Harry Reems

The conviction of Reuben Sturman, whom police once called America's Kingpin of Pornography, is setting off a scramble among competitors eager to move in on the X-rated territory he staked out for two decades, authorities say. But a number of pornography experts argue that the industry has changed so much that it will be difficult for any one person to emerge as the dominant figure that Sturman, with his preference for European luxury cars and finely tailored clothes, has been.

In one movie, a group of nuns shuck their habits and dance around in nude abandon while one of their sisters undergoes an exorcism. In another, a woman struggles frantically against a rapist, but is eventually overcome by passion and begins to respond. In a third, a man murders his wife, then props her nude corpse on top of a homemade sexual apparatus and has sex with it. If those were among the images that caused the Motion Picture Assn.

I first got to know Robert Bucksbaum when I discovered that my favorite neighborhood theater, the Majestic Crest in Westwood, wasn't owned by a corporate theater chain but by one man who was so crazy about movies that he'd bought his own movie theater, making him one of the few individual theater owners in America. Our paths have continued to cross, since Bucksbaum -- who's something of a baseball fanatic as well -- manages our local Little League's summer All-Star team, which, thanks to some stellar play from a great bunch of kids, including his twin boys and my son, ended up winning the District 25 championship.

His hands flying above his spiked hair, Brian Grazer is flinging metaphors, connecting dots across three decades, trying to explain why for years he's been obsessed with the cultural significance of the 1972 porn classic "Deep Throat."

The guard at the entrance to Universal Studios studies the man in sunglasses who's pulled up at the gate in a Mercedes convertible. "Your name, please," he says. "Beatty," answers Warren Beatty, wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants as black as his Mercedes. The guard scans his drive-on pass sheet, then stares quizzically at his visitor, trying to place the face. "First name," he says politely. Beatty slides his sunglasses down his nose so the guard can get a better look. "Warren Beatty," he says.