John Robert Stillman (July 11, 1946 – April 7, 2009), billed professionally as Jack Wrangler, was an American gay pornographic film actor, theatrical producer, director, and writer. He performed in both gay and straight films.
Open about his homosexuality and adult film work throughout his career, Wrangler was an icon of the gay-liberation movement. The 2008 feature-length documentary Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon examines his life and career.
Early life
Wrangler was born John Robert Stillman in Beverly Hills, California. who produced such films as Champion, Second Chorus, and Home of the Brave and produced television series such as Boots and Saddles, His mother, Ruth Clark Stillman, was a former dancer in Busby Berkeley musicals.
He became aware of his homosexuality when he was 10 years old.
Stillman graduated in 1968 with a degree in theater from the College of Speech at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
Career
Adult film
Despite his good looks and acting skills, Stillman found only limited early work in Los Angeles, California, and New York City on the stage and as a model and dancer. He played a former prostitute from Arkansas who becomes a bad go-go dancer in California, in a role which required extensive nudity. He finally settled in New York City and found work as a bartender and go-go dancer. His first gay porn film was 1970's Eyes of a Stranger (also known as Eyes of a Gay Stranger; Magnum Studios), one of the first hard-core gay adult films to be released commercially in the United States. Wrangler performed in gay pornographic films for several reasons. First he saw them as culturally subversive and politically liberating:
<blockquote>At the time we were all trying to find out who the hell we were as individuals, what we wanted specifically on our own terms, who we wanted to be, what our potentials were, what our differences were, what made us unique… And I think that's why the XXX-rated films were important, because it was like, Oh, my God, there are other people who like the same things as me, like leather, or being blown on a pool table. [Laughs] It was a start—literally stripping ourselves naked and trying to begin from there. Among his more notable gay films were Kansas City Trucking Co., Hot House, Sex Machine, and A Night at the Adonis.
In 1978, Wrangler made the move to heterosexual adult film, making his debut in China Sisters which included his first sexual encounter with a woman on film. He quickly made a number of well-known and popular straight-adult films, including Jack and Jill, Roommates, and The Devil in Miss Jones 2.
As Wrangler, he became an icon of the gay-liberation movement.
Theatre
As Wrangler was achieving fame as one of the first iconic gay-porn stars, his acting career also blossomed. He co-starred alongside playwright and actor Robert Patrick in Patrick's 1979 play T-Shirts at The Glines theater in New York City. In 1985, Wrangler wrote the book for the musical I Love You, Jimmy Valentine – which starred his future wife, Margaret Whiting. In the mid-1980s, he appeared in the play Soul Survivor, a comedy about a gay man whose lover has died of AIDS.
By this time Wrangler's adult-film career was tapering off. He published his autobiography, The Jack Wrangler Story, or What's a Nice Boy Like You Doing?, in 1984. Whiting demanded that he give up his porn career and live erotic shows. In 1986 at the age of 40, he appeared in his final adult picture, a straight porn film titled Rising Star (Caballero Home Video).
Wrangler turned his attention to Whiting's career and cabaret. He became a board member of the Johnny Mercer Foundation after its founding in 1982, and worked to promote Mercer's music. He wrote and produced a 1985 cabaret show for Whiting which featured Mercer's music, and in 1996 co-wrote and produced Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: The Jazz Concert (inspired by the Mercer music used in the film, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). A year later, he helped conceive the 1997 Broadway revue Dream, which starred Whiting and contained many Mercer songs. Wrangler conceived the idea of a ballet based on Mercer's 1946 musical St. Louis Woman, which was performed by the Dance Theater of Harlem in 2003. Wrangler was also a promoter of the cabaret singer Carol Woods, writing and producing several shows for her between 1984 and 2001. Wrangler also wrote, directed, or produced a number of other plays, musicals and revues, including The Valentine Touch, The First Lady and Other Stories of Our Times, and Irina Abroad! In 1976, Wrangler met singer Margaret Whiting, 22 years his senior, in a nightclub; Wrangler later recalled: "I was with my manager when I looked over at Margaret, who was surrounded by five guys in a booth. There she was with the hair, the furs and the big gestures. I thought, 'Boy, now that's New York! That's glamour!' I had to meet her." The couple was married from 1994 until his death.
In 1998, Wrangler and Whiting filed a $3 million lawsuit against New York City when the 74-year-old Whiting tripped on loose pavement and broke her hip. Their suit claimed $2 million in damages for her injuries and $1 million for loss of conjugal relations.
In 2008, a feature-length documentary film about Wrangler, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, premiered at Newfest and received the GayVN Award. It was produced and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures,