From Porn to Mainstream

[gonzo]

On the Showtime reality series chronicling the making of the adult video Debbie Does Dallas... Again, the sloe-eyed porn actress Cassidey disparaged the ambitions of Debbie lead Stefani Morgan, whose entrée into porn had come via some relatively chaste appearances in Girls Gone Wild videos. "She thinks she's gonna get into mainstream through porn," Cassidey scoffed.

"Nobody ever gets into mainstream through porn."

Who knows just what personal bitterness Cassidey spoke from? After all, she herself was co-starring in Debbie after she had retired from, and then come back, to porn. Like Morgan (who recently retired from porn and described herself as "scarred for life" as she did so), she has looks that say "girl next door" rather than "smut queen." But while recent advances in sexual frankness onscreen seem to be constantly bringing porn and mainstream entertainment closer and closer together, crossing over remains an elusive dream for performers who come up through the world of adult. IS there a double standard? Given that the likes of Kerry Fox, Mark Rylance, and Chloë Sevigny, to name just a few well-regarded actors, have appeared in explicit unsimulated sex scenes and not been tagged with some sort of career stigma suggests there is. But it's a little more complicated than that.

Ironically, in the era of porno chic that began with 1972's Deep Throat, porn films were stocked with trained performers who weren't getting enough "legit" work. Mike Horner was an operatic tenor. Future director (he's the man behind the camera for Debbie Does Dallas... Again) Paul Thomas was in a touring company of Jesus Christ Superstar. Ron Jeremy, not yet round enough to be called "The Hedgehog," proudly received his SAG card after doing extra work in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (he didn't make the final cut). It was not unusual, on a New York City porn set, to see most of the performers doing the New York Times crossword puzzle on their lunch breaks. Once the industry made its move out to California for good, the ranks of porn performers began to be filled with individuals who, we should be frank, often did not have much talent extending beyond the ability to credibly participate in sex acts in front of a camera. While the culture has gotten to the point that porn people are more visible in mainstream media than ever (VH1 and Howard Stern have provided semi-regular outlets for the likes of, say, a Tera Patrick, while Showtime's done reality shows on both the aforementioned Debbie and the porn actor/producer known as Seymore Butts) this fact has only made a particular line of demarcation more definite.
The latest performer making a serious, or perhaps we should just say earnest, stab at post-porn mainstream fame is Jenna Jameson, possibly the world's most famous contemporary porn star. She retired from hardcore a couple of years back (not before caching a fair amount of footage for gradual release over time) and now stars in the horror satire Zombie Strippers,
costarring Robert Englund of Nightmare on Elm Street fame. Before further examining her case, let's look at some of the cautionary tales of sex stars trying to get some respect.

http://www.premiere.com/features/452...ll-it-off.html