Porn Valley- I had a terrific chat with Cleopatra of the Nile Tuesday night. Sometimes where there’s beauty you forget about the brains, but not so with her. A keen intellect and terrific sense of humor is readily apparent and our conversation went something like this while she was having her nails done. Cleopatra tells me she was at AEE last week and signed both for AI News and Dane Productions.

You kind of forget the fact that she’s been in the business for ten years – she first came out to LA at the age of 25- but she wears her time very well.

Cleopatra laughs about the fact that we’ve never shared a real interview together. The first time we met was at Pamela Peak’s cooking show, www.pamelapeaksinthekitchen.com.

“That’s a fun show to do,” says Cleopatra, noting that she dabbles a little in the culinary arts but from the way it sounds not too much dabbling. If someone wanted to seduce her, I wondered what kind of meal they’d have to come up with.

“Very exotic seafood is great,” she answers. “Always a bottle of wine and I do love great bread- French or Italian bread. And good music sets the ambience. As long as the ambience is there and the wine is there, and the lights are dim.”

With the new year she’s got a lot of projects in the hopper including an appearance in a mainstream Sci-Fi movie. She can’t remember the name of the company but the producer is Owen Land, she says.

“This is a SAG feature film.”

She laughs when I tell her that her pronunciation over the phone makes it sound like Owen Rand. Then I ask if she’s part Japanese.

“No. I’m Egyptian,” she states.

“I know that- but I thought there was a little Japanese in your Egyptian.”

“There’s a lot of Australian in my Egyptian,” she resumes. “I’m not mixed. I’m one hundred percent Egyptian. I grew up in Australia.”

Cleopatra explains that her parents moved there when she was young.

“They raised two children- my brother still lives there but I leave here now,” she continues. “I’m the only daughter.”

“Did your parents raise you to watch Mummy movies?” I wondered.

“No, but I had a very strict upbringing,” she replies. “They were very protective of me, and being Arabic I have both cultures as part of my life.”

When I bring up the fact that she’s very well known for her bust line and could see why maybe they’d protect her like that, Cleopatra confesses that she’s enhanced.

“They aren’t real, honey,” she laughs. “I started doing nude glamour modeling when I was 27. That was in 1995-96. And then I started making movies in 2001. I had my breasts done in 2000 so they’re now six years old. [Going on seven]. But ever since I got my boobs done, I started making feature films and girl-on-girl stuff.”

She has yet to do boy-girl on camera and it doesn’t sound like she will any time in the near future.

Her life before porn actually sounds a lot more interesting than the porn job. Cleopatra was the right hand man, so-to-speak, to an Australian business tycoon; she also worked for a computer firm and holds two degrees in Economics and Business with a minor in law. She was an honors student.

“Why did you leave all of that behind?” she’s asked.

“Because it’ll always be with me,” she reasons. “I enjoy working in front of the camera and everything to do with the entertainment business. But you only have a window of so long. I have a very versatile mind and my mind controls everything so there’s nothing ever that will precede my intelligence and how I do things. But what’s intelligent for me is to maximize every opportunity. And when I’m done with what’ going on, I’ll do something else. And I have many avenues. So I’ll never be without opportunities.”

“Was this a matter of you pursuing your sexual fantasies?”

“Not necessarily a fantasy but it’s a lifestyle with me,” she replies.
“So you were always hot in your Egyptian pants?”

“Oh yeah,” she chuckles. Asked about some of her earlier adventures, Cleopatra describes Australia as a place where you drink and party.

“That’s basically it,” she says. “Because I had a strict upbringing I used to go out of my way to do everything I wasn’t allowed to do without my family knowing. So I’d be a little angel at home and a little devil out there. The legal age over there is 18 so everybody does everything before that. You never do anything when you’re legal. You always want to do something when you don’t have ID. But I was a little wild child. I had a lot of friends and I partied probably like four or five nights a week and would come home six in the morning and have to deal with my parents.

“It was kind of weird but there isn’t anything I haven’t done. The only thing I haven’t done is drugs. That’s a thing I would never do and can safely say I haven’t done. But I don’t think there’s much else I haven’t done.”

Sexually speaking, Cleopatra has pretty much taken a tour of the bases including home plate.

“I used to orchestrate a lot of the situation,” she says. “I think life is to be lived and if you have an appetite for that you should feed it, I think. If you’re hungry, don’t you eat?”

“Yeah, in fact I’m thinking about what kind of sandwich I’m going to have tonight,” I tell her.

“I hope it’s a good one,” she laughs. But with all of the talk about wild child adventure, 6am home landings and feeding the appetite, Cleopatra admits that she didn’t have sex until she was 21.

“The great adventure was going on,” she explains. “But I wanted to wait until I found the right scenario for me. I wasn’t ready until I was 21. But I partied hard, let me tell you.”

I imagine then that she must have had situations where she really needed to fend off guys. She says that’s true.

“From the age of 16 it was very hard for me,” she says. “And I very rarely have been involved in major relationships. I’ve had more superficial scenarios than I have real relationships. I didn’t really start dating until I was 26. I was more into having fun. It’s weird is what I’d call it. I’ve never lived a normal life. Many people have asked me how does my world work. And I guess you can say I march to the beat of my own drum. I used to have a lot of people very angry at me sometimes because I didn’t follow the general way that things are done as a female. If I was a guy, they’d be shaking my hand and patting my back.”

“With all this great adventure has a man known the texture of your sphincter?” she’s asked.

“That’s a good way of putting it, but of course,” she laughs. “The first time was with a very good friend in the business and it was wonderful. I don’t do it in the movies but it’s something I’ve done in my personal life. But never on screen. I haven’t even done boy-girl on screen.”

Cleopatra mentions that she was offered a six figure contract from a company in NY to do b-g. She turned it down.

“The reason why I did that is because I’m Egyptian,” she explains. “My background, I think, if someone were to get me to walk that road, they should put the money up.”

“Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me,” I say.

“Being an Arab and being in this business, alone, I’ve had more problems then I desire to deal with,” she continues. “People don’t realize what it’s like being an Arab in this business. I’ve had a hard road to walk. With what’s going on in the Middle east, people think it’s like a fashion statement now. I’m like, no, you don’t really know what it takes to deal with this industry. I can’t even talk about it- my family doesn’t discuss it. And I’m here in America which is the only reason why it works out for me. It takes a lot of guts to do what I do- it’s not something easy.”

Cleopatra kept the fact that she’s in the business from her family for six years. Out of their own curiosity she describes how her family broke into her office to snoop around for clues.

“I was keeping it very secretive,” she explains, noting that her work schedule at times allowed her only one or two days a month at home.

“It’s really hard when you’re paying a mortgage and are never there to enjoy your own home,” she states. So faced with the prospect of needing help to keep track of her finances and career, Cleopatra finally laid the cards on the table with her folks.

“I told them you have to help me,” she said. “They weren’t happy, but they were very understanding. They’re my family and money should always stay within the family- that’s very important to me.” I wanted to hear more about the office break in, and Cleopatra said her folks did it with a credit card like you see in the spy movies.

“I went out of town to feature then I got a phone call because they were living with me for a little awhile,” she says. “I heard it all over the phone. It’s very hard to keep things from my family.”

“Especially with their talent with credit cards,” I suggest.

“There’s certainly no way I could hide things after that, even though I denied it,” she agrees. “I had to put my foot down and say let’s not play the games anymore. This is how it is. I mean if I was 18 years old, I would have played the mommy-daddy-little daughter game. But I’m not 18. So now it’s just about business and I’ve got to handle my business.”

With the fact that she only does girl-girl on screen, Cleopatra believes her other irons in the business fire preclude a slowdown.

“I’m very versatile,” she states. “I make my own movies and I’m a comic book super hero, a science fiction icon; I have a website with members galleries- www.cleosoasis.com and a mainstream site, www.thecleopatracollection.com.”

And her MySpace page is www.myspace.com/cleopatraofthenile.

“I own both sites and I own all the footage that’s on there,” she notes.

“And I own my own comic book and my own artwork.” She also owns 20,000 images of herself and plans to be doing webcam shoots in about a week.

“You’ll be able to come and view me live and interact with me which I think is great for the fans,” she adds.

She also mentions how she was voted Best Actress 2005 at a Puerto Rican film festival and has won a number of nude pageants as well.

“I’ve paid my dues,” Cleopatra says. “Until I stop getting published I don’t see any reason to stop. I think I’ve got my peddle to the metal and making it happen.”