Although Debi Diamond is primarily known for her late 1980's and early 1990's movies, she first entered porn just as the 'Golden Age' was ending, appearing in films such as 'Her Wicked Ways' (1983) with Jessie St. James. Nevertheless, her reputation is based on her insatiable appearances towards the end of the decade when she became known as the wildest and nastiest porn actress in the business.

Debi Diamond was born Deborah Lester on 1 May 1965 in San Fernando Valley, California. She came from an upper-middle class family and attended Monroe High School in Granada Hills, in Southern California. While growing up she admits to being a tomboy: "I never wore makeup… and I certainly never put on high heals… I was a drag racer, with short greasy nails." She would later claim: “My Childhood? It didn’t last long but it was good.” After finishing acting school she attempted to break into Hollywood, appearing in such TV series' as V, The Dukes of Hazard, Fall Guy and Knight Rider. According to Debi though "People were such stupid's! Everybody wanted to fuck me… I didn't wanna give them sex for this, I just said 'fuck it!' So I was just waiting 'till I was the right age, and I knew what I wanted to do… I didn't know I'd like it so much! Cuz I didn't know anything about sex… I didn't start screwing until I was eighteen". While still eighteen she became personal assistant to Hollywood producer Bob Evans, who, in turn, introduced her to photographer Helmut Newton.

Newton immediately fell in love with her body language and began to photograph her. “I would crawl around on the floor, kick in the air like Bruce Lee, bark like a fucking dog. Shit, I didn’t know what to do. He didn’t say anything – just, ‘Great, fantastic, perfect’. So I heard that he was having a show. I wanted to see if I was in it, so I went to the opening. The very first thing I saw – in the entrance of the gallery – was a four-foot shot of me. I took some prints that Bob had in his office and went and had negatives made. I hear I’m in one of his books.”

Eventually one day in 1983, when bored, Debi and her friend Jody visited Jim South's modeling agency. They had had enough of fucking people for mainstream roles that usually never appeared. "I didn't care what it all meant at the time. I enjoyed myself and so I stuck around."

Over the next year Debi posed for numerous hard-core magazines. She lacked any inhibitions and was often photographed having anal sex or taking part in double-penetrations. She also appeared in a number of male bisexual shoots alongside Marc Wallice and various gay actors. Using the pseudonyms Shelley Ray and Josie Emerson she also starred in a number of porn movies, but they were mainly bit roles. After about a year, pressure from family and friends caused her to quit the business.

She eventually married a veteran porn actor and became a legal secretary, before moving to Las Vegas and working as a cocktail waitress. Debi, however, missed doing porn, and in 1989, after changing from a brunette to a blond, she re-entered the business. Appearing at first as Debbie Hanson, and then Debi Diamond, she soon found that the video revolution had drastically changed the porn industry. "The time, the talent, the locations, everything is different now in porn. They just don't make them like they used to. We went to Hawaii for three weeks and did one sex scene every few days. Now I may do four sex scenes in a day. It's crazy. I do my own makeup, bring all my own clothes..."

Nevertheless, once again Debi made a name for herself as the most uninhibited and wild actress in porn! "Fear and excitement go together… Anal sex scares me. I've only done it a few times on camera and liked it. I thought to myself, 'You're taking his cock and putting it in your ass!' I try not to do it for that reason. I love and hate control." Despite her self-confessed fear, she became one of porn's anal queens. She acquired the reputation of a girl that was willing to do just about anything in front of the camera, and claimed that when horny she would simply “work cheap.” When asked a few years later she admitted, "I can't think of anything that I haven't done."

Apart from anal sex, Debi became renowned for her facial cum-shots. "It gives me great skin. I love to swallow cum if the guy is clean. Peter North has a lot of it, but it has a strange flavor. Tom Byron's tastes the best. I'm good at taking a whole cock down my throat. I have no gag reflex so I can take the whole thing down, no matter what size it is. And it feels good sliding down past my lips. For the movie I just did with five guys, I lay on this pedestal, and I traded off sucking each of them. And I worked with this black guy, Sean Michaels. It was my first time with a black. He's got a long dick and I enjoyed it in my mouth. I know that's bad. I got extra money for it. I did anal a couple of times and got more money for it. It gets me excited to the point where I'm scared. I never thought I would do that, but it feels so good. My pussy is going crazy and I have to stop myself, and think, 'What the hell are you doing? You're putting this guy's dick up inside your asshole and you're putting it all the way in.'"

Debi had a reputation for losing all control and inhibitions during her sex scenes. While shooting 'Buttslammers 6' she became so carried away with Krysti Lynn that she managed to destroy director Bruce Seven's window blinds, side lamp and damage his sofa. Half way through she stopped the scene saying "Let me catch my breath for a minute… I can't help it when I get turned on like this." She then proceeded to squat down beside his bar and masturbate before twisting her nipples and rubbing herself against a light boom. Only after this two-minute break did she return to the set.

Photographer Ian Gittler recalled meeting her for the first time on a porn set in 1994, and was taken aback by her fantastic passion. “Debi is fired up from the word go. She hisses, writhes like someone possessed. She twists her body like a contortionist… at one point she’s standing on one hand, completely upside down, sucking [Marc] Wallice’s dick and stroking it with her free hand while Nick [East], also standing, eats her out.” During the shoot Wallice and East had to drip hot wax on to Debi’s body. “Debi thrashes her head from side to side. The white dress is already torn away. ‘In my mouth’, Debi urges.” The cast and director paused at this point, uncertain of her intentions. “Debi nods yes, grunts affirmative, motioning with her hand for the director to keep going… [East] pours wax into Debi’s mouth. Debi flips her legs up and spreads herself with her hands… Debi takes the hot wax everywhere…. Both Marc, who’s been acting in porn for over ten years, and Nick, a relative newcomer with four years experience, are having problems maintaining their erections. They weren’t expecting the scene to turn vicious. Debi’s snarling demands are intimidating, throaty, and real.” As filming stops so the two men can regain their erections, “Debi storms off toward the bathroom. She pulls [fellow porn star] Nicole London’s boyfriend, the PA, in with her and slams the door… Violent sex noises emanate from the bathroom. Bumping, shouting. It lasts five or six minutes… Debi returns to finish the scene.” When filming starts again she turns to Wallice, “You can bang my head against the wall if you have to.” As he attempts to explain that he doesn’t have to, she snarls, “Bang my head against the wall you fucker… Do it!”

Once, having just finished a marathon sex-session with three men, she left the set complaining, “That was bullshit. I’m so fucking horny. I need to go fuck a stranger or something. That gave me nothing.” Another time, after shooting a gang-bang video for Anabolic Video she claimed, "I can't believe I did that… that was pretty wild… there was so much cum on me it gives me the chills… I was so slutty… it makes me wanna do it really bad again… I think there were twenty-seven guys or something. Biff, the director, kept calling people. He was great! I was horny, I was wound up, I was ready to go - the more the merrier!"

French porn actress Draghixa would later recall meeting Debi for first time when she visited the States in 1994. “Bruce Seven, who specializes in S&M invited me for dinner. I was a bit nervous because I don’t speak much English. Debi was there. She loves to eat and drink, and at the end of the evening she decided to toast me. She looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Do you know my little French thing, I could eat your pussy right here on the table.’ All this was happening in a very expensive restaurant, and I didn’t know what to say.”

Draghixa and Debi later did a lesbian photo-shoot for a Suze Randall. “Debi prefers women to men, but she’ll do anything. She has no limits. She loves everything. She loves to be spanked, to dominate, to be kinky. She loves timid women and exhibitionists… I didn’t have a sex scene with her, only a photo shoot. We didn’t actually have sex. When I first met her I didn’t think she was an extremely beautiful woman, but she does have stunning eyes. She is also full of life and great fun.”

After so many years in the porn industry Debi knows what she likes. "I like anal, but I prefer to give a blowjob. I prefer it in my mouth. There's just something about that that turns me on. Sometimes I like to feel a guys butt. It all depends on who it is. I mean some people are very homophobic, and they don't want me to touch them there. And some guys really get turned on by that. I just like to feel on the outside, actually, and lick it, and lick my fingers. I like to hold the balls. If you hold the balls kinda tight, and pull 'em down, his fucking dick will stick straight up, and you can work on him. Or you start with your mouth, and do it fucking fast and hard with your hands. I dunno, I just love it." As for the more kinky side of porn she admits, "I was never fisted by anybody but Bionca. She's got a way with her, she made me squirt, and that's the only time… I put also put a lit candle up my butt, and director John T. Bone filled me up with three quarts of syrup."

After meeting her for the first time, Gittler would claim in his flawed book ‘Porn-star’, “She’s beautiful, beyond harsh, and I know – instantly – that she’s someone special… Debi is the first porn star I’ve ever met – the first star of any kind I’ve ever met – with a charisma that generates moments, images, every second. Her energy sweeps me along.” During the early 1990's Debi trimmed her figure, thereby losing her voluptuous look. Her insatiable appearances, however, continued, and she remained one of the most popular and reliable actresses in the adult industry. Nevertheless, as her fame as a porn star grew, her private life suffered. "I have a couple of loyal friends. And a few of my girlfriends and I see each other. Their husbands don't like me. They think I'm gonna take their wives out and get them fucked by ten guys. I don't go out much. I stay home and order out. When I do go out, I wear dark glasses. In Las Vegas, when I went to one of those trade shows, there were porno spotters there, and it was creepy. I like people to write me and get to know me. But some of these guys I met acted like they had just turned off their TVs and their pants were still wet. They didn't have any control."

Debi's parents were never happy with their daughter appearing in porn films. When her mother died she actually left Debi a large inheritance so that she could leave the business. Not only did she refuse to stop making porn films though, but it was rumored that she also began working as an escort, charging US$2,500 an hour. Debi simply enjoyed sex too much. "I do porn because it's exciting. I meet a lot of nice people."