Inside Seka - The Platinum Princess of Porn (18 page)

And John was right. Pay their admission they did.
Dracula Sucks
did very, very well. I was about to become an adult movie star.

22.
Inside Seka

I did several loops after that, nothing particularly memorable, but I hadn’t hit big yet.
Dracula Sucks
had yet to be released, so it was just business as usual.

I still didn’t think of adult films as a career, although the work did start pouring in. Meanwhile, things were starting to get tense with Ken because he wasn’t really working. He was shooting stills of action on the set and peddling those to the producers of the film. That helped some, but he wasn’t the principal photographer and they just used his material as back-up. The directors didn’t really want him there and he was becoming an annoyance.

Finally, they decided to put him to work and made him a porno star. I was glad ‘cause I figured if someone else was doing him, I didn’t have to.

Arthur Morowitz of Video-X-Pix and Distribpix out of New York called to see if I wanted to star in a movie. Video-X was known as one of the biggest in the business and supposedly paid the most and was quite fair with the talent. He had done films like
Inside Jennifer Welles
and
Inside Gloria Leonard.
He specialized in creating star vehicles where a girl’s name was right in the title. It was smart marketing, and as I got to know Arthur I came to expect nothing less. People didn’t come to see a XXX movie based on the title or topic — they came to see the stars, so Arthur put them front and center.

He offered me a very generous sum of money. He knew my Swedish Erotica compilations were flying off the shelves, and
Dracula Sucks
was about to open as well. He was projecting ahead that I was going to be the next big star. I jumped at the offer.

His concept was a film to be entitled
Inside Seka. Inside Seka
became so successful it still sells like mad today.

He offered to fly Ken and me to New York, put us up for as long as it took, and shoot the movie there. I think I was more excited about going to New York than anything else.

The storyline was supposed to be about my life with Ken. Everybody thought we were married at the time, but we weren’t. Ken told everyone we were married because it kept the hound dogs away from me. I went along with it like everything else this domineering man told me. In the movie, we were portrayed as married and it depicted our supposed swinging lifestyle. Honestly, the proper title should have been
All About Ken
because it depicted his dream life and his fantasies, not mine.

By now we had, in fact, started to go to more swing parties and I did participate. It had become fairly regular because Ken was practically addicted to it and he needed me to get in. A lot of these clubs had pools and Jacuzzis, a grill, steam rooms, and great music. The original Plato’s Retreat in the Ansonia Hotel in New York was the most famous. Shortly before opening as a swing club, it was the Continental Baths, a gay cabaret where Bette Midler and her accompanist Barry Manilow got their start. These places were always packed. And it was pre-AIDS — the last relatively safe and unencumbered moment of the free-love era.

The first time I was at Plato’s was during the time we were getting the script ready for
Inside Seka.
There had to be several hundred people in this club. There were lockers to put your things. They had a color scheme and every room was a different color. One particular room was very dark with blue lights. And there was nothing but wall-to-wall mattresses. And bodies everywhere. It was one big orgy.

Ken kept pushing me to go in. You didn’t even have to introduce yourself. You’d just lie down and start playing with someone or something.

Ken couldn’t wait to go off on his own to see how many scenes he could get into. Me, I just kind of closed my eyes and went with it. I wasn’t really thinking of anything. Once, as I was nearly dozing, I looked up and there was a really good-looking guy on top of me. I said to myself, “Thank you.” At least he was pleasant to look at. The guy was quite good, too, and he really seemed to care about what he was doing. My own boyfriend never really cared — he just wanted to get off and my pleasure was just an afterthought.

It was kind of ironic that this was a good experience. Meanwhile, Ken was in the corner with two women. This made me very happy because I figured he’d be satisfied and I wouldn’t have to deal with him myself.

When my guy was done, I got up, took a shower, and got dressed. There was no conversation at all with him, which was okay by me. I figured it wasn’t someone I was ever going to see again.

All in all, I wasn’t opposed to swinging, but it wasn’t something I wanted as a lifestyle. Deep down, I wanted to be with one person. In spite of being in the porn industry, I needed a loving, committed relationship.

Ken was still busy with his pair of ladies so I just got up and went to the main section of Plato’s — the action-free area — where people were dressed, half-dressed, and undressed. To me, that was more interesting than the sex.

It was a fascinating group of people. You had doctors, lawyers, and judges — people from all walks of life and from all over the world. You often met nice folk at these events and I had even stayed in touch with June and Jack from my California swing party experience, and we ultimately swung with them.

As far as the sex in my movies, that was just a job. The movies, the swinging, it was all in the context of the era. Women were no longer embarrassed about sex. It was the seventies and everyone was on the Pill. I’d waited until my wedding night — actually
after
my wedding night — to lose my virginity. Now I was in this “open relationship” with a guy who wanted every piece of ass he could find, and encouraged me to do the same. As far as the movies, unlike all these people at Plato’s, I was getting paid good money to get into scenes. And it wasn’t prostitution either. I was getting paid, the guys were getting paid, and if I didn’t like some guy, I didn’t have to be with him. I did not feel morally inferior to anyone. I doubt there were many other jobs I could have worked at that point in my life and with my education where I could have made more money. Plus, there was an air of celebrity about it. I never dreamed that would mean anything to me or I would ever be a part of such an enterprise, but it was kinda neat.

It took several days to write the movie — days, not weeks, months, and years like a real movie. The movie wasn’t a helluva lot different than my Swedish Erotica stuff. The only through-line was me and Ken in bed, talking about “my” fantasies, as well as our erotic memories, both together as a couple, as well as me without him. I’d talk about a scene and then they’d cut to it, kinda like a talk show host saying, “Do we have a clip? Oh, here it is.” Each scene was like a separate loop. There was no other plot. Still, it was hot, and to this day people come up to me and quote certain scenes as being their all-time adult favorites.

There was one scene where I was giving oral sex to three or four guys at the same time. In the script we blurred the line between truth and fiction, as this certainly hadn’t happened to me in real life, nor was it a real life fantasy of mine, but I had done similar things in my other movies. In the scene, Ron Jeremy came in and asked if he could do me, too, and I said he should go do himself.

Which he did.

Ron could blow himself. He said, “I’m the cheapest date I can ever have. I can do myself, take myself out to dinner, and not have to deal with anybody.” That was Ronnie. Always funny — and formerly flexible.

As far as the movie goes, that was the highlight for me because it was hysterical. I had a guy in each hand and one staring me in the face, and I actually made the director stop filming because I had to see Ron in action. I was too distracted to continue.

One of the other scenes was actually filmed at the real Plato’s Retreat. Don’t ask me how they got permission to do that, but they did. So if you ever want to see what the real, original Plato’s was really like, buy
Inside Seka,
the movie.

We shot the movie and it usually takes about three months to edit and get it ready for release. In the meantime, we went back to California and the guys from Swedish Erotica called again. There was a big summer show in Chicago called the Consumer Electronics Show and it was in June in Chicago and January in Vegas. It was the biggest convention of the year. They wanted me to go and be in their booth and sign autographs for them. It was a four-day show in Chicago. Wow, another big city I’d never been to. They had five hundred pictures for me to sign for four days. I figured I’d never go through that many pictures and they’ll be disappointed.

I went through five hundred pictures the first day.

They had to get more pictures printed so I’d have something to sign. I was amazed all these people were fans, since my features were only beginning to dribble out. That was when the light bulb went off:

I’m not getting paid enough money.

For the first time, I realized why everyone put up with Ken being on the set. The adult industry needed me.

Inside Seka
was finally released and I loved it and hated it. I loved being the star, the girl whose name was in the title. My ego is no different than anyone else’s. Before the movie, no one really knew me or Ken. Now we were celebrities — the Sonny and Cher of porn. Where once we’d been able to attend swing parties and clubs with a bit of anonymity, now everyone knew us and for me, that part was uncomfortable. Everyone wanted a turn with the porn star. Ken was reveling in it. I kept trying to figure how to get the hell away from that scene. Whatever curiosity I’d once had about it was now gone.

What I also hated were the lies. Sure, most PR is lies or exaggerations, but certain things about
Inside Seka
particularly irked me. For one thing, Ken and I are credited as directing it. What?! Neither he nor I could have directed traffic at that point in our lives, let alone a film. Joe Sarno directed that film. But Sarno made a number of well-received soft-core and exploitation films in the sixties, and supposedly considered hard-core “slumming it,” so he wouldn’t allow his name to be on the film, or so I’ve been told. Joe had also done the Jennifer Welles film, the Gloria Leonard film, and would do the next film in the series,
Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle.

Then there was the soundtrack. All porn soundtracks are laughably bad, but
Inside Seka
may have set a new low. I don’t know who wrote all the music, but there was a title song that, I suppose, must have been called, “The Ballad of Seka and Ken,” because it was one of those “story songs.” The lyrics went, “Radford, Virginia. Selling books… .” It was pretty much a musical version of this book. “Seka tried on some sexy clothing. Took some pictures in the raw.” Honest-to-God, these are some of the lyrics. They even threw Ken in there somewhere. Painful.

The title song was sung by a friend of Ken’s named Kenny Dino, an Elvis impersonator (natch) who sang on a lot of The King’s demos, as well as minor recording artist in his own right. Picture my life story, with all the specifics, sung by Elvis, on a bed of bad middle-of-the-road seventies country pop. Yeah, painful.

The rest of the score was all the standard porn clichés. Whenever Ken and I were in bed together, there’d be a kind of classical love theme, and when I got down in all the other scenes we’d have all the typical variations on “boom chicka-wow-wow.”

I later discovered the soundtrack was released as a picture disc (this was back when music came on vinyl), with my mug all over it. Despite how I personally felt about the music, it apparently sold well and is now considered quite the collector’s item. I may still have one or two copies myself.

Did I know they would be selling a soundtrack? No. Did I ever see a dime from it? No. But since Ken had something to do with Kenny Dino singing on it, I’m sure Ken collected a nice sum of money on the deal.

But worst of all was the postscript — the writing they put on the freeze at the end of the film. It read, “Ken and I have been married for over 6 years. We have spent every single day of our marriage together, never separating once. All the events in the motion picture you have just seen have been true or actual reenacted events of my special fantasies — Seka.”

As I said, we were never married. But it was one thing to say it around the set in order to keep guys from hitting on me and to explain Ken hanging around all the time. Now it seemed more to service Ken’s need to be a star, too, and glom onto me for as long as this ride was going.

The other thing was the unoriginality. In January of 1980, Paul Mc-Cartney was arrested in Japan for carrying pot. He and his wife Linda had a wonderful, storybook marriage, and it was stated in all the news reports that the nights Paul spent in jail in Japan were the only nights they ever were apart in their entire marriage.
Inside Seka
was being edited less than a year later. Coincidence? I think not. Ken thought he’d make us out to be the Paul and Linda McCartney of porn. As if.

In our case, the “never separating once,” part was almost true, but in an insidious way. Ken wanted to answer every phone call. Ken always had to be the one to get the mail and open it first. If Ken was out, I might get to do those things and who knows what I’d find. So Ken never left my side because he was hiding things and didn’t want me to know what was going on. If I got away from him, someone might clue me in on how he was screwing with my finances. I’ve heard some girls complain about “living like a prisoner.” It wasn’t quite like that. Ken never stopped me from going anywhere or doing anything. He just tagged after me like a fly that wouldn’t leave me alone. He wasn’t abusive; he just drove me batty.