Her First Scene: Kayden Kross
The most memorable of Kayden Kross‘s efforts in recent years have come with the star behind the camera (in movies such as After Dark), but she first won fans’ hearts with a tremendous on-camera career. We look back at her first shoot in this edition of “Her First Scene.”
Movie: Kayden’s First Time
Scene type: Boy/girl
Studio: Vivid
Where: Los Angeles, California
When: November 15, 2006
Director: Eli Cross (who also wrote the script)
Co-star: Manuel Ferrara
Released: April 2007
How: Kayden Kross followed a familiar path to her first scene, yet there were a few interesting wrinkles along the way. She began stripping at Rick’s Showgirls Club in California as a way to save up money — so far, so conventional. But her reason for squirreling away cash was unusual: she aimed to to purchase a beloved pony to spare him from the slaughterhouse. “And then I really liked [dancing], so I stuck with it,” she said in a 2006 interview. This led to modeling with Penthouse, Hustler, and other adult magazines, before she signed a contract with Vivid (then one of the most successful and prominent adult studios in the business).
Trivia: As most porn fans know, Kayden eventually married her first scene partner (Manuel Ferrara), but it was not love at first sight. Kross noted in a 2014 New York Times piece that Ferrara (then married to fellow pornstar Dana Vespoli) regarded Kross as distant in their first scene, and the sparks that would later fly between the two were not in evidence. They reconnected years later, Kross developed a “maddening crush,” and a full half decade after they’d first met, they married. They remain one of the most famous couples in porn! (The duo discussed their relationship in detail for a widely publicized 20/20 interview in 2014.)
Quotable: “Making porn can be exhilarating, friendly and hot, but those first shoots took courage, and my lack of experience showed in how distant I acted.” (Kross on the scene, as quoted in 2014)
Observations: Watching the scene is like thumbing through an old yearbook, thanks to the spry appearance of both Manuel and Kayden. While it’s far from the best scene Kross has shot, it is fascinating to see where it all started, and there are hints of the charisma she would evince in later movies. One can’t help wondering if all that time spent on the glossy sets of Vivid’s high-key movies of the day also helped inform some of her directorial style in the bestsellers she’s helmed recently. It’s also clear that Vivid saw Kross’s boundless potential from the beginning, since it’s rare for a star to receive title and cover status for her very first hardcore scene.
The critics said: XCritic’s Don Houston noted Kayden’s inexperience but presciently observed that she had great potential in his blow-by-blow review of the movie: “Concentrating on the tip of his rod with her mouth as her hand held his shaft taunt; she showed that while inexperienced in porn, she was no stranger to a cock in her mouth, giving him a handjob in between the intermittent sucking.”
Watch the full scene in Kayden’s First Time. Browse other editions of “Her First Scene” here.
