Jim Mitchell; helped create adult-film empire

LOS ANGELES -- Jim Mitchell, who developed a multimillion- dollar adult film empire with his younger brother, Artie, and was later convicted of killing him, has died. He was 63.

Mr. Mitchell died Thursday night at his ranch near Petaluma. The cause of death was not immediately known, but foul play was not suspected, said a spokesman for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department.

An autopsy was conducted on Friday, but results were not available.

The dramatic rise and fall of the Mitchell brothers was chronicled in books, the Showtime movie "Rated X," and in countless newspaper and magazine articles.

In the 1960s and 1970s, they produced a string of adult film hits that included "Resurrection of Eve" and "Sodom and Gomorrah: The Last 7 Days."

But their most famous and financially successful film was "Behind the Green Door" starring Marilyn Chambers, who previously had worked as a model in Ivory Soap ads. That movie, which cost about $60,000 to make, reportedly earned $25 million.

From their offices atop the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, a combination movie-and-stage show emporium that opened in 1969 and was called the "Carnegie Hall of Sex," the brothers built an empire that at one time included 11 movie theaters, as well as movie and video production, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times in 1991.

Their success brought instant recognition from the police, who constantly raided their theaters on various morals charges. The brothers were no strangers to arrest and, at the height of their career, were said to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on legal expenses. One of their longest-lasting legal disputes was a 10-year battle with the City of Santa Ana over one of their adult theaters.

In San Francisco, the brothers displayed a keen knack for appearing more naughty than nasty. They supported causes such as saving the whales and the rain forests and once demanded that television host Geraldo Rivera donate $15,000 to AIDS-related charities before filming their strip shows for television.

They also attracted a variety of friends, including Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton; an up-and-coming writer named Hunter S. Thompson, who worked for them briefly as night manager of the O'Farrell; and counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.

Others in the city were not pleased by their business endeavors and tried to close them down. One was Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who was then on the Board of Supervisors and later the city's mayor. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, their response to her campaign was to put her private phone number on the O'Farrell marquee with the message: "For a Good Time, Call."

The brothers' personal lives were as complicated and expensive as their business dealings. Seemingly inseparable, both were married and divorced multiple times and fathered numerous children. Jim was relatively quiet, while Artie was known as the party guy. But at 45, Artie was caught in a spiral of drug and alcohol abuse that prosecutors later said led to increasingly erratic behavior and disrupted the business.

Their empire came crashing down on Feb. 27, 1991, when Jim, armed with a pistol and a rifle, went to his brother's home in the Marin County community of Corte Madera and fatally shot him.

Prosecutors said the killing was a cold-blooded act sparked by a dispute between the brothers over the future of the business.

Mr. Mitchell claimed that the shooting was an accident that happened when he was trying to persuade Artie to seek treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.

Convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Jim was sentenced to six years at San Quentin State Prison but served less than three years. Several of his brother's children filed wrongful death suits against him that eventually were settled out of court.

A film based on their lives, "Rated X," appeared on Showtime in 2000. Directed by Emilio Estevez, it starred Estevez as Jim and his own brother, Charlie Sheen, as Artie.

After his release in 1997 from prison, Mr. Mitchell lived quietly, raising horses at his Petaluma ranch.