By Keith J. Crocker and Michelle Alexander
**To read the articles, just save them and zoom on the
text**
Michael Findlay was born in 1938 into an Irish-American
family and grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. In
between attending parochial school and avoiding his alcoholic nun aunt who was
always around the house making a nuisance of herself, Findlay became a regular
at seedy Times Square cinemas, checking out the early nudie films. Mike
originally intended to become a priest before he discovered the lure of the
grindhouses. In the early 1960s Findlay began working at ABC TV as an editor,
where he became good friends with his co-workers, brothers John and Lem Amero,
who themselves would become filmmakers. Mike was also studying at the City
College of New York, as was a young woman called Roberta Hershkowitz...
Roberta Findlay (nee Hershkowitz)
was born, according to herself, in 1948, though her real date of birth is
possibly 1946. The youngest of three children to Hungarian immigrants, Roberta
was raised in the Bronx in a tenement she claims is not far removed from the
decrepit building housing the hapless residents in her film Tenement (1985). A talented pianist
from age four, she began attending City College at fifteen, after graduating
high school two years early.
At the college, Mike was running a program of silent movies
on campus, and advertised for a pianist to accompany the films. It was Roberta who volunteered, who by then was a 16 year old music
major. Thus fuelling the beginning of an intense decade-long personal and
professional relationship which bore a series of distinct, ultra low budget S
& M tinged sexploitation product before both partners branched off
directing XXX fare.
Mike and Roberta quickly fell in love, and with their
parents insisting they marry, did so when Roberta turned eighteen. Roberta was obsessively
infatuated with Mike, abandoning her music studies to collaborate on a
number of films with him and the Amero brothers. For the first two features they collaborated on, Body of a Female (sadly a lost title) and Take Me Naked, Roberta persuaded Mike that she play the female leads for fear of her husband being tempted by other women. Ironically, in the early 1970s the
couple’s relationship disintergrated when Roberta left her husband for
distributer Allen Shackleton. Sometime before this, Roberta gave birth to a
daughter by Mike – Findlay clinging desparately to hopes that a baby would
repair the marriage. This was not to be, as Roberta callously adopted the child
out when Mike was away on a business trip. Hit with the double whammy of his
wife leaving him for another man and giving away their daughter, Mike was
beyond devastated. Both Mike and Roberta threw themselves into work, Roberta becoming one of the first
female hardcore porn directors, and Mike veering into gay adult cinema.
On May 16, 1977, it looked like things were looking up for
Mike Findlay. He had developed a 3-D camera, and was meant to be demonstrating
the prototype at the Cannes Film Festival. However, May 16, 1977 also marks the
date of a horrific tragedy. Findlay, holding his camera and about to board a
helicopter on the roof of the then Pan Am building (now the MetLife bulding) to
take him to JFK Airport, was decapitated by a falling rotor which had detached
from the helicopter. He was killed instantly, and cinema sadly lost one of its
most innovative and transgressive low-low budget filmmakers.
Roberta Findlay, after dumping the loathsome Allan
Shackleton after he punched her in the face, causing her to fall down a flight
of stairs, went on to direct a series of
ultra-cheap horror films in the 1980s, assisted by her long-term partner, the
late Walter Sear. Sear founded the
legendary Sear Sound, the oldest recording studio in New York City and today
Roberta, long retired from filmmaking, runs the studio.
-bio written by Michelle Alexander
-bio written by Michelle Alexander
Some historical gold here – a thankfully digitally preserved
copy of City College’s student newspaper ‘The Campus’, dated December 6, 1961,
features an article on Michael and Roberta’s film/music collaboration. Go to Page 5 to read about this pivotal moment
in time...(MA)
Article on Roberta Findlay's collaboration on a presumably lost film, 'Double Circle', with an all-women crew. From 'The Daily Times', Salisbury, Maryland, May 10 1973. (MA)
An interview with Roberta Findlay from Film International Magazine, Volume 1 Number 2 May 1975 (KC)
Here is my original SNUFF poster that I bought from a grouchy WWII veteran named "Marty" who ran a framing shop in East Meadow, NY. He had a ton of posters, lots of exploitation and horror material. He never really valued those posters, sold them for real cheap. My SNUFF poster cost me $2.50. This was in 1987. I don't want to even imagine just how much it would run for today. By the way, it's extra special because it is announcing the films premier, which was February 11, 1976. I'll be posting tons more Findlay movie material in the next few weeks, so hang tight! (KC)
New York Times articles dating May 17 & 18 covering the accident on top of the Pan Am building which killed filmmaker Michael Findlay and several others on May 16, 1977. (KC)
An interview with Roberta Findlay from Take One Magazine, September 1978 (MA)
An interview with Roberta Findlay from Fangoria #52, March 1986 (MA)
An interview with Roberta Findlay from Crimson Celluloid, c.1987. Known as the only Australian interview with Mrs. Findlay to date...special thanks to David Nolte (MA)
