So, we’re digging into our big stack of x-rated Japanese promos again today. We’d do it more often, but when we do our girlfriends give us a hard time. Anyway, above you see the American actress Angel in a very nice publicity image from around 1985, and below you see two promos for her movies Too Hot To Touch and L’Amour, from 1987 and 1984. Her very presence in the industry speaks to the mainstreaming of porn in America. In previous years it had been impossible for the adult industry to entice women as beautiful as Angel in large numbers, but the early/mid-1980s videocassette revolution meant more fans, which meant more money to earn, which made adult films more viable as a career, and changed the status of adult actresses from that of fringe celebrities into true stars. 

After some early modeling that saw her earn a cover of Seventeen magazine, Angel turned eighteen and leaped immediately into the adult industry. During a two-year period bracketing her arrival, actresses such as Stacy Donovan, Crystal Breeze, Candy Evans, Jacy Allen, Traci Lords, Southern California prototype Shauna Grant, the luminous Ginger Lynn, and an entire busload of other beautiful women made the same move. Angel, aka Jennifer James, made about forty films during her x-rated career, acting for seven years and retiring in 1991. Of all the stars who emerged during the first half of the 1980s, she remains one of the most fondly remembered. You can see nine more x-rated posters from Japan here.