Inside Seka - The Platinum Princess of Porn (42 page)

I didn’t even try to pursue royalties or anything. Plus, in my negative state of mind, I didn’t think anybody would even remember me.

Sometime later, they called me about the possibility of doing an appearance for them in Thailand at a film festival where it was being screened. It was a pretty big deal because few films shown there had such strong sexual themes. I was excited about going since I’d never been to Thailand and it sounded exotic. But I got shot down when they were told by the festival board they were not allowed to bring in any of the interview subjects because of the nature of the film.

It was ultimately well received there and it gave the film some momentum. Apparently it did well at various other festivals, and with the nice response they got a U.S. deal with an American distributor. The funny thing was that when I got the movie in the mail I didn’t even watch it for the longest time. I had no rights to it or any money on the back end. To me it was already over and done with. When I finally saw it, it kind of felt like it was more about the adult film industry itself than a movie about me. But it was a good enough film with some real substance to it.

About four years after I’d finished shooting it, I got a call from a company out of New York called The Disinformation Company. They wanted me to promote
Desperately Seeking Seka
here in the States. They wanted me to hit bookstores and even dangled the bait of TV appearances for me. But once again, the money wasn’t great.

I told them I would do the publicity tour if I got one dollar from every DVD they sold. It sounded more than fair to me since they were selling them for thirty dollars a pop at that point and it
was
all about me.

“No, we can’t do that.”

I said, “See you. Goodbye.”

They kept calling me back trying to make a deal. My answer was always the same. “I want a dollar per DVD sold.” They offered ten cents per copy. Eventually, the big sports went up to twenty cents. I said I wouldn’t do it unless I got what I wanted. I reached a point where I didn’t even pick up the phone when they called.

There was no bad blood with the Swedish filmmakers themselves, since they understood where I was coming from. They allegedly had some money issues with the same distributors. Ironically, the film did pretty well at first. But I don’t feel I sold myself short. The money I got came in awfully handy and they happened to have been two really nice guys. And I did get something out of it, as they did a hot link from their website to mine, which helped my site grow. But later I saw the price of the video drop dramatically because they didn’t have anyone to promote it properly. You can now pick it up on eBay at around $5 a pop. So much for the glamorous world of documentary filmmaking.

Reunion time with Joey Silvera.

John Leslie and I patched it up at the end.

Paul Thomas never changes.

Candida Royalle makes the best films!

Serena co-starred with me in my first feature,
Dracula Sucks.

Pity me, I never got to work with Peter North.

The new generation: Seymore Butts.

With Cousin Stevie of
Family Business.
With all those hot young things surrounding him, he still prefers an old established firm like me!

What a line-up! Ron Jeremy, Seka, Georgina Spelvin, director Henri Pachard, Marilyn Chambers, Christy Canyon, and director Roy Karch, 2007.

The two biggest stars of the late 70’s/early ‘80’s: me and Marilyn Chambers.