Popular gentlemen's club dancer Gina Lynn beat out five other porn stars to win the coveted Movie Feature Entertainer of the Year award at the 2003 Exotic Dancer Awards show, which wrapped just before 2 a.m. this morning in the Palace Ballroom of the Caesar's Palace Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
Lynn was pitted against such well-known acting/dancing talents as Belladonna, Brianna Banks, Felecia (last year's winner), Mercedes and Stormy.
Upon accepting the award, Lynn thanked several people who'd helped her career, including her dance agent and her husband.
Lynn's was one of about 20 awards given out that evening, most going to topless and nude dance clubs from eight sections of the U.S.
The show was hosted by Rick Vos, one of the final five runners-up for the "reality" TV show Last Comic Standing, but in a surprise move, one set of prizes was given out by veteran actress Houston, who attended the convention with a film crew that is engaged in making a documentary about her. Houston also noted that she will have a music CD coming out of her tunes sometime in October.
The awards show, which began just after 10 p.m. on Thursday, ran for more than three hours, and each set of three awards was sandwiched between a dance number by either a group of performers from the Platinum Paradise club, or by one of the nominees for Entertainer of the Year. Among the dancers in the latter category was Vivid contract gal Mercedes, who dazzled the crowd by stripping out of a gold-lamé costume apparently inspired by The Phoenix, a Japanese anime character.
Other adult video-connected personalities also received awards. Top photographer Anneli Adolfsson was deemed Best Photographer, actress Jennifer Steele snagged the Innovative Feature Entertainer statuette, and L.A. LaMann was named the Club Owner Favorite for 2003.
Veteran actress Christi Lake was on hand to give out two Hall of Fame plaques, one going to Déjà Vu club chain owner Harry Mohney, who got his start as an adult retailer.
The evening's top prize for Entertainer of the Year was given to Aspen Reign, who'd wow'd the crowd early on by stripping out of a snow suit in an artificial snowstorm.
Many XXX celebrities were in the audience, including Stormy, Stephanie Swift, Rebecca Bardoux, Summer Cummings, Inari Vachs, Tyler Faith, Devon Michaels, Ruby, Pat Myne and several others
