Marie Louise Hartman (born March 11, 1959), known professionally as Nina Hartley, is an American pornographic film actress and sex educator. By 2017 she had appeared in more than one thousand adult films. She has been described by Las Vegas Weekly as an "outspoken feminist" and "advocate for sexual freedom", and by CNBC as "a legend in the adult world".
Early life and education
Hartley was born on March 11, 1959, in Berkeley, California, to a Lutheran father, Louis Hartman, and a Jewish mother, Blanche Hartman (née Gelders), Her grandfather was a University of Alabama physics professor who was a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) party member in the 1930s. Hartley's parents were members of the CPUSA who converted to Buddhism when she was young. Her father was blacklisted in 1957 for his communist beliefs.
Hartley grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as a teenager self-identified as a feminist, influenced by the slogan "my body, my rules". 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, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She was a registered nurse until her license expired in 1986.
Adult film career
Hartley sought a career in pornography as a way to make a living by having sex, later telling Las Vegas Weekly, "Porn gave me easy access to women without having to date them or have a relationship." She writes that part of her reason for choosing sex work was to be able to indulge her exhibitionistic and voyeuristic streak. She has said she chose her life's work when she saw the 1976 erotic film The Autobiography of a Flea alone at a theater in San Francisco. In 1982, during her sophomore year of nursing school, she started working as a stripper at the Sutter Cinema and then the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. She told an interviewer 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, and "Hartley" because it was close to her own last name, and she "wanted a name that sounded like that of a real person."
Her pornographic film debut was in Educating Nina (1984), where she was cast and directed by fellow performer Juliet Anderson. For many years, she toured the United States and Canada as a stripper and made personal appearances at sex shops. In 2013 she described her father's reaction upon learning about her occupation:
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hartley starred in several of the Debbie Does Dallas film series spin-offs such as Debbie Duz Dishes (1986) and Debbie Does Wall Street (1991). In 1992, she directed her first movie, Nina Hartley's Book of Love. She also produced and starred in a series of sex education videos for Adam & Eve. In 1994, she began her line of instructional videos marketed under the Nina Hartley's Guide brand. Hartley played the part of Hillary Clinton in the 2008 satirical pornographic film Who's Nailin' Paylin?, with Lisa Ann in the role of Sarah Palin. Hartley was still actively performing, and by 2017 she had appeared in more than one thousand pornographic films. She has been described by news outlets as "one of the best-known actresses in the industry" and "a legend in the adult world".
Mainstream media appearances
Hartley acted in the 1996 Canadian film Bubbles Galore and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In the 1997 film Boogie Nights, she played William H. Macy's character's serially unfaithful wife who is murdered. She later remarked, "The only movie I ever died in for having sex was a mainstream movie."
Hartley has appeared in several documentary films: she was interviewed in The Naked Feminist (2003) was featured in After Porn Ends (2012), and appears in Sticky: A (Self) Love Story (2016), in which she discusses masturbation 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.
Activism
Las Vegas Weekly has described Hartley as an "outspoken feminist, sex educator and advocate for sexual freedom" and "a guiding force for a generation of feminist porn stars". Describing herself as a "classical liberal feminist", Hartley began engaging in feminist activism in the 1980s. Regarding her understanding of feminism, she has said: