Part 3: 1978

Realising that she could make big money in the sex industry, Ken and Seka moved to Los Angeles, where she answered a modelling advertisement for an agency run by occasional porn actor William Margold. “In this business, you usually start out as hamburger and then work your way up to fillet mignon. But the moment Seka walked into my office, I knew I was dealing with filet mignon.”

Through Margold she met legendary photographer Ron Raffaelli. Raffaelli had made a name for himself in the music industry for taking iconic photographs of artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Led Zeppelin; he also designed over 50 album covers. By the mid-1970s he was focussing on erotic photography.

“Ron was really strange,” Seka would recall. “He was very tall, thin… very much an egghead. Very intellectual. Smart and sweet… Ron was easy to work with… He did a lot of shoots for Puritan Magazine, which also had a line of 8mm films, so Ron asked me to do both. I didn’t realise it, but I was in the midst of the beginning of my career.” Her second hardcore loop was Fire and Ice, soon followed by others such as Dream Goddess and Seka’s Secret Desire – all of which were released on the label Diverse.

It was around this time that she adopted the pseudonym, Seka. “When they asked me what I wanted to be called, I thought of the girl in Vegas and said, Seka.” She would eventually copyright her name in 1985 – one of her most savvy business decisions.

She also changed from being a sandy-brunette to being a peroxide blonde – although according to Seka, this was by accident. “I don’t know if I got the wrong stuff in my haste, I left it in too long, whatever. All I know is when I rinsed it out, it wasn’t normal blonde. It was white. Platinum. From the roots to the tips, without a hint of any other colour anywhere. I screamed! I thought they’d fire me for looking like such a freak.” In fact it became her trademark look for the rest of her career.

Seka would continue shooting 8mm hardcore loops for much of her career in the adult industry, eventually working for a number of labels such as Pretty Girls, Limited Edition and Diamond Collection. The label she became most synonymous with was Swedish Erotica, for whom she shot over 30 loops between 1979 and 1981.

“I was doing so many scenes for them, I started being known in the industry and even among the fans as Miss Swedish Erotica. At one point, Swedish Erotica even gave me that title officially, like it was another beauty contest I had won… I liked the money I was making and the attention I was being given, but I wasn’t really thinking long term. It was good for now, but if they fired me I’d do something else tomorrow.”

One of her co-stars when working for Limited Edition was Alan Adrian. “I did a loop with Seka in California called Try Me. I played a producer and she was coming in to be cast. I keep a copy of the loop at home. I show it to my friends. Seka gives me a great blowjob because she’s really into it. She has these long strokes and her tongue moves really fast... She’s a great fuck too. She let me do the moving – that’s the way I like it. She wasn’t passive; she was just the right combination of action and reaction.”

Seka was a natural when it came to on-screen sex and lacked any sense of inhibition. She was also willing to do things in front of the camera that other porn stars at the time would not. “I would do just about anything on film and am proud to say that I did – except child pornography and bestiality. I always drew the line there.” 

“I love to talk dirty... in the gutter, you know. I think it turns men on... I like to get raunchy... I like a cum shot in the face on screen or in private. Of course I don’t think it’s demeaning! I love anal sex. But you must remember, it’s masochistic, and if I’m going to be a masochist, I want the man to be someone who I really want to dominate me. Would I let a guy piss on me? Why not? But there’s that domination thing again. I have to want the man to dominate me. But if a producer asked me to do it, the ham in me would come out. I might do it just to be thought of as a sex queen. That’s big to me, you know. It’s not just the money - although I get good money. And the work is fun... I love being thought of as the Marilyn Monroe of the X-rated business.”

Hershel Savage, who worked with her during these early years, later recalled her attitude on the set. “On one film the director was giving her a hard time about the dialogue. Seka just sort of smiled, put her hands on her hips, and said: ‘Look, I came here to get laid! So let's do it!’ She wasn’t about to slow down just to do dialogue. She has this... gusto. She wants to have a good time. Seka’s always willing to get down. She never worries about how she looks for the camera when she’s doing a sex scene. When she fucks, she fucks!”

Porn actress and future editor of High Society, Gloria Leonard, also remembered her during this period. “The first time I met Seka, I think she was shooting loops for Swedish Erotica with my husband, Bobby Hollander, somewhere in New York. She was sort of a cheesy, cheap looking blond from the South with too much turquoise eye makeup and too many silver rings on. But she was hot!”

Seka’s exposure through shooting loops eventually led to her appearing in her first feature film, Blonde Fire (1978). The director, Bob Chinn would later recall, “I had already finished casting Blonde Fire, but I wanted her in my movie so I hastily added a part for her. It was a small part but it opened and closed the film and fit in well with the ‘blonde fire’ theme of the film. Seka was certainly a diamond in the rough. She was also an extremely sharp businesswoman. There was no negotiating her salary, which was high – much to the chagrin of my production manager. For her part in the film we managed to negotiate hiring her for a half-day, which put a dent in our contingency cushion but still kept us within budget. Blonde Fire was Seka’s first feature film appearance even though the second film she made was released before it.”

Her first film to be released was Dracula Sucks (aka Lust at First Bite, 1978), starring such major names as John Holmes, Jamie Gillis, John Leslie, Annette Haven and Serena. “I was certainly intimidated to work with John Holmes and his thirteen inches. But the pay was a lot better than the loops I was doing and I was about to meet my idols… But I was also terrified because I would have to speak lines for the first time, and figured these veterans would blow me out of the water… I just didn’t see myself as an actress.”

She would later recall her first day on the set. “I walked into the castle… and all the guys were sitting at a table off to the left having breakfast. There was Jamie Gillis, John Holmes, John Seeman, Paul Thomas… I walked in and those guys turned around and looked at me, and I was just frightened to death because it was as if I was just a big side of beef hanging there. It was like, ‘Oh baby, there’s new meat!’ It just really scared me, and the majority of the men got up and said, ‘Hello,’ and introduced themselves and I was very star struck because after all it was John Holmes and Jamie Gillis, for God’s sake. I mean, what else could a girl want?” Seka was such an unknown at this point that her name did not even appear on the movie poster.

Pornographer Roy Karch recalled: “When we were doing Dracula Sucks out in Los Angeles… we put an ad in Variety looking for other talent. We got a letter back – with a picture – from this woman, Dorothy Yontz, who wrote, ‘I have a bookstore in Virginia with my husband, and we saw your ad in Variety, and I’d like to get into porn.’ Ken and Dotty were their names. We saw the photos… She was gorgeous.”

Porn actor Jerry Butler would later claim in his autobiography that Seka spent most of 1978 in drug rehabilitation. This is something she vehemently denies. “I did not do drugs or drink when I was working. When I was actually doing movies, I knew about pot and I knew about cocaine. I didn’t do them. I didn’t even drink much then… Did I do it afterwards? Absolutely, and I had a good time… I know it was said I was in rehab for a year. That makes me laugh because I don’t know anybody that goes into  rehab and stays for a whole year. Did I do drugs? Absolutely! Did I abuse them? You’re fucking right I did and I liked it! When I decided it was enough and that I couldn’t do it anymore or I was going to kill myself, I put it aside and never did it again… Do I think about it sometimes? Absolutely, I do… Drugs were part of the entire entertainment industry. It wasn’t just the adult entertainment industry… I’m not going to lie about having done drugs. That’d be silly because too many people knew I did it…The statement that this one person made that I was in rehab for a year did piss me off. It didn’t hurt my feelings, but it pissed me off because number one, it wasn’t true, and number two, they said it because I didn’t want to work with them.”

Dracula Sucks, along with her brief appearance in Blonde Fire (1978) increased Seka’s popularity and led to greater exposure. During Chicago’s 1978 Consumer Electronics Show her company had printed 500 photographs for her to sign during the four-day event. They sold-out in just two hours, and she eventually signed another 1,500 over the next three days.

“That’s when it hit me. All these people were standing in line, starring at me and drooling and waiting for hours just to get an autograph. I went, ‘How do these people know who I am?’ And then I thought, it must be because they’re buying these movies. And I went, ‘Ah! I think I should ask for more money.’”