According to one Jeff Starkey, who reviewed the movie Screenplay in tandem with Ryder's appearances at the Bijou Theater to greet fans and sign autographs back in 1984: Now, of course, if one views these films, it's clear that Lee Ryder's cock is pretty much legendary. He starred in thirteen features between 19, including Bijou titles Screenplay, A Few Good Men, Giants 1, and 2 X 10. He was California born and bred, raised in Laguna, and he graduated from Esperanza High School in Anaheim.Īfter Mark Reynolds discovered him and featured him in All American Boys, he literally made a splash in Falcon Studio's Huge in 1982. Lee Ryder was born in 1959 as Darras Robert Pyron. But like many of the gay porn stars of that period, as noted in the alltoocommon “Fade Out” feature at the back of so many back issues of Manshots, he died of AIDS-related complications (in 1991). It treated gay porn in all its variety of genres like something that deserved thoughtful analysis, especially the movies now legendary directors like Steve Scott, Toby Ross, and Tom DeSimone made (movies Bijou carries, by the way).Īnd Manshots also offered some telling biographies of and interviews with most of the great gay porn stars of the past again, treating their lives (and of course their activities on screen) as something as interesting and entertaining as any feature on a celebrity in a mainstream magazine like People.Īnd if there was a gay porn star, or “retrostud” who deserved celebrity treatment, it was Lee Ryder. We at Bijou carry back issues of Manshots magazine, which was, I think, in its heyday (the late eighties and early nineties), offered a sophisticated approach to gay porn its video reviews were generally cogent and intelligent, even scholarly.