Director William Higgins’ XXX hit Pizza Boy: He Delivers (1985) remains one of the most iconic porn movies ever made. Today that phrase has become ingrained in pop culture as a reference to gay sex and adult films. That film and other standout hits like These Bases are Loaded, Cousins, and Sailor In The Wild from his catalog over 3,000 gay films in his 40-year career, has cemented Higgins’ legacy as one of the most influential and beloved Gay Porn Directors of all time.
Sadly, back2stonewall.com reports today that Higgins, age 77, died from a heart attack in Amsterdam yesterday morning, December 21, 2019.
Higgins career began in the 70s when producers of adult content were pushing the envelope with regard to the 1st Amendment and other constitutional protections. Leading producers like Falcon Studios, headquartered in San Francisco, refused to ship movies to the bible belt so Higgins decided to make his own.
He founded Catalina Video and immediately established a reputation for casting young, fresh, handsome, hung models in full-length features with relatable story-lines. He directed gay porn superstars Jack Wrangler, Kip Noll, Rick Donovan, and John King, to name a few, and launched the careers of other industry giants like Chi Chi LaRue who shared sadness at the news on Twitter this morning.
Always a trailblazer and rebel, Higgins was arrested and raided many times in the U.S. in Europe before he finally landed in Amsterdam and Prague where he found a plethora of exceptionally hot, handsome, well endowed European men to cast in his movies.
Higgins recently traveled to Los Angeles where was honored to be inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame. He says in an interview with avn.com that he was astounded at how huge the industry has become. We owe a lot of it to you Mr. Higgins… RIP.
one final comment: the last time I saw Bill was around ’97 in Prague. He was buzzed about a new video he’d just finished, was submitting to gay movie contests, claimed it was the best work he’d ever done, expect it to win all kinds of awards. Impromptus. I watched it, not much difference from any of his others, except: something church, religious, kept popping up. I gave my copy away, haven’t heard of it since. He’d just lost a lot of weight, was trying to avoid meat, I wondered if all his life changes had an influence on the movie, or he was telling me all that just to sell another copy. At one time after his death a website mentioned a request for his entire file from the FBI, letter from their Records Department that it was over 3,300 pages! From my encounters a one word description that fit him perfectly, Enigma!
what Higgins told me about police still thinking he killed Morgan … something about knocked him down the side of a mountain … may fit with the other story about a filming in Hawaii where a kid died. I always assumed the Morgan story would have happened around Los Angeles. Maybe not. In any event, he was plenty upset about having to deal with it.
Farewell George Fisher R.I.P.
I always hoped to run into him, so I could punch him in the face for corrupting legions of young, naive men, and infecting Prague with his smut.
Rot in hell, Higgins!
I agree with you….Higgins did prey upon young innocent men…he did this for decades. He preyed upon young men who were desperate for money, mixed naïve young men with young male street hustlers/prostitutes. He did infect Prague with his Smut since 1989.
I worked for Bill in Prague and he was nothing but nice and professional. You sound like a self loathing asshole.
I once worked for Bill Higgins as a model in several of his movies, back in the In the 80’s, 1983-1989. Bill Higgins was very abusive to the Performers/actors, and film crew. He had anger issues! He also had an occasional good side to him as well. In general, he was a nasty man who loved to finger the models manhole. He often picked up male hustlers off Santa Monica Blvd, either with his Lincoln Town car or his red Porsche Cabriolet. Bill’s home was raided in early 1987 because he fired a photographer, this terminated photographer reported Bill to the Police and his Ontario Studio was raided for child porn, because the photographer told the police that Bill was filming underage kids…”Bill never engaged in this activity to my knowledge.”
While filming a movie in Hawaii, out on an old lava flow, next to the ocean, Bill Higgins got angry with a model, chocked him until the model passed out and fell into the ocean and drown to death. Most of Bills closer circle of friends knew of this incident. Bill’s business partner Steve West and Chris Mann Knew of it too. I could write a book about this man and his evil side. I do not believe Bill will rest in peace, but I do hope his sister handled his funeral arraignments for him. I knew a multitude of his inner circle of friends and his mother and sister,( both from Oklahoma.) The man was extremely obese, and ate an unhealthy diet of fatty foods. Its no wonder he had a heart attack. Bye Bye Bill Higgins
(George William Fisher Jr.) Born 12-19-1942 died 12-21-2019
Innocent until proven guilty. It is easy to smear someone when their dead. Police report? Evidence? Anything? I worked with Bill multiple times and I saw him loose his temper twice, once when an actor came so drugged up that the scene couldn’t be filmed and yes he did yell for a while because it cost him a lot of money and secondly when a crew member call a fluffer a horrible name, Damn he jerked that guy up and literally tossed his ass out in the parking lot, he yelled and screamed and turned red in the face but Ive actually always admired him for that. I was the fluffer, and now 22 year later here I set in my suburban home that I share with my doctor husband and our 3 kids. Damn life is great. Goodbye Bill and thanks for standing up for me. It actually changed my whole self image and my life.
William Higgins was a most unique person. As a fan of most all of his films(Class Reunion continues to be my fave) I do believe that his work in the 80’s was by far the best. He did a fun vlog twice a week from Prague and was always curious about new technology. He ended his career getting mostly straight guys to perform. Great if they’re super hot(not all were) but his early work featured great looking guys who were voracious in their quest for sex. Thank God his brilliant work survives him. Hope that future generations enjoy it as much as we have. RIP, Bill.
Love – Jamie T.
I won’t miss him. I was 59 when i came out. Porn creates a culture of youth, beauty, dick size and wealth. I do not have any of it. I am more lonely, alone, unaccepted and isolated now than when I was in closeted denial. Porn is corrosive and destructive of the human spirit. Good riddance to a porn peddler, too bad that he couldn’t all of the rest of them with him.
I won’t miss him. I was 59 when i came out. Porn creates a culture of youth, beauty, dick size and wealth. I do not have any of it. I am more lonely, alone, unaccepted and isolated now than when I was in closeted denial. Porn is corrosive and destructive of the human spirit. Good riddance to a porn peddler, too bad that he couldn’t all of the rest of them with him.
His work will live on forever… Those early works will be forever remembered for what Gay Sex should be. And how a true performer should perform..geniunely horny for sex not a camera hog desperate to be famous, ‘These Bases are Loaded’ a Masterpiece!
These films made my imagination at a time when it was difficult to be gay in the open, at 52 I never forgot them and they remain my favorite still today.
RIP Mr Higgins
Wow…How saddened of the news.He was amazing and his movies show and gave chances for many.
R I P
burn in hell smuttmeister
u first abaddon
I agree with you 100%
My two favorite movies by him were < “the Young and the Hung” and “Sailor in the Wild”. John Higgins will be sorely missed.
It’s WILLIAM Higgins, dipshit.
Just couldn’t help yourself being a dick, John haze
He acted more like a sour puss or a CUNT!
This is a huge deal. I have been obsessed with his movies my entire adult life. But can anyone name even one person of color that was in a movie of his?
John Haze what the hell does Colored or Black men have to do with his passing? Seriously, get off the “Colored” pity wagon and just recognize the man’s contribution to gay porn…..and for the record there were several Black performers like Joe Simmons, Taurus, many others.
I met “Bill” in Dallas before he began in movies. Few know, he was an Aide to US Senator Mike Maroney of Oklahoma early in his career, when he was extremely closeted. I had clients in Prague, began to visit him while I was there. (we all asked the same question, “did he ever change the sheet on that bed on the right as you walked in his Club) … He wore a special style of sandal that he couldn’t find in Europe, I’d bring him two pair. One of the times he was dieting, he invited me to dinner, made a washtub full of what appeared to be the entire store veggie counter. His temper: we made plans to do a couple projects that would benefit him more than me, I casually mentioned that to a mutual friend when I got back that I’d seen him. Got a scathing, vicious email that ripped me from one side to another, how dare you tell anybody you saw me, I expect complete confidentiality … and on and on. Cal at Blue Boys in Amsterdam was a much better friend. Told me his experiences with Bill when he was in Amsterdam were worse.
a couple more tidbits: I didn’t ask specifically why he was scared of coming back to the US: from what he volunteered his attorneys couldn’t assure him he wouldn’t immediately be arrested.
Like most start-up video companies of that era, bookkeeping was a third-or-fourth thought, he expected, almost certainly would have had, felony tax troubles, paying talent in cash, expensing everything he did as a deduction. And, almost certainly, having an auditor assigned who didn’t sympathize with his subject matter.
I offer it to show it was said, not that it was necessarily true: His mother (and what family he had left) lived in Oklahoma, he trying to work out a way to slip into the US to visit his Mother (one last time) without getting handcuffed and hauled away at an airport. Nasty criminal penalties for anybody trying to pick him up in Mexico and drive across the border, just another tourist, and everybody helping. Passengers on all commercial lines ID’d, it’s all in the computers.
Unprompted, he told me his greatest fear was over “Morgan”, the ultimate twink who appeared in two of his mid 80’s movies. Fast, excited voice, “The police still think I killed Morgan!” And he said that with enough energy that the fear was obvious. Story as I recalled it, Morgan was from an upper-class family, his daddy had no idea he was gay till the call that he’d died, and left a couple movies.
I assumed he expected me to ask if I could visit, he quickly said he’d only allowed a civilian on a porn shoot once, and it was an absolute disaster.
This is intended as background, violates the strict standards he yelled at me about. Hopefully it’ll fit into other stories, help when a biographer looks for facts for a book. I’d just gotten a bombshell book arranged about a music legend … mentioned it to him. “My friend Gore Videl tells me to never believe a word of a biography, even less of an autobiography.”
Again, background only. An extremely cautious, extremely frightened man when I saw him in Prague in around ’96. He didn’t know if he was far enough away from US law.
And, then I learned that Kip Knoll and Leo Ford had been available for hustling assignments, together, back in the day!! Those would have been interesting evenings (and movies)!!
I forget the movie, BOYS OF SAN FRANCISCO maybe, extremely obvious on the arm of ‘talent’ I’d not seen before, a fresh bolus of what I assumed was meth, could have been cocaine. Real obvious, shooting video was first, forcing talent to get ready to perform with the shot still boiling on his arm, just collateral damage.
A couple friends flatly refused to work with him, vice versa, Tim Kramer (Douglas Cooper) one that comes to mind.
He guided thousands of us into an understanding of gay sex; his product was always always dependable.
Is he buried in Oklahoma, or elsewhere?