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After falling in love with a factory worker, Dottie lost 50 pounds. They married four days after her high school graduation. At her instigation, they divorced 18 months later. Patton graduated from beauty pageants to modeling, appearing in such magazines as Vanity Fair, Interview and Metro. After her divorce, she began dating Ken Yontz, the owner of several sex shops. At his suggestion, she answered an ad in a Los Angeles paper for nude models and wound making her first film, a 15-minute, 8mm loop shot by Scotty Fox. She was 22. It was the first time she'd been outside Virginia. Seka became a video queen, appearing in such early Caballero releases as Seka's Fantasies. Playboy called her " a bona fide video phenomenon - just like Boy George and stereo television." Ken Yontz appears with Seka in 1980's Inside Seka. The film ends with Seka's statement: "Ken and I have been married six years [a lie] and have never been separated during this time [a lie]. All the scenes in this picture are true and accurate representations of my actual experiences. [Another lie]" By the time Inside Seka appeared, the porn star's second marriage had dissolved and she left the biz for over a year to recover from troubles that included drug addiction. Jerry Butler and Seka appeared on the TV show 330 hosted by Chuck Henry. Seka talked about how much she enjoyed doing porn and that money was no object. Jerry interrupted her. "Oh really? Then why is your fee between $15-$30,000 dollars per movie?" Seka smiled at him, not knowing what to say. Chuck then asked Jerry about the use of drugs in the adult film industry. He admitted that maany actors, actresses, producers and directors use drugs because they are under a lot of pressure. Then Seka broke in: "I can't imagine why people in the business need drugs?" "What about 1978?" Butler asked her. "I heard you were in drug rehabilitation for a whole year." "Working with someone like Seka was really a pain in the ass," remembers producer Svetlana Marsh. "She's a 'star.' If you're working with a 'star,' you have a problem, but once they're into the scene, they do well. The trick is to get them into it. You have to treat them carefully. Annette Haven is also difficult, but she's a much better actress than Seka. "During the filming of F, the whole thing fell apart because John Leslie asked Rhonda Jo Petty to suck his cock before a scene started. She said, "How dare you talk like that to me. I'm a star. I'm not going to suck your cock. f--- you. Why don't you suck me?" The whole thing exploded. Seka took Rhonda's side, and they walked off the set. I had to go back and calm them down. If you see that scene in F, you'll notice tension between them." In 1980, Dottie met a makeup man with big plans. He made her over, Pygmalian like. Seka's new look debuted in Club magazine in 1981. A decade after Deep Throat launched the age of porno chic, Seka's publicity machine heralded her as the star who'd inherit the sex-goddess mantle of Marilyn Monroe and bridge the gap between hardcore and mainstream. Chicago Tribune journalist Eric Zorn interviewed Seka about her crossover dreams in November of 1982. She lived at the time with her manager who promoted her as "The Total Woman of the '80s". The Henry Higgins type persuaded Seka to take lessons in elocution, singing, ballet and acting. He told her to read novels and poetry, lift weights and wear only designer clothes. "America is ready for quality porn," he told Eric. "Seka will bring sex out of the closet and into the homes of everyone." Patton claimed her autobiography was in the works at a major New York publishing house and she'd received several offers from mainstream movie producers. "It seemed to make sense back then," recalls Eric. "The home video revolution had just started to take off and explicit sex tapes for home viewing were a novelty and a rage…. Many in the porn industry believed this entrée to the family rooms of middle America heralded the mainstreaming of their tawdry art. "High-concept hard-core and family comedies would someday run side by side at the Cinema 10. Catch the wave, right? An editor, whose wisdom Eric will only now acknowledge, thought the whole idea so unlikely that he spiked the story. Seka's autobiography never appeared. Her mainstream work amounted to a background role as a porn star in Men Don't Leave. She split from and successfully sued her manager for stealing from her. He died soon after. Attorney David Schippers served Seka for years. "She's a woman who has been hurt deeply and she uses a façade of cynicism and hardness to protect herself from any further hurts. I think she would love to be in a position some day to buy up all her stuff and get rid of it." Twenty pounds overweight, Seka returned to porn in Ron Sullivan's 1993 film American Garter, "the biggest disappointment since Traci Lord's videos were pulled off the shelves," says HEVG. "Seka is an older broad now, but older chicks can still f--- with enthusiasm (Nina Hartley for example). Seka has lost her sexual appeal and now looks like that middle-aged aunt of yours whose support hose bunches at the knees." Eric Zorn: "Even though conventional mores have gotten raunchier, the big stars [like Madonna] have shown no inclination to want to exhibit their mucous membranes on screen. Explicit pornography seems certain, thankfully, to remain a world unto itself…" Seka's had the same guy in her life since 1989. He's rich and twelve years younger than her.
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