Ron Harris (1933 – May 26, 2017) was an American
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs.
Duties and types of photograp ...
,
videographer
Videography involves capturing moving images on electronic media (such as: videotape, direct to disk recording, or solid state storage), and can include streaming media. It encompasses both video production and post-production methods. Histori ...
, and television director.
Early life and career
Harris was born in
The Bronx
The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
, and attended
High School of Performing Arts.
He began his career as a fashion photographer.
''Aerobicise''
In 1980, ''Aerobicise'' began with a four-minute pilot featuring Harris’ then girlfriend, Jami Allen, later associate producer and voice-over of ''Aerobicise''.
In 1981,
Harris created and directed the exercise show, ''Aerobicise'' on the
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
network
Showtime. ''Aerobicise'' was nominated for a
CableACE Award and became the highest grossing exercise video series of its time. He later created ''
20 Minute Workout''.
Most of the performers in the original ''Aerobicise'' show were trained dancers. The performers included
Jane Leeves, Jami Allen, Loryanna Catalano, Deborah Corday, Tina Rocca, Tamarah Park, Beth Farrelly, Amanda Lee, Debbie Bellman, Evangeline Browne, Darcy DeMoss, Lee Nicholl, Dan Peterson, and Adria Wilson.
The uniqueness of the ''Aerobicise'' concept was that it filmed performers using a white turntable floor, which rotated as the exercises were performed, with little narration. A unique soundtrack was also created just for the show. This contrasted with typical exercise videos and TV shows of the day, which were filmed in a typical room with an instructor at the front of the room. The choreographed exercises had the performers in configurations that lent themselves to filming from various angles, including above the turntable. It produced an artistic and even hypnotic approach to exercise programming.
The
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
Copyright Collection has 55 Showtime episodes.
In 1985, Harris wrote the book ''Aerobicise 20 minutes a day'' published and distributed by
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...
in 1986.
The ''Aerobicise'' series was released by
Paramount Home Video
Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, originally Paramount Home Video, and operating as the namesake film studio since 2022) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures.
The division oversees Para ...
between 1982 and 1995 and was available in
LaserDisc
LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
,
CED,
VHS
VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s.
Ma ...
, and
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
formats. In 1983, ''Aerobiscise: The Original Music'' was also sold through the
Ronco label on vinyl and cassette tapes.
Later career and controversy
Years after ''Aerobiscise'' and its spinoffs on network TV had been a great success, Harris decided to jettison fashion and artistic work for pornography in the early days of widespread internet use. In 1996, Harris launched RonHarris.com, an adult-oriented website featuring models between the ages of 18 and 24.
He used his white turntable, formerly used for ''Aerobiscise'', with fully nude models.
In 1999, Harris dipped further into controversy and launched ronsangels.com, a site that, according to the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, offered "the eggs of eight models for auction over the internet" with bids starting "between US$15,000 and US$150,000, depending on the model". Harris describes his idea as, "
Darwin's natural selection at its very best". Critics have stated that this equates to profit-based
eugenics
Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...
. The egg auction portion of site was revealed to be a hoax, a mere publicity stunt designed to drive traffic to Harris' pornographic website, then called eroticboxoffice.com.
In 2013,
American Apparel teamed with Harris to create a
tumblr
Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...
.
References
External links
*
*
Discogs.com - Ron Harris
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Ron
1933 births
2017 deaths
American erotic photographers
American television producers
American sex industry businesspeople
People from the Bronx
American fashion photographers