Profile: Andrea True

Aka: Inger Kissen, Louis Grimes, Ida King, Catherine Warren

Real Name: Andrea Marie Truden

Date of Birth: 26/07/1943

Place of Birth: Tennesse, USA

Date of Death: 07/11/2011

Porn Debut: 1971

Andrea Marie Truden was born on 26 July 1943 in Nashville, Tennessee, to Frank and Ann Truden. She came from a solid middle-class background – her father was an engineer – and attended an all-girl Catholic school. In 1968 she moved to New York where she studied acting, but apart from a few un-credited bit-parts in movies such as The Way We Were and 40 Carats (both 1973), she failed to break into the mainstream.

Andrea invested some of her earnings in recording a 16-track demo of a song entitled called I'll Never Stop Trying. Nothing came of it but it laid the groundwork for what was to come a few years later. "It was aimed at my ex-boyfriend," she said in 1977. "The lyrics said that we were through... but I'm going to get where I want to go. I'll never stop trying. And I ran straight into hardcore movies."

"I had nothing better to do," she said in 1976. "I had been turned down by an agent for a record deal and I was tired of working as an extra in pictures. Some of my friends asked me to join them in a porno film. I figured I could learn about films and acting that way, so I did it." She shortened her name to Andrea True to protect her family, but admitted her decision caused problems. "For one thing," she would later say, "how do you go home and say, 'Mom, I'm in porno movies?'"

Andrea joined a long list of struggling actors and actresses, such as Georgina Spelvin, Eric Edwards, Harry Reems and Jamie Gillis, who viewed porn in the early 1970s as simply a way to make ends meet. And just like them, her foray into porn became a career. Between 1971 and 1975 she appeared in dozens of hardcore loops and movies, quickly establishing herself as one of the top names in the New York industry. Although many of her films were one-day wonders, she also appreared in Madame Zenobia with Tina Russell, Illusions of a Lady (both 1973) and The Seduction of Lyn Carter (1974) - all of which are now considered classics of the era. She would later claim, "The porno films left me with an exhibitionistic freedom that very few girls have."

In late 1975, during the height of her career as a porn actress, Andrea True was hired by a real estate business in Jamaica to appear in their commercials. During her stay on the island, a political crisis erupted and a government ban on asset transfers barred her from taking her earnings home. (The ban was a response to United States sanctions imposed on Jamaica after the election of Michael Manley, a Castro sympathizer.) Not wanting to lose the money she decided to invest it in music and asked her friend, record producer Gregg Diamond, to travel to the island and produce a track for her.

Gregg’s brother Geoffrey would later recall, "we had this song hanging around for about a year. We tried different people on it, but we really didn't know what to do with it. Andrea True knew Gregg and would come over to the house all the time. About a year after we created the demo, we get a call from Andrea, and she says 'I did this movie down in Jamaica and I made some money, but I can't leave the country with the money or they're going to take half of it. One of the guys that I know here has a studio. Do you have anything up there I could sing on?'"

"So we go down there with our demo, throw on her voice, make it sound as good as we can because she wasn't really a great singer – we had her sing it like a dozen times, over and over, so we got this thick version of her, this big, lush, breathy and sexy vocal. Then we edited it, cleaned it up and put a bunch of reverb on it so it has that big effect."

More, More More was released as a single in February 1976. It was credited to The Andrea True Connection and tailor-made for a market then in the grips of disco fever. The lyrics, “But if you want to know how I really feel, just get the cameras rolling, get the action going” seemed to fit Andrea True perfectly. It eventually became a massive hit reaching No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100. A full album with the same title soon followed. The single also reached the charts in the United Kingdom (where it peaked at No. 5), Germany (where it reached No. 9) and Italy (where it reached No. 11). Rolling Stones magazine described it as "one of the iconic songs of the disco era."

Following the record's success, Andrea decided to quit porn, claiming "I would be a waitress or a typist before I'd star in another [adult film]. Now I just want to record and perform. Don't look at me as a porno star anymore. Look at me as a recording star." Over the next four years she released a further two albums and eight singles – none of which repeated the success of her debut. Her singing career was eventually killed off in the early 1980s after a goiter developed on her vocal cords that required surgery.

Andrea True eventually moved to Florida where she worked as a psychic reader and then a counsellor for drug and substance abusers. She continued receiving royalties from her music, and More, More, More remained a popular song on TV and in movies (it was used in both the television series Sex and the City, and The Simpsons). It has also been covered by pop stars Samantha Fox, Bananarama, Rachel Stevens and Dannii Minogue.

Andrea True died in New York in 2011, aged 68.