Jim uccise il suo fratello Artie nel 1991, per cui fu condannato a 3 anni di prigione. Fu scarcerato nel 1997.
Jim e Artie Mitchell erano responsabili dei primi film porno di successo come "Behind the Green Door," (1972) con Marilyn Chambers e "Resurrection of Eve" (1973)
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Legendary porn purveyor Jim Mitchell dies
By John Simerman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Article Launched: 07/13/2007 01:20:11 PM PDT
Artie Mitchell, left, with brother Jim, at their O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco in December...«12»
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Jim Mitchell, the Antioch High School graduate who teamed with his brother, Artie, to build a legendary porn empire that included San Francisco's O'Farrell Theatre and several revolutionary skin flicks -- and who in 1991 shot his brother dead -- died Thursday night at his Sonoma County ranch home, family and coroner's officials said.
He was 63.
Mitchell, half of the eccentric Mitchell Brothers duo that became perhaps the nation's best-known purveyors of dirty films during their heyday in the 1970's and '80s, lived in Petaluma with his wife, Lisa. He suffered a heart attack, said Merle Lane, a relative by marriage.
"He was sitting in his chair and doing something, I think watching TV, and he just, 'Ehhhh.' That was it. His heart quit him just like that," said Lane.
It was a quiet ending to what once was a wild life of sex, drugs, porn film-making, strip shows, scores of arrests for obscenity and, in 1991, a Cain-and-Abel-style killing that opened the courtroom curtain to their brash lifestyle and sent Jim Mitchell to prison for three years on a conviction for involuntary manslaughter.
Since their days growing up in a working class Antioch family, the brothers were close and watched out for each other. Jim was two years older, a staunch leftist and savvy businessman. Artie was the younger, crazier and sexually voracious brother, according to a 1992 biography, "X-Rated: The Mitchell Brothers -- A True Story of Sex, Money and Death," by David McCumber, a former San Francisco journalist and poker buddy of the Mitchells.
Prosecutors colored the shooting -- on a rainy night at Artie's home in Corte Madera -- as a cold-minded bid to control his younger brother. Jim Mitchell's lawyers claimed Artie, 45, was in an alcoholic tailspin and threatened to kill Jim. They painted the shooting as a desperate attempt to convince Artie, who had fallen into a tailspin of alcohol and drugs, to seek treatment.
Jim Mitchell was armed with a rifle, a handgun, a knife and a box of ammunition when he entered the house and fired eight shots, three of them hitting his brother, the fatal shot in the head. When police arrested him as he walked from the home, he had a .22-caliber rifle stuffed down a pants leg and a revolver in a shoulder holster.
Revealing Mitchell's wide cast of friends in San Francisco, some of the city's political elite threw their support behind a lenient sentence for Jim, writing a ream of letters to the judge. But the judge likened him to Robert De Niro's crazed, driven killer in "Taxi Driver," saying: "You became Travis Bickle and as a result, Artie is dead. And despite his faults, Artie did not deserve to die."
Mitchell, who walked away from San Quentin State Prison in 1997, has since lived a quiet life, with horses on the ranch, said family members and friends.
"He seemed terrifically happy," said Jeannette Etheredge, owner of the Tosca Cafe in North Beach, where two decades ago the brothers often partied.
Mitchell was no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, which includes a porn film operation and the theater. But a family members said he periodically checked in on the theater at O'Farrell and Polk streets that anchored his porn fame, and where deceased gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson once served as night manager.
A manager at the club declined to comment on Mitchell or his death, saying, "It just happened. We're just trying to take care of business." He declined to give his name.
Etheredge, who said she had spoken with Mitchell but hadn't seen him in years, fondly recalls "a lot of good times at my bar."
"It just all happened too quickly," she said of those days. "(They) were quite a pair. I always liked Jim. He was always the sweeter, kinder (brother), a genuinely good guy. Whenever we needed anything, for a film festival or charities, he would always step up to the plate."
The brothers' porno kingdom began modestly in Antioch, where Jim graduated from the high school in 1962. They sold nude photos to flesh magazines in San Francisco during the sex explosion of the late '60's.
Soon they were making small porn films. They reached cult status, fame and profit in 1972 with "Behind the Green Door," starring porn icon Marilyn Chambers, followed by "Resurrection of Eve" in 1973, "Sodom and Gomorrah: The Last 7 Days" in 1975 and several other now-cult films that were hailed for taking porn from the dark, dirty corners with higher production values, humor and social commentary.
In all, the brothers would produce hundreds of films, face and beat more than 100 arrests on obscenity charges and help pave the trail for what has become a multi-billion dollar adult movie industry.
(foto presa nel 1989: Artie, a sinistra e Jim a destra, davanti al loro teatro O'Farrell)
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PETALUMA, Calif. - Legendary pornographer Jim Mitchell died of a heart attack Thursday night at his Sonoma County ranch home. He was 63.
"He was sitting in his chair and doing something, I think watching TV, and he just, 'Ehhhh.' That was it. His heart quit him just like that," said Merle Lane, a relative by marriage.
Based in San Francisco where they ran the famous O'Farrell Theater, Mitchell and his younger brother, Artie, helped usher in the era of porno chic with the 1972 Marilyn Chambers hit Behind the Green Door. The brothers went on to produce and distribute such adult film classics as The Resurrection of Eve, Autobiography of a Flea, and Sodom and Gomorrah; along the way, they were arrested hundreds of times and successfully beat numerous obscenity charges.
The Mitchell Brothers also pioneered home video distribution. Behind the Green Door was one of the first X-rated movies widely distributed on video in the late 1970s, making Mitchell Brothers Video one of the giants of early video distribution.
In the 1980s, the Brothers returned briefly to movie production, on video, first with The Grafenberg Spot, an all-star celebration of G-spot orgasm, and later Behind the Green Door: The Sequel, designed as a safe-sex awareness movie at the beginning of the AIDS crisis.
Most of the Brothers' passion and showmanship, however, was channeled into their O'Farrell Theater. They turned it from a pornflick grindhouse into a high-end sex emporium with non-stop strippers and lap dancers entertaining crowds of tourists. Like their movies it was the subject of many closure attempts but nevertheless managed to thrive.
In the 1980 Jim and Artie became mentors and role models to a new breed of erotic entrepreneurs in the Bay Area. Magazine publishers, sexual columnists, novelists, independent filmmakers found themselves on the receiving end of their advice and support.
The brothers' groundbreaking porn flicks brought them everlasting notoriety -- but Jim Mitchell became even more infamous for shooting his brother to death in 1991. He served three years in San Quentin State Prison for involuntary manslaughter. David McCumber chronicled the events leading up to the shooting in his book, "X-Rated: The Mitchell Brothers -- A True Story of Sex, Money and Death" (later adapted as a mediocre made-for-cable movie starring Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen.)
Released in 1997, Mitchell spent the remainder of his life living quietly on the ranch in Sonoma with his horses. "He seemed terrifically happy," said Jeannette Etheredge, owner of the Tosca Cafe, a former hangout of the Mitchell brothers in North Beach.
Among the performers who got their start in the adult business thanks to the Mitchell Brothers was AVN Hall of Famer Nina Hartley, who started out dancing at the O'Farrell and later appeared on screen for the brothers in The Grafenberg Spot.
"I am very saddened to hear this news," Hartley told AVN. "My condolences go out to his wife, who was a co-worker of mine. I got my start in adult entertainment as a house dancer for the Mitchell Brothers back in 1983, so I knew Jim as my boss. He and Artie were my bosses for the first two years of my adult career. It was an amazing space for people like me to have sex on stage and meet the fans up close and personal – he had an incredible vision for sexuality at that time that meshed very well with mine."
Hartley told AVN she had not seen Mitchell since his incarceration. "I always found him to be the calm one, the non-crazy-on-drugs one; for lack of a better word, the saner of the two," she said. "Artie was an out-of-control person. I remember when I got the news that Jim had killed Artie, and I just knew in my gut at the time that he didn't mean to kill him – he only meant to scare him."
Mitchell is survived by his wife, Lisa.
distantissimo dalla storia reale e di un fazioso nauseante.
