VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: The Secret Story Behind ‘Deep Throat,’ Told By Director’s Kids Gerard Jr. & Christar Damiano

Deep Throat, the iconic adult film of the 1970s and one of the most profitable films of all time, celebrates its 50th anniversary later this month. Starring in the film were Linda Lovelace, Harry Reems, Dolly Sharp and Carol Connors. To celebrate the anniversary, Damiano Films will go on tour this year with Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano‘s children sharing more insight into how one of America’s first pornographic films with a plot and character development came to be.

Gerard Damiano Jr. and Christar Damiano recently sat down with uInterview founder Erik Meers to discuss how their hairdresser father got into filmmaking and the culture shift that followed the film’s release.

“He was in the right place at the right time with the right film as laws were changing in America as to what could and could not be shown on screen,” Damiano Jr. said. “Coming out of the 60s and the summer of love quite literally as he made his very first movie. There was still a disconnect between what was happening in America and what was happening on screen. People were at love ins in San Fransisco, yet you couldn’t show a couple in the same bed together. [I Love Lucy’s]Lucy and Ricky are in single beds. Deep Throat was one of the first long-form feature films to show hardcore sex.”

The film was also groundbreaking in that it highlighted female pleasure.

“The woman was the protagonist and it was all about her pleasure and what she needed,” Christar Damiano said. “It was the first time that this had been shown so people were interested and finally they said, ‘Sex is not just about male pleasure, there’s a female too and what does she want?” And women as well, ‘Okay, yeah. We have a say in what happens.’ It was groundbreaking.”

From the film that sparked the beginning of the adult film industry, was born the term “porno chic.”

“The term porno chic was coined in The New York Times in an interview with our father by Ralph Blumenthal,” Damiano Jr. revealed. “It wasn’t what he made of porno chic but porno chic was made of him. Deep Throat, they spoke of that specifically, as being the precedent of this idea of stag films being elevated out of the basement of the Knights of Columbus Hall merging with Hollywood movies. He just wanted to go on to make better films. For a time, this idea of porno chic … people really believed that adult films would get better and better and Hollywood films would get looser and looser in terms of their Puritanism and the two would merge together. That started to happen throughout the 70s as Hollywood films did start to change but then when video came along, the bottom of the whole thing dropped out and there was a glut of content and the quality fell out of it because now you didn’t need a stilled cast and crew, all you needed was a credit card and a video camera and now you’re a film maker.”

A documentary about Deep Throat, directed by Damiano Jr., is currently in production.