David Hurles – Filmmaker
David Hurles (1944–2023) founded Old Reliable Tape and Picture Company, directing nearly 300 films between 1970 and 1995 that helped define an outlaw, blue-collar aesthetic in gay erotica distinct from the era’s more polished studios. A protégé of Bob Mizer’s Athletic Model Guild, Hurles first gained national attention as a star witness in the 1972 obscenity trial of Guild Press publisher Howard Lynn Womack, a case that helped establish legal protections for the American adult film industry. Jack Fritscher, a friend and collaborator since 1976, chronicled Hurles across decades of Drummer and Man2Man Quarterly features, including “Call Him ‘Old Reliable’ Because He Is” (1981) and the essay “Terror Is My Only Hardon,” collected in Profiles in Gay Courage: Leatherfolk, Arts, and Ideas (2022). In 2016, the Tom of Finland Foundation inducted Hurles into its Artists Hall of Fame.