Guess Which Former Gay Porn Director’s Movie Is Up For An Oscar This Weekend

I’ll give you a hint: the category is Best Actress.

I’ll give you another hint: it’s Julianne Moore who’s nominated.

OK, unless you’ve been in the porn industry forever you probably won’t get this one, but here’s the deal: Wash Westmoreland, who went by Wash West in his porn years, adapted the script and directed the movie Still Alice, along with his partner Richard Glatzer. It’s a movie about a college professor who gets early-onset Alzheimer’s, and it’s based on a book. And there’s a tragic element to the tale, as NPR recently reported, in that Glatzer is suffering from ALS and received his diagnosis around the time he was first reading the book.

Some of you may know Wash West for his decades of work making porn, including GayVN Award-winning movies like Naked Highway (1998, BIG Video), Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony (2002, All Worlds), and The Hole (2003, Jet Set).

He’s gone on to become a decorated writer-director of legit indie cinema, including the porn-world-related gay flick The Fluffer (2001), and the Sundance Award-winning Quinceañera (2006).

Wash told NPR that the Oscar nomination for Moore, and the attention the film has gotten as a result, has made these the best and worst of times, given Glatzer’s quickly deteriorating condition. “We have these very strangely contrasting experiences of like being on the red carpet with Julianne Moore and the wall of photographers, they’re all calling your name out,” he says. “And then in the home, much more day-to-day care-giving activities [that are] necessary in order to get through.”

Listen to the whole story here.

Below is a photo of West and Glatzer in happier times, in 2001, after the release of The Fluffer.

Wash West and Richard Glatzer in 2001. Photo: Filmmaker Magazine
Wash West and Richard Glatzer in 2001. Photo: Filmmaker Magazine

4 thoughts on “Guess Which Former Gay Porn Director’s Movie Is Up For An Oscar This Weekend”

  1. I was more interested in the love story of this gay director and his partner than a film that got the Oscar nomination.

  2. Somewhere Paul Morris is writing a script about a guy with early onset Alzheimer’s who forgets to take his Truvada.

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