For the record, the 54-year-old man wheeling around his Hollywood Hills estate on this mid-January day really doesn't look much like the Flynt you see on screen—though Harrelson did nail his warbling, drunk-sounding speech impediment (lingering from his spinal injury). As in the movie, Flynt is full of blustering charm and raunchy playfulness, as well as an utter immunity to embarrassment (he talks about his youthful chicken fling with nary a blush). Does this make the film more accurate or less? Does it make Steinem or Stone closer to being right?

"The question is, am I a smut peddler or a First Amendment crusader?" Flynt sums up. "I'd say a little bit of both. Some people will always perceive me as a scoundrel with no taste, a dirty old man in the back room cranking out pornography. Others are my ardent fans. Milos Forman calls me a devil with wings—maybe that's what I am. All I know is that the debate is never going to go away. Not in my lifetime, anyway."

And certainly not by February, when Oscar nominations are announced. So far, the signals are mixed. While the Golden Globes went well, the Directors Guild snubbed Flynt last week by overlooking Forman in its nominations. But whatever the film's fate when they open the envelopes in March, there is a deliciously rich irony here: The man who spent his entire life making money off naked women is now gambling all his integrity and legitimacy on a little naked man.

(Additional reporting by Dave Karger and Tricia Laine)

Originally posted Jan 31, 1997 Published in issue #364 Jan 31, 1997 Order article reprints
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