MrSkin.com over the years: (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5)
People gather 'round and hear the tale of a man who made tail his talisman. The world knows him simply as Mr. Skin and he's the mastermind behind this very site that makes your fingers tremble with delight over the keyboard.
It was an auspicious day five years ago, Aug. 10, 1999, when MrSkin.com launched. Within five minutes of going live the company had its first member, a skinterested Web surfer in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since that first click Mr. Skin has become the destination for celebrity nudity online and now boasts four million unique visitors a month, a number that's growing like other things grow when on this wonderful site.
After five years clawing his way to the top one nipple at a time, now that the Internet has been dominated by his presence, it felt right to talk to Mr. Skin about his ever-expanding empire. There's his first book, part of a deal with St. Martin's Press, entitled Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia, which hits bookstores in Jan. 2005. The tome is chock full of nut-draining data, with all the skinformation on 2005 actresses, where they've been nude and their skinfining moments.
If that's not enough, Mr. Skin is currently in negotiations with various men's premium channels to either develop his own TV show or act as the skintillating host to introduce feature films and highlight their breast scenes. The world is Mr. Skin's oyster and he's letting us spew the pearl necklace.
We caught up with Mr. Skin on vacation, poolside, while an army of young children frolicked within earshot. He was candid about his humble beginnings and explicit about which actresses and body parts make Mr. Skin's skin grow.
How does a nice guy like you become Mr. Skin, the most knowledgeable man in skindom?
The story is, when I was a kid - now, we're talking the fall of 1980 - for the first time we got cable TV in our place. You've got to understand that a kid growing up in the '70s it was ABC, NBC and CBS, there was no chance of every seeing skin, and all of a sudden I'm getting HBO, Cinemax and Showtime.
All of a sudden this was in my house and I was seeing R-rated stuff, boobs and bush, and going bananas. And HBO when it first launched, they had tons of Italian sex comedies from the '70s. There wasn't a stockpile of movies to work from. Obviously, Fast Times at Ridgemont High hadn't even been invented yet. So, they had a lot of drive-in movies from the '70s loaded with nudity.
What I would do every night was tape movies, looking through the cable guide for the big bold N under the movie description. I'd tape those movies and then the next morning I'd edit the nudes scenes onto videotapes and have, like, five hour tapes of just nude scenes. I'd divide them up into "Porn Stars," "TV Stars that had been naked". I had fun with them.
I bet you were very popular in high school.
Exactly. All my friends would come over and drink beer and watch videos before we'd go out. It was definitely the place to be to see nudity. Then I kept doing it throughout the '80s and you're talking hundreds and hundreds of tapes and documentation of all this nudity. That's how it started.
What started the Mr. Skin thing was in 1996 I was in a bar in Chicago and happened to meet a guy who had a radio show in Chicago named Harry Teinowitz. Somehow the topic of celebrity nudity came up and he was blown away that ever person he asked me I knew off the top of my head if they been nude, what happened in the nude scene, how far into the movie the nudity happened and he invited me to be on his radio show.
I remember thinking, "Oh, man, that'll be cool. I'll do that, go back to my job and it'll be a fun thing and that's it." One of the conditions I had was I'll go on the show, but I can't use my real name, because I have a job and what if my mom and dad heard this, how embarrassed they'd be. I said, "Let's pick a name," and we came up with Mr. Skin.
At the end of the segment, the producer came up to me and said, "Hey, man, so many people had questions we didn't answer. Would you come back and do this again?" I said, "Yeah, sure, I'll do it again." That's how it started.
Other Chicago radio people heard about it and I started going on more shows in Chicago. I started doing national shows and finally Howard Stern found out about it and invited me on and ever since then it's just been through the roof. I still do about 500 radio interviews a year all over the country.
When did you jump mediums and take over the Internet?
The way that the Web site started, I was on Steve Dahl's radio show in Chicago where someone heard me and I ended up a mini-mini-mini local celebrity and was asked to umpire a celebrity softball game. This guy came up to me and said, "I heard you on the radio. You should put what's in your head onto a Web site." And my response was, "What's a Web site?"
This is 1997; I didn't know anything about computers or the Internet. He said he could show me how to make a Web site. So, I looked into it, raised some money, quit my job and, it took a while. It was a year of preparation, sitting in my apartment, loading in all the actresses and all the movies, researching everything to make sure I wasn't missing anything. And then we launched the Web site in August of '99. It was because someone heard me on the radio and approached me and said you can make money doing this.
It really grew organically.
Orgasmically, yes [laughs].
What kind of actresses turn Mr. Skin on?
All natural. The first Playboys I saw were from the early '70s, and I like real breasts, big breasts and, most importantly, a hairy retro-bush is the way I like it. I completely understand guys today who like the hardwood floors, understand when they like the fake breasts, but for me personally give me an Uschi Digard (Picture: 1) or a Pam Grier (Picture: 1), you know a Kathleen Beller (Picture: 1) from The Betsy. Those are the kind that really turns me on.
I always ask interviewees what's the first mainstream sex scene they saw. I'd love to go to the source and discover the one that corrupted you.
In the fall of 1980, there were two movies that totally got me. I've always loved celebrity nudity. I loved the "Sex in Cinema" issues from Playboy in the '70s, I used to collect those. But the two movies that I taped that forever changed me, the first was a 1976 movie called Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (Picture: 1 - 2), and I remember I taped that movie and that Lynda Carter was in it and there was nudity. The movie was airing at about three in the morning. I went to bed, taped the movie and the next morning, before I went to school, I fast-forwarded through the movie.
I was thinking that the nudity would be guy nudity or maybe another actress. There's no way that Wonder Woman ever got naked. And, boom, I saw in the first 45 minutes she's nude three times, including a skinny-dip scene with a big Indian chief while doing mushrooms with Marjoe Gartner. What more can you ask for?
The other one was a movie that came out in 1980 called Texas Lightning (Picture: 1). I taped that and it had "Marcia Brady," Maureen McCormick, 64 minutes in flashing a little Brady bunch. That was one where I said, "My God, if Marcia Brady's been naked who else has been naked?" I was on a quest from then on to unearth all these old movies and find out who else had done nudity.
You're the King Arthur of celebrity skin.
Yeah, and always looking for round tables [laughs].
You've mentioned a lot of classic actresses that you love, but who working today makes Mr. Skin's trousers tight?
Jennifer Connelly (Picture: ) is definitely there, but I have to admit I prefer the Jennifer Connelly from the early '90s. Right now one I really like is Jordan Ladd (Picture: ), Cheryl Ladd's daughter, who was naked in the movie Club Dread (Picture: 1 - 2). That was such a great scene. I can guarantee you it's going to get some kind of Anatomy Award in 2004.
Anne Hathaway (Picture: ), who is only 21 years old, has a movie coming out called Havoc. Everyone I've had a chance to talk to that's seen this either in film festival or an advance copy of the movie are blown away by her nudity. She's one that I'm really excited about seeing naked. You might know her from The Princess Diaries [laughs]. The nudity in this is supposed to be off the charts, so we can't wait for this to get released.
It sounds that you get off on the innocents that become tainted.
That's number one for me. If you're talking about seeing Jenna Jameson naked, well, of course she's a hot babe and of course I like to see Jenna Jameson naked. But it's not a huge thrill because she's been naked so many times.
When you do someone like Meredith Baxter (Picture: ), who had never done a nude scene, and all of a sudden displayed her breasts in the 1994 movie My Breast (Picture: 1 - 2) and only did one nude scene, that to me is the most thrilling thing. Someone you'd never expect to do nudity and then they do it.
Who would you like to see naked that's yet to disrobe on camera?
I always wished Raquel Welch (Picture: ) had done a nude scene. She's at the top of my list. A TV babe I always wanted to see naked was Markie Post (Picture: ). Remember her from Night Court?
From today's actresses, Jennifer Love Hewitt (Picture: ) would definitely be high on my list of girls I'd like to see naked. And also Jessica Biel (Picture: ) is another one.
I know you have someone in your office who loves Italian sex comedies, while others crave a stinky German scat flick, but what genre makes Mr. Skin smile?
The blaxploitation movies I really love. The drive-in movies from the '70s I absolutely love. You know, the stuff where you can see Stella Stevens (Picture: ). Getting back to the blaxploitation movies, Pam Grier and the drive-in movies where you could see an Uschi Digard.
Getting into the '80s, the teen-sex comedies I really love. You know, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky's, those are my favorites. Kind of the Golden Age of nudity, as far as I'm concerned, from about 1972 to 1985 is probably the best movies.
For people that have never seen you, do you look like the perversely smiling face that symbolizes your site?
Not really. What I did when we were coming up with the design of the Web site. Again, I had no skills. I had a tech guy, a design guy and myself, and I told the design person, I want to make a Web site that's very '50s-ish, retro, cartoony. I don't want people to feel dirty when they come to the site. When I first checked out celebrity sites in 1996 on the Internet it was all porn, they lied. They made you feel dirty. One thing I wanted was our site to be fun and campy and retro.
One of the things I said was go look at old advertisements from the '50s where they'd draw in the mom and dad, you know, hardware ads or grocery story ads, where mom and dad had those clean-cut smiley faces, the hair parted down the side. I said, that's what I want the face of Mr. Skin to be for the Web site. The guy drew some designs up and when he hit this one I went, this is it! And that's been the Mr. Skin head ever since.
God knows you have thousands of skin scenes on your site and you've already mentioned some choice cuts that were of interest to you growing up, but is there one particular scene that is truly your favorite?
Without question, my favorite nude scene in the history of movies is Phoebe Cates from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Picture: 1 - 2).
A classic.
Yeah, it is, and the reason, if you think about it, is Phoebe Cates back in the early '80s can be compared today to Lindsay Lohan (Picture: ) or Sarah Michelle Geller (Picture: ), Jennifer Love Hewitt from the late '90s. For a young dude, she was the fantasy babe of all the guys. Then take that and look at that scene when she's coming out of the water in slow motion, they're playing the cars music in the background and she walks towards the camera, unhooks her bra and shows the most perfect pair of breasts you're ever going to see. Combine all those elements and you have the greatest nude scene ever made.
No argument about that. But I think the world also wants to know if Mr. Skin is an ass man or a breast man?
Totally a boob man, if you look at when I pick my favorite nude scenes of all time it's always woman with big breasts: Kelly Preston in Mischief (Picture: 1 - 2), I mentioned Pam Grier, Jennifer Connelly in The Hot Spot (Picture: 1), Mimi Rogers in Full Body Massage (Picture: 1 - 2). I think it's pretty clear that I like large, all-natural breasts. No question about it.
Your fans may not know this, but congratulations are in order. You recently married and just celebrated the birth of your first child. But that begs the question, what does Mrs. Skin think about you looking at naked ladies all day long?
The good thing is I met Mrs. Skin when I was at a radio promotion in Chicago and I was at a bar as Mr. Skin and she happened to be there with a girlfriend. So, from day one she's known what I do.
Number two, there's no way that I could ever have married someone who's the jealous-type or has a problem with what I do because this is my destiny. I had to do it. I just couldn't have someone who didn't enjoy what I do. And to be honest, she's 100 percent behind me. She sees how much work it is.
That's the thing people don't see. I'm not complaining, but it's a ton of work to assemble this kind of a Web site and organize the troops. I have the greatest job in the world, but it really is a lot of work.
Is it true that your family works for Mr. Skin?
Yes [laughs]. My mom and dad live in Arizona, they moved out there, and via the Internet they work for me, especially my mom. She does tons of work for Skin Inc. My sister is a fulltime employee. She deals with all the movie companies and also organizes the skinterns at the office. I have a couple of cousins that do work for me. It's definitely a family affair.
When did mom and dad find out what they're baby boy was doing for a living?
I can tell exactly: New Year's Eve 1998. My parents were in from Arizona and I took them out to dinner. I told them I had a big thing to talk to them about. We went for sushi and I said in about three months I'm quitting my job, I was working in the pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and I'm going to devote fulltime to MrSkin.com and be Mr. Skin. But I wanted them to hear it from me first before they heard it on the radio or saw me on television. The good news is that they were totally cool with it.
They're the kind of parents that no matter what I decided to do, short of being a serial killer, they would support me. This isn't that far away from being a serial killer [laughs]. When listing out what people do for a living, I think being an skinntrepreneur is a notch above being a serial killer.
People gather 'round and hear the tale of a man who made tail his talisman. The world knows him simply as Mr. Skin and he's the mastermind behind this very site that makes your fingers tremble with delight over the keyboard.
It was an auspicious day five years ago, Aug. 10, 1999, when MrSkin.com launched. Within five minutes of going live the company had its first member, a skinterested Web surfer in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since that first click Mr. Skin has become the destination for celebrity nudity online and now boasts four million unique visitors a month, a number that's growing like other things grow when on this wonderful site.
After five years clawing his way to the top one nipple at a time, now that the Internet has been dominated by his presence, it felt right to talk to Mr. Skin about his ever-expanding empire. There's his first book, part of a deal with St. Martin's Press, entitled Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia, which hits bookstores in Jan. 2005. The tome is chock full of nut-draining data, with all the skinformation on 2005 actresses, where they've been nude and their skinfining moments.
If that's not enough, Mr. Skin is currently in negotiations with various men's premium channels to either develop his own TV show or act as the skintillating host to introduce feature films and highlight their breast scenes. The world is Mr. Skin's oyster and he's letting us spew the pearl necklace.
We caught up with Mr. Skin on vacation, poolside, while an army of young children frolicked within earshot. He was candid about his humble beginnings and explicit about which actresses and body parts make Mr. Skin's skin grow.
How does a nice guy like you become Mr. Skin, the most knowledgeable man in skindom?
The story is, when I was a kid - now, we're talking the fall of 1980 - for the first time we got cable TV in our place. You've got to understand that a kid growing up in the '70s it was ABC, NBC and CBS, there was no chance of every seeing skin, and all of a sudden I'm getting HBO, Cinemax and Showtime.
All of a sudden this was in my house and I was seeing R-rated stuff, boobs and bush, and going bananas. And HBO when it first launched, they had tons of Italian sex comedies from the '70s. There wasn't a stockpile of movies to work from. Obviously, Fast Times at Ridgemont High hadn't even been invented yet. So, they had a lot of drive-in movies from the '70s loaded with nudity.
What I would do every night was tape movies, looking through the cable guide for the big bold N under the movie description. I'd tape those movies and then the next morning I'd edit the nudes scenes onto videotapes and have, like, five hour tapes of just nude scenes. I'd divide them up into "Porn Stars," "TV Stars that had been naked". I had fun with them.
I bet you were very popular in high school.
Exactly. All my friends would come over and drink beer and watch videos before we'd go out. It was definitely the place to be to see nudity. Then I kept doing it throughout the '80s and you're talking hundreds and hundreds of tapes and documentation of all this nudity. That's how it started.
What started the Mr. Skin thing was in 1996 I was in a bar in Chicago and happened to meet a guy who had a radio show in Chicago named Harry Teinowitz. Somehow the topic of celebrity nudity came up and he was blown away that ever person he asked me I knew off the top of my head if they been nude, what happened in the nude scene, how far into the movie the nudity happened and he invited me to be on his radio show.
I remember thinking, "Oh, man, that'll be cool. I'll do that, go back to my job and it'll be a fun thing and that's it." One of the conditions I had was I'll go on the show, but I can't use my real name, because I have a job and what if my mom and dad heard this, how embarrassed they'd be. I said, "Let's pick a name," and we came up with Mr. Skin.
At the end of the segment, the producer came up to me and said, "Hey, man, so many people had questions we didn't answer. Would you come back and do this again?" I said, "Yeah, sure, I'll do it again." That's how it started.
Other Chicago radio people heard about it and I started going on more shows in Chicago. I started doing national shows and finally Howard Stern found out about it and invited me on and ever since then it's just been through the roof. I still do about 500 radio interviews a year all over the country.
When did you jump mediums and take over the Internet?
The way that the Web site started, I was on Steve Dahl's radio show in Chicago where someone heard me and I ended up a mini-mini-mini local celebrity and was asked to umpire a celebrity softball game. This guy came up to me and said, "I heard you on the radio. You should put what's in your head onto a Web site." And my response was, "What's a Web site?"
This is 1997; I didn't know anything about computers or the Internet. He said he could show me how to make a Web site. So, I looked into it, raised some money, quit my job and, it took a while. It was a year of preparation, sitting in my apartment, loading in all the actresses and all the movies, researching everything to make sure I wasn't missing anything. And then we launched the Web site in August of '99. It was because someone heard me on the radio and approached me and said you can make money doing this.
It really grew organically.
Orgasmically, yes [laughs].
What kind of actresses turn Mr. Skin on?
All natural. The first Playboys I saw were from the early '70s, and I like real breasts, big breasts and, most importantly, a hairy retro-bush is the way I like it. I completely understand guys today who like the hardwood floors, understand when they like the fake breasts, but for me personally give me an Uschi Digard (Picture: 1) or a Pam Grier (Picture: 1), you know a Kathleen Beller (Picture: 1) from The Betsy. Those are the kind that really turns me on.
I always ask interviewees what's the first mainstream sex scene they saw. I'd love to go to the source and discover the one that corrupted you.
In the fall of 1980, there were two movies that totally got me. I've always loved celebrity nudity. I loved the "Sex in Cinema" issues from Playboy in the '70s, I used to collect those. But the two movies that I taped that forever changed me, the first was a 1976 movie called Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (Picture: 1 - 2), and I remember I taped that movie and that Lynda Carter was in it and there was nudity. The movie was airing at about three in the morning. I went to bed, taped the movie and the next morning, before I went to school, I fast-forwarded through the movie.
I was thinking that the nudity would be guy nudity or maybe another actress. There's no way that Wonder Woman ever got naked. And, boom, I saw in the first 45 minutes she's nude three times, including a skinny-dip scene with a big Indian chief while doing mushrooms with Marjoe Gartner. What more can you ask for?
The other one was a movie that came out in 1980 called Texas Lightning (Picture: 1). I taped that and it had "Marcia Brady," Maureen McCormick, 64 minutes in flashing a little Brady bunch. That was one where I said, "My God, if Marcia Brady's been naked who else has been naked?" I was on a quest from then on to unearth all these old movies and find out who else had done nudity.
You're the King Arthur of celebrity skin.
Yeah, and always looking for round tables [laughs].
You've mentioned a lot of classic actresses that you love, but who working today makes Mr. Skin's trousers tight?
Jennifer Connelly (Picture: ) is definitely there, but I have to admit I prefer the Jennifer Connelly from the early '90s. Right now one I really like is Jordan Ladd (Picture: ), Cheryl Ladd's daughter, who was naked in the movie Club Dread (Picture: 1 - 2). That was such a great scene. I can guarantee you it's going to get some kind of Anatomy Award in 2004.
Anne Hathaway (Picture: ), who is only 21 years old, has a movie coming out called Havoc. Everyone I've had a chance to talk to that's seen this either in film festival or an advance copy of the movie are blown away by her nudity. She's one that I'm really excited about seeing naked. You might know her from The Princess Diaries [laughs]. The nudity in this is supposed to be off the charts, so we can't wait for this to get released.
It sounds that you get off on the innocents that become tainted.
That's number one for me. If you're talking about seeing Jenna Jameson naked, well, of course she's a hot babe and of course I like to see Jenna Jameson naked. But it's not a huge thrill because she's been naked so many times.
When you do someone like Meredith Baxter (Picture: ), who had never done a nude scene, and all of a sudden displayed her breasts in the 1994 movie My Breast (Picture: 1 - 2) and only did one nude scene, that to me is the most thrilling thing. Someone you'd never expect to do nudity and then they do it.
Who would you like to see naked that's yet to disrobe on camera?
I always wished Raquel Welch (Picture: ) had done a nude scene. She's at the top of my list. A TV babe I always wanted to see naked was Markie Post (Picture: ). Remember her from Night Court?
From today's actresses, Jennifer Love Hewitt (Picture: ) would definitely be high on my list of girls I'd like to see naked. And also Jessica Biel (Picture: ) is another one.
I know you have someone in your office who loves Italian sex comedies, while others crave a stinky German scat flick, but what genre makes Mr. Skin smile?
The blaxploitation movies I really love. The drive-in movies from the '70s I absolutely love. You know, the stuff where you can see Stella Stevens (Picture: ). Getting back to the blaxploitation movies, Pam Grier and the drive-in movies where you could see an Uschi Digard.
Getting into the '80s, the teen-sex comedies I really love. You know, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky's, those are my favorites. Kind of the Golden Age of nudity, as far as I'm concerned, from about 1972 to 1985 is probably the best movies.
For people that have never seen you, do you look like the perversely smiling face that symbolizes your site?
Not really. What I did when we were coming up with the design of the Web site. Again, I had no skills. I had a tech guy, a design guy and myself, and I told the design person, I want to make a Web site that's very '50s-ish, retro, cartoony. I don't want people to feel dirty when they come to the site. When I first checked out celebrity sites in 1996 on the Internet it was all porn, they lied. They made you feel dirty. One thing I wanted was our site to be fun and campy and retro.
One of the things I said was go look at old advertisements from the '50s where they'd draw in the mom and dad, you know, hardware ads or grocery story ads, where mom and dad had those clean-cut smiley faces, the hair parted down the side. I said, that's what I want the face of Mr. Skin to be for the Web site. The guy drew some designs up and when he hit this one I went, this is it! And that's been the Mr. Skin head ever since.
God knows you have thousands of skin scenes on your site and you've already mentioned some choice cuts that were of interest to you growing up, but is there one particular scene that is truly your favorite?
Without question, my favorite nude scene in the history of movies is Phoebe Cates from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Picture: 1 - 2).
A classic.
Yeah, it is, and the reason, if you think about it, is Phoebe Cates back in the early '80s can be compared today to Lindsay Lohan (Picture: ) or Sarah Michelle Geller (Picture: ), Jennifer Love Hewitt from the late '90s. For a young dude, she was the fantasy babe of all the guys. Then take that and look at that scene when she's coming out of the water in slow motion, they're playing the cars music in the background and she walks towards the camera, unhooks her bra and shows the most perfect pair of breasts you're ever going to see. Combine all those elements and you have the greatest nude scene ever made.
No argument about that. But I think the world also wants to know if Mr. Skin is an ass man or a breast man?
Totally a boob man, if you look at when I pick my favorite nude scenes of all time it's always woman with big breasts: Kelly Preston in Mischief (Picture: 1 - 2), I mentioned Pam Grier, Jennifer Connelly in The Hot Spot (Picture: 1), Mimi Rogers in Full Body Massage (Picture: 1 - 2). I think it's pretty clear that I like large, all-natural breasts. No question about it.
Your fans may not know this, but congratulations are in order. You recently married and just celebrated the birth of your first child. But that begs the question, what does Mrs. Skin think about you looking at naked ladies all day long?
The good thing is I met Mrs. Skin when I was at a radio promotion in Chicago and I was at a bar as Mr. Skin and she happened to be there with a girlfriend. So, from day one she's known what I do.
Number two, there's no way that I could ever have married someone who's the jealous-type or has a problem with what I do because this is my destiny. I had to do it. I just couldn't have someone who didn't enjoy what I do. And to be honest, she's 100 percent behind me. She sees how much work it is.
That's the thing people don't see. I'm not complaining, but it's a ton of work to assemble this kind of a Web site and organize the troops. I have the greatest job in the world, but it really is a lot of work.
Is it true that your family works for Mr. Skin?
Yes [laughs]. My mom and dad live in Arizona, they moved out there, and via the Internet they work for me, especially my mom. She does tons of work for Skin Inc. My sister is a fulltime employee. She deals with all the movie companies and also organizes the skinterns at the office. I have a couple of cousins that do work for me. It's definitely a family affair.
When did mom and dad find out what they're baby boy was doing for a living?
I can tell exactly: New Year's Eve 1998. My parents were in from Arizona and I took them out to dinner. I told them I had a big thing to talk to them about. We went for sushi and I said in about three months I'm quitting my job, I was working in the pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and I'm going to devote fulltime to MrSkin.com and be Mr. Skin. But I wanted them to hear it from me first before they heard it on the radio or saw me on television. The good news is that they were totally cool with it.
They're the kind of parents that no matter what I decided to do, short of being a serial killer, they would support me. This isn't that far away from being a serial killer [laughs]. When listing out what people do for a living, I think being an skinntrepreneur is a notch above being a serial killer.
