Biography

Vanessa del Rio (born as Ana Maria Sanchez; March 31, 1952) is an American retired pornographic actress. Vanessa del Rio was born and raised in Harlem, New York, the daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Puerto Rico and of mixed African and Spanish background.  Vanessa del Rio began appearing in adult films in 1974 after a strict Catholic upbringing and interest in sex. In the span of about 25 years, del Rio has appeared in over 100 pornographic films and in several music videos, notably "Get Money" by Junior M.A.F.I.A.

Though Vanessa del Rio retired from adult films in 1986 in part due to the AIDS scare prevalent at the time, she returned shortly after and continued her porn career until 1999. Afterwards, she remains somewhat active in the adult entertainment industry through her web site and by making special appearances at award shows, conventions, etc. During and after her porn career, Vanessa del Rio appeared on many TV shows as herself, including a 1996 episode of NYPD Blue.

Star Info: Aliases: Ursula Passarell, Vanessa del Rio. "A real nasty Latin lady, Vanessa is famous for being a fierce cocksucker, which has helped to make her one of the most loved porn queens of all time. But her erotic talents don't stop at a prick in her mouth. She's jumpy in bed as well, tossing and turning, screaming and yelling, with exuberant pleasure. It's no wonder that Vanessa became an all-time favorite of porn fans, from the time of her career entry in 1975's Reunion, tight on to today, even though she's been retired since 1986 with nearly 100 film to her credit." -- Adam Film World

Vanessa del Rio (born as Ana Maria Sanchez; March 31, 1952) is an American retired pornographic actress. Vanessa del Rio was born and raised in Harlem, New York, the daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Puerto Rico and of mixed African and Spanish background.  Vanessa del Rio began appearing in adult films in 1974 after a strict Catholic upbringing and interest in sex. In the span of about 25 years, del Rio has appeared in over 100 pornographic films and in several music videos, notably "Get Money" by Junior M.A.F.I.A.

Though Vanessa del Rio retired from adult films in 1986 in part due to the AIDS scare prevalent at the time, she returned shortly after and continued her porn career until 1999. Afterwards, she remains somewhat active in the adult entertainment industry through her web site and by making special appearances at award shows, conventions, etc. During and after her porn career, Vanessa del Rio appeared on many TV shows as herself, including a 1996 episode of NYPD Blue.

Star Info: Aliases: Ursula Passarell, Vanessa del Rio. "A real nasty Latin lady, Vanessa is famous for being a fierce cocksucker, which has helped to make her one of the most loved porn queens of all time. But her erotic talents don't stop at a prick in her mouth. She's jumpy in bed as well, tossing and turning, screaming and yelling, with exuberant pleasure. It's no wonder that Vanessa became an all-time favorite of porn fans, from the time of her career entry in 1975's Reunion, tight on to today, even though she's been retired since 1986 with nearly 100 film to her credit." -- Adam Film World

VANESSA DEL RIO ON STRIPPING...

Sophie: When did you start all this adult stuff?
Vanessa: In 1974 I started making movies, but I had already been working as a go-go dancer. I started out as a computer programmer, but that didn't last because I was not the nine to five type.
Sophie: Are you originally from New York?
Vanessa: Yes. Born in Harlem.
Sophie: Where did you dance as a go-go dancer?
Vanessa: All over. You know, you get your assignments and they send you all over Manhattan and Queens.
Sophie: Were you topless at the time?
Vanessa: Yes. Let me think, that's going way back. Some were topless and some were totally nude. That's when all you needed was a bag full of g-strings, so you traveled light.
Sophie: Some of these girls that became features never danced before and they don't know how to dance.
Vanessa: You mean, they do movies just to get a feature name and then they go and they feature? I know a lot of dancers that had big grief because girls from the movies were getting paid more, no acts, they didn't know how to dance... The strippers that had spent thousands of dollars on their costumes were complaining that it wasn't fair. But, you know, it's all about the draw. But, I dance very well, if I do say so myself. And I strip the old fashioned way. It's about teasing. You can't give it to them all at once. I've actually seen girls take their bottoms off before they even take their tops off. They're giving away the whole goods the minute they get up there.
Sophie: I like the sentence, "You can't give it to them all at once."
Vanessa: Yea. I've seen some of them as soon as they get up on stage they hike their skirts up and they either take off a g-string or they don't have one on to begin with and they still have their bras on, and I think that's a little backwards. Fast and backwards.
Sophie: I have seen once a girl make an awful lot of money. She wore some kind of a dress that was very slinky and had nothing underneath and she was just flashing.
Vanessa: Well, see, that's tease. If you can't really see it all and you just flash real quick, there's tease involved there. It's also a lot of attitude. If you come across with a very coy, sexy teasing attitude, guys love that, instead of the really aggressive. I saw one girl and she was actually hitting the guys in the face with her breasts. I found that kind of interesting. (laugh). I guess they say that you've got to have a gimmick.
Sophie: How do you dance that's teasing?
Vanessa: I wear a lot of things so that I can peel the clothes off. It's better when a woman just teasingly takes off piece by piece and becomes more and more naked. But then again, they don't have that long to dance nowadays anyway. They give them maybe two songs, so they've got these two songs to make all their money and you can't have much of an act in two quick songs.
Sophie: Every club is different. Most clubs you don't have the stage for yourself; you share it with other girls, so then it's even more difficult. I remember the last time you did a show in North Jersey at a place called Fantasie's at the time and it was about six or seven years ago. I didn't have a chance to see you then. So you work out two hours a day? you must be strong.
Vanessa: Well I just recently started doing it again. I had stopped for a few years. I stopped about two years ago and have just recently started again. I'm doing it more to tone down, firm up and slim down. I'm not looking to win any prizes.
Sophie: So that ambition is gone.
Vanessa: It's very hard to do it to that level. It has to be a real burning passion. You have to want it so badly that your whole life is encompassed by what you eat, what you do, how long you work out. You're constantly thinking about it.

VANESSA DEL RIO ON DOING MOVIES...

Sophie: When did you do a movie last?
Vanessa: Oh, about.....
Sophie: You do still remember, right?
Vanessa: Oh, sure. I did it for about twelve years, I hope it's not a lost memory.
Sophie: I want to compare this chatting to sex and I want to see if doing movies and having sex in front of the camera with different partners is stimulating.
Vanessa: Oh yes. I mean you can't last in the business if it's not exciting. You have to feel something.
Sophie: Sometimes it's not even possible to feel it when somebody really means sex just for the sake of sex. So what do you have to possess? What special ability do you need to be able to generate yourself?
Vanessa: Well, there's got to be a certain part of you that's an exhibitionist. That is sexual to begin with, so once you start getting into it, you just naturally get into it because you have a sexuality that's expressing itself. I can't remember moments that I was thinking that I'd rather be someplace else. In the moment there is an adrenaline that's going on, and you're acting and you're enjoying yourself, so you have to be in the moment. That's what I think it takes.
Sophie: Does a man have to be desiring you just to get an erection?
Vanessa: No, I have heard a guy say that if he's not into the girl he's got to think about something else. The guys, I've got to give it to them. They've got to get it up in front of all these people. The guys have the harder job. A woman can fake it. She puts on high heels and stockings and she can prance around and fake being sexy just by looking sexy. With a guy, he actually has to show that he's turned on. So I give the guys credit because they can get hard-ons just being there, even if the girl doesn't turn them on. So that's a feat in itself, and they get paid less. This is the one area where women get paid more than men, and the men have to really put out.
Sophie: Why do you think that is?
Vanessa: It's because of the woman that the movie is being done for, I mean, unless you're doing gay films. That's what sells. It's men who are buying it. They're buying the women to see them in sex acts.
Sophie: So it's again a draw issue, right?.
Vanessa: Right. I don't think they're buying it for the guys. The guys have to be there though, because the viewers are imagining that they are that guy. So in essence the guy is just a piece of meat that's being used. Maybe the reason that there are so many problems, is because this is the only business where women actually are in control, if they know how to take the control. It's the woman who's getting paid more, it's the woman that commands the attention, she's in control. In other words, it's because of her that they're doing the movie. And the guy is just there to fulfill the fantasy of the guy that's buying the movie. I'm just looking at it facetiously like that. In essence, he's the one that has to do all the work, because putting on high heels and stockings isn't work to us, it's part of us. He's not really working that hard either, but he's got to actually have a hard-on. So that to me is tough.
Sophie: I probably couldn't get it up.
Vanessa: But yet these guys that do it have been around for years. They're like sex machines, I suppose. But you know what I found interesting? The last time I did movies, and I haven't done movies in a while  the last bunch in 1985-1986, and I happened to notice that the guys' balls were smaller than I remembered and I think that's because they use them so much, they're constantly using them in a way that they can always get hard-ons. That was a silly observation on my part, but just an observation. I just happened to think tooling at this guy's balls that his balls were smaller than I remembered and it's because he makes so many movies.
Sophie: So when you make movies, you have way more sex than you would in the normal course of life, right?
Vanessa: No, not necessarily, because in the twelve years that I did movies I only did about 100, maybe 120. And that may sound like a lot, but nowadays, they'll do that many in two years. When I was in it, it wasn't something I did all the time. I didn't like to work all the time because I didn't want to wear out my sexuality and I didn't want to be overexposed.
Sophie: So the 120 was 120 movies?
Vanessa: Well that includes the little quick 8mm ones and the full features. So between all of them, I only did about 120. But then what they did was take little clips and then make another movie out of that, so it may seem like I did a lot more.
Sophie: So having sex 120 times in ten years is not so horribly much then?
Vanessa: No, even more than that is not so horribly much.
Sophie: Right. So it's not like one after the other? Because in a normal movie they would take and re-take and take again, and that could be very tiring...
Vanessa: Yes, well, in the course of a day you have to keep at it. I remember there was one small company, or group of people, that used to do loops and were known for wearing out the actors. He would just keep shooting. I actually saw this girl, just her face, and it was like, "Can we just get out of here?" And it was funny because the camera was behind her so they couldn't see her face and the guy is fucking her from behind and I was looking on because I was behind the scenes and she had the most disgusted look on her face, and the cameras couldn't see. She literally had her chin on her hand, almost like strumming her fingers, and she just looked totally disgusted, just like, "All right already." And the guy's just going at it and going at it. And sometimes what happens is that if you do that for too long, the guy can't come. He has a hard-on, but he can't come, because it's so much stop and start that it almost gets stuck on hard-on and the guy (the producer) would take full advantage of that and just shoot from every conceivable angle to get all this footage.
Sophie: That must also be painful, because there is no more lubricant...
Vanessa: Well, you know, they stop and lubricate.
Sophie: Ha-ha. What do they do to lubricate?
Vanessa: They say, "Auw, I'm dry, get me some k-y." At that time they used k-y or better yet, Albuline cream. I don't even know if they sell it any more that make-up remover. It stays very lubricated for a long time whereas k-y would get real tacky.
Sophie: No, I never needed lubricant, ha-ha.
Vanessa: Well, if you're on a set all day long.
Sophie: Well actually I lied. There was one boyfriend who was really much more sexual than I was. I was just like, "Oh, please... Enough"