Seka (actress)

Seka is a legendary U.S. pornographic actress (or "sex performer", as she prefers), born Dorothiea Hundley, on April 15, 1954 in Radford, Virginia, USA. She appeared in hundreds of XXX-rated films during the late 1970s and 1980s, and became one of the American porn industry's most well-known and popular performers.

Early life

Dorothiea "Dottie" Hundley attended high school in Hopewell, where as a teenager she won several beauty pageants, including "Miss Hopewell High School" and "Miss Southside Virginia". Under the influence of the Elvis look-a-like Ken Yontz, her "controlling" and "obsessive" second husband-to-be (she had kept the last name of "Patton" from her first marriage), young Dottie ran several adult bookstores in the 1970s, until "the heat" forced her to flee to Las Vegas.

While there she posed for her first nude layout before eventually returning to Virginia. That layout brought Dorothiea immediate attention along with an offer to shoot her first short film in Baltimore while still a teenager. Following these early escapades, Dorothiea and Ken moved to Los Angeles, where she devoted herself to the pursuit of a career in porn, initially using the name Sweet Alice.

Rise to Porn fame

In the late 1970s, Dorothiea adopted the screen name Seka, which means "symbol" in the South African Sesotho language, an appropriate name for an iconic sex symbol. She exploded onto the scene just as porn was making the switch from 35mm film to video, and consequently became a major star at a time of maximum exposure. She received her big break in 1978 (Dracula Sucks, a.k.a. Lust At First Bite as well as Blonde Fire), when she starred opposite John C. Holmes, the collaboration which would propel Seka to fame and go on to form the most well-known couple in porn history.

Seka appeared in 24 films in 1980 and another 37 films in 1981, the most important and prolific years of her career. They were capped by a messy dissolution of her volatile marriage to Yontz, which brought about her move to Chicago, the city that became her home for nearly twenty-five years.

Her on-screen sexual performances included lesbian encounters, anal sex, double penetration, and use of sex toys. She was also popular for frequently shaving her pubic hair, usually completely, this being some 15 to 20 years before the practice became common among American porn stars. Many of her movies were produced by Swedish Erotica, in which she is seen wearing her trademark scarf tied around her neck.

Her films are among the most popular erotica of all time. Jamie Gillis, who performed with Seka in numerous films, believed that she was "a cross between royalty and white trash". Fellow porn star Ginger Lynn described Seka as "the only woman that I was ever intimidated by." Another eighties legend, Amber Lynn, remembers being impressed with Seka's white hair, for being "so tall and amazing", and that she wanted to "be like her!"

Seka later reflected, "Why did I stop doing films? I got too old. I love to eat." Seka later admitted that: "The plain fact was that I had reached a plateau that terrifies every woman in the film business, inside or outside porn: I was 40! I have to admit it - I slept a great deal during this period... Can it be any plainer that I had sunk into a funk?"

Retirement

By the early eighties Seka had arguably become the number one female pornstar of all time, despite having been taken advantage of not just by Yontz, but by her Chicago manager, whom she now calls "Dead Fred." After 1982, at the height of her fame, she took a step back from her film career, claiming "they wouldn't pay her what she wanted," and turned to stripping and nude modeling while running her own lucrative fan club.

Possessing significant charisma and popularity with her fans, Seka had achieved a kind of underground cult celebrity status, and (like Nina Hartley and Ona Zee) she appeared on many popular television talk shows as an advocate and spokesperson in defense of the porn industry.

Seka and former porn star Jerry Butler and had appeared on the TV show 330 hosted by Chuck Henry, basically opposing one another. Seka talked about how much she enjoyed doing porn and that financial compensation was only a secondary issue. Jerry interrupted, "Oh really? Then why is your fee between $15-$30,000 dollars per movie?" Chuck then asked Jerry about the use of drugs in the industry, who admitted that many actors, actresses, producers and directors use drugs because they are under a lot of pressure. When Seka said "I can't imagine why people in the business need drugs", Butler fired back, "What about 1978? I heard you were in drug rehabilitation for a whole year."

In 1997, she hosted a radio talk show in Chicago called Let's Talk About Sex.

In 2002 Seka was the focus of the documentary film Desperately Seeking Seka. The premise finds Swedish filmmakers Christian Hallman and Magnus Paulsson on a quest to find the porn legend and ask for an interview. Since its completion the film has toured the international film festival circuit and is now available on DVD.

In April 2005 Seka moved to her home near Kansas City, Mo. She operates her fan club through her own web site.

Trivia

File:Misssouthside.jpg

Dorothy Hundley: A Beauty Queen (1972).

• Seka is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame, and the X-Rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame.

• She lists Mike Ranger and John C. Holmes as her favorite film partners.

• In the late 1980s, Seka was linked romantically with the comedian Sam Kinison and made an appearance during the opening sketch of an episode of Saturday Night Live that Sam was hosting.

• Seka on her past: "If I changed anything about my past, I wouldn't be the same person I am today, and I like me today." (CNBC Interview)

• The character "Amber Waves" played by Julianne Moore in the film Boogie Nights, a fictional girlfriend of the John Holmes character that was a composite of several women in his life, was partly based on Seka, according to the film's director, Paul Thomas Anderson.

• Seka trademarked her stage name in April 1985.

• In the 1990 rap song and video by EPMD, "Rampage", guest rapper LL Cool J mentions Seka: "The undertaker droppin' thunder on fakers/ When it comes to lyrics I'm as freaky as Seka..."

Select filmography

• Teenage Desires (1978) (footage from 1974)
• Dracula Sucks (1978)
• Blonde Fire (1978) (opposite John Holmes)
• Inside Seka (1980)
• Rockin' With Seka (1980)
• Ultra Flesh (1980)
• Prisoner of Paradise (1980)
• Swedish Erotica Vol. 31 (1981) (featuring John Holmes)
• Exhausted: John C. Holmes, the Real Story (1981)
• Careful, He May Be Watching (1987)
• American Garter (1993)
• Desperately Seeking Seka (2002)

Many of her films are now available on DVD.

Notable TV Appearances

• The Montel Williams Show, 13 May (2003)
• Saturday Night Live, 15 November (1986)
• The Oprah Winfrey Show, 8 September (1986)
• Larry King Live, 15 July (1985)
• The Phil Donahue Show, 21 September (1981)

External links

Interviews

• Chiller Theatre by John Shercock
• FullOnClothing.com