favorite star, male and female?
I'd say Tom Byron and Amber Lynn

The only commercial porn stars that have registered enough for me to become a 'fan' so to speak, would be Danni Ashe, Audra Mitchell, and (for old times sake) John Holmes.

Porn's come a long way from those days, my man. Commercial porn's gone downhill, sadly, offering not much more that one cookie-cutter siliconed blonde after another, or disgusto-raunch 'gonzo' porn.

Amateur or semi-pro stuff has improved immensly. Places like voyeurweb, abbywinters.com, and neo-burlesque (seach 'burlesque' on Flickr) are vast improvements from the dark days of the 80's. There's less cruelty and misogyny, there's more variety in body types. And lest you think the improvement is all political, the girls have more of they're own style on display and there's more variety and individuality and playfulness. Plus they seem to be doing it for fun and of their own accord, and that's simply hot.

hmm... i'd have to say christy canyon and... umm... christy canyon.

I'm with Syntax.

Racquel Darrian. Beautiful, moved well, and really looked like she was enjoying herself, which as jonmc says is very very hot.

(Actually, was she active in the 80's? Might have been more like the early 90's.)

Least hot thing in modern porn: grabbing women by the neck, in a sort of strangling move. Very gross. Comes up enough that I'm mostly avoiding modern porn these days.

Amateur or semi-pro stuff has improved immensly. Places like voyeurweb, abbywinters.com, and neo-burlesque (seach 'burlesque' on Flickr) are vast improvements from the dark days of the 80's.
One word: freckles!

I was a big fan of Traci Lords in the 80's. I'm not sure how to feel about that now that I know she was probably 16 at the time, but there's some creepy in there somewhere. Barring jailbait, I'd have to say Amber Lynn. I couldn't claim a favorite male porn actor.

Oh, and I'd like to endorse The Lollipop Girls in Hard Candy. It's in 3d! It has a man dressed as a bunny!

Oh my, I can't choose! Howzabout anyone who ever starred in a William Higgins movie in the 80s?

I occasionally hit some porn theaters in the 70's, before video came out big.

Mostly skipped the 80's due to some of that decade living my own personal porn movie.

Then the Internets happened.

On a total tangent, I have to say what the fuck (pun possibly intentional) to the humiliation/brutality aspect of contemporary porn.

I'm not talking the specific BDSM market for this kind stuff (that's a horse of a completely different hue): I'm talking the fundamental misogyny and general fratboy thuggishness that seems to pervade almost every example of hetero porn.

I guess lots of someones somewhere are getting off on this, but, man, I find it pretty much vile and totally offputting. Put me squarely in the jonmc camp of "I'm here to see interesting people enjoying a good fuck and having a great time doing it".

Oh, and on-topic: I'm kind of partial to Kay Parker and Christy Canyon, myself.

Also, this is amusingly eponysterical.

ishotmyself (I forget the url, google it) is a site specializing in female nude selfportraits. It's got a lot of the same good qualities as abbywinters since it's women reveling in their own nekedidity and stuff.

I'm talking the fundamental misogyny and general fratboy thuggishness that seems to pervade almost every example of hetero porn.

Yeah, really rather grim stuff does seem to be completely mainstream now. Though your 'alt porn' stuff is moving away from it (and actually features good looking people with unenhanced human bodies, even if they do have stupid haircuts and loads of tattoos).

jomc, Those sites are totally cute. Come to think of it (lol, pun!) cuteness is a virtue far too often overlooked in porn. Also, there's been a proliferation of eastern european "artsy nude" porn sites which feature young women in pretty nature scenes. Also, jack_mo, they're mostly tatooless.

I'm talking the fundamental misogyny and general fratboy thuggishness that seems to pervade almost every example of hetero porn.
And this reminds me of a Simpsons quote: "Step right in! Nude girls! They're not even wearing a smile!"

speaking as an alpha male, i would rather hump nubile young ladies, myself, than watch other people do it. i've heard of ron jeremy and john holmes, but im not intimately familiar with their work. do you guys have too much time on your hands, or is that... something else?

i would rather hump nubile young ladies, myself

Me too, but escort services can get pricey, man.

Wedge

The male porn stars of the 1980s were just not hot. That's one way porn has definitely improved over the years!

One of the more facinating sites I've seen on the internet, porn-wise, is beautifulagony.com. No nudity, but still tremendously NSFW.

Ron Jeremy was frequently funny in his movies, although I guess that isn't why people watch porn. The curly-headed guy that seemed to be in all 80s porn always kinda creeped me out. Joey something? Dunno, weird guy though. And there was some grey-headed guy that had a smaller wang than my dog. I don't remember his name but people on RAME mocked him often.

Christy Canyon was definitely the hottest 80s porn star. There was a best-of DVD of Christy in a box of DVDs I bought at a garage sale this year. I am guessing it wasn't supposed to be in there, the rest were old westerns and the like. Really old couple selling them, IIRC.

A friend of mine had a big satellite dish and his stepfather had the illegal box that allowed him to get everything. We used to stay up late watching R-rated movies and scads of porn while playing Nintendo on the smaller TV next to the big one. lol. A lot of that stuff was very early nineties though. I liked Flame. I think she was 80s.

Hypatia Lee. Ummmmmm, Hypatia Lee...