brittanyandrews

The LA porn industry –The Other Hollywood - is bigger than ever and now brings in twice the takings of the mainstream box office, LUCY BROADBENT meets its leading ladies…

A stretch limousine pulls up out­side a lounge bar in Los Angeles and the waiting crowd surges forward. Cameras flash. Fans scream and Jenna Jameson waves expertly to them, as security guards bundle her through the throng into the bar.

“She’s a goddess,” whispers one man in the crowd to another, who had managed to stop her for an autograph. “She is even more beau­tiful in the flesh.”

Jenna Jameson is not a name everyone will have heard of. But she is a screen icon, as famous and desirable in her world as Demi Moore is in mainstream cinema. Every week she receives more than 1,000 fan letters. She also has the luxurious house in Miami, the huge swimming pool, the flashy sports cars, and she drinks free champagne - her favourite tipple - wherever she goes.

But Jenna is a movie star with a difference. Her fame exists only in the world of the LA porn industry, known in the US as The Other Hollywood. She is also, in spite of her platinum tresses and dizzy giggle, no dumb blonde. Like many porn princesses, she has turned her fame into a multi­million dollar business and now has her own clothing line and mail order business, she hosts her own TV show and owns a strip club. And Jenna is only 23 years old.

SKY-ROCKETING SEX INDUSTRY

In 1996, Americans spent more than $8 billion (about £5.5 billion) on their passion for porn - hard-core videos, peep shows, live sex acts, adult cable channels and magazines, nearly double what they spent at the mainstream cinema box office. Porn audiences have also grown beyond recognition the world over. In the past decade, US hard-core video rentals have rocketed from 75 million a year in 1985 to 665 million in 1996. The spread of porn onto TV cable channels has also meant a wider audience than ever before.

The US has now become the world’s leading porn producer, churning out 150 new titles a week. Most of this comes from the San Fernando Valley, just behind LA’s Universal Studios, which has mushroomed into a porn dream factory, with its own buzzing infrastructure of studios, talent agen­cies, fans, film critics and major stars.

The biggest, richest stars are the women. (An actress can be paid up to $3,000 per scene - while a man will usually earn between $200-$300 to have sex with her.) And many of these shrewd women use their wealth to build the sort of empires most people only dream of.

Jenna is a typical example. “When I started in this business people asked, ‘Do you want to use this as a stepping stone to a mainstream acting career?’ I told them ‘No, I just want to conquer the porn world,’” she says, applying lipstick in the dressing room of Bob’s Classy Lady, the San Fernando Valley club where she is making her live appearance. “I wanted to be the most successful, the most famous, and the most comfortably-off porn actress in the world. I want to be retired by the time I’m 30, living off the interest in my bank account.”

And she’s well on target. As in the golden age of Hollywood, the highest-paid performers are signed to exclusive contracts with one studio, usually earning between $100,000 to $150,000 a year. (Jenna is reputed to be the highest paid in history, but refuses to give any details.) But this is not actually where the actresses make most of their money.

Personal appearances as exotic dancers can earn them up to $20,000 each, and that’s just for starters. Then there are the magazine modelling con­tracts, merchandise lines, phone sex lines and candid TV talk shows.

WOMEN ON TOP

“If you look at this job as just having sex, you’re not going to get very far,” Jenna explains. “But if you’re smart, it really is a case of girls on top.

Women are not the victims here ­we call the shots. I pick my scripts, my directors, absolutely everything.”

Born in Las Vegas - her father was a police officer, her mother died when she was young - Jenna became a showgirl at 16. “I learned quickly there was no money in it, so I started stripping,” she says breezily. “Next I moved into adult magazines - I always wanted to be in Penthouse ­and then experimented with movies. The first one I did was absolutely terrifying. It’s not easy to have sex in front of 30 people. I was shaking like a leaf, dry mouth, cold sweats - in fact, I didn’t do another one for a whole year after that.”

But 12 months later, Jenna was back with a game plan. “I straightened my head out and knew what I wanted,” she says. “I’d watched a lot of movies, got to know people in the business, realised how lucrative it can be.”

Now she is so established, Jenna makes only six movies a year. “And I, won’t have sex more than once a day,” says Jenna. “I’ll do one boy-girl sex scene, and maybe one girl-girl. I won’t have sex with just anyone either - no new talent here, man. I don’t ever tryout new guys. I work with three guys, who are all my good friends and I feel comfortable with them.”

Jenna also insists on condoms. “You bet!” she says, explaining all porn actors and actresses have to pro­duce an Aids test certificate once a month in order to work. “Some of the girls in this business, who are strictly ‘condoms only’, get passed by on jobs in favour of girls that don’t insist on them, and that really pisses me off. If we’re wearing condoms, it sends a good message to people. . .”

She stops mid-sentence. The crowd in the club are calling her name loud­er, goaded on by the DJ who promises her imminent arrival. She adjusts her easy-to-remove velcroed G-string, pulls on her thigh-high boots, re­arranges the animal print bra-top over her silicon-implanted 36DD breasts and disappears through the dressing room door. Within three songs, she will have removed all items of cloth­ing and displayed the parts of her anatomy that other women usually reserve for their gynaecologist.

THE PERFECT BODY FOR PORN

Brittany Andrews does the same work - two weeks out of every month, she goes on tour to dance in the strip clubs. Like Jenna, she began as a dancer and realised she could pull a bigger crowd if she had a name as a porn actress. And like Jenna, she has her sights set firmly on bigger things. At 24, Brittany already’ has two mail order businesses (one in sex toys, the other lingerie) and distributes, produces and directs her own videos.

“I don’t want to be in front of the camera at the age of 30,” she says from behind the desk of her penthouse apartment overlooking downtown LA. “When I choose to have children, I want to have a business to fall back on. The adult entertainment industry has taught me so much about marketing, broadcasting, advertising, produc­tion, publicity. I’m not a millionaire yet, but I will be. Which is just as well, because I want to be able to eat at McDonald’s at one time in my life.”

Brittany is referring to the constant dieting required to be successful in front of the camera. While any female willing to have sex on film can usually find work (a male wannabe has only a slim chance of getting in), the real stars are honed, toned and tanned to perfection. And those who make it onto the prized video box covers often have extremely large breasts - frequently silicone ones. Brittany had implants, transforming her from a 34C to a 34E at the age of 19.

“That was one of the only things I’ve done in my life that I regret,” she says. “I mean I’m not large, I’m huge. When I got them done, big breasts were way more popular. They come and go with fashion. But that’s one of the downsides of this industry - it can be very personal. You have to deal with people saying your breasts are the wrong size, your thighs are too big, you’re too blonde, too brunette.”

A wide streak of exhibitionism is another major requirement. Most porn stars insist that besides loving money, they also love sex. In fact, Brittany’s long-term goal is to produce porn videos for women.

“It’s now acceptable for womert to come right out and say, ‘You know what? I love sex,’” she drawls. “Once, a girl would be called a whore for say­ing that. Yet still you go into an adult magazine store and see a whole wall of things for men. Women’s sexual desires need attention. The few films made for women reflect what men think we want to see and most often it’s really boring. They think we’re going to get excited about candles. Let me tell you candles are not going to make me horny.”

Not that Brittany has much time for her own personal needs anyway. “For a porn actress who loves sex, I have very little sex at all,” she muses. “In fact, I probably only get laid once a month - and that’s in front of the camera. I’m usually still at my com­puter at 3am or on the road dancing, or with my distributors, or doing poster signings. There’s not much time for romance either,” she adds, almost wist­fully. “Even my cat hates me because I don’t give him enough attention.”

THE FIGHT FOR RESPECT

Finding a partner is a notorious down­side of the industry. “It’s hard finding people who can accept what we do,” says Juli Ashton, 29, another of porn’s bright lights; who has not only won several AVN Awards - the industry’s Oscars - but has also marketed herself into a limited company.

“One of the worst aspects of the job is the fight for respect,” she continues. “Porn may be more acceptable now, but we’re still regarded as sluts and drug addicts. That’s hard, because 18 year olds coming into the industry don’t realise how many doors will be closed for them when they embark on this. We can never run for office and they’d never let me back in a classroom.”

Juli was a junior school teacher in a small town in Colorado, but gave it up in her early 20s after meeting a porn actress who told her about the business potential of the industry. Within a year Juli had a manager and moved to LA.

“You have to make an effort to learn,” says Juli, who like Jenna and Brittany can switch on the capricious sex appeal in a second when required, but ordinarily speaks with such astute self-confidence it’s almost frightening. “My business is too young to be making millions, but it will,” she says. “I don’t date talent. I don’t go to the parties. What I do is, I go to the video compa­nies and I pick their brains. I talk to the sales people and say, ‘How do I make a tape that is going to sell?’ I produce my own tapes, I hire my own directors, handle the foreign rights, the mail order rights, the cable rights. There is a lot to it, but if you can learn it, there is money to be made.”

The usual lifespan for women in porn is three years. Many women dis­appear off the scene when they become pregnant or get married. Others use the time to save money, then use it to launch other careers, paying to put themselves through college.

Juli, who has been making porn films for three years, says she’ll do it until she stops enjoying it. “There are some women who are still doing this in their 40s - as long as they look good, they can have a career,” she says. “That’s why plastic surgery is so popular in this industry.”

But Juli sees her future behind the camera. “Hopefully, my produc­tion company will provide me with a successful business empire,” she explains, running a freshly manicured nail through her freshly tended hair. “People often have a weird view of the porn industry, they see us as either sluts or bimbos - but tell me another career that could give me this much?”