INTRODUCTION
Since the publication of Linda Williams landmark volume Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible, critics and theorists have begun to reassess the key productions and performers associated with the American porn industry of the 1970s. From mediations on the mixed merits of Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat (and the controversial treatment of its star Linda Lovelace), to considerations of the comedic potential of iconic porn performers such as Ron Jeremy, this decade of porno-chic has become the blueprint for theorising the blue movie.
However, while many actors associated with the decade when big-screen porn was born are now subject to critical consideration, one 1970s sensual icon has remained legendary but largely elusive: Seka. The American actress (born Dorothea Hundley Patton in 1954), shot to fame as the platinum blonde pin-up girl of the 1970s Swedish Erotica stag series. Through this cycle, Seka worked with many leading performers in the American adult industry, including John Holmes, John Leslie, Jamie Gillis, Veronica Hart and Ron Jeremy. She also established a firm fan-base for her work, which resulted in her often being cited as one of the world’s leading porn stars by the early 1980s.
FIGURE 5.1 Blonde fire: Seka as the lost icon of 1970s porno-chic
Even by the marathon standards of American pornographic production, Seka’s exhaustive output and chronology remains startling. She has starred in over 180 films (including compilations),1 with her output rocketing from two productions in 1978 to 24 movies in 1980, with a further thirty films being completed in 1981. Indeed, Seka’s ascension to porno-chic superstardom is indicated by the fact that from 1979 onwards many of her productions were titled or re-titled as star vehicles (with examples being Seka for Christmas (1979), Princess Seka (Leonard Kirtman, 1980) and Confessions of Seka (Leonard Kirtman, 1980)).
Although much of this rapid output consisted of Swedish Erotica short sexual interludes, Seka’s work during the late 1970s and mid-1980s also encompassed the emergent trend for feature-length, 35 mm productions, indicative of the industry’s maturation from the ‘perverse’ margins to the porno-chic mainstream. For instance, Seka starred in many hard-core features that are now viewed as carnal classics. Not only did the actress work on Dracula Sucks (Phillip Marshak, 1979), which pre-empted the parodic nature of many contemporary erotic/horror hybrids, but she also starred alongside John Holmes in Blonde Fire (Bob Chinn, 1978), one of the more accomplished porno-pulp entries to the ‘Johnny Wadd’ series that director Bob Chinn prepared as a salacious star vehicle for the oversized male icon. Seka also headlined as the alien heroine in Ultra Flesh (Svetlana, 1980), a deliriously ambitious SFX and sleaze science fiction extravaganza that took porn production values to a new level. As well as appearing in a number of pivotal porn productions, Seka also directed two erotic features: Inside Seka (with Ken Yontz, 1980) and Careful, He May Be Watching (Seka/Richard Pacheco, 1987), in which she played a frustrated housewife masquerading as a porn star.
At the height of her career, Seka suddenly quit the adult film business, only briefly returning to the erotic cinema in a 1993 comeback movie American Garter (Henri Pachard/Gloria Leonard). Until 2002, even the former sex starlet’s whereabouts remained a mystery before Swedish filmmakers Magnus Paulsson, Christian Hallman and journalist Stefan Nylén mounted an elaborate filmed journey to track her down. Their resultant documentary was entitled Desperately Seeking Seka (Magnus Paulsson and Christian Hallman, 2002) and combined exclusive interviews with the actress alongside other commentaries from leading voices associated with the 1970s American porn industry.
We are delighted to have been given exclusive access to all of the original materials from the Desperately Seeking Seka documentary and wish to thank the filmmakers, Grindhouse Pictures and Planet X for allowing excerpts from these transcripts to be exclusively reproduced in this volume.
DESPERATELY SEEKING SEKA: THE INTERVIEW
Stefan Nylén: You were one of the true icons of the American porn industry, how did you get into the business?
Seka: Well, let’s see. During the seventies I owned adult bookstores, and I would go to a place in Baltimore, Maryland to buy the supplies for the stores. Everything that I saw in these movies I was like, ‘I can do this, and I can do this better.’ One of the distributors said they were shooting a movie and asked if I wanted to be in it – I said ‘Sure’, so I did. I don’t remember the name of the movie, it was a short loop. I don’t know what name they used for me on it? I know they did still pictures with it and it came out as a magazine first. So I had it in all my stores, and it flew of the shelves! That’s when I went to Los Angeles. I said to myself ‘Maybe I should give this a try!’
FIGURE 5.2 Playing the European as ‘exotic’: Hutton recast as a Swedish nymphet
You were very closely associated with the Swedish Erotica label, which was in fact an American series.
Yes. I have no idea why these guys used the name Swedish Erotica! I know that when the company started, they began with the magazine. Their basic logo was that you could tell that a girl was a Swedish Erotica girl was they had a scarf around their neck. That was always the clue that the films came from that company. I guess at that particular time, Sweden and that part of Europe was thought of being very open and free sexually, so I guess it was more appealing.
Tell me about the name Seka? Who came up with that idea?
The name Seka? When I was living in Las Vegas there was a girl that I met, she was blonde, had blue eyes, she was Swedish, and that was her name. They first asked me what name I wanted to use I said ‘I don’t know, use Seka’, and I did; it stuck and it worked really well for a long time!
What was the hardest part of those movies, having sex or acting?
Acting – I’ve never claimed to be an actress, I’m not an actress. A sex performer – yes, someone who enjoys sex very much – yes, but an actress – never.
But just like acting, women can fake an orgasm during sex on film…
Oh, yes if they want to be stupid they can fake it! I can honestly say that I didn’t fake it most of the time, maybe only three to four times ever. I figured if I am going to do this I might as well have fun with it! I mean why waste a good orgasm? It would be very stupid, a very silly thing to do. Meg Ryan did it in a coffee shop in Seattle! But what fun is that?
What was it like being such a porn celebrity?
Unreal! I remember going to see Inside Seka at the premiere in New York. That was in the days when they were doing adult movie premieres in a big theatre house. They would advertise it, and the stars would be there signing autographs. It was like a big Hollywood opening for a film. That was kind of fun. I took my aunt, my mother and my cousin to see the premiere of Inside Seka. My mother and my aunt had to leave; because when I was doing the oral sex scene with the guy they were like, ‘Oh, that is disgusting!’ They got up and said, ‘We would never do something like that!’ I said, ‘Ok that’s your loss.’ But they got up and left and I went out to them and told them that they could come back in when the scene had finished. So they were kind of funny…
Many of those porno films were shot hard and fast like many exploitation films. Did you have time for script revisions and rehearsals?
No, we never had rehearsals! We were lucky if we got the lines out as it was. I mean that part was pretty easy for me. I can read something and remember it pretty much line for line. We didn’t have to stick that closely to a script, unless it was something that was relevant to what was supposed to be happening on screen. You have to remember, these were X-rated movies, it wasn’t Gone With the Wind, you know. It wasn’t anything earth shattering. So as long as you got the gist of the beginning, the middle, and the end that was mainly what they were concerned about.
Yet many of these films had a creativity about them. One of my favourites being Ultra Flesh, the science fiction porno movie.
Ultra Flesh, that was fun, because Jamie Gillis was in that one. He played Mr. Sugarman or something, so it was fun in that respect. It was not real pleasant having on that plastic alien costume during the shoot though. We shot that part of that movie in the same place as we shot Dracula Sucks and in order to get that main scene, from a distance where I’m standing on a mountain, they took me in a helicopter and dropped me off on the top of this mountain, in the snow, in the cold, in a plastic costume! At first I was sweating so the costume was fogging up, and then once I got up there I couldn’t move because it started cracking, it started to actually crumble, like shattering into glass. I said to them ‘You’d better get me out off this thing because I’m going to cut myself to death’, because it was that cold up there. That was kind of fun. Then once we got back to Los Angeles to do the other stuff it was like a 130 degrees [54°C] because we were in the Valley in the summer time, so we went from extreme cold to extreme heat and people were actually passing out. The outerspace women with the bald heads couldn’t keep the bald caps on them because it was so hot it was melting; the make-up was melting that was how hot it was with all the lights and the temperature at the same time. These poor girls were passing out, and we had people in plastic in 130 degree weather, with bald caps on so that no sweat was coming out so they were just passing out and falling into the pool.
Are there any other productions which you are proud of?
Yes. I wrote one film called Careful He May Be Watching and I directed parts of it. It did pretty well; I think we won an award for it. I don’t remember because it has been so long. Also there is one film, which was produced but never released, that I wished I could get my hands on because it was a really good film. Careful He May Be Watching was pretty interesting because I played dual parts in the film. I played Molly Fling the redhead porn star, and I played Jane Smith the housewife. The husband was a pilot and he didn’t know what his wife was doing during the day while he was up flying the plane. In fact, she was doing porno films, and Molly Fling was his favourite porno actress, except he didn’t know it was his wife. So it was pretty cute.
You worked with some of the legends of the seventies porn industry, including John Holmes.
Yes, the first full-length feature movie I did I worked with John Holmes, which was scary obviously, but he was a very nice man, and he was very nice to me. A lot of women didn’t get along with John, but I did.
Do you remember when John Holmes died, and how his life ended?
Well, John Holmes was a pretty fucked up guy. I mean he wasn’t to me. He was a heavy cocaine user, and when you couldn’t find John on the set you would probably find him in a closet somewhere hiding because he was so high, he was paranoid. Drugs were John’s downfall. The whole thing with the Wonderland Murders and everything that happened to him was all over drugs. At the time of his death, everybody was asking me if I was afraid of contracting AIDS because I had worked with him. But if you think about it logically, all of a sudden John Holmes had AIDS and three Holmes had AIDS and three months later he was dead. You don’t get AIDS and then die in three months. It lasts a lot longer than that. I personally think that John’s death was a hit, perhaps by an active AIDS needle in prison because he had a wife and a child and they are both living. Neither one of them are sick. So think about it; it is kind of strange. He was a dead man whether he went to prison or not, because of the people he was dealing with. It is a pretty messed up world you get into when you carry a briefcase of cocaine around with you.
FIGURE 5.3 Careful, she may be watching: the 1970s porn performer as auteur
FIGURE 5.4 Surviving the 1970s: Seka on working with John Holmes
Do you have any great stories of working with guys like Jamie Gillis?
Well, yes. I actually have one great memory of working with Jamie. We were doing this scene, and Jamie was supposed to be the dominant person. It was two girls and Jamie, and I think I had on a black satin cape with red satin inside and really high black leather pumps. I don’t know what happened to me that day, or why I felt like this, but I started dominating Jamie, and he just like freaked out. Jamie went, ‘I like this!’ The directors didn’t understand what was going on and Jamie was like, ‘No this is cool, I like this.’ So I got to dominate Jamie Gillis, which I really liked!
What about working with someone like Ron Jeremy?
God, Ron Jeremy! There was a scene I did in a movie with him that sums Ron Jeremy up. In the scene, I think there were eight guys in a circle, and I was doing all of them. For some reason the character that Ron Jeremy was playing was annoying, which Ron is. He is an annoying little hairy fat man, but I love him to death! He sort of like weaseled his way into the group act, even though he wasn’t supposed to be one of the guys in the circle. So I told him ‘Why don’t you go blow yourself’, and he did! I had to stop and watch because I couldn’t believe someone could do that, but evidently if they are Ron Jeremy, they can!
Did you ever think of a career in mainstream movies after you were done with porno films?
God, no. I never thought of a career in mainstream movies. Maybe if I hadn’t made adult films first I could have, but like I said I’m not an actress, I don’t think that I could ever be an actress, and once you have done adult films it is not that easy to cross over to mainstream, at least not in the United States. After I finished doing hard-core I did the Electric Blue stuff, which was a club magazine out of London. But that wasn’t hard-core stuff, it was R-rated stuff. I didn’t do any other movies at that time.
How did you adjust from hard-core to R-rated movie?
Actually doing an R-rated movie is really strange. When you are used to doing X-rated movies, to go and do an R-rated movie is like thinking, ‘OK, I’m ready now, where is the sex? Oh there is no sex!’ So that was a little strange for me; having to fake having sex.
Then you had a comeback movie in 1993, called American Garter.
Yes, I did have a comeback film, or I guess that is what they called it. I said, ‘Let me see if this is something I still want to do?’ as I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do another film or not. I did that movie for VCA, and found out that I really didn’t want to do any more movies! It was a lot more stressful and difficult than I had remembered. I don’t regret doing it. I had a good time.
During the late seventies and early 1980s, you had a very established fan-base. Did you ever have any problems with them?
You mean fans that thought that just because you made X-rated films you’d go to bed with anyone! Of course there were people like that and still there are. I don’t pay any attention to it, because you expect people to do that sometimes. Most of the time, the fans were very nice.
FIGURE 5.5 The Comeback Kid: Seka re-branded as contemporary adult icon
Did you have any death threats?
I have had quite a few. There was one psycho in particular. He would start off his letters very grateful and praising. They were really long letters, and as they went on it would go to the point of how he was going to bash my head in, and how bloody it was going to be. He would always send rusty fishhooks inside the letters. I don’t know, some people are very strange! It was pretty scary to me because I was getting two or three letters a day from this guy, and it was every day. They got more intense as time went on and I turned it over to the FBI because I was really afraid. But then he made the big mistake of copying his driver’s license with his picture and address on it and sending it to me. So I think he is spending a little time in jail for stalking.
Porn fans can be scary then!
Not just porn fans, but porn partners! When I first started doing X-rated stuff, I was living with someone and he wanted me to do these movies, as did I. He went on to become very controlling. He had to be on the set when I was working, or be in the movie that I was in, and it got to the point where I had to get away from him because he was making me nuts.
Was it nervous to have him on the set when you were having sex with other men?
It was very nerve-wracking to have him on the set whether I was having sex or just doing a regular scene! I felt like I wasn’t going to do it right or to the perfection he thought I should, which made me very uncomfortable. Plus he was controlling the money at the time. So I never had any money in my pocket and I knew that this wasn’t very good. If I needed to get away and something happened I didn’t have any way to escape, which was basically pretty much what happened. He got very violent, and I ended up calling Swedish Erotica to help me get away from this guy. They came in to the house where I was living in California to help me get my belongings out and put me in a safe house underground basically for six to seven months. So they helped me a lot that way. It was kind of hard to get away from him because he was around the business and people were afraid of him. When I was working they were afraid that he would find out and come around to cause a scene.
You were at the height of your popularity when you quit the industry. Why did you leave so suddenly?
Why did I stop doing films? I got too old. You know there comes a time when you want to do other things. For instance, eat! I love to eat. Doing those films you have to stay thin, and in shape and I would go to the gym for four and a half hours a day, seven days a week. I never ate anything fattening. I never went out and partied or drank. I was tired of it. I wanted to have some fun. I am comfortable the way I am. My boyfriend likes me the way I am. I didn’t want to work that hard at looking good and feeling miserable!
Finally, American porn production is now much bigger, more established and even accepted than when you were working. How do you feel about the industry and the stars today?
Yes bigger, but better? All the girls look alike. They look like they come out of a cookie cutter. They are all blonde, they all have big tits, they all wear these big platform shoes and nobody has any individuality left anymore it seems to me. They all even sound alike to me. They have these little tiny voices. I am sure they are very nice girls, I don’t know them, but they all seem to look alike, and either they are very prissy or they are very slutty. When I was doing films there was Marilyn Chambers, there was me, Vanessa Del Rio, Veronica Hart, Annette Haven and we all looked different. I mean that our bodies were different, our faces were different, our hair was different, and today it looks like all these girls go to the same plastic surgeon to get their faces and bodies done, and the same hairdresser to dye their hair. There is not enough spice anymore!
As a result of the resurgence of interest in her films and career, Seka has started the website www.seka.com.
