From porn to pillar of society

"I fell in love with the community. I knew someday I was going to live here. I didn't know it was going to be in a drunken stupor," he said.

Reems said he woke up in town one day in 1987. "I have no idea how I got here," he said.

He does recall being a public menace over the next two years, urinating in the streets, fighting and breaking into houses. He also entered a 12-step alcohol recovery program. The police picked him up on the way to a meeting one day. While driving him to the Summit County Jail, a police sergeant told Reems he had no idea how useful he could be, that he could save lives if he gave up drinking and drugs.

"That was the first time anyone had ever said I have value," Reems said.

Along with sobriety, Reems found God. An atheist who thought of religion as a crutch, he soon became a trustee in the local Methodist church. "I put God in first position, not me, because anything I had ever done almost killed me."

With his newfound sobriety and spirituality, Reems was ready to take the next step in his transformation.

He briefly met Jeanne Sterret in 1982 but couldn't get her out of his mind. He didn't see her again until seven years later, when she attended an alcohol recovery meeting in support of a friend.

Reems struck up a conversation with her and proposed within five minutes. She declined, and he settled for a date. They married in November 1990 in a red church on Park Avenue.

Though he has distanced himself from his porn movie days, he isn't ashamed of his past profession. "I have no regrets about my film career," he said.

Reems said he wouldn't be the person he is today without his past.

And so the Bronx native, born Herbert Streicher, retains his stage name.

"I didn't want people to have the perception that I was denying who I was," he said.

Not only can he live with the past, he's content with the present.

"I can live inside my skin today. I love myself. Because I can love myself, I can love others."

---

E-mail: romboy@desnews.com