Happy B-Day, Jim

Jim Bentley is 50 today. I can't picture him anything but the blond kid in Falcon's "Splash Shots", all-American, forever young, forever sexual. I remember when I first saw him in "Tough Competition" (with Kyle Carrington) and "Getting It" (St. John's seminal orgy movie). Jim embodied the ideal of the California 'dude' --and of sexual freedom. Fast forward to the mid 90s: I was the production manager on Colbert's "Matine Idol" and Jim was scheduled for a big come back. We got to know each other, we became friends. He eventually moved in with me for a few months. To this very day, I don't know whether I fell in love with his 'baby blues' or with the IDEA of falling in love. Here I was in Hollywood, producing porn and dating the boy of my earlier fantasies... could it get any better? Happy birthday, Jim