by Luis Reyes
The feature film biography of the first Latina porn star Vanessa Del Rio, whose 25 year career began in the 1970’s, has started principal photography at Warner Bros studios in Burbank under the direction of Thomas Mignone, who also wrote the screenplay.
Vivian Lamolli stars as the sultry Latina queen of erotica Vanessa Del Rio. Born and raised in Miami, Lamolli is best known for her character of Filiberta Rodriguez on the popular series East Los High. She is a
Also part of the starring cast are Esai Morales (La Bamba
Vanessa Del Rio who took her last name from famed classic Mexican film star Dolores Del Rio was actually born Anna Maria Sanchez in New York City of Cuban-Puerto-Rican parents in 1954. An only child, her strict Latina Catholic upbringing led her to rebel and leave home at an early age and Vanessa fell into the sex, drug and disco lifestyle of 70’s New York.
After various jobs as a bookkeeper and dancer in the early
Vanessa Del Rio’s story is told against the backdrop of the gritty organized crime controlled industry and the Federal governments battle against such activities. Del Rio has succeeded as one of the first women of color in the adult film industry and has gone from adult film star to mainstream actress and now an empowered legendary woman.
Del Rio left the industry when the AIDS crisis hit in the mid 80’s and dedicated her efforts to helping secure health care benefits for sex workers. She returned briefly to performing and worked until 1999 and then was sidelined by an arrest and conviction for drugs from which she fully recovered.
Her celebrity landed her a role as herself in a 1996 episode “Head Case” on the acclaimed TV series NYPD Blue and another in the 2006 comedy Soul Man starring Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac.
At 65 years of
Juana Maria Rodriquez, a Latina studies scholar has written of Del Rio’s influence, “She disrupted mainstream and middle-class feminist attitudes about sex work.”
