Alleged Hendrix sex film raises disputes.(Arts & Entertainment)

Byline: MIREYA NAVARRO and JEFF LEEDS - New York Times

In a twist on the recent string of sex tapes of Hollywood's young stars, Vivid Entertainment plans to release what it says is a film from the vaults of classic rock: a sex film supposedly of Jimi Hendrix.

The film shows a naked man who resembles Hendrix, the guitar legend who died in 1970, wearing a bandanna in his Afro, having sex with two brunettes in a dimly lighted bedroom. His full face appears on screen for only a few seconds, with his eyes closed. In other portions there are flashes of his profile. But his hands, bedecked with rings, roam large on the screen at times. The film has no audio. Vivid, a large maker of pornographic movies that is releasing the film this week, has created a 45-minute DVD, called "Jimi Hendrix the Sex Tape," that combines 11 minutes of sex footage with a retrospective of Hendrix's career in the 1960s (but with none of his music included). The company, which has released tapes of Kim Kardashian, Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee and others, will sell it for $39.95 in stores and on Internet, and will offer it for downloading.

But the identity of the man in the film, which has circulated among Hendrix aficionados for years, is fiercely disputed by experts and former associates. And the DVD arrives on the heels of a string of hoaxes involving star look-alikes.

Vivid Entertainment said that after an extensive inquiry led by private detective agencies, it stands by the Hendrix film as the real thing. The DVD includes commentary from two women who met Hendrix and say they believe the tape is real: Pamela Des Barres, the author of "I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie" (1987), and Cynthia Albritton, better known as Cynthia Plaster Caster. Albritton is known for doing plaster casts of the genitals of rock stars, including Hendrix in 1968. But Kathy Etchingham, 60, one of Hendrix's steady girlfriends in the '60s, said: "It is not him. His face is too broad and nose and nostrils too wide for Jimi. Also the hair is too low on the forehead. He would never have allowed anyone to see that. In private, he was very shy and would cover up."