When Cybersocket Magazine asked us to tap into our gay porn expertise and come up with a list of the ten greatest porn stars of all time we were flattered but also somewhat daunted by this Herculean task. We know it’s sure to inspire lots of healthy (but civilized, please!) debate. After some heated back-and-forths we managed to whittle away our initial list of about 30 and come up with our take. Ask us tomorrow, and we may give you a completely different list, but until then this is our story and we’re sticking to it (for now.)
1. Al Parker (1978-1992)
Al Parker transcended the “porn star” moniker and became, arguably, the burgeoning gay community’s first celebrity. His simple, iconic style (tight jeans, well-groomed facial hair, muscles for days) spawned the “clone” look that was de rigeur for urban gay men in the 70’s. His entrepreneurial spirit — effortlessly going from star to director/producer at his own Surge Studios paved the way for Chris Steel, Michael Lucas, Owen Hawk and other porn star-turned-director hyphenates.
2. Jeff Stryker (1986-2001)
The advent of the video cassette gave Jeff Stryker the sway over a new generation of dogged porn pups. His perma-hard near-perfect dick — the man is huge — was enough to leave men panting, but it was his brusque, almost cartoonish masculinity and dirty-talk that set him apart. His reputation as a straight man — he never bottomed, didn’t kiss and always made the guys he fucked lick his ass — left fans aghast and VCRs overheated for well over a decade. And to think Stryker almost didn’t make it …
3. Joey Stefano (1989-1994)
The dark-featured pretty boy paved the way for butch bottoms around the world to get in touch with their prostates proudly. With a certain undeniable sadness behind his blue eyes, he remains gay porn’s own Marilyn Monroe, having turned to drugs to fill a lifelong void. Like the icon that he was, he lived fast and died young: As his career began to falter at age 26, he overdosed on a fatal mix cocaine, morphine, heroin, and ketamine.
Lukas in the mid-90s
4. Lukas Ridgeston (1994-2006)
The Czech face of Bel Ami for the better part of the 1990s still casts the same spell in 2006. He’s one of the most traditionally handsome of the porn stars with a rakish grin and hypnotic ice-blue eyes that are more befitting Rob Lowe than Robin Byrd; His cock and body, however, are the stuff of porn dreams. With Lukas’ help, director George Duroy created an almost mythical European empire where boy-men fucked in frenzied abandon in celebration of the masculine ideal.
5. Casey Donovan (1971-1986)
Casey Donovan starred in some of the first full-length porn films, like Boys in the Sand, during the early 70s as new mores allowed for greater freedom of expression (and sexuality) and the gay liberation movement hit its stride. The daring, hardcore porn loops of pioneers like Wakefield Poole made Donovan a legend. His fantastically elastic performance in the Falcon’s first feature-length movie, The Other Side of Aspen (against Al Parker) signaled the ripening of the young studio and cemented Donovan in porn’s gaudy firmament.
6. Leo Ford and Lance (1981-1988)
The two defined the blond surfer dude aesthetic that dominated porn in the 1980s, and their paring in William Higgins’ Leo And Lance featured some of the most unbridled sexual energy ever caught on tape. Their unrelated deaths just weeks apart in 1991 — Leo in a motorcycle accident, Lance from AIDS somewhat fittingly signaled the end of what many consider to be the golden era of gay porn.
7. Ryan Idol (1991-1996)
A tough-talking trade top from the same school as Jeff Stryker, Ryan Idol’s matinee idol good looks, feathery mullet and trademark g-string tan line firmly cement him — for better or for worse — as the ultimate 90s gay porn poster boy. An unabashed heterosexual once the cameras stopped rolling, no one’s ever pulled off gay-for-pay as well as he did, though countless continue to try.
8. Matthew Rush (2001-2012)
Becoming the first-ever Lifetime Exclusive for Falcon Studios is no easy feat for anyone, let alone Rush’s multi-racial ethnicity continue to challenge an industry mired in cliche and stereotype. With an almost pathological charm (not to mention the a body of a god and a cock that belongs in a museum), if anyone has a chance of parlaying porn stardom into a mainstream career, our money’s on Matthew Rush.
9. Michael Lucas (1997-today)
Cocky, controversial and oozing with European sophistication: Michael Lucas proves that you don’t have to be crass or cheap to succeed in porn. The one-time Falcon Exclusive and Russian emigre now owns his own New York-based studio, regularly appears in New York gossip columns and has brought a degree of heady glamor to an industry more often aligned with the gutter. Say what you will about Michael, but there’s never been anyone like him.
10. Peter Berlin (1972-1977)
“Porn Star” is a term barely adequate to describe the self-imagined narcissist with a Dutch-boy haircut. The auteur behind exactly two films (That Boy and Nights in Black Leather in many ways filmed his own life — his trademark skin-tight white trousers and obscene bulge were on display in San Francisco’ Castro as frequently as they were at the movie house (that is, every night). A startlingly frank exhibitionist, Peter Berlin exploited his own body in the name of art as much as he used the audience’s gaze for his own sexual satisfaction.
Of course, if you have any favorites you be sure to let us know, ok?
Related:
Lukas Ridgeston at 40!
5 Big Dicks I Wish Would Return to Gay Porn
What Was Your First Gay Porn?
