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The Las Vegas native started in mainstream entertainment at age 15. She acted, modeled and danced. Hart lost her virginity at 15. The guy she was seeing at the time was sixteen. "I had heard about sex so much, and I knew all about it from an early age. I have a lot of older sisters, and I used to read their little books on what your body is and how it works. At that time, I hadn't done much petting. I'd kissed but little fondling. "I decided it was time. I knew it was going to happen but he didn't know. I got dressed up for it, put on my hippy-dippy get-up, veloured myself out. I suggested that we stop by a friend's place, and I dragged him into another room and that was it. "I was proud of myself. I was so in love and romantic. I felt wonderful. I talked to him on the phone the next day, and said how he was my boyfriend and asked him if he'd ever done it before. He said, "Yeah." I said, "What? How many times?" He said "Twelve." I was heartbroken. He'd been with twelve other girls before me." Veronica waited three months before doing it again. "I was in the school talent show. I've always danced. I started taking dancing lessons when I was seven. It was the time of hot pants, and I was running around in a pair. I thought I was hot stuff. This guy came up to me, a nice looking guy, and he tried to put the make on me. I couldn't be bothered. I was snippy, very short with him. A few moments later, I found out that he happened to be the lead singer in the rock group that was playing around town. All of a sudden, it was, "Hi, how are you? Can I help you pack your instrument?" He let me help him pack his instruments, and I went home with him. When I went to his house, he wouldn't let me go. He dragged me into the bedroom. My panty hose got down to my knees and he gave it to me. It wasn't anything I was into. It wasn't fun for me, but he sure taught me a lesson. It taught me not to tease men if I didn't mean it. Also, it taught me not to be such a s--- towards people. Where did I get off thinking I was so much better than him? He was the same person whether he was a lead singer or not. It doesn't make any difference what people do. "We stayed friends," says Veronica in 6/96. "Although it was a horrible experience, I bragged that I'd been with him because he was a minor rock star. I'd go up to him at a concert and say, "Hi Wayne, remember me? Remember me?" "And he'd say "Hi" and walk away. We were both in theater in college and we were both at the same level. It was important to me that I go back and f--- him because I was so bad the first time. And when I went back, I found out why it had hurt so much because he had a big dick. On our first time, I had no idea. I probably didn't even touch it. I didn't know what was going on. "He turned into a fan of me. He won't stay at parties too long where I'm at because he gets frustrated. He still plays music but he hasn't had a big career." Veronica stayed sexually active through her late teens because "it was a way of getting accepted. I knew I could make men feel good. The two things I have always been interested in is acting and making love. The X-rated business is a natural place for me." The ex-porn star describes her new views in 1996. "We all want to be liked, loved, adored... And sex was a way for that, especially when you were really bright. Being bright when I was growing up was not positive. So you did a lot of things to be accepted such as drugs and sex which I embraced wholeheartedly. Getting married was great because it taught me that I could have relationships with men and still not have sex. Usually, before if I had a relationship with a guy, I went to bed with him. It followed. Being married taught me that I was valuable as a person and I had worth besides the bed. But I'm still sexual. Now I like sex because I like sex. It's not just to get liked or appreciated." Born in 1956, the Western High School graduate majored in theater at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, performing in A Thurber Carnival and The House of Bernarda Alba (at a Kennedy Center festival). Veronica graduated from college at age 19 in 1976 and moved to England for three years where the 5'6 combination of brains and beauty modeled. "You don't need to be tall to model there." An accident with a coffee urn changed her life when it spilled scalding coffee on her side. "They didn't know about packing you in ice then." Veronica was in the hospital for two months."You don't have to be a psychology expert to see why I got into porn. I've always liked sex but my life would probably have taken a different turn without that accident. "People in pornography are usually rebels or are trying to make up for some kind of deficiency or defect. It could be in their character...or they could've been beaten or sexually abused in their childhood...or their nose is crooked or some other physical defect. That's where it [motivation for entering porn] used to come from but now everybody gets everything done [surgically] so it's not so much the case. "At one point in the hospital, I felt that I'd never be able to take off my clothes in front of a man. "On the first night I spent with my English boyfriend after getting out of hospital, he turned off the lights. And I like to make love with the lights on. So that really hurt." Veronica rarely appeared naked in her scenes. Instead, she usually wore lingerie to hide her scars. Veronica Hart got a BA in theater, spent some time in modeling and straight films, and then got into X. "I was disillusioned with the straight film business. I had moved out to New York with a legitimate casting director. He was nasty. I got out of that. Two music deals fell through for me. I was forced into becoming a temporary secretary at Psychology Today. "It's tough to live on a $100 a week anywhere and in New York it's extremely tough. I was renting a room from a gentleman, Roy Stewart, and he had done X-rated films. He saw my modeling pictures and my acting credits. He said "You're an asshole." I said, "Yeah?" He said: "You're selling your brains, your time, your organizational ability, everything, for not much money." And I've always been sexually active. I enjoy sex. There wasn't any big moral thing with me that I had to get over. So I tried it. I didn't go in thinking I'd be a big porn star, but some people told me early on that I could be. "Most of the people I became acquainted with who did legit films, the supposedly moral people of our world, I found to be the most degenerate. Porn has its share of good and bad, too, but compared to legit people, they're more real and down to earth. "He [Roy Stewart] and I were f--- buddies. He'd get the girls to come to the films. He never could perform [on camera] but he'd try again and again. We did a week a live sex shows. And I literally blew my brains out. That was tough to fake with no hard on. And he continued to try. "My first [adult] film was with a guy [Leonid Kirtman, who used the porn name Leon Gucci, directed Tara Tara Tara, The Seduction of Cindy and Princess Seka] who had a reputation for f---ing all his actresses, which he did with me. "I was having sex with a guy who was predominantly gay - Zebedy Colt. It was hard to get him up. After an hour of shooting, Lenny takes me aside and asks if I want to finish the scene. I didn't know what to say. So eventually I said "Sure." So Lenny bends me over, unzips his fly, penetrates my vagina, pumps me twice and cums all over me." "I didn't know much about the adult business at the time but I knew that wasn't right. Actors are paid to perform and that directors don't stand in for cum shots. He got to f--- all his actresses that way. "We run an upright business. I knew the big difference between a director and an actor. Actors are hired to f---. Not directors. It wasn't professional. It was the only time I felt like s--- in porn. "I ended up feeling sorry for him. If that was his only way of getting laid, that's sad. "I'm not a dumb woman, but most people don't have any guidelines when they first get into this business... Seka told me what I had to do, which is that no one has to do anything that they don't want to do... The producers will try to get away with as much as they can. To get as much out of an actress for the least amount of money. And that's strictly business." Veronica first performed sex in front of theater audiences on Broadway. She did live sex shows for a week and found it ok. "Even after I'd made a couple of films, I went back to doing the live shows. But I would never do them again now, because I respect my body too much. If you make love from four to six times a day, you lose some sensitivity." Veronica enjoyed sex in front of the camera. "Film is the illusion of truth. What might look good on film is not necessarily what feels good. Still, I believe that the hotter you are, the hotter it's going to come across to the audience. A lot of girls in this business aren't into sex, or they aren't into making it with another girl. They play at it, and their coldness comes across on film. The more you can psych yourself up to be hot, the hotter it will appear on film." Veronica Hart is bisexual. "I love the warmth and tenderness that you get through ladies, but you can have that with a man, too. I love pussy and I love cock. Everybody is basically bisexual. People are turned on by feeling good. Screwing is wonderful, and its fabulous in itself, though there is more to life than sex. Love is also wonderful." Veronica wants more character development in porn. "Have the story tell how the couple gets to f---ing. A lot of bad porn has f---ing every other scene, and that's not how it is in real life. You don't f--- every second. There should be some buildup, a relationship established before sex. A good porn movie is one you could take all the sex scenes out and still have a good movie." This is the opposite of Al Goldstein's view - "The plot of a porn film is like the frame of a painting. You don't look at the frame." Veronica: "Porn is one of the worst things an aspiring actress can do. What angers me is that if I were up for a straight part, and I was just as good as someone else, that I've done porn would stand in the way. It's the kind of hypocrisy that prevails in America. Everybody loves to make love, but nobody wants to admit it. Everybody loves a girl who loves to be screwed, but they still think of her as a slut. I'd see guys f---ing all day on a set, and people would say, "Wow, what a man," and "Isn't he wonderful?" A chick will get f---ed all day and they'll say, "God, she's really great, but what a slut!" So, you realize that you've got to be the best slut there is." "A magazine ran a shot of me from a movie where this guy was behind me. It wasn't an anal. The magazine printed: "And Veronica yelled: 'f--- me where I s---!'" That is not a turn on to me. "I've done a lot of anal intercourse scenes. When I'm hot, I'll take it any way I can get it. I just want it. I wouldn't say I like it more or less... It's just a different sensation. I think a lot of straight men would like it, but they may be afraid to do it because of the homosexual thing. "This business is in transition. People are trying to do different things, and make it more realistic. The women's market is untapped. "There are films that I dearly love [Amanda By Night, Scent of Heather, and Roommates]. They've been criticized and aren't played in theaters because they don't have all the open cum-shots. They're not considered explicit enough. "Amanda by Night was like a TV movie with sex in it," Veronica told me. "You [Luke] look at it as before he [director Robert McCallum] was comfortable doing sex and I look at it as when he was a real filmmaker." In Amanda, Hart plays a hooker who breaks free of her pimp and cares about her clients. Despite this cliche of the hooker with a heart of gold, the film's mixture of sex and violence keeps your interest to the romantic ending. Hart quit doing explicit sex scenes after four years in the biz, but she still makes cameo appearances in porn. She and Kelly Nichols appeared in 1995's Latex. Veronica's mainstream career has been disappointing. She's mustered only small roles in big movies and only big roles in small movies. Like numerous other former adult stars such as Linda Lovelace, and Richard Pacheco, Veronica is married with children. She produces under her real name - Jane Hamilton - at VCA and directs as Veronica Hart. "Loving someone is one of the closest ways to get to God. "I worship God and I thank God for every minute of my life. There's a lot of people who don't agree with me and that's fine. I'm not a good one to follow a discipline. I know how I have to talk to God and worship him. "As for work, I don't have to kiss ass to a boss. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. I get away with doing a lot less and getting paid a lot more than most ladies ever would. That's why I can't consider myself a feminist. I'm a people-ist. "There was an anti-porn thing, for example, in New York. What it really was was a bunch of dykes getting together hating men. That's not my idea of a good time. "I make pornography because I can...and because mainstream isn't beating down my door. "A writer from one of those classy women's magazines wanted to know what changes women had made in the business. And I said "None." "Maybe there's a genre that hasn't been developed yet. There are two women making sex videos for women. We've been neglected. You've either got the slut who loves f--- films like the guys or the woman who never wants one of those films in the home. Most women are in between. They do enjoy sex but they need to be courted...with production value and romance. And there are also guys like that. "I believe there's a whole niche for sex stores like Victoria Secrets with vibrators and selected videos... "I loved the The Big Easy with Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin. When his hand disappears behind her and you just see her face. That got me so hot I had to turn it off and ask the kids to go in the other room because mommy was having a moment. That is much sexier than open-heart surgery. "It's always been an easy thing to say - "I've done porn films, they won't let me cross over." There are a lot of things that won't let you cross over. If you hadn't done porn, you'd still have no chance to make it. "I remember Lasse Braun on the set of American Desire. He'd always say, "Let me see the tongue." He'd gotten a straight crew to work on it. That's how I met my husband Michael. Lasse told the crew to stay far away from all the actors because they were sick people. "In the mean time, he was busy banging every girl except me because I wasn't his cup of tea. "I chased my husband. I was either going after him or the lady, Carol, who wrote the film. He was there with his little light meter down by my pussy and I was coming on to him. He was either going after me or Carol. We had the same taste in women which I thought was a good starting point. "Michael works behind the scenes in both straight and adult. He writes all the stuff that I shoot. In New York he knew everybody. It was his town. I forced a move out here to LA and it's been difficult for him to get reestablished. He works freelance. He writes porn scripts under the name Michael Hunt. He's now working on a science fiction novel. We've written a couple of [mainstream] screen plays which we hope to produce. For Lighting and Director of Photography work he goes by Clint Torres. For audio, he's Mike Stick. He's not aggressive but I am. "Samantha Fox lives in New York and is so bitter about the industry. She wishes that she'd never gotten into it. She's a victim. She said all this on a Phil Donahue we did last year. She's in a twelve step program for alcoholism. I had no idea that she was that much of an alcoholic. "Coming off the Phil Donahue set, I said to Samantha - "One thing I never thought that I'd have to do was defend myself against you. I just feel sorry for you. I never knew what great pain you were in." "In the middle of the Phil Donahue show, I felt like saying, "Samantha, you looked like you were really enjoying it when I was eating your pussy." She was just vicious. "I was livid. I couldn't believe it. It also reminded me of why I don't do talkshows anymore. They just want to rehash old stuff. They don't want to hear about the new stuff we're doing. They want to hear about f---ing. I understand now. My husband explained it to me. "If you've got an astronaut whose been to the moon, you don't want to know what he's doing now. You want to know what the moon was like. "Linda Lovelace is making money. When she worked, she hardly got paid anything. And a lot of people have made a lot of money off her. I don't blame her for trying to make some of it back, but her method is stupid. "Porn is not hooking. I was hired as an actress. Maybe on a straight film the director f---s the actress but it doesn't happen in this business. Nobody has to come in here and do me to get a job. "That's why I hate to get lumped in with the rest of pornographers. "I took great joy in this business because I was hired to f---. I never had to f--- to get hired. "It's sleazy to f--- to get somewhere. Believe me, I've tried it all over Hollywood. It doesn't guarantee anything. "Everybody who doesn't f--- the actresses takes great pride in that. They feel set apart. They don't feel as sleazy as the next guy. I had a two year fling with Harold Lime. That was my choice. I've never f---ed anybody in this business to get a job. "I take pride in my high standards. No actress comes into VCA and f---s anyone to get a job. I hate to get lumped in with the Rocco Siffredis and Max Hardcores. Women should be treated with respect - not slapped around, spat upon and dunked in toilets. "I'm happy to hear that such nasty material hasn't changed your [Luke] ideas about women. I worry about my sons seeing videos like that. Would they think that's the way to treat women? And by you telling me no, that you realize it's a fantasy, that makes me feel better about it. But I always know that when people go out against pornography, they bring up child pornography and animals and denigration of women. Our biggest sin, if we sin, is that we trivialize sex and make it boring. "I maybe idealistic, but I want everyone to get off and be happy in my pictures. I don't want it to be an act that's imposed on the woman but is enjoyed by the woman and sometimes initiated by the woman." Veronica directs and produces under the name Jane Hamilton. VCA has released about 40 of her sexvids. Jim Holliday calls her the hardest working woman in porn. She produces the movies of MTV-style pornographer Michael Ninn. Hart published a letter to the 3-98 AVN. "I've always been proud to be associated with the adult business and have stood up for it many times on talk shows, in interviews and have lobbied for the business in Sacramento. Being a member of the board for The Free Speech Coalition has been very meaningful and exciting. It has been important to stand up for our sexual freedoms and spread the word that sex can be fun, joyous, fulfilling and really nasty. "I am shocked and mortified that a "sick f---" to use one of your reviewer's own words was voted as the best director we have in the business. If you are in the business of degrading women, I guess this is true. I didn't know that's where AVN's reviewers' sentiments lay. But I guess I should have seen this coming from the onset piece of the Stephanie Swift gang-bang, "they lay big, disgusting, phlegm-filled hockers right in her face, one after the other," Mikey Ramone, Nov. '97 to the good review given to Rocco More Than Ever, "She's dragged over the carpeting and into the bathroom, where she is further humiliated by having her face pissed on (implied, not shown) and her hair flushed down the toilet. Then she is repeatedly spat upon," Avie Chute, Nov. '97. I'm sure that lookng at hundreds of pornos hasn't desensitized your reviewers at all. These videos are not listed in the fetish section. This is not a part of a dramatic story where we realize these are the bad guys. This is an acceptable way for guys to treat women these days. NOT… "Videos like these have always existed but they have never been the mainstream of pornography just as bestiality and child porn have never been the norm. I recognize that the same laws which protect misogynist filmmakers are the same laws which allow companies like VCA, Vivid, and Wicked to operate. But I never thought I would see the day we would be celebrating videos like these at an AVN Awards show. "But check out your ads AVN. Yadda yadda yadda - free speech is just an excuse now for bad taste and hatred toward women. I guess the almighty buck is the most important thing - I hear this stuff sells really well. Listen to me, I sound like one of those anti-porn feminists. I'm not. I still love sex. I still love men and women who act humanely towards each other. But you've managed to make me ashamed to be a pornographer, something the right wing was never able to do. This is direct proof that violence begets violence. I personally think about blowing away guys who make videos like this." Jane plays a judge in the 1997 Paul Thomas Anderson mainstream film Boogie Nights. While most everything shown in Nights occurred frequently in porn in the '70s and '80s, the movie focuses on the negative. "I was prepared to have a really brutal picture painted of all of us," Jane Hamilton told the 10-02-97 Las Vegas Review-Journal. "But he [Anderson] put the humanity into who we were and what we were trying to do. "As cute and pathetic as we were, we really meant it. We weren't model types. We were more like the girl next door. The films were more indicative of women and sex. In the larger scheme of things, (our pretensions) were pretty funny." When Jane first read the script for Boogie Nights, she thought, "this is terrible. All they're doing is drugs." Then she thought about it, "all we did was drugs. "I won't stand up on a bandwagon for porn. Most of the stuff I see is bad." Hamilton only works on movies that "love and respect women…but there's no way to separate (the rest of it) from what I do." From the August 27, 1999 edition of the LA Times: Falling in love with celluloid images isn't a new concept in a city built on deception. In this case, it serves as a nominal conceit for Bayla Travis' play "The Dyke and the Porn Star" at Highways. This entertaining, randy piece of fluff lightly touches on lesbian politics while making fun of the artifice of porn flicks. The power player is the femme lesbian porn queen, Tara (Veronica Hart, who has acted in and directed adult films). She asserts her needs while trying to deny her attraction to Chance. In her black-vinyl gear, there is nothing vulnerable about Tara. She exudes sexual confidence while Chance shivers with low self-esteem. Yet does Tara really want to be the dominatrix in this relationship? Is Chance's libido really raging for a celebrity lay? There is enough nudity to titillate as well as some simulated sexual acts, but Travis' focus is on finding a long-term bonding, between minds and then bodies. To this end, director Dora Arreola emphasizes the comedic qualities of the actors and the ridiculous dance toward love. This love story won't make you think, but it will make you laugh. From the May 20, 2001 issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine: I ask Veronica Hart, whose two teenage sons are at magnet schools for the highly gifted, what they have made of her career. "It's horrible for them," she says. "I'm their loving mommy, and nobody likes to think of their parents having sex and being famous for it. I'm not ashamed of what I do. I take responsibility for who I am. I chose. From the time they were kids, my stripping gear was washed and hanging in the bathtub. At the same time I apologize to my kids for how the choices in my life have affected them. They're well adjusted and can joke with me about it: 'I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life on the couch."'
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