After winning the Miss Nude Galaxy contest in Roselawn, Indiana, in 1979, its owner cast Lee in The Young Like It Hot. Her movie debut was in Naughty Girls Need Love Too, also from 1983. In 1984, she appeared in Sweet Young Foxes. In that same year she appeared in Penthouse magazine, in the same September record-breaking best-selling issue that featured Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. Over time, her husband Bud Lee joined the cast and crew of her films. Together they created the second-most-expensive pornographic film, The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, with Bud directing and Hyapatia starring and screenwriting a version of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. In 1993, she was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame, and the XRCO Hall of Fame in 1994. She was also given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Free Speech Coalition in 1995. In 1998, members of her fan club received a report that she had died due to diabetes. The report was inaccurate. Like many performers, she retained no rights to her films, and does not earn royalties and chooses not to sue to reclaim cybersquatting entities that use her alias in their domain names.
Appearances
Lee has appeared on a variety of television shows such as The Robin Byrd Show in 1977, the Howard Stern Show in 1991, and more recently The Bill Cunningham Show in 2011. She has appeared in minor roles such as the 1994 thrillerKilling Obsession. In 2013 she appeared in an episode of the Showtime Cable network's After Dark television series Gigolos.
Music
For SRO Records, Lee recorded the 7" single, "Telephone Man", released in 1988; and the album Two Sides Of Hyapatia Lee in 1989. "Rub-a-Dub-Dub" from the album featured on Dr. Demento's 'Funny Five' playlist, airing April 30, 1989. In 1994, Lee recorded the album Double Euphoric with her band W4IK. She toured with the same band, which was based in Los Angeles, and also with another band, based in Indiana, called Vision Quest. In 1999, one of Lee's tracks from her 1994 release appeared on the music CD Porn to Rock. Double Euphoric was re-released in September 2010, both in physical and digital versions, via outlets such as CD Baby, Amazon and Apple iTunes.
Author
She is an online columnist for High Times. In 1993, Lee co-wrote an autobiography comic book with Jay Allen Sanford, Carnal Comics: Hyapatia Lee, featuring her true life story illustrated by the Vampirella artist Louis Small Jr.. She also took part in and appeared within the Carnal Comics title Triple-X Cinema: A Cartoon History, as well as co-starring with her friend Porsche Lynn in another issue of the adult comic book line. In 2000, Lee self-published an autobiography, The Secret Life of Hyapatia Lee. In 2016, she authored a self-help book, Native Strength – The First Step on the Path to an Indomitable Life, the first in a series.
Personal life
She views Hyapatia as a particular personality that allowed her to perform. She met and married Bud Lee, with whom she bought land in rural southern Indiana, where she has lived since. The couple had two children, whom she homeschooled at their Indiana home. In 1993 she retired from the industry and separated from Bud the same year. She has since remarried and had another child.
