After performing in hundreds of adult films in her career, Sunset Thomas was ready for her final role. She just needed a volunteer to co-star. And so the title of the contest at Olympic Garden last week was a model of the succinct: Sex with Sunset.
Thomas wore a glittering dress while circulating the room before the contest officially began. The dress easily slipped down, revealing her tits. She seemed happiest with the top down. So it was mostly down. After hundreds of adult titles, after working at a brothel in Reno, and all the while performing in topless bars around the country, Thomas is still happiest being an exhibitionist. Although about half of the couple-hundred chairs were empty—including several tables with reservation tags indicating they were saved for industry heavy-hitters—more than a dozen photographers came to OG to snap her picture. She’s always ready to oblige and was just as eager to pose for dozens of fans who wanted souvenir shots with her. If you stood near her for even a moment, someone (not just men but also dancers who worked at the club) would hand you a camera and ask you to take their picture with her.
Sunset was going to miss it all. In fact, she had missed it—many industry veterans thought she was already retired. When I first met her a couple of years ago, she told me she was retired from films. So in addition to being her last film, the movie she was stunt-casting tonight would also be the Las Vegan’s first in three years. She tried fading away and decided it would be better to go out with a bang. (Sorry, there is no escape; bad jokes arise inevitably from a pick-a-dick contest that describes its winner as “one lucky stiff.”)
“I decided I want to come back and do my final movie,” she said. Her voice hadn’t lost the accent of her native Missouri—she loves joking that she is from the Show Me State. She sounded like the town slut whom Mark Twain forgot to mention in recounting the adventures of Huck and Tom. “My fans have been so good to me and so supportive for 17 years in the business that I decided, if I am going to do my final movie then I am going to have a fan involved. I wish I could do them all. My favorite movie was Sunset’s Gang Bang.”
That, however, is not an option, according to her publicist, Kent Wallace. Wallace told her she could pick one fan and a back-up fan in case the first can’t, you know, perform. And, in the odd nature of an enterprise like this, Wallace is not only her publicist but also her husband. How did he explain arranging a contest to help his wife pick a sex partner for a movie?
“When I met Sunset I was a publicist at the brothel. I have known her as a porn star and as a courtesan. That was how our relationship developed. Then we became really good friends, and it became something more. But it would by hypocritical of me to allow feelings of jealousy. Is there a little bit of jealousy? Absolutely. But it would be really hypocritical of me to allow that to infringe on Sunset Thomas.”
In fact, Wallace behaved much more like a publicist than a jealous husband. He was thrilled by the number of photographers ready to shoot his topless wife and constantly lamented the seats that were unfilled by men eager for the chance to have sex with her.
The contest itself was rather chaotic. The actual rules, such as they were (register in advance, bring a photo of your boy part), got tossed out early on. Pretty much any guy in the place was eligible. Thomas’ role was, let’s say, wide-ranging—sometimes she brought dancers up to the stage, sometimes she introduced old porn friends, and occasionally she brought a man on stage and questioned him. Other times she took men back into a VIP area to interview them privately, leaving the restless crowd to watch another dancer or, more often, an empty stage.
Still, there were many people willing to wait it out for the chance to shoot a pornographic movie with Sunset. Taylor Kent, 23, a Las Vegan who works dispatching technicians for a local gaming company, was among the hopefuls. “I am a very big fan of Sunset. I bought a three-pack of DVDs of her a couple years ago. If you think about it, every average male wants to be in porn. I think anyone would jump at the chance to be in one and brag to their friends.” All told, some 30 guys were brought to the stage.
As the elimination process continued in the VIP room, the cameras were occupied shooting Ms. Va Voom 2008 (Va Voom is a nascent adult network that sponsored the event) as she humped a table in various poses. She was the same lady I met a few months ago as Ms. Va Voom 2007.
Four hours after the contest began, Sunset picked Chris Bellis, 42, who said he worked as a lineman for a utility company in a small town in Pennsylvania. His burly look added credence to this claim. His excitement at being picked was still unabashed when I spoke to him two days later. “I was so stoked. I was blown away. I could not sleep that night. I have never done anything like this before. I just came out of a relationship two months ago, and I was down in the dumps. And then she picked me. I am honored and excited to be picked by her to do this. It is a total honor. To me the movie is about her, and I will have a small part.” However small or big his part, Thomas had not seen at the time she picked him.
But a couple of days later, lounging in a terry-cloth robe in a suite at the Palazzo, preparing for the AVN awards, Thomas mentioned that Bellis had sent her a JPEG of his physical attribute, taken during the night he was too excited to sleep. “It’s cute,” she said.
Longtime contributing editor Richard Abowitz wrote the Skin column for this paper years ago; with this issue he revives it on a biweekly basis. You can reach him at [email protected].