Richard Pacheco

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This article is about the pornographic actor Richard Pacheco, born Howie Gordon. For the Big Brother contestant, see Howie Gordon
Richard Pacheco
Richard Pacheco in 2001, photographer http://www.lukeisback.com.
Birthdate: May 5, 1948 (1948-05-05) (age 60)
Birth name: Howie Gordon
Eye color: Brown
Hair color: Brown
Ethnicity: Jewish American
Stage Name(s): Dewey Alexander / Mack Howard / Marc Howard / Mark Howard / Richard Pecheko / Norman Vain / McKinley Howard
Richard Pacheco at IMDb
Richard Pacheco at IAFD
Richard Pacheco at AFDB

Richard Pacheco (born Howard Marc Gordon, May 5, 1948) is an American pornographic actor.

He appeared in more than 100 x-rated films and videos. He has won multiple adult film awards for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Director. He was Playgirl magazine's Man of the Year in 1979 as Howie Gordon.

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[edit] Early life

Howie Gordon grew up in an orthodox Jewish family in Pittsburgh, the younger of two brothers.[1] He graduated with honors from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1966 and was the president of his class.

His first role in pornography was during his term at Antioch College, Ohio, in an amateur student production. After graduation, he quit his job, and moved to Berkeley, California, to live in a commune. He met his wife, Ashley, through the commune, in 1971, and for a time she helped support them as a sex surrogate, and eventually as a sex therapist. They married in 1975.

[edit] Pornography career

In the mid-1970s, Gordon was earning $5 per hour for construction work, and looking to begin a new career. He applied to the Episcopal Theological School at Harvard (to study history), the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Hebrew Union College seminary in order to become a rabbi, before being offered his first professional erotic film role in The Candy Stripers (released 1978) for $200 per day. That began his pornographic career.

He appeared in that first film under the name "McKinley Howard", and used many different aliases until Anthony Spinelli's Talk Dirty to Me (1980), in which he co-starred as "Richard Pacheco". When that film became a groundbreaking success, he kept the pseudonym for the box office value it began to accrue.

In November 1984, Pacheco stopped acting in porn movies without condoms in reaction to his wife's concerns about the growing AIDS epidemic. This cost him most of his pornographic acting job offers, and became an effective forced retirement from pornographic acting. He worked in non-sex roles, and as an assistant director to John Leslie until 1986. He only directed one film himself, 1987's Careful, He May Be Watching, starring Seka, but that one won the Best Film award and won him the Best Director award from AVN Awards 1988.

His other adult film awards include Adult Film Association of America awards for Best Supporting Actor for Talk Dirty to Me (1980) and Nothing to Hide (1981), the NY Critics Adult Film 1981 awards for Best Actor for Nothing To Hide, and Best Supporting Actor for The Dancers, AVN Awards for Best Actor - Film for Irresistible, Best Supporting Actor - Film for Nothing to Hide in 1984, and Best Couples Sex Scene - Video (with Nina Hartley) and Best Supporting Actor - Video for Sensual Escape in 1989. He was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in January 1999, along with Bob Chinn and Annie Sprinkle. Pacheco and Sprinkle were given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) in the year 2000. And in 2006, Pacheco was presented with the pioneer induction into the X-Rated Critics Organization's (XRCO) Hall of Fame.

He has extensively written and spoken about pornography, including columns, articles, reviews, speaking about pornography and AIDS, and still seeks to publish an autobiography of his time in the adult film business.

[edit] Family life

He told his parents about his career as he was becoming successful, with appearances in Playgirl (Man of the Month November 1978 before Man of the Year in 1979), and on the Phil Donahue Show, which he says made them more supportive. He had an open relationship with his wife initially, which became considerably less open after they had children and AIDS became a threat, but he credits his pornography career for giving him the opportunity to continue sexual encounters for a time without endangering his home life. They have two daughters and a son, born in the 1980s, with whom they have been open about his pornography career. His wife has become a psychotherapist, and along with Pacheco's writing, helps to support the family financially.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Richard Pacheco: The Accidental Porn Star with the Average Endowment Xandria Collection June 30, 2000 interview

[edit] External links

[edit] About Richard Pacheco

[edit] By Richard Pacheco