John Holmes (actor)

John Curtis Estes (August 8, 1944 ? March 13, 1988) better known as John Holmes, John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character in a series of related films), was a porn star of the 1970s and 1980s that included one gay film and a handful of gay loops. Holmes is best known for his large penis (generally estimated at between 12-15 inches), his involvement in the brutal Wonderland Murders in 1981, and his death from AIDS. He starred in a large number of loops and features and is one of the most famous male porn stars of all-time.

Last days

As Holmes' career started to decline, possibly in an act of financial desperation, he starred in his only full-length feature gay porn movie, The Private Pleasures of John C. Holmes (1982). In the movie, Holmes performs unprotected anal sex on Joey Yale who died of AIDS in 1986. His heterosexual fan base was unaware that Holmes had experimented with bisexuality for years as part of early loops and his self-prostitution outside of the porn industry.

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On a porn set he met his future girlfriend and wife, Laurie Rose, a.k.a. Misty Dawn, a fellow porn actor.

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In 1986, Holmes was diagnosed with HIV. According to Laurie Rose, Holmes supposedly never used needles and was deathly afraid of them; he instead was addicted to smoking cocaine. However, while his cocaine addiction is well-documented, many porn historians and industry insiders from that era have heard testimony from some of Holmes' fellow performers to the contrary. Some of these documenters also have first-hand knowledge of his heroin abuse, and also cite on-screen evidence of said as seen in very visible vein damage the insides on Holmes' forearms. This damage becomes more apparent as Holmes moved from 8mm loops to feature films, where the better quality of the 35mm film stock showed the detail that grainy 8mm tended to mask.

Related Topics:
1986 - HIV

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Regardless of the nature of his addiction, there were other risk factors that were present in his lifestyle, and there is no way to identify which of them led to his HIV infection. For instance, there has been a lot of speculation that experimentation with homosexuality - including the frequently mentioned rumors that he used the services of low-rent transexual prostitutes - was the source of his infection. Similar reports claim that, while in jail during the Wonderland Murders investigation, Holmes had some sort of male-male sexual encounter with at least one other prisoner who was HIV positive; the more popular version of the story has the local constabulary bribing Holmes with better treatment, including beer and other contraband normally denied prisoners, if he would sodomize other prisoners who either had violated prison rules and/or were known to be homosexuals and were the subject of a series of sadistic games on the part of the guards. To date, however, no one has come forth with proof of these rumors, much less admitting to having been a part of them, willing or otherwise.

Related Topics:
Transexual - HIV

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Holmes continued to have unprotected sex in the adult film industry without informing any of his partners of his status, and worked until the disease emaciated him. One female performer he had worked with ? "Lisa DeLeeuw" ? died of AIDS in 1993, but it is believed that she contracted the virus from a dentist who had failed to sterilize his instruments properly. More specifically, the last time she had performed with Holmes was in 1981, which reduces the odds of her having contracted HIV from Holmes.

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Holmes married Misty Dawn in 1987. Two weeks before his death in 1988, detectives visited him in the hospital, in another futile attempt to get information about the Wonderland murders. Misty Dawn took the name Laura Holmes and later published the book Porn King: Autobiography of John C. Holmes in 1998.

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