Amber Hunter, a.k.a. Little Cinderella, starred in more than 200 porn flicks.

Tarrant County is home to a lot of retired (or retiring) celebrities -- B.J. Thomas, King Diamond, Peter Mayhew (a.k.a. Chewbacca). But one of the region's most-filmed ex-stars is someone a lot of folks have probably seen but don't know.

Amber Hunter began her career in entertainment in the early 1990s, when she was in her late teens, stripping in Tarrant County joints. She then moved to California, traded in playing to an audience to playing in front of a camera, and became Little Cinderella. Not exactly a wholesome image ripped from the pages of a Disneyland fairy tale, the 4-foot-10 bleached-blonde worked her butt off even by porn industry standards, starring in more than 226 films, including Sorority Sex Kittens 3, War Whores, and, of course, The Triple-X Files. She established her reputation as not only diligent -- and short -- but definitely distinctive. (One reviewer said her work in 1996's Cherry Poppers 15 was "just white-trash scary.")

But that's all behind her now. Living off money she made out west, Hunter is indulging in the peace and quiet of northeast Tarrant County suburbia, nursing her brother back to health from a motorcycle accident, feeding her two cats, and, most of all, keeping a low profile. "I missed my home and family and moved back right after 9/11," Hunter said. Since her return, she has danced only once, at House of Babes in Burleson, because, she said, she "got bored."

The R&R is well-deserved, considering that Hunter probably lived three lifetimes during her decade in L.A., the town that became her home after she fled the Metroplex in 1994, trouble on her tail. (Hunter won't specify, and Tarrant County shows no record of legal wrongdoing on her part, but she does say that she is "fine" with her past. "It has made me the woman I am today.")

Doing porn "was all about the money," Hunter said. A porn actor can net anywhere from $300 to $2,000 per scene, depending on his or her reputation and/or willingness to do just about anything. Hunter eventually reached the apex of the porn heap, going from having sex with nobodies to feigning lovemaking with the likes of her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend and porn superstar Steve Hatcher and The Big Lebowski's Asia Carrera and -- better yet -- crossing over into the mainstream. Hunter had a bit part in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights: "I was the girl who overdosed on cocaine at the pool party," she writes on her web site. "It was a great experience."

Hunter was at the top of her game when she and Hatcher broke up. Soured on L.A., she split. She kept in touch with only one member of the industry, a West Coast bartender and porn industry ambassador with whom she exchanged e-mails for a while.

But while she's out of the porn game, she has kept her alter ego alive via the internet. Fans can still get Little Cinderella's full-frontal view on her web site's home page, www.littlecinderella.com. Beyond that, however, the site is mostly nonstop reminiscing. In person, the tiny starlet has moved on -- fully clothed -- to another side of life.