Jesie St. James – Inducted 1998
A true golden age star!
Jesie St. James was born August 8, 1954 in southern California and raised there as well. Her beach bunny blonde look was all natural. After school was finished the blue eyed beauty took a quick stab at doing porn. Jesie wound up getting a small role in the 1975 film “Blue Heat” that starred Dorothy LeMay. She enjoyed the experience and everything that was part of it but wasn’t really ready to make it a full time commitment.
So she would only do an occasional porn film for the next few years. It was in 1979 she made the choice to jump into the industry full time. With that natural California look she was stunning and brought a touch of class to all the different roles she played. Jesie St. James had the perfect look of a cover girl, but she also had that brazen sexual nature of someone born to be in porn films. In addition to her great looks she had a body, though small breasted, with all the right curves in the right places and was quite a vision. The fact that Jesie was a bit older than some girls led her to take on a lot of “older” women roles.
In addition to the presence she made with her looks and sexuality she was blessed with great natural acting skills along with a face so expressive it could say more than dialogue at times. She was also a very dependable and professional performer who was well liked and had an energy and enthusiasm about her work that really stood out. Put it all together and it was easy to see why she would become a major star of the golden era.
Jesie St. James mostly was brought in by producers and directors to play undersexed housewives or schoolteachers who are introduced into the world of sexual pleasure. Her role in the 1979 film “Easy” with Georgina Spelvin and Desireé Cousteau is the one that established her as a star and the good roles kept coming. Her portrayal of the unsatisfied wife of Eric Edwards in 1981′s ‘Charli’ simmers with passion, or as the bigamist in 1983′s “Between Lovers”. While she had many steamy scenes that could stir the libido, her best may have been the encounter she has with John Leslie on the veranda of an English estate in the porn classic ‘Insatiable’. That was pure smoldering, pot boiling heat.
Other great films of Ms. St. James include “Fantasyworld”, “Vista Valley PTA”, “Ms. Magnificent” and “Nurses of the 407th”, a takeoff on the TV show M*A*S*H, where she played Hot Hips Hoolihan. All told she only did about 50 or so films, as she was very selective when it came to those she was offered. But if you add in a number of compilation films and some things she did for Swedish Erotica then the number is closer to 100.
Because she was a bit older, as we stated above, that worked in Ms. St. James favor in getting characters like those starved and hungry for sex housewives or schoolteachers. She worked with some of the top names of the time including Juliet Anderson, Marilyn Chambers, Lisa De Leeuw, Samantha Fox, Seka, Serena, Vanessa del Rio, John Leslie, John Holmes, Paul Thomas, and Herschel Savage. In the mainstream film “Boogie Nights” Melora Walters’s character of “Jessie St. Vincent” was based on her.
As a tribute to her work and what she gave the industry Ms. St. James is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame and in 1998 was also elected to the XRCO Hall of Fame. Thanks to modern technology many of Jesie St. James films from the 70’s and 80’s are now available on DVD. Ms. St. James would be 65 today, but where she is and what she may be doing no one really has any idea. Her films brought a lot of pleasure to her fans and that continues to grow today as new fans discover her at www.jessiestjamesonline.com New fans are one of the main reasons why Jesie St. James and many of her contemporaries from the golden age remain so popular today some thirty, forty or more years later.
Art Koch, National Features & DVD Editor, NightMoves Magazine and AAN
