Ex-porn star now acts as medical advocate

LOS ANGELES — Former porn star Sharon Mitchell lived a "Boogie Nights"-style life of fame and excess, turning out more than 1,000 movies with titles such as "Jail Bait" and "Captain Lust and the Pirate Women."

Along the way, she acquired herpes, chlamydia and a 16-year heroin habit. She was raped and beaten by a deranged fan in 1996.

She would return to the industry in a much different role a few years later, though: unofficial chief health-care officer.

Mitchell, holder of a Ph.D. in human sexuality, co-founded the nonprofit Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, which provides testing for sexually transmitted diseases along with drug and psychological counseling for porn actors.

"She is basically the Mother Teresa of porn," actor and producer Dave Pounder said.

The foundation's testing determined last week that actors Darren James and Lara Roxx were infected with the AIDS virus. The news led to the voluntary quarantine of 53 people and prompted an estimated 80 percent of the industry to halt production until further testing gives the all-clear.

While Mitchell has her critics, many in the multibillion-dollar industry credit her with persuading the industry to look seriously at the occupational hazard of AIDS.

"She's trying so hard to keep this ragtag bunch of hooligans together in this industry," said Suze Randall, a friend and adult-film producer. "We're all rule-breakers and free spirits, and Sharon's got her work cut out keeping us all alive."

Mitchell, 46, said she is the only one providing comprehensive help to the porno-film industry, centered in the San Fernando Valley.

"We let them know that HIV is an occupational hazard, not just a risk or a remote possibility," Mitchell said. "Nobody seems to hear it. Everybody is so into making money."

Reared in New Jersey, Mitchell said she grew up in a "wonderful and loving" family and took her first adult-film role after off-Broadway acting jobs did not earn her much money. She said she had no qualms about porn.

"What risk was there in 1975?" she said. "It was the sexual revolution. What was I going to get? Crabs?"

She had a long career as a performer, director and producer and gathered a shelf full of adult movie awards and a place in Hustler magazine's Hall of Fame. Acting was fun, she said.

Then, after performing at a Sunset Boulevard strip club, she was followed home and brutalized. The attack "did something to me," she said. She made a few more films but soon was "running for rehab and college as fast as I could."

As she was studying public health (she would earn her doctorate from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco), the first big AIDS scare hit the industry in 1998. Six performers were found to have HIV. Testing programs were spotty. People in the industry asked Mitchell to look into it.

"I started testing everyone," she said. "I had been out of porn for a good two years, maybe three. I did not want to come back for anything. But I thought, these are my friends."

The effort turned into a foundation with a $1.4 million annual budget, with most of the money coming from performers. Now, with nine full-time employees and a variety of other services, the clinic typically runs a $7,000 monthly deficit, Mitchell said.

After 80,000 tests, only 11 performers have been diagnosed with HIV since 1998, she said. Before last week, the most recent positive test was in 1999 and involved one person.

Mitchell receives high marks from health officials. But she rejects suggestions that the government regulate the porn industry by mandating condom use or enforcing safety rules on movie sets. Such regulation would force the industry underground, she said.

Nevertheless, Peter Kerndt, director of Los Angeles County's sexually transmitted disease program, predicted the HIV scare might lead to a condom requirement.

"She genuinely cares about people that come into this industry and has done everything she possibly can to protect them, their health and to provide them with information they need," he said. "Obviously, more needs to be done."