Inside Seka - The Platinum Princess of Porn (20 page)

Another co-star I really liked was Jessie St. James. I didn’t know her well on a personal level, but worked with her a couple of times. She was also very pretty — handsome, actually. She seemed very sweet the few times we worked together. Jessie was about my height and had a mystique of oozing sensuality about her. What was memorable about her scenes is you’d never know if she was going to be like an uncaged animal or go the reverse route and be very timid. She used that to her advantage. If she sensed the scene wasn’t steamy enough, she’d turn it up a notch or two. And if the sex was too over the top, she’d instinctively know and tone it down. I always enjoyed the films we made together.

Lisa Deleeuw was a big, busty redhead who was quick witted and a lot of fun. She was an absolute hoot — a crack-up. I truly believe Lisa could have been one of the best stand-up comics of all-time as she had this incredible infectious laugh and was like the Lucille Ball of porn. But she had another side where you didn’t want to piss her off. As funny as she was, she could be equally mean if pushed to that point. It took a lot to get her mad, but it was not a place where you’d want to send Lisa. If a guy did something to her on set like smacking her butt or doing something not called for in the script, she would just let loose on him. I worked in Swedish Erotica with her as well as in
Downstairs, Upstairs
and she was so upbeat, fun, and goofy that there was never a dull moment around her. I was very sad to find out she died a while back, although I’m not sure about the details.

Veronica Hart was very sweet and innocent when she first got into the business. She was extremely intelligent and actually a very good actress, but just didn’t know what was going on at first. She’s a really down to earth human being who I consider a friend. We still talk on occasion. We did a scene together in her first movie,
The Seduction of Cindy.
I was the star and Veronica had a supporting role. She was scared to death of not just her sex scenes, but the acting as well. Even though we had a script, the director knew he had a newbie on his hands and decided he was going to do whatever he wanted to “see her dance.” He’d say something like, “We’re going to have you do a scene with these four guys.” And it was her first day on a set of an adult movie! It was like she was filet mignon and they were throwing her to the lions. She was actually crying, so I said to the filmmaker, “You need to stop it.” I told him if he didn’t, I’d walk out. She was trembling. Not only were they acting rudely, but in a cruel manner. I kind of rescued her.

I never worked with Samantha Fox, but I met her and remember she wore too much perfume. She seemed a little quirky, but I honestly didn’t know her well at all.

I only worked in one movie with Vanessa del Rio. She was like a tigress in heat. It was called
Beyond Desire.
She was very exotic looking and just plain steamy. You could look at her and start to sweat. She had a way of making your panties wet like nobody else could. I liked her, but we never really hung out so I don’t know Vanessa on a personal level. She’s living in New York and will always be an icon in adult films.

To this day I think Gloria Leonard is an absolutely wonderful human being. She’s smart, sweet, kind, fair, and has that New York swagger about her. She’s an interesting, intelligent woman. I never appeared with her on-camera, but she was behind the scenes on a few of my projects and I would see her at various industry functions. She’s called me several times to be on panel discussions about First Amendment rights.

Juliet Anderson was known as Aunt Peg. I never knew her age, but she was older than the rest of us. She was probably the original “MILF.” I didn’t know her off the set, so I can’t say I had any real feelings towards her. Nor can I put my finger on just what made her tick, but it did seem like she was pretty much willing to do anything they asked her to do. And she was certainly fun to work with. I was sorry to hear she suddenly passed away in 2010.

I also liked Ginger Lynn a lot. She was cute, tiny, perky, and bubbly. She had this kind of sweetness and innocence to her. She was just a lot of fun. I never did movies with her, but we did
Club Magazine
shoots together.

I worked with Amber Lynn at
Club
as well. She was the polar opposite of Ginger. She was tall and statuesque with this animal magnetism about her. It was like she was more grown up than Ginger.

As far as “the boys,” I did a lot of work with John Holmes. I heard many years later, in a book written about the terrible murders he’d somehow been involved with, he told everyone I was his favorite co-star. That’s flattering.

Another frequent co-star was Paul Thomas, who was almost too pretty to be a man. He had done some legitimate acting, was always a gentleman, and kind of quiet. The first time I worked with him we were in a car. I remember feeling he could have been a descendant of a chinchilla because he had hair in places that people don’t have hair. It was soft like fur. He had beautiful, sparkling blue eyes and wavy blonde hair — just a pretty boy. And he was very nice and sweet. It didn’t feel like work when I did movies with him.

Jamie Gillis was also an absolute pleasure to do movies with. He also had a legit acting background, having done New York theatre. You never knew what Jamie was going to do, which made it interesting. He was dark, swarthy, and mysterious. He certainly had a mystique about him. Sometimes you’d glance at him and he looked like Satan himself. Other times he’d look angelic. One night I walked into the Show World Theatre in Times Square. There was a circle of mattresses lying around and when I walked in he was doing a live sex show there. So I did a show with him because it was Jamie and I felt like doing it. There we were with tons of guys in the peep booths watching us as we went at it. You could hear the quarter machines going crazy, because you had to keep pumping them in or it would close down on the viewer. It was fun and a great turn-on. From time to time I had sexual thoughts about Jamie because he’s dead sexy. When we did have the opportunity to see each other or speak to each other after not being in touch for a while, it was an absolute delight. When I heard of Jamie’s passing it was a sad, sad day. It was like losing a family member. I always adored Jamie and always will. He lives on in my heart.

Mike Ranger was my housemate at one time. He rented a room from me since I gave him cheap rent. We were always platonic off screen. He was like the All-American guy. Sandy brown hair, blue eyes, but he had one hell of a dick on him. He was a really nice guy, fun to work with, and could cum on cue. He was always prepared to do his lines, his penis came up when he wanted it to, and he was always sweet to the girls. I don’t know where he is today; he totally fell off the grid.

Richard Pacheco had the All-American boy look as well. When he’d start to do a sex scene, Richard would have a difficult time if he didn’t like the person or if there was a crowd of people on set making a lot of noise. He also had the tendency to ad-lib and throw these big long intellectual words into the scene and the director would stop him. “What are you talking about? It’s porn. The people won’t know what you’re saying.” They’d make him dumb down the dialogue. He was a very pleasant guy. It was always fun to have sex with him because invariably in the middle of a scene he’d make you laugh. Today he is very in tune with his family and lives in Berkeley, California.

John Seeman was bald with a big bushy moustache. He was a nice guy, but looked like an accountant. I have no idea how he got into the business. Working with him was interesting because I didn’t find him sexually attractive. But I didn’t mind him either, because he was just so pleasant. He’s still in San Francisco, but I don’t know what he is doing.

John Leslie became a director and his films reflect the John I knew back then. He was kind of violent towards the women. Very aggressive. And that’s why I didn’t like to work with him. He recently passed away.

Herschel Savage is tall, dark, handsome, sweet, and mischievously sexy. I never really hung out with him much but really like him. One thing for sure was you never had to worry about Herschel being able to perform.

Randy West was the All-American, blond-haired, blue-eyed boy next door — make that MAN next door, for Randy was all man, all the time. Personally, I was never really attracted to blond guys, but there was just something that drew me to him. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it because of the blond hair, but Randy West is even better looking today than he was in the seventies or eighties. Today, I would
definitely
like to put my finger on it.

Bobby Astyr was married to Samantha Fox. He was a little, tiny guy with curly hair. He was a nice Jewish boy from New York, as were so many of the guys from my era. What was it with Jewish guys and porn? He came across as a slapstick comedian. Even though he did the sex scenes, he was more of a character actor. He looked better with his clothes on. I’ve always liked comedians, but there was something kind of handsome about him because I just loved his personality and comedic style. He didn’t blow my skirt up sexually, but he was so much fun to be around. He, too, passed away far too young, from lung cancer.

Richard Bolla wasn’t a bad person, but there was nothing exciting about him as far as appearance or sexuality. He didn’t do anything bad to me; he just plain didn’t do anything for me, period.

Ron Jeremy is a really, really nice guy. He comes from a good family, an intelligent family. I admire him for the sheer fact he’s remained this long in the business and stayed healthy. He’s one of the true classic woodsmen left. Woodsmen are the actors who don’t need Viagra to get or stay hard. Ronnie’s been called the Clown Prince of Porn, but the Ronnie I know is a very sensitive guy. Back in the day, Ronnie had that whole Saturday Night Fever/John Travolta thing going on. He was sexy. But he let it go and now, I believe, he covers over a lot of his insecurity with humor, God bless him. Ronnie just needs to change his clothes once in a while. He wears the same pair of gym pants and black T-shirt all the time. I love Ron to death, but damn Ronnie, change your clothes!

I have a lot of respect and admiration for these people because they were in the industry at a time when it wasn’t easy. It was a time when you had to hide what you were doing. It was taboo and not as readily accepted as today. You couldn’t reveal where you were working. Cops, vice squads, and overzealous DAs loved to stir things up by busting in on us like they were breaking up a terrorist ring or something. One thing that has proven itself over time is once you’ve been in this business, it’s hard to find a nineto-five. It’s okay for the vanilla world to watch, but they don’t want you to be in their world.

A lot of the folks I mention have families and children. I know Veronica Hart does. Gloria Leonard has a daughter. John Leslie was married. Howie Gordon (Richard Pacheco) has kids out the yin-yang. Ginger has a child, as does Serena. But at times it’s difficult for a husband because their friends or peers wonder, “How can you marry that person? She’s done porn.” But it doesn’t mean we don’t like to garden, travel, or go out to dinner. It’s not like our whole lives are drenched in sex. It’s quite the opposite, really. The people who watch us are more likely to be the obsessed sex addicts. For most of us, it was simply a paycheck and a place on the outskirts of movie stardom. A lot of us — not me, but others — really wanted to make it in acting but either weren’t good enough or couldn’t catch a break. It’s like the people who spend their careers doing TV commercials — only with orgasms.

The camaraderie and the relatively small number of us working regularly in the business was also what helped differentiate us. There was a frat house feel to a lot of what we were doing — a private club only we knew and understood. We could laugh at ourselves; we could console one another if someone was having a rough time for some reason. I hear Broadway is a lot like that, too, much more than Hollywood.

A lot of that seems to have changed over time, though. Now girls seem to come and go in a year or less. Most don’t stick around long enough to find a following or even get to know many of their contemporaries. When we did full-length features on film in the days before video, we had regular Hollywood-style premieres with red carpets and all. We had fans. Real celebrities — not just from the adult world, but from the mainstream world — would come out to see us. As I said, it was the last gasp of the free love era, and what we did played a role for a lot of people who grew up in the seventies and eighties. We were part of the culture of the era, just like rock and roll and bad hairstyles.

There was also a sort of theater-like “repertory company” feel to our industry back then. Our movies, even our loops, had plots, thin though they might be. That required casting. For example, you wouldn’t have Juliet Anderson — Aunt Peg — playing the young girl next door. Yet we all worked, so how did they do it?

A lot of times it was like classic movie casting. They’d have a script (believe it or not) that called for a male lead who was a real son of a bitch. Calling John Leslie! Nearly every film he did, Leslie played a prick — and not the good kind. There was often a lot of improv going on, both from the actors as well as from the director as we began shooting. Some of us were rather limited as actors (me), so we’d change things around a bit so what we were filming was more believable and stayed within our range.

This provided us all with our own individual personas. People ask, “Are you the same person in real life as you are on screen?” In porn, the answer is more apt to be yes, whether you’re asking me or any of the others from my era. I was the cool, detached, quiet one — the ice queen, the unattainable statuesque blonde — the girl you couldn’t have. Never the innocent, even when I
was
rather innocent, because when I went on the set I usually put on a “don’t fuck with me” front, which was my way of protecting myself. It all fit who I was at the time, at least to the people in the industry. As I said, I didn’t hang; I didn’t date my co-stars. I showed up on set, ready to work, then left at the end of the day and went to bed — with any luck, not having to put out again. Today, I’m more of a talkative broad, cracking wise and funny.