Career
She has been widely reported to be deceased, but due to the underground nature of the adult industry in the era in which she was active, her true identity and current status are not verifiable. She appeared in over 200 films and was inducted into both the X-Rated Critics" Organization Hall of Fame and the AVN Hall of Fame. Some time after she left the adult industry, a book cast doubt on widespread rumors surrounding the fate of De Leeuw.
In the book Skinflicks: The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry, writer and porn producer David Jennings, describing the stigma and rumors surrounding Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in the porn community in the late 1980s and early 1990s, wrote: "Reputed to be dead of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, Lisa DeLeeuw and Brandy Alexandre, now out of the industry, proclaimed themselves alive and healthy." However, another publication known as Headpress 25 claimed in 2003 that DeLeeuw died of complications from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome on November 11, 1993.