Steve Hirsch (Vivid Video): Asia had a phenomenally unique look.

Bud Lee: She did many things that she's not exactly proud of.

Asia: My whole world just stopped. And I don't really remember much after that.

Announcer: This is a place between heaven and hollywood. It's the boulevard of broken dreams.

Asia: I played the piano at carnegie hall. I was in the new jersey state youth orchestra. I was a nerd all my life.

Dr. Drew Pinsky: She is unusual to a degree of brilliance both musically and intellectually. People look at individuals that make choices such as she did, kind of shake their head and go, wasn't she smart enough to know not to do that?

Asia: I turned to porn because it was a damn good source of money.

Announcer: Once a child prodigy, now an adult film star. Asia carrera's life is a study in contradiction.

Announcer: Asia carrera was born in 1973. Her given name was jessica.

Asia: I was born in new york city and raised in new jersey on the jersey shore. Half japanese, half german. And my parents had really, really strict expectations. They wanted all high A's. I brought home B''s I got grounded.

Bud Lee: I think the disconnect with her family was the inability for them to show love and affection.

Asia: I would try as hard as i could and win more awards than anybody else, but it was never good enough for them.

Announcer: Intellectual ability got the child prodigy into an exclusive club.

Asia: Mensa is a society for high iq people, over 140. You have to be certified.

Announcer: Jessica excelled at academics. But her dream was to become a musician.

Asia: I wanted to be a pianist when I grew up, but my parents said no, you're gonna go to harvard. And they actually made me quit playing the piano for a few years to concentrate on my studies.

Announcer: But their plan backfired.

Asia: I ran away from home, let's see. I was about 17 or so. My mom and I got into a big fight. The next morning I packed a bag full of stuff, went to school and didn't come home.

Dr. Drew: For the streets and the incredible misery of living on the street, to be a lesser evil than living in your own home, the profound pain in the home has got to be overwhelming.

Announcer: By day, jessica continued to go to school. At night, the teenager did what she could to survive.

Bud Lee: She slept with men to get a hotel room for the night, to get a meal.

Bud Lee: She did many things that she's not exactly proud of to survive. But I also think that's where her ability to separate romance and sex came into play. I think that's where it started.

Announcer: Ironically, it was jessica's smarts that got her off the streets. With a 1400 plus S.A.T. Score, she got a full ride to rutgers.

Asia: The whole reason I went to college was not because I wanted an education, but because I was a runaway, and I wanted free room and board.

Announcer: For spending money, jessica went to work as a cocktail waitress. That led to a change in plans.

Bud Lee: She could knock down, you know, $100,000 a year, spending four, five nights a week dancing in a club. I think she started thinking, wow, it's a little silly to be spending so much time going to school when I could be spending all this time making money and saving it.

Dr. Drew: Every single stripper or adult film star I've ever talked to said they did it because of money. But when you really scratch the surface, there were ten other sources of money there they could have tapped into. But they didn't want to. This one was much more gratifying.

Announcer: Jessica began posing nude for magazines. One day on a shoot, she asked the photographer about getting into adult movies.

Asia: I said, you know, I think i could do porn. And he said, well, I know who you ought to talk to. I know this producer named bud lee out in california. And I'll send your info to him.

Bud Lee: And I called her. And she came out in early december of that year and started making some movies for me.

Announcer: The move to L.A. Also brought a name change.

Bud Lee: When I met her, she was asia carrera. And that's what she wanted to be called all the time. She never wanted to be called by her real name, ever.

Asia: The reason I go by the name asia carrera is because the name jessica reminds me of the little girl who ran away from home.

Announcer: When jessica became asia, asia became a star.

Steve Hirsch:Asia had a phenomenally unique look unlike any girl that had ever been in the business.

Asia: People wanted to pay to see me have sex on camera. And I could make a good living off of it. Well, damn, I was going to have sex for free anyway, why not get paid for it.

Dr. Drew: They may enjoy it, but there's always a price to be paid for this. This is not a road they would take to financial independence if they could have written their own script.

Announcer: Asia did write the script to one of her most successful films.

Bud Lee: It was about a young lady who ran away, who was pursuing music and wanted to be known for music.

Asia: I wrote it. It was semi-autobiographical. That was me playing the piano. It's a very special movie to me.

Bud Lee: "Appassionata" came from inside of her, from her heart.

Announcer: In february 1995, asia and bud made their personal relationship official.

Bud Lee: We were in las vegas. I asked her on the way over there, why don't we get married? She was in a pair of cut off combat boots and a metallica t-shirt.

Asia: Life with bud was everything you would imagine a porn star marriage to be. Think of all the crazy cliches you could think of, and yeah. It was an open marriage. There was swinging.

Announcer: The pair separated after three years but stayed friends and business partners.

Bud Lee: Oh, my god. How many movies did asia and i make together? I don't know, 75, 80. She was my secret weapon.

Announcer: Asia created a website to expand her fan base and sell her films directly to the public. The money poured in, but the easy cash didn't make up for low self-esteem.

Bud Lee: She was depressed at times, and she had reason to be. There was crap back there behind her. And sometimes it just was bigger and greater than what she could push away from herself.

Announcer: Asia distracted herself by trying to beat the odds.

Asia: I had a gambling addiction. I had a problem. I was extremely depressed.

Dr. Drew: Asia carrera heading toward gambling is again using arousal as a way of managing primitive, painful feelings.

Asia: Every day was just like a nightmare. I just didn't want to be alive. I cried myself to sleep every night. And I would sit there and do online gambling just to try to take my mind off of being lonely. I dropped to my knees and i wrapped my arms around his legs. And I said, "please don't go." And he goes, "you're being dramatic." I said, "please don't go."

(commercial break)

Announcer: Asia carrera was a piano prodigy and straight "a" student who turned to porn to escape a bad family situation. But after making a killing in adult movies, asia nearly lost everything to a gambling addiction.

Asia: I spent days just in bed. I didn't even get out of bed some days. I just had no reason to get up. And if I could get myself to do some chores around the house or do something by promising myself an hour or two of gambling afterwards, I would do it.

Announcer: Then, one e-mail from fitness guru don lemmon changed everything.

Asia: I met don online. He contacted me to do an interview for one of his websites. And I checked out his site, and I was like, dude, your pretty hot.

Bud Lee: I met don before she did. He goes, "what do you think? What are you going to say to asia?" And I said, "well, I'll tell asia she ought to go out with you."

Asia: I fell so head over heels for him so fast that it just turned my life around. I didn't need to gamble anymore. I totally cleaned up my life. I was just in love. I was so happy.

Announcer: As she turned 30, asia's new peace of mind gave her the freedom to quit the sex industry.

Bud Lee: Don just gave her some support so that she didn't have to be that persona that she had created.

Asia: Meeting don was not like a second chance at happiness. It was like a first chance at happiness. I waited 30 years to meet him. He was everything, everything that I'd waited for. He was my soul mate.

Announcer: Three months after they met, asia and don married. A year later, asia had a baby girl named catalina. And it wasn't long before the new mom was pregnant again.

Asia: Don made all of my dreams come true. He made me the perfect wife, the perfect mother. He just made me believe every day that I was everything he'd ever wanted. And he made me feel really good about me.

Announcer: In june 2006, don had to make a last-minute business trip to vegas. Asia was eight months pregnant and didn't want him to go.

Asia: I dropped to my knees and i wrapped my arms around his legs and said, "please don't go." And he goes, "you're being dramatic." And I said, "please don't go." And he was coming home to me. He was racing home to me because he missed me.

Officer Honea: Mr. Lemmon was traveling northbound on I-15, just south of our location here. The road veers slightly to the right. For reasons unknown, mr. Lemmon allowed his vehicle to drift off the inside shoulder of the road. The jeep liberty he was driving rolled across both northbound travel lanes. He was pronounced dead on scene.

Announcer: Asia got the news by telephone.

Asia: And then the woman asked me, "are you don's wife?" And I said, "yeah." She goes, "your husband is deceased." And my whole world just stopped at the word "deceased." "Deceased." I'm eight months pregnant and I've got a 1-year-old baby and my husband's deceased. What am I gonna do?

Bud Lee: I think the dream that asia has had about what she thinks her life should be, I think she just had it ripped out from underneath her.

Announcer: Newly widowed, unemployed, and with two babies, asia struggled financially.

Asia: Don didn't have any money in the bank when he died. He was of the mindset, you know, it's just money. I'll make more. He told me when business picked up a little bit he would get life insurance. But it hadn't picked up yet. And he was in debt in a number of different directions. And I had no idea.

Announcer: But asia's long-time admirers came to the rescue.

Bud Lee: Her fans have just poured out love, attention, and money to her.

Asia: After don died, it was an outpouring of support like you wouldn't believe. They've been so good to me. I mean, the house was just filled with things that people sent.

Announcer: At 33, asia carrera has seen more than her share of adversity and survived it all.

Dr. Drew: Aside from asia carrera's career choices, this is a brilliant woman who's highly driven, who's very success-oriented, who is an achiever and will always be one and we've not heard the last of her.

Asia: After enough times of saying, one more day, one more day, it's like, hey, it's been a couple weeks. Hey, it's been a couple of months. I'm doing it. And I'm not falling apart anymore. I'm all right.