A Midwestern Girl with Hollywood Dreams
It was 1990, and the lights in that Ohio banquet hall were dim and ugly.
Lorissa McComas, just 19, smiled like she meant it — nervous, maybe, but still standing. A petite brunette, big hazel eyes, legs like she used to dance ballet, which she did. She moved with grace, the kind that doesn’t beg, just floats.
The crowd whooped when some drunk stuffed a dollar bill into her lace garter. A small act. Harmless.
Then the cops came crashing in. Vice squad. All flashlights and judgment.
They grabbed her, hauled her off like she was running a brothel.
In Cincinnati, that kind of thing passed for “soliciting prostitution.” A dollar in a garter. That was enough.
It was her first taste of scandal. It wouldn’t be the last.
She’d been a small-town honor student once. Now she was a headline. But that arrest wasn’t the end — it was just the beginning.
The first messy scene in the life of Lorissa McComas: from a college girl chasing something bigger, to a glamour model and B-movie flame of the 1990s.
A story that would end in silence. But not before it burned.
Early Life: Small-Town Roots and Big Ambitions
Lorissa Deanna McComas was born on November 26, 1970, in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in the suburban comfort of Sharonville near Cincinnati. From a young age she exhibited a creative streak – she studied ballet as a child and had an innate love of performing. In 1988, she graduated from Princeton High School, where she was remembered as bright and outgoing. McComas earned admission to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, enrolling as an education major. By all accounts she was an intelligent young woman; incredibly, she would later note with pride that she made the Dean’s List in college even as her modeling career was first taking off.
Yet like many young women drawn to the spotlight, McComas found the conventional path of college life unfulfilling. After a couple of years of studying by day and waitressing at night, she began looking for a more exciting (and lucrative) outlet. The late 1980s and early ’90s were a boom time for the adult entertainment industry in the Midwest. McComas discovered she could earn far more money – and have a lot more fun – performing as an exotic dancer on weekends than she ever could waiting tables or tutoring kids. What began as a side hustle to pay tuition soon became a true calling. By 1990, at age 19, Lorissa McComas had traded the lecture hall for the gentlemen’s club.
Her entry into stripping came with a savvy twist. Rather than just dance in seedy bars, McComas turned her talent into a business venture. She began working as a strip-o-gram performer, entertaining at private parties and events. Before long, the enterprising coed had built up a successful little enterprise of her own. She even founded a company, Extasy Entertainment, which provided costumed strippers for bachelor parties and special occasions around the Cincinnati area. At a time when Cincinnati had outlawed strip clubs and imposed strict “no nudity” laws, McComas astutely filled the niche by bringing the shows to private venues. With her friendly demeanor and all-American looks, she became one of the most in-demand dancers in town. “She was classy, friendly, and gorgeous,” one local recalled of attending those early ’90s bachelor parties where Lorissa was the star entertainer.
However, as Lorissa quickly learned, dancing on the edge of legality in a conservative city came with risks. In the fall of 1990, her burgeoning strip-o-gram career was dealt a blow. Hired to perform at a bachelor party in Hamilton County, Lorissa was doing her routine when one guest slipped a dollar bill into her garter belt, sliding the bill just a couple of inches above her knee. It was a common, harmless gesture of appreciation in most places – but not in Cincinnati. Under the city’s draconian anti-nudity ordinances, any physical contact during an erotic performance could be construed as solicitation of prostitution. Vice officers had been cracking down on adult entertainment, and that night they made an example of Lorissa McComas. She and a fellow dancer were arrested and charged with misdemeanor prostitution. The incident was humiliating and frightening for the young performer. The local media had a field day with the salacious details of the “bachelor party bust.” McComas was essentially treated like a call girl simply for letting a man tuck a tip into her costume. It was an early lesson in how society’s judgment could fall harshly on a woman who dared to monetize her sexuality.
That minor brush with the law might have scared some young women out of the business entirely. But Lorissa McComas was nothing if not determined. She fought the charges (pointing out the absurdity of calling a single dollar in a garter “prostitution”) and continued building her entertainment company. By 1994, at just 23, she had become the owner of Extasy Entertainment and was successfully booking not only herself but other dancers for events across the region. With no strip clubs operating in Cincinnati at the time, the demand was high and McComas was the entrepreneurial ringleader meeting it. It was clear that Lorissa possessed both street smarts and business savvy beyond her years. And she wasn’t content to stop at local stardom – she had her sights set on bigger spotlights.
From College Coed to Cover Girl
While McComas was turning heads at Midwest parties by night, she was also pursuing a parallel dream: modeling. Blessed with an hourglass figure (a curvy 5’4” frame) and a photogenic smile, Lorissa had the kind of wholesome yet sultry look that men’s magazines love. In 1991, not long after her fateful arrest, she landed her first big modeling gig: a photoshoot for Playboy. Hugh Hefner’s iconic magazine was branching out into special editions at the time – themed spin-off publications like the Playboy Book of Lingerie, which featured fresh faces in sexy but not fully nude layouts. McComas, only 20 years old and still a bit shy about baring all, proved a perfect fit for these softer shoots.
Lorissa’s debut for Playboy came in the September/October 1991 issue of Playboy’s Book of Lingerie, and it was a splashy entrance. She not only appeared inside the magazine but even graced the cover – a remarkable feat for a newcomer. On that cover she smoldered in black lace, exuding a coy confidence. Inside, the pictorial showed a brunette bombshell with girl-next-door features, posing in elegant lingerie that revealed curves without revealing everything. The photos were a touch more provocative than what you might find in a Maxim magazine, but by Playboy standards they were relatively tame. In fact, at that stage of her career McComas was not yet comfortable with full nudity, and the editors respected her limits. The result was a spread that radiated tease and glamour more than outright nudity – and it struck a chord. Readers wanted more of Lorissa McComas.
That first Playboy appearance launched Lorissa’s modeling career in earnest. Over the next few years, she became a fixture in the Playboy Special Editions and many other men’s magazines. Her look was versatile: she could be the bikini-clad beach babe in one shoot, then transform into a gothic vamp or a leather-clad femme fatale in the next. By her own count, McComas eventually appeared in “literally hundreds” of magazine layouts, catalogs, and pin-up calendars throughout the 1990s. She was a regular presence in publications like Playboy’s Lingerie, Playboy’s Girls of Summer, and various swimsuit and glamour magazines that flourished in that pre-internet era. At one point she even earned a spot on a list of “The Top 1000 Glamour Models of the 20th Century,” an obscure honor perhaps, but one that placed her name alongside legends like Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page. For a middle-class girl from Ohio, it was a surreal ascent into the world of professional modeling.
Yet even as her modeling career blossomed, Lorissa remained level-headed about it. She continued taking college courses for a time and managed to excel academically. It’s a testament to her discipline that during the same period she was on a Playboy cover, she was also carrying a 4.0 GPA in education classes. “Brains and beauty” may be a cliché, but in McComas’s case it was true – she had both in spades. However, by the mid-’90s, the demands of her burgeoning modeling and acting opportunities became harder to juggle with school. Eventually, Lorissa put her formal education on hold, just a few credits shy of a degree, to chase her Hollywood ambitions full-time. The lure of the camera had grown too strong to resist.
Centerfold to Scream Queen: Breaking into B-Movies
Glamour modeling proved to be Lorissa’s gateway to another dream – acting. In the early 1990s, the video rental and late-night cable boom created a thriving market for B-movies and “softcore” erotic thrillers. These were the kind of low-budget films that filled Blockbuster shelves and Cinemax’s after-hours slots: cheesy horror flicks, steamy thrillers, and direct-to-video action capers that often featured eye-catching cover girls to entice viewers. McComas, with her rising profile in the men’s mags, was exactly the kind of fresh face casting directors were looking for. As it happened, one B-movie filmmaker literally discovered her through a magazine layout. Lorissa later recounted how a director spotted her in the pages of Femme Fatales – a niche publication devoted to B-movie “scream queens” – and knew he’d found his next femme fatale.
In 1992, Lorissa landed her first speaking role in a film: a low-budget beach comedy originally titled Spring Break Sorority Babes (also known as Can It Be Love). It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part – just a pretty girl in a party scene – but it got her on a movie set and a SAG card in hand. More opportunities soon followed. She moved out to Los Angeles for two months that stretched into a permanent stay. McComas would later admit that she “jumped right into my first film with virtually no [acting] experience.” What she did have was camera presence and courage. She learned the craft on the job, picking up tips from more seasoned actors and working long hours without complaint. “I got my training hands-on,” she said. “Modeling only gets you used to being in front of the camera; it doesn’t help your acting ability whatsoever.” She threw herself into each role, however small, and gradually her resume grew.
By the mid-1990s, Lorissa McComas had established herself as one of the go-to actresses in the softcore and B-movie scene. In 1995 alone, she appeared in a burst of films that would define her on-screen persona. That year she played a sultry stripper-turned-actress in Lap Dancing, an erotic drama that mirrored parts of her own journey. In the film, McComas’s character is a Midwest transplant in Hollywood who takes up exotic dancing to pay the bills while chasing an acting break – a case of art imitating life that Lorissa surely got a kick out of. The production was grueling (the cast endured a 24-hour straight shoot to finish the club scenes on time), but Lorissa’s performance as Angie, the small-town-girl-gone-wild, made an impression on late-night cable viewers when the film hit Showtime.
Horror also came calling. McComas sunk her teeth into a campy role as a vampire queen in Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls (1995), an erotic horror flick that has since become a cult item among B-movie collectors. She relished playing the villainess in this tongue-in-cheek tale of strip-club vampires, bringing both humor and sex appeal to the part. That same year, she had bit parts in Red Lips (a stylish straight-to-video vampire noir) and Stormswept (a haunted-house softcore thriller), further cementing her status as a rising “scream queen.” No, these films would not win any Oscars – most were the kind of fare one might label “so bad it’s good” – but Lorissa McComas was exactly where she wanted to be: in front of the movie camera, making a living as an actress.
Perhaps her most widely seen role of that era came with the remake of Piranha in 1995. Producer Roger Corman was rebooting his 1970s cult classic for cable TV, and Lorissa landed a supporting role in the campy killer-fish horror. It wasn’t a large part, but being involved in a known title gave her some mainstream exposure. She would later joke about watching TV late at night and suddenly seeing herself pop up on the screen in one of these movies – a gratifying reminder that all the hustle was paying off. Indeed, by the end of the ’90s she had accumulated credits in roughly two dozen feature films and many more “specialty” videos.
McComas’s niche was clear: she was the vivacious eye candy spicing up B thrillers and softcore erotica, often cast as the stripper, the mistress, the bikini babe, or occasionally the resourceful heroine. And she was good at it. Directors appreciated that Lorissa was professional on set – she showed up on time, knew her lines, and wasn’t shy about the skimpy costumes or staged love scenes these productions required. Fellow actors found her personable and unpretentious, a team player in an industry full of divas. By 1997, she could claim an unusual distinction: she had more screen credits in late-night cable movies than many mainstream starlets of her age had in legitimate films.
Queen of the B-Movies: Softcore Stardom in the Late ’90s
As the 1990s progressed, Lorissa McComas became something of a minor celebrity within the world of B-movies and late-night cable. She graced the glossy covers of genre magazines like Scream Queens Illustrated and Draculina, which catered to fans of erotic horror and cult cinema. Through these she ran a fan club, fielding letters from admirers around the world. To her surprise, she had become a pin-up idol to a subset of fans who collected VHS tapes of her films and trading cards of their favorite B-movie actresses. For someone who once dreamed of being a schoolteacher, it was an unexpected kind of fame – but Lorissa embraced it with gratitude and humor.
During this peak period, McComas’s filmography kept expanding. She ventured into erotic thrillers, a popular genre at the time that mixed noir-ish crime plots with softcore sensuality. She had a steamy supporting role in Testing the Limits (1997), a Cinemax favorite about a couple exploring the edges of infidelity. In Madame Savant (1997), she appeared amid a cast of late-night luminaries in a story of a high-class brothel’s secrets. None of these were starring roles for Lorissa, but her presence added to the marketing allure – her name on a VHS cover or DVD case helped sell these titles in video stores.
In 2000, Lorissa took part in one of the era’s most notorious B-movie spoofs: The Bare Wench Project. A cheeky parody of The Blair Witch Project, this straight-to-video romp featured a group of busty women lost in the woods, encountering absurd “horrors” while frequently losing their clothes. McComas played a character aptly named Lori, essentially a version of herself gamely sending up the genre’s clichés. Directed by legendary schlock filmmaker Jim Wynorski, The Bare Wench Project became a cult hit on late-night cable, spawning several sequels (and cementing itself in the “so-bad-it’s-good” hall of fame). For Lorissa, who had by then done plenty of earnest softcore roles, the chance to poke fun at it all was clearly a blast. Audiences loved seeing these B-movie bombshells not take themselves too seriously.
Around the same time, McComas dabbled in more action-oriented fare as well. She appeared in Crash Point Zero (2001), an explosion-laden thriller about stolen nuclear devices, sharing scenes with actor Treat Williams. In Hard As Nails (2001), an action-comedy, she played “Deb,” a gun moll character, holding her own in a cast that mixed B-movie regulars with former mainstream stars. These projects, while still low-budget, edged toward a slightly different audience – the late-night action movie crowd – and showed that Lorissa wasn’t limited to just playing the seductress. She was branching out, aiming for roles that demanded a little more acting range (even if they still came packaged with requisite bikini shots or shower scenes).
McComas also continued to get work in the creature-feature realm. In Raptor (2001), a cheesy sci-fi monster movie cobbled together with recycled footage from Carnosaur, she played the sheriff’s gutsy daughter trying to survive a dinosaur rampage. And in Project Viper (2003), a Sci-Fi Channel style thriller about a biotech experiment gone wrong, Lorissa had a brief role – one of what would be her last on-screen appearances. By the early 2000s, she had amassed over 30 film credits, an accomplishment few aspiring actresses achieve, even if most of those titles were far from Hollywood blockbusters.
Through all this, Lorissa remained active in modeling as well. She posed for countless magazine features and even lent her image to artistic projects. One of her passions was creative, fantasy-themed photo shoots – like the time she portrayed a comic book character named Shawna Diaz for the cover of a fantasy graphic novel, or when she collaborated with artist Tony Mauro on his atmospheric “When Darkness Falls” pin-up calendar. McComas enjoyed infusing art into her modeling, not just glamour. As the new millennium arrived, she hoped to steer her career toward more of these creative endeavors. In fact, she launched her own production label, LMP (Lorissa McComas Productions), aiming to self-produce photography portfolios and videos with a more refined artistic touch. After a decade of working for others, Lorissa wanted to assert more control over her image and explore projects that interested her personally. It was an ambitious plan – and a sign that even as she passed age 30, a time when many models retire, she wasn’t ready to fade away.
By all outward appearances, Lorissa McComas in the early 2000s was a success story of the fringe entertainment world. She had transformed from Ohio college girl to a national glamour model and cult-film actress. She owned a home in Los Angeles, had a loving long-term fan base, and even a young son to dote on. But privately, life was growing more complicated. The same industry that gave her a platform also came with a dark side of exploitation and stigma. And in her personal relationships, storm clouds were gathering.
Behind the Spotlight: Struggles and Controversies
Working in adult entertainment – even its softcore, R-rated corners – meant Lorissa McComas was often judged harshly by mainstream society. Over the years, she grew accustomed to clarifying exactly what she did for a living. “I have never done pornography,” she would insist to interviewers, drawing a line between her work and hardcore adult film. Yes, she frequently appeared nude or in sexual scenarios on camera, but it was always simulated or tease – “no insertion, no real sex act committed,” as she put it. She never performed explicit sex on film, never did live sex shows. In her mind, she was an actress and glamour model, not a porn star. It was an important distinction to Lorissa, and one she defended fiercely. “I don’t do live hardcore pornography from my home,” she once snapped, dispelling a rumor that she web-cammed or engaged in off-screen sex work. Still, despite her efforts to maintain a degree of class in her career choices, the outside world often failed to differentiate. To many, if you took your clothes off on camera, you were lumped in with the worst labels.
This stigma reared its head in a very painful way when Lorissa became a mother. In the mid-2000s, after years in Los Angeles, McComas relocated to Florida, primarily to care for her ailing mother who had been diagnosed with cancer. Around this time, she married a man named Doug Taylor. The couple settled in Melbourne, Florida, along with Lorissa’s young son (from a prior relationship). Unfortunately, rather than being a respite, this period marked the beginning of a dark spiral. Her mother’s health declined and she ultimately passed away, an event that shattered Lorissa’s emotional foundation. As if that trauma wasn’t enough, just weeks later Lorissa’s grief-stricken father took his own life, unable to cope with the loss of his wife. One day, while Lorissa was away on a film shoot, her father committed suicide at home – she returned to find the horrific scene. “That was the worst, most tragic loss in my life,” she later said of discovering her father’s death. Understandably, McComas plunged into a severe depression after losing both parents in such a short span. She withdrew from the world, even disconnecting her phone to avoid calls. The vivacious model who once lit up rooms became a near recluse, drowning in grief and undiagnosed mental health struggles. At one point, she suffered a nervous breakdown, experiencing paranoid delusions (friends say she became convinced she was on a reality TV show that was tormenting her, unable to accept her parents were really gone). This crisis led to a brief hospitalization in a mental health facility. After a few days of care, she was released, but Lorissa McComas was clearly a woman in deep pain.
Amid this personal chaos, McComas also found herself battling authorities over her fitness as a mother. In 2006, the Florida Department of Children and Families opened an investigation into Lorissa and Doug’s household. The catalyst for this was an especially bizarre and heartbreaking incident. In an act of kindness, Lorissa had allowed a teenage girl who was down on her luck to move into their home for a while. Unbeknownst to McComas, the girl had a history of serious problems. After a short stay, the troubled teen turned on Lorissa and Doug, allegedly attempting to extort money from them. When Lorissa refused to pay, the girl made a vindictive threat: she would call the authorities and claim that McComas exposed her child to pornography and unsafe conditions. Tragically, this girl followed through. She contacted child welfare officials and reportedly told them lurid tales – accusing Lorissa of running an unsavory adult business from the home and even implying sexual misconduct around the child.
It was a nightmare scenario for Lorissa McComas. Everything she had worked for was at risk – not her career, but her role as a mother. Child protective services and the courts took the claims seriously (conservative attitudes die hard, and a former nude model made an easy target for moral outrage). Lorissa vehemently denied the allegations, and indeed no evidence was found that she had ever done anything like filming explicit content in her home or endangering her son. But the damage was done. The investigation cast her in a harsh light; to some officials, the mere fact that she had a history in adult entertainment raised suspicions about her parenting. At a court hearing in Melbourne, FL that summer of 2006, Lorissa faced the unthinkable: she was declared an unfit parent. Custody of her beloved son was taken from her, at least temporarily, as the case played out.
For Lorissa, losing her child was a blow from which she never fully recovered. Friends say the court’s decision devastated and infuriated her. On one hand, she felt persecuted – a victim of a “modern-day witch hunt” against an adult industry worker. On the other hand, she recognized that her life had indeed spiraled out of control in recent months, with her depression, erratic behavior, and a volatile home environment (her marriage to Doug had become strained and allegedly abusive by then). Both things could be true: perhaps the state overreacted to her career, and perhaps Lorissa’s personal troubles truly did hinder her ability to parent at that moment. In any case, her son was gone from her care, and Lorissa’s fragile mental state crumbled even further.
The legal turmoil around her family life coincided with a sharp decline in McComas’s physical health. In 2006, she was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), a rare neuro-inflammatory disorder that causes severe chronic pain. RSD ravaged Lorissa’s body, especially her legs – “From my knees down I look like a bumpy mess,” she remarked, managing a bit of dark humor about the condition – and there were days she could hardly walk. She often relied on a wheelchair or crutches. For someone whose livelihood and identity were tied to her physical presence and movement, this was cruel fate. Ever the fighter, Lorissa initially tried to adapt. “The rest of me still looks great,” she quipped, insisting she could continue working if accommodations were made. She planned to accept only non-nude, fully clothed roles from then on: “I won’t be doing the nudity I did before. I’ll just be doing regular roles.” But in truth, the acting opportunities had largely dried up by then. Her last credited film performance was in a tongue-in-cheek TV movie called The Lusty Busty Babe-a-Que (filmed around 2007–08), where she reunited on screen with some fellow B-movie starlets of her era for a final hurrah. After that, Lorissa McComas effectively disappeared from the public eye.
Tragic Finale
In the late 2000s, Lorissa’s life became a tangle of hardships that few could have imagined during her pin-up girl heyday. She was battling constant physical pain from RSD, struggling with a dependency on painkillers (friends noted she had developed an OxyContin habit while trying to cope with her condition), and mourning the loss of her parents and the separation from her child. Her marriage to Doug Taylor had deteriorated drastically. McComas had filed for divorce in 2006, around the time she left Los Angeles, citing abuse and alcoholism. But in a twist that only added to her torment, Doug reinserted himself into her life even after they split. He followed her to rural Waverly, Virginia – a small town where Lorissa had relocated by 2007, seeking a quiet refuge. Instead, according to those close to her, she found herself trapped in a cycle of domestic violence. Locals later reported seeing disturbing signs of turmoil: loud fights, instances of Doug brandishing a firearm and even firing shots in the home. One such incident allegedly involved Doug shooting through a door in a drunken rage, unaware (or unconcerned) that Lorissa’s young son was on the other side. It was exactly the kind of dangerous environment that had cost her custody of the boy in the first place.
On November 3, 2009, the tumult and pain of Lorissa McComas’s life came to a sudden, tragic end. That day, police in Waverly received a report of a shooting at Lorissa’s residence. The 38-year-old former model was found dead from a gunshot wound. Officially, her death was ruled a suicide – a self-inflicted shotgun blast, according to the initial investigation. A brief statement on her website even attributed her passing to “a long illness,” perhaps a euphemism referencing her chronic disease and depression. But almost immediately, questions arose about what really happened. Some who knew Lorissa could not believe she would take her own life, especially not in that manner. And indeed, strange inconsistencies in the case fueled speculation of foul play.
One troubling detail was the forensic evidence – or lack thereof. McComas supposedly shot herself with a pump-action shotgun, yet friends noted that she had never been trained to handle such a weapon. More importantly, investigators reportedly found no gunpowder residue on Lorissa’s hands, and even her fingerprints were absent from the shotgun, which is unusual in an obvious suicide. Her estranged husband Doug Taylor’s behavior also raised eyebrows. He was, by some accounts, present around the time of death (it’s said he was the one who called 911), but his statements to police were erratic and changed multiple times within hours. Given the history of abuse, several of Lorissa’s close friends immediately suspected that Doug was involved in her death – possibly staging the scene as a suicide.
For the local police, however, the case was closed quickly. They accepted it as a suicide and did not pursue further investigation. This did not sit well with those who loved Lorissa. In the years following 2009, a small movement grew, seeking justice and a closer look at the circumstances of her demise. A “Justice for Lorissa McComas” online campaign was launched, led in part by a former fiancé of Lorissa’s who had been very close to her in her final year. This group gathered testimonies and pointed out the irregularities – for example, neighbors in Waverly who corroborated that Doug had been violently abusive toward Lorissa even the night before she died. An online petition on Change.org garnered signatures urging Virginia authorities to reopen the case. There was even a grassroots effort to fund a documentary film titled “Life and Death of a Pin-Up Star” to tell Lorissa’s story and press for a new investigation. However, despite these passionate endeavors, the official stance never wavered. Law enforcement declined to reexamine the case, and the petition eventually closed without spurring action. To this day, Lorissa McComas’s death remains officially a suicide – though the cloud of doubt and mystery lingers.
Legacy of a Pin-Up Princess
Lorissa McComas lived a life of dizzying highs and crushing lows, the kind of life that reads almost like the plot of one of her B-movies. She arrived in Hollywood as the quintessential fresh-faced beauty from the Heartland, made a splash as a pin-up queen and softcore star, but behind the scenes faced demons that ultimately overwhelmed her. It would be easy for some to dismiss her as another tragic figure chewed up by the adult entertainment industry. Indeed, in tabloid fashion, her story has all the trappings: sex, fame, scandal, and a tragic end. But those who knew her – and those fans who felt they knew her from afar – remember Lorissa McComas in a more nuanced way.
Firstly, she should be remembered for her achievements. In her 20-year career, Lorissa carved out a unique niche in pop culture. She wasn’t a household name, but within the realms of glamour modeling and late-night B-cinema, she was royalty. Men’s magazines of the ’90s featured her like a recurring dream girl, and for a generation of cable TV viewers, she was a familiar face (and figure) in many an midnight movie. Her presence in films like Lap Dancing, The Bare Wench Project, and Vamps made those productions memorable in ways they otherwise might not have been. She brought a genuine charm to roles that could have been forgettable. There was a kind of honest enthusiasm in her performances – whether she was playing a frightened coed running from a monster or seducing a detective in an erotic thriller, McComas never came across as jaded or cynical on screen. In a genre filled with icy blondes and aloof divas, Lorissa was the warm, vivacious brunette who seemed to be having fun with it.
Beyond the screen and page, Lorissa is remembered for her personal warmth and generosity. Fans who met her at conventions or autograph signings consistently describe her as down-to-earth and kind. She made time to chat, to sign that extra picture, to make every person feel appreciated. Colleagues noticed her nurturing side; on sets, she would comfort nervous first-timers and befriend crew members. And the loyalty she inspired was evident in how some of those fans and friends rallied to her defense later on. They saw the human being behind the “pin-up” – a woman who had given them joy through her art, and who in the end was treated unfairly by both the justice system and fate.
Her life also highlights some harsh realities. McComas’s story is, in part, a cautionary tale about how society treats women in the adult sphere. The very traits that made her successful – her beauty and boldness – also made her a target for scandal and judgment. The Cincinnati arrest in 1990 and the Florida custody battle in 2006 bookend a narrative of moral scrutiny that hounded her. Lorissa wanted nothing more than to entertain and express herself creatively, yet she found herself labeled and ostracized at key moments when she needed help, not condemnation. One can’t help but wonder: if she hadn’t been a nude model, would authorities have listened more closely when she reported being threatened and extorted? Would the courts have been so quick to remove her child if not for her risqué résumé? If she had been a mainstream actress, would the investigation of her death have been more thorough? These questions linger, and they troubled Lorissa deeply in her lifetime.
In the end, what stands out is that Lorissa McComas was a fighter. She fought to make a name for herself, hustling from one audition to the next, taking on projects both silly and sublime, always putting in the work. She fought to reinvent herself, whether by starting her own business at 23 or by trying to transition from softcore roles to more mainstream ones. She fought debilitating illness with courage, determined not to let it define her. And she fought for her son, using every legal avenue available to regain custody and provide a safe home, even when the odds were against her.
Tragically, some fights she could not win. But to define her only by her sad ending would be to ignore the vibrancy of the life that came before. Lorissa was more than the caricature of a “fallen starlet.” She was a savvy businesswoman, a loving mother and daughter, and by many accounts a sweet, trusting soul who cared deeply for others. One of her closest friends described Lorissa as “naïve and forgiving to a fault” – someone whose open-hearted nature was both her brightest quality and what made her vulnerable to those who would exploit her.
Today, Lorissa McComas’s legacy lives on in the cult fandom that still remembers the golden age of ’90s softcore cinema. Internet forums and fan pages continue to share her images and celebrate her film appearances. Every so often, someone who stumbles across a late-night rerun of one of her movies will take to social media to say, “Hey, whatever happened to that actress Lorissa McComas? She was great!” – sparking a flurry of reminiscences and tributes. Sadly, the answer to that question is a poignant one.
Lorissa McComas died young, under circumstances that remain debated, and the world undoubtedly missed out on what could have been the next chapters of her life – perhaps a reinvention as a producer, or an artist, or simply the satisfaction of watching her son grow up. But those who knew her find comfort in remembering her smile and her spirit. In one tribute, a friend wrote that Lorissa “was so beautiful and one of my favorite models…I am just shocked about the circumstances around her death.” Another fan responded, “She had a life that seemed unreal compared to how she portrayed herself on camera. I’m truly sad to hear about this. May God bless you, Lorissa, for the rest of time.” Such heartfelt sentiments underline the impact she quietly had.
There was more to Lorissa McComas than the smile and the skin.
You don’t get that far on pretty alone — not really.
She had guts.
She had fire.
And maybe she burned too hot for a world that only wanted to touch the flame, not feel the heat.
The magazines loved her. The cameras loved her.
But cameras don’t know a damn thing about pain.
They don’t see the quiet nights, the bad calls, the empty bottles, the hard mornings.
They don’t know what it’s like to walk into a room and be wanted for everything except who you really are.
She was a daughter once.
A sister.
Somebody’s friend.
Somebody’s mother.
And those things don’t vanish just because the glossies fade or the credits roll.
She made people laugh.
Made ’em sweat.
She gave the world something — even if it didn’t give much back.
Some called her bold.
Some called her broken.
Truth is, she lived louder than most of us ever dare.
And when the lights cut out, she was still dancing in the dark.
You don’t forget women like that.
Not if you’ve got a soul.
Not if you’ve ever watched someone try to outrun the world with a smile and a pair of heels.
Lorissa flew high, fell hard, and lit the damn sky for a while.
That’s more than most.
And maybe that’s enough.
