Nina Hartley (born Marie Louise Hartman; March 11, 1959) is an American pornographic actress, pornographic film director, sex educator, sex-positive feminist, and author.
Marie Louise Hartman was born in Berkeley, California, to a Lutheran father and a Jewish mother (born 1926) whose family was from Alabama. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the youngest of four children, with an older sister and two older brothers. Her parents were communists who converted to Buddhism when she was young. After graduating from Berkeley High School in 1977, she attended San Francisco State University’s undergraduate nursing school and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She was a registered nurse per the California Board of Registered Nursing until her license expired in 1986.
Hartley saw The Autobiography of a Flea (the first adult film directed by a woman, Sharon McNight), alone, at a theater in San Francisco and chose her life’s path.