‘Love You!’ (1979) – John and Bo Derek’s Folly: The Full, Untold, Oral History

Ah, John Derek. The man with the matinee idol good looks.

In the 1940s, he was singled out for a movie career by David O. Selznick (who cast him as Shirley Temple’s boyfriend in 1944’s ‘Since You Went Away’) – and co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in ‘Knock on Any Door’ (1949), a performance that led a New York Times reviewer to describe him as “plainly an idol for the girls”.

In the 1950s, he fell into the hands of Columbia Pictures, who made him a staple in swashbucklers such as ‘Rogues of Sherwood Forest’ (1950), ‘Mask of the Avenger’ (1951), ‘Prince of Pirates’ (1953), and ‘The Adventures of Hajji Baba’ (1954), as well as more impressive turns, including 1956’s ‘The Ten Commandments’ and 1960’s ‘Exodus’.

In the 1960s, the cad became known for his marriages to increasingly younger women: Pati Behrs ​(m. 1948; div. 1956, four years his junior), Ursula Andress (m. 1957; div. 1966, ten years his junior)​, and Linda Evans (m. 1968; div. 1974, sixteen years younger).

And the 1980s, he was again in the global media spotlight for his relationship with the decade’s most iconic female star, Bo Derek, as well as for the racy films he made with her, which included ‘Tarzan, the Ape Man’ (1981) and ‘Bolero’ (1984).

But, dear reader, you know The Rialto Report well. None of this holds any interest for us.

Wait, though: In the 1970s, John and Bo made a little-seen, low-budget, distinctly-troubled, physically-uncomfortable, highly-admired, completely-hardcore sex film: Love You! (1979).

Now, you’re talking. That’s more like it. Now we’re interested.

So how did this film come about? Why was it so difficult? And what happened to it?

Current-day and vintage interviews with Bo Derek, Sean Catherine Derek, Lesllie Bovee, Annette Haven, and Eric Edwards reveal the truth.

John and Bo

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1.     Background

In 1973, while directing a film on the Greek island of Mykonos, John Derek was beguiled by the budding charms of Mary Cathleen Collins, a 16-year-old high school dropout from Southern California who was, between lengthy sessions on the beach, working under the stage name, Bo Shane. Derek immediately cast her in his movie, ‘And Once Upon a Time’ (eventually released as ‘Fantasies’ in 1981), and embarked upon an affair with her.

People assumed that when the pair left Mykonos, their affair would fizzle out. Instead, Derek took Bo to Germany (arguably – probably – to avoid prosecution under California’s statutory rape laws due to her age) and, after divorcing Linda Evans, he and Bo married in June 1976. She was 19; he was 49.

By 1977, John and Bo were broke. They had sold their Beverly Hills home and were living in a trailer. Bo was 20, going on nowhere. John hadn’t had a film out since ‘Once Before I Die’ (1966). Using old contacts, John tried to make raise money for a film project – a vehicle for Bo – but was struggling.

Bo Derek:

John and I were still living in the van, parked under a big oak tree at a friend’s ranch. Our life, and our relationship, had started to stagnate. Living in a van is fine while you’re moving. But when you stop in one place for too long, life can get stale.

Sean Catherine Derek:

Sean Catherine Derek was born 1953 in Hollywood to actor/film maker, John Derek, and French prima ballerina/actress, Pati Behrs. Sean began her career as a photojournalist.

At that time, I was doing a lot of celebrity articles because I could take the pictures and write the story. You got paid a lot of money for celebrity pictures but nothing for the story. That was ok because the money was good, but I really wanted to be a writer. That’s all I ever wanted to do. Even when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a writer. I was writing stories when I was very small – drawing pictures and making stories out of them.

Bo Derek:

We were running out of money, and it wasn’t going to be too many weeks before we were going to have to have the work discussion. We weren’t getting along very well. John was beginning to believe that maybe I wouldn’t find an interest. I never promised him that I would; I was quite content following him living his life. I found all his interests interesting, but I could tell that I was boring him.

Sean Catherine Derek:

My Dad was good friends with Hugh Hefner. He’d photographed a number of features for Playboy. He had his own style of taking beautiful pictures of nudes, and he photographed a lot of gorgeous women, like Raquel Welch, Candice Bergen, and Leslie Ann Warren.

When my dad did his Playboy work, I was often his camera assistant. I’d carry and schlep the equipment for him and hold the lights for Linda or for Ursula. I was awfully young. Then he married Bo – I was on the shoot he did with her on Lake Powell too.

So he was close to Hef, and we’d go to the Playboy mansion all the time. It was a fun place.

Bo Derek:

One Sunday afternoon, we went up to Hef’s for dinner and a movie. He had one of the first theatres built in a private home, and the movie studios provided him with all the first-run films. John and Hef had been friends since 1964 when Playboy published John’s famous pictorial of Ursula in a waterfall.

One night when the movie was over we went to the kitchen for the customary hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies and milk. Some of the guys came in and asked the girls to come watch the next movie: the second part of a double feature at Hef’s was usually the latest adult film. This was long before VCRs and video rentals, so the only way to see X-rated flicks was to go to a porno house.

Most of the girls refused to watch the adult movie, saying the films were always ugly and degrading to women and embarrassing to watch. “All those pimples!” one girl screamed.

Ursula Andress, by John Derek

Bo Derek, by John Derek

Sean Catherine Derek:

Then somebody said, “That’s true, but if John were to shoot a sex film, then I’d watch it.”

And that’s how it came to pass from what Dad told me. That was the germ of the idea. After that, it was easy to raise the money because he didn’t need that much to produce the kind of film he wanted to make.

Bo Derek:

“How much do you need to make one of these films, John?” the guys asked, practically in unison.

“I don’t know,” said John. “You don’t need a story. And not too many actors.”

The guys pow-wowed, and told John, “We’ve got $60,000 between us. Is that enough?”

“Probably,” said John.

Sean Catherine Derek:

I think what convinced him to do it was that it was a project where he’d have complete control – which he loved. And he thought it would be his version of ‘Last Tango in Paris’ which had been a huge success a few years earlier.

Bo Derek:

Funnily enough that’s when I finally sparked. It turned out that I loved being on the other side of the camera. John and I never sat down and decided that I would produce the film: I couldn’t even have told you what a producer did. I just started helping him, taking on one task at a time and in the end, I produced the film. (No, I wasn’t in it. Not even a little bit.)

Sean Catherine Derek:

Bo literally produced the film. She was 23, a few years younger than I was. It was a good way to cut her teeth in the movie business. She learned a lot and did a good job. She also put up with my Dad. He had a short fuse, and she did a good job of dealing with that.

*

2.     Pre-Production

Bo Derek:

The first stage of the project was research. John wanted to write a script, a rarity in the porn world. Research meant viewing all the most successful adult films in order to get a sense of what was out there and how we could make ours different. And the only place to see an adult film was in porn theatres, which were vile places. They were always dark. The lights never came up before or after the movie because no one wanted to be seen or, God forbid, recognized in such a place. They smelled dank, dark, soiled, and unhealthy. The floors were sticky; everything was sticky.

The next stage of the research was for John to talk to as many women as he could about their sexual fantasies and about what they would find erotic in a film. He talked to all kinds of women: young, old, rich, poor, as many as he could. They seemed to love talking to him. It was the 1970s, and the women’s movement and sexual liberation were going full tilt. As it turned out some of the most interesting scenes in the film came from John’s conversations with some of the most conservative women.

Sean Catherine Derek:

My father wrote the script for ‘Love You!’ He used to write so many different things because he just loved to write and he was always dreaming about making movies.

He used to read his stuff out loud to us – especially when he was married to Linda (Evans). I don’t know if he did that with Bo, but he did it with Linda and me.

Bo Derek:

Armed with all his research, John moved into a friend’s house in Palm Springs to write the screenplay. The van, he said, was not conducive to writing. I lived with another friend in L.A. so that I could prepare for the shoot. I read many books about independent filmmaking and got a good sense of what John would need, and found that most everyone I came across was only too happy to teach me what I needed to know about film stock or a camera lens or a lab process.

After two weeks, John had a script called ‘Love You!’ It was about two young couples, whose sex lives are beginning to lose some zip, so they decide to swap.

Sean Catherine Derek:

His idea was to make a kind of a ‘Bob, Ted, Carol, and Alice’ movie – a fun story about swapping your spouse. Believe it or not, that was a popular idea in those days!

But his twist was to do it as an erotic film. A soft porn – but making it more beautiful than other porn films.

Bo Derek:

Making something genuinely different became a colossal endeavor. Of course, John couldn’t just take the money and go shoot a pretty piece of eroticism. Nope. He had to redefine pornography! Change it forever. The project ended up taking a year and a half, at the end of which we were broke again.

Sean Catherine Derek:

Somewhere along the way, they came across Annette Haven. That was when the film project really started to gain some momentum.

Bo Derek:

In our research, we have noticed a beautiful, very classy actress (Annette Haven). She was, at the time, the biggest star of adult films. John had written the script with her in mind for the lead.

I found her living up in San Francisco, so John and I got in the van and drove up the coast to meet her in Ghirardelli Square. We sat waiting for a long time at the predetermined park bench, but she never showed. Finally, John said, “See, this is gonna be the problem. These people are not professional.”

Just then, a stunning young woman came up and said, “I’m Annette.” I had noticed her sitting across from us the whole time we were waiting, but I never would’ve recognized her. She was dressed in an elegant dove-grey suit, heels, a Joan Crawford-style hat, and gloves. I felt totally frumpy in my jeans and tennis shoes.

To tell the truth, this goddess of sex, who must know so many sexual secrets, immediately intimidated me.

Annette Haven:

John only had half his script done when he came to see me about starring in it, but he decided to do the film when he received the acknowledgment that I would support his effort to make a beautiful film.

Bo Derek:

John explained the project to her and Annette instantly jumped onboard. She was enthusiastic about the idea of making something different and she offered to help us with casting. She asked if we could postpone our start date though, because she had to go home to Tennessee to testify before a grand jury. It seemed that she had witnessed her “old man” get his head blown off in a drug deal that had gone bad. I remember thinking, how could these words have come out of her mouth? She looked like Loretta Young!

When Annette returned from Tennessee, she was exhausted and terribly thin. Behind the beautiful, sophisticated woman was a lonely, emotionally drained and depressed little girl. We invited her to live with us; we had now moved to a little house on Balboa Island, off the coast of Newport Beach, California. The invitation wasn’t made as an answer to her troubles, but perhaps she could fatten up and get healthy before we started shooting.

Annette Haven:

I was having a lot of emotional upsets at home and was losing a lot of weight. John told me to come down and stay with them. So I went down there and both fed me lots of food and fattened me up and I just felt really relaxed and comfortable. They didn’t act like my parents, just good, good friends.

Bo Derek:

The rumors about John and me living with the porno queen were fantastic; I know John enjoyed them. But the reality would’ve been disappointing. Annette is an amazing woman with a genius IQ. When I would take her to the local village to run errands, she would dash into the bookstore and get all excited about a new book about physics.

At night, in the little house on Balboa Island, while everyone was imagining us entangled in a wild ménage à trois, John and I would be at the dining table, budgeting, and breaking down the script. Annette would be on the couch with her new physics book.

I always think of my friend Annette when I hear something about physics, but never in reference to something erotic.

Annette Haven:

I never had a father, but if I did John would be the ideal person. I even told him that. I don’t think he was terribly enthused about it. I think he would have preferred that we just be very good friends. He is a magnificent person who I love dearly. I mean, my God, he’s one of the few people on the face of this earth that I can trust. He gives me his word and I know he will do it.

Annette Haven

The plot of ‘Love You!’ told the story of Charlie, a beautiful, but reserved young woman, whose husband Steve arranges for them to spend a romantic weekend together with another couple, Lynn and Mark, on a secluded section of California beach. However, it becomes clear to Charlie that in order for her to enjoy true pleasure, she will have to break free of her reserved shell.

Annette was hired for the lead role of Charlie, and with her assistance, John and Bo hired Wade Nichols (aka Dennis Parker) as her husband, and Lesllie Bovee and Eric Edwards as the other couple. (Paul Thomas and Blair Harris were also hired for small, uncredited parts.)

John Derek also found a production role for his daughter, Sean.

Sean Catherine Derek:

My Dad hired me to work on the film for two reasons: firstly, he figured I’d be cheap!

And then there was the fact that it wasn’t legal to shoot pornography at the time, so he probably figured it was important to have your family with you in the woods so they’d save you if you got into trouble…

Eric Edwards:

I was recommended by someone and got a call from John. He flew me out to L.A. to read the script.

He told me we’d be sleeping outside on the sand – which was fine with me because I’m into camping: that was why I took the unusual salary arrangement. $1,000 upfront and the rest on the film’s release.

Annette Haven:

I had recommended Lesllie (Bovee) highly to John, but he rejected her at first because of her breasts: he said they sagged and he wouldn’t let her show them in the film. But she’s a great actress. She is also pretty, and there aren’t too many pretty females in the business who can act.

Lesllie Bovee:

The first time he was casting for this film, John only found one person that he wanted to use, and that was Annette Haven. She sort of has the same build that Bo has – except that Annette is natural. He will deny to the death that Bo ever had any surgery, but…

When John finally decided to use me in the film, he asked me to meet him in a park with no make-up, and he went over me with a fine toothcomb.

His criticism wasn’t veiled in any way: he pinched me under the chin and said I had to get rid of that, he told me my eyes stick out, and he wanted me to take off five or ten pounds. He told me that was the deal.

So I asked, why use me if you didn’t like me, and he said I wasn’t as bad as all the others.

Wade Nichols and Annette Haven

Eric Edwards and Lesllie Bovee

*

3.     The Shoot

The shoot took place in late summer 1977: the location was Honopu Beach on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i – one of the most beautiful and secluded spots on the island, and the same location where the De Laurentiis version of ‘King Kong’ (1976) had been shot, and later Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011).

Today the only way to legally access Honopu Beach is by swimming (no watercraft or helicopters are permitted) though the large waves that crash against the cliffs and strong rip currents mean that it is a dangerous place to get to. Back in 1979 however, helicopters were allowed to drop visitors directly onto the beach, and this is how the ‘Love You!’ cast and crew reached the location.

Sean Catherine Derek:

He set it in Hawaii because he had to do it someplace gorgeous! He was all about finding beauty. He loved beautiful things and beautiful landscapes.

Annette Haven:

I believe in all things beautiful. That’s why I live in San Francisco. The buildings are beautiful. Every way you look is beautiful. I keep myself beautiful. So did John and Bo. They like having beautiful things around them. They really work at it.

Bo Derek:

Honopu Beach is one of America’s most treasured and protected beaches. Because it was accessible only by helicopter, it provided the privacy we needed – but the beach was logistically difficult for me to organize equipment and a campsite for the cast and crew.

Sean Catherine Derek:

It was an incredibly isolated spot, so once we got there, we were sort of trapped. And there was nothing there. It wasn’t as if you could hike up the mountain and go find a village. It was a place that no one else could get to, and we couldn’t leave until the helicopter came back for us.

I don’t remember the exact length of the shoot, but it seemed to be long time – at least a couple of weeks if I remember right. It certainly felt like forever!

John, Bo, and Sean Catherine Derek

Bo Derek:

I was really entering new territory with this film: and an underworld of drugs, prostitution, and danger, but I never saw that dark side of the business. I knew it was there, though. Annette told me all about it, and how she struggled to stay above it and keep her sense of self and dignity. John and I didn’t take drugs or drink alcohol, and never partied or socialized with anyone in that industry.

Our financing came from the outside, so we were never dependent on what was rumored to be a business controlled by the mafia.

Annette Haven:

I think that Bo was amazed with the amount of work that goes into a film, whether it’s X-rated or not. The thing that you see on the screen is always the polished product – the amount of work that went into it surprised her.

Sean Catherine Derek:

Everything had to be brought in by the helicopter. We camped on the beach. There wasn’t any other option. It was just us in our little sleeping bags.

The bulk of the film was shot right there in the same place we were camping. We did shoot some interiors at a house on the mainland toward the end of the movie, but apart from that it was all shot on that beach.

Bo Derek:

Making any film for $60,000 is really demanding, but making an adult film compounds any difficulty. It’s like trying to work under a rock.

Sean Catherine Derek:

I had worked on a previous film with my father. We were in Switzerland with Linda (Evans) making a movie years before when I was 18. The script girl had a crisis at home and she had to leave so I ended up doing script. This gave me the experience of trying to keep up with what my dad needed – so it was good training. That’s partly why he lassoed me into ‘Love You!’

But this was very different: to work with my father on… a sex film was… bizarre. “Really, Dad?! This is weird. I hardly saw you as a child, and now here’s what we’re doing?!”

Annette Haven, Lesllie Bovee, and Wade Nichols

Bo Derek:

Our (pornographic) subject matter made everything more complex. Almost every deal that I negotiated invariably ended with me explaining that we were making an erotic adult movie. But I had to say: “By the way, this is an erotic film that we are making. Don’t worry, it’s tasteful.”

Unfortunately, this is the same line all porn filmmakers use. I never found a way to convince people that we were really making something different. I could see in their expressions that they were thinking, yeah, sure that’s what they all say.

But they all replied, some with embarrassment, “Can we come watch?”

Sean Catherine Derek:

My dad handed me the script and said, “You’re the script girl and you’ve got to make sure we have continuity.”

So, I had to write down things like, “She used her right hand on his penis” so that we could match it later. That was all just so trippy.

I was like, “Oh, Dad, really?!”

He was not one to laugh with me often, but we laughed a lot on the set of that film.

Bo Derek:

The budget was so small that we couldn’t afford to hire good technicians, so we ended up doing most of the work ourselves – music to John ears. He loved working that way.

Lesllie Bovee:

Bo is a smart woman. She’s no dummy and she’s a sexy, experienced woman. She worked hard on this film; nothing that went on came as a surprise to her.

Bo Derek:

In the end, I learned filmmaking from start to finish. I found the locations, hired crew, rented camera and lighting equipment, and took the film all the way through to the editing and post-production phase.

When we were faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, I found that if I really applied myself, I was usually the one to come up with the solution.

I was 19 years old, but not too young to produce a tiny little film.

Lesllie Bovee:

She could go far, I think, in film production or whatever. Except for John.

Sean Catherine Derek:

Bo was in charge of all the production – which meant that she was in charge of all the problems – and soon, we had lots of them.

Annette Haven and Wade Nichols

*

4.     Trouble in Paradise

The beginning of the shoot in Hawaii was a culture shock for those involved – largely because of John Derek’s exacting work ethic and obsessive pursuit for perfection.

Lesllie Bovee:

John Derek is a crazy man.

Sean Catherine Derek:

My Dad would get so mad when things weren’t working. He definitely got testy. Like, if there was something wrong with a camera or a light.

We were all alone on this beach so there was nowhere for him to turn to, so… you know, he got real frustrated making that movie.

Annette Haven:

John is a perfectionist and so am I. I think that’s the way it should be. John would kill himself for his work. So would I. He stuck with this project in spite of three out of the four actors not giving a damn about it. He could’ve given it up. But he didn’t.

I think John felt closer to me because he knew I was there to work and was ready for it. If people want to just sit on their butts and coast, then they shouldn’t work for John.

Sean Catherine Derek:

The crew on the shoot was minimal. I only remember Bo, my Dad, and me. There may have been one or two others, but I don’t think so. And then there were the four actors. And some of them weren’t too happy with my dad because he was tough, so it wasn’t a comfortable experience for them.

Eric Edwards:

He tried to control all of our lives. To the point of insanity. He was in control of everything, and he constantly put everyone down as much as he could. To the point of tears on most people’s parts.

He was like God.

Annette Haven:

At first, the other three actors seemed to think it was a vacation.

Wade was smart enough to know that this was not what John wanted so there weren’t too many problems with him. And it took Lesllie about a week until she realized. But Eric was something else. There was a basic lack of intention in terms of performing and being a professional. I mean, Eric wanted to bring his blender!

Then Sean told Eric not to sunbathe because the arrival scenes hadn’t been shot yet, and he was supposed to be pale for those. Eric agreed to stay out of the sun, but then he sunbathed anyway. John yelled at him.

John was just as much a slave driver with me as he was with everyone else. They all knew what they were getting into.

*

One of the first big issues centered around food – or the lack of it.

Eric Edwards:

Before we left for Hawaii, John asked me what food I wanted. I told him I liked steaks and meat, and that I was happy to barbecue for everyone.

Sean Catherine Derek:

We started running out of food almost immediately. We’d brought in our own food and thought it was going to be enough, but we underestimated it.

Eric Edwards:

John told me there would be lots of food there – and then the meals turned out to be rationed raisins and oranges, and freeze-dried food to which you had to add water. And we didn’t have much fresh water, because obviously we couldn’t use salty sea water…

I lost eight pounds in the first week, all the time begging him for some meat, some real food, but John never gave any reason why he hadn’t brought it.

Sean Catherine Derek:

As soon as we got there, they (Eric Edwards and Wade Nichols) ate up all the supplies. My father said, “I’ve never seen anybody eat so much!

He was concerned because the actors – especially the men – needed to eat to keep their strength up!

I told him, “Just relax. We’ll go fishing if we have to!”

Annette Haven:

We ate a lot of tuna salad and peanut butter, but it was adequate. You have to understand, we were in the middle of nowhere!

Lesllie Bovee:

John was so wild. When Eric asked him about the food, he actually tried to hit Eric, put his fists up and challenged him!

*

Another issue was John Derek’s apparent favoring Annette Haven over Lesllie Bovee.

Annette Haven:

Lesllie had a lot of problems, and she seemed jealous of the fact that John was shooting more of me than of her. She didn’t like it. She talked to me about it and then she finally went to John. He resented it, and told her he’d never heard of the actress telling the director how to shoot a film. He fired her, but then he hired her back.

Lesllie Bovee:

He shot the whole film, practically, of just Annette. Annette treated him as if he were God. She worshiped at his feet and let him walk all over her. I was always a mess, and Annette was completely made up.

Eric Edwards:

It wasn’t just that John favored Annette: it was that he verbally abused Lesllie – and did it in front of everyone else – telling her she was ugly.

Lesllie Bovee:

John didn’t like my breasts. I do have pretty breasts, but to him, they’re not perfect like Annette’s and Bo’s, so throughout the entire film, I was not allowed to take my top off.

He constantly demeaned Eric and I, and Annette could do no wrong.

Eric Edwards:

Lesllie cried a lot after that, and so I did my best to take care of her.

Sean Catherine Derek:

My Dad really was a creative genius, but he was not easy to work for because he was going for perfection.

*

There was also an alpha rivalry that emerged between the male actors and the director.

Sean Catherine Derek:

The boys (Eric Edwards and Wade Nichols) were nice. I loved them both, and I sympathized with them because I knew how hard it was to work for my father. He was so charismatic and handsome. That intimidated a lot of men. He was a big, strong guy with well-developed muscles.

Everybody was working with their shirt off, and I gotta tell you, Dad was holding his own even though he was in his 50s, thirty years older than the guys! I think it was a little intimidating, having him in your face like that.

Eric Edwards:

The movie featured a nude wrestling match between me and Wade Nichols. Now, we all knew (Wade) was gay. It was common knowledge. I didn’t have a problem with that – or with the scene, and I figured Wade would enjoy it!

However, when we started filming it, the shooting seemed to last forever, and John seemed fascinated by it. I wondered if he was gay – which seemed unlikely because Bo was there at his side, watching all the time, so maybe he was bisexual. I don’t know.

The strange thing was that Wade seemed nervous about the whole set up, and I could feel his tension. In the end, we had a private chat, and I just told him to loosen up and go for it. After that, it was fine.

I think Wade was just concerned that I was concerned!

Sean Catherine Derek:

He selected some of the more talented adult actors, people who could actually act.

But in all fairness, the girls seem to be much better at it than the boys – who complained about the number of takes they had to do. But my dad’s method had a lot to do with the fact that he was trying to get a good performance out of each them. And they weren’t actors. They were more like athletes.

*

Another unexpected problem was John Derek’s reluctance to shoot the actual sex.

Eric Edwards:

John felt that he could make this the best film of all time (but) I thought it was outdated.

The script, written by John, contained things like, “his little soldier stood at attention,” when he meant a hard-on.

The sexual part of the film wasn’t that hot either, because John crushed our egos so badly.

Lesllie Bovee:

When I first saw the script, there was nothing but speaking parts in the film. There was no detail about the sex. It was as if the sex made John uncomfortable. Even Bo noticed that.

Bo Derek:

Every time John would get to a part of the film that would lead to a love scene, he would cut as soon as the dialogue was over and move onto something else.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’ll pick up the rest of the scene later,” he said.

“You already have a lot of pick-ups to shoot!” I said. “You’ve got to start shooting the love scenes.”

“I will,” he said. “It’s just not pretty when I look through the lens. And the actors are just too used to this. They’re… brazen. These characters would be more tentative.”

“Then direct them!” I said. “We need these scenes. This is what makes our film different. Otherwise, we’ll be making another softcore film, like ‘Emmanuelle’.”

Lesllie Bovee:

It was clear that John got uncomfortable whenever he had to shoot a sex scene.

Bo was very comfortable being in the presence of people fucking, like she’s seen it before. She was completely at ease, suggesting positions, watching the action. But John! If ever we started to get into it, he’d yell, “What are you, animals!? People don’t make love like that!” He couldn’t stand to hear us say any dirty words and didn’t seem to want to see us have any fun in our scenes.

Bo Derek:

I thought it was funny that I was having to persuade John to shoot these scenes. He was so uncomfortable with it from the beginning. He talked to Annette. She talked to the other actors.

Annette Haven:

John’s idea of sex is beautiful. Look at the way most X-rated films are done. There’s the cum shot on the girl’s face. Is that erotic? Is that beautiful? Is that respectable? Fuck, no!

John has got probably more integrity than anyone else on the face of this earth. That’s why there were upsets on the film with the three other actors because they came in saying they were gonna do a job and then… they didn’t do it.

That’s why John and I got along because I keep my word. I’ve never broken my word. He appreciates that in people.

Sean Catherine Derek:

Thank God, Annette was there. Annette was just so charming and funny. She kept everybody going. She was really nice.

My memory of Annette is that she was the most magical woman, and she could have been a star in any media, at any time.

Annette made him laugh, and there were only a few people I know over the years that could really make my father laugh: Annette was one of them.

Annette Haven:

This film is not pornographic. The statement that John was trying to make with the film is that sex is beautiful and fine. The hardcore people are not gonna get their jollies from it. Nobody gets jerked off. Despite the fact that there is explicit intercourse, it’s not like the extreme close-ups of the people’s genitals going in and out for ten minutes. The majority of the sex in the film is mine, so John only had to work with me about it, and that’s the way he wanted it done.

Bo Derek:

Making an erotic movie was never erotic. It all very quickly becomes just part of telling a story, just like any other film.

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The minimal crew were also worried about the legality of their endeavors.

Sean Catherine Derek:

We weren’t real pornographers, so we were always concerned that what we were doing wasn’t legal. Occasionally, we’d hear a helicopter approach, and everyone would say, “Bury the script! Bury the script!”

We didn’t want anyone to see proof of what we were doing!

Bo Derek:

Pornography was technically legal, but marketing and distributing it, especially across state lines, is illegal. At that point, you get into the definition of pornography, which is where everything gets very complicated. Even the Supreme Court has not been able to define pornography. So the best bet is to play it safe and keep the film’s subject matter a secret.

Sean Catherine Derek:

One night, a boat pulled into the bay. We panicked wondering, “Oh, God, who is this? Is it the cops?!”

It turned out it was a gang of guys coming to harvest pot. My father said, “We’re probably going to get our throats cut in the middle of the night!”

Annette told everyone not to worry, and she went off and made friends with them.

We had no problems after that.

Bo Derek:

When we settled down to getting the film shot, John played with some different lighting effects to make it pretty. He had an old lens that was once used for Marlene Dietrich’s close-ups. It made pretty little stars on any highlight. I worked the spray bottle that made the pretty little stars for a special effect during that particular fantasy scene.

Sean Catherine Derek:

At one point, my dad decided the lights that we’d brought weren’t strong enough. At that stage, we had almost run out of food as well, so Bo had to go back to the mainland to get different equipment and replenish our food supplies. The problem was the helicopter wasn’t scheduled to come back for four days so we were stuck there for ages… running out of everything.

Annette Haven:

The helicopter people caused problems by not bringing in more food, but they thought they were giving us privacy by not bothering us. We ended up writing them letters in the sand to get their attention.

Eric Edwards:

One day I climbed up the cliff and had a good view of the beach, and I watched John write a giant HELP! message in the sand for any passing helicopters to see. Big ten foot long letters spelling it out… It was so strange and funny that I took a photo of it.

It didn’t work though, and so we were stuck there with no food.

Sean Catherine Derek:

Bo waited for the helicopter to come back, but it took a long time. And then she was gone for a while.

She was so happy when she got on that helicopter. She kept saying, “I’m gonna get a pilot’s license and get a helicopter!” She was like a kid back then.

After Bo returned to the mainland for a few days, it was one of the best times I had with my dad. Just hanging out with him. I had him to myself, so to speak. He was never a warm and fuzzy dad, but we were a team for a while. That was so much fun. We were on one side of the camera; the actors were on the other side – and Annette crossed over and was on both sides!

I took a ton of photos of us all using my father’s camera, but I don’t know what happened to them. Perhaps Bo has them today.

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5.     Post-Production and Release

The production problems continued even after the Hawaii shoot ended.

Sean Catherine Derek:

When we flew back in the mainland, it became stressful again. I don’t remember if they were running out of money, but it wasn’t fun.

My father wanted me to keep working on the movie, but I had to go do other work. I liked being the good daughter, but I could only do it for so long before he’d get mad at me. We went back and forth a lot, and it was time for me to do something different.

Annette Haven:

When we returned to San Francisco, we shot one or two more scenes.

Lesllie was very difficult when we were working in San Francisco and was smuggling alcohol onto the set. She got so drunk that she actually passed out on camera. The fucking camera was on us and it was supposed to be the first time she’d ever kissed a woman. John told her how to act and then she passed out on my chest with the camera rolling.

Lesllie Bovee:

While we were shooting make-up scenes in San Francisco, John got in a fight with a sound man and everyone on the set heard him threaten the man’s life. “I was a marine and I know how to kill you,” he told the guy he was arguing with, “so let’s do it my way, understand?”

Annette Haven:

I was doing a scene with Bruce, a bodybuilder, and when Bruce would hold me, there was no feeling of anything at all. But when John picked me up to demonstrate to Bruce how it should be done, I got this tremendous feeling of security and being held by a real man. I know it sounds corny and all, but that’s how I felt. He was so strong that it was like being held by a vice. He makes you feel so protected, and that came from his whole being, not just his physical strength.

Eric Edwards:

Another problem was the sound that John had recorded for the scenes shot in Hawaii.

One time when we were on the beach, I saw that he was using a shotgun mic which provides very focused sound. We were just a few feet from the crashing waves, so I said to him that he was going to capture a helluva lot of ocean noise. He scoffed at the idea, and shut me up.

Sure enough, after we got back to the mainland, I got a call – and it was John: could I come in and dub my dialogue, because he didn’t have any usable audio? I asked how much I would be paid for it, but he said they had no money left and I’d have to do it for free.

Annette Haven:

When we were dubbing the film, I stood in one spot for seven straight hours. I don’t even think I had a drink of water. I had never dubbed before, and I was doing it by sound alone. After the first hour, John came out of the sound booth and said, “This stinks. There is no way this is going to work. We’re probably gonna have to get someone else to do your voice for the entire movie.”

I went crazy. I said, “No, John, I can do it. Let’s go back into the booth and I will do it right,” and we went back into the booth and I did it perfectly right for six more hours. That shows you what you can do if you put your mind to it.

John knew how to manipulate me perfectly.

The film was completed in San Francisco in 1978, but its release was held up until 1979 by disputes between John Derek and three of the cast members. Eric and Lesllie both claimed they were still fighting to get the money John promised from making the film.

Eric Edwards (speaking to Partner magazine in 1979):

We’ve heard it has been released but no one’s gotten any money.

Out of 400 or so films of this nature that I’ve made, I’ve only had two that were very bad memories. That was one of them.

Annette Haven (speaking to Partner magazine in 1979):

We all got our money for the film. We all got exactly the same amount and then we got points in the film. But since the film hasn’t made any money yet, we haven’t gotten that. I don’t understand what everyone’s problem is.

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By now, Bo had appeared in the romantic hit comedy film ‘10’ (1979), which established her as a sex icon and mainstream celebrity. The role earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year. This drew salacious attention to ‘Love You!’ which Bo didn’t shirk from addressing in interviews.

Bo Derek (interviewed in the Daily World newspaper, October 1, 1979):

(‘Love You!’) is sexy and erotic. The picture has very explicit sex scenes. It shows everything. It’s the first beautiful erotic, hard core film ever made. I showed it to 600 women libbers in a NOW meeting and they liked it. They said it was not degrading to women. The picture is about love, and you don’t play around with that.

Bo Derek (from ‘Bo Derek A Real ‘10’ in the Daily Press newspaper, October 7, 1979):

It is the most interesting thing I’ve ever done. I raised the money, was involved in lighting, editing, dubbing, and the hiring and firing, while John directed and photographed. We shot it in Hawaii, on a budget of $120,000, with what you might call a reduced crew – John and me, his daughter as script clerk, and two girls as sound and camera assistants. I learned all the basics, much more than I could have in film school.

The publicity around ‘10’ also attracted media attention aimed at John and Bo’s relationship, in particular allegations that John was manipulative towards his younger wife.

Eric Edwards:

I spoke with Bo on set. I could see that she was being ruled by John just by the way she acted towards us and the things she would say. She was dominated and put down constantly by him.

Annette Haven:

I just hate this publicity and want to throw things at people and ask them what’s wrong with them.

Bo is not empty-headed, and John is not a Svengali. Bo is a beautiful girl and she’s not an innocent. She’s a grown woman and aware of what’s happening in life. She produced that film. She set everything up that had to be done, got the people together and all that stuff. She did a lot of running around. She’s very strong and capable, she just doesn’t push it on the world.

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None of the hoopla helped make ‘Love You!’ into a hit movie.

Bo Derek:

There was no market for the film. The porno houses didn’t want to play it, and John wouldn’t allow it to be shown in one. As the “old man” of one of our actresses said to John, “You made a Clairol commercial! This isn’t porn. That audience wants rock ‘n’ roll and sex, and you made a shampoo commercial!”

Eric Edwards:

It was a shame because the film actually turned out very well: John had a good photographic eye, and it was a beautiful work.

Sean Catherine Derek:

My dad thought ‘Love You!’ would be a blockbuster, but the fact that it was closer to pure porn than ‘Last Tango in Paris’ – and he didn’t have his buddy Brando – didn’t help either, so it wasn’t a success.

Bo Derek:

I feel we came through the whole experience better for it. We examined and dealt with some serious First Amendment issues. And we met some very interesting people who went on to become some of the most upstanding citizens in mainstream filmmaking.

Sean Catherine Derek:

The pornographic nature of the film didn’t damage my dad’s standing – or Bo’s standing for that matter. It didn’t hurt him in any way. He was a great photographer and so he’d made a beautiful film. And it does look great.

Sean Catherine Derek went on to spend several seasons as a writer/story editor on the highly acclaimed Hanna-Barbera series, ‘The Smurfs’, for which she was nominated three times for an Emmy award. Sean won her first Emmy as a writer/story editor on the Warner Brothers animated Batman. Sean has also won an Environmental Media Award and three Genesis awards. She has also authored two books which featured on the New York Times bestseller list.

Bo Derek:

We had accomplished what we set out to do. But it wasn’t such good news for the investors, who, upon seeing how much the girls (at the Playboy Mansion) liked the film, had begun to envisage big dollar signs.

When video became part of everyday life, we sold the film for a nice little profit, and everyone was happy.

Bo Derek went on to star in three more films directed by John: ‘Tarzan, the Ape Man’ (1981), ‘Bolero’ (1984), and ‘Ghosts Can’t Do It’ (1989), all of which were critically panned. Her other credits include the American buddy comedy film Tommy Boy (1995) and the American telenovela series Fashion House (2006). In recent years, she has been involved in a number of philanthropic endeavors.

John Derek’s last feature film as director was Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989). He directed the music videos for Shania Twain’s ‘Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?’ and ‘Any Man of Mine’.

He died on May 22, 1998, of cardiovascular disease in Santa Maria, California, at the age of 71.

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