Robin Byrd
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Robin Byrd (born April 6, 1957, in New York, New York) is an American former porn actress and the host of The Robin Byrd Show, which has appeared on leased public-access cable television in New York City for close to thirty years.
Byrd was adopted and raised in Florida. She has never been able to identify her birth parents, due to the unwillingness of her adoptive mother to reveal that information and sealed birth and adoption records under New York state law.
At the time of filming the porn classic, Debbie Does Dallas, Byrd was living in Brooklyn, New York, and was still known as Robin Cohen. After taking some college classes in marketing and advertising, she attended the School of Visual Arts and worked as a nude model for art classes. Her adult entertainment career was launched on pornographer Al Goldstein's cable access show, Midnight Blue. She subsequently starred in porn films during the late 1970s, including a role in the above-mentioned Debbie Does Dallas.
After guest-hosting on a leased public access show called Hot Leggs, she changed the name to The Robin Byrd Show in 1977. The show has aired continuously since, though it now shows reruns rather than live episodes. Each episode features Byrd in her trademark black crochet bikini and white fingernail polish, on an all-red set with a large, heart-shaped neon sign that bears the name of her show. Male and female porn stars and strippers appear as guests and perform fully nude stripteases, sometimes also taking calls from viewers. Byrd and her guests also frequently engage in onscreen sexplay by the end of the episode. Each show customarily ends with all the guests dancing to Robin's recording of a bawdy novelty tune, "Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box." Celebrities from outside the adult entertainment industry such as Sandra Bernhard and Dame Edna have also been guests on her show.
Byrd and Goldstein were in a long standing legal battle with Time Warner Cable (and its predecessor, Manhattan Cable), which wanted to scramble all adult-oriented content so that subscribers had to send in written requests to view it. In 1978, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals struck as unconstitutional the FCC mandatory access regulations under which Byrd and Goldstein had challenged the cable provider's actions, but the U.S. Supreme Court disposed of the case on other grounds.
In 1995, the issue was again before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which upheld the regulations and ruled that Time Warner's requirement for written requests was a violation. As of 2006, The Robin Byrd Show continues to be aired unscrambled and uncut.
Byrd's show and filmography have made her a local celebrity and to some extent, a national one. She is a frequent presenter at New York City adult entertainment, gay pride, and AIDS awareness events. The Robin Byrd Show was parodied on Saturday Night Live in a series of skits airing in 1997 and 1998; Byrd herself was played by Cheri Oteri.
In 1999, Richard Avedon photographed Byrd for a feature in The New Yorker on famous and influential New Yorkers. Byrd, a relatively savvy businesswoman, has also branched out into other adult-oriented businesses, including phone sex lines and ringtones.
