LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A videotape said to show rock guitar great Jimi Hendrix having sex with two women was released for sale on the Internet on Tuesday, following a wave of stars, alive and dead, showing up in homemade porn.
The 11 minutes of footage of a man resembling Hendrix cavorting with two unidentified brunettes in a dimly lit bedroom is packaged in a 45-minute DVD distributed by Los Angeles adult-film studio Vivid Entertainment.
Vivid, which also distributed the notorious sex tape of actress Pamela Anderson and rocker Tommy Lee, among others, said in a press release that its Hendrix footage was shot about 40 years ago in a hotel room and was unearthed by a rock 'n' roll memorabilia collector.
Hendrix, considered one the greatest rock guitarists of all time with such hits as "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze" and "Foxy Lady," died in 1970 at age 27 in London.
"This new movie shows that Jimi Hendrix could have been as great a porn star as he was a rock star," Vivid co-chairman, Steven Hirsch, said in the release.
The film's authenticity, however, was immediately challenged by some. The musician's longtime girlfriend during the 1960s, Kathy Etchingham, told the New York Times after viewing still photos taken from the footage: "It is not him."
"His face is too broad and nose and nostrils too wide for Jimi," she was quoted as telling the Times via e-mail.
Charles R. Cross, author of the noted Hendrix biography "Room Full of Mirrors," also disputed the identity of the man in the tape, who sports a large Afro hairstyle and head band.
