Porn Stars | Mr. Pink's Blog - Part 97

Remembering Kandi Barbour

Some sad news crossed the Mr. Pink’s desk this week, concerning the apparent loss of another porn heroine of the Golden Age, Kandi Barbour. Star of such XXX films as The Pink Ladies (1980), Bon Appetit (’80), California Gigolo (’79), and Screwples (’79), Barbour (real name Linda Jean Smith) amassed a small but impressive filmography over her nine years as an adult performer, leading her to be inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2009. To the surprise of many people in porn, the native Kansan was sadly found dead in San Francisco on Thursday January 26th, another victim of the city’s immense homeless problem.

As Golden Age director Carter Stevens recalled to AVN, the last time he had any knowledge of Barbour’s whereabouts and health was 22 years ago when his wife saw her in Hawaii. “She was living above the club [Club Hubba Hubba] and working there… she had a drinking problem. She had gained a lot of weight and was living in a muumuu and never took it off. She did has some mental problems, even at that point.” Suffering from a dysmorphic body image, Barbour believed her nose to be crooked – it wasn’t – and often spoke of having it “fixed.” Very little information about her life between that time and the discovery of her body on a San Francisco street. She was 55-years-old.

Sadly, like so many performers who came both before and after Barbour, she may largely be remembered by her rather modest entry at Wikipedia: “Kandi Barbour was a former American adult models, pornstar and exotic dancer.”

Gettin’ Sexy at the Spa

Massage porn has been blowing up the cyberwaves of late and it seems like any adult network worth its bandwidth is hastily cobbling together some kind of massage-related hardcore site to keep up with customer demands. Reality Kings has Happy Tugs, an Asian themed massage site; Porn Pros has Massage Creep; Brazzers hosts Dirty Masseur; WTF Pass has HD Massage Porn; and Teen Mega World has Tricky Masseur. Merely scraping the surface and keeping ourselves limited to networks only, no standalone sites, we’ve already gathered all the evidence needed to confirm that massage porn is set to follow parodies just as ska and so-cal punk followed grunge and alterna-rock. The best massage porn site of all, however, is the one with the strongest roster of models laying down and letting some lucky and manually dexterous “masseuse” run his filthy mitts all over their incredible bodies. That site, dear readers, is Pornstar Spa.

Under the watchful eye of the infamous Bang Bros, Pornstar Spa has grown from a seedling of an idea of a concept to one of the most thrilling sites on the entire Bang Bros network – and, man, is that saying something! The latest addition to the Pornstar Spa roster, which already includes more than two dozen incredible pornstar babes, is French/Vietnamese legend of the adult entertainment industry, frequent sparring partner of Manuel Ferrara and Rocco Siffredi, and multiple AVN Award winner, Katsuni. One quick gander at the previews of Katsuni’s Pornstar Spa scene and you’ll see why this site is so damn hard to turn away from: her luscious physique is captured in evocative low camera angles, making it feel like she’s right there in front of you. Lathered with oils and laying on a physiotherapy table, Katsuni’s body has rarely looked better than it does here, and that’s even before anything profoundly sexual occurs. You can imagine how thrilling it gets once she realizes this handyman is here to take care not just of her muscular tension, but her sexual tension, too.

So, you’re not a Katsuni fan? As difficult as that is for this writer to comprehend, we must respect all tastes. Just try and avoid finding an incredibly well-built babe who you wouldn’t turn to murder just to get your hands on for a few measly seconds within this list of Pornstar Spa performers: Vicki Chase, Lisa Ann, Amy Reid, Brynn Tyler, Diamond Kitty, Capri Cavalli, Jennifer Dark, Nicole Aniston, Phoenix Marie, Rachel Starr, Madison Ivy, Kelly Divine, Samantha Saint, Nikki Sexx, Mason Moore, Sophie Dee, Lylith Lavey, Katie Kox, Francesca Le, Vanilla DeVille, Abbey Brooks, Venice, Jayden Jaymes, Richelle Ryan, Sienna West, Tiffany D. Gore, and the incomparable (even after such a disappointing boob-job) Rebeca Linares.

Well, readers, did you ever see a more stellar lineup of physiques in one place in the history of adult entertainment? Yeah, thought not.

Spiegler’s Harem

While it could definitely be argued that James Deen, Evan Stone, and even Ron Jeremy are rightfully holders of the title Luckiest Man in Porn, once again someone from behind the scenes beats all the on-screen talent to the finish line. So, who is this mystery man with such fantastically good fortune and how did he get to where he is today?

Folks, meet Mark Spiegler (above with Lily LaBeau and Sarah Shevon), the most powerful and influential agent in the American porn industry. There’s precious little information readily available to give us insight into where Spiegler came from and exactly how he managed to build himself a porno empire that doesn’t directly involve production or performance. We, the endlessly envious porn audience, are left to do nothing but marvel at Spiegler’s incomparable roster of incredible performers, most of whom have made their names through his efforts behind the scenes.

Seriously, folks, just take a gander at this photo snapped at the recent AVN Awards in Las Vegas…

Every single one of these women is a client of Spiegler’s and each one netted at least one AVN nomination this past year. Bobbi Starr, of course, won Female Performer of the Year and no doubt had Spiegler beaming like a proud day on his daughter’s wedding day. In fact, considering the well known habit Spiegler’s girls have of crashing at his apartment, which in reality looks more like an all-female dormitory, he’s bound to think of his greatest success stories almost as daughters. When you take a look, even a quick glance, at the other women on his roster – Brooklyn Lee, Jessie Andrews, Chanel Preston, London Keyes, Kristina Rose, Katsuni, and Belladonna – and imagine even a few of these amazing women sleeping on Spiegler’s floor, you absolutely cannot refute his position as top dog of the US porn industry. Screw the stunt-dicks, it’s all about the agents!

Inside the Winner’s Circle

Every year, the AVN Awards bestow upon porn’s best and brightest the greatest accolades the industry has ever known, and this year was no different. Pornstars both veteran and fledgling, female and male, were handed phallic trophies declaring them the best blahblahblah of 2011 and therefore guaranteeing them a place in the upper echelon of adult performers; at least, that is, until next year. In order to properly assess the current state of the industry and ruminate on what 2012 might have in store for porn viewers across the globe, why don’t we run down the list of the more prominent achievements heralded by the 2011 AVN Awards and see what’s what.

Female Performer of the Year, Bobbi Starr, certainly deserved her accolade, having in the last 12 months cemented herself not only as a astonishing performer capable of the most raucous and debasing kink and rough sex scenes as well as an incredibly tender onscreen lover when it is required, but by managing to do all of this while establishing herself as a maverick director of feminist pro-sex porn for men and women of all persuasions.

Manuel Ferrara took home the Male Performer of the Year award and few could argue that the Frenchman hadn’t earned his phallic trophy. It seems like Manny has been plowing the asses of porn’s best and brightest for eons but the last year has really been a fantastic one for the uncircumcised multiple-shot-popper, having broken in the rear passages of London Keyes, Holly Michaels, Gracie Glam, and Kagney Linn Karter, and extending his extremely intimate Raw DVD series, while maintaining his handsome yet down-to-earth persona.

New Starlet of the Year was a hotly contested category and while I could definitely sit here are argue that Skin Diamond, Holly Michaels, Abella Anderson, Jessie Andrews, and Rebeca Linares’ new tits are all worthy of the accolade (even if the latter did only enter the industry to get their host into big boob movies and out of anal ones), you’ve gotta hand it to Brooklyn Lee. The native Ohioan took on the toughest performers, both male and female, in the industry and proved herself a worthy match. While I can’t help but feel this award might’ve been more appropriately awarded to Ms. Lee last year when she first made a splash, she’s nonetheless a stunning performer with a bright future.

My frontrunner for Female Performer of the Year, Asa Akira, didn’t win that category, but instead took home a wheelbarrow full of awards for the Best Tease Performance, Solo Sex Scene, Anal Sex Scene, Double-Penetration Scene, Threeway Sex Scene (boy/boy/girl), Group Sex Scene, and, for Asa Akira is Insatiable 2, Best All-Sex Release. Quite a year for the diminutive Japanese-American with, well, an insatiable appetite for powerful sex.

Having not yet seen Diary of a Call Girl, I can’t personally vouch for Actress of the Year award winner Jessie Andrews’ performance in the title role, but her numerous other onscreen roles have made quite an impression, both on this reviewer and the porn industry at large. Julia Ann, the wondermilf herself, called Jessie one of the brightest new talents in the business after performing with her in Club 59’s Teach Me. This girl has very, very big things ahead of her.

Industry awards are great, sure, but they don’t mean anything compared to a legion of devoted, sexually satisfied fans. When it came to the fan-voted awards, Riley Steele took ’em all! Best Body, Favorite Porn Star, Twitter Queen, and Hottest Sex Scene (shared with Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Stoya, BiBi Jones and Manuel Ferrara for Digital Playground’s Babysitters 2). Talk about an active fanbase!

One of Mr. Pink’s favorite sites, Brazzers, took home Best Membership Website, beating out Naughty America, Bang Bros, and Reality Kings to nab the trophy once again. Oh, and there were plenty of statues handed to producers, directors (most notably Axel Braun), writers, and cinematographers of parody films both drama and comedy, so if you needed one safe bet for the rest of 2012, it’s that parody porn still doesn’t seem to have worn out its welcome. And, no, I don’t quite know how to feel about that.

Congratulations to all of this years winners and our warmest condolences to the rest of the nominees, and here’s to another great year of good ol’ American porn!