Raven-haired Clair Dia was born Emily Smith, a redhead, in Los Angeles and raised in the San Fernando Valley. She attended City College in San Francisco and majored in occupational therapy. She then worked as a secretary before traveling the country and making porn loops for traveling cash, which landed her in the October 1971 Playboy article "The Porno Girls." Her feature debut was in What About Jane: An Erotic Soap Opera (1972). During an early screening of this film, she, a castmate, and the director were arrested and thrown in jail on obscenity charges, but spent only four hours there before being released. Clair went on to star in over 20 adult films and directed two more (she had attended Berkeley Film Institute where she studied filmmaking). Even in the films she directed, Clair managed to appear in brief walk-on roles.