Before there was YouTube, or OnlyFans, there was Robin Byrd.
From 1977 to 1998, the actress was also the queen of New York City’s weirdest late-night talk show on public access Channel J. “The Robin Bird Show” aired in reruns for years afterward, hosting porn stars, strippers and downtown weirdos, literally bringing everyone together.
And when cable provider Time Warner tried to scramble its content, Bird fought the company all the way to the Supreme Court and won the free speech battle.
But Byrd, now 69, has no desire for revenge. The fact that Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns her nemesis, is now distributing a documentary about her “isn’t revenge. It’s karma,” she told Page Six.
There’s even a nice Hollywood sheen to this doc. Co-produced by Sarah Jessica Parker. The show, which premieres Tuesday on HBO, is called “Bun My Box: The Robin Bird Story,” after the “Bun My Box” theme song that concludes each episode of the show, and features group dances and often live striptease.
The film, directed by Jillian Gunther and Stephanie Schwamm, is a loving look back at the Manhattan native’s life as a local icon who preached safe sex at a time when AIDS was terrorizing the city.
Despite Bird’s bubbly personality, it wasn’t an easy start.
Raised on the Upper East Side, her adoptive father, an antiques dealer, died when she was 8 years old, and when she was 13 she was kicked out of the house by the woman she calls “Mom Dearest.” After spending a few days in Central Park, Bird, who refers to her adopted sister as a “bad seed” in the film, moved in with a friend, then her boyfriend, and took on sex work to support herself.
“It was the ’60s, peace, love and no war…and I was a very whiny hippie,” she said.
She attended a school of visual arts, worked as a nude model in art class, and also appeared in several adult films, including the role of Mrs. Hardwick in the infamous “Debbie Does Dallas.”
But Bird’s real fame came in 1977 when she opened her show on Channel J wearing her signature black crochet bikini.
“I was the Damon Runyon of my time,” she said of the legendary Prohibition-era writer whose stories about Broadway hustlers and silly girls inspired “Guys and Dolls.”
“I went to each (strip club), and each establishment had a choice of stars that I would take with them,” she said of booking guests.
Filmed on one of the lowest-budget sets I’ve ever seen, the show was proudly goofy and never took itself seriously.
“I live a happy life and share my love with everyone,” Bird said. “It’s easy to love. Love is love, and it’s much easier than hate.”
She may have been unknown outside of New York City, but she was a celebrity here, photographed by Richard Avedon in the New Yorker and impersonated by Cheri Oteri on “Saturday Night Live.”
“We were filming on Fire Island and a man in his 70s came up to us and said, ‘I’m so glad you made this movie,'” co-director Schwam recalled. “Because in the ’80s, when sex was a death sentence, Robin made us feel less alone.”
And when Time Warner took steps to scramble adult content unless subscribers submitted a written request to the contrary, Al Goldstein, the publisher of Bird and Screw magazine who also had an adult talk show on Channel J, filed a lawsuit in response, and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the company’s request violated the First Amendment.
But what viewers never got to see was Bird’s unlikely love story.
“Everyone has their own idea of who I am and what I do, and that’s not really the case,” she told Page Six.
Although she describes herself as bisexual, she is married to a man named Shelley, with whom she has been dating since 1974 and whom she calls “the love of my life.”
“He’s very soft, sensitive, caring, concerned. He’s like my little Jewish mother,” Bird said.
Sherry, now 86, suffers from dementia and Bird is her full-time caregiver at her home on Fire Island. She confesses that it’s “hard to see him the way he is now,” but they say they are “always laughing and joking and having fun.”
The couple’s love for each other is evident throughout the film.
“We fell in love with Shelly right away,” co-director Gunther told the Post. “You could feel his love for her and her love for him… For us, this love story was a gift from the universe. I think this piece of history that we created was filled with heart and soul.”
