John Leslie

Biography

John Leslie is a true porn legend, but his long and illustrious career has taken many strange turns. Born and raised in the Midwest, John Leslie worked at a Pennsylvania steel mill in the early 1960s. He moved to New York in late 1964, where he hoped to launch a career as a painter. He ended up working as an illustrator in the city's then-thriving underground magazine market. John had sung and played harmonica in various bands including the Brooklyn Blues Busters. His interest in jazz and blues continued with the release of the John Leslie Blues Band CD "In the Kitchen" in 1999.

An infamous ladies' man in his off-camera days, John didn't begin performing in adult films until his late 20s. His first feature was Road to Las Vegas (1975), where he and John Stagliano first met on the set. Throughout porn's Golden Age of the late 1970s through the early 1980s, John was the industry's top leading man, starring mostly in high-budget films, top-billed as, to quote Excalibur Films, "a suave and smooth gentleman who always gave off an aura of sophistication and utter self-confidence. He then moved to the production side and began directing feature videos and films for VCA in the mid-'80s. In the years that followed, John racked up a staggering number of adult industry awards. In 1994, his script for Dog Walker had been rejected by VCA for various reasons. John Stagliano liked the project, and worked out a deal for John Leslie to join the Evil Empire as the company's first outside director.

Since then, John won countless awards for his movies through Evil Angel, and has already been inducted into the XRCO and AVN Halls of Fame. With his popular feature, gonzo and vignette series The Voyeur, Dirty Tricks, The Lecher, Fresh Meat, Crack Her Jack, Drop Sex and Gobble the Goop - and his new one-off titles highlighting individual girls such as Veronica Da Souza: Some Piece of Ass and Naomi: There's Only One - John Leslie continued to shoot finely crafted pornography to worldwide acclaim, up until the time of his passing in December of 2010.