CHATSWORTH, Calif. – A slim, small-breasted, exotic-looking beauty with trademark black bangs, she started in porn in 1998 at age 18. She was known simply as Mariah.
She quit the business in 2000, after 240 movies and 30 different magazines. In 2004, at 24, she returned to adult entertainment via the Internet. She started her own website, first in L. A., then in Florida, and it flourished.
Her success as an entrepreneur spurred her return as an actress this year, commuting periodically to Porn Valley from her home in Tampa. She’s done over 30 scenes since last spring. Most recently, she appears on the cover of Elegant Angel’s just-released Latin Booty Worship 2.
At 27, she’s in the third phase of a career she breaks down into Old, Middle and New Mariah. Middle Mariah was reborn in cyberspace, complete with the surname Milano. Her Internet exposure and the response it drew gave her the confidence the teenaged Mariah lacked.
“I was so shy back then. I’d do my shows and I’d just sit there. I’m so much better now. Now I love it. I’m lucky that I got to come back after seven years. My fans, they’re going nuts. My site’s blowing up.”
She gives them plenty to choose from.
“I do three live shows a week. I do Members Only shows, I do two updates a week. I have house cams on my site. I have a lot of Featured Friends. I do custom videos. I’m very interactive with my site and my members, very close to them. I do a lot.
“I also have a message board where fans can do content requests and stuff. I find that most of my members love my solo stuff—just me by myself, more than with another girl, or with a guy.”
Her live shows are done via the popular CamZ.com network of “over 700” live performers. “There’s so many girls on there. There’s a lot of pornstars as well as amateurs doing cams,” she says, citing Nina Hartley, Sandee Westgate, Puma Suede, Mindy Vega.
Her archives include old scenes from her first go-round in porn. “I got lucky. I got all 2257 [documentation] from Jim South. I also have my teen stuff, thousands of teen photos.”
She also shoots new content herself. Far from having trouble finding talent, she finds it hard to keep up with it all. “Mostly when I shoot it’s in Fort Lauderdale or Miami, where most of the girls live. It’s only a three and a half hour drive or a 45-minute flight [from Tampa].”
Her decision to do movies again had a lot to do with increasing her web visibility. “I came back to put my name out there. I mean, my old movies—night and day. And besides, I just wanted to come back. Being older, I wanted it. When I was 18, I was just like…whatever.”
Her first new boy-girl scene was with Justin Slayer in Booty I Like 3. She’s also worked for Adam & Eve, Digital Playground, Club Jenna, New Sensations, Pistol Whip, Peter North and others.
Her Los Angeles bookings are made in advance through the Lighthouse Agency. “Usually when I come I’m booked every day I’m here. I try to space my trips from six to eight weeks, so as not to shoot myself out.”
After seven years, she has found the porn business “completely different. There’s so many agencies now. Jim South is gone. There’s so many companies. It’s just unbelievable.”
And there’s also the huge new Internet market to supply. “Back then if you wanted to shoot for the Internet, that was like low end. Now it’s not. Actually,” she recalls, “I did shoot for some Internet sites back then.”
She first got into porn through a girl she met in a nail salon who had done some nude modeling under the name Ecstasy. Agent Rob Baker (of Rob and Dee fame) took her to Ed Powers, who signed her immediately, billing her as Mariah Kane.
Powers, she said, “wanted to keep me for three months and not have me do any other movies, only for him. So I did that. Then I went with Randy West, then Vince Vouyer, Peter North, VCA. I worked for Vivid tons of times. Metro, New Sensations, Elegant Angel, Evil Angel, you name it. Hustler was my first magazine.”
With her bewitchingly exotic look, she was thought to be Latina, or some kind of black-white blend. Although she could pass for several different ethnicities, she is in fact Sicilian.
“Sicilian is Latin,” she agrees, “but I’m not Hispanic. I do a lot of Hispanic stuff. A lot. I usually don’t say I’m Sicilian. My members know. But in movies sometimes I’ll say Brazilian, I’ll say Cuban. Back then I used to say everything.”
What made her quit after two years?
“To be honest, I was just sick of it. I did so much, and I was finally, like, just done. And I didn’t even plan on being done. I didn’t tell anybody I was leaving. I just woke up one day and was done.”
When she decided to expose herself on the Internet she brought along something new: an enhanced chest, up to “a full 34D—between D and DD”—from her original B-cup.
“Yes they are fake,” she smiles, “but they’re nice. I got them after I left the business when I was 20 years old. After I left the business I decided to get them done for me. I just got ‘em for me, which is rare, to get ‘em after you leave the business. I did everything opposite.”
Like most 18 year-old girls she didn’t “realize what an opportunity it is at that age. I took it for granted—no big deal. I loved being on camera. I loved getting my picture taken. I’m an exhibitionist. It was meant to be.”
Her current plan is to upgrade her sites (she has 20 of them) and members areas, and eventually reach out even further into cyberspace. “I want to start shooting, expanding, buying more sites. I want to have like 200 sites at least.”
And she wants to start directing. “I want a movie all about me, where I’m in every scene. Not to be conceited, but… you know what I mean. But I want to direct it.”
For Mariah, all things considered, “It’s good to be back.”
Visit Mariah Milano at www.mariahxxx.net , www.mariahvip.com or www.mariamilano.com. She also has a MySpace page, MariahMySpace2.
