Aja (Pornstar)

Her early life included a military upbringing, with time spent in Portland, Maine, Germany, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After entering the industry at 24, she was mentored by Sharon Mitchell, who introduced her to both stripping and heroin. Her battle with addiction led to a three-week hotel room confinement by director John T. Bone in Canada, which helped her quit cold turkey. She married fellow performer John Derringer, and the couple had two children before divorcing. In 1992 she retired from adult films to focus on stripping, but she later returned to direct and act, founding Golden Orchid Productions in 1997 and acquiring Pleasure Dome Productions in 2000. She moved to Mexico in 2003 and worked as a fitness trainer until her death.

Aja was one of the few box cover girls of her era to perform with shemales, a controversial choice in the late 1980s, especially given the AIDS scare. She completed only two such movies in 1988 and never revisited them. In a 1998 interview, she explained that her agent warned her that top girls didn't do those scenes and that it devalued her. She recalled that the shemales were gay men with no attraction to women and that they used injections to achieve erections. Her performances, particularly anal scenes with her husband, were noted for their intensity. Critics and peers praised her beauty; Joey Silvera called her one of the prettiest women to ever do movies. She remains a remembered figure in 1980s adult cinema, with her work preserved in archives. She is survived by her parents, children, and siblings Michael and Renee Tanguay.