A documentary, “I Always Said Yes: The Many Lives of Wakefield Poole,” directed by Jim Tushinski, came out in 2016. Poole grew older, enthusiasts of gay history and vintage pornography collectors began revisiting his work. He retired in his 60s and moved back to Jacksonville, where he died in a nursing home, a niece, Terry Waters, said. Poole needed to find a new way to make a paycheck in New York, so he studied at the French Culinary Institute and later landed a job in food services for Calvin Klein. He turned to moviemaking in the 1960s, captivated by the experimental films of Andy Warhol.Īs he pulled away from pornography in the mid-1980s, Mr. Trying for a comeback, he released “ Boys in the Sand II” in 1984, but it didn’t make a splash.
Poole eventually moved back to New York, holing himself up in a cold-water flat in Chelsea to break his cocaine addiction. He soon directed a documentary-like film, “ Take One,” in which he interviewed men about their carnal fantasies and had them act them out on camera, engaging two brothers in one notorious moment. Poole started afresh in San Francisco, which had become an epicenter of the gay rights movement, although his troubles only worsened there: He broke up with his longtime partner, and he became addicted to freebasing cocaine. Then came “ Wakefield Poole’s Bible!,” a creatively ambitious soft-porn movie that reimagined tales from the Old Testament, but it flopped.įrustrated with its failure, Mr. Poole’s next hit, “ Bijou,” followed a construction worker who stumbles on an invitation to a private club, where he joins a psychedelic bathhouse-style orgy. It was a communal experience by necessity, and you had to be seen in your seat. “This was a time when you had to leave your home to see pornography. “ Wakefield was determined to elevate the gay porn genre,” Michael Musto, the longtime Village Voice writer, said in a phone interview. The year after “Boys” appeared, the landmark film “ Deep Throat” was released, commencing a golden age of American pornography. Even its marquee billing challenged precedent: It displayed Mr. Variety reviewed the movie, a rare instance of critical coverage of hard-core gay pornography by a mainstream publication (though it took a dim view of the film). Poole to speculate that the paper’s advertising department may not have looked at it too closely. In a memoir, “ Dirty Poole,” published in 2000, he related how, during the film’s release, its producer sneakily bought an ad for it in The New York Times, leading Mr. Poole said at the time, “that gay people could look at and say, ‘I don’t mind being gay - it’s beautiful to see those people do what they’re doing.’” Soon, celebrities like Liza Minnelli, Rudolf Nureyev and Halston were also lining up to see it. The sex it portrayed between Adonic men frolicking in the Pines came across to viewers as blissful and guilt-free.
When “Boys in the Sand” opened at the now gone 55th Street Playhouse in Manhattan, it became the talk of the town.