Marilyn Ann Taylor, known professionally as Marilyn Chambers, was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, model, actress and vice-presidential candidate. She was known for her 1972 hardcore film debut, Behind the Green Door, and her 1980 pornographic film Insatiable. She ranked at No. 6 on the list of Top 50 Porn Stars of All Time by AVN, and ranked as one of Playboy's Top 100 Sex Stars of the Century in 1999. Although she was primarily known for her adult film work, she made a successful transition to mainstream projects and has been called "porn's most famous crossover".
Seka also known as Dorothea Hundley Patton, is an entrepreneur and retired American pornographic actress who performed full-time from 1977 to 1982, and on a limited basis in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. She was known as the Platinum Princess of Porn. In 2013, she released her autobiography about her life and career, titled Inside Seka.
Herbert John Streicher, better known by his professional pseudonym Harry Reems, was an American pornographic actor and later a successful real estate agent. His most famous roles were as Doctor Young in the 1972 pornographic cult classic Deep Throat and The Teacher in the 1973 classic The Devil in Miss Jones. Throughout the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, he was one of the most prolific performers in the adult film industry. He became the first American actor to be prosecuted solely for appearing in a film. He retired from the industry in 1985.
Shelley Bob Graham, known professionally as Georgina Spelvin, is a former American actress and pornographic performer who is best known as the star of the classic 1973 pornographic film The Devil in Miss Jones, released during the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984).
A sexploitation film is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films. The term "sexploitation" has been used since the 1940s. Sexploitation films were generally exhibited in urban grindhouse theatres, the precursor to the adult movie theaters of the 1970s and 1980s that featured hardcore pornography content. The term soft-core is often used to designate non-explicit sexploitation films after the general legalisation of hardcore content. Nudist films are often considered to be subgenres of the sex-exploitation genre as well. "Nudie" films and "Nudie-cuties" are associated genres.
Paul Thomas is an American pornographic film actor and director. He is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame.
Joseph W. Sarno was an American film director and screenwriter.
Robert Charles Kerman, also known as R. Bolla, was an American actor who had a noted pornographic acting career during what is considered to be the "golden age" period of the porn film industry during the mid-1970s to the early/mid-1980s. He grew up in a middle-class Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. As R. Bolla, he appeared in well over 100 pornographic films, most famously Debbie Does Dallas (1978). He was one of few adult performers to have an appreciable mainstream acting career, with his most widely known leading role being Professor Harold Monroe in the controversial horror film Cannibal Holocaust (1980).
John Leslie Nuzzo was an American pornographic film actor-director-producer. Usually credited under the name John Leslie, he also worked under a variety of pseudonyms, including John Leslie Dupre, Frederick Watson, and Lenny Lovely.
Joanna Mostov, known professionally as Joanna Angel, is an American pornographic and mainstream actress, director, and writer of adult films. She founded the website BurningAngel.com in April 2002 with her roommate Mitch Fontaine, and has been credited with helping the growth of the alt porn genre. Launched as a response to websites such as SuicideGirls, the website featured alternative performers acting in exclusively hardcore scenes with a stronger focus on a punk aesthetic.
Jennifer Welles was an American former pornographic actress in films of the 1970s, although she began her acting career in the late 1960s in the softcore sexploitation genre films produced in New York. Some of these include: Sex by Advertisement (1967), Career Bed, Submission, and This Sporting House, by pornographic film director Henri Pachard.
The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American pornography, in which sexually explicit films experienced positive attention from mainstream cinemas, movie critics, and the general public. This American period, which had subsequently spread internationally, and that began before the legalization of pornography in Denmark on July 1, 1969, started on June 12, 1969, with the theatrical release of the film Blue Movie directed by Andy Warhol, and, somewhat later, with the release of the 1970 film Mona produced by Bill Osco. These films were the first adult erotic films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. Both influenced the making of films such as 1972's Deep Throat starring Linda Lovelace and directed by Gerard Damiano, Behind the Green Door starring Marilyn Chambers and directed by the Mitchell brothers, 1973's The Devil in Miss Jones also by Damiano, and 1976's The Opening of Misty Beethoven by Radley Metzger. According to Warhol, Blue Movie was a major influence in the making of Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released a few years after Blue Movie was shown in theaters.
A pornographic film actor or actress, adult entertainer, or porn star is a person who performs sex acts in video that is usually characterized as a pornographic movie. Such videos tend to be made in a number of distinct pornographic subgenres and attempt to present a sexual fantasy; the actors selected for a particular role are primarily selected on their ability to create or fit that fantasy. Pornographic videos are characterised as either softcore, which does not contain depictions of sexual penetration or extreme fetishism, and hardcore, which can contain depictions of penetration or extreme fetishism, or both. The genres and sexual intensity of videos is mainly determined by demand. Depending on the genre of the film, the on-screen appearance, age, and physical features of the main actors and their ability to create the sexual mood of the video is of critical importance. Most actors specialize in certain genres, such as straight sex, bisexual sex, gay sex, lesbian sex, bondage, strap-on sex, anal sex, double penetration, semen swallowing, teenage women, orgy sex, age roleplay sex, fauxcest sex, interracial or MILFs and much more.
Alexis Texas is an American retired pornographic actress. In 2020, Texas was characterized as one of "the most popular porn performers" based on her Instagram following of around 3.8 million. She was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2022.
Adam Diksa, known professionally as Keiran Lee, is a British pornographic actor, director, and producer who works mainly for pornographic production company Brazzers. His penis was insured for $1 million in 2012 by Brazzers. He is one of the highest paid pornographic actors. He received several adult film industry awards including AVN Award for Favourite Male Performer in 2017 and UK Adult Film and Television Award for Best Male Actor in 2007.
Jiz Lee is an American pornographic performer, considered a major star of queer porn. Lee is an advocate for the ethical production and consumption of pornography and for the labor rights and sexual autonomy of adult entertainment performers.
Rebecca Brooke was an American former pornographic film actress and model who specialized in sexploitation films, including both hardcore and softcore pornography in the 1970s. Vern L. Bullough wrote that Brooke was "one of the true beauties to grace the porn screen."
Dana Vespoli is an American pornographic actress and film director.
Mike Adriano is a pornographic actor and director. He has been nominated for best director awards at several recent AVN Award, XBIZ Award and XRCO Award ceremonies.
Bat Pussy is an American pornographic film, believed to have been produced and possibly released in the early 1970s. Ostensibly a spoof of the 1966–1968 Batman television series, it has been cited as the earliest example of a pornographic parody film and more infamously considered to be the worst pornographic film ever made.
