At first blush, Robin Byrd and George Carroll Whipple III could not be more different. Byrd, an adoptee born and raised in Manhattan, ran away from home at the age of 13. Whipple, a descendant of not one but three signers of the Declaration of Independence, ran for town supervisor of Kent, NY, at 14. In the late '70s, Byrd appeared in the porno classic "Debbie Does Dallas"; Whipple, a Choate alum, graduated from Columbia. Byrd is a self-described former "orgy queen"; Whipple calls himself "extremely private."
What they have in common, first and foremost, is that they both found a home on New York City cable television. Byrd was the crochet-bikinied, sex-positive creator, producer, and host of "The Robin Byrd Show," a softcore late-night public access call-in show from 1977 to 1998. Her guests included strippers, porn stars, performance artists, and the occasional downtown celebrity (Sandra Bernhard, Michael Musto). Full frontal was the norm. Meanwhile, the prodigiously eyebrowed Whipple, an employment lawyer who still practices, has been the red-carpet reporter on NY1 News since 1994, interviewing pretty much every Hollywood luminary imaginable.
Now both, at the age of 71, are the subject of documentaries that premiered this month at the Tribeca Festival. "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story"—the title comes from Byrd's novelty song "Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box" that featured in the bawdy dance segment at the end of every episode—was directed by Jyllian Gunther and Stephanie Schwam and counts Sarah Jessica Parker as a producer. It hits HBO Max on Friday, June 30. Meanwhile, "Whipple's World," directed by Adam Paul Verity, is still seeking distribution.
Byrd and Whipple, who've known each other casually for decades, recently met up at Gunther's SoHo loft, where they discussed their respective documentaries, debated the safety of New York in the '70s, and shared amusing penis anecdotes. As Byrd herself would instruct viewers at the beginning of every show: Lie back, get comfortable.