Seka

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This article is about American pornographic actress. For dwarf in Tatar mythology, see Şekä.
Seka
Seka in 2006
Birthdate: April 15, 1954 (1954-04-15) (age 54)
Birth location: Radford, Virginia, U.S.
Birth name: Dorothiea Hundley[1]
Measurements: 39-23-34
Height: 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Weight: 118 lb (54 kg/8.4 st)
Hair color: Platinum blonde (dyed)
Ethnicity: Irish
Official web site
Seka at IMDb
Seka at IAFD
Seka at AFDB

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 international adult film industry's most well-known and popular stars of her era. [2]

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

Contents

[edit] Early life

Dorothiea "Dottie" Hundley attended Hopewell High School in Hopewell, Virginia, where as a teenager she won several beauty pageants, including "Miss Hopewell High School" and "Miss Southside Virginia". Hundley owned and operated several adult bookstores in Virginia and Maryland in the 1970s.[3] After concluding that she could do a better job than the women featured in the material she was trying to sell to customers,[3] she moved from Virginia to Las Vegas, Nevada.[4] While in Vegas, she did her first nude photo layout for a magazine, which resulted in her first offer to shoot a sex film loop. Hundley then moved to Los Angeles, California with her soon-to-be husband Ken Yontz [4], whom she married in 1978.[5] Early in her career her stage name was "Sweet Alice" (as well as other aliases, including "Lynda Grasser".) [4]

[edit] Rise to porn fame

Hundley adopted the screen name Seka after a female blackjack dealer in Vegas whom she knew.[6] She became a star just as porn was making the transition from film to video. Seka's first performance was in the 1978 movie Dracula Sucks (a.k.a. Lust At First Bite or Blonde Fire), when she starred opposite John C. Holmes. Seka appeared in 24 films in 1980 alone, and another 37 films in 1981, the most important and prolific years of her career. They were capped by a messy divorce from Yontz in 1980.

Seka's on-screen sexual performances included lesbian, anal sex, double penetration, and use of sex toys such as vibrators, dildoes and strap-ons. She was also known for sometimes shaving her pubic hair, some 15 to 20 years before the practice became common among American porn stars.[7]

Seka's films are among the most popular erotica of all time[weasel words]. Jamie Gillis, who performed with Seka in numerous films, believed that she was "a bit above porn" describing her as a "white trash queen".[8] Seka was also known in the adult industry as "The Platinum Princess" [5], and on the box cover of her film Inside Seka (1980) she is referred to as "the Marilyn Monroe of porn", a quote taken from High Society Magazine.[9] Of her fellow performers, Seka lists her favorite male screen partners as John C. Holmes, Mike Ranger, Paul Thomas and Jamie Gillis.[10] In terms of women, she rates her favorite as Veronica Hart, whom Seka quoted as saying "as long as I have a face, Seka has a place to sit." [10] Seka also lists Aunt Peg, Kay Parker and Candida Royalle as favorite female screen partners.[10]

[edit] Retirement

By the early-1980s Seka had become arguably the number one female porn star of all time. 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,"[6] and turned to stripping and nude modeling while running her own lucrative fan club. More recently, she also admitted that the HIV epidemic in the mid-1980s contributed to her staying away from the hardcore sex scene, "that's why I don't make movies any more...I like to live." [10] By the early '90s she had returned to the porn industry to perform in a few final movies, her last being "American Garter" - despite being only 40, she was nearly unrecognizable from her earlier appearance, having gained weight and showing considerable sun damage to her skin. She later stated that staying in shape for porn was difficult as "she liked to eat".

Possessing an abundance of charisma and popularity with her fans, Seka achieved a kind of underground cult celebrity status, and (like Nina Hartley) she has appeared on television talk shows as an advocate and spokesperson in defense of the porn industry. Seka and former porn star Jerry Butler appeared on the TV show 330, hosted by Chuck Henry. 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 $15,000-$30,000 dollars per movie?" Chuck then asked Jerry about the use of drugs in the industry. Butler 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."[11]

Others in the adult film industry remember Seka as a professional who came to work, hit her marks, and did what she was required to do for a film script, but only within her limits, as she often told producers and directors, and then went home.

In 1997, Seka hosted a radio talk show in Chicago called Let's Talk About Sex on Saturday Nights from 10pm-2am on 97.9FM, The Loop.

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 2005 Seka moved from Chicago to Kansas City. She operates her fan club through her own web site. In February 2007, she gave an interview with the Kansas City-based magazine The Pitch where she stated she had just shot her first hardcore scene in nearly 15 years, available as on-line pay per view.[12]

Seka is also one of few adult film stars of her era that believed her career was something to be proud of, and was considered professionally demanding as a female artist in a man's business world, which also gained her much respect, and no doubt helped with her great achievements in the industry sector, aside from her screen appeal and great beauty. She is known and regarded for her keen and professional business savvy, both then and now.

[edit] Cultural references

  • 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.
  • In the online comic Achewood the thoroughly depressed character Roast Beef ponders what his last memory of life will be before he dies. He then remembers his childhood friend Ray asking him, "Dude! Have you heard of Seka?"[1]

[edit] Select filmography

  • Teenage Desires (1978) (footage from 1974)
  • Blonde Fire (1978) (opposite John Holmes)
  • Rocking With Seka (1980)
  • Inside Seka (1980)
  • 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.

[edit] Notable TV Appearances

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE420060821082307&Page=4&Title=Features+-+People+%26+Lifestyle&Topic=0
  2. ^ Seka (pronounced say',kah) estimates that only 50 of the films may actually be original.
  3. ^ a b Ringside Report "The Heart Of Boxing"
  4. ^ a b c Seka: Information & Biography
  5. ^ a b Seka - Biography
  6. ^ a b Joanne Cachapero (2007-12-11). "Seka". Eros NY. Retrieved on 2007-12-15.
  7. ^ this claim is also made by Marilyn Chambers.
  8. ^ The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry by Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne, ISBN-10: 0060096594, page 231.
  9. ^ http://www.adultfilmdatabase.com/video.cfm?videoid=19055
  10. ^ a b c d Full-On Clothing
  11. ^ Jerry Butler, as told to Robert Rimmer and Catherine Tavel, Raw Talent (1990) by Prometheus Press, ISBN 978-0-87975-625-3, pg. 140
  12. ^ Peter Rugg (2007-02-08). "Hardcore at 52". The Pitch. Retrieved on 2007-06-26.

[edit] External links

For Seka's filmography and official site, refer to the infobox.

[edit] Interviews

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seka"
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