Seeing as Kevin Smith’s new movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno premieres tomorrow, it’s only appropriate to note the death of writer-director Gerard Damiano. Who is Gerard Damiano, you ask? Per the New York Times this week:

Gerard Damiano, a hairdresser turned filmmaker whose best-known work, “Deep Throat,” created sensation in every possible meaning of the term when it was released in 1972, died on Saturday in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 80 and had lived in Fort Myers in recent years.

Written and directed by Mr. Damiano under the name Jerry Gerard, “Deep Throat” was “pornography’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ in terms of grosses,” The New York Times wrote in 1973. It attained emblematic status as one of the first hard-core films to reach a wide general audience, from self-conscious Middle Americans to self-congratulatory celebrities. “Porno chic,” the news media often called it.

Here is an absolutely astonishing fact:

“Deep Throat” was shot in six days for not much more than $25,000 — money put up, as has been widely reported, by associates of the Colombo crime family. By 2005 it had grossed more than $600 million, Entertainment Weekly reported.

Somebody with math skills please figure out what percentage ROI that is. Whatever the amount, it has to be a cinematic record.

UPDATE: Saw this item on Baseline today:

Courtney Love is attached to star in the biopic LOVELACE, which is in development with Blumhouse and Untitled Entertainment. The screenplay, chronicling the life of the late DEEP THROAT star, was written by Merritt Johnson.