Vanessa Del Rio (70s/80s icon and XXX Hall of Famer) gets oral with LRI

 

There’s very few adult stars that burned as bright as Miss Vanessa Del Rio.  Vanessa became a XXX superstar during the golden era of the 70s, came back to cement that status in the 80s and became a cultural icon along the way.  She’s starred in music videos, been inducted in the XXX Hall of fame, been on NYPD Blue and has published a coffee table book which can only be described as jaw dropping in every sense of the term.  There are many classic skin flick stars that would make an individual top ten list but Vanessa Del Rio is among a small handful of entertainers that would make EVERYONE’S.  Whenever I do an interview with a XXX star I truly aim to get to know the story of the person behind the image which always requires a bit of cooperation and honesty from the star themselves.  From the moment I reached her by phone in her native New York it was clear that Vanessa was a natural conversationalist, as funny and real as can be.  Read on…

Legendary Rock Interviews:  You have a book available now which is just amazing in presentation and design.  I have a PLAYBOY coffee table book made by the Taschen company which is great.  They’re sort of the best publisher on earth at that format so how did you hook up with them?

Vanessa Del Rio:  Taschen had been fans of mine for years and approached a mutual friend of mine and said that they wanted to do a book and I said “Sure”.  It took about 5 or 6 years to actually make it because he is so inticately involved in the look, the texture of the whole process down to every little detail.  Taschen is an artist in his own right so he knows better than ANYONE the art involved in making a great book.  Everything you see in any book they release has to go through his process of fine combing and approval and nothing gets through until he feels that it’s right.  My book was something that he wanted to be even more elegant of course because I’m SO DIRTY!!! (laughs).  The combination of the elegance and the filth is just right.  There are few different editions including the collectors edition which weighs about 16 pounds and comes in a clamshell box that is covered in leopard silk and the book itself is like a white leather with an lenticular in the front and features gold tinged pages and a red ribbon which I specifically had asked for.  It is dirty, filthy, nasty and shockingly elegant at the same time.

LRI:  I have talked to a few different authors and it’s always a special thing when they finally get to see their baby, the finished book.  What did you think when you finally saw it?

VDR:  Oh my god….I was just dumbstruck.  I mean, like you said, I know his books in general are just beautiful but through the process we did lots of different approaches and looked at my life and my pictures in a few different ways so it was interesting to see how it turned out perfectly.  I took some new pictures and we put together the special DVD that comes with it but when I finally saw it I was just blown away.  He threw a big party at his Soho book store and it was just amazing.  I am still in awe that he chose me as a subject to do this, I mean, he’s got BALLS!! (laughs).  His sexy or erotic coffee table books are just groundbreaking and amazing because he dares to go places noone has ever gone before.

LRI:  The book is written by Dian Hanson but in your own words.  Hopefully I can save up enough quarters in my swear jar to buy it in some form because your story is almost as good as the pictures.  You didn’t have the easiest time growing up but at the same time it isn’t a pity party right? 

VDR:  It was very sheltered because I was an only child and my parents didn’t really like let me go out much and we lived in a so-so neighborhood so my mother was always afraid of bad people doing bad things.  Then of course you figure in Catholic school where everyone on earth is telling you that you don’t do this and you don’t do that it was like “Hey….wait a second…what is it that I’m missing” (laughs).   I had to go out and discover what those “bad things” were but it wasn’t like a bad childhood although it was sheltered and sort of strict.  My father believed in corporal punishment so I got belt beatings every now and then which I don’t wanna dismiss but it was just part of the era.  That’s the way people were raised back then and there really was no such thing as child abuse.  You wouldn’t call the cops on your parents, let’s put it that way.

LRI:  Your entry into the adult biz is an interesting story as well.  You started out with a legit job as a computer programmer back when computers where just in that infancy period and then….?

VDR:  I started out as a key punch operator and then slowly started to learn computer programming because I met this man, this married man, who thought I had good “logic” (laughs).  He started to “teach” me computer programming amongst other things and it was on this Cobolt 360 which I’m sure some people will remember was just this HUGE monster computer.  One of the girls who worked there she was like in her twenties and would come in at all hours of the night and she was so young but she just looked all haggard and beaten down from the stress of the job.  She didn’t look healthy, she just looked like she got no sleep and worked into the wee hours, which she did and that was her life.  I saw that and sort of decided I didn’t really want to continue down that path.  I met this guy Larry and went out with him and became an outlaw and that sounded like a lot more fun.  I spent about two years with him travelling around the country, stealing cars and doing drugs and getting in trouble and arrested.  I was having a real wild time, living in a Volkswagon bus, by choice, and we just travelled in it and we used to also steal them.  If they interrogate me, I never said that.  I used to play “Chickie” and that is a term from back then which implied that you basically were the lookout.  This guy I was with could get in a car and hotwire it in under a minute.  We once stole a car that belonged to a priest.  The first thing you do when you steal a car is you look in the glove compartment and check out the registrations just in case you get stopped.  When he found out it was a priest’s car he felt bad and went and put the car back and stole a different one.  When I left that guy I became a bartender but I wasn’t really good at that because I didn’t know how to hustle drinks which was how you did it back then out on Wall Street, all the other girls that were good at that did well but they also became alcoholics.  There was a fine line and I just didn’t wanna do that or care to do that so that just kept me in the back.

LRI:  You were already a hot chickie bartender and then made the transition from go-go dancing to the adult film world in the mid-seventies?

VDR:  Yeah, I shot my first film in October, 1974.  I was already been dancing so I wasn’t hung up about showing my body or any of that I was more concerned about being able to say my lines (laughs).   I had a couple of glasses of wine and had the time of my life.

LRI:  You mention being nervous about the acting end of it more than the nudity or sex end of it but looking back on all those old movies you guys were really doing serious productions compared to the in your face straight sex stuff that is porn today.  Do you look back on it and say “Huh, maybe we were trying to actually make movies in addition to fucking?”

VDR:   You know what John?  I think it was the fact that it was shot on film that makes it look so nice.  We used to shoot in people’s houses or loft, apartment or warehouse if it was nice and roomy, anywhere that we could find a location.  It wasn’t usually a lavish set or anything I just think the fact that it was actually on film made it look more glamorous or hollywood or mysterious compared to that look today.  Now, it’s so in your face that it almost looks like sex on the  news and it’s so realistic that it loses some of that mystery because it’s so extreme and in your face.  I really don’t watch a lot of that stuff now but I know some people are still pushing the boundaries and trying to make sexy films that are still artistic.  It can be done.  When I think of some of what we did in that era of porn I feel like people appreciate it the same way that I think about the old black and white movies I always loved.  There’s something about seeing something from a certain time period that takes you back there like you ARE there and that’s different.  I hate saying that because I feel so OLD admitting that.

LRI:  One of the other things that stands out to me when I talk to someone like you or SEKA is that you guys were truly a small group of  stars and starlets that really became very well known where now there are so many.

VDR:  Yeah, and also we all totally had our own style and our own look that was individual and unique.  Look at Seka, myself, Veronica Hart and all of us; it was easy for us to be recognizable because we all had our own distinct  look, sound, and way of performing.  Plus, we started at that time of the sexual revolution in America.  Porn had obviously been around for quite a while and I think if you look at all the eras you can see the changes that started to take place in the mid-seventies.  It wasn’t just stag films anymore it was starting to develop the look and feel of a movie but the sex itself evolved.  Again, I think we have some directors and producers today with the technologies available that can no doubt create some amazing things but there was something about that era that looked and felt so natural.  It’s like music.  There was a purity to bands that operated on the strength of playing their instruments back in the 60s and 70s and once technology started to infiltrate that art it just changed and became more and more a reflection of the studio element or the technologies themselves.   That natural or realistic tilt to our movies was what made it appeal to the world who saw it then and people like you who are still looking at it today.  You could put across sex without perfect makeup and fake boobs and sucking cock wasn’t just some boring thing you did because it was in the contract.  We were the originators of porn starting to go mainstream and reach middle America.

LRI:  There was a lot of partying in general in those days but like you said that was the very beginning of sex stars becoming pop culture stars.  How much did you find that the Hollywood TV/Film or music crowds would blend in or party with the people in your scene?

VDR:  The straights didn’t mix too much with the porn people very much because we were still sort of an underground thing that was starting to surface where now you can have Sasha Grey on the View talking about reading stories to children in school (laughs).  On one hand, that’s good because it helps to take the stigma away from us.  We are just people, normal people, making choices that some people disagree with on the surface but then watch in their private time.  To answer your question though, back then there wasn’t that much blending.  I have partied with some of them but back then it just wasn’t something you could take the chance of doing and having photographs get out there.  People are a lot more open now and porn stars are definitely a lot more accepted by the new Hollywood.

LRI:  You’ve been credited with LOTS as far as your onscreen activities and have been a part of some of the most famous film series in XXX.  Do any of those things on your resume from that era stand out to you still as major highlights or things you feel define you?

VDR:  I’d have to say that all my comedies because I loved doing them.  They were just SO much fun and I could use my Puerto Rican accent for the roles in most of them.  I also think DEVIL IN MISS JONES and DEEP INSIDE VANESSA  stand out because that’s where I did gangbangs.  To me that  is something that is just totally a “Yeah, that’s Vanessa” moment.  (laughs).  I did like 6 or 7 guys, who knows?  Who can keep count when you’re having that much fun?  I think that many guys is intimately comfortable and can be sexy where as doing 200 guys is just kind of like….a circus act.  When there’s six or seven guys who are into you and you are a woman who is comfortable with that sexually it is just perfect but 200??  And it wasn’t really 200 there were tons of edits and guys going 2 or three times and girls having to put ice on their pussies.  Their pussy was hot but in the totally WRONG way (laughs).  It’s like come on, it’s supposed to be sexy film not wide world of sports.

LRI:  I know a lot of your old movies are sort of hard to find but you have the DVDs for sale on your website alongside the amazing coffee table book.  The new porn is available everywhere so it would seem to me that the classics like “DEBBIE DOES DALLAS” or “DEVIL IN MISS JONES” would only become more sought after, not even just by people looking to whack off but by people fascinated by that era.  Are you finding that to be the case?

VDR:  Oh yeah.  There are people who are collectors. Actually there are really a lot of people who collect things that are somehow involved with sex like art or movies or lithos or figurines.  I know when I look at a lot of the REALLY old porn like from the 1920s and 1930s pieces of film it is so interesting to look at.  I think there are people who are really into documenting and collecting all of these classic reminders of sexuality.  When I look at those old, old movies from the thirties I am just overwhelmed by how DIRTY they are because you just know how taboo doing anything like that was in that era.  That’s what makes it so hot.  I think that is sort of why people are really into the classic porn of the 1970s or 1980s.  It documented a time where we were beginning to own our own sexuality and the public was on board and coming along with us because like I said, we were, as a nation, emerging from the sexual revolution.  I think that our society now is a byproduct of that era.  I also think that the fact that girls set out and TRY to become porn stars is also different and is a result of that.  I didn’t TRY to become a porn star, it just sort of happened because of choices I made, the lifestyle I lived where I just tried things and offers that were made to me.  I really sort of enjoyed it and subsequently continued doing it because I liked it and the lifestyle it afforded.  It’s very different now because there are thousands of girls actively seeking out the business and seeking out the directors.

LRI:  Do you feel that the girls who are wild sexually in their private lives tend to feel much less exploited when they cross over to porn rather than say the girls who get into it strictly for the money?

VDR:  Well yeah because if you are a swinger or open sexually you are already free and free thinking and you are actively making that choice based on your own desires and libido.  I also think it will show on film because if you’re doing it just for the money you are gonna be exposed at some point, your blowjobs are just not going to be up to par.  If you’re in it because you love sex then people will love you because that’s what they wanna see.  It’s evident on film, you just exude sex.

LRI:  That’s very accurate.  If you go to a strip club it’s not always the prettiest girl who does the best but the one who’s the least inhibited or most natural.

VDR:  Totally.  I used to love stripping.  I loved it.  I still think that in any art the act of being LIVE onstage in front of people affords you such an incredible exchange and feedback from the audience.  There is really nothing like it.  I enjoyed it so much, the entire process of connecting with them and disrobing, it was almost like this ethereal sex you are having with the members of the audience.  If you enjoy it there is something magic that can happen.  It was as if sex was in the air and I just loved it.

LRI:  Having that very traditional Latina heritage,  I am wondering how you eventually crossed that road of telling your family about your career as it evolved and your fame rose.

VDR:  My cousin wound up telling my mom.  As soon as I become of age to leave home I left.  At that time I was on my own and staying in touch with my mother, my parents had divorced.  One time I was over to see her and I found out that she found out.  I told her everything that happened prior to that, well everything except that fact that I had turned some tricks.  I told her I had been in jail, and been involved with some things and I knew she wasn’t going to be jumping up and down happy going “Yea!!  My daughter is a porn star” but I was relieved when I found out that she simply wanted to know that I was okay.  She wanted to know that I was okay and that I wasn’t being forced against my will but that I was making the decision.  She was of course  taken aback but also very loving and accepting of me.  As for my father, I remember that he and my mother still kept in touch after the divorce and we went to a funeral one time.  My mother was concerned with like “Is someone there going to recognize her and all that?”  and I will never forget my father’s response because it meant a lot to me.  He said to her “You can’t cover the sun with one finger” which basically told me that while he didn’t necessarily choose that I do this for a living I had reached a point in my career where I shined at what I did.

LRI:  I talked to Tori Welles who mentioned that she was a runaway and was involved in prostitution at one point and I think that it was interesting that she described it to me similar to how you did.  Like it might not have been the best choice but was just something that happened along the way as a wild kid.

VDR:  That’s kind of how it works.  You start getting comfortable with using your body and taking your clothes off and at that point I was really just a free spirit that sort of let the wind blow me where ever it took me, pun intended.  I was an adventurous kid and to me that was just another adventure at that point.  The first trick I turned I was scared shitless because I didn’t know how to say “Hey baby, do you want a date?” so I was just totally scared.  It was survival and I had to do something to make money but at the same time it was all fun, which sounds bad but it was fun compared to sitting at a desk listening to someone telling me what I was supposed to do.  I was not interested in sitting there and being dictated to and I had a choice and made a choice to do something alogether different.  I will admit that I did enjoy a lot of the tricks I turned and to this day if I masturbate I will still do a recall of them.  It was dirty and it was horny.  You cannot separate the mind from the body and just say okay I’m gonna just put my body out there for 100 bucks and do this and not be into it.  That’s very damaging to the soul.  I never did that, I never separated my body from my mind and my soul because I think you lose yourself and hurt yourself in doing so.  I didn’t have blinders on like this isn’t happening, I was in the moment and it felt good and I enjoyed it.  The only reason there was any shame attached was because I went to Catholic school and I was RAISED to be ashamed.  The thing that some people forget is that you have to face the shame head on and DEAL with the shame and say “Okay, I get it that’s what comes with it but for what it’s worth I still had a good time”.  I can’t unring that bell and say I didn’t enjoy it because some nun or priest said I was a bad girl it was more like “Yeah, I was and I LIKED it!!”.  I had fun and it’s not something I did again but at the moment it was something I was into and I won’t apologize for enjoying it.

 

 

 

LRI:  Do you think that the XXX business has a way of weeding out the girls who aren’t strong enough or intelligent enough to mind their brand or business?

VDR:  Oh god yes.  You look at someone like Seka or Candida Royalle or Nina Hartley and they all have that savvy approach to taking care not only of themselves but respecting the business in general.  There’s a measure in being a woman of the mindset that “I’m a big girl and I made a choice to do this and this is my decision to own”.   There is an archetype of woman that can do this and there is the old addage of the Madonna and the whore and you can make the decision of which one you wanna be.  It doesn’t automatically make one choice right or wrong but if it’s your choice you better own it.  I don’t have any problem with a woman who wants to be a mother and a wife but if that was the ONLY choice that would be so one-sided and boring.  I think it’s great that women HAVE choices and I love being a whore and I love the word whore.  I love the word slut.  It’s empowering to me because I choose to capitalize on that term rather than take itas something degrading.

LRI:  You’ve done television and music video work and other mainstream stuff.  Is that more or less as satisfying to you as getting your rocks off on camera?

VDR:  Yes.  It’s all just entertainment and I love to entertain.  I love being in that world and being in front of a camera.  If I had known what I know now I would have chosen to go the standard Hollywood route because there’s a helluva lot more money in it (laughs).  You’re still entertaining.  In the adult world, we take our clothes off and perform SEX acts where in Hollywood they do that but they just don’t SHOW you the goods.  I was thinking about this today actually John.   The acting in porn movies has always been wishy-washy because the performance has always really been about the sex and they tend to be done quickly.  You don’t have time to spend on dialog and and all these takes which take months and years to film for the average Hollywood production.  What you see is what you get.

LRI:  What is it that makes you happy these days aside from all this.  I know you are a big animal advocate and you love your dogs….

VDR:  That is it.  They are my babies.  I love my babies.  I am into dog training and I do agility training and obedience training with them and it is what I do aside from my career.  I love working with dogs and my babies are everything to me, it is as close to nirvana as I can get.  I can deal with the rest of life because of them.  They keep me grounded firmly.

 

My Website http://www.vanessadelrio.com
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Tags: adult star interviews, avn hall of fame, Vanessa Del Rio, xxx

Category: Interviews