Sharon Kane, born Sharon Louise Cain on 24 February 1956, is a former bondage model and pornographic actress. She worked for years in adult magazines and hardcore film. For people who know BDSM and classic bondage, she is a recognizable face from before the internet and from the early video years. On camera she could hold a dominant role or a submissive one. She was not locked to one brand. Scripts and markets moved her between the two. That range is part of why she is in both the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame.
She started in Ohio and moved to San Francisco. She first worked at the theater of porn director Alex de Renzy, then made her feature debut in his film Pretty Peaches. That job put her in a main pipeline of late-1970s West Coast adult film. For decades after that she kept shooting magazines and features, switching between top and bottom as the work asked. When she left performing she moved behind the camera: director, production manager, art director, and film composer. She wrote the score for the 1997 film The Hills Have Bi’s and for Chi Chi LaRue’s Idol in the Sky. She directed and starred in Stairway to Paradise. That production was later written up in Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-Rated Movie, a book about how an adult film gets made. For a stretch after she stepped back from performing, she also worked as a production assistant for Suite 703, Naughty America’s gay site.
The awards sit on the public record. In 1984 she entered the XRCO Hall of Fame. She won XRCO Best Supporting Actress for Throat: 12 Years After. In 1989 she won XRCO Best Actress for Bodies in Heat – The Sequel. On the AVN side she entered the AVN Hall of Fame in 1990, won AVN Best Actress – Video the same year for Bodies in Heat – The Sequel, and won AVN Best Couples Sex Scene – Film for Firestorm 3. In 2010 she received the GayVN Trailblazer Award. The roles in these films were played by adults.
