Ron Jeremy is an internationally acclaimed actor, stand-up comedian, classically trained pianist, accred-ited special education teacher, and renowned college lecturer. In his spare time, he's also starred in roughly two thousand adult films, including award-winning performances in Suzie Superstar and All the Way In! He lives in California.

Ron Jeremy

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Portrait of a Hedgehog as a Young Man

There are two stories involving my birth that may very well tell you everything you need to know about me.

I was born on March 12, 1953, in Bayside, Queens. As my father remembers it, my mother didn't experience much in the way of contraction pains. She just woke him up in the middle of the night, calmly announced that it was time, and had him drive her to the hospital. After the doctors wheeled her into the delivery room, I plopped out less than a half hour later. It was as simple as that. No epidural was necessary. My mother didn't even need to push. I did most of the work. I knew that it was time, and I just . . . came out.

"Oh," she apparently said. "That was it?"

I like to think that I just wanted to cause my mom as little physical discomfort as possible, but my dad has a different theory. "You were in a hurry to get out," he's told me. "You knew you had things to do, and you didn't want to stick around in the womb any longer than was necessary."

The other story took place later that morning, just a few hours after my shotgun delivery. My mother was taken to a private room to rest and recover. Though it was an altogether effortless birth, she was still feeling a little groggy; the doctors had injected her with too much anesthesia, having anticipated a birth at least slightly longer than a sneeze. But she was conscious enough to overhear a pair of nurses talking in the next room, where they were bathing me and getting a first glance at my unusual physical gifts.

"Good Lord," one of them muttered. "Would you look at that kid's penis?"

"It's pretty big," the other said. "And on a baby, no less."

The nurses giggled nervously. If they had any idea that my mother was listening, they certainly didn't let on.

"Well, he's a very lucky boy," one of them concluded.

And that, as the dramatists like to say, is what you call foreshadowing. Even as an infant, I was an impatient little fucker. And I had a bigger schmeckel than most guys my age and older.

If there's a better indication of the man I was to become, I don't know what it is.

Doing a cartwheel out of my mom's womb was just the beginning. Most of my infancy was spent trying to escape the boring inactivity of babyhood. I just couldn't sit still for it. During the first few months of my life, my parents would put me in a crib and quietly leave the room after I'd fallen asleep. But within a matter of minutes, they'd hear loud thumping sounds, and they'd come in to find me banging my head against the crib, like an irate prison inmate desperate for freedom. On some nights, they'd catch me crawling the crib's walls, literally balancing on the edges, teetering dangerously close to falling off.

At one month, I was already crawling. From what I understand, that's not just unusual, it's a little bit freaky. Most children don't start crawling until between seven and ten months. Me, I couldn't wait that long. My parents were obviously thrilled that I was such a quick learner, but they also couldn't help but wonder, Just where the hell does he think he's going, anyway? No sooner did they place me on the floor than I started scampering toward the door, as if I thought I was already late for some long overdue appointment.

My youth was almost unreasonably happy. I had parents who loved and supported me, siblings whom I adored and who never failed to be my closest allies, and a neighborhood that was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. In Bayside, most of us lived in semidetached, private homes no more than a few feet apart. You could look out of your living room window to see the family next door having dinner. It was like the entire neighborhood lived in the same apartment complex. It may sound like hell if you have a thing for privacy, but for me, it was pure bliss.

My memories of growing up often involve lazy afternoons at the Alley Pond Park, playing stickball and basketball in the street; family trips to Manhattan to visit the museums and zoos; and bike trips over to Springfield Boulevard to have a slice and a Coke for 25 cents at Joe's Pizza. I could roam free without my parents worrying, and enjoy the kind of freedom that most kids today can scarcely imagine. I still look back on it as some of the best days of my life.

But despite my idyllic upbringing, I didn't exactly take life at a leisurely pace. If anything, I was a lightning bolt of energy. I was constantly telling jokes or putting on impromptu shows for the neighbors. I'd dress up in my father's clothing and parade in front of anyone who so much as set foot in our house. I needed to be the center of attention at all times, and I'd do just about anything to ensure that it'd happen.

By the time I started attending Nathaniel Hawthorne Junior High, I was already pegged as the class clown. This delighted my schoolmates, but for the poor saps who were unfortunate enough to be my teachers, it proved endlessly frustrating. It was bad enough that I had the attention span of a gnat, but given my determination to be the most entertaining person in the room, I was the living incarnation of every teacher's worst nightmare.

It should come as no surprise that I was sent to the principal's office on an almost weekly basis. I was there so often that I was soon on a first-name basis with the school secretaries. I was scolded, threatened with detentions, and told that I was putting my scholastic future in jeopardy. But this only added fuel to the fire, and my class disruptions continued.