The Leveret: November 2023

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Bill

Bill Cable (born William Laurence Cumpanas; May 2, 1946 – March 7, 1998) was an American model, actor and stunt performer.

Notes Wikipedia . . .

From 1970, Cable was a model for Colt Studio Group, a producer of gay male erotica and pornography, where he was photographed by Jim French. He was also photographed by Bob Mizer for the Athletic Model Guild. During this time, he used the alias “Stoner.”

Cable later posed for the book More Nudes, photographed by Kenn Duncan, whose collection was donated to the New York Public Library by Kenn Duncan's brother and sister in 2003. He was also photographed by Tommy Marshall, Ray Allen, Robert Scott Hooper, Dave Sands, Jeff Dunas and for Playgirl by David Meyer, Raul Vega and Mr. Blackwell. He also appeared in straight softcore pictorials, published in Hollywood Hotline, Star Nudes, and Hollywood Rated X in the 1970s.

Photos of Cable have been published in many magazines, including Vanity Fair, After Dark, Honcho, Manpower!, Blueboy, Drummer, Q International, Torso, Olympus (first edition in January 1972) and Mandate (first edition in April 1975).

Through his associations with the gay erotica scene, Cable found work in both straight and gay erotic films (both softcore and hardcore), as well as a stunt performer and body double in mainstream productions.

His first appearance as a whip-wielding leatherman in Bijou (1972), was directed by Wakefield Poole. Cable starred in the short erotic gay film Cooling It in 1973. Though he appeared in several hardcore films, Cable rarely, if ever, performed in the unsimulated sex scenes, which were performed by body doubles (including John Holmes) via insert shots.

Cable made a handful of mainstream acting appearances, including in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988). His best-known role was as rock star Johnny Boz in the Paul Verhoeven erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), where he is memorably murdered in the opening scene, mid-coitus, with an ice pick.

. . . He married Shirley Cumpanas in Nevada in 1985 and she had an affair with Christian Brando, son of actor Marlon Brando, which led to their divorce. . . . He was later in a relationship with Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira.

. . . In October 1996, Cable was involved in a motorcycle accident in Laurel Canyon in which he sustained a fractured vertebra in his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. Cable died of these injuries on March 7, 1998, at the age of 51.