Nina Hartley

Nina Hartley born Marie Louise Hartman on March 11, 1959 is an American pornographic actress, pornographic film director and sex educator.

Hartley was born in Berkeley, California to a Jewish family and 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 converted to Buddhism when she was young. After graduating high school in 1977, she attended San Francisco State University’s undergraduate nursing school and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She is a registered nurse.

In 1982, during her sophomore year of nursing school, she started working as a stripper at Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater. She made her foray into the world of pornographic movies during her junior year, in 1984. Her debut performance was in the film Educating Nina, which was produced by the veteran porn star Juliet Anderson (better known as “Aunt Peg”), and this proved to be a massive hit. Since then she has gone on to feature in over 400 first-run adult films, and has become one of the most enduring and recognizable performers in the industry.

She said 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. She chose “Hartley” because she liked the popular camera commercials Mariette Hartley was making with James Garner at the time. Politically, Hartley considers herself a liberal and an outspoken sex-positive feminist. 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, and, before the rise to stardom of Jenna Jameson, had often been called on when television news programs and talk shows required an articulate, leading adult film actress to support the pro side. She appeared most notably on The Oprah Winfrey Show with fellow porn actress Ona Zee. The two came under hard scrutiny from the mostly female audience, but refused to back down and were outspoken in their support of the industry. She and Ona Zee also spoke out strongly against illegal drugs in the industry.