Tragedy is never far from the porn industry, and unfortunately, this month has been no different.
Just days ago, Sophie Anderson was reported dead, mere days after the passing of her partner (and fellow adult star), Oliver Spedding. Another terrible loss.
“By dying young, a person stays young in people’s memory.” So said Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who lived to be ninety, so he had plenty of time to know what he was talking about.
James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger… Hollywood stars have been dying tragically young since movies were invented, and the same goes for porn actors and actresses.
They entertain us as much as mainstream movie stars, but their tales beyond the camera often go untold.
In this guide, we take a look at famous porn stars who died too young. There are some unusual stories and some sad ones. Who knows what careers these stars might have gone on to achieve?
15 Porn Stars Who Died Young
Our list of 15 porn stars who died young is broken into four common causes of early death: suicide, overdose, HIV and murder. We also have a section for deaths with unexplained circumstances.
An extended list of 50 tragic porn stars gives us a broad indication of the common causes. Suicides accounted for 28% of the deaths, the most common methods being by self-inflicted gunshots or hanging. Equally, another 28% of deaths were from overdoses.
HIV was attributed to 26% of the deaths, though whether the HIV status led to death from AIDS or not isn’t always stated. 10% are recorded as suspicious deaths, and 4% are murders.
Suicides
In some suicide cases, death was attributed to an overdose, even though no one can say if it was accidental or premeditated. In other cases, suicide was proved beyond a doubt.
1. Alex Jordan
Take Alex Jordan, for example (1963-1995, born Karen Mereness). Alex started in porn in 1992, aged 29, and two years later was on the cusp of her big break.
In 1995, Alex was named Best New Starlet by AVN, and in the same year, won the AVN Award for Best Couple Sex Scene with Joey Silvera. She also received a FOXE Video Vixen Award and appeared in over 230 porn movies.
Her newfound wealth enabled her and her husband to set up a business in Colorado, but while he was away doing on business, she suffered her own personal tragedy: her pet parrot died.
This was too much for Alex, who suffered from depression, and she ended her life by hanging herself on 2nd July 1995.
Alex Jordan left a suicide note… addressed to her parrot.
2. Kent North
Kent North (1971-2007) was born in Kent, UK, as Ben Grey.
He worked as a gay porn actor for Alphamale Media, and Hothouse Entertainment in the UK and USA.
His death in London in 2007 from an overdose was probably suicide, though his old studios denied this. The year after his death, Kent was posthumously inducted into the Grabby Awards Hall of Fame.
He also picked up a GayVN Award for Best Solo Performance in 2007, a fitting end to a career that was just starting to flourish.
3. Bradford Thomas Wagner
Bradford Thomas Wagner (1968-2005) has a darker story.
Working as Tim Barnett, he appeared in over 20 gay porn flicks in the early 1990s, but his death aged 37 is not attributable to his porn work.
In 2004, he was arrested on suspicion of raping five women between 1993 and 1998. With DNA evidence linking him to the crimes, Wagner hanged himself using a bed sheet while in custody.
Overdose
Addiction issues are a sad reality in the porn industry, and it’s no surprise to see overdoses accounting for a large chunk of early deaths.
4. Haley Paige
Haley Paige (1981-2007), a Mexican-born actress, began work in the adult industry when she was 19. In 2006, she won the XRCO Award for ‘Unsung Siren’, and the following year, married porn director Volt Hwang. Everything was looking good for her, despite a suspicion she was suffering domestic abuse from her new husband (charges brought against Hwang were later dropped).
However, when Haley died of a suspected heroin overdose the same year, and Hwang was implicated, he also took his own life, ending a short but tragic relationship and two short and tragic careers.
5. Missy
The word ‘suspected’ also appears in the case of Missy (1967-2008, real Name Maria Christina). Missy began porn work in 1994 and worked for Wicked Pictures from 1997. She was the first porn actress to win both the AVN Award for Best New Starlet and Female Performer of the Year, which she won in the same year.
In fact, she won 11 industry awards during her seven years in porn, before suffering a mental breakdown and finding religion. She was taking anti-depressant drugs when she died, and her death is considered an accidental overdose.
6. Amber Rayne
Amber Rayne (1984-2016, real name Meghan Wren) worked in porn for ten years before she retired. An American actress, she was born in Detroit, and worked as an extra in mainstream movies before moving into porn in 2005.
By 2016, she had been nominated for 19 industry awards and had won three, including the XRCO Award for Unsung Siren. Amber had also worked as a director, producer and editor, and was a BDSM lifestyler both on and off screen.
She was well on her way to becoming one of the top female stars in the industry.
Unfortunately, her career was cut tragically short by her death in 2016, which was recorded as an accidental overdose of cocaine and alcohol.
HIV
When we look at HIV-related deaths in porn, mainly it’s men whose deaths happened while HIV positive, which doesn’t necessarily mean they died of AIDS.
As we might expect, the 1980s saw the greatest number of fatalities due to a lack of understanding of the disease, and as porn was all about condomless sex in those days, cases were bound to be more prevalent.
An HIV outbreak in the 1980s resulted in the deaths of 27 straight and gay pornographic actors from 1985 to 1992. Among those affected were Wade Nichols (1985, his death from AIDS was disputed by his colleague, Ron Jeremy), John Holmes (1988), Marc Stevens (1989), and Al Parker (1992). Stevens succumbed to AIDS in 1989 at the age of 46, while Parker faced complications from AIDS and passed away in 1992 at the age of 40.
Scott O’Hara, who appeared in 38 gay porn films for a range of studios including Vivid and Falcon, died from the same condition in 1998, aged only 37.
7. Casey Donovan
Casey Donovan (1943–1987, real name John Calvin Culver), first appeared in porn in 1971, when he appeared in the classic, Boys in the Sand.
He is one of the very few gay porn actors who have also appeared in straight porn, notably The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976), and he had a mildly successful run in mainstream movies and theatre, where Ingrid Bergman described him as having “The same kind and as much charisma as Robert Redford.”
Diagnosed with HIV in the mid-eighties, he counseled his fans through an advice column but did little to change his own sexual practices. In 1987, Casey died of HIV/AIDS-related pulmonary infection, aged 43.
8. Erik Rhodes
Erik Rhodes (1982–2012, real name James Elliot Naughtin) worked as an exclusive model in 40 movies for Falcon Studios, directed eight for Mustang Studios, a subsidiary of Falcon, and later directed for Raging Stallion.
During his career, he won two Grabby Awards for his movie The Ivy League. Erik also worked as an escort, was a New York socialite, a musician, and sometimes a mainstream actor.
However, towards the end of his life, he was using multiple steroids and human growth hormone, and unknown to the public, was HIV positive. He died in his sleep from cardiac arrest in June 2012, and his death was recorded as an accidental overdose.
Later, when his HIV status became posthumously and controversially made public by The New York Times, it became a rumour that he died from an HIV-related condition. The likelihood is, however, it was, indeed, an accidental overdose. Either way, a tragic end. Erik Rhodes was only 30 years old.
9. John Holmes
John Holmes was to the adult film industry what Elvis Presley was to rock ‘n’ roll. He simply was The King.
These are the words of cinematographer Bob Vosse, in the documentary Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes.
It’s hard to disagree.
John Holmes (1944–1988) was one of porn’s greatest male stars. His name is associated with a character he played in many movies, Johnny Wadd, and he was known for having a massive penis.
However, there is more to his story than that. Arrests for pimping and pandering, allegedly being an informant for the LA Police Department, cocaine use, inroads into crime to support a freebasing habit, prostitution (with men and women), credit card fraud, and involvement with the Wonderland Murders in 1981; Holmes was accused of all of them.
It didn’t stop his porn career, though, and despite being HIV positive, he continued to work in porn until his last movie, The Devil in Mr Holmes, in 1987.
Holmes died in March 1988 from AIDS-related complications that led to sudden cardiac arrest, and his ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of California.
Suspicious Deaths
Not every early porn death has been fully explained. Below, we have three famous stars whose deaths are considered ‘suspicious’.
10. Felicia Tang
Felicia Tang (1977-2009, born Felicia Lee) was a Playboy TV model who appeared in adult and mainstream movies. Her death tells the story of ‘the preacher and the porn star’, as CBS put it.
In 2009, Brian Lee Randone, a Christian preacher and Felicia’s boyfriend of four months, faced accusations of suffocating her during a domestic abuse incident. However, the evidence was disputed, and the trial in 2011 resulted in Randone’s acquittal.
Felicia’s case might not have made headlines were it not for the extremes of the couple’s work — one was a porn star and the other a self-styled preacher.
However, the tragedy marked an end to a career that saw Felicia work not only for Playboy TV and her own website but also in mainstream movies, where she appeared in Rush Hour 2 and The Fast and The Furious.
11. Kandi Barbour
Kandi Barbour (1959-2012) was born Linda Jean Smith and was the star of some classic movies from the Golden Age of porn, including Screwples (1979) and The Budding of Brie (1980).
She entered the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2009, after a career including some 42 adult movies, softcore videos, and compilations. She was homeless around the time of her death, had had some medical issues, and her death was attributed to exposure.
However, the tragedy has never been fully explained, and the investigation was complicated by the fact that Kandi had gone by many aliases, left no will, and, investigators thought, had a son who had lived with her.
Tracking down her next of kin was problematic; the ‘son’ might have left her a small fortune, and mystery still surrounds the end of Kandi’s life, although it’s generally agreed that she died from exposure.
12. Lolo Ferrari
When she was born Eva Valois in 1963, Lolo Ferrari didn’t have what she later became famous for: ‘the largest breast implants in the world,’ according to the Guardian.
In 1988, she married a former drug dealer who became her manager, did some modeling work, and also worked as a prostitute. It was her husband who encouraged her to have her implants, and she began surgery in 1990, before becoming a porn model. You might have seen her on the British TV show Eurotrash in the early 1990s and other European shows where she often performed a striptease.
Lolo was found dead in March 2000, and the cause was put down to an overdose of anti-depressants and, therefore, suicide.
However, a second autopsy two years later discovered that ‘mechanically-induced suffocation’ could not be ruled out, and her husband spent 13 months in prison before being cleared of all charges.
Murder
You may have seen the movie King Cobra, the biopic about the later life and early death of gay porn producer Bryan Kocis.
This case drew particular attention because the murder was directly related to the gay porn industry, young Brent Corrigan was involved (not in the murder), and, of course, the story was ripe for a film.
It’s unusual for porn business rivalry to spill over in such a dramatic fashion, but clearly, it happens.
13. Star Stowe
Someone murdered Star Stowe (Ellen Louise Maligo, 1956-1997), but the authorities have still not identified her killer, and it appears that her murder was a random act of violence.
Star Stowe was a Playboy Playmate of the Month back in 1977 and was, in fact, the first Playboy Playmate with a visible tattoo. She worked as an exotic dancer, dated Gene Simmons from KISS, and later fell into prostitution and drug abuse.
Star was last seen working the streets of Fort Lauderdale on March 16th, 1997, and her body was discovered later that night. The police linked her murder to that of another street worker, Sandra Walters, whose killer had the same MO.
Who that killer was, however, has never been determined, and Star’s murderer has never been brought to justice.
14. Venus Xtravaganza
Venus Xtravaganza (1965-1988) began cross-dressing at 13 or 14, she said. She got into performing in 1978 and in 1983, became a member of the ‘House of Xtravaganza’ family of drag artists and trans performers in New York.
Venus was transgendered and probably best known for her discussion of being a trans woman in the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning (Jenni Livingstone, Dir.).
Venus was simply getting on with her life, it seems; no drugs, no abusive partners, or overdoses. Yet, her lifeless body was discovered at the Duchess Hotel, New York, on Christmas Day 1988. She had been murdered, but by whom remains a mystery.
There is speculation that a punter might not have realized she was trans until they were alone, and when he found out, he reacted violently. It’s unlikely we’ll ever find out.
15. Zoey Zane
Emily Sander (1989-2007) was a college student. Zoey Zane was an internet porn model. They were the same young woman when Israel Mireles was arrested for her killing, claimed he was innocent, and was found guilty of her murder.
Although Emily/Zoey was only 18, her story may not have made the headlines had she not been ‘discovered to be a porn model’ as newspaper headlines put it, seeking the obvious connection. She couldn’t have worked in porn for long, but the connection was too much for newspapers to ignore.
In the porn world, small crimes and large crimes alike receive equal attention simply because the word ‘porn’ is attached, and it is easy to forget that the men and women were people with families, friends and hopes for their futures.
Every life lost this young is a tragedy.
While many are not attributable to the porn industry itself, the stigma of adult industry work weighs heavily on its stars — reflected in the causes of death. Sadly, alcohol and drug abuse are commonplace. The tales of addiction are harrowing to read.
More must be done to support adult workers once the camera stops rolling.
