Kaylani Lei started her journey in adult entertainment when she was 18 when she became an exotic dancer in Las Vegas. It’s not an unfamiliar start to a career in adult entertainment and indeed subsequently porn movies, but it does go to show that the best careers in porn start with a remarkable story. Hers patently did not, although the success of it did encounter one or two slices of luck along the way without which you wonder if she would have reached the heights that she has.

She was a much travelled young lady before she arrived in Los Angeles in 2002 at the age of 22 to begin her adult movie career. Born in Singapore of Filipino parentage, she moved with her family to Las Vegas via Massachusetts and Ohio after a year in Ireland participating in horse trials. The nomadic existence ended when she acted in her first movie in September 2002 after a long-time interest in the industry during her exotic dancer career.

The early part of her career was characterised by a fairly nomadic nature too, flitting from company to company, impressing most that she worked for. A contract evaded her for a while despite appearances in the popular Naughty College School Girls and Me Luv U Long Time series. Kaylani Lei never seemed too bothered about killing off Oriental stereotypes in her work. A few years later she’d follow up the latter title by hosting the Me So Horny series on KSEX Radio for a while in two spells.

She secured her first contract in 2003 with Wicked Pictures, but not without a slice of luck. She stepped into the shoes of a lead performer who didn’t turn up for a shoot and impressed the company so much that she was immediately installed in a much sought-after Wicked Girls role, a role that she maintains to this day. As such, the majority of her career output has been dictated by Wicked output in general, although the contract is non-exclusive.

As such, she has been able to spread her talents around very successfully, although since 2004 she has worked almost exclusively with Wicked, a decision she made off her own back to pay back the faith she had been shown by the company. Her turning down of a contract with Vivid prior to becoming a Wicked Girl hasn’t harmed her career since, and Kaylani Lei has become arguably the most prominent hardcore Oriental name performing today.

She started clocking up numerous AVN Award nominations from 2004 onwards. It didn’t stop some critics from chirping about her a little though. Some have suggested a lack of actual wins was due to the quality of the films she was in rather than her actual performances – there are very few big titles that the company has produced in the last 4 years or so that haven’t featured the name of Kaylani Lei on the cover. But those titles have become increasingly crafted around her rather than her merely starring in them.

She shines though, or rather outshines, in titles that were meant to be headlining material for other performers. Operation Desert Stormy and Curse Eternal were both titles in which she showed her ability to steal a film even from a non-leading role. She has also become one of the most ubiquitous faces within the industry as well, whilst showing little desire to transfer her not inconsiderable charisma and sense of humour to mainstream cinema. Even as she approaches her 28th birthday, Kaylani Lei is still happy to continue a porn movie career that continues to be enjoyed by fans all over the globe.

Her output has slowed a little in 2008, but this is perhaps more to do with the fact that she now has further interests outside of movies, including her own sex toy line and continued radio appearances for KSEX and Howard Stern, but there have been no hints that she plans to quit altogether. Nor should she. Many believe that there are one or two marquee ‘A list’ spots available in the industry right now and that Kaylani Lei is more than capable of filling one of those spots, if she’s not there already.

In the meantime, as far as American-Oriental performers are concerned, you would do a lot worse than looking her up. Or, in fact, you’d always be worse off.