Secrets and Thighs

Secrets and Thighs, by Ed Halter, offers "A history of celebrity sex tapes, real and fake, from Joan Crawford to Paris Hilton" — all in a very serious journalistic tone:

The distant seeds of celebrity porn took root in 19th-century literary erotica attributed to famous authors, such as the mock-epic Don Leon, claimed to have been penned by Lord Byron as a record of his notorious exploits, or the explicitly homosexual Victorian novel Teleny, long said to have been written by Oscar Wilde. After Hollywood invented the movie star in the early 20th century, Tijuana Bibles satisfied a new desire to see screen deities stripped bare. These crudely drawn comic-book leaflets depicted stars like Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, and Clark Gable in various farcical trysts.

Hardcore porn films have existed at least since the teens, circulated through private clubs and wealthy collectors. Ancient Hollywood gossip has it that Joan Crawford acted in several early stag films, including some with lesbian scenes. But one of the earliest star-attributed films to circulate widely was a nameless one-reel nudie loop purporting to depict a young Marilyn Monroe, who would have shot it around 1948, prior to her posing nude for the inaugural issue of Playboy. In the film, a lone young woman does a striptease, rolls an apple across her chest, and then sips a soda. Later dubbed The Apple Knockers and the Coke, it was distributed to colleges and cinemas in the early '70s by Grove Films, packaged in a collection of vintage erotic shorts and experimental works like Carolee Schneemann's Fuses. Today, it's recognized that Apple Knockers and several other so-called Monroe porn films depict another early Playboy model named Arline Hunter.

One Monroe stag film remains in dispute, however. Also dated from 1948, this unnamed 16mm hardcore short shows a Monroe-ringer screwing a mustached man on a couch. According to a 1980 Penthouse cover story, a print was discovered that year by a Swedish photographer and subsequently publicized in adult magazines and tabloids worldwide. "Here, in grainy celluloid," Penthouse wrote next to copious frame-enlargements, "may well be the still unglamorized sex goddess the public never knew, before plastic surgeons, stylists, and designers transformed her into the mythical Marilyn Monroe. It's a thought to fire the imagination of every man who ever dreamed of her, a fantasy come to fruition." Another print of probably the same film garnered headlines in industry trades when it surfaced at a Spanish festival for film collectors in 1997. Those who argue the actress is Monroe point to declassified FBI files from 1965 detailing that Joe DiMaggio offered $25,000 for a print of a "French-type" movie depicting Monroe "in unnatural acts with an unknown male." Its authenticity seemed likely enough for Hollywood's Erotic Museum to purchase a print, now kept in its collection alongside artwork by Picasso and Tom of Finland.