Customer Reviews

Clone: The Life and Legacy of Al Parker, Gay Superstar

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As a long-time admirer of Al Parker, I was delighted to stumble across this account of his life. The author's access to intimate details of Parker's youth made for compelling reading, especially the macabre accounts of Al's losing his virginity to a knife-wielding psychopath! Al's experiences at Woodstock were a hoot. I also found the story of his entry into the porn world with the encouragement of his lover to be very interesting. I had always imagined Rip Colt to be as hot as the men he photographed. What an eye-opener that was!

The background info on the films themselves was very welcome to an aficionado like myself. I've seen them all a hundred times and the insider gossip and behind-the-scenes details make for interesting reading.

Most of all, I was delighted to discover just how ordinary this sexual icon of gay liberation really was. To know that he was involved in a serious relationship that spanned fifteen years, all the while fueling fantasy fires across the gay spectrum was quite a turn-on for me. It was also gratifying to read about his pioneering efforts in bringing safer sex to the gay, X-rated video screen.

While checking out this site, I couldn't help but notice that a couple of people had just the opposite opinion of this book. All I can think is that they didn't read it carefully, or that they expected Al Parker to be what he seemed to be on film. From all I gathered from the book, Drew Okun was a great guy. I wish I could have known him.

Read the book and you'll have a better sense of the gay porn industry from its early years through the AIDS crisis. Kudos to Roger Edmonson for giving substance to a legendary figure in underground gay culture.

The 1970s were a time of sexual freedom and optimism for the gay male community in the United States. Having broken out and found a sense of identity and pride in the wake of Stonewall, gay men celebrated their sexuality, many to excess, in a brief explosion of gleeful hedonism before the scourge of AIDS swept all before it.

Roger Edmonson, having profiled an icon of this lost era, Casey Donovan, with fair success, attempts the same with another star of gay male pornography from the same period, Drew Okun, or Al Parker. This book is not up to the standard of that earlier effort, partly because, when it comes right down to it, Drew Okun led a remarkably humdrum life for a porn star. Unlike Donovan, who traveled a lot, acted on stage, and knew famous people, Okun seems to have been basically a homebody, quite content to live with his longtime companion Richard Cole (who also acted in porn films with Okun under the name Steve Taylor, a fact which Edmonson oddly forgets to note) on the California coast and run his production company, Surge Studios.

Edmonson does not help his cause by superficial writing and research. Interesting facts about Okun/Parker's life are mentioned almost in passing and never explored in depth, or even mentioned again. One would like to know more, for example, about Okun's estrangements from his elder sister and from Steve Scott, who directed some of his best films, but revelations are not forthcoming in this rather slim volume, which spends a lot of time describing Parker's films which are, for the most part, readily available and better seen for oneself anyway. Even the photographs included are disappointing. In short, this volume succeeds neither as serious biography nor as guilty pleasure.

There's just about enough information in this slim volume to fill out an article in Honcho. And that's the level of writing that the author aims for. You learn precious little about why a middle class "nerd" from Mass. became a porno star; the author pads the book out with endless (porno) plot summaries of Parker's films. The fascination of gay men with male porno stars IS intruiging; it could yeild a sexy, insightful, even controversial book. But it would probably take Edmund White or Gary Indiana to write it. This pre-fab job, not even as good as the author's previous book on Cal Culver, commits the worst sin of all: it is BORING. I've been burnt twice by Edmonson, and won't be buying "The Life and Times of Jack Wranger," or whoever's carcass he decides to nibble on next time. One good thing: a great cover. It's just the insides that disappoint.

Author Roger Edmonson takes on the daunting task of profiling one of gay porn's bonafide icons, Al Parker, and starts with enough ammo that the reader fully expects an analytic, in-depth profile of its subject. But at only 210 pages, Edmonson's final work falters but, although we're left not fully satisfied, we're interested enough to hope for more of this incredibly dynamic man. If comparisons are fair, Edmonson's work is surprisingly not the depressive journey into the rise, decline and fall that Charles Isherwood has in his bio of another gay porn giant, Joey Stefano. Parker, who like Stefano and so many other young, young men of their generation and in their profession, had his life ended by AIDS in 1987. Unlike many others, though, Parker's is not the "another tragedy" that befell his colleagues: Parker, instead, parlayed his tragedy of AIDS into a responsible (although career-risky) forum of safer-sex practices, and we come to develop a respect for this man. What makes Edmonson's story unfulfilling, though, is the illusion to Parker, a la pre-gay porn days, apparently out of place in his pre-celeb world. We don't get a satisfying explanation of why, though, nor do we get one as to why Parker supposedly struggled to reconile his public persona to his private self. We get hefty doses of Parker's foray to Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion and the gay bathhouse culture of California in the days before AIDS. Great stuff, but it's more a social commentary on the times and less an explanation of Parker's role in and influence by it. Although strictly narrow with little to no depth, this work nonetheless is good enough to get a hint at what Al Parker might have really been like and that his private tragedy that he took public is courageous by any standard. For that reason, we want and expect more but don't get it here. But it's a good start, and we can only hope that Edmonson or some other writer will pick up and produce a profile that does this brave man the complete profile and respect he truly deserves, even nearly 20 years after his death. One unsettling and almost offensive undeveloped claim in this book: Edmonson writes that Parker, allegedly raped at knifepoint at age 15, found it "exciting" and a sexual turn-on. Left unexplained, victims of such an act of criminal violence may be offended by its stark lack of empathy.

I was amazed to read how hungery Al Parker was for sex all through his life. This book is well written except for the ending. At the end of his life, Drew spent a lot of time raising money for people with AIDS and doing other community service events. Very little is said about this and the final days of his life. So little in fact, it seems the book ends too abruptly.

This book is a quick knockoff, derived from the autobiographical notes Drew Okun left of his life and times, with a few interviews of friends and family thrown in. So many quotes are unattributed that I had to guess where the author got much of his material. The resulting biography is adequate to establish the basic life story of the man who became "Al Parker" (named by "Rip Colt"; almost everyone in the porn industry is pseudonymous). Drew developed a conflicted relationship with "Al," making his life story a Jekyll/Hyde affair. Drew didn't mind, as he was spaced out on marijuana nearly every waking hour of his adult life. The most interesting material is the first half, when Drew was becoming aware of himself as a gay man and establishing himself in California. The Playboy mansion episode is a hoot, although the ghost story thrown in is farfetched. Treatments of the films and videos are superficial -- little more than porn-style descriptions of each film's action. Since it's unlikely anyone else will do a full biography of Okun/Parker, this one will have to do. For gay men curious about the Parker legend, this book is not a bad place to start. The value and meaning of Drew's film career, as well as his position as an icon of gay masculinity, is territory others should tackle.

This is a good book if you're interested in the story of Al Parker, but what surprised me is it's a great portrait of gay culture in the 70s and the rise and fall of an era. Al Parker symbolized a care-free sexuality, but maintained a close relationship with his boyfriend and business partner throughout his entire life. The book can be seen as a spiritual struggle against the promiscuous and often dangerous (but somehow sexy too) world of cruising and gay culture as it exsisted before AIDS. The story is wild -- it takes you from the closets of THE PLAYBOY MANSION to the sets of Surge Studios as they shoot porn. Woodstock is covered, and a whole lot of California in the "bathhouse culture" days. Parker's story is touching, and ultimately not as depressing as you would initially think. Here is a guy who wanted to be a sex star, but never had the ego to think he really could make it as big (sorry about the pun) as he did. It's a great read! It's by the same publisher who put out the Joey Stefano biography WONDER BREAD AND ECSTASY. I'm wondering who's next in line for a bio? Ryan Idol or Jeff Stryker would be a lot of fun. But I guess we'll have to wait until their demise to get the full scoop like Roger Edmonson gives us on Al Parker.

Very indepth and very HOT biography of Drew Okun, known to the gay world as Al Parker! Though the author spends a little too much time detailing all of Parker's films, his extraordinary coverage of the Al Parker, the man as well as the culture that created him more than makes up for this. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and, most of all, you'll remember.....

Okay, so it's not perfectly written or researched in detail, but then what porn star's life is really available to research adequately. I enjoyed reading about Al Parker and I would agree the stories about his early years and childhood tell a lot about the person he came to be and his outlook on the way he lived his life. Personally, I believe most people would admire his courage in not caring what others thought of his choices and lifestyle. I certainly do admire him regardless of whether it is a path I would choose. At least no one can say his life was uneventful.

Still have NEVER received the item from Amazon even though the item when I purchased it stated "SHIPS IN 24 HRS".

Since then I have received "difficulty in obtaining item" notices - TWICE.
The Amazon site still states the item is available and now states ships in
"2-5 weeks".

Perhaps it should states "ships in 2-5 MONTHS"!!!!!!!
I suspect Amazon would like me to cancel the order and I feel that NO effort has been made to acquire the item. Keep trying or change your site info.