Nina Hartley


Nina Hartley is an American pornographic actress, pornographic film director, sex educator, sex-positive feminist, and author.

Early life

Marie Louise Hartman was born in Berkeley, California, to a Lutheran father and a Jewish mother whose family was from Alabama. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the youngest of four children, with an older sister and two older brothers. Her parents were Communists who converted to Buddhism when she was young. Her father was blacklisted in 1957. After graduating from Berkeley High School in 1977, she attended San Francisco State University's undergraduate nursing school and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She was a registered nurse per the California Board of Registered Nursing until her license expired in 1986.

Adult film career

Hartley saw The Autobiography of a Flea alone, at a theater in San Francisco and chose her life work: making porn.
In 1982, during her sophomore year of nursing school, she started working as a stripper at the Sutter Cinema and later the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. She made her foray into the world of pornographic movies during her junior year in 1984. She started out at first in photo spreads for Hustler and High Society. Her debut performance was in the film Educating Nina, making her a protégée of Juliet Anderson.
Explaining how Marie Louise Hartman became Nina Hartley, she stated in an interview that she chose the name "Nina" because it was easy for Japanese tourists to say during the time she was a dancer in San Francisco; "Hartley" was chosen as it was close to her own real last name as possible and because she "wanted a name that sounded like that of a real person". She stated that when she got into the adult business, she was blessed with two popular fetish items: "big, baby-blue eyes and that round butt with a high, small waist", with her buttocks becoming her trademark.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, she starred in several of the Debbie Does film series spin-offs such as Debbie Duz Dishes and Debbie Does Wall Street .
In 1992, she directed her first movie, Nina Hartley's Book of Love.
For many years, she also toured the United States and Canada as a stripper and made personal appearances at adult shops.

Sex-positive activism

A long-time board member of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Hartley considers herself a liberal and an outspoken sex-positive feminist, although for a time she was a socialist activist. Addressing other women, she said, "Sex isn't something men do to you. It isn't something men get out of you. Sex is something you dive into with gusto and like it every bit as much as he does."
Hartley has been an advocate for the adult film industry's right to exist. Before the rise to stardom of Jenna Jameson, she had often been called on when television news programs and talk shows required an articulate, leading adult film actress to support the pro side. The two came under hard scrutiny from the mostly female audience, but they refused to back down and were outspoken in their support of the industry. Ona Zee and she spoke out strongly against illegal drugs in the industry.
She has lectured at several universities such as Harvard, Berkeley, Dartmouth and the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
She was interviewed by Eric Schlosser for his book Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market in which she was critical of the hypocrisy of anti-pornography legislation and actions.

Mainstream work

Hartley had a role in the 1997 film Boogie Nights, playing William H. Macy's character's serially unfaithful wife, and she appeared in the 1996 Canadian film Bubbles Galore. Hartley also appeared in the late rapper Tupac Shakur's music video for his 1996 single, "How Do U Want It?"
Nina Hartley appears in the Amazon Award-winning 2016 documentary , in which she discusses her sex-positive views on self-love, with regards to education, the forced resignation of Joycelyn Elders, and her opinions on the blackballing of comedian Paul Reubens after his arrest for masturbating in a public theater. Nina Hartley attended a Las Vegas premiere of the documentary at the Erotic Heritage Museum on May 26, 2016, in which she sat on a Q&A panel with the writer/producer/director Nicholas Tana, and adult film actress Ginger Lynn.

Later career

In 2006, she published her first book, Nina Hartley's Guide to Total Sex. She later co-authored the book series How to be Kinkier beginning in 2012.
In 2010, she said, "Now I work with women who are younger than my breast implants."
Hartley played the part of Hillary Clinton in the film Who's Nailin' Paylin? This was a pornographic parody of then-Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, with Lisa Ann in the role of Palin.
Hartley was also featured in the 2012 documentary After Porn Ends, which is about life after being a porn actor.
, Hartley has remained active in the industry. Appearing primarily in "mature"-themed pornography, in 1994, she began her line of instructional videos that are marketed under the Nina Hartley's Guide brand covering subjects ranging from basic sexual intercourse and foreplay, to anal sex and bondage.

Personal life

Hartley is openly bisexual in her private life. From 1981–2000, Hartley was involved in a relationship with a man and a woman. She married her male partner in 1986; their divorce was finalized in 2003.
In 2003, the year her divorce was finalized, she married Ira Levine, professional name Ernest Greene, a director of porn films.

Recognition

AVN Awards

Hartley has won numerous awards throughout her career, from various critic and fan organizations. The following is a list of her Adult Video News Awards:
Hartley has won a number of XRCO Awards: