The Porn King Pin: The $100M Mob Betrayal

**The Porn King Pin: The $100M Mob Betrayal**

They’re brothers, but so were Cain and Abel.

They were into porn. They were into drugs. They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

They’re just Neuvo Ree dumb asses.

Committing deadly sins is the Pirano family’s bread and butter.

“[ __ ] was considered to be the most profitable film of all time. They stopped counting it. They started weighing the money. That’s how much money they were making.”

When this nuclear family goes ballistic, it’s because their greed is way thicker than their blood.

“I had never heard of a betrayal like that. One person that has absolutely nothing to do with this gets killed. It’s devastating.”

My name is Steve Sheripa. I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. I’ve seen good people turn bad and bad people turn worse. Some took contracts to carry out a hit. Some were victims of a hit. To hit men, life and death is just part of the business. It’s nothing personal.

January 4th, 1982, Brooklyn, New York. Joseph Pirano and his son Joe Jr. are going to a meeting with their Columbo crime family bosses. What they don’t know is they’re heading into an ambush. What makes it even worse is the plan to kill them has been hatched by Joe Senior’s business partner, his big brother Tony.

“I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.”

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their office, strolls a guy with an idea that will revolutionize the smut industry. Gerard Damiano is a New York hairdresser who wants to be a movie director and his earthshaking idea is to make a dirty feature film. You know, a story, people talking, pretending to be other people, the whole bit. Back in those days, you know, that was really unheard of. You know, X-rated films were shot in a hotel room with a couple of hookers. You know, that was a film.

Damiano even has a star in mind. He’s written a porno comedy for a woman who has a very special talent. Her name is Linda Lovelace. It’s no accident he calls his movie Deep Throat.

He was inspired by Linda Lovelace. There’s no question. I think really what struck my father about uh Linda was her innocence that it was almost a contradiction. Here was someone with this, you know, amazing sexual technique, but that had the appeal of the girl next door.

At first, the girl next door appeal is lost on the Piranos.

He had a big big fight with the Piranos because they didn’t think Linda was attractive and Gerard Damiano would scream back,

“But deep throat’s going to become a household word.”

You know, they didn’t quite get it. They didn’t understand what he was trying to do. Um, for example, they didn’t like the title. They wanted to call it the sword swallower. And he had to convince them,

“No, no, trust me. You know, Deep Throat.”

They’re also nervous that Deep Throat’s budget is about $22,000. That’s 15 times the cost of a porn loop.

So, $22,000 to make this movie with this not very attractive girl. Well, they really didn’t know what they were doing.

The Piranos are not impressed with Linda and Damiano insists they at least bring her in for an audition.

But when they experience her special talent firsthand, let’s just say they have a change of heart.

Linda Lovelace has special talent, and this is hard to say on a PG-rated show, but she uh could perform fellatio. I don’t mean to be crude, but that was her selling point.

Deep Throat was kind of a sex technique people hadn’t heard of or seen. There was no word deep throat until the movie, and people wanted to see that.

“Hey, Junior, go ahead.”

After Linda’s trip to the casting couch, the Piranos agreed to bankroll Damiano’s Deep Throat.

My father was responsible for all creative aspects of the film. The Piranos were responsible for distribution and of course the funding and they were going to split the profits three ways.

He went home and wrote the script over the weekend and by Monday he went back and showed this to the Piranos and said,

“This is the film I want to make.”

Miami winter 1972. Damiano takes just 6 days to shoot his movie.

My father, he did everything in that movie except get laid. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, he did the editing. He was involved in every aspect of that of that film from beginning to end. At the time, I was 7 years old. We were on the set and the atmosphere was um very exciting. You know, my father never allowed us to be anywhere near um what they called the nitty-gritty. When they were filming the sex scenes, we were ushered, you know, off the set. But um you know we were very aware that our father was a filmmaker and and we were proud of that you know and and we were were raised to believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with with sexuality.

The big question is will it make money? Oh boy will it? Deep Throat goes on to become the most profitable porn film ever made.

Tony and Joe Pirano and their sons Butchie and Joe Jr. are poised to become mega millionaires. Their family fortune is built on a foundation of lies, exploitation, and threats of violence. What could possibly go wrong?

January 1982, the new year is just four days old. Joseph the Whale Pirano and his son are on their way to a meeting. What the two Joe’s don’t know is to sit down is a setup. Who they’ll be meeting is their maker.

I had never heard of a betrayal like that where a brother would actually come in and ask that his brother and his nephew be killed. To me, it was unbelievable.

So, how did the relationship between two brothers turn into carnage? Every family has its disputes. Bickering over money can lead to hard feelings for sure. So, what if you and your brother own the most profitable porn flick ever made? Deep Throat. We’re talking about tens, maybe hundreds of millions. And what if you’re lying, cheating, nincompoop of a brother? What if that fat no good pile of crap stole tens of millions of that movie’s profits from you and your family? Would you want him dead?

Yeah, I thought so.

I think the family kind of fractured as families do when they start making tons and tons and tons of money.

It all started in happier days. It’s the early ’70s.

Joe Pirano is a gangster from a gangster family and life is good. Joe isn’t especially smart or ambitious, but his big brother Tony lets him tag along.

Each of them was a member of the Columbo crime family, and they were involved in the typical gangster uh activities, loaning, gambling, extortion. They were thugs and hoodlums, you know, street people. They didn’t have any finesse.

They were into anything they could get their hands on to make money.

Salvatore Big Sal Ishiata is on the same mafia crew as Joe and Tony Pirano. He doesn’t much like either one.

They were bullies. Very loud, very boisterous type people. In the Columbo family, nobody liked them at all.

They aren’t exactly peas in a pod. Melons would be more like it. Elder brother Tony is the brains.

He was in a 400 lb area. So that they nicknamed him Fat Tony Pirano.

Big as Fat Tony might be. If he’s the brains, then Joe’s the stomach. They call him the whale. But not all of his blubber is on his waistline. Plenty of it is between his ears.

No one had a nice thing to say about Joe the whale other than he was fat and he couldn’t fit in the doorway.

The brothers have a nice little racket making dirty movies that play the perverts and peep shows. The home video revolution is years away and Hollywood movies are prudish. So porn fans have to take whatever garbage they can get. And make no mistake, what the Piranos make is crap.

There was basically loops, which are short films. They’d be really grainy and they weren’t shot really well. You really couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the films. Um, they weren’t that good.

Still, low budgets and a black market product make the brothers a steady profit and they control the whole shebang, especially in their hometown.

Times Square was really a cesspool. It was all pornographic theaters, peep shows, prostitutes. Today, you couldn’t buy a loose cigarette in Times Square. Then you could buy almost anything your heart desired.

The theaters paid at least 50% of their income to the mob or to the mob through the Piranos.

You would think to the mob money is money, but even gangsters have standards and to them the Piranos are just as skanky as their wares.

Pornography was thought to be the lowest rung of organized crime.

When I was inducted into the family, the Columbo family, I was explicitly told that there was nothing to be done in the pornography business. We were not to be involved in it. It was one of the rules and regulations that needed to be followed.

Remember these guys are very heavily Catholic and they have wives and the wives are always saying why are you making those dirty movies? You know those things would be disgusting. They would be dishonorable to be involved in anything like that. The mafia that I joined would have had nothing to do with that kind of industry.

The fact that their crew looks down on porn makes it easy for Tony and Joe to keep it all in the family. They both have sons and in both cases the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Tony’s son Butchie is like his father. He’s smart and has a good head for business.

But had a reputation as being a charming, roguish kind of a character. He was one of these guys that really knew how to hang out in New York and, you know, have fun. You know, he was a fun guy and everyone liked him.

But dreams of turning his family’s porn racket into a Hollywood hit factory with him at the helm.

He wanted to be an auteur, you know, he really wanted to be this filmmaker and make big Hollywood features, you know, not just, you know, pornography.

Joe the Whale’s son, Joe Jr. is nothing like his cousin Butchie. Junior’s a bonehead who cosigns his connections just like his old man.

It would be difficult for you to have a real conversation with them. They didn’t know anything about the movie industry or anything like that.

The fortunes of the Pirano brothers changed one day. Went into their