration of hedonists, the case for previously unrecognized individual freedoms (as well as some that have been previously recognized) must be thought through and argued, and "rights" cannot win every time. Why there is a right for adults to enjoy pornography remains unexplained and unexplainable.
The second bit of advice --'If it offends you, don't buy it' -- is both lulling and destructive. Whether you buy it or not, you will be greatly affected by those who do. The aesthetic and moral environment in which you and your family live will be coarsened and degraded. Economists call the effects an activity has on others 'externalities'; why so many of them do not understand the externalities here is a mystery. They understand quite well that a person who decides not to run a smelter will nevertheless be seriously affected if someone else runs one nearby.
Free market economists are particularly vulnerable to the libertarian virus. They know that free economic exchanges usually benefit both parties to them. But they mistake that general rule for a universal rule. Benefits do not invariably result from free market exchanges. When it comes to pornography or addictive drugs, libertarians all too often confuse the idea that markets should be free with the idea that everything should be available on the market. The first of those ideas rests on the efficacy of the free market in satisfying wants. The second ignores the question of which wants it is moral to satisfy. That is a question of an entirely different nature. I have heard economists say that, as economists, they do no deal with questions of morality. Quite right. But nobody is just an economist. Economists are also fathers and mothers, husbands or wives, voters citizens, members of communities. In these latter roles, they cannot avoid questions of morality.
The externalities of depictions of violence and pornography are clear. To complaints about those products being on the market, libertarians respond with something like 'Just hit the remote control and change channels on your TV set.' But, like the person who chooses not to run a smelter while others do, you, your family, and your neighbors will be affected by the people who do not change the channel, who do rent the pornographic videos, who do read alt.sex.stories. As film critic Michael Medved put it: ' To say that if you don't like the popular culture, then turn it off, is like saying if you don't like the smog, stop breathing. . . .There are Amish kids in Pennsylvania who know about Madonna.' And their parents can do nothing about it.
Can there be any doubt that as pornography and depictions of violence become increasingly popular and increasingly accessible, attitudes about marriage, fidelity, divorce, obligations to children, the use of force, and permissible public behavior and language will change? Or that with the changes in attitudes will come changes in conduct, both public and private? We have seen those changes already and they are continuing. Advocates of liberal arts education assure us that those studies improve character. Can it be that only uplifting reading affects character and the most degrading reading has no effects whatever? 'Don't buy it' and 'change the channel,' however intended, are effectively advice to accept a degenerating culture and its consequences.
The obstacles to censorship of pornographic and viloence-filled materials are, of course, enormous. Radical individualism in such matters is now pervasive even among sedate, upper middle-class people. At a dinner I sat next to a retired Army general who was no a senior corporate executive. The subject of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs came up. This most conventional of dinner companions said casually that people ought to be allowed to see whatever they wanted to see. It would seem to follow that others ought to be allowed to do whatever some want to see.... Any serious attempt to root out the worst in our popular culture may be doomed unless the judiciary comes to understand that the First Amendment was adopted for good reasons, and those reasons did not include the furtherance of radical personal autonomy
Nor am I interested in political parties to which I do not belong.
I'm happily unable to continue this inane conversation as I must go now. I hope you have fun chasing your tail. Goodbye
I agree - it would have been better before. But as it now stands, they are making money, but destroying any remaining semblance of normal family relationship.
That will have a much more lasting (needless to say negative) impact on all their lives than being temporarily unemployed.
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