Porn Stars Of The 1980'S
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Porn Stars Of The 1980'S
July 25, 2022 June 15, 2022 by Paul Cassidy
Home - Porn - The Best 80s Porn: Movies & Porn Stars From The 1980s
Looking for the best porn from the 1980s?
With the earlier part of the 1980s seeing the end of the “Golden Age of Porn” and the latter part heralding a major change in filming styles and content, 80s porn has a very distinct feel of its own.
The decade saw the rise of popular porn stars like Tracey Adams, Traci Lords and Ginger Lynn, as well as 80s male porn legends John Holmes and Ron Jeremy. Some of the action can seem cheesy and slapstick compared to modern porn, and ‘big hair’ was certainly the norm – everywhere! But if you’re feeling nostalgic for the 80s, we’ve got the perfect compilation for you…
In this guide, we talk you through the 1980s Porn Scene from its style, producers and studios to the top porn stars and films of the period.
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Any adult content released between 1 January 1980 and 31 st December 1989 can be referred to as 80s porn although some adult content released in the early 1990s may have been filmed during this period.
As a style, it is often referred to as retro (or classic) vintage porn and has typically been produced in either the United States (notably in either San Fernando Valley and New York) or in European porn studios like Private, Video Art Holland and Dorcel.
Primarily using cameras to film the action from a traditional third-person perspective, the style is very much ‘of the period’ and is similar to the kinds of Hollywood movies being produced at the time.
Whilst ‘gonzo porn’ ( POV/voyeur-style ) was being experimented with in Japan, it wouldn’t become a format of choice for mainstream studios until the early 1990s.
Early porn from this decade may have been filmed on 35mm video cameras that required a laborious setting up process . This meant that scenes would need to be filmed over and a single-take scene was almost impossible. Increasingly, as the 80s went on, movies were being shot more quickly and with greater agility for action shots.
Until the late 1970s, if you wanted to watch pornographic films you had to go to a blue movie theater but with advances in technology introducing affordable home VCRs, the 1980s also saw a huge increase in demand for video content.
As a style, 1980s porn pretty much sets the standard when it comes to our expectations of those stereotypes we think of when we imagine porn. With instrumental and seedy sounding soundtracks overlaid with muffled grunts and moans, the lighting is often subdued and atmospheric with the quality of the shots (however hardcore) being less ‘obscured’ than in earlier films of this genre.
However, there can sometimes be less genital action than current standards set. Part of the reason for this is the abundance of pubic hair that was fashionable at the time! We did say big hair was a 1980s thing and this extends to the men’s chest hair as well as the mullets, mustaches and bouffant ‘dos’ sported by the ladies.
Either way, even the close-up shots of full penetration are far less extreme than the hardcore scenes that were to follow in the 1990s and beyond.
Of course, early films of the period were not shot with the same flexibility of camera position that is common today. POV (point-of-view) for instance, although invented by Hitchcock in the 1930s, was virtually impossible to achieve on the low budgets available to directors of porn movies from the eighties.
With the 1980s bridging two periods of porn production (The Golden Age and the Retro/Classic Age), we thought we’d give a little historical background to the industries.
Prior to the technological advancements that the 1980s offered the home video markets, porn producers in the 1970s and earlier were focused on creating content that would be played to movie theaters.
This meant that there was a more limited demand for material as well as the obvious necessity to create content that was mainstream. Films had to be shown to have a strong narrative in order to be played in cinemas so the sex really took a back seat.
Known as the Golden Age of Porn, movies made for the theater were generally filmed with a big budget and had to comply with strict obscenity laws. Movies made in the early part of this decade, particularly by established directors, were still adhering to the ‘porno chic’ genre of the 1970s.
However, with VHS (private viewing) and mail order video growing in appeal, producers and studios were at liberty to create content that was more niche.
The result was a greater mass production of fetish videos or mainstream movies that had a fetish appeal. In fact, porn production rates for all kinds of films were pushed through the roof at the start of the decade and studios could hardly keep up with the demand for new titles including fresh faced newcomers as well as firm fan favorites. New directors emerged on the scene who were experimental with new filming techniques (eg gonzo) and new genres began to emerge including alt-porn.
With demand rising, films were increasingly being made on smaller budgets with shorter timescales and with a rising ‘openly gratuitous’ feel to them. With their films going straight to home release and there being no need for a strong narrative, dialog and plot took a backseat to the main action.
You can see this increase in production rates when you check out sites like the Internet Adult Film Database . Compared to the 1970s, as the eighties progresses, the number of titles rises at an almost exponential rate.
Of course, this technological advancement in cheap and easy filming saw the beginning of another huge change in the porn industry. Though it would be a few decades before the real impact was felt, home video recording was now a possibility and amateur movies also began to flourish in this decade.
However, there was to be a fly in the ointment of this rise in porn production in the form of HIV/AIDS. Though the first cases of the virus were reported in the USA in 1981, the story being peddled by the media and which was believed by the public was that HIV was a ‘gay disease’.
Safe sex campaigns and general awareness began to grow yet the porn industry was largely closed off to the brewing crisis.
However, an outbreak of the virus in the mid-80s saw many big names leave the industry and production rates did slow as a result. According to some reports, more than 25 porn stars died as a result of HIV/AIDS during the 80s including the screen legend John Holmes (1988).
To find out more about what happened to the industry as the 1990s rolled in you can find our full Guide to Nineties Porn here.
Also check out our guides to: the 60s and 70s .
You can’t have a porn scene without the stars and whilst the names of the films themselves might elude you sometimes, most of us will remember the names of our favorite performers.
So, what were the names on everyone’s lips in the 1980s when it came to which VHS to purchase?
Anyone over the age of 40 will probably be familiar with the female porn stars of the 1980s; some in an intimate and nostalgic way. Yet, even millennials will probably know some of the big names of this decade including the notorious Traci Lords , the infamous Cicciolina and the legendary Bambi Woods .
Of course, there are dozens more that you can probably think of an far too many to list here. However, we’ve handpicked some of the biggest names in the adult film industry from the 1980s, each chosen for their own distinct styles, infamy and notoriety.
Have we missed your favorite female porn star of the 1980s? Drop us a comment and tell us who you think should have made the cut.
Working through the mid-1980s and into the 1990s, Tracey Adams appeared in over 300 porn films during her career and also directed a handful of movies.
Unusually for a working porn actor of the time, Adams was also credited in some mainstream movies including Wimps (1986) and Enrapture (1987).
Now retired and living in Hollywood, she was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 1995 and the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2000.
Her best work was in the movie Pretty Peaches Part 2 for which she won an XRCO Award for Best Copulation Scene (1988).
Juliet Anderson was a late starter in the porn film industry, only getting into blue movies at the age of 39 in 1977. During the 1980s, she was a mature performer and she was known for her sex-hungry and giddy on-screen persona ‘Aunt Peg’. She was stuck with this nickname following a scene she filmed for a Swedish Erotica series in which she had sex with her ‘niece’.
Bringing a touch of class mixed with a splash of vaudeville, ‘Aunt Peg’ is known for never faking an orgasm during her career. She was clearly someone who loved her work and she contributed to the industry both on screen and off. She was also a mentor to one of the other 80s porn stars on our list, Nina Hartley, whom remained a close friend up to Anderson’s death in 2010.
Starring in more than 70 adult films, Anderson took a break from her porn career in 1987 when she decided to focus on massage and relationship counselling. However, she returned to the industry in the mid-1990s as a performer, director and producer.
She was awarded an honorary Doctor of the Arts in 2007 by the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and has been inducted into the Halls of Fame at both AVN and XRCO.
She features in some great oral scenes but it would be rude not to check her out in her eponymous role of Aunt Peg:
Performing in over 100 porn movies during the 1980s and 1990s, Christy Canyon has turned her back on the industry three times; each time she has returned to the fold.
Her first stint in the adult movie business was in 1984 when she made her debut with Ron Jeremy in Swedish Erotica 57 . She continued working with Jeremy throughout her career and remains a close friend.
Her second stint was 1989 to 1992 and then she went back in front of the camera between 1995 and 1997. Though now retired from screen she still works in the industry as a host for Vivid Radio and promoting her back catalog of work through the Christy Canyon website .
She has won several industry awards including Fan Favorite and Best Female performer plus she has been inducted into the halls of fame at both AVN and XRCO.
As well as appearing in two of our top picks of best 1980s porn films, Black Throat (1985) and Savage Fury (1985), Canyon also put in some fine performances in:
If you only watch her in one movie then Black Throat is sure to make you an avid fan of her work.
Born in Budapest in 1951, Ilona Staller is better known by her stage name, Cicciolina. The Hungarian settled in Italy with her husband in the early 1970s. It was here that she met the pornographer Ricardo Schicchi whom she eventually worked with when she started her adult film career.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that she starred in her first hardcore movie; the famous Telefono Rosso (Red Telephone).
She continued to make porn movies in Europe but came to prominence in the late 1980s across the Western world when she appeared in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress (1987) with the legendary John Holmes (see below). Though a mediocre film with some highlights, the title gained notoriety for negative reasons as Holmes tested positive for HIV prior to production on it but failed to notify his co-stars.
Elected to parliament in Italy in 1987, she famously offered to have sex with Saddam Hussein in return for peace in the region! Though no longer in office she continues to have a prominent political career, launching a new party in 2012 to promote the opening of new brothels, legalizing same-sex marriage and eliminating the privileges of the echelons of rich politicians.
Staller has been nothing short of a real character during her porn and political careers as well as hitting the headlines in her personal life.
She was married to the American artist Jeff Koons from 1991 to 1994, has been an actor in a Brazilian soap opera and even released several music CDs during the 70s and 80s. Sung to the tunes of popular children’s songs, her explicit lyrics prevented several of these being released in her adopted country, Italy.
Red Telephone is by far her best title and is well worth a watch if you want to sample some European 1980s porn.
Another member of the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame, Lisa De Leeuw has starred in over 200 porn movies during the 1980s although her debut was in 1977 in a film called Feelings II . She worked in the industry right up to 1991 when she disappeared from public view.
It was mistakenly reported that she died of AIDS in 1993 but this was refuted by industry representatives at the time. As with performers like Juliet Anderson, De Leeuw is thought to have hidden herself away from publicity around her porn career and little is known about her current personal life and status.
During her time at the top she won several Best Supporting Actress Awards including one for her role in Raw Heat (1984); this is another of our top picks for the decade and is definitely some of De Leeuw’s finest work.
Born in Harlem in 1952, Del Rio is of mixed Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. Before she started working in the adult film industry she was working as a call girl and go-go dancer.
Known for her enlarged clitoris, Del Rio started out in 1974 appearing in more than 100 porno films until she retired in 1986. Her withdrawal from the industry coincided with the AIDS outbreak that was prevalent in the porn scene at the time.
Highlights of her career include one of our favorite titles of the 1980s, Dracula Exotica (1980) in which she played Vita Valdez. The role earned her a CAFA award for Best Supporting Actress.
She has since been inducted into both the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame and dips back into the industry now and again, sometimes appearing at conventions and award shows.
Appearing in her first movie in 1983, Diamond is known by several pseudonyms including Josi Emerson, Debi Hanson, Shelly Rae, Debbie Lester and Miss D.D.
She worked right through the 80s and 90s gaining an avid fan following in the mid-nineties specifically for her group sex scenes.
She bowed out of the adult film industry in the late 1990s before surprising her fans with an unexpected reappearance onto the scene in 2008. Performing for the cameras for the first time in a decade in the Zero Tolerance Entertainment title You’ve Got a Mother Thing Cumming 3, Diamond’s return was a big publicity stunt for her own directorial career.
Launching her own studio in 2010 ( Debi Diamond Films ), she focused on creating FemDom content for a few years before going quiet again.
She is yet another AVN and XRCO Hall of Fame inductee as well as the winner of several adult film industry awards.
Diamond also appeared in one of our top pick films of the 80s, Talk Dirty To Me Part III (1984).
Started her porn career in 1984, Nina Hartley was working under the tutelage of Juliet Anderson (see above) in her eponymous role in the film Educating Nina . Still making porn movies, Hartley is one of the longest active porn performers in the industry. Though most of her current work is in the ‘Mature’ genre, even at 60 years’ old she is still one hot woman.
As well as being active in the adult film industry she is a sex-positive educator and feminist having produced her own series of instructional videos covering topics from fetishes to basic sexual intercourse. Hartley has also written a best-selling book, Nina Hartley’s Guide to Total Sex (2006) and co-authored a series entitled How To Be Kinkier (2012 onwards).
Liberal and outspoken, she is well known in the media as a ‘go-to’ for an opinion on the adult industry and can often be seen on news and talks shows representing the pro-porn angle.
Her trademark ‘baby-blue eyes’, bubble butt and narrow waist made her an obvious front runner when it came to the casting couch and she was a firm favorite of many guys (and gals – she is openly bisexual in her private life) during the 1980s. She’s worked on more than 1,000 films and has even directed a dozen or so.
Hartley has won a lot of awards during her four decades in the industry including F.O.X.E. Female Fan Favorite 1990, 1991 and 1992 as well as several Lifetime Achievement Awards. She s also in both the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame.
Though her best work is undoubtedly Every Woman Has A Fantasy 2 (1987), she was also in a spin-off parody series based on the Debbie Does Dallas films, the best of which is Debbie Duz Dishes ( 1986). It’s a great example of the style of 80s porn and the sense of humor for which it is widely known. We can also recommend her debut movie, Educating Nina .
With a Cherokee heritage, Hyapatia Lee was the only Native American porn star of her time. She made her debut in Naughty Girls Need Love Too which was released in 1983. She continued working in the industry throughout the 1980s and early 1990s before in 1993.
Her husband, Bud Lee, was a prominent adult film director and he cast her in several of his own movies.
Her most notable work was a film that she and her husband worked on together for which she wrote the screenplay. The film, The Ribald Tales of Canterbury , was released in 1985 and was the second most expensive porno film ever produced at the time. It wasn’t a huge success but was generally well received by existing fans of Lee. If you want to see her in some of her best scenes then check out any of the eponymous movies that bear her name in the title role, including:
Lee has won several awards over her career including a Best Actress AVN award for her role in the 1990 film Masseuse. And, of course, she is also an inductee in the halls of fame at AVN and XRCO.
Claiming to be 18 at the time she started out her career in porn, Traci Lords is one of the most infamous names in the industry. Just a few years into her film career, it was revealed that Lords had been just 16 years old when she first appeared on screen in a hardcore role. The revelation was (rightly) an utter scandal and rocked the industry to its core.
Her first sex role was in the sequel to the popular porn film Talk Dirty To Me Part III in which she performed with John Leslie. The title won an AVN Award for Best Movie but is credited more for being that film which sparked the controversy – Leslie was 23 years older than, the then 16-year-old, Lords.
One of the highest paid actresses of the decade and in huge demand, she starred alongside fellow performers like Ginger Lynn, Tom Byron and Harry Reems.
When the news broke that Lords was underage when most of her films were made, a scramble to clear the shelves of her hardcore work ensued at every U.S. porn shop. The only title that is still available to legally purchase is Traci, I Love You which was filmed two days after her 18 th birthday.
Taken into protective custody, the owners of her movie agency were arrested and the mass withdrawal of movies in which she featured plus re-editing to take her out of the back catalog reportedly cost the industry millions and millions of dollars.
Though she was asked to perform in many pornos after she was 18, Lords declined and Traci, I Love You was her last adult content movie. However, the ‘Princess of Porn’ went on to a mainstream, acting career appearing in Cry Baby (1990), Blade (1998) and the TV series Melrose Place as well as other movies.
She has pursued a career in the music industry as well designing her own line of fashion for Pin-Up Girl clothing.
Though her career in the por
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