Interview With Seka

When you think about it, adult stars come a dime a dozen. There is an endless sea of women who drift in and out of the adult business never to be heard from again. Most of them come along to make a quick buck, not giving much thought into what they are doing. They disappear just as quickly as they came never to be heard from again.

There are a few who come along who turn the entire industry on it’s head. Women who become superstars and achieve a level of fame not often achieved by a porn star. What makes these women different from the average run-of-the-mill starlet? What is it that they have that the others do not?

Women who reach the upper echelon of porn greatness all have a few things in common with one another. First and foremost, they are beautiful creatures, with an appeal that sets them apart from the rest of the crowd. There is just something about them, that you just cannot put your finger on, that adds to their attractiveness. They also have to have a little luck, and come into the business at the right time and place. But most of all they are all enthusiastic about what they do. They are painfully aware of their sexual power, and use it to light-up the screen with powerful performances, and instantly capture the desire of multitudes of men.

You can literally count the number of women who reach the very top of the porn business on your fingers. You have your Annettes, your Gingers, your Jennas and then you have Seka. One of a kind, Seka was one of the first superstars of adult cinema. Like a blond sex bomb she burst upon the scene and was an instant star. She passionately performed for several years and enjoyed a longevity that few women in the adult entertainment industry achieve.

I recently contacted her, and she agreed to be interviewed. I was completely surprised how easy she was to contact and how willing she was to participate. She is a very gracious and down-to-earth person and it has been an absolute honor to interview her.

Where were you born?

Seka: Radford Virginia

Where did you grow up?

Seka: Virginia

What was your family life like, your parents, siblings, how would you describe your family?

Seka: 1 brother 1 sister, both older; I’m the baby. Pretty normal I guess. Parents divorced when I was young. I am still close with nearly everyone in my family.

What was your earliest sexual experience? At what age did you lose your virginity?

Seka: April 22,1972, the day after I got married the first time.

I read that you were a beauty queen in high school and during your early adult life. What are some of the pageants you won?

Seka: Miss Hopewell High School and Miss South-side Virginia.

What other jobs did you have before getting involved in adult entertainment?

Seka: Factory worker, waitress, shoe sales person, bartender…

Did you go to college?

Seka: Yes, Northwestern in Chicago

I read that you were once a co-owner of a few adult bookstores before you became involved in the adult film business. How did you get involved with the owning a bookstore and was that something you enjoyed?

Seka: I was dating a person who owned one and then as time went on we bought several more of them and yes I did enjoy the stores very much.

When did you first become involved in the adult film industry?

Seka: It was in the late 70’s.

When did you start using the name “Seka” and what does it mean?

Seka: The first movie I did I was asked what name I wanted to use and I said ” I don’t know use “SEKA” What I have been told it means is “LITTLE GIRL”

You performed with some of the best known studs of the 70’s and 80’s. I’m going to throw out a couple of men that you performed with and I want you to give me your impression of them. Randy West, John Leslie, Jamie Gillis, and Ron Jeremy.

Seka: They were, and still to this day, some of the most wonderful men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing or being with.

You also performed with the “King” John Holmes. In fact, it appears that you may have performed with him more than any other woman, and according to your IAFD page, you did more scenes with John than any other man during your career. How close were you with John in your personal life? Were the two of you ever romantically involved off-screen? How was he as a performer? A person?

Seka: I loved John and will always love John. We were never lovers off screen. John was always a perfect gentleman with me as a performer and as a person.

I read somewhere that you spent a year in rehab in the late 70’s. Is this correct?

Seka: I was never in rehab for anything ever. I never did see drugs on the movies I worked on so I can not answer this question for you.

I was also surprised to learn that you actually spent some time in jail in San Diego during the early 80’s. What lead to that ordeal? What were you arrested for? Were you actually sentenced to a prison term, or just arrested?

Seka: I spent 12 hours in the Women San Diego Prison for lewd dancing and obscene conduct.
I was never convicted as it was a case of they just wanted to try to make an example of someone and it turned out that I was not the one.

Your IAFD page says that you actually directed two titles. Was directing something that you enjoyed? Why did you not pursue more directing jobs?

Seka: I enjoyed it very much though it is very stressful and I just wanted to give it a try.

You stayed active in adult film from the late 70’s through the early 90’s, which is an eternity in adult film. You started at 24 years old which is the age most girls retire from the business. You actually retired at about 40 which is just way beyond when most girls give it up. Despite your age, you were in high demand throughout your career. Why did you give it up? What made you quit the film business? Could you have kept going?

Seka: I am sure I could have kept going but I am in love with living and there were no demands being made for testing in those days so I stopped.

The adult film business has changed a lot since your heyday. Do you think has changed for the better or worse? What do you think is lacking in today’s porn movies?

Seka: I don’t fell it has changed for the better. It seems to me that most everyone looks the same these days, there is no romance any more or at least a reason for sex to happen in the first place. It seems to me that that there is so much ANGER in today’s Adult Movies and for me at least SEX and that kind of ANGER do not mix.

What have you been up to all these years after you left the adult film business? Where have you lived? What have you been through? Tell us about things you have been involved in. Your fan club, websites, personal life… etc…

Seka: For the most part I have been working on www.seka.com and my life.

I remember reading that you performed in a hardcore scene a few years ago and that it is available on the Internet. Where can your fans go to see the scene?

Seka: On my site www.seka.com under the VOD banner that says ” clips.com “

What was it like to perform in a sex scene after all the years away from adult film?

Seka: I didn’t miss a beat. LOL

Describe the scene, what can your fans expect to see watching you perform hardcore at over 50?

Seka: The only difference I saw was that I had a hell of a lot more fun, there was no pressure.

Was it just the one scene, or have you done more? If not do you plan on doing any more?

Seka: There were several scenes, go and watch.

Did you ever have any children over the years?

Seka: No, I never wanted children.

It’s surprising to learn that you never really left the adult business. You pretty much stayed active with your fan club, dancing and websites, etc. Do you have any plans of ever retiring completely?

Seka: No.

Are you currently romantically involved with anyone? Married? Dating? Single?

Seka: Married.

Do you enjoy interaction with your fans? Have you ever dated any of your fans? What is the best way that your fans can contact you?

Seka: Yes I enjoy interacting with my fans, never dated my fans. and the best way to reach me is through www.seka.com .

Any chance you would ever hookup with a younger fan, say by about 20 years, who runs a website about retired porn stars?

Seka: No, I’m married and I take that very seriously.

That was a joke… I guess it does not hurt to ask

Seka is still a hot, sexy, smokin' lady

Is there anything else in your life that you would like to mention that I did not cover? Anything you would like to say to your fans?

Seka: Thank each and every one of my fans from the bottom of my heart, with out all of you I would not be who I am today and I owe that to my fans. They were and to this day the BEST FANS a girl could ever have.

Thank you very much for your time, and I would love to do another interview sometime in the future when there are new things to talk about. Please stay in touch.

Seka: Well hopefully that will be very soon. You see I have a book coming out …
The title is “Inside Seka” just like the movie and as a matter of fact it will have the same cover on the book as the movie has.

I will get in touch with you when the book comes out to discuss it.

Inside Seka box cover

An Interview With Tiffany Towers

Here is the text from an interview I did with Tiffany Towers through her MySpace account.

Big thanks to Tiffany for her time!

You were born in Toronto Canada according to several sources, is this where you grew up as well?

TT: Yes

What was your childhood and early family life like?

TT: Difficult but we are very close now

Do you have any siblings?

TT: Yes I have 2 younger brothers

Looking back, were there any things in your childhood that influenced your decision to become an adult performer?

TT: Probably…..

Where did you go to High School?

TT: I went to several before dropping out

What was your first sexual encounter?

14

How old were you when you lost your virginity?

14

What is your natural breast size?

TT: Before any surgical procedures. D

Your Wikipedia entry says that you started out as a dancer and then moved on to men’s magazines. What was your first job as a dancer and how was that experience?

TT: I was a table dancer for 5 bucks a dance and they were good times, I was 17

What are some of the magazines that you posed for early in your career? How did posing for men make you feel? Do you consider yourself an exhibitionist.

TT: I think Gent was my first mag I posed for and at 18 it was very exciting

When did you have your first breast enlargement surgery?

TT: Probably just after I turned 18

What is the largest breast size you ever carried?

TT: Tripe HHH

You have had breast reduction surgery in recent years. Why did you reduce the size? Were they becoming burdensome?

TT: Yes they were, very difficult to find clothes and it really wasn’t me, plus one burst…

Do you have a large-tit fetish or were the surgeries something you did to please a lover, or were they done to help your career by appealing to a certain genre of porn?

TT: I was young and foolish…

How did you become involved in adult films? What industry insiders did you meet? How did you meet them?

TT: I really don’t know it just went hand in hand with the job

Did you enjoy having sex with men on film? Any particular scenes that you enjoyed? Any particular performers you enjoyed working with?

TT: I did in the beginning, but I didn’t like the way I was treated for the most part and I really don’t remember any men that stand out, would have liked to work with Rocco

What was the most challenging scene you ever shot?

TT: Probably Tommyknockers only movie with a real script and had to memorize lines….

Did you ever perform on film with more than one guy at once? If so how was that experience?

No

I myself have never seen any scenes where you did anal? Did you perform anal and if so what are some of the films?

TT: I unfortunately did in my last movie with Seymore Butts but I regret giving it to his company

Any crazy or horror stories from you involvement in the adult industry?

TT: No

Have you ever been involved in any real-life gang bangs, group sex, or swinging, off camera?

TT: Yes

You also preformed with women on film, in life are you bisexual or were the scenes something you just had to do?

TT: I love cock….

You have left the adult industry more than once, are you currently retired? and if so, do you have any plans on returning to adult films?

TT: I am retired and have no plans to return

In 2005 you were in Faster Pussycat, Fuck! Fuck!, which won an AVN-award. What type of scene did you do for that movie, who did you perform with, and what was it like to perform after such a hiatus?

TT: It was o.k. I did a girl-boy and girl- girl..was not the highlight of my life….

Do you keep in touch with any friends from the adult business?

TT: No

Many sources report that you are currently a dancer in Toronto. Are you still dancing, and if so what club?

TT: No I am in Thailand working with animals and teaching

Do you enjoy meeting your fans and are you available for any private sessions?

TT: Yes

Your MySpace says you are currently single. Have you ever been married, if so how many times? If not, what are some of the long-term relationships that you have had that you consider important in your life?

TT: All my long term relationships were important

You volunteer at several animal shelters around Toronto. How important are animals in your life? Do you have any plans for a career path in this field?

TT: I would love to be able to just make money from helping animals unfortunately it’s not really possible, animals mean everything to me..

I noticed that you are planning a trip to Thailand to work with animals. What type of work will you be doing and is there any way that your fans can donate or assist with the expenses of the trip.

TT: Yes anybody can donate on paypal to tiffanytowers@hotmail.com

Is there anything you would like to plug? Sites, upcoming movies or events?

TT: Just want to wish everybody well!!

.

Star Stowe, A Fallen Star

“Star” Stowe (born Ellen Louise Maligo , March 19, 1956 in Little Rock, Arkansas - died March 16, 1997 in Coral Springs, Florida) was an American model. She was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for its February 1977 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Pompeo Posar.

She was an acquaintance of Gene Simmons and hung out with him and the rest of KISS. In 1977, she married Peter Maligo and had a son. She eventually divorced her husband.

Stowe moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1986 to find work as an exotic dancer. She fell out of the limelight and into drugs, alcohol and street prostitution in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. She was found murdered on March 16, 1997. Police belived her killing to be a serial murder.

Taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Stowe

Heather Hunter, A Well-rounded Ex-Porn Starlet

Heather Keisha Hunter (born October 1, 1969 in Bronx, New York) (nicknamed Double H) is a former pornographic actress, who is now a hip hop artist, painter, and author.

Adult film career

Heather Hunter entered the adult film business in 1988 and her career peaked in the mid-1990s. She became known for her interracial and lesbian themed films. Heather also stood out because of her toned, muscular and athletic physique which was rarely seen in pornography at that time in the 1980s. In her hometown, she was a mainstay on the Robin Byrd Show and was a frequent performer.

Hunter got her start while dancing at the Latin Quarter nightclub in New York City, where she met adult film actress Hyapatia Lee, who suggested she perform in movies. Her first video Heather Hunter On Fire came out in 1988. She filmed her first sex scenes on her 18th birthday.She did a few low-budget movies for New York-based Vidway, before moving to Los Angeles and eventually becoming the first African-American woman to be a Vivid Entertainment contract girl. She has 69 videos and 1 directorial effort to her credit on the Internet Adult Film Database; her final adult video appears to be Honeywood, released in 1999. Old scenes with Hunter continue in numerous compilations.

Hunter was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2003.

In 2004, she and fellow legend Ginger Lynn appeared in non-sex roles in Hustler’s Can You Be A Pornstar?

Music career

Heather Hunter has been involved with music professionally since 1993, when she was under contract with Island Records doing House music. She released a song titled “I Want It All Night Long.” Hunter later worked for Tommy Boy Records without much progress, as the company did not know whether to market her as an R&B or pop singer.

Hunter released an 18-track rap music album on July 12, 2005 titled Double H: The Unexpected. She released the music through Blo Records label, owned by her long-time manager, Dave Copeland. Hunter is the company’s CEO. In creating the album, she worked with well-known music producers DJ Premier and Scott Storch. Guests on her album include Akinyele, Madison Taylor, plus Chalu and Erin Yes. Hunter’s old adult movie friend Janet Jacme appears on the interlude of “My Toolbox.” “So Serious” was the only single released from the album. The single and her album’s title refers to Hunter’s desire to be taken seriously as a hip hop musician. Hunter said in a VIBE interview:

“ What people may not expect is how serious I am about this. I really want people to take me seriously. Being retired from the adult industry nearly thirteen years ago, I think I’ve done enough in the mainstream business and I want to be accepted as an equal, as an artist. I’m going for my respect whether they give it to me or not. ”

From 1998-2000, Hunter hosted The Peep Show on pay-per-view TV. The program was first hosted by rapper Luther Campbell as Luke’s Peep Show. It was a raunchy interview show that aired uncensored music videos. On a 1998 episode, she met rapper Akinyele, who encouraged her to pursue a music career. He later appeared with Mr. Cee on Double H: The Unexpected.

Hunter has recorded with Esham (All Night Everyday off his album Tongues. Song also features Kool Keith), Kool Keith (I Wanna Play off his album Spankmaster), N.O.R.E. (Big D off his album God’s Favorite. Also features Akinyele & Khia), Bubba Sparxxx (Would You Like, which was cut from his album Deliverance), Above The Law (”Freak In Me” and “Playas, Gangstas And Ballers” off their album Sex, Money, & Music).

Painting career

Hunter has had an interest in art since she was a child, when she began painting portraits of family members. She furthered this love by majoring in design and illustration at Fashion Industries High School in New York City. For a short time during her teenage years, she was involved in illegal graffiti art as Ms. 45, but quit after being cited by the police. She enrolled in a special workshop under the direction and inspiration of renowned street artist, Keith Haring.

In June 2006, Hunter opened her own art gallery, Artcore-NYC, in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, New York. She debuted her “Hunter Collection” paintings as the gallery’s first exhibition. The gallery was located at 111 Front Street, and there is an ongoing search for a new location.

Writing career

Insatiable: The Rise of a Porn Star by Hunter and Michelle Valentine is a novel published on July 24, 2007, from St. Martin’s Press. It purports to tell the story of Simone Young, a young woman with a career and background similar to Hunter’s. In an interview, Heather implied that her story would be fictionalized to protect the privacy of others.

Cartoon series

Hunter starred in her own animated cartoon series Bulletproof Diva (2003), in which she saves the world from the inhabitants of hell.

Taken from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Hunter

40 Years Of Marilyn Chambers

Marilyn Chambers (born Marilyn Ann Briggs, April 22, 1952, in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.) is a former American pornographic actress and stripteaser perhaps best known for her 1972 hardcore debut Behind the Green Door.

Early life

According to John Hubner’s book Bottom Feeders, (1994), Chambers came from a middle-class household. Her father was in advertising and her mother was a nurse. She was the youngest of three children. Her father tried to discourage her from pursuing a modeling career, citing brutal competition. Chambers landed some modeling gigs and a small role in the Barbra Streisand starred The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), where she was credited as “Evelyn Lang”. Her parents were not impressed, so she moved to Los Angeles for more work. But she didn’t get any roles, except for a low-budget film Together (1971), in which she appeared nude. Depressed, she left Los Angeles for San Francisco where she held several jobs, including work as a topless model and a bottomless dancer. She also married a hippie named Doug (whose surname she did not provide to writer-researcher John Hubner).

Adult film career

Chambers happened to see an advertisement for a casting call, and rushed to the audition only to find out that it was for a porno film. She was about to leave when the Mitchell brothers stopped her, because of her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd, and feeling that a wholesome blond actress was needed for their film. (At this point, they did not realize that she was the “cover girl” on the Ivory Snow soap box; she posed as the woman holding the baby. According to some urban legends, Chambers was the baby; this turned out to be false, as was the claim that the baby was Brooke Shields). The product’s manufacturer, Procter & Gamble quickly dropped her after discovering her double life as an adult film actress. Chambers, who was initially ambivalent about starring in Behind the Green Door, asked the Mitchell brothers, Artie and Jim, for a $25,000 salary and a percentage of the gross, never expecting that they would agree. After filming concluded, she dropped the Ivory Snow bombshell, which resulted in her being billed as the “99 and 44/100% pure” girl.

In the film, Chambers had sex with the well-endowed African-American actor Johnny Keyes. She also fainted at the end of one scene lasting over 45 minutes. The porno industry and viewing public were shocked by the then-taboo spectacle of a white woman having sex with a black man. (Chambers’ parents refused to talk to her for several years after the film’s release, but eventually reconciled with her). In subsequent porno films with John Holmes, who was noted for his extremely large penis, Chambers “talked dirty” to him off-camera to give him an erection. Eventually, mainstream films noticed Chambers, who in 1977, nabbed a major role in David Cronenberg’s Rabid. However, her adult film career made Hollywood studios nervous, and hence she was unable to transition to mainstream films.

She was noted for her enthusiastic performances of deep throat, anal, lesbian, interracial, extreme bukkake, and double or triple penetration scenes. She was one of the first female stars to shave her pubic hair, a practice now routine for porn actresses. Chambers continues to appear in porn films for such companies as Naughty America and MILF Hunter. Later in her career, she had a series of breast augmentations raising her from a B-cup to at least a D. She is reputedly one of the first porn actresses to have her genitals pierced.

Her first marriage ended after the release of Behind the Green Door. During her 1975-1985 marriage to porn producer/director/manager Chuck Traynor, Chambers continued in both mainstream and porn films. After that marriage ended, Chambers married for the third time to truck driver Tom Taylor. She gave birth to their daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor, in 1991, before that marriage also ended in divorce. Chambers has admitted to writer John Hubner and other interviewers that she has battled drug and alcohol addiction in the past.

In recent years, Chambers has appeared primarily in independent films, claiming that their more laid back pace suits her as “there’s a lot less pressure on you to perform (and) you don’t have to be young and skinny.”

Other work

* Marilyn Chambers also had some chart success with the Disco single “Benihana” in 1976, produced by Michael Zager on the Roulette Records label. In the 2004 United States presidential election, Marilyn Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a quasi-libertarian party. She received a total of 946 votes.

Fictional portrayals

* In 2000, Tracy Hutson played Chambers in the made-for-cable biopic about the Mitchell Brothers, Rated X.

Literature

* Nicolas Barbano: Verdens 25 hotteste pornostjerner (Rosinante, Denmark 1999) ISBN 87-7357-961-0: Features a chapter on her.

Taken from Wikipedia

Have You Seen This Porn Star? What Happened To Crystal Wilder

Crystal Wilder was a blond girl-next-door type that burst onto the adult scene in the early 90’s. She was known for her wholesome look and raunchy performances.

Wilder was born on September 13, 1967 in Brookings, South Dakota. According to her biography on Excalibur Films , she was raised in a strict household as a child and began stripping at a club in Sioux Falls as an young adult. She then went on the road to dance in other clubs nationwide, eventually meeting boyfriend Terry Thomas. The couple then moved to Los Angeles with the intention of making Wilder a porn star.

It didn’t take long for Wilder to get noticed with her adorable look and eagerness to perform. She made her debut in Masquerade in 1992 at the age of 25. By 1994 she retired leaving behind over 100 of the raunchiest scenes of the early 90’s. Despite her sexual enthusiasm, Wilder never achieved the level of notoriety as some of her cohorts. She was never a typical box cover girl, and today she remains a fan favorite yet often overlooked porn starlet.

I have searched high and low for any type of current biographical data on Wilder and have not been able to find much. I found a site that lists a mailing address for Crystal, but it is most likely an old address. I will probably still send a letter just for the hell of it.

If anyone has any current information about Crystal, where she is, what she is up to, how to get in touch with her, anything, please post a message below.

Here is the mailing address that I found for Crystal:

Wilder, Crystal, 19528 Ventura Blvd., #368, Tarzana, CA 91356

Trinity Loren, Dead At 34, Overdose

Trinity Loren (born Joyce Evelyn McPherson August 21, 1964 in La Jolla, California, USA and died October 25, 199 was a porn star, model, and stripper.

Loren began her adult career as a model in various men’s magazines, gaining attention due to her natural 38E breasts. Loren began her porn career on screen in late-1985, and quickly achieved renown as one of the first starlets of the straight-to-video era of adult films. She retired from pornographic films in the early-1990s, fearing the threat of the AIDS virus.

Loren specialized in oral and anal sex, as well as lesbian scenes. She was also one of the first mainstream adult stars to appear in videos noticeably pregnant and (later) lactating. Before this, many adult films with the pregnancy/milking theme were available only as underground 8mm loops or fringe fetish short films.

Loren shared a short marriage to Barry Woods (who also appeared in adult films under the pseudonym of Shane Hunter), with whom she had a daughter, Tess, born 1990. After the couple’s divorce, Loren moved to Texas, seeking to build a life with her daughter. Unfortunately, Woods and McPherson were fighting over the custody rights of their child; Woods won custody.

Loren moved back to California to be closer to her daughter. She continued to do photo layouts for men’s magazines including Hustler, Gent and D-Cup. During this time, she sought help for clinical depression and drug addiction. As a part of her rehabilitation treatment Loren was working on an autobiography, which was never finished.

In 1998, Loren’s boyfriend, pornographic director Joe Gallant claims that the pair were about to start doing some sex scenes together as a start of Loren’s comeback into the adult industry.

Trinity Loren died on October 25, 1998 due to either an overdose of prescription painkillers, or a brain aneurysm.  She is interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California under her legal name, “Roxanne McPherson”. Gallant started his company, Black Mirror Productions, in part to raise money to support Loren’s daughter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Loren

What Happened To Rene Bond? Dead At 45

Rene Bond (born in San Diego, California on October 11, 1950) was an adult actress active in the 1970s Los Angeles pornography scene, appearing in about 300 films and loops. She was well-known for having a youthful, “girl next door” appeal.

Bond began her career in softcore exploitation films produced by Harry Novak in the late 1960s before moving on to hardcore films in the early 1970s. She reportedly earned $100 a day for hardcore work and $30 a day for soft-core. During this period, she frequently appeared with her then-boyfriend, porn actor Ric Lutze.

Bond was one of the first porn stars to get a breast enlargement, which was reportedly paid for by Novak. She also appeared under the names Mindy Brandt, Michelle Combe, Annie Hall, Diane Lee, Priscilla Lee, Lilly Lovetree, Sally Martin and Lotta Rocks.

By the late 1970s, Bond was selling photographs of herself through her own mail order company. She also performed in a live stage revue at Lee Witten’s Ivar Burlesque Theater in Hollywood. Bond reportedly brought her father on stage while performing to sing “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.” After her performances, Bond signed autographs in the lobby for a dollar each.

Bond retired from the adult entertainment industry in 1980, reportedly to raise a family.

Every year she sent her former softcore agent, Hal Guthue, a Christmas card.

According to imdb, Bond died June 2, 1996 of cirrhosis of the liver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_Bond

Rebecca Steele The Life And Death Of A Porn Star

By EARL SWIFT , The Virginian-Pilot
March 24, 2004

SHE WAS DARK-EYED and fine-boned, with chestnut hair that tumbled over her shoulders. She had a body, lithe and firm, that she loved to show off. In the spell of her smile, sweet and inviting and crazy all at once, men gave her money, jewelry, a Corvette.

For years, Jeanette Dee Rogers traded on her most obvious strengths. She worked Norfolk’s go-go bars young, made bigger money as an exotic dancer in Hawaii and earned an international following as Rebecca Steele, a centerfold model and featured player in scores of X-rated movies. She lived large, dressed well, partied without care.

But the heady times didn’t last, and she wound up back in Norfolk with little to show for them. By the time she turned 42, on Jan. 17, Rogers had been through so many marriages that her mother couldn’t name all her exes. She was flat broke, on the run from creditors and half a step from homeless. She’d fallen into drugs and spent days on end in chemical fogs. She was suffering from full-blown AIDS.

Her fall ended two days after her birthday, on the floor of a worn motel room on East Little Creek Road. Her obituary, two sentences long, failed to mention her peculiar fame - that a Google search of her name generates more than 4,000 hits, that she continues to flicker on video screens around the world.

Only a handful of people turned out for her funeral.

Rebecca Steele is easy to find: Years after her departure from adult films, her turns in such fare as “Down and Dirty” and “Open Ended,” in “Bi-Bi Baby” and “Dutch Masters,” still sell on the Web.

Online biographies chart her career: “Rebecca Steele was easily one of the most enticing young women on the late ’80s/early ’90s hard core scene,” one reads. “Her endlessly alluring good looks were sure to please, but it was her energy and spirit that kept fans coming back for more.”

The real woman is far more elusive, for Rogers assumed many names, and many roles, over the years. She was Jeanette Markvart, Jeanette Moore and Jeanette Zuelly, Mindy and “Rebel.” She was a biker chick, a construction worker, a victim and a predator, exploited and exploiter.

Stretches of her life, some of them years long, are blanks.

This is certain: She was born in 1962 to an enlisted sailor and a teenage mother from the sticks named JoAnn Skeeter. The sailor took off before her arrival; a young Marine named Markvart married the pregnant JoAnn instead.

The couple split soon after. For a while, JoAnn Markvart raised Jeanette in an apartment nestled among the honky-tonks of East Ocean View, but she eventually sent the girl to live with relatives in Bent Creek, in Appomattox County. Jeanette bounced between Norfolk and Bent Creek for the next several years.

Before long, JoAnn was with another sailor, Joel Anito, and two more children, Priscilla and Joseph, followed. In the meantime, JoAnn Anito became troubled by her firstborn’s visits. “All you had to do was say no,” she recalls, “and she was almost like an untamed horse.”

An angry Jeanette set the laundry on fire. She spiked her mother’s bath water with broken glass.

“A psychiatrist told me that when she came home, if I had any knives or anything, I should secure them because she was capable of killing me,” JoAnn Anito says.

“They told me that when she was about 7.”

Rick Mills sits on the bed he shared with Jeanette Rogers. He is the key to another certainty about her: the manner of her death. Mills, a 41-year-old carpenter, was Rogers’ fiance. He reaches into a knapsack of her belongings.

“This was her last cell phone,” he says, eyes red-rimmed. “This is the bandana she wore. These are the earmuffs she wore when she was cold.”

He continues to live in their motel room, to sleep in their bed. “She was my soul mate. We shared everything. There was nothing we didn’t talk about.”

He opens a small, wooden box to reveal a tangle of elastic hair bands. Opens a velvet box containing a long lock of her hair. He sniffles. Beneath his feet, at the foot of the bed, is the spot he found her.

“I seen her curled up, right here.”

As the police report put it: “Ms. Rogers appears to have overdosed on prescription medication and pills were found on floor of room.”

A couple feet away is a bright red Christmas gift bag. It contains her ashes. “I called 911 immediately,” Mills says. “They talked me through CPR on the phone.” He shakes his head.

He was the last man to fall for her. No telling how many came before him; his fiancee learned early that she had a power to beguile. Her family says she traded favors for cash with a Bent Creek neighbor while still a preteen. She broke hearts in Norfolk whenever she swept into town. Once her mother had her institutionalized, and she performed stripteases in the hospital.

“She was always wild, even when we were young,” says her half-sister, Priscilla Garbett. “Men fell out over her. Guys went ga-ga over her.”

“The men, it was like they were coming up out of the floor,” JoAnn Anito says.

“She loved it,” Garbett says.

She quit school in seventh grade, about the time the Anitos’ marriage was breaking up in a swirl of drunkenness and violence. At 15, she was pregnant. She married her baby’s father, who lived near Bent Creek, but the pairing didn’t stick. Neither did motherhood: When her son, Brian, was still a baby, Jeanette Moore - that was her name by now - left him with her husband’s parents and took off.

Back in Norfolk, Jeanette dropped by the beauty shop where her mother worked to announce she wanted to dance at a go-go joint. She was “about 17″ at the time, JoAnn Anito says. That’s her recollection, anyway: Rick Mills says his fiancee told him she was 14 or 15 and that she used a fake ID to get the job.

Whatever the case, Anito accompanied her daughter to an audition near the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. “She did real well. She looked good. And before I knew it, she had beautiful outfits, and the money was rolling in.”

She worked clubs in Ocean View and the Peninsula as “Mindy.” She danced at military bases. “She could work two, three days a week,” her half-sister says, “make a couple grand, and do what she wanted, when she wanted.”

She bought a motorcycle and in her off hours ran with a gang. At a North Carolina bar, she was jumped by other bikers, dragged into the woods; they broke her ribs, even shaved her head. Years later, she told of having been kidnapped by a rival gang, too, and held prisoner for months.

If so, she managed to escape back to Norfolk. She danced under a tough new name, “Rebel,” and the money kept coming. “She could pick a sucker out of a group,” Garbett says. “She’d say she could tell them by the shoes they wore. She’d use ‘em up, take everything they got and leave ‘em with nothing.”

Greater glory beckoned, however. Anito remembers Rebel telling her she was headed to California to make movies. “I said, ‘I guess there’s not a whole lot more you can do in those movies that you haven’t already done,’” she says. ” ‘You’re 18. I can’t stop you.’ “

So was born Rebecca Steele. She moved west, got a house in the San Fernando Valley, and got busy. One online database lists her as a performer in 66 titles. Anito says she’s heard her daughter appeared in 152. Mills says she was in about 350.

Rebecca Steele movies tended to be the sort the porn industry turns out by the hundreds - shot in bad light, with bad sound, on cheap tape, with little thought given to plot or actual acting. Performers weren’t paid well, though some, like Steele, earned more by agreeing to onscreen acts that others refused.

One of her 1990s vehicles, “Sex and Other Games,” was typical. Steele, who has top billing, appears about halfway through the movie, couples with a stranger, then pairs up with a girlfriend. The camera shows off her tattoos - eagles on her left shoulder and upper back, an amateurish flower on her right thigh, smaller images scattered elsewhere - more than talent; her screen presence, in fact, approaches lethargic.

She took pride in her work, however. “She took me down to the place they were doing the filming,” Anito says of a visit to California. “They had different scenes going on. To them, it’s like sitting down, having a cup of coffee and lighting a cigarette.

“She wasn’t working that day,” she adds.

Last year, Adult Video News, the trade paper of the porn industry, estimated that adult film performers engage in as many as 50 sexual contacts per workday. At the time Steele made most of her movies, male performers rarely used condoms, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases among her co-stars was not the routine it is today. Sometime in the early 1990s, she was infected with the HIV virus.

Apparently unaware of her illness, she moved to Hawaii to dance. Many adult film performers join the stripping circuit, where a performer with a national following can make thousands of dollars a week. She tried her hand at film directing, too, and posed for Cheri magazine in leather chaps and little else. She appeared with Anito on “The Joan Rivers Show,” in a segment devoted to mothers and their porn-star children. Otherwise, her activities left few footprints.

Anito figures she was married again, perhaps several times, and says that after seven years in Honolulu she moved back east, to bounce among Norfolk, New York and Florida. She stripped, raised pit bulls, kept snakes. And she fell ever deeper into drugs: Anito and Garbett say she was jailed in Florida on a cocaine charge in the mid-1990s, was busted in Mexico at another point. She may have broken her neck in a car wreck and acquired a yen for prescription painkillers. She married yet again, becoming Jeanette Rogers.

In 1999 she was back in the Virginia Piedmont, with another husband. As Jeanette Zuelly - the spelling is inconsistent from one court record to the next - she ran up a slew of bills, was arrested for stealing from a drug store, lived in a trailer in the woods. Her family says she was almost constantly drugged - on crack, cocaine, pills, marijuana.

The marriage broke up, and she moved in with one “J.D.” On Christmas Eve, 2000, he threw her out of his car on a roadside near Crewe, Va. She sought help at a truck stop where Rick Mills, born in Richmond but living in Dinwiddie, was sitting in his car.

“I had a ‘93 Ford Mustang, and I had the whole back of it filled with presents and flowers, because I was going to Richmond the next day,” he says. “Jeanette came walking up. She had on baggy jeans, an Oakland Raiders jacket. She was beautiful, and she asked me which way I was headed.”

Mills agreed to drive her to Norfolk the next day. On the way, they stopped in Richmond. His family, Mills says, recognized that she was high on something, and horrified, urged him to dump her.

Already smitten, he refused, creating a rift that has yet to close: When his mother died last April, Mills says, he didn’t attend her funeral.

In the late spring of 2001, the couple moved to an apartment on Norfolk’s Willoughby Spit. They got construction jobs on a new department store, and for a while, the money was good. But both used copious quantities of cocaine and other drugs. The cash didn’t last.

“She had an - I’d call it an arsenal of pills, all prescription drugs,” says Chris Glover, a neighbor who befriended her. “I’ve seen pictures of her when she was younger, and she was a knockout. But that lifestyle, it’ll burn you out.”

The worst was yet to come. The couple bounced among Ocean View motels and apartments, growing ever more lost in drugs. They argued frequently, three of their fights ending with Mills facing battery charges. He was locked up for several weeks.

When he got out of jail, Mills moved to Richmond without her. He got work. He cleaned up. “But one night I got to missing her real bad,” he says. “I wound up going and getting her the same weekend.” The happy reunion gave way to another bout with drugs. Miserable, the couple attempted suicide together in Richmond in April 2002; they split a 100-count bottle of Carisoprodol, a prescription muscle relaxer.

“We both woke up in Chippenham Hospital, not dead,” Mills says.

Once released, they lived for a while in another motel, then moved back to Norfolk. Rogers - she was using that name again - raised money by hustling. Around the same time, she began to complain of chronic diarrhea, and in short order dropped to 90 pounds. A thrush infection bloomed in her mouth. The symptoms went undiagnosed until she and Mills tried to donate plasma at a Wards Corner clinic in the fall of 2002.

“I used to say, ‘Look, Mom, we’ve got to let her hit bottom,’” Garbett says. ” ‘We’ve got to get her to the point where she realizes she needs to get clean and get her life together.’ Then she found out she had AIDS.”

Her downward spiral steepened. While Mills checked himself into a hospital in July 2003 to straighten out, an emaciated Rogers began abusing the prescriptions written for her by doctors treating her AIDS. In the fall of 2003, she overdosed on pills four or five times, Anito says.

Once, she collapsed in a supermarket. She seemed to turn a corner late in the year: The AIDS medicine appeared to be working. She put on weight.

“I said, ‘You can get pretty again. You can,’ ” Anito says, “and she was just getting to grasp that. She seemed really happy that last week.”

Mills agrees: “Jeanette was very happy.”

Perhaps she was. Acquaintances say Rogers was proud of her past, comfortable with herself and generally upbeat.

“She considered herself a movie star,” says Cindy Williams of Virginia Beach, who came to know her about the time she was diagnosed. “And she was no angel, but she had a whole lot of compassion. Doors opened for her and people wanted to be kind to her because she was always kind to them.”

Still, whatever odd glamour Rogers had enjoyed earlier in life clearly was vanished from it now. She and Mills lived in a room at the M.D. International Inn. They ate meals she cooked in the room’s microwave.

“All she had were a few things in a bag,” Anito says. “Her life kind of deteriorated.”

A final certainty: On Friday, Jan. 16, Mills picked up Rogers’ prescriptions, and she immediately dived into one - another bottle of Carisoprodol.

“She started doing pills that day, and she stayed that way all weekend long,” Mills says.

She passed her birthday in a stupor. Garbett called on the couple to drop off a present; Rogers gave her 10 of her pills, but later remembered nothing of the visit. Monday came. Mills left for a roofing job.

“I begged her, I said, ‘Jeanette, please, don’t be all messed up on these pills when I get in,” he says. On his return, the motel manager told Mills he’d discovered Rogers incapacitated in a hallway. Mills found her cross-legged on the floor of their room, surrounded by strewn clothes. Of the 100 pills in the bottle, 13 remained.

He called for help. Norfolk paramedics arrived. She told them she didn’t want treatment and signed a form saying so. The rescuers left. Just before midnight, Mills woke - he’d drifted off to sleep - and found his fiancee lying on the floor. The same paramedic crew returned to declare her dead.

Mills hangs his head, eyes welling. “After I met Jeanette,” he says, “my whole life changed.”

Friends came into town from Florida for the service, but no one from the movies, no co-stars or directors or producers from her glory days. Mostly just family, and not all of that; her son didn’t make it, either.

The few who did were surprised when they approached Rogers’ open casket, Garbett says. It was as if she hadn’t spent decades in a high-mileage life, as if too many bad decisions had left no mark. Years had vanished from her face.

She looked beautiful.

Taken from this article: 

http://www.oneangrygirl.net/RebeccaSteele.html

Where is Erica Boyer? A Massage Therapist And Feature Dancer Living In Dallas

According to sources Erica Boyer, 51,  is fully retired and lives in Dallas, Texas.  She is a certified massage therapist.  According to LukeIsBack.com she occasionally shows up for big paychecks feature dancing and is also deeply involved in astrology and the occult and always has her deck of tarot cards handy.

If anyone has ever met with Erica for a tarot reading or if anyone has seen her feature act please post a message.

http://www.lukeisback.com/stars/stars/stars/female/erica_boyer.html