Kurt Marshall was born James Rideout, Jr. in Waterville, Maine, one of 15 children. After high school (he graduated after lettering in swimming and track and field), he attended San Francisco State University, but never finished. He said in several interviews that he performed in adult film in order to earn money for college.

In 1984, at the age of 18, he starred in his first film, Matt Sterling's Sizing Up, with fellow gay adult film star Mark Miller. His role was that of a star track and field athlete, which echoed his high school sports experiences. A historian of gay erotic film called Sizing Up a "superior example of [a] gay porn video which make[s] gay men visible in places where they have mostly been invisible..." He made three films the following year, all for Falcon Studios: the highly influential The Other Side of Aspen II, Splash Shots, and Night Flight. Marshall was an advocate for gay rights, once telling an interviewer: "I think to be gay is to be blessed. We have so much freedom, so many choices. This isn't our moment to party or to think we're going to stay young forever...maybe it's our time to find someone to be safe with...to be happy with..."

Marshall, an admitted drug user, tested positive for HIV in 1986. He came out to his family that same year and entered a drug rehabilitation program. He moved to San Diego, California in 1987, but returned to Los Angeles later that same year, and worked in the construction industry. He died on October 10, 1988, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. The official cause of death was kidney failure due to substance abuse and AIDS.