Robert Kerman filmography and biography
Date of birth: 16 December 1947, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Robert Kerman biography
Robert Charles Kerman was born on December 16, 1947 in Brooklyn, New
York City. His father was a pickle maker and his mother did
book-keeping for the family business. He grew up in a in a middle-class
Italian-Jewish neighborhood of Bensonhurst, sharing a two-family row
house with his aunt and parents.
Kerman first became interested in acting during his freshman year while
attending Lafayette High School. During his senor year, he enrolled in
a drama class and found another incentive to pursue acting: acting with
girls which he pursued relationships with a few of them.
After graduation, Kerman enrolled at Brooklyn College to earn a
Bachelor's Degree and where he acted in over 30 plays the university
put on. Kerman recalled that his first year at Brooklyn, he didn't act
for there were a lot of required courses to take before acting came.
During his second year, he took acting classes at night school. He also
went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where he appeared in
numerous plays. During his final year at Brooklyn College, Kerman met
the chairman of the acting department, Wilson Lehr, who had him
audition for the play 'Look Back in Anger'.
Kerman began acting in many off-Broadway shows in both Brooklyn and
Manhattan from local productions of 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof', 'A View
From a Bridge', 'Camille', 'The Knack', 'Joe Egg', and many comedies,
dramas, in lead and supporting parts. Following graduation from
Brooklyn College in 1970, Kerman went off on his own to pursue acting.
He took odd jobs from a Good Humor ice cream truck vendor, to driving a
taxi to support himself since acting did not pay much at all.
Kerman become involved in the underground adult film business in the
mid-1970s playing non-sex roles for $100-a-day. He first appeared in
performing on-screen sex in 1974 with director Robert Findley's 'Anyone
But My Husband' playing the lead role of the snobbish husband of C.J.
Laing. Kerman was at first very uncomfortable with the sex, first
performing with Susan Sloan as a nude-able babysitter in that film.
When producers for the porn films asked Kerman to create a 'nom de
porn' name for himself, a stamp on a cardboard box of Bolla wine
inspired Kerman to create his porn acting name of 'Richard Bolla'. He
later shortened it to 'R. Bolla' to lessen people calling him by his
Richard nickname of 'Dick'. He even briefly took the name 'R.C. Bolla'
for his middle name of Charles, but quickly dropped it.
Kerman's porn career flourished during the middle and late 1970s, and
early 1980s, with him acting in over 100 X-rated, hardcore porn films
in lead and supporting parts. His dramatic acting talent made producers
cast him in porn films with actual plots and stories which made him a
valuable commodity as porn film makers sought to make story-driven
feature films that could compete with mainstream movies. Kerman worked
for many adult film makers on the east and west coasts ranging from
Gerard Damiano, Robert McCallum, Henri Pachard, and other port auteur,
performing with such starlets as Seka, Vanessa Del Rio, Jennifer
Welles, Ginger Lynn, and Veronica Hart.
Mainstream acting continued to remain Kerman's true desire and in
between porn roles, tried to pursue work in mainstream films. In 1979,
Kerman was introduced to Nino Masini, an Italian production manager who
was filming a B-movie in New York. Their association led to Kerman
appearing in a small part as an air traffic controller in Ruggero
Deodato's The Concorde Affair (1979). Deodato's then cast him as the
lead role in his notorious film Cannibal Holocaust (1980) which was
filmed in New York as well as on location in the rain forests of
Columbia and Venzueala, which was an interesting experience for him in
acting on location and of the Italian film making business.
Afterwards, Kerman was cast by Italian director Umberto Lenzi for
another lead role in an jungle cannibal film titled Mangiati Vivi
(1980), which he played a rugged adventurer and trail guide which was
filmed in Sri Lanka.
Although Kerman wanted to continue working in Europe for Italian film
productions, it was not to be. After signing a contract to act, Kerman
returned to New York when work did not materialize. He planed to return
to Italy, but labor laws prevented him from doing so. For his last
Italian film role, a minor part in Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox
(1981), he could not leave New York City to film any of his scenes.
Kerman resumed his work in the American porn industry until 1984 when he
moved with his girlfriend to Los Angeles to break into mainstream
acting. His last adult film was Corporate Assets, filmed in 1985, which
was a big, production shot on location in the San Fernando Valley. By
early 1986, he had more or less quit the adult film business to pursue
acting roles in mainstream movies and television. He landed an agent
and within three months signed a three-year contract to act. He
appeared in five or six television shows in guest star roles, and had
small but memorable parts in No Way Out (1987), and Night of the Creeps
(1986). Then one day, his female agent fired him for no clear reason
and, unwilling to get back in the porn business, Kerman returned to New
York where by the early 1990s he dropped out of the acting business
altogether, rarely working since.
In 1998, Kerman received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Free Speech
Coalition's annual Night of the Stars, a gala event for the adult film
industry. In 2001, the theatrical re-release of Cannibal Holocaust
brought Kerman out of his self-imposed retirement to promote the movie
in Los Angeles. There, Sam Raimi asked him to audition for a role in
the first Spider Man movie where Kerman played a New York tugboat
captain in another small but memorable role.
Robert Kerman trivia
- Became a mainstream American leading man in Italy from 1979 to 1981
under his real name Robert Kerman. The Italian film industry was
notified from the U.S. that Robert was actually Richard Bolla, an adult
film star from New York. Kerman was quickly sent back to the states
where he, as Richard Bolla, "performed" in the adult film industry for
another four years.
- Once said in a documentary interview that he got an agent and performed
in mainstream productions during the mid-to-late 1980s, like
No Way Out. Then one day in 1988, the agent told him that
she could not book him any more because of his past as a porn star, and
dropped him as a client. He was devastated and struggled for nearly 10
years to recover from that incident having not worked during the whole
time.
- Claims that his first explicit role in a hardcore film was in Anyone But
My Husband (1975).
- Claim his last role in an explicit hardcore film was in Corporate Assets
(1985).