Kathy Hilton was born Lorna Margaret Fern. Hilton eventually moved to Seattle, Washington, where she worked as a keypunch operator before being promoted to supervisor. However, Kathy was bored with her job so she quit and moved with a girlfriend to Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles, Hilton applied at the Pretty Girl International agency and had her picture taken. Kathy began her career in the entertainment industry as a nude model, and she won the Miss Nude Cosmos pageant in 1972. Hilton appeared in her first softcore movie in the late 1960s and continued to work steadily in low-budget sexploitation fare up until the mid-1970s.