To say that former Vivid Video contract girl Raylene causes panic wherever she goes is something of an understatement. Jason Biggs' character from American Pie 2 got his hand stuck to his penis with super glue while masturbating to one of Raylene's XXX videos. Kid Rock nearly tripped during his stage routine at the 2000 Grammy awards while staring at his dancer Raylene's 36-D cup breasts.

Now in her mid-twenties, Raylene is one of the world's best known porn stars. With over 50 video and DVD titles under her belt, Raylene is now threatening to take over the music business with the same vengeance she brought to the adult business. She recently bought a house with a pool outside of Los Angeles and is attempting to turn a corner in her career—outside of pornography.

"I'm very much an entertainer," purrs Raylene over sushi at an anonymous Japanese restaurant in the San Fernando Valley. "I've been an actress since I was five," she says. The adult star appeared in several commercials as a young girl growing up in Los Angeles. While execs at Clorox and Brawny are no doubt spinning in their graves knowing that their former pitch girl now does anal scenes in XXX films, Raylene takes it all in stride.

"Acting comes easy to me … but I've done a lot of things. I managed a health club, I danced, and I was even a junior police captain for four years." Thankfully, Raylene gave up on her dream of being a cop. Not many men could handle being busted by a woman so beautiful.

Born in 1977 to a Polish father and a Mexican/Italian mother, Raylene has the kind of body that literally stops traffic—36/24/36 to be exact. At the upscale sushi joint where we interviewed the adult star, her see-through black bustier and ripped jeans turned the heads of just about everyone in the restaurant. And this is in the Valley, where porn stars are as common as strip malls.

But the caramel-skinned, redheaded beauty is used to people staring. It was part of what prompted her to get into the adult business in the first place.

"People used to always stare at my body," says the brown-eyed beauty, "so I just naturally gravitated toward women who looked like me so as not to stand out." Those early friends she made in her teens turned out to be porn stars.

"When I finally turned 18, I decided I may as well get into the business. At that time I thought 'Everyone else is doing it and the money is really good!'"

The money has continued to be good for Raylene, even as she recently ended her contract with Vivid, one of the world's biggest porn companies. Her earnings are estimated at $100,000 + a year between her films and money earned as a featured dancer at strip clubs across the country.

"The job is lucrative as far as the income is concerned," says Raylene. "If your head can handle it and you are smart enough to save your money, then you are set for life. I know a few girls in the biz who can handle it, but there a lot more who can't."

Although the money may sound like gravy now, it wasn't exactly easy for Raylene in the early days. The Mexican/Italian beauty grew up poor and knows a thing or two about perseverance. She used her never-say-die attitude to get in the door at Vivid.

"I had done a few things for Vivid and I actually contacted them about getting a contract," she says. "Initially they weren't interested, and I don't know what interested them a year later, but they eventually came to me."

Perhaps what interested Vivid was Raylene's unique appeal across many races as one of the sexier porn stars in recent memory. In titles like Public Affairs and Trophy, Raylene steals every scene with smoldering style and grace. But the porn powerhouse is not satisfied simply stealing scenes in XXX films.

The conventional wisdom used to be that once you dabbled in porn films, your career was forever relegated to the adult arena. But now, as America awakens from its puritanical slumber, that conventional wisdom seems to be on its head. Opportunities now abound for adult stars.

"It's much more accepted these days," says Raylene. Former porn star Traci Lords has managed to eek out a living starring in premium channel fare since her exile from explicit material. Tera Patrick is now widely considered to be one of the most marketable women in Los Angeles by the West Coast media elite. Olivia Saint just completed a movie called Auto Focus with Greg Kinnear and William Defoe.

Now the recently "retired" Raylene is ready to cash in on the pornification of American society. Some of her credits include a video for former LOX member Jadakiss, an album cover for the band Broughham, Porn to Rock, cameos in DMX and Everclear videos, and modeling for Cypress Hill's clothing line.

In addition to modeling and acting, Raylene is pursuing a career in music.
"I just got out of the studio with Courtney Love's drummer," says an exited Raylene, "and I can't wait to get my band put together." The budding music star has been spending some quality time in the studio and putting together a band, tentatively called the Holy Order of Mary Magdalene.

While it remains to be seen just how far Raylene can take her music/acting career, the fact remains that society is no longer putting up the fight it once vigorously fought against porn stars. The stigma still remains a factor for many in mainstream Hollywood—don't expect to see Raylene in Disney's next production of Snow White. However, there is an undeniable paradigm shift underway in America these days. The line between adult entertainment and mainstream entertainment is blurring. And at the very center of that blurry line, are porn stars like Raylene.