William Mishkin(1908-1997)

William Mishkin was a major distributor of sex-oriented exploitation films in New York in the 1950s and '60s. His companies, William Mishkin Motion Pictures and Constitution Films, were responsible for distributing and in some cases financing films by 'Gerald Intrator' (Strip-Poker (1963) and The Sexperts: Touched by Temptation (1965)) and several now lost films by Andy Milligan. He was a significant distributor of burlesque films in the New York market in the 1950s and was famous for importing relatively tame European features and dressing them up for US release with salacious titles and lurid advertising campaigns. Essentially conservative, his career tapered off around the time of the rise of hardcore. His son Lew Mishkin took control of the company during the 1970s and quickly drove it into the ground.