Nina Hartley has said she saw the 1976 erotic film The Autobiography of a Flea by Sharon McNight, alone at a theatre in San Francisco and chose her life’s work: making porn. In 1982, during her sophomore year of nursing school, she started working as a stripper at the Sutter Street Theatre, and later the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre. She began working in pornography in 1984, which she saw as a way to make a career of having sex. Her pornographic film debut was in Educating Nina, where she was cast and directed by fellow performer Juliet Anderson. In 1994, she began her line of instructional videos that are marketed under the Nina Hartley’s Guide brand. Hartley has been described by news outlets as “one of the best-known actresses in the industry” and “a legend in the adult world”.
