Mitchell brothers
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The Mitchell brothers (James "Jim" Lloyd Mitchell, November 30, 1943–July 12, 2007 and Artie Jay Mitchell, December 17, 1945–February 27, 1991) were pioneers in the pornography and striptease club business in San Francisco and other parts of California from 1969 until 1991, when Jim was convicted of killing Artie.
They opened the O'Farrell Theatre in 1969 as an adult cinema and at one time operated 11 such businesses; in addition, they produced and directed many adult films, including Behind the Green Door in 1972. They were also successful as the defendants in many obscenity cases. The Mitchells' notoriety significantly increased with Jim's fratricide; they became the subject of two books, X-Rated by David McCumber and Bottom Feeders by John Hubner, and one movie, Rated X.
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[edit] Moviemaking and the O'Farrell
The Mitchells' father, Robert, an "Okie," was a professional gambler. He and his wife, Georgia Mae, settled in Antioch, near San Francisco, and provided a relatively stable childhood for Jim and Artie; the boys (according to their biographers) were popular and their male friends, years later, would become important members of the Mitchells' porn empire.
Jim, a part-time filmmaking student at San Francisco State University in the mid-1960s, aspired to become an "important" director like Francis Ford Coppola and Roman Polanski and headed a clique of classmates who had similar ambitions. While in school, he worked at the Follies, a cinema showing "nudies" (brief, plotless films featuring naked performers), and observed that each night the theater was filled with "horn dick daddies" (masturbators) who arrived simply for the onscreen nudity; he therefore perceived pornography as a potentially lucrative career opportunity for himself and Artie.
In 1969, with the help of Artie's Ivy League-educated wife Meredith Bradford, they fulfilled their ambitions by leasing and renovating a dilapidated two-story building at 895 O'Farrell Street, which they converted into the O'Farrell Theatre, a movie theater with a makeshift film studio upstairs. They also rented a larger facility at 991 Tennessee Street in which to shoot some of their films; nevertheless, even their fans conceded that Mitchell movies ranged in quality from mediocre to atrocious. Jim Mitchell once quipped, "The only Art in [porn] is my brother." The Mitchells opened the O'Farrell Threatre on the Fourth of July and were confronted almost immediately by the authorities. They would open other X-rated movie houses in California over the years, spending much time in court and money on lawyers to stay open as indignant locals and officials tried to shut them down.
They became incorporated as Cinema 7 (headquartered in the managers' offices at the O'Farrell Theatre) and in 1972 produced one of the first famous feature-length pornographic movies, Behind the Green Door, starring then-Ivory Snow girl Marilyn Chambers in her porn debut. The movie, produced for $60,000, grossed over $25 million.[1]
The Mitchells rode the porno chic wave that fashionable at the time, producing numerous hardcore movies including Resurrection of Eve in 1973 and Sodom & Gomorrah in 1975. One of their last big movies was The Grafenberg Spot (1985), starring the underaged Traci Lords. The brothers were inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame.
The brothers supported various cartoonists, Dan O'Neill among them. During the 1984 Democratic National Convention, they opened the second floor of the O'Farrell to a group of underground cartoonists, including Victor Moscoso, Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, Ted Richards, S. Clay Wilson, Bob Crabb, Gary Hallgren and Phil Frank, to cover the convention for the San Francisco Chronicle.[2]
In 1985, the Mitchells made the long-awaited (and -postponed) sequel to Behind the Green Door. They hired cabaret singer and frequent movie collaborator Sharon McNight to direct the picture and, uncharacteristically, chose to cast the film exclusively with un- or little-known performers. They auditioned everyone who responded to their advertisements (which appeared in Variety and Bay Area sex tabloids). A handful of O'Farrell dancers accepted small roles. Artie Mitchell's then-girlfriend Missy cast herself in it. Filming of the sequel occurred mainly in the O'Farrell Theatre and took only one day.
Missy, overweight and utterly inexperienced in acting and public sex, reportedly had much difficulty performing in front of the film crew; the set was so tense that at one point Jim Mitchell harangued one of his O'Farrell managers in front of everyone because the catered lunch was inadequate. This was also the world's first safe-sex film, in which all the men wore condoms and self-protection advice was given to the audience by one of the characters.
Highly overbudget ($250,000), the Green Door sequel, according to adult magazines, was one of the worst porn pictures ever made. Missy promoted the film and billed herself as "the Republican Porn Star." She posed nude for Playboy magazine and revealed that she was Utah-born and -bred Elisa Florez, a former aide to Republican Senator Orrin Hatch.
In the mid-1970s, low-level organized crime had began to bootleg the Mitchells' movies, and the brothers fought back in the courts. When one judge ruled that obscene material could not receive copyright protection, they appealed and eventually prevailed in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals,[3] leading to the FBI copyright warnings now found at the start of videotapes.[4]
The O'Farrell Theatre was frequently raided on obscenity and related charges, leading to over 200 cases against its proprietors. They were defended by maverick attorney Michael Kennedy.[4]The Mitchell Bothers were the first to transfer film titles to videotape and market them via ads in national sex magazines.
The Mitchells were well connected in San Francisco's diverse society. Their friends included a who's-who of pornography plus San Francisco politicians, the late Black Panther Huey "Doc" Newton, Warren Hinckle, Herb Gold, the rock band Aerosmith, and Jack Palladino (now the world's most expensive private investigator). The late journalist Hunter S. Thompson was a close friend of the brothers and frequent visitor to their club. In 1988 they made a 30 minute documentary about him, titled Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die [1]. Thompson claimed in his 2003 book Kingdom of Fear that he had worked for a while as night manager at the club, an assertion repeated by some news articles.[2].
In their personal lives, twice-divorced Jim lived for years with Lisa Adams, a former porn starlet and O'Farrell stripper. He and his second wife Mary Jane had four children; one of them, Meta, is now the O'Farrell's general manager. Artie was the father of six, three with his first wife, Meredith Bradford (who did not take her husband's surname), and the others with Karen Hassall, whom he divorced in the mid-1980s. Meredith attended law school at her husband's expense and represented the Mitchells until Jim fired her over a conflict involving his children's poor manners at her family's Massachusetts vacation home.
Jim launched the publication War News to protest the first Gulf War; journalist Warren Hinckle was hired as editor, Robert Crumb designed the logo, and Art Spiegelman and Winston Smith were paid contributors.[2] Other contributors included Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Moore, Paul Krassner, Ron Turner, Bob Callahan, Peter Bagge, Jim Woodring, Trina Robbins, S. Clay Wilson, and Hunter S. Thompson.[5]
[edit] Killing of Artie, and trial
In "Bottom Feeders," John Hubner characterizes the Mitchells as frequently quarreling with each other (and everyone else), alternately stingy and profligate and sometimes misogynistic.[6] In the book, the Mitchells' sex empire is a model of inefficiency, with its top members, who were almost invariably boyhood friends of the brothers, spending their office hours taking drugs, drinking beer and playing pool.
In 1991, Jim, in response to their friends' and associates' demands to "do something" about alcoholic, cocaine-addled Artie, drove to Artie's house one rainy evening in late February with a .22 rifle and fatally shot him. O'Farrell stripper Julie Bajo (Artie's lover at the time) immediately called 911 and the police arrested Jim minutes later. Marilyn Chambers spoke at Artie's funeral[4] and he was buried in Lodi Memorial Cemetery.
After a highly publicized trial in which the defendant was represented by his old friend and lawyer Kennedy (by then a prominent Park Avenue attorney), the jury rejected a murder charge and found Jim Mitchell guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Before Jim's sentencing, numerous people spoke on his behalf (presumably appealing for clemency), including former Mayor Frank Jordan, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, and former Police Chief Richard Hongisto.[1] Mitchell was sentenced to six years in prison.
One of the results of Jim's trial is that the California Courts allowed, in a precedent-setting decision, a virtual reality reenactment of the murder to be entered into evidence. This virtual reality reenactment showed the positions of Jim, Artie, and the path taken by bullets as they entered Artie's body. (In his final argument before the jury, Michael Kennedy mocked the virtual-reality reenactment, reportedly making some of the jurors giggle.)
[edit] After release
After having served three years in San Quentin he was released in 1997 and returned to run the O'Farrell Theatre.
Jim established the "Artie Fund" to collect money for a local drug rehabilitation center and for the Surf Rescue Squad of the San Francisco Fire Department. (In 1990 Artie was caught in a riptide off Ocean Beach, Jim paddled out to help and the surf rescue squad aided in the rescue all of them; the squad members received lifetime passes to the O'Farrell.)[1] Artie's children have denounced the fund, claiming it is intended to whitewash Artie's murder. On their website, they describe their father's murder as premeditated and motivated by greed and jealousy, and claim that the depictions of Artie in the books and movie are inaccurate.[7]
Shortly before his death, Jim wanted to change California's nickname to "the Prison State" and design a license plate saying so. He intended to protest the efforts of law enforcement and prison guards to lobby for longer prison sentences.[2]
[edit] Death of Jim
Jim Mitchell died at his ranch in western Sonoma County on July 12, 2007 from an apparent heart attack. The funeral in Jim's boyhood town of Antioch, California on July 19 was attended by 300 people, including Mayor Willie Brown, ex-District Attorney Terence Hallinan and many O'Farrell strippers. He was buried next to his brother.[8]
[edit] Books and movies
Biographies of the brothers are X-Rated by David McCumber (1992, ISBN 0-671-75156-5) and Bottom Feeders: From Free Love to Hard Core by John Hubner (1993, ISBN 0-385-42261-X).
In 2000, their story was dramatized in the movie Rated X starring the brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez as Artie and Jim, with Estevez also directing. The film was shot in Vancouver, Canada, although the entire story occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2001 the TV series Forensic Files aired an episode called 'Sibling Rivalry' which documented the killing of Artie and the use of forensic animation and sound analysis at Jim's trial.
The 2007 book 9 1/2 Years Behind the Green Door by Simone Corday describes the brothers from the perspective of a dancer at the O'Farrell and girlfriend of Artie.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Porn King Jim Mitchell Walks Out of Prison Today. San Francisco Chronicle, 3 October 1997
- ^ a b c d Porn Kings, and a lot more, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 July 2007
- ^ Mitchell Brothers Film Group v. Cinema Adult Theater, 604 F.2d 852 (5th Cir. 1979)
- ^ a b c The return of Marilyn Chambers, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 July 1999
- ^ Hinkle, Hinckle, Little Star (Part II), SF Weekly, 14 February 1996
- ^ The Mitchells: From Peep Show to Porn Empire. The San Francisco Chronicle, 31 January 1993.
- ^ artiefund.com, website of Artie's children, accessed 13 November 2005
- ^ Farewell to a porn king. San Francisco Chronicle, 20 July 2007
[edit] External links
- Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, includes information about the "Artie Fund"
- Rotten.com Library
