“He was a Roman Emperor, which makes him almost certainly bisexual, if not actually gay. But then so many men are that way inclined, don’t you find?”
You don’t know who I was, do you?
Haven’t you seen the movie? It’s a masterpiece
Know me now?
Yes, it’s I, it’s he, your host for tonight, Adam whatshisname…
If ever that infamous line from Sunset Boulevard, where the former silent movie star Norma Desmond insists “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small” applies then it’s one of those mucky movies I did in the thirties. My thirties, not the 1930s of Norma’s bygone era.
I made a movie once in Italy… Romans! I played Julius Caesar. And if I can be ultra-cheesy and paraphrase my future Silk colleague Frances Barber as Billie Trix in the Pet Shop Boys disco musical Closer To Heaven, my swords were stunning.
The 2007 film did look good though; my first shoot outside the UK and a megabucks fully authentic Roman romp, with costumes and lethal weapons galore. Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe would be proud. Indeed, you can chuckle at my acting here. Is the man from BAFTA in tonight?
As for my handsome Hungarian co-star, can you believe it, he’s straight!
No, really. Fourteen years ago today, he came to my dressing room and proudly showed me the ultrasound image of his unborn child, which his wife was about to drop at any moment. And then I had to go and fuck him on film.
Romans! featured the last of my condom scenes. I even flipped at the end, as a thank you to my loyal ‘brother’ Mark Antony (the blond Aussie stoner below).
The subsequent two films were bareback productions in London and New York for the notorious Treasure Island Media, no less.
Bizarrely, not only was 2007 the year I made the highest number of adult films, but it was also the year I had sex with the most number of women. Go figure.
Flavio Valentino: the living embodiment of gay for pay. Very classical, don’t you think?
“Murder and mayhem in the eternal city
Poison and torture he knew no pity
Pain is always best inflicted at home
Down in your dungeon lie back and think of Rome.”
As our great queen Freddie Mercury once said, it’s a hard life.
All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.
Steve Pafford, New York City
Lyrical quotations and paraphrases from My Night and It’s Just My Little Tribute To Caligula, Darling, written by Tennant/Lowe, performed by Frances Barber, 2001
