"I reached for the corniest name I could think of," Miller said in an interview with XBiz. "Ron rhymes with Don, and I tacked on the Hollywood."
Attorney Ron Miller wears a three-piece suit in court for his performances in front of juries. His alter ego, Don Hollywood, wears nothing at all for his performances in front of a camera. He has co-starred countless times in adult movies with his wife, Brooke Hunter, also a very active porn star. Miller and Hunter are prolific adult video producers through their video company, Hollywood-Hunter Productions. And this month they are launching two new paysites, dirtyoldlawyer. com, and brookes bitches.com.
Miller is still working out some of the details, but he said they will both be membership sites, and when a person joins either site, the other site is included free. Membership will entitle users to streaming video of each scene, which will consist of three clips, no less than five minutes and no more than nine minutes each.
The average hardcore sex scene on DVD is about seventeen minutes, so Miller claims the streaming video on both sites provides the member with more content, per scene, than a DVD scene.
"All the scenes have been and will continue to be shot on professional equipment," Miller said. He added that all scenes appearing on the two sites will be professionally produced using the same crews, equipment and lighting used to shoot adult DVD.
"In addition, members will have access to still galleries of each scene with 80-to-100 still images," Miller said.
Miller is certainly a character in a class by himself. With nearly 6 billion people on the planet, chances are good that he is the only lawyer-porn-actor-producer-director in the world. Add that to the fact that he also qualifies as a senior citizen and you have a truly unique individual.
Born in 1947, Miller grew up in Southern California with a passion for aviation, surfing and drag racing. He earned his law degree at the University of West Los Angeles, fourth in his class. His father created and manufactured a successful line of children's clothing and in a flirtation with show business, even promoted a Christmas record in Firestone tire stores. By osmosis, Miller learned early about entrepreneurship. But then his father died during Miller's senior year in high school.
"All of a sudden, education became important to me," Miller said. "This was in 1965. Education was important to my father, but not important to me until after he passed away. I wanted to become a success for my dad. I was quite the talker. Elementary school teachers told me, 'the way you talk, you ought to become a lawyer.'"
Miller said he tried unsuccessfully to keep the family business alive, working a variety of jobs while earning his B.S. and J.D. degrees. He passed the bar in 1975 and specializes in criminal law. Miller says he handles cases from traffic tickets and drunken driving to murder. His business is built on referrals.
At one point, Miller had a problem with the California State Bar in 1998, which issued a disciplinary probation against him. He said it all resulted from a "loose partnership" with an old friend. The friend was a classmate from junior high all the way through law school. Friends or not, the partnership dissolved in acrimony over the distribution of money from a case. The state bar ordered Miller to take a course in trust fund accounting, and he says he is a better businessman because of it. His practice was never suspended.
Easing into Adult
Miller eased into the porn business in 1991 with a fetishbased Halloween party at the former Tatou club in Beverly Hills, Calif.
"The music and dances were erotic, people were dressed in all fetish wear," Miller said. "People had to be dressed in some kind of fetish wear or black tie formal gowns and tuxes. People became part of the party, as opposed to being spectators. I went to erotic artists and got them to put art on display. One of my sponsors was Dream Dressers [a company specializing in exotic clothing]. It was an allprepaid event, and tickets were pricey, $50."
Miller said the event was a big success. "It was about Halloween," he continued. "In my experience, Halloween is an excuse for people to act out their own fantasies or show a side of themselves they normally keep under wraps."
Over time, Miller turned his erotic parties into popular semiweekly events. He graduated to doing social swing parties, where couples meet other couples, in a nightclub environment with food and a no-host bar, and as many as 100 people attending. He promoted his events through ads in LA Weekly and in interviews on the Tom Leykis radio talk show.
Miller met Brooke Hunter at one of his parties eight or nine years ago. She expressed an interest in doing a porn film.
"She is a very sexual person, very outgoing, very uninhibited," Miller said.
He knew some people in the business through his law practice and made arrangements for her to do a scene. She asked him to do the scene with her. He was reluctant at first.
After all, what would people think, a real-life attorney acting in a porn movie?
"I thought it might not be a good thing for my law practice," Miller said. He finally agreed but he would wear a wool ski mask on pretext that he was a cat burglar in his encounter with Brooke. He did the shoot almost all the way through before another actor ripped the mask off on camera, declaring that — surprise! — the two were really husband and wife, and they liked to role play. It was all on film. There was no going back. Don Hollywood was born, and Brooke Hunter's career was launched as well.
Miller said several professional friends — doctors, other lawyers and the like — would occasionally ask him if he would get them an adult movie on videotape. This was before easy availability of porn on the Internet.
They were concerned that a client or someone they knew would spot them entering a sex shop.
Erotica LA
"That planted the seed," Miller said, "to bring mainstream America and the adult industry together. So I created EroticLA, the home show of porn."
Miller said he started at the Palladium and did three years at the Convention Center, attracting a crowd of 20,000 attendees in three days in 40,000-to- 50,000 square feet of floor space. He said he had 150 different exhibitors, including Wicked Pictures and other top video producers.
"We had everything from candles to people who designed sex furniture and hardcore videos," he said, but he eventually sold the show to another promoter. "It was a win-win situation for me," he said. "If the show gets bigger and better, they will remember that I created it. Or if it falls on its face, they will say, 'when Ron Miller had it, it was a great show.'"
That was two or three years ago and EroticLA has not yet fallen on its face.
Miller continues work in adult films, often in scenes with his wife.
"There are times in our lives when my wife will go off with one of the top male performers, and these guys are young studs," Miller said. "If I said I never get jealous, I would be lying; I would be distant and cold-hearted. She is far less affected by the scenes that I do, mostly with young women. Older men and younger women — that's a conventional kind of relationship [in this industry]."
Miller does not wear a condom in his work.
"No, there is far less HIV exposure in the adult industry than in everyday society," he said. "I say this because we have had three outbreaks, and every time there is an outbreak, it involves four or five people. It starts with one person and spreads quickly, and it is then contained."
Miller believes that the incidence of STDs also is lower in the porn industry than in the general population, and he believes this is the case because of mandatory testing every month. He believes the tests used in the industry are better than the tests generally used elsewhere.
New Tradeshow?
When asked what's next for Don Hollywood, Miller said he's not ready to rest yet. At present, he's thinking about producing another tradeshow for the industry, but something very different from his earlier shows.
"The world has changed so much since EroticaLA," Miller said. "The adult industry drives technology. The type of consumer show I'm interested in would be very technology-oriented. Rather than focus on the stars, it would spotlight the people in the business."
His advice for people getting into the porn business?
"Have a real interest in it," he said. "Stick to a niche that is appealing to you. I don't try to produce gay films — not that I have anything against gays, I just don't know anything about the product. I don't have a personal interest in the product. There are fetish lines I know nothing about.
Concentrate on whatever you have an interest in. Then you'll have a product that works. Don't try to copy whatever other people are doing. You can have a lot of fun. There's always room for fresh ideas. And remember, it's work, just like any other industry."
