Jennifer Welles

Jennifer Welles Biography

Life Before Porn

Jennifer Welles was one of the first adult performers to be classified as a star. She was born in 1933 in New Jersey where she quit high school and became a dancer in traveling theater troupes during the early 1950's. She soon went to Las Vegas and danced in opening acts for various comedians. After returning to the East Coast she studied drama for a short time under Sanford Meisner. She continued dancing in stage productions and by the end of the 1960's, she had married professional musician Manny Duran and acted in low-budget films in New York City. Some of her early notable films include Sex by Advertisement (1968), Career Bed (1969), Submission (1969), and This Sporting House (1969). She was also one of the favorite actresses for Joseph W. Sarno. She starred in four of Sarno's softcore features: Misty (1976), Confessions of a Young American Housewife (1974), Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town (1975), and The Switch or How to Alter Your Ego (1974).

Big and Natural

Jennifer Welles leaped into hardcore movies in 1975, when she played an older woman artfully seducing a much younger man in Honeypie (1975). The movie was inducted into XRCO Hall of Fame. Although she was in her 40's throughout her porno career, Welles displayed amazing energy and a nicely curvaceous figure that got her plenty of work. Her gigantic natural boobs on a 5'2" frame got her noticed, but it was her acting skills as much as anything that kept her at the top of the porno world. In an era when plot and story were as important as sex, Jennifer stood out as a woman who could truly get inside her characters.

She starred in 1976's Temptations as a swinging wife, turning in white-hot trysts with John Leslie and Jake Teague along the way. Another of her best roles is in Little Orphan Sammy, where she plays villainess Hata Mari. Her best known film is Inside Jennifer Welles (1977), which she is also credited with having directed (although the film was actually anonymously directed by sex-exploitation veteran Joseph W. Sarno).

Life After Porn

Welles left the industry abruptly in 1978 after she married a wealthy businessman who was about ten years younger. However, the marriage was soon over after he began an affair with another woman. In a recent interview for The Rialto Report she stated that she is now in her seventies and living alone on much less money in her rural home with a few cats, dogs, and two horses. She says she has a few close friends, some to whom she has revealed her past, and that she attends church regularly and has no regrets for her film career.

Porn Awards

• 1977 Erotica Award for Best Actress in Little Orphan Sammy
• 1996 AVN Hall of Fame Inductee