HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Julie Strain had been many things in her relatively short life: B-movie actress, Penthouse Pet, artist's model, covergirl, photographer, voice actress—the list goes on, though by the time of her death on January 10, most of those memories were gone due to her dementia, at least partly the result of her fall from a horse in her 20s. She was 58 when she died at the home she shared with her partner Dave Gram.
"Two weeks ago her condition decreased to the point where she could not swallow her food," Gram wrote in a Facebook post. "Smaller and smaller portions were offered and swallowing became more and more infrequent. About one swallow of a very small bite of food each minute. The last week, she was only able to swallow a small amount of liquid. About one very small swallow every 30 seconds. This inability to swallow liquids began to diminish my ability to administer her medicine.
"Julie’s last three days were very peaceful. Her pain was managed very well and she remained comfortable throughout. And because (due to her dementia) she was struggling with swallowing and breathing, she was unaware of her condition. She was showing constant breathing and swallowing distress. And thus, medications to maintain her comfort were applied accordingly."
Over the course of her career in Hollywood, Strain appeared in 137 movies, videos and TV shows, according to the Internet Movie Database, the first of which was Out for Justice in 1991. Since then, she has appeared in such well-known (at least among B-movie fans) productions as Psycho Cop Returns (1993), Bikini Squad (1993), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Night Visions (1995), Hey, Hey, It's The Monkees (1997), Captain Jackson (TV series, 1999), The Bare Wench Project series (2000-05), Sex Court: The Movie (2001) (with series regular Alexandra Silk), and her final appearance, Space Girls in Beverly Hills (2009).
A graduate of Diablo Valley College in the Bay Area, the tall (6'1") athletic Strain made it to Hollywood by way of Las Vegas in her late 20s, and was chosen as the June 1991 Penthouse Pet of the Month. She later became 1993's Penthouse Pet of the Year.
Between movie acting gigs, Strain appeared at comic book and "scream queen" conventions, coached a class at UCLA called "Fine Art and Photography"—she later told an interviewer, "It happens to be the highest rated class in the school’s history. I’m really not sure if the fact that the students get to shoot me nude has anything to do with that!")—and modeled for various artists including Olivia de Berardinis, Simon Bisley and Luis Royo, who painted/drew her as a warrior woman for Heavy Metal magazine. She became so popular among the magazine's readers that she was cast (well, her voice, anyway) in the animated film Heavy Metal 2000 and its spinoff/sequel video game Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2. In fact, she married Heavy Metal's publisher (and co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) Kevin Eastman in 1995, though the couple divorced in 2006, the same year Strain gave birth to a son, Jason.
Strain also worked with top "exploitation" film director Andy Sidaris on six movies, including L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies: Return to Savage Beach, and horror/comedy filmmakers Scott Shaw and Donald Jackson in their El Chupacabra series, which also featured Eastman as "King Allmedia" (a Howard Stern reference), and in which Strain played Queen Bee.
In fact, Eastman appeared in several of Strain's movies, and in 1998, she told an interviewer that she quite enjoyed working with him.
"It’s great for me because I’ve always been alone in the past," she stated. "You go on location, you go on movies, it’s great and it’s rewarding. Then you come home and you close the door and you’re by yourself. There’s nobody to share it with, there’s nobody to cuddle with. Now that I have Kevin, my life is a dream come true. He comes on all my movie sets. He comes everywhere with me. ... He gets up at four in the morning and he packs my lunch and he makes my coffee and turns on the heater and just makes it so that I can really concentrate on just being talent and doing the best job that I can."
In Strain's final days, Gram posted on Facebook, "Julie continues to be funny and entertaining at times. Other times she is in complete confusion and requires medicine. There are behavioral patterns, but they are not fixed patterns. ... I am brought to tears each day as I watch this wonderful woman be inflicted (sic) by this awful disease."
Among the many notes of tribute posted to social media in response to the news of Strain's passing, her Sex Court co-star Silk wrote, "Awww. Julie is now flying with the angels. Will miss our big Julie greatly! What a present her presence was. Will treasure the memories together forever and ever. Feeling blessed and sad."
