Today we learned about the passing of porn legend Harry Reems who starred in the breakthrough adult film Deep Throat. Born Herbert Streicher, Reems, a former Marine, starred in over 100 adult features, but Deep Throat was his most notorious film. Reems was paid $100 for a day’s work on set. When the film’s release created a nationwide controversy, Reems was federally prosecuted “for conspiracy to distribute obscene material across state lines.” The conviction was later overturned.
Reems always wanted to cross over into mainstream movies and was even cast in Grease before being fired due to his past.
“Acting was my true love, and I buried that possibility by going into adult films,” Reems told Dave Itzkoff for a 2005 New York magazine piece. “The writing was on the wall. There was no place for me in conventional entertainment.”
In the 80s, Reems moved to Park City, got sober and reinvented himself as a real estate broker. Reems kept his porn name.
“The past, is the past,” he would tell clients.
Read his obituary at the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune.
