Mini-tour
Jeremy’s visit is part of a mini-tour of Europe to promote the brand, but when talk moves to the production of his eponymous spirit, Hietalahti fills me in. The rum comes in two forms, the seven-year old Ron de Jeremy and Ron de Jeremy Spiced – the latter having only just reached Europe but now makes up the majority of sales in the US.
But Jeremy is not without a few words of wisdom on the subject: “They say vodka outsells rum but rum is very popular on islands, where it’s tropical. With the old pirates out there with the old Yo ho ho. You don’t hear them say ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of Jagermeister!’ It doesn’t sound right – it’s ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!’”
Jeremy is tired, following a late night and an early flight from Oslo. “There was a nice PR girl in Oslo and I signed her booby,” he informs. “She was so conservative looking and straight-laced. But I can whip this [marker] out of my pocket quicker than a penis. Look how fast I am [demonstration ensues]! I use it to sign items, or sign boobies. Or in some cases guys want it done – I’ve got to be fair. But the women are from all walks of life – you can always put an initial right on a booby.”
Before Norway the tour visited the Netherlands. “I love Amsterdam because of their free attitudes. And the bikes that are everywhere you look. It’s a good workout and protects the environment at the same time. But too many cities have hills. Can you imagine in San Francisco having bikes? Oh my god.”
After London, Jeremy’s schedule reads Florida, Boston, LA, South Carolina, Berlin then Miami. But rum promotion is just one of his commitments. He debates in colleges and still takes on roles in pornos “about every month-and-a-half”. “If you look at my calendar, I swear to god, it’s crazy. I’ll be dead by next Thursday!” Judging by his drooping head and increasingly heavy eyelids, Thursday is looking ambitious. His concentration seems to be rapidly waning so I switch the conversation back to porn – specifically his breakthrough in 1978.
“My girlfriend posted a picture of me to Playgirl,” recalls Jeremy. “They liked it and wanted to do a layout, so I posed for a thing called Guy Next Door. The caption said: ‘Ron likes sailing and hang-gliding, when he gets a chance.’”
Back then, Ron went by his surname, Hyatt, not his middle name, Jeremy. A rookie’s mistake, he admits. “Guys looked me up [in the phonebook] under R Hyatt from Queens, New York, and got my grandmother Rose Hyatt, who was living downstairs. She was getting phone calls round the clock from gay guys saying: ‘Ooh, is Ron home? It would be nice if we could meet up a little later.’ She had to move out for, like, a month and half.” Ron Hyatt became Ron Jeremy pretty swiftly after that.
The porn work was never meant to be permanent – the goal for Jeremy was always to move into acting with clothes on. “It served a purpose, the job market was ridiculous at the time. The competition… How is a guy meant to know if you’re a good actor if you can’t get within a mile of him. Porn helped me take it to a higher plateau as an actor. I’ve been in cult films such as Detroit Rock City, Boondock Saints and Orgazmo, which were massive hits in colleges.” But the main body of Jeremy’s work is from the ‘blue’ back-catalogue, of which there are more than 2,000 films, the names of which cannot be mentioned here. Except perhaps 3T The Extra Testicle, a title that is just downright amusing.
