Vanessa del Rio was born Ana María Sánchez[2] and raised in Harlem, New York, the only child of immigrants from Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Her mother would take her to see the Spanish language movies of Isabel Sarli, a passionate, voluptuous Argentinian actress with a charismatic power over men whom Vanessa credits as a big influence in her life.

She studied coding, and became a computer programmer at age 18, then abandoned the straight life altogether to live in a series of stolen Volkswagen Beetles with a criminal boyfriend.

[5] When that adventure ended two years later she became "a waitress, then a topless barmaid, and finally a go-go dancer" before accepting her first hardcore porn role in the film China Doll because "it paid $150, which was exactly my half of the rent,"[6][7] so she could join a boyfriend in Europe.

In her illustrated biography from TASCHEN Publications (Vanessa del Rio: Fifty Years of Slightly Slutty Behavior, 2007) she revealed to editor Dian Hanson that she also worked as a streetwalker and call girl[8][9] prior to entering adult films.