Pokin Around: When Captain Pink and the Larry Flynt circus came to Springfield

Worlds collided 37 years ago when pornographer Larry Flynt and his entourage of "Flyntstones" — led by a publicist known as "Captain Pink" — swept through Springfield like a three-ring circus with a three-headed elephant.

On one hand, you had conservative and staid Springfield, home to the U.S. Assemblies of God headquarters and Baptist Bible College.

On the other you had Flynt, the proud prince of pornography, sultan of smut and founder of Hustler magazine and an empire of strip clubs and sex toys.

Flynt, who died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles at age 78, was ordered to Springfield for a mental competency hearing at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. The involuntary visit, which spanned about five weeks in 1983 and 1984, came after Flynt showed up in court in California wearing only a diaper made from an American flag.

At this point in his life, Flynt was confined to a wheelchair. He had been shot by a sniper in 1978 at a Georgia obscenity trial.

You might think Flynt was shot by someone upset by pornography.

No, he was shot by a white supremacist who was upset by photos of interracial sex.

One of those with a peephole into these tumultuous and bizarre five weeks was Springfield Councilman Mike Schilling, who at the time was a reporter for the News-Leader.

"That was quite the journalistic highlight," says Schilling, who toiled at the paper from 1981 to 1987.

First, you had Flynt himself, a prisoner inside Fed Med.

He had been here all of 10 days when he had his lawyers file a complaint that he was not receiving proper medical care. 

Flynt's legs were paralyzed and as a result he had assorted health problems that, he said, were not being taken care of at Fed Med.

As a result, his Los Angeles entourage of Flyntstones included a dietitian, nurse and physical therapist. They testified in court to support Flynt's claim of inadequate care.

Captain Pink, also known as Alan Graham, was the ringleader of Flynt's traveling support crew.

"We flew in every lunatic, misfit, criminal and every other character so we could expand the three-ring circus," he tells me. Graham, now 76, lives in California. I spoke to him by phone on Friday.

Flynt also had a retinue of lawyers: a corporate attorney from Hustler as well as locals Loren Honecker, Devon Sherwood and Donald Cooley.

Nevertheless, Schilling says, Flynt often spoke for himself at the proceeding.

Schilling wrote in 1984:

"Other testimony drew objections by assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Jones, representing the medical center, and the judge himself about the relevance of some of the material. And it soon became apparent that Flynt, by his phrasing of questions, was cross-examining himself."

Schilling wrote this description of the moment Flynt entered the courtroom of U.S. Magistrate James C. England:

"Propped up on a stretcher as a man on a throne, Flynt was wheeled into a tightly guarded courtroom on Jan. 5, where spectators and reporters were screened by a metal detector at the door."

I tell Schilling his reporting and attention to detail was exceptional.

"It was theater," he says. "I was able to take the guardrails off on something like that. It was a colorful situation."

Magistrate England tells me he was assigned the case simply because his docket included everything involving Fed Med.

He knew Flynt had turned other federal courtrooms into carnivals. Flynt had shouted at prosecutors; spat at judges; worn that flag diaper.

"I didn't do anything special for his case," England says. "I got the medical records and I said this is going to be the limit of what we are going to discuss.

"He (Flynt), for whatever reason, did not act up — at least not with the same vigor that he did in California.

"My most vivid memory is simply trying to stay as focused as I could and not get sidetracked with things going on elsewhere. I was lasered in on trying to treat this case as any other as much as humanly possible."

Suitcases full of cash

Schilling says Captain Pink would start the day with a trip to the News-Leader newsroom to try to generate copy. He did not arrive in full Captain Pink costume.

He reserved that for other occasions, such as holding a picket sign — "Free Flynt" — outside Fed Med.

Graham described for me his Captain Pink attire: pink tights, pink mask, pink shoes, pink cape, a pink baby Jesus and a toy sword.

Why "Captain Pink"? 

The answer involves the explicit nature of Hustler magazine's photos.

Graham tells me the first person to arrive in Springfield in December 1983 — after Flynt — was Flynt's wife, Althea.

She was Flynt's fourth of five wives.

The New York Times reported this week that Althea contracted AIDS and in 1987 drowned in a bathtub. Graham says that is true, but that she actually died of a heroin overdose.

Althea attempted to visit her husband at Fed Med.

When she was unable to do so, she made news when she threw a metal detector to the ground and broke it. She was charged with damaging federal property.

Schilling wrote in 1984: "Althea Flynt, 30, had already attracted attention around town with her punk fashion, which included metal-studded jackets and harness and magenta colored hair cut rooster-comb style."

He tells me, "She was a spectacle."

Also among the Flyntstones was Flynt's brother Jimmy.

The tribe rented a floor at University Plaza. They were booted out.

I have read several versions of the alleged destruction they caused. I asked Graham to set the record straight.

Did you paint one of the rooms pink? No.

But he spray-painted his shoes pink on newspapers and might have gotten some on the carpet.

Did you destroy furniture? No.

But they jumped from the second-story balcony onto a mound of pillows and cushions as they screamed "Bonzai!"

Did you dress as Captain Pink and run around the hotel early morning on Christmas Eve and frighten guests?

"Guilty as charged."

In addition, he says, it's true that he traveled with suitcases filled with cash.

Really?

"I carried them in myself."

While in town, Graham says, the Flyntstones unsuccessfully sought to rename "Glenstone Avenue" as "Flyntstone Avenue."

Once bounced from University Plaza, they encamped at the Hilton Inn where they were better behaved.

Schilling in 1984 quoted Hilton general manager Joe Buonvino: "They've been very cordial."

They stole the warden's daughter

Graham, Althea and the entourage soaked in Springfield nightlife.

"They had keg parties, brought in bands," Schilling said. "It was like a Festival of Larry." 

They were fond of several Springfield bars, such as the Bombay Bicycle Club, partying hard with college kids until closing time.

Of course, many here despised Flynt and the Flyntstones. But others were drawn to their brashness and bravura.

Schilling recalls the night he and his then-wife went to a party on West Walnut Street where they had heard Althea would appear.

"She arrived in a big Lincoln Town Car," he tells me. "She sat down with my wife and they had some shared interest in art. They somehow ended up in the kitchen and there was a big pile of dishes in the sink. Althea insisted that she and my wife do the dishes."

One of the hardest stories for me to believe is that the Flyntstones took into their fold the 19-year-old daughter of the then-warden of Fed Med and that she left with them once Flynt was returned to California.

Graham tells me it's true.

"She actually sought us out," he says.

The daughter was Lisa Petrovsky. Her father was Fed Med warden Joseph Petrovsky, who died in 2011.

According to Graham, Althea went to a hair salon in Springfield and a stylist let it slip that the warden's daughter was a client.

"We were going to seek her out but Lisa came to the hotel to talk to us," Graham says.

In 1994, Graham talked about Lisa to Chris Bentley, then a News-Leader columnist.

"Lisa was a lovely girl. She was rebellious, and she could see the fun that it was to live in absolute freedom," Graham told Bentley. "We were rocking and rolling. We were completely reckless and to a (young) mind, that's very attractive."

Graham tells me he and Lisa were wed in a mock ceremony in Springfield officiated by Doug Wead, a conservative minister who later became an advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

Lisa did, in fact, go to Los Angeles with Graham. She returned a few months later.

No, Graham tells me. They were never lovers. He was married.

In fact, he married the sister of rock legend Jim Morrison, of the Doors.

He and Lisa were just friends having fun, he says.

I contacted Lisa, who has a different last name and resides in a different state.

She did not want to discuss the matter.

According to Schilling, the common belief in the community was that the "Flyntstones" ran off with the warden's daughter, humiliating the warden.

"The warden didn't last long after that," Schilling says. "I think he was sent to a federal prison in Georgia. It was such an embarrassment."

Looking back, Graham tells me, those five weeks in Springfield were both thrilling and threatening.

"It was the most dangerous place on earth for a gang of mental cases," he says.

They easily could have been hurt.

"You've got to remember it was bizarre; you are talking about Springfield, Missouri, 40 years ago. This three-ring circus came to town in a clown car.

"Everything we did was the antithesis to the Christian hypocrites we were targeting at the time — not the nice people — but the hypocrites."

Graham asks about my journalism background and tells me not to forget the First Amendment victories of Flynt, who had a ninth-grade education and built a $400 million business.

"He was a functional illiterate who knew a little bit about everything," he says.

I tell Graham I cannot consider Flynt a hero.

His magazine went far beyond the photos that appeared in Hugh Hefner's Playboy. Hustler often depicted women on dog leashes, or being beaten, tortured or raped. 

The major First Amendment case Flynt won at the U.S. Supreme Court was in 1988. The litigation was over a parody in Hustler in which Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, reminisced about having sex with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued for $45 million and lost.

"No matter what you think about him, every serious journalist owes a debt of gratitude to Larry Flynt," Graham says.

According to the New York Times story, Flynt once said:

"If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it will protect all of you. Because I'm the worst."

These are the views of News-Leader columnist Steve Pokin, who has been at the paper for nine years, and over his career has covered everything from courts and cops to features and fitness. He can be reached at 417-836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail at 651 Boonville Ave., Springfield, MO 65806.