It is with deep sorrow that I have to announce the death of my great friend Stanley Long. After battling a long illness, he died last night, 10 September 2012, in Buckinghamshire. He was 78.
I first met Stanley in 1999 when I began researching the first edition of my book Keeping the British End. We ‘clicked’ immediately and over the past 13 years I spent many happy days in his company. Stanley had a superb memory and would always regale me with stories (many unprintable) about the colourful characters he had worked with during his long career in the film industry.
In 2006 we started work on his autobiography; I interviewed him extensively about his career – the movies he produced, the girls he had loved, the difficult actors, the pious BBFC, the pain-in-the-ass distributors and his loathing of Mary Whitehouse (one of his favourite subjects). I loved listening to him, and he taught me so much about the art of making low-budget movies. The resulting book, X-Rated – Adventures of an Exploitation Filmmaker was released in 2008, and was one of the proudest moments of my life.
Stanley was a one-off, a pioneer and a very shrewd businessman. What is often forgotten is that he was, unquestionably, one of the most commercially successful independent filmmakers Britain has ever produced. He was a cinematographer, producer, writer, director and distributor and was in continual movie production from 1958 to 1983. Movies like The Wife Swappers, Naughty!, Eskimo Nell and Adventures of a Taxi Driver (his personal favourite) found an eager audience who enjoyed sexy films with a giggle. Apart from his good friend Pete Walker, no filmmaker came anywhere close to his level of success. Stanley’s secret was that he understood his audience. He was a millionaire by the time he was 36, and the Sun newspaper dubbed him ‘The King of Sexploitation’, which Stanley rather liked. “The reason I wanted to make movies was because I wanted to entertain people,” he once told me. “I wanted the public to come back for more.”
Stanley opened so many doors for me, and gave me opportunities in life, which I would never have experienced without him. “If only you’d been around as an adult in the 1970s,” he would say to me. “I’d have hired you to write my movie scripts!” That was the greatest compliment.
I saw him just a few days before he died. He was extremely unwell, but I held his hand and we talked, as usual, about the old days. Stanley was a big part of my life for such a long time. I will miss him terribly.
God bless you, Stanley Alfred Long. I loved you very much.
All words © Simon Sheridan 2012-2015
