Where is larry levenson

It opens in some U. They talked to Reuters about their film. Q: Matthew, you spent three and a half years and your own savings to make the movie? What about the topic interested you. Was it the swinging lifestyle or was it the club?

Matthew: This was a story that had never been told. It contained a fabulous protagonist, Larry Levenson, who had it all, from the highs to the lows. I knew people would gravitate toward the film initially because of the titillation but ultimately because of the story.

Q: So, it really was about the club and rise of club. But I am a voyeur of sorts and that also appealed to me. People would meet at private parties. It was mainstream. It was out in the open and then it spawned imitations that came. You could just go and eat or swim in the pool and watch people engage and just be part of the party. Q: What stopped the party? Jon: I think it was primarily health issues.

But it was an enormous venue and business was down Q: Is it fair to say swing clubs went back underground? Matthew: In every city in every country there are swing clubs that exist. Larry was the carnival barker. And when you get too big, and become too conspicuous, you are going to attract a negative image. There are still organized clubs and groups. Al Goldstein founded Screw magazine in , and Suck , the radical feminist mag, was launched in London the following year.

Germaine Greer, a Suck stalwart, was involved in a landmark event I attended in Amsterdam in — the second iteration of the Wet Dream Festival, a showing of international porno movies. His skills developed to such an extent that in he opened a space for swingers to mingle and get down to it in the basement of a small hotel on East 23rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.

Soon, Levenson was attracting such a following that the same year he moved his business into a more ample basement uptown, in the Ansonia Hotel, a handsome building on Broadway between West 73rd and 74th.

Until , it had been home to the Continental Baths, a gay club where Bette Midler launched her career and a place where even Chubby Checker performed. He was outspoken on this subject, saying he was bringing to the straight world the liberty of the gay clubs. His sincerely held rationale was that no man was monogamous, and that swinging would replace cheating. The deliberately unimpressive front door opened onto a steep flight of steps, which led down to the action, which was impressive.

DJ Bacho controlled the music, and there was sometimes dancing, most of the dancers being wholly or partially naked. The crowd was largely couples; solitary women were okay but single men were a no-no. So too was man-on-man action, though random displays of female bisexuality were very much okay. Beginners would often wear towels, but these would usually be shed as they wandered the available venues, such as the Mats: the Mattress Room, which was furnished with mattresses that could be covered with a couple hundred interlocked bodies on a busy night.

But there was also the bathhouse, the locker room, and private cubicles for the shy, as well as Ping-Pong and pool tables, which might also be unusably covered with heaving flesh.

And, believe me, the rule that threesomes were not allowed was not too strictly enforced. There was also a swimming pool, and this saw action too, natch. This was Mary, who would soon be sharing his life, and the drollery was not untypical of Larry, who struck me as open, friendly, and somewhat ingenuous.

Photo reportage might give the impression that the place pulsed with high octane glam and getting into it was like penetrating the Playboy mansion. Not so, and some who had been drawn by the media heat were chilled. He and his female partner had scooted around, but the scrumptious flesh he had been anticipating was not on display.

Everybody could have been your mother [or] your father. I remember people would select you. They would just point. The husband or the wife would want you.

But I was just a voyeur. In keeping with the spirit of the place, Mary, his mate, had an affair with their chauffeur.