The first of the Taboo series of movies hit adult cinema screens in 1980. It's been transferred to video and dvd in the hundreds of thousands since and remains a classic of many guy's secret porn collections. Kay played incestuous mother Barbara Scott, who fantasises and ultimately succumbs to having sex with her son Paul. The latter was played by Mike Ranger, who was more than ten years her junior at the time. In the commentary for a Taboo: Special Edition dvd, Kay heavily hinted that the age gap didn't stop them enjoying sex romps off screen after the filming ended.
She reprised the role in the next two sequels and also turned up many years later, in a guest role, for Taboo 9. The two sequels had her character seduce and get seduced by her son Paul's best friend and her younger son James (played by Jerry Butler), who her character supposedly mistakes for her older son when doing the deed.
Off-screen Kay herself was not too far different from the classy, if on the outside slightly reserved, characters she so often played on screen. Porn activist and director Bill Margold recalls: "Kay had a cloistered sex life until this business exploded on her." Born in Birmingham, England, on 28 August 1944, she was already in her 30s when she met adult star John Leslie, who tried to persuade her to appear in one of his upcoming films. Learning it was an X-rated feature, Kay turned down the offer. But her curiosity was nevertheless tweaked and it could be said she eased herself gently in to the adult scene by taking non-sex roles in a few movies over the coming months. It was legendary director Anthony Spinelli who finally coaxed her out of her British reserve to make her hardcore acting debut in his 1978 classic Sex World. Her first scene, set in a high tech sex therapy centre, was with Joey Silvera - and Ms. Parker threw off the reserved shackles so passionately during the romping that she ended up chipping a tooth.
Kay not only rapidly became one of the most popular stars with audiences, but also one of the most requested actresses to work with for the male talent of the late 70s and early 80s. Her most memorable roles would remain those where she played the older woman who seduces, or is seduced by, a younger man. Barely looking like he was out of high school at the time, her role as the prim tutor who teaches retiring pupil Tom Byron the joys of sex in Private Teacher remains another of her all-time classic movies. Kay Parker finally decided to retire from shooting hardcore scenes in 1986.
"I only took acting jobs ... then things started to change. That's why I dropped out of the business, because I'm not able to perform sex the way it's done now," she explained at the time. Voted in to both the XRCO and Adult Video News Halls Of Fame, Kay wrote a biography Taboo: Sacred, Don't Touch in 2001, and has gone on to carve a second career for herself as a New Age metaphysical counsellor and lecturer. But for many of us, she will always remain the hottest 'First Mom' of porn.
