It’s understandable that at age 70, Robin Byrd momentarily shows a rare melancholic side while reflecting on the inevitable spread and sag of a body once clad on television in only the skimpiest black crocheted bikini. But it’s triumphantly true to form that she almost instantly shrugs off those concerns and her clothes with them. She strolls down a Fire Island beach, sharing her generous unclad curves with the wind before climbing the stairs to her deck and blowing kisses to the Byrdwatchers, as her fans are known.
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (surely a contender for year’s best title?) salutes a woman who for multiple generations of New Yorkers is as much a part of the city’s iconography as the Chrysler Building. For 21 years, from 1977 to 1998, the self-described “orgy queen” shared her exuberant endorsement of naked bodies, sex-positivity, esoteric erotica, free speech and the full queer spectrum on the pioneering NYC Public Access call-in show that bears her name and can still be seen in reruns.
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story
The Bottom Line
A joyful banger.
