Vintage and Classic Pornstars of the 70's and 80's

John Holmes
He was (and still is) the king of porn. The crown was heavy on his head and his fame didn't shelter him from the self-destructive tendencies that ultimately were his downfall. His 13 1/2-inch cock is one of porn's landmarks, a physical monument that Holmes wielded with pride as he blazed a trail that every other man who fucks on camera follows. He was the first male porn superstar and he remains the most famous male porn performer ever. He played porn's first continuing character, Johnny Wadd - a hardboiled, hardcore detective who scored with every chick who crossed his path, and he made hundreds of other films. Holmes was a gangly, skinny man who came across as non-threatening with a crooked, warm smile, and audiences just couldn't get enough of his work. He wasn't a pretty guy and that bonded him with viewers who wanted to fuck in their fantasies through his big cock. It is hardly a surprise that the mainstream's most successful movie about adult, Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 Boogie Nights, was loosely based on Holmes. Holmes was a chronic liar, but one who used his real name in his movies, as he was proud of them. Big cocks come and go, but 13 years after his death from AIDS, Holmes' continues to tower above all the rest.

Ron Jeremy
Ron Jeremy is the most recognizable porn ambassador to the world. From his first impression in 1978 when a girlfriend of his sent his nude photo to Playgirl magazine for its "Boy Next Door" feature to his current status as a Metro contract player, Jeremy has been in the public eye as an adult performer for over 20 years. He brings a professional actor's energy and vitality to everything he does, from hosting a nude beauty pageant to performing a small part in a music video to doing a sex scene with a girl who wasn't even born when he got into the adult business. Virtually everywhere he goes, he is recognized.
"It's like going someplace with Jesus," one porn writer said after taking a late-night excursion with him to a restaurant. "Everybody wanted to shake his hand, and the crowd parted before him as he walked through them." Aside from his lengthy porn career, performing in over 1,600 productions and directing more than 100, Ron has also worked in mainstream, acting in small parts in dozens of studio and independent films and music videos. He was also a consultant on the mainstream films Boogie Nights and 9 1/2 Weeks. Most recently, the AVN Hall of Famer's life has been examined in the documentary film, Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy, which opened in art theaters in November.

Traci Lords
An industry pariah, Traci Lords almost brought it down single-handedly in the mid-1980s when it came to light that she had performed in dozens of titles while underage. All of Lords' underage work was immediately pulled from the market and destroyed, costing the industry millions of dollars. As a result, more stringent proof-of-age requirements were instituted industry-wide and remain in effect to this day. A single title she made after hitting her 18th birthday - Traci, I Love You - is her sole adult tape one can view legally. After being shown the adult door, Lords used her notoriety to launch a successful mainstream acting career, garnering roles in, among other films, John Waters' Cry Baby, the Wesley Snipes vampire thriller Blade, and the Sci-Fi Channel series First Wave. Her most famous role, however, that of 1980s underage porn queen, is mentioned nowhere on her official Website biography.

Linda Lovelace
Thirty years after Deep Throat made her the first female porn star, Linda Lovelace remains among the most well known names in adult film history. Her starring role in the Gerard Damiano classic made her an instant celebrity; she was the world's first porn star and an emblem of '70s porno chic. Almost overnight, she went from the shady, illegal world of early New York underground loops to appearing on talk shows and making the scene at the Playboy Mansion; as documented in Eric Danville's recent book The Complete Linda Lovelace, she became a part of the American pop culture lexicon.
During her porn heyday, Lovelace soaked up the limelight as a self-proclaimed nympho, but her 1979 book Ordeal presented a radically different version of events. Stating that she was the victim of coercion and abuse at the hands of manager Chuck Traynor, Lovelace emerged as one of porn's most outspoken opponents. She testified against the industry and followed Ordeal with another memoir, Out of Bondage. Though Lovelace remains firm in her anti-porn stance, she did pose for a layout in the January 2001 issue of Leg Show... go figure.

Marilyn Chambers
One of the main figureheads of the '70s Golden Age, Marilyn Chambers made her first impression in the Mitchell Brothers' classic 1972 film Behind The Green Door, following that dialogue-less performance with an impressive acting performance in The Resurrection of Eve the next year. These porn performances contrasted with the pert-young-mother image she projected on the box of Ivory Snow that she had posed for as a model a while before, leading an embarrassed Procter & Gamble to redesign the box with an illustration. In the afterglow of porno chic she appeared in such mainstream B-movies as Rabid, directed by David Cronenberg, and The Angel of H.E.A.T., but she kept working in adult as well, and surprised many people by signing a VCA contract in 1998, making Still Insatiable, Dark Chambers and Edge Play with fellow Golden Age performer, now director, Veronica Hart.

Ginger Lynn
For many who fondly remember the "golden age" of adult video in the early 1980s, one star stands out above all: Ginger Lynn. An excellent actress, Lynn made just 75 features, several as the first Vivid Girl, working for the company she helped found. Lynn was the quintessential "girl next door;" a beauty whose sexuality smoldered just below the surface until it exploded on-screen with such famous partners as John Holmes, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis and John Leslie, for directors like Bruce Seven, Henri Pachard, Alex deRenzy and Greg Dark, and most recently, Veronica Hart. "I never thought of myself as a star in general," Ginger said in a 1999 interview. "So to say I'm a living legend - I think of myself as Ginger Lynn Allen from Rockford, Illinois; I made some movies, had a great time, and so, the whole star status, the whole 'legend' thing is kind of a surprise to me." In 1986, Ginger moved on to Hollywood, where she had starring roles in the Vice Academy series, in Bound & Gagged: A Love Story, and had lesser parts in a variety of TV shows and movies. But without mega-star status, mainstream work was always hit-and-miss, so in 1999, she decided to return to the industry that still idolized her. "Just because I fuck on film doesn't mean I can't act," she said in response to charges that she couldn't make the grade in Hollywood. "But let's be realistic here: If Hollywood would have given me Meg Ryan roles, I wouldn't be doing porno again."

Vanessa Del Rio
Back in the day, the first - and still the best known - Latina porn queen, voluptuous Vanessa del Rio, set the standard for female on-camera nastiness.
Few performers to this day can capture the raw animal heat that wafted off the super-sultry half Puerto Rican/half Cuban bombshell. Maybe because this was one smut slut who actually loved her work. Asked on her Website - www.vanessadelrio.com - if she enjoyed doing porn, she answered, "Are you serious? Didn't I look like I was enjoying it, huh? What a dumb question! Twelve years of sucking cock and stretching my mouth til my features were distorted and my eyes rolled back in my head and you ask me if I enjoyed it?" Even though del Rio retired in the mid-1980s due to her fear of contracting AIDS, she remains immensely popular - a tribute to her trailblazing impact. Of her close to 200 titles, she names as her favorites her very first porno - 1974's China Doll - plus Filthy Rich, Dracula Exotic, the Dancers, Pink Ladies and Deep Inside Vanessa. She also appeared in such classics as Babylon Pink, Her Name Was Lisa and Devil in Miss Jones 3. Del Rio was - and remains - the embodiment of lust.

Nina Hartley
Nina Hartley, besides possessing what is widely reputed to be the "best ass in porn," is also one of the industry's brightest stars. A nurse by training and porn aficionado by inclination - Nina was greatly turned on by her first viewing, in a Berkeley theater, of Autobiography of a Flea - Hartley was recruited to on-camera sexwork in 1983 by Juliet "Aunt Peg" Anderson for Anderson's directorial debut, Educating Nina. Since then, in addition to appearing in over 500 XXX features and winning five AVN Awards, Nina has pursued a successful dancing career; directed the popular Nina Hartley's Guide series for Adam & Eve Productions; co-created (with Sharon Mitchell) an orientation tape that's a must-see for incoming porn actresses; been an invited guest at numerous sexuality symposia and on various radio and TV talk shows; and even snagged a key role in the John Holmes-inspired mainstream film, Boogie Nights. If that ain't impact, we don't know what is.

Teri Weigel
From Playboy's Miss April 1986 to host of AVN's 2002 Awards Show, Teri Weigel took an unorthodox road into adult. After making appearances in over 45 mainstream films, plus television shows like Married... with Children, she made her first adult film in 1991 and has been active on the adult side ever since, performing in films and videos and dancing on the road. She's currently under a 12-picture contract with K-Beech and is still the only one of the over 500 Playboy Playmates to do hardcore porn. God bless her...

Seka
Before other girls known only by one name, there was Seka, the platinum blonde who blazed onto the screen in the late-'70s, made the golden age of the industry shine and was one of the first real superstars of the adult industry who people asked for by name. Her scenes, particularly with the late John Holmes, burned her into the memory of adult aficionados everywhere, with such titles as Caballero Video's Swedish Erotica series, and Inside Seka.
The AVN Hall of Famer also stood out in her titles with John Holmes, which includes Bob Chinn's Blonde Fire and Angel in Mr. Holmes. While most names in adult are forgotten in six months, Seka's name lives on.

Sharon Mitchell
She prefers a "Miss" at the front - has a career spanning almost 25 years in the adult video industry, winning AVN's first Best Actress - Film award in 1983, but perhaps her most important work has been accomplished since she retired from on-camera sex work nearly three years ago. It was Mitchell who, in 1998, worked tirelessly to trace the source of an HIV infection that threatened to sweep through the adult industry, and which could have signaled the end of adult video as we know it. Working at that time under the auspices of Protecting Adult Welfare, Mitchell broke away from that organization and formed the Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Foundation, which now performs the majority of the HIV testing in the industry.