Jessie St. James hails from California where her entire porn career took place in and around San Francisco. She made her adult debut 1975 in the film Blue Heat when she was 25 years old. She went on to work in the industry off and on for years, before retiring in 1984 with about 50 titles to her credit. Although other sites list her filmography around 80 titles, many of those are compilations that include her original scenes but came out years after she retired from porn. She worked with many of the industry's biggest production companies of the time, including Caballero Home Video, Metro, Dreamland Entertainment, Something Weird Video, and many others.
Beginning her career at 25 and working in the industry for several years, St. James was often older than many of her female costars. She often played characters like housewives or school teachers. One example is the XRCO Hall of Fame classic Easy (1978), where she played a slutty school teacher. She continued the teacher theme in another instant classic, Vista Valley PTA, filmed in 1981. But between those two films there was an illustrious career filled with high production value and plot oriented movies during the Golden Era of porn. Other notable films include Blonde Fire (Caballero Home Video), Fantasyworld (VCX), Love Machine (Alpha France), Talk Dirty to Me 1 (Dreamland Entertainment), and a lesbian performance in Center Spread Girls (Caballero Home Video).
Jessie St. James was the last classy lady of porn. Once the Golden Age of adult movies was gone, she left the Industry for good. Like many actresses and directors from her era, she decided that the emerging video scene was not for her. By 1984, she made over 40 full length movies, every one of which could be considered a classic. Porn producers still cash in on her popularity. The number of compilations featuring her already exceeds 20, rapidly closing on the number of her original movies.
