"Legitimate" Hollywood is filled with many Grand Dames such as Katherine Hepburn, Betty Davis, Olivia DeHavilland, Faye Dunaway, and the list goes on and on. In the adult industry there is Nina Hartley. Period.
Nina is a contradiction to the hard and fast rules of adult actresses. Seemingly, she becomes more and more popular the longer she stays in the business. Her influence grows exponentially each year. And her body of work continues to out-do previous efforts.
In her mid thirties, Nina Hartley by all rights should be spending her days in the Old Porn Stars Retirement Home, having passed her supposed prime some ten years ago, and yet, the woman is more busy these days than she was in all of the eighties.
During a brief break between sets on a tour stopover at Bob's Classy Lady in Van Nuys, California, Nina took a few minutes to bring us up to date on what the first lady of adult has been up to.
TB: You're sort of a big sister for a lot of the up and comers in the industry. How does that make you feel?
Nina: I try to be. It's hard to keep track of them all, there are so many. Unfortunately all the blonde ones look alike. (Laughs) I feel so bad. They're all 22 or 20, pretty, and all have blonde hair with boobs and all sweet and I can hardly recognize each of them. So I try to put myself out there. When I'm not on the road dancing I try to keep a presence so I can do outreach with the performers, if needed.
TB: Some of the fans may not know it, but you have a husband and a wife. What's that ike?
Nina: If you're a fan, that's something you know right away. I've always been open about it since I got into the business, so they all know.
TB: So how does it work? Is there jealousy, is it really open?
Nina: It's really open. Jealousy is not a problem because philosophically, we are opposed to the concept. But having a non-traditional relationship, and certainly when you're having tremendous intimacy in three different directions, it takes tremendous commitment and dedication to the concept of being open and honest. It is a real challenge. I've talked about growing as a person. They've been instrumental in helping making my adult make-up.
Nina: I met them when I was very young; when I was 19 years old, and I'm 35 now. So, believe me, I've known them a long time now. I couldn't have been here without them. I was the one that suggested I get into stripping and movies, but they're the ones who have guided me and focused me, and help me learn how to think about it. The right way.
TB: You grew up in San Francisco?
Nina: Berkley. The 60's happened there.
TB: Were you into that whole free love, hippie thing?
Nina: Well, I was a little young at the time, but the movement lasted into the 80's.
TB: Did you go to school up there?
Nina: Berkley High School, Berkley Unified school system, the whole thing.
TB: You directed a movie called "Book of Love". What is it like to be behind the camera?
Nina: That was my debut. I love being a director. I'm a bossy bitch! (Laughs) I just did two, most recently for Adam and Eve Productions for my educational series. One on anal sex and one on swinging. The quantum leap in confidence to direct was very evident on these features, so I look forward to doing more.
TB: What can we look out for in the future with Nina Hartley?
Nina: Well, more directing and producing. Not sure where that's gonna go. I do have a production company and I'm always looking for investors. Generous people who can wait a while for their return. (Laughing).
TB: You were involved with a bit of a scandal known as the Erotic Eleven arrest in Las Vegas, Nevada a few years back. Where does that stand now?
Nina: It's resolved. A year later to the day we were arrested, January 1994. We plea bargained from felony indictments to misdemeanors "for appearing in obscene or immoral or indecent performance", time served, one night in jail. And a "charitable donation", call it what you will, of $20,000. And that was it. But I go to Canada two or three times a year to dance and when you go there to dance, you have to get a work visa. No problem. You go to the border, show them your passport, show them your contract to work, pay $100.00 dollars and you get a work visa. Well I was turned away at the border for being unsuitable to enter Canada because of my criminal record.
Nina: So they escorted me to a plane to leave the country. That should have been the end of it, but my employer promoted this tour in Canada and told me to sneak back in. So, duh, I did and a week later, immigration caught up with me and I had to spend three days in jail. Now mind you, this was in February. Twenty degrees below zero. Freezing. The other girls in the cell block were making fun of me for trying to "sneak into Canada in Winter, and I was from California!" They were so shocked. My husband and wife were going crazy and thinking about breaking me out of jail. But all I can say was it was a very interesting three days in jail.
Nina: So now, what stands for everyone that was arrested as the Erotic Eleven, that if they want to go to Canada, it is a whole rigmarole. They have to apply for permission from the minister of immigration, promising that you are going to be a good girl when you go to Canada. In the year 2001 I will be able to go to Canada without hassle.
Nina makes a disgusted look.
TB: What about the people in charge of the event you got arrested at? What were they thinking when they started the ball rolling?
It's a very touchy subject. Nina draws a deep breath before answering.
Nina: Certain people who were in charge of the gig have a very "thumb your nose" attitude to authority and they are perpetually stuck at this 15 year old boy attitude and don't care what happens to them. I think they follow their own agenda a little more than required. The women trusted them, the people who put on the show. So when we were told "anything goes"... you don't tell a bunch of porno actresses and not expect a really wild show.
Nina: So we were having a great time. So when the arrests came down, it was doubly upsetting because I assumed the proper channels had been filled. Someone had been paid off and gotten permits. Something! I had heard later on that somebody was aware that the cops would try to shut it down. It was a very political bust. The police didn't shut the show down at the first sight of criminal behavior, they waited till the end of the show. If we knew we were doing something wrong, we would have ceased activity. So we were all arrested on misdemeanor charges, solicitation of prostitution, conspiracy to commit prostitution, and open and gross lewdness. That would have been a $200 fine and go home. (Vice) pushed for felony charges. The girls were going to be charged with Nevada's "Crimes Against Nature" statute, also known as "felony lesbianism". I was singled out and charged with Pandering, which is encouraging someone into the act of prostitution. I was looking at over six years in prison and the women six years on each count. It was very messy.
Nina: The Nevada District Attorney wanted us to register as sex offenders and there were women in the group with children. Meaning they could have their children taken away from them. It was a very tense year, before we plea bargained down to the misdemeanor I mentioned before.
TB: When you got busted in Vegas, didn't they run your real names in the paper?
Nina: Oh. Besides the degrading treatment we got at the Las Vegas Police station, the women were very disrespected. One woman was body cavity searched in public! One woman was denied her psychiatric medication. And apparently, when you get in their holding cells, the window has blinds on the outside, so you can't control who looks in. So, as a matter of record, they put a little card on the window of who is in the cell. So anyone can get the information, other police, reporters, anyone. So the next day, the Nevada papers printed our real names under pictures of us, with complete disregard for our personal safety. It was another attempt to humiliate and cause extreme stress. Fascism is coming, it's creeping along. Bye!
