15th AVN Awards

15th AVN Awards
History: The 1998 AVN Awards Show program cover
Date	January 10, 1998 (1998-01-10)
Site	Caesars Palace, Paradise, Nevada
Hosted by	Robert Schimmel Racquel Darrian Misty Rain
Preshow hosts	Gary Gray Williamson Howe
Produced by	Gary Miller
Directed by	Mark Stone
Highlights
Best Picture	Bad Wives (Best Film)
Most awards	Zazel (7)[1]
Television coverage
Network	Playboy TV
← 14th AVN Awards 16th →

The 15th AVN Awards ceremony, organized by Adult Video News (AVN), took place January 10, 1998 at Caesars Palace, in Paradise, Nevada, U.S.^[2] During the show, AVN presented AVN Awards (the industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards)^[3][4][5] in 54 categories honoring the best pornographic films released between Oct. 1, 1996 and Sept. 30, 1997. The ceremony was produced by Gary Miller and directed by Mark Stone.^[2] Comedian Robert Schimmel hosted, with adult film actresses Racquel Darrian and Misty Rain as co-hosts.^[2][5] At a pre-awards cocktail reception held the previous evening, 50 more AVN Awards, mostly for behind-the-scenes achievements, were given out by hosts Nici Sterling and Dave Tyree,^[1] however, this event was neither televised nor distributed on VHS tapes as was the main evening's ceremony. Both events included awards categories for gay movies; the final year the show included both gay and heterosexual awards. The gay awards were subsequently spun off into a separate show, the GayVN Awards.

Zazel won the most awards with seven, however, Bad Wives, which received six statuettes, won for best film. Buda won for best shot-on-video feature. Nic Cramer won Best Director—Film for Operation Sex Siege.^[1]

Winners and nominees

The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on January 10, 1998. Besides winning best film, Bad Wives also won Best Actress for Dyanna Lauren, Best Actor for Steven St. Croix and Best Screenplay for Dean Nash. Zazel was named best all-sex film and Naked Highway was the best gay video. Johnni Black won Best New Starlet, while Performers of the Year were: Stephanie Swift, female; Tom Byron, male; and Jim Buck, gay.^[1]

Major awards

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]}

Additional award winners

These awards were announced, but not presented, in a winners-only segments read by Robert Schimmel and Misty Rain during the event. Recipients' awards were distributed off-stage:

The previous night, January 9, 1998, during AVN's pre-awards cocktail reception, hosts adult film actress Nici Sterling and comedian Dave Tyree^[1][2] handed out these awards, mostly for behind-the-scenes excellence:^[5]

Honorary AVN Awards

Special Achievement Awards

• Al Goldstein,^[2] "for his lifelong defense of the First Amendment"^[3]
• Christy Canyon,^[2] "for her lifetime achievement in the adult video industry"^[3]
• Dave Friedman,^[2] "one of the founding fathers of the adult film and video industries"^[3]

AVN Breakthrough Award

Presented to Steve Orenstein^[2] of Wicked Pictures; the other nominees were Robert Black and Tom Byron^[2]

Hall of Fame

AVN Hall of Fame inductees for 1998, announced during AVN's pre-awards cocktail reception, were: Lois Ayres, Rene Bond, Jerry Butler, Careena Collins, Jon Dough, Jerry Douglas, Roy Karch, Keisha, Dorothy LeMay, Chelsea Manchester, Constance Money, Paul Norman, Jace Rocker, Derek Stanton, Jane Waters, Bambi Woods^[1][3]

Adult Internet Awards

The 1998 Adult Internet Awards winners^[9] were announced at another time later in the year and were not part of the show:

Multiple nominations and awards

Zazel won the most awards with seven; Bad Wives was next with six statuettes.New Wave Hookers 5 scored five.^[1]

Presenters and performers

The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers or comedy.^[1] Presenters of the gay awards were not recorded. The show's trophy girls were Candy Roxxx and Katie Gold.^[2]

Presenters (in order of appearance)

Performers

Ceremony information

While accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award, Christy Canyon announced her official retirement.^[1]

Among the people participating in production of the ceremony, Mark Stone also served as musical director; an opening video entitled "History" was produced by Steve Austin and Serenity was responsible for choreography.^[2]

The ceremonies were published on VHS tapes by both VCA Pictures^[6] and Playboy Entertainment Group.^[7] The Playboy tape includes softcore scenes from the winning movies,^[10] while the VCA tape features hardcore scenes of the winners. The awards show was also rebroadcast over the Internet by High Society magazine via cun-tv.com on May 16, 1998.^[5]

The 1998 AVN Awards later achieved an unexpected shot of mainstream coverage when David Foster Wallace attended the ceremony as part of his overall exploration of pornography's place (or non-place) in American society as the 20th century was nearing its end. Wallace wrote about the event and some matters connected to in an article entitled "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment" published under a pseudonym in the September 1998 issue of Premiere magazine. The article was later collected in Wallace's 2005 nonfiction collection Consider the Lobster under the title "Big Red Son."

Critical reviews

Some attendees were critical of the show's length. In a posting to the Rec.Arts.Movies.Erotica Usenet newsgroup, Tim Evanson noted, "The length of the show was again a concern (the number of heterosexual categories is quiet large), and the number of gay industry insiders attending the awards dipped slightly this year."^[11]

In Memoriam

AVN publisher Paul Fishbein paid tribute to the passing of adult industry businessman Reuben Sturman during the show.^[1]

See also

• AVN Female Performer of the Year Award
• AVN Award for Male Performer of the Year
• AVN Award for Male Foreign Performer of the Year
• List of members of the AVN Hall of Fame

Notes

Bibliography

• "Exclusive Coverage CES 1998". Fox Magazine. September 1998. p. 70.
• "On the Scene: AVN Awards Ceremony". Swank's Video World. September 1998. p. 40.
• "CES & AVN Awards". Dick magazine (in Japanese). Japan. April 1998.

External links

• Official website
• Adult Video News Awards Archived January 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine at the Internet Movie Database
• Adult Video News Awards 1998  (1998 video) at IMDb
• Adult Video News Awards 1998 at the Internet Adult Film Database
• 1998 AVN Awards at the Adult Film Database

This page was last edited on 20 August 2023, at 02:11