John Stagliano

Biography

John grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in the ’60s. In 1972, he transferred to UCLA to continue an economics major. Disappointed with the lack of females in the economics classes, he started pursuing modern/jazz dance and acting lessons.

In 1979, he was looking for dance work in Hollywood and saw an ad in the Daily Variety for male strippers for a new show at Chippendales. This was a brand new thing in America at the time, and no one knew if it would be successful or not. Taking off his clothes for hundreds of screaming women four or five nights a week for the next four years (and indulging in the available fringe benefits) was a dream job that any healthy straight male would kill for!

In 1982, he had just turned 30 and wanted to do more, so he started publishing a small porn magazine on newsprint. He had been exposed to the porn business in the 1970s when he wrote some porn fiction for a small paper and worked on softcore modeling jobs. His first performance in a hardcore movie was in an 8mm loop in 1974.

In 1983, the VCR age was just beginning, so people were just starting to produce porn movies on videotape. A porn on video could be produced for as little as $5,000. (John spent $8,000 on his first video.) Before this, porn was shot on film, which is a lot harder to work with—a regular film would cost a minimum of $40,000. He had very little knowledge about filmmaking, but was bursting with ideas about how to make better porn films (because he thought most of them were so bad). But more than that, he knew he was the right person to make porn because he had been a huge fan all his life.

His first video was Bouncing Buns starring Stacy Donovan. He did little videos for about six years like this. In 1989, he started my own manufacturing company, EVIL ANGEL, to sell his own videos. John adds, “By the way, the name Evil Angel comes from the fact that when I was stripping there was another guy in one of my shows named John. So this MC started calling me Evil John to differentiate us. This was when I was doing Dracula and chains. At the same time I had a girlfriend who called herself Angel when she did strip shows. She was a very nasty girl and I suggested that she call herself Evil Angel. She didn't, but I loved the name and wound up using it for my company.”

In the middle of that first year as a manufacturer, he wanted to take a break from the difficult videos he was producing and make an easier one to fill in for the slow summer months. So he came up with an idea of putting himself in the movie as the cameraman, He wanted to do a buns-fetish video. That movie would become the classic Adventures of Buttman. “I've always loved asses, but you know, the more I've gotten into the Buttman character, the more and more I've come to be totally obsessed with them!...”

“I did then and I still do feel that making ‘normal’ type video, without the POV character, is more interesting to me. These are the type of videos where it is my brain and creativity that is totally creating the erotic experience. The Buttman thing evolved into a very spontaneous thing, with lots of improvisation. In fact, two of the first Buttman videos had elaborate 30 page scripts, about the same length as my other porno scripts. I moved away from doing that for a number of reasons; perhaps the most important of which was that I just decided to take a chance and not worry about all the sex scenes in a video relating to one another. The big reason to do this was related to all the special problems in making porno: Guys need to get hard-ons, performers often flake on you and don't show up, we don't have a lot of money to spend on sets or

(John Stagliano continued) getting great locations, and people are hired for their ability to do sex, not their acting ability. These important problems led me to the philosophy that the best way to make porno was to try and make the best, most erotic scene possible with the resources available. That is: one sex scene which has a beginning, a middle and ends at a climax. Trying to make all that relate to a bigger story is very difficult and creates all sorts of problems that get in the way of making the best scene possible.”

“So I decided that I would make videos with scenes that didn't relate to one another. In the old days, these were called loop movies and usually sold for less money. Well, if you look at any regular video feature, the scenes are only loosely related anyway, and the pretense at relating the scenes isn't worth much anyway.”

This way of thinking was given a big boost with the introduction of the low-cost, high-quality camcorder. In fact, Buttman was totally shaped by this innovation. The Adventures of Buttman and Buttman's Ultimate Workout were 2 of only 4 Buttman videos shot on big heavy Betacam cameras. Not only were Betacam cameras too expensive for an independent producer to own, but they were very awkward to work with, especially in the handheld, non-tripod manner which John became accustomed to.

In October of 1989, he bought his first Hi-8 camera. He shot a scene with the two girls in bikinis on the beach at the beginning of Bend Over Babes. Now that he owned the camera (and really didn't need a crew anymore, because the camera was easy to use and he knew more about videomaking), it became practical to shoot only one sex scene in a day. “This, I believe, is the single most important innovation that has improved the quality of video porn in the world. It did wonders for me. Now I could take my time in making something! I was in heaven.”
The light little camera also made him inconspicuous on the street, so he could get lots of great "real life" street scenes, and could travel with it much easier. He developed a now-classic format of acting like a tourist and walking up to girls in real-life scenarios.

In addition to the dozens of awards and accolades John has won over the years, he has won Best Film and Best Director, Film all 3 times that he has directed a movie on film. He was honored with the Video of the Year award from XRCO for Buttman’s Toy Stories in 2001. He was also nominated for Best Sex Scene with his girlfriend (now wife), Tricia Devereaux. John also won Best Gonzo Series for Buttman at the 2002 AVN Awards.

He is a Hall of Fame member for AVN, XRCO and Barcelona’s NINFA awards.

In 2003, John filmed his groundbreaking feature The Fashionistas, which swept the AVN Awards, taking 10 trophies, including one for Best Film. The following year, his stunning live dance spectacular Fashionistas (based on the story in the film) debuted in Las Vegas, garnering critical raves, including Best Choreography of 2005 from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

  • 2010-03-08 Shadow Dancers 1 & 2
  • 2010-02-08 Buttman's Evil Live
  • 2009-11-24 Buttman's Tropical Adventures
  • 2009-10-29 Buttman's Stretch Class 3