Inside Seka - The Platinum Princess of Porn

by Seka

  I wrote it out in longhand on a legal pad, as I didn’t really know how to put it into script format. For that, I hired Richard Pacheco, whose real name is Howie Gordon. He was an actor I had worked with and I really liked him a lot and still do. He was one of the few guys in the business I felt was extremely sensitive. Even though he got paid to get a hard-on on demand, he personally wasn’t a hard-on. I was even friendly with his wife and kids. He always had a tablet with him and would be writing something, so I knew he was the right man for the job.

  I gave the plot a little twist — something I had not seen or heard before in XXX. I played both leading ladies: a blonde named Jane Smith, and a redhead named Molly Flame. Jane was an ordinary housewife and Molly a porn star. And they both liked to watch adult films. It turned on Jane’s husband, an airline pilot, whose favorite porn star was Molly. What he didn’t know was that Molly was actually his wife, because I wore a red wig and dyed my pubes red to match the red hair. As was my philosophy, the carpet always has to match the drapes. In the scenes with Jane, my pubes were blonde. Come to think of it, that may have been the first and last time that’s ever happened in any movie, period. Hell, today’s adult stars barely even have pubes at all, except for maybe a little landing strip.

  After a few years off, I worried about my looks. Mainstream actresses battle aging, but can rely on lots more tricks than we ladies who go naked all the time. Nudity is unforgiving.

  One of the things that set us apart back in my day from the adult films of today was our natural bodies. When you saw someone like me or Kay Parker, really busty gals, we were all real. No implants, please! No ass implants, no big collagen blowjob lips, no nothing. And people could tell, especially after the passage of time when our films are compared to more modern fare. Most of the implant girls never even try to look real and natural. That’s when we really get appreciated by the guys who considered themselves porn connoisseurs. Still, as we age… lemma tell ya, big boobs follow the laws of gravity. They drop like wages in a recession. I also have to compensate when I step on a scale. I carry around forty pounds of boobage.

  I was never a purist, per se. I will not rip on girls for getting work done. But I had a different challenge. People had certain expectations about my body. My body was my signature. My pride was that I didn’t want to have anything done where fans would say, “Oh look, she had her boobs done. They’re larger now and they’re up around her neck.” If I was to have anything done, it would be for maintenance sake only. If a doctor couldn’t make me look the same as I always looked, I wasn’t interested.

  Some girls go in with the best of intentions, but the doctors screw up and they come out looking like Outer Space Barbie. I shopped around and shopped around. I knew I needed help — my knockers were speeding toward my knees.

  I had my babies lifted — not enlarged, just lifted. A few years later, I had to do it again. Finally, on round three (long after Careful), I got them raised again (I treat them like a draw bridge), along with a face lift and a tummy tuck. I go to doctors today and they’re amazed at how good a job my surgeons did. They have to search all over me to find even the slightest hint of a scar anywhere. As natural-looking as can be. My breasts still hang down as large natural breasts tend to do. When I lie on my back, they splay out toward my armpits rather than reaching for the ceiling like they have magnets in the nipples. Again, if I never told anyone, no one would ever know, which is the whole idea… until now.

  Being a woman, I wanted to make the film a little more romantic than standard adult fare, but for commercial purposes I realized I had to appeal to the hardcore audience and make it hot as well.

  Mike Horner played my husband because he looked like the airline pilot-type — very Superman-ish and extremely clean cut. He was a nice guy and I wanted to work with him. What was great about running my own show was I didn’t have to reject anyone. I just cast people I liked and respected on a personal level. And those who I knew could do the job.

  Shanna McCullough was also in the movie and I loved her. She was very pretty and lollipop sweet. But when you needed her to be nasty, she could be a hot little girl. I think it gave a lot of depth to her character — to appear one way and be able to completely turn it around.

  There’s also a scene where Shanna plays an airline stewardess and one of the passengers is Whoopi Goldberg’s mother. Howie knew Whoopi very well and he made the introduction. Whoopi was a complete unknown at the time. She asked me to send her demo tape to my agent friend, Sy Sussman, to get her started. A week later, Mike Nichols signed her to her one-woman show on Broadway and the rest is history.

  Since I helped her out, Whoopi even let me stay in her home once her career got going. She’s nutty as a fruitcake, but in a good way. She’s naturally funny, but intense. The lady’s extremely well read and well-spoken. I don’t think you can be a really good comedian unless you’re an intelligent person.

  When Whoopi bought herself a red Porsche and pointed to the car she asked me, “Can you believe that? I can’t believe that car is all mine. And it’s all paid for!” She was just so excited she finally made the big time after struggling for years. God bless her.

  I was invited to opening night of her show on Broadway. Ironically, the Kennedys, James Earl Jones, and other celebs were dressed to the nines and sitting behind us, while I was in the front row with jeans and cowboy boots. Whoopi actually said we were sitting up front because we were the ones who helped her on the way up. That’s loyalty, and I’ll never forget her class and pure heart.

  Whoopi had a tour bus and asked me for my posters because she wanted to put them on the inside of the vehicle. She thought it was funny when they took it for a wash that people would think it was my bus and not hers.

  Once she was sick and hospitalized in Chicago. I don’t recall exactly what was wrong at the time, but she had to cancel her run. I visited her in the hospital like a good friend. I told a pal of mine who ran a great restaurant to bring her and the hospital staff some food. I made sure everyone was well fed. Even in L.A. we’d pass each other in our cars and pull over and chat. She never once ignored me. I think she’s a super comedian, an excellent actress, and a good human being.

  Anyway, I told Whoopi I needed some extras for the movie and she said, “Hey Mom, you want to be in a movie?”

  Just like that. She simply sat on the plane. It was a non-speaking role where she was supposed to react to the pilot and the stewardess having sex, which they weren’t actually doing at the time. You just saw her and the rest of the extras rubbernecking to watch the action that was supposedly going on.

  Kay Parker was also in the film and I always loved Kay. She is just a wonderful woman — very kind and sincere and extremely thoughtful to everyone. I’ve never heard or seen her be unkind to anyone. She’s also quite graceful — just a class act.

  I hired Ronnie Webber, my hairdresser at the time (I went through a lot of hair and makeup people over the years), to do my hair. And I put him in the movie as a hairdresser, too. He’s a funny, funny man.

  It was a pleasure to have a cast where I liked every single person on a personal level without having to compromise on quality. With all the pressure on my shoulders, it was nonetheless exhilarating. I even raised the money for the movie in a week. Watching it all come together felt like a triumph.

  This isn’t to say there aren’t some bitches and bastards in the industry. In my previous films, there were some people behind the camera I couldn’t stand. One boom guy, in fact, purposely cracked me on the head one day just to get my attention and tell me something. I almost ripped his throat out. I refused to go back to work until they got another guy. They pleaded with me. It was some guy who did legitimate films and thought we weren’t real people, we were just porno actors. But here I could pick and choose my dream cast and crew.

  Or so I thought.

  I had extreme confidence in everyone I personally hired from the lighting people to the camera people to the directors. This wasn’t one o
f those cheapo weekend shoots. But on a project this big, you still had tech people who came on the recommendation of others.

  Everything was going pretty smoothly but then came a bump in the road. A lot of the crew was union. From their work in “legit” films, they were used to overtime, double time, triple time, and golden time, which is a lot of bucks. I respect unions, but the problem in any situation is when only one set of workers is unionized. I would have died and gone to heaven if we porn actors had ever formed a union. A hell of a lot would have been different. But we weren’t, so to treat certain people one way and the rest of us another just wasn’t going to fly. This came up on every XXX feature ever filmed and the tech guys knew or should have known the score. This wasn’t a union gig; get used to it. If you don’t like it, leave.

  But since I was a woman, these guys thought they were going to outsmart me. I told them I’d take care of them and they’d be paid for some overtime, but we don’t do triple time, golden time, and all that stuff. It’s not a three or four million dollar movie. But they figured they would hold me up.

  I knew this was going to happen. I don’t know why, but I had an innate sense or something. So I had a couple of people hired as gophers keeping an eye on the reels of film. Nobody else knew about it but me, nor did anyone even know who my spies were.

  Even though I was in front of the camera trying to perform and make it all look as hot as possible, I was simultaneously thinking about who was trying to rip me off and how. Not an easy gig.

  When I wrote the checks, the crew told me the overtime pay wasn’t enough. “We have two rolls of your film,” a pair of men exclaimed, thinking they had me over a barrel.

  I smirked and said. “You think so? Open it.’”

  “If we open it, it’ll expose it.”

  When I insisted, they were shocked to see it was blank. At my insistence, my posse kept their eyes glued to the real reels and hid them in my car every time there was a break. It was like a scene out of a caper movie.

  Careful did really well, and was even nominated and won some industry awards, but I never saw a dime because I kept getting told it didn’t make any money. Although I knew that was bull, I didn’t have the means to prove it. They made money on it for over twenty years. I was just plain ripped off. Screwed if you will, on camera and off.

  When the smoke cleared, I had some investors who needed a write-off and they certainly got one. But not being able to pay some people their money back was painful for all of us involved.

  It took years of fighting to get my movie back, and now I own the rights and have re-released it. We re-mastered it, added some new footage that had never been seen before, and it’s doing fairly well. Video-X-Pix is doing the distribution. It’s the same people that did Inside Seka and I trust these folks very much.

  Some people may find it odd that creating a porn flick is something one would take pride in. But from where I’m sitting, Careful, He May Be Watching was an accomplishment. To me, the film was better than most X-rated flicks out there. I don’t know whether I’d call it art, but it was certainly professional and entertaining.

  Completing a project on that scale showed me I could do anything I set my mind to. But getting ripped off like I did ultimately made it all bittersweet.

  Careful, He May Be Watching, my next-to-last film, which I wrote, produced, and co-directed …as a redhead!

  …And as a blonde.

  About to get down with my favorite lady, Kay Parker.

  Making out with co-star Shanna McCullough.

  One of my favorite woodsmen, Mike Horner.

  I cast myself as a porn star. Quite a stretch.

  38. Amok

  After the movie was released, I had investors down my throat, a distributor that wouldn’t show me the books, and a partner in Barbara who I butted heads with every step of the way.

  Life was wonderful.

  Barbara had been a good friend to me. A few years back she helped make me aware of what “Dead Fred” was doing to me, and even found me the lawyers to go after him. But we just weren’t seeing eye-to-eye on anything related to the film. Ultimately, we ended up in court. It wasn’t as bad as my previous knockdown, drag out fight with Fred, because Barbara was a good friend of mine and I didn’t want to go the Fred route. And it wasn’t that she was dishonest — she wanted to do things a certain way but didn’t know the adult business. Barbara didn’t understand what was involved in the distribution of an adult film and how to deal with the industry. I knew these people. I knew how they worked. I knew their M.O. In her legal world, everything was black and white, but in the adult film world, where everything was “grey,” you were playing with their bats and balls. I had nurtured this project, but she wanted to change the rules in the middle of the game. It was an ongoing battle with her and it hurt me because we had always been so close. I was pissed off, as our friendship was crumbling.

  To get the books, I had to settle with her out of court for $10,000. This was an awful lot of money to me at the time, and another hurdle for me to go over. But I just didn’t have the strength for another long, drawn out court battle. Even worse, it ended our relationship, and that hurt me a lot. I was very sad. It was like mourning a loss of a loved one. I pretty much lost faith in humanity.

  At the same time, the investors kept calling and asking if there were any profits, and the only thing I could report to them was “No, there weren’t.” All the reports I received was that the movie hadn’t made money even though it won awards. When I would ask to see why it was showing a deficit rather than a profit, I wasn’t getting a response. When I asked my accounting people to take an overview of it, they basically looked at me and said these guys are bigger than you, they could hide anything they want, and I should decide whether I want to spin my wheels or leave it alone.

  I left it alone.

  With everything I’d been through in the business, I just felt defeated. This was a new sensation for me. I had found producers, wrote it, edited it, shot it, and gave it to people in the industry who I’d made a lot of money for. I worked with Caballero before and just expected more from them.

  I ended up running amok. I didn’t give a flying fuck about a whole lot of anything or anyone. In spite of everything that had happened to me in my life, I always had faith in people, but this was the last straw. I decided everybody was horrible and I didn’t want to see all the ugliness. I wanted to be numb.

  I went clubbing. Drinking. Drugging. I had partied before, but now I was drinking heavily and doing a lot of cocaine. Sometimes I’d stay up for four or five days straight partying. It got me really skinny.

  It was the era. There was lots of coke, lots of partying, and lots of drinking. When we would get ready to go out for the evening, we’d do a big line of cocaine, half a Quaalude, and a vodka on the rocks. Sam Kinison called that a rocktail and I kept up the name in his honor and eventually his memory. But I always felt I could stop if I wanted to.

  Since I’d made my comeback with Careful, the adult world thought I was back for good. But now everything was being shot on video and I was being offered significantly less money. If they weren’t going to pay me what I wanted, I couldn’t see the point in doing them for less.

  I wasn’t on any schedule and had no routine whatsoever. Time meant nothing to me. Sometimes I’d just find myself at an airport with a carryon bag, looking at the board, seeing what was available, and pointing to the first destination that struck my fancy, saying, “I want to go there,” and I’d be gone two to three months. My secretary would do my mail order business and I’d be somewhere warm like the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, or Mexico. Anywhere there was an ocean and sand.

  When I ran out of money, I’d call Chicago and simply say, “Put more money in my checking account.”

  On other occasions, I’d visit my family back East. My Uncle Tom liked to speculate on real estate and he and I bought a farm in Virginia together, which we held onto for a few years and then sold. I would hang out there
and garden and visit with old friends and just not do a whole lot of anything. I never really told my family much about my lifestyle or career, and they didn’t ask. They knew about the adult films, but never really questioned me about any of it. They saw I paid my bills and as far as they knew, everything was fine. But anybody who parties like a rock star doesn’t reveal much about what they’re doing, and I didn’t either. I may have appeared to them to be happy, but I certainly wasn’t, or I wouldn’t have been doing the amount of drugs I was doing.

  It turned into a three-year blur. I still had the mail order business, the Club Magazine shoots, and some stripping here and there, but all in all it was one big, outrageous party. I’m sure I did certain things I don’t even remember. Even in my drug haze, I did manage to meet some truly interesting and talented people. Brilliant musicians like Buddy Miles, and blues greats Sugar Blue and Big Time Sarah. Not only were they fabulous performers, but they also turned into true friends. I remember seeing The Rolling Stones when Sugar opened for them in Chicago at a huge outdoor concert. Sugar played the famous harmonica part on their big hit, “Miss You.” I was on the Stones’ bus with him. Sugar was very nervous because it was such a large audience and it was The Stones! But in spite of the stage fright, he was absolutely awesome. Very few men on this planet can play the harmonica like Sugar.

  I just couldn’t handle a serious relationship. Instead, I had fuck buddies. Whoever was convenient at the moment. The flavor of the day. I’d get what I wanted and tell them to leave. I didn’t even want them to spend the night. I didn’t want to wake up next to anyone or talk to them. I didn’t want to feel anything since I didn’t believe in people anymore. I didn’t give a flying fuck about any of them. I don’t remember most of their names.