[I might not be an insider to the porn world, but I was nevertheless shaken by the announcement on Wednesday night that long time Video Team owner/producer Christian Mann had lost his earthly battle with cancer. Before his more recent activism against the condom mandate and his refuting of the "arguments" of Peanut Factory criers like Mike South, Mann was first known by me as one of the first porn producers to attempt to humanize Black men through consensual interracial porn. He was also one of the first producers/distributors to face the full wrath of the government's attempts to criminalize sexual speech, having even faced jail for tweaking the noses of racists and prudes everywhere.
I probably am not qualified to post a worthy tribute to Mr. Mann's legacy...but thankfully, someone far more worthy than me has. My friend Michael Whiteacre just posted over at The Real Porn Wikileaks a touching eulogy to properly celebrate Christian's life and work....and he and Sean Tompkins has allowed me permission to repost their tribute in full here.
All I will say is that it is criminal that warriors like Christian Mann are taken from us before their time.
Anthony]
Link to the original TRPWL post is embedded in the title.
“He was the best of us.” ~ From James Dickey’s
Deliverance, 1972
With love and respect from Michael Whiteacre –
Christian Mann was a friend, mentor, and inspiration to me. He was a
decent man in a dirty world. I won’t even attempt describing the anguish
I feel today…
In 1996, I started covering the adult business after answering an ad
posted by an international news syndication company looking for someone
familiar and
comfortable with the world of adult. They needed
someone to cover the Video Software Dealers association (VSDA) show in
Las Vegas, and since I was already heading out there to cover the
mainstream side of the event, I got the job. By chance, one of the first
people I met at VSDA was Christian Mann.
As my friend Gram Ponante writes this morning, Christian “was one of
those people you meet in this business who reaffirms your need to
believe that it’s OK, that there are good people here, that you’re not
going to Hell.”
I knew him back then as the owner of Video Team, a highly successful
“boutique” operation that, as Jules Jordan recalls, “was like
the ethnic company. It really brought the ethnic genres to a more mainstream light.”
Because Christian was friendly and eloquent, whenever I needed a
quote — any quote — while covering an adult event, I sought him out.
Looking back, I don’t think I ended up printing very much of what we
talked about — Christian possessed a massive “bank” of knowledge on so
many subjects, from music to American presidential elections, and it was
easy for the two of us to go off on tangents completely unrelated to
the event at hand. I guess that’s how our friendship began.
Christian in the 1980s
Back then, as Christian would tell me years later, “the [adult]
business was mostly good guys, and we all got along.” What Christian,
and the other
giants I met back in “the old days”, managed to
instill in me was a sense of history regarding the adult business, as
well as an appreciation of
legacy.
As Christian later recalled to
AVN:
I officially started in the business in the summer of
1979 when I was 18 years old. My job was packing magazines in my dad’s
warehouse and delivering them to our local customers in the beat-up
company van. Seven months into my job, on Valentine’s Day 1980, I was
delivering a van full of How to Enlarge Your Penis magazines to
CPLC in Central L.A. As I turned the corner, I saw the entire block
swarming with news media trucks … and the CPLC parking lot was filled
with big guys wearing FBI windbreakers. I knew enough to not stop and
instead made my way to the nearest phone booth to call my dad who had
been worried because he knew raids were going down all over the country …
and he couldn’t reach me in the days before cell phones. This wasn’t my
first day on the job, but it remains one of my earliest and most vivid
memories from my freshman year in our business.
One of my main takeaways from knowing Christian was that attacks on
free speech and sexual freedom are a bipartisan affair. That Valentine’s
Day raid occurred under a Democratic president, while in 1989, when
Christian was brought up on federal obscenity charges in Texas (and
prevailed in his trial there), the political winds were blowing from
another direction.
Although we had done some business together during the 8 years I was a
content distributor to TV and hotels, we didn’t really socialize. I
would sometimes run into him — usually with Steven Hirsch — at various
concerts around town. Elvis Costello at the Wiltern stands out in my
mind.
Christian ran Video Team for 12 years. Out of conscience, Christian
and many other producers went all-condom in the wake of the 2004 Darren
James HIV infections. The market did not want all-condom titles,
however, and those companies either folded or dropped the condom
requirement. Video Team took a hard hit, and Christian eventually sold
the library to Metro in 2006.
Christian and John Stagliano – Amsterdam, 2010
After Video Team folded, the next time I saw him was November 2009,
about a year into his position of general manager at Evil Angel. Larry
Flynt, John Stagliano, and others were to be honored at an FSC-sponsored
gala at the Skirball Center in L.A., and I was asked to put together
Flynt’s video tribute.
I ended up directing the evening’s presentation, which involved running
down all the various cues between the speakers and presenters on stage,
and the audio-video team behind the board. Christian was set to
introduce Stagliano, and he was worried about being “left hanging there”
onstage if there was a flub. I remember us bonding all over again as we
worked out his cues with great precision — and it came off perfectly.
Christian at the Nov 2009 FSC gala
In 2011, he surprised me by coming up to me at an expo in Los
Angeles, and singing my praises in front of a group of adult industry
“players”.
“Here’s a guy who is out there every day making the case for us,” he
said as he patted me on the back. I was amazed, as I had no idea
Christian was even reading my stuff. He was, he assured me, and I later
learned that he would share my work
with many in the adult business, particularly during the campaign against Measure B during the fall of 2012.
Our friend Glenn King recalls,
On December 30, 2012, Christian canceled our golf outing
because of a stomach ache. I laughed at him and said “Seriously? A tummy
ache? Be a man and play golf, ya pussy”. We agreed to play the next day
instead. On December 31, he said his stomach ache had gotten worse and
he was going to go to the emergency room. I told him he was being a
baby. I said “You have heartburn because of all the terrible crap you
eat. They are going to give you some Prilosec and send you home”. He
said “My family has a history of cancer. That might be what it is”. I
laughed and said “You are a hypochondriac. You don’t have cancer. You
have an ulcer maybe, but most likely you ate something bad”. To my
credit, the doctors gave him an antacid and sent him home. They referred
him to a specialist. A few days later, he found out he had pancreatic
cancer, one of the worst kinds. The doctors estimated he had 5 months to
live.
Christian wrote about his cancer diagnosis in
a January 2013 open letter, which was published in
AVN. He also created a blog where he wrote updates about his medical condition at
ChristianMann.com.
Christian made it very clear that he was not simply going to curl up
into a ball. The outpouring of love he received from the adult community
was both immense and mutual.
During this time, Christian wed his beautiful wife Melissa. Theirs is
a pure and genuine love story, the details of which I will leave to
Melissa to share. She has called Christian the love of her life, and
Christian left absolutely no doubt with me that he felt the same about
her.
Melissa and Christian Mann helping me celebrate my birthday, with director Anna Arrowsmith (right)
Siri (left) with Melissa, Christian, and his ubiquitous cell phone –September 2013
By the late summer of 2013, Christian was convinced he had beaten the
cancer. Lunch or dinner at Hop Louie’s in Chinatown became our thing,
and those were wonderful times that I will cherish forever.
His level of wisdom and candor was breathtaking. He was an
intellectual with a tremendous sense of humor, and could easily summon
the perfect anecdote or analogy to illustrate his point. Christian was a
great person to go to for advice because never lectured; he was direct —
often “ruthlessly honest”, in John Stagliano’s words — but he helped
you reach your own conclusions. And then he’d offer to help.
As our mutual friend Glenn King notes, “
Christian
was never satisfied with being the best he could be. He wanted to help
others improve their lives. He was always willing to take others’
burdens upon himself. That’s the kind of guy he was.”
Christian worked hard as
point man for the Free Speech Coalition’s PASS testing/test verification system for adult performers — a system he vigorously defended, as in this 2013 letter which we were proud to post on TRPWL.
He wrote, in part:
I have devoted a lot of time and effort as the FSC Board
Member chairing the PASS initiative. I have received no recompense and I
have no ulterior motive other than to be of service to my industry. The
scores of performers and agents who have encountered me over the last
thirty years would likely vouch for my integrity and genuine care for
them as people and as a vital component of the business. I’ve never
viewed the performers in an “us and them” paradigm. A simple collective
“us” has always been my approach.
As John Stagliano reminded me today,
“Christian was a unique, very intelligent, very morally aware executive
in the porn business. He cared about the talent, he cared about all his
employees.”
Christian was an extremely rational
diplomat with a well-deserved reputation for being a peacemaker — “
he was so good at getting people to come together,” as director Kevin Moore says. Christian once described himself to me as a very
political
man; just as he valued human decency, he understood the importance of
allies in this business. He didn’t suffer fools lightly (as that 2013
letter also demonstrates), but he always had tact and grace.
If Christian liked someone, and trusted them, he helped get ahead. He
was great at matching people up, and lobbying for them, ether behind
the scenes or in their presence. Steve Javors credits Christian with
getting him his job at AVN: “He called me on Paul [Fishbein]‘s behalf to
see if I was interested, and set up a meeting of the three of us.” He
would later make similar introductions for me, usually over lunch in the
Valley.
Julia Ann with Christian at the 2013 Vivid Holiday party
In March of this year, when I received word of
Jake Malone’s passing,
I rang Christian. He wanted me to do justice to his friend’s story, and
provided some moving reminiscences. I was struck by his insight and
eloquence under stress, but what I remember most was the way his voice
cracked as he spoke of his departed friend. I’ll never forget the sound
of it.
“Up until March of this year he thought he was going to beat this whole thing,” says Stagliano, but
by May, Christian’s cancer had returned with a vengeance, and had
gotten to his spine. Melissa never left his side, day and night. When I
visited, I learned that Christian was no longer able to hold food down.
The chemo had become too much for his body to take, and he and Melissa
opted to suspend treatment. On July 7, he was started on comfort
medications to ease his pain, but no artificial IV hydration or
nutrition.
In these last few weeks, it fell to Melissa, and a few others such as
Christian’s old friend Luc Wylder, to keep people informed of
Christian’s status via social media. On July 10, Melissa reported:
The most beautiful part of this transition has been the
opportunity to surround Christian, day and night, with the love of
friends and family. Since he was awake this afternoon, we read him a few
of the hundreds of messages about him that have been left on Facebook.
We love you, they say. You’ve made the world a better place, and we’ll
miss you. So much love and support from so many friends. He lay back on
the pillows with a smile on his face. “Do they know I’m not dead yet?”
The nurse offered him disposable briefs this morning. He didn’t even hesitate. “Well, it depends…”
“As the second week of hospice begins,” Melissa shared on July 14,
“I’m reminded of the physician’s remark that we are not in control of
this process.”
Christian was a tenacious fighter, as is reflected in the cartoon Melissa texted me on July 21:
Our dear Christian could not let go until last night, July 30.
I love you brother. I’ll see you again.
Read tributes to Christian from those who knew and loved him
here
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[Also...read AVN's official eulogy to Christian Mann here, updated as tributes roll in.]
[UPDATE 8-2-14: Michael Whiteacre has updated the original post over at TRPWL to reflect his personal tribute to Christian Mann; and this repost has thusly been updated as a reflection.]
