Stunningly gorgeous, shapely, and enticing brunette knockout Anneka Di Lorenzo was born as Marjorie Lee Thoreson in July 1952 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Anneka dropped out of high school and moved to Los Angeles, California after her parents divorced in 1965. Di Lorenzo worked as a receptionist, a cocktail waitress, and a topless dancer as well as studied acting and participated in several beauty contests prior to becoming the Penthouse Pet of the Month in the September 1973 issue of Penthouse.
She next graced the cover of the December 1973 issue of Viva, then acts in secondary roles in the enjoyably trashy 70's drive-in exploitation pictures The Centerfold Girls, Mama's Dirty Girls, and Act of Vengeance.
Di Lorenzo was named the Penthouse Pet of the Year in the October 1975 issue of Penthouse. She both graced the cover and did a nude pictorial for the issue. Anneka also did a coast to coast promotional tour of the United States in which she visited war veteran hospitals in October 1975, and embarked on an international USO tour for the US Department of Defense which lasted from December 1975 to January 1976.
Anneka moved to New York City in early summer 1977. She then portrayed the depraved Messalina in both the notorious Caligula and the cheesy Italian soft-core comedy cash-in Messalina! Messalina! Photos from her steamy lesbian love scene in Caligula with fellow Penthouse Pet Lori Wagner were published in the June 1980 issue. Di Lorenzo's final film appearance was a small part as a nurse in Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill.
Anneka's career suffered as a direct result of the box office failure and harsh critical reception of Caligula. In 1988 she sued "Penthouse" magazine publisher Bob Guccione on charges of sexual harassment, won, but was awarded only a measly $4.06 in damages. Guccione struck back at her by reprinting the photos of Anneka and Wagner's lesbian love scene in the February 1991 issue of Penthouse.
She then reverted to her birth name and moved to California.
On January 4, 2011 her naked body was discovered by joggers, having washed up on a beach near Camp Pendleton, a United States Marine Corps training area in California. Her neck and back were broken and the cause of death was listed by the local pathologist as drowning. Her parked car was found at the Camp Pendleton rest area off of Interstate 5 about 60 feet (18 meters) from the beach where her body was found. She was still in such good physical shape for her age at 58 that the Marine Corps military police who first arrived at the scene thought that they were looking at the remains of a teenager. Naval authorities, investigating because of the location where the body was found, still do not know whether there was foul play or if her death was accidental.
