| Abigail Clayton | |
| Birth Name: | Gail Lawrence |
| Birth Date: | 1948 11, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | New York City, New York, United States |
| Death Place: | Lakeport, California, United States |
| Alias: | Debbie Lordan, Abagail Clayton, Gail Wezke, Gail Lawrence |
Abigail Clayton (born Gail Lawrence; November 28, 1948) was an American pornographic actress active during the Golden Age of Porn. She was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2008.
Clayton went to college at Stony Brook University and graduated with a bachelor's in fine arts in 1971.[1]
Clayton started her career in 1976 during the porn chic era when adult movies were shown in mainstream theaters. She started out first posing for magazines such as Hustler and Swank before making the jump to adult films. Her name would often appear in ads in major newspapers of the time, alongside other stars such as Annette Haven and Leslie Bovee.
One of Clayton's earliest movies was Alex de Renzy's Femmes de Sade, which was the eighth film inducted into XRCO's Hall of Fame. Clayton also appeared in Harold Lime's Desires Within Young Girls with Georgina Spelvin and was the title character in Antonio Shepherd's 7 Into Snowy a parody of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her last adult film was October Silk in 1980.
The daughter of a successful doctor on the East Coast[2] Clayton worked as a film editor at Parker Labs in San Francisco. She dated actor Ken Scudder who she met filming a porn loop.[3] Clayton later married a male nurse who was a junkie but then divorced. She had a daughter.[4]
Abigail Clayton was one of the first adult stars to move into mainstream films when she appeared in Bye Bye Monkey with Gérard Depardieu and Marcello Mastroianni. In 1980, she was cast as Rita in the horror film Maniac. Her last mainstream role was a small part as a nun in the Ryan O'Neal film So Fine in 1981.
Clayton only appeared in 16 original adult films during her career, far fewer than most other adult stars. She appeared in another 22 films that were compilations of scenes from her previous movies.