“It’s that story of ‘little boy comes to Hollywood and gets taken by the scene,’” says Darnell, who has yet to cast the role of Stefano. Devouring the book in a single sitting, he instantly saw its potential as a movie. (Though the film, for which Darnell interviewed more than 50 sources over a three-year period, is still short $450,000 in funding.) The film’s working title is X-Rated, and it recounts the fast life and slow death of one of the biggest gay-porn stars of the 1990s, an era when being in adult film carried far more star power than uploading an amateur video to Xtube.ĭarnell’s fascination with Stefano began when a copy of a 1996 biography, Wonder Bread and Ecstasy, fell-literally-at his feet in an L.A. Hollywood director Chad Darnell, whose prior credits include casting Spider-Man and Lost, has spent the bulk of the past three years crafting a 107-page script that he hopes to shape into a two-hour indie biopic by February of next year.
Yet 17 years after his death, Joey Stefano’s presence in both the mainstream and adult entertainment industries couldn’t be more noticeable. His final resting place bears no headstone, making his presence in the cemetery derelict if not absent. Immaculate Heart Cemetery in Marcus Hook would seem an unlikely resting place for a power-bottom porn star, but this is indeed where Chester native Joey Stefano, né Nicholas Iacona Jr., lays in perpetual sleep.
