Born in Aurora, Colorado, Flame grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and entered the adult industry in 2003. She chose the Penny Flame pseudonym as a combination of The Beatles song "Penny Lane" and her own marijuana smoking habit.

Although for a few years her material was only solo and lesbian in content (often produced by Danni Ashe), Flame first appeared in hardcore pornographic films in 2005. Her first starring role in a big budget production was in James Avalon's 2005 feature Darkside alongside Hillary Scott.

The majority of Flame's scenes have been in gonzo and reality porn productions, often for internet pornography sites such as Naughty America and studios like Shane's World. She frequently uses dirty talk in her scenes and has a smart and sassy attitude on sets. Flame is noted for her natural auburn hair, as well as assorted freckles regarded as special beauty marks.

Flame has an exclusive directing deal with Shane's World Studios, having directed the 2005 film Shane's World: Girls Night Out 3 and the 2006 films Shane's World: Girls Night Out 2, Blazed and Confused, and Blazed and Confused 2. In 2008 she signed a deal with Vivid Entertainment to direct her own line of hardcore movies under the studio’s sex-ed imprint Vivid Ed.

Flame is a practicing artist and creates paintings in her spare time. On her MySpace accounts and in her XXX films, she has expressed her advocacy for marijuana. She can't get enough of getting blazed up, then sucking and fucking a hard cock!

Though she is an advocate of marijuana use, Flame has admitted to struggling with harder substance abuse, particularly in her early years in the industry when she was making a lot of money and was unhappy with her work in Gonzo film scenes. As of February 26, 2006 she announced that she had been clean from cocaine for a little over a year and a half. In addition, she expressed gratitude that she survived a major problem affecting newer members of the industry stating, "[It's hard watching] fifteen girls you know every year get addicted to something, disappear and then come back, or not come back at all, but it's constant." Flame has also mentioned that while she prefers the high end work, she looks at the world of pornography in a more business-like way nowadays, having traded her cocaine addiction for a shiny new BMW. Well done Penny Flame!