Oscar-winning director Stephen Soderbergh cast Sasha as the lead in his story of a high-end Manhattan prostitute after reading her profile in a Los Angeles magazine.<\/p>
\"She's kind of a new breed, I think. She doesn't really fit the typical mold of someone who goes into the adult film business. ... I'd never heard anybody talk about the business the way that she talked about it,\" he said.<\/p>","url":"2009/11/16/The-Girlfriend-Experience-05-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Girlfriend Experience 05"},{"captionHeading":"Grey Area","caption":"
Starring in dozens of adult movies since turning 18, Sasha Grey’s Winona Ryder looks meant it was only a matter of time before the mainstream came calling. <\/p>
The Californian actress worked as a waitress in steak houses to save the £7,000 to move to LA and embark on a porn career - whose first film was with Rocco Siffredi - when she was eighteen.<\/p>
However, she is no empty-headed bimbo - she has a strong interest in the films of the French New Wave and before deciding on a stage name toyed with the name of Jean-Luc Godard's ex-wife Anna Karina. She says the name Grey represents two things - Oscar Wilde's Dorian Grey and the Kinsey scale of sexuality (homosexual to heterosexual, a grey scale in-between).<\/p>
An Adult Video News performer of the year, she has appeared in videos for The Smashing Pumpkins and The Roots, making her straight movie debut in the slasher pic Smash Cut.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-sasha-gray-2008-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - sasha gray - 2008"},{"captionHeading":"Porn Again","caption":"
Marilyn Chambers' sad death at the age of 56 on April 12, 2009 saw the adult film industry lose one of its true legends. Chambers also appeared in mainstream movies, and was part of a long, proud tradition of blue movie stars who have downed tools and put the \"sin\" into straight cinema... Enter here for more...<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-marilyn-chambers-2000-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - marilyn chambers - 2000"},{"captionHeading":"Soap Star R.I.P","caption":"
Marilyn Chambers’ entered the world of blue movies after failing to secure straight acting gigs, and starred in the infamous Mitchell Brothers’ 1972 onanism opus Behind the Green Door. That Chambers was once the box girl for Ivory soap powder (tagline: 99 and 44/100% pure) made the film a smash hit, particularly due to a then-shocking interracial love scene. Chambers briefly crossed over to the mainstream with the lead role in David Cronenberg’s Rabid (after first choice Sissy Spacek turned it down), but couldn’t escape her past for most of her career. At the time of her death she was just beginning to settle into a low-key indie film career. Relatively young at 56, no foul play was suspected in her demise.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-marilyn-chambers-1976-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - marilyn chambers - 1976"},{"captionHeading":"A Star Is Porn","caption":"
The enfant terrible of porn stars, literally as Traci Lords was underage for most of her adult film career, during which she was the most famous grot star in the world. Posing for Penthouse aged 16, Lords (real name Norma Kuzma) swiftly moved into adult movies - making at least 20 features, although other sources claim nearer one hundred. Subsequently, Lords has had partial success in the mainstream on TV shows and in B-Movies, usually referring to her past. Her latest appearance is in Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno, in which she predictably plays an adult film actress. But, unlike other legends Ginger Lynn and Marion Chambers who returned to the adult industry, there is more chance of Lords becoming the next US President than making another blue movie.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-traci-lords-2008-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - traci lords - 2008"},{"captionHeading":"A Roll in the Haze","caption":"
Like Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze is a starlet who struck fast and furious (and young, debuting aged 19 in Service Animals 4) and is now flirting with straight cinema. Her filmography, including compilations, boasts around 400 titles, and Haze now seems to be doing her bit to make raunch respectable, appearing as an adult star in Superbad and the upcoming Crank 2.<\/p>
She also made the world's first Blu-movie, with Jenna Haze Oil Orgy adult entertainment's first dip into Blu-ray. It’s a world away from her teenage years when she was the oil changer for a fast food restaurant.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/5/Jenna-Haze-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Jenna Haze"},{"captionHeading":"Tai Me Up, Tai Me Down","caption":"
At 5ft 3inches Kobe Tai is a porn pixie who sizzled for seven sinful years from 1996 – 2003, and has appeared in a handful of movies since, including the delightfully named Retaliasian. Of Taiwanese and Japanese heritage, Kobe, along with fellow decadent diva Asia Carrera, paved the way for Asian actresses such as Kaylani Lei and Tera Patrick to take Tinseltown’s after dark industry by storm in the naughty noughties. <\/p>
But, Tai was memorable as the doomed hooker in Very Bad Things, easily holding her own (in all ways) against character actors Jeremy Piven, John Favreau, and, er, Christian Slater. She also put the wood into Hollywood spoof Mission: Erotica, co-starring with Asia Carrera in what stands proudly as the Heat of skinflicks.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/5/Kobe-Tai-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Kobe Tai"},{"captionHeading":"Morgan Grinder","caption":"
Katie Morgan- who makes her mainstream debut in Zack and Miri Make A Porno - first got involved in the blue movie industry to pay off a bail and plea bargain after being caught smuggling 100lbs of marijuana from Mexico into the US.<\/p>
After making a go of it in Dirty Debutantes 197 she chose the stage name Morgan in honour of the rum and the name Katie after Gone With The Wind's Scarlett O'Hara.<\/p>
Off porn sets, she is well-known for her radio appearances and was named Best Unsung Siren by the X-Rated Critics Association.<\/p>
In Zack and Miri she plays a stripper who is recruited by the pair - played by Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks - to star in their homemade skinflick.<\/p>","url":"2008/11/27/Katie-Morgan.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Katie Morgan"},{"captionHeading":"Queen B","caption":"
Wise beyond her years due to drug addiction, sexual assault and anorexia, Jenna Jameson knew how to commodify herself and became the biggest porn star in town. Her book \"How To Make Love Like A Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale\" is a sobering account of how to make it in the flesh flick business, but Jameson now seems to have gone mainstream as a scream queen in such fare as Zombie Strippers, Sin-Jyn Smith and Horrorween.<\/p>","url":"2008/9/1/Zombie-Strippers-10-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Zombie Strippers 10"},{"captionHeading":"Tender Loving Carrera","caption":"
The MENSA member and gifted pianist rebelled against her Japanese and German parents at 17 and began working as a go-go dancer in New Jersey clubs.<\/p>
After doing a shoot for an adult magazine in 1993, she moved to California and broke into the blue movie industry, starring in more than 250 titles and subsequently becoming involved in writing, producing and directing porn.<\/p>
Although she's kept her thesping talents largely confined to those movies we call blue, Carrera managed to squeeze a small role in the Coen Brothers The Big Lebowski between shooting Chasin' Pink and Samurai Pervert 2.<\/p>
Proving she's a method actress for The Big Lebowski Asia's (uncredited) appearance was as a starlet named Sherry in the hilarious looking spoof grot Logjammin'.<\/p>","url":"2008/11/24/Asia.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Asia"},{"captionHeading":"Got MILF?","caption":"
Radical feminist Nina Hartley is an outspoken advocate for the porn industry and has been a skinflick mainstay since her debut in 1984. A registered nurse, Hartley graduated magna cum laude (stop giggling), but reportedly chose porn over nursing because she didn’t want to watch people die – choosing to suffer “the little death” herself instead. Her role in Boogie Nights as William H. Macy’s derisory, nymphomaniac wife is her only major mainstream role, but proved she could hold her own against some of Hollywood’s finest character actors. She now specialises in MILF and instructional movies.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-nina-hartley-2008-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - nina hartley - 2008"},{"captionHeading":"Italian Stallion","caption":"
The hugely gifted Rocco Siffredi is the mean man of meat movies, so no wonder man-hating director Catherine Breillat cast him as the epitome of male sexuality in depress-fest Romance and as a gay man trying to figure out women in the wrist-cutting Anatomy of Hell. Matinee idol good-looking this Italian Stallion took his professional name from Alain Delon’s character in Borsalino and in Italy has enjoyed mainstream success in commercials. But, his violent adult movies may put you off sex for life.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-rocco-sifredi-1999-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - rocco sifredi - 1999"},{"captionHeading":"Reign of Tera","caption":"
This porn polymath is the love child of many major players who have come before her… With a microbiology degree and fluent Hungarian under her belt, she has the looks and smarts of Asia Carrera, is a registered nurse like legend Nina Hartley, and with the can-do attitude of dirty movie diva Jenna Jameson has risen from cheap gonzo shorts to a contract star with Vivid (the MGM of pornland). <\/p>
One of interactive cinema’s greatest ever actresses, Patrick was a fashion model at 13, took time off to complete her degree, and entered adult art movies at 23. An entrepreneur, she provided expert agony aunt sex advice for FHM magazine, while her mainstream film career extends to documentary talking head spots – including F*ck, a word with which she is intimately familiar. With her retirement from the blue biz planned for 2009, a move into the mainstream must be forthcoming.<\/p>","url":"2009/1/5/Tera-Patrick-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Tera Patrick"},{"captionHeading":"Ginger Nuts","caption":"
The first actress contracted to legendary adult label Vivid (beating out hot favourite Traci Lords), Ginger Lynn used her full name of Ginger Lynn Allen when she embarked upon a mainstream film career. She peaked early with a major role in indie favourite Bound and Gagged: A Love Story, and has since appeared in B-movies such as American Pie: Band Camp and The Devil’s Rejects. The call of adult filmmaking proved too strong and she is currently back in the business.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/20/Porn-Stars-Who-Have-Got-Legit-Ginger-Lynn-Allen-2005-3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Porn Stars Who Have Got Legit - Ginger Lynn Allen - 2005"},{"captionHeading":"The Hedgehog","caption":"
Beloved by grumble film fans everywhere due to his hairy, squat physique and doughy face only a mother (or well-paid performer) could love, when Ron Jeremy attempted to enter the adult film biz something was obviously afoot. Despite holding the Guinness World Record for most blue movies made (1,900), \"the Hedgehog\" has also appeared in music videos and TV shows, while quietly working on a straight acting career with ironically small parts in The Boondock Saints and The Rules of Attraction amongst others. His role in Robert De Niro’s Ronin (directed by frequent Jeremy collaborator John Frankenheimer) was cut at the insistence of the studio.<\/p>