The Hung Jury and the infamous Sam Frank

[thirteenbyseven]

Though I'm slightly young to have been an adult in the halcyon days of the 1980's when a group called "The Hung Jury" was formed, I've recently been e-mailing with somebody with some apparent knowledge of it and its eccentric founder, one Sam Frank. I googled up info within this group, and a magnificently composed at times hilarious post was made by Cypher 13 on 6/25/2003. Can anyone please provide any information as to whether this group survives or what has become of its founder?

The Hung Jury was variously a supposed heterosexual dating club, a big cock club (Sam used to send out mailers with the preamble- Dear Hung Dude) and sort of a long dong fraternity. Sam would distribute, for some ridiculous price, a cornucopia of wealth and knowledge for we self-described Hung "Duders" via a newsletter and pamphlet which he reportedly churned out on a 1960's era mimeograph. According to Cypher 13 who seems to have literary credentials if his prose is any indication "to describe the content of what I read as wafer thin would be an insult to wafer makers from coast to coast." With each edition, grainy B&W images of mailed in photographs appeared with some hyperbole like "foot-long Anaconda." He kept the sum total of his mailed in photographic penile wealth in a shoe box next to his bed.

Sam was also a self-described hetersexual, but with a sole obsession with inordinately large penises, had never (to my e-mail friend's knowledge) ever had an actual date with a woman, and had behavioral quirks that made the late Howard Hughes the model of normalcy. Example- he regularly phoned both he and his wife at all hours of the night and begged them to report the number of inches she could accomodate and the number and strength of his orgasms. She finally told him not to call or risk police arrest. Perpetually poverty stricken, he followed around (hitchhiking since he couldn't drive) a well known authoress of the 1970's and 1980's at her Hollywood book signings, beseeching her for celebrity penis sizes "since I know that you are a well known size queen." That must have gone over well with her publishing reps on the publicity tour. She the authoress even mentioned Sam on the Joan Rivers Show. "This creapy little guy followed me around..." Unfortunately I came in at the conclusion of The Hung Jury via a third party who had been duped into using Sam Frank's celebrity penis size statistics in his book. A sleuth with the cunning of Conan Doyle's Watson could have determined that Sam got his celebrity penis size statistics dreaming and masturbating at 2 am in his run down Hollywood Apartment.

Can anyone supply a postscript? What becometh of The Hung Jury? Certainly Sam must still be around...someplace... dreaming of knee bangers and counting penises to put him to sleep.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Hung New Year.

 

[13788]

stevejazz99: From everything I'd heard, Sam was a strange dude, and your details certainly underline that impression! To give the guy his due, however, he did write the book "Sex In the Movies," a history that covered mainstream cinema through the years with sections on early skin flicks and then porn in the '70s. It seems to be out of print, but I bought it in the '80s, and it's not bad.

 

[HungArnold]

I heard of the hung jury when i was in my 20's. Sort of urban legend here in canada at that time.

I did not need its help in finding companionship.

 

[madame_zora]

Don't know about that group, but we do have an infrequent poster here by the name of cypher13, maybe he'll come out if you call him.

 

[jumbo747jet]

Over here in Denmark I actually belonged to a club which we used to call The hung jury club. I was only a member for a couple of years before the club folded and the more I think about it, the more I think our club had only borrowed the name of the american counterpart.
The very first time I heard of The hung jury club was in a british TV documentary filmed in America and in it they said the founder´s name was Jim Boyd, not Sam Frank.

 

[thirteenbyseven]

Thanks folks. Unfortunately Jana, Cypher 13 seemed to have been listed as an unregistered guest on his posts that I found. Too bad as he really would add an articulate voice to this board.

Jumbo747jet-- England...Denmark!! Sam Frank may have been a goofball in life but his basic idea was international. Hey are you a -400 or a Classic, powered with a CF6, PW or a RR RB.211?

 

[cypher13]

I was briefly a "member" of "The Hung Jury" back in the late 1980s. Ah the silly, infelicitous things one so often does!

"Sam Frank," "Jim Boyd," "Taurus," ... whatever name he used or uses (?) - I have no idea where he is, what he is doing, what is happening in his life or even if he is alive. It would sound cruel if I said I really do not care, so I won't say that.

He was an "interesting" character. It amazes me how euphemistic I can be when I want to avoid trouble. Still, "Sam" - whomever he was, is, or may be - probably couldn't afford a lawyer if his life depended on it. In fact, that might explain his ultimate fate, for all I know.

I will admit that I am surprised he hasn't found his way here, though I suspect he remains at least fifty years behind the times technologically and the very thought of applying his fingers to a computer keyboard would cause him to break out in a cold sweat. He and I spoke on the phone perhaps a dozen times, and it got to where, in the good old days of tapes in answering machines, I would often come home to find, quite literally, a full hour of "Sam" ranting about everything and nothing. For awhile it was entertaining, then overwhelming, and finally sickening. It did not end until I got a new phone number.

One time, he told me he had something he wanted to send me. I don't remember what it was. It is not germane to this story. He asked for a #10 envelope with four (or however many) stamps on it. I sent this to him. He sent it back, with all but one of the stamps peeled away. So, I suppose the stories about him being in perpetual poverty are true. He told me he lived rent-free in one of Hollywood's seedier neighborhoods (imagine that&#33 as a building manager/super which tells me he was just a glorified janitor.

He asked me to bankroll the printing costs of his newsletter for one issue. What the heck? I had the money. He asked for $300 which I unknowingly gave him, then he had the nerve to demand $20 - the going rate - from me for my copy of the newsletter! The idea was that the $300 would get things rolling....but two months later, he wanted another $300 from me. He did not get it and that was the beginning of the deterioration of our relationship. He accused me of stealing from him a biography of Ronald Colman he had written....so, you can add paranoia to the list of his psychological problems and character flaws.

Had you subscribed, what did you get for your $20? An eight-page "newsletter" with some photographs in it. Strictly heterosexual, a roughly equal number of men and women advertising and some were illustrated. It was not mimeographed; all the the material I saw was offset printed. Now, if you were interested in anyone advertising in there, you had to send your letter through "Sam" who would then forward it. Mind you, NOT in a sealed envelope, though you had to affix sufficient (or overly sufficient?) postage to an unaddressed envelope. So, Sam read your mail and, rest assured, the reply and enclosures, if any, went through him, too. As I recall, there were no handling fees, but had he thought of that, he would surely have charged them. I never understood this. He had an idea that could have made him money if he just had not meddled in it to the extent he felt he had to.

As far as his sexuality goes...who knows...who cares? He sure made it clear to me that he was straight, then he'd go on to describe how this or that was "bulging!" in a particularly lewd, obscene, detailed manner and you could just hear the accumulated saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth as he said it! He just loved that word: "bulging!" always with the exclamation mark. For example, his mailbox was "bulging!", then he would go on to describe this guy he met somewhere and how similar his anatomy was. Like I said, he was an "interesting" character and yes, I was guilty of listening to him too much at the beginning which only encouraged him. Something curious: he "knew" the late "Gary Griffin," another fellow who (I think) couldn't research or write his way through a laundry list, to save his soul. "Sam" told "Gary" (if that was his name) about me and until a few years ago, just prior to my leaving New York City, I frequently got paper tapes in the mail with instructions on how and where to place them on my erection as I marked off my dimensions for his "project." No, I never did it. At least "Gary Griffin" paid his own postage in both directions. Now that I think of it, I should have sent the return envelopes to "Sam" so he might have harvested the stamps I so callously threw away. Why can't someone write well-written, well-researched, well-illustrated books about the subject matter "Gary Griffin" so dubiously addressed?

To one person who "knew" him (myself), reminiscences of "Sam" arouse emotions not at all unlike those Jonah seems to arouse in people who know, or know of, him and, yeah, I often encountered Jonah in Manhattan clubland when I lived there, but that's other postings for another time and place. If there exists an archive of the past incarnations of this board, go there and you will encounter many equally "euphemistic" things I wrote about Jonah.

Being a real man requires more than carrying around two balls and a penis of whatever size. There is also caring, compassion, sharing, concern, giving of yourself and if you have enough brains in your head to read this far, surely you get the idea without any further elaboration on my part. Fill in the blanks yourself to suit yourself. I just wish I had learned this lesson thirty years ago. "Sam," Jonah and - sadly - many other self-proclaimed "studs" of my acquaintance haven't and probably never will.

Sad it is. So very, very sad. They're all losing out on some of the very best things in life.

One man's opinion.

 

[SomeGuyOverThere]

Originally posted by cypher13@Dec 28 2004, 07:20 PM

Being a real man requires more than carrying around two balls and a penis of whatever size. There is also caring, compassion, sharing, concern, giving of yourself and if you have enough brains in your head to read this far, surely you get the idea without any further elaboration on my part. Fill in the blanks yourself to suit yourself. I just wish I had learned this lesson thirty years ago. "Sam," Jonah and - sadly - many other self-proclaimed "studs" of my acquaintance haven't and probably never will.

Sad it is. So very, very sad. They're all losing out on some of the very best things in life.

One man's opinion.

[post=270294]Quoted post[/post]​

Well said!

I salute you sir!

 

[BayAreaGuy]

This is amazing. At the point in my life when I first mustered the courage to enter a Porn Shop (e.g., Adult Bookstore), I happened upon an ad for the newsletter in question "The Hung Jury." By the time I'd opened a P.O. box and managed to find the courage to write in, they'd gone out of business and my letter returned unopened.

I wonder if it was during the time that Cypher had loaned the kook the 300 bucks? What a small world!

Still, I question ANYONE who's into looking at other guys' cocks, extreme in size or not. Personally, there's only ONE reason I want to do so. : )~

 

[Stripper_9x6]

I well remember Jim Boyd/Sam Frank and his Hung Jury.

I'm not sure how I found the contact info, but I was a young kid in the pre-internet era, when you had to take your camera film to the photo centers (cautioning them that the pics featured nudity) to answer ads in the swing mags sold in porn shops.

I had only recently discovered via stripping that because of my 9-inch penis and freakish sexual stamina, there were married women interested in no-strings meetings, and was always on the lookout for fresh meat. So I sent my pics and money to Boyd.

I subscribed to and paid for an ad in several issues in the small, cheaply-produced 'newsletter'. It was ridiculously-priced, but even more annoying was Boyd's creatively-bad memory for numbers. I had paid for a year's subscription -- four issues -- but he only produced one or two. But at the end of the year, he contacted me promptly to tell me it was time to 're-subscribe', at an increased fee! He assured me that the only reason he was raising the price was to keep out 'riff-raff' subscribers, who had somehow prevented him from completing the missing issues.

He is also the only person I ever knew who insisted on making what were basically sales calls collect. Yes, collect! I would "accept a call from Mr. Jim Boyd", and he would try to get me to buy his overpriced mag.

When the Simpsons' 'world's-shadiest-lawyer' Lionel Hutz came into being, I thought of Jim Boyd.

I did get some good pussy out of the few mags I received. The best was probably Michelle, a married lady in her early 40s with a fit, curvy body. She lived about 30 minutes from me, and my cock spent many happy hours in her insatiable MILF pussy.

And my contact with Boyd got me invited on a talk show (The Charles Perez Show), where I would tell the world about my 'talents' and adventures. I declined the opportunity, which would have gotten me room service in a Manhattan hotel for a night. It amazes me what people will do to get on TV.

But THJ newsletter wasn't worth the exhorbitant price, because through other publications (and word of mouth) I already knew a lot of the couples and ladies who were subscribers. The "ISO big cock for my wife" community was smaller and more close-knit then!

This is the most I've thought about Jim Boyd in years. I feel so... unclean.

 

[thirteenbyseven]

Is this a Blast From The Past or am I just getting older? Here is a two year updated thread from which I posted on 11-25-2006: http://www.lpsg.org/38501-a-real-club-endowed-men.html

Somebody wrote that Sam Frank is still loitering around in North Hollywood as a manager of yet another run-down apartment complex. If true that would mean his life's ambition of writing the authoritative encyclopedia on Phallic Gigantia still hasn't been published. Sam Frank must be in his late fifties.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

This whole story is kinda interesting actually. Sounds like a future indie film for George Clooney. or Steve Buscemi.

 

[453249]

I was also a member of the The Hung Jury in the early 90's. I don't remember how I found out about it, but I think it was a classified ad in Fox magazine, the only porn magazine I ever subscribed to. I actually wrote an article for the newsletter regarding "The Well Endowed Man and Anal Sex" and was to be his first centerfold. I met a woman thru the newsletter with whom I had a two year relationship. She was to be the New York City Mistress of Measurement, but no further issues were ever "published" so nothing ever came of it.

Someone above mentioned going on a talk show, and we were also invited to go on the Christina show, which was the highest rated Spanish language talk show in America at the time (the Mistress was Puerto Rican, I don't speak Spanish). This was no joke, I actually got a Fed Ex package from the producer with a contract to sign. We chickened out.

I see many people have the same memories of the THJ founder, who I knew as Jim Boyd, including his fondness for Ronald Coleman movies. But I don't remember him as being cheap. At the time I was a dirt poor recent college grad living in my parent's basement, so I used to steal envelopes from work and blank out the printed return address to correspond with him. HE admonished ME for being cheap. HA!

Great memories!

Andrew

 

[Martin_Leam1]

I once watched a TV programme about THE HUNG JURY. I tried to track to group donw once or twice but got nowhere. Is it still in exhistance?

 

[CUBE]

I think I recall the club leader on an episode of Sally Jessee R's shows way back

 

[693356]

I was doing a Google Search on Sam Frank and came across this thread. Let me first say, I'm posting this mostly for the purposes providing people here with info. This account here isn't going to see a lot of use (just isn't my thing), but you have to have an account to post, so...

My whole interest in looking this up was a few nights ago a few of us who knew Sam from that group ended up sharing stories about him.

One of the stories was that same would work now and then on porn shoots because he was supposedly hung. But his work was always featured as a close up, because Sam wasn't the best looking man. I have no proof of this, offer only as a story told.

I knew Sam during the 90s. At the time, I knew he was an author. I also knew that he was a *very* disturbed individual. We were both members of a group (which was not a sexually orineted group - rather just a social group) and watched his numerous run ins with the leaders of the group.

He managed to alienate the majority of the members of the group and we all voted to boot him out. His behavior was always aggressive and in your face. He once said that he learned as a child that was the only way he was ever paid attention to.

He also probably would have been considered a stalker these days by his behavior involving Ronald Coleman. He wrote a bio about Coleman, and while its considered very good, he was not held in high regard by Coleman.

He was also known for showing up at events with Vincent Price and going on about various things during the Q&As. Price got to recognize him by name/face and more than once yelled at him to get out.

Same died in the late 90s. Sometime after 1997 - although probably not much after that. The story was that he was living in a motel room in Hollywood. His cause of death wasn't specifically reveiled - but rumors were that he'd been spending years eating uncook frozen dinners (just letting them thaw). I'm not sure I believe that, but that's what I know.

Sam actually had two brothers - one of whom I know on a casual basis. My impressions from the brother in the very brief conversation I had with him shortly after Sam's death was that he and his brother had been estranged for years and he merely accepted Sam's death as yet another crazy chapter of his brother's life.

I agree with other people that his life story would make an interesting, if troubling, book.

 

[fizzyjizz]

I found some info on the club and the woman who measure guys. The woman's face is cropped out of the pic but it looks like the same person - same dress for sure.

http://img127.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=32806___hr_slapshot522000_123_822lo.jpg

YouTube - ‪Americana: Dumb (Part 3)‬‏

 

[lemonhead]

I totally agree with HellsKitchen. What amazing possiblities a film on this guy would make!

 

[BeerStop]

definitely a film for steve buscemi he can play disturbed very well!

 

[thirteenbyseven]

I found some info on the club and the woman who measure guys. The woman's face is cropped out of the pic but it looks like the same person - same dress for sure.

http://img127.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=32806___hr_slapshot522000_123_822lo.jpg

YouTube - ‪Americana: Dumb (Part 3)‬‏

It's rather sad that The Hung Jury, a club which for the most part existed largely in the fabric of the nocturnal masturbation fantasies of a short rotund Jewish social misfit, should have outlived its creator Sam Frank. If Sam died around 1998 he would have been all of 44 years-old.

Significantly that youtube video, said to have been made in 1992 but I suspect a few years earlier, contains one of the only on-air interviews Sam Frank ever gave; the other was when he went on The Joan Rivers Show. In the comfortable surroundings of an outdoor hotel lounge area at least he came off sounding more assured and relaxed. On Joan Rivers before a live studio audience and the glare of studio lights, Sam Frank was the quintessential agoraphobe in the midst of a panic attack, a guy that made lpsg's own Jonah Falcon look like President Barack Obama at his charismatic best. Maybe shaving off the full beard for the video gave Sam more normal mainstream look, though he still looked forty pounds overweight on his stocky 5' 4" frame.

Additionally, I have no idea where Sam procured this woman for the video. She wasn't pornographer Bill Margold's ex-wife Althea Leisure who appeared in Club International as the Mistress of Measurements and to my knowledge Sam Frank never successfully persuaded a live, mentally functioning adult female to go out with him on a date. In the interview she is parroting the mandatory eight-inch Hung Jury measurement requirement almost like memorized dialogue form a porno script so she may have been an aspiring starlet sent over from the Hollywood Blvd. offices of Bill Margold.

It should be noted that beyond his obvious visual physical limitations Sam Frank lacked wheels. To go anywhere for any distance in Southern California on a date, one needs a car. In Sam's rarified income tax bracket back in the late 80's, that meant the inability to purchase anything from a gleaming new Lamborghini on down to a used Yugo.

I would love to read more about any experiences members had with Sam or The Hung Jury. They certainly broke the mold when they made Sam.

Sam Frank (1954-1998) R.I.P.