Inspired by John Stagliano, Ben Dover entered porn, and the Rod Stewart lookalike brought Nici Sterling and Roxanne Hall along with him.

Adam Film World's 1997 Directory calls Ben Dover's Lewd in Liverpool "a warning shot fired over the bow of S.S. Buttman." Ben directs under the name Steve Perry.

From the 8/98 issue of Loaded, a British mens magazine: "Ben Dover is the most famous, award-winning male star in the sopping wet world of erotica today. This year alone he's won a special achievement award and Best Big Boob Feature at a big industry shindig in Las Vegas. At the '18' Awards in London he also picked up the Best-Selling Erotic Video prize. His video catalogue includes the world's first scratch-and-sniff porn film, Smells Like Sex, Ben Behaving Badly, Spicy Girls, Beavers and Butt Cheeks and, more recently, Ben Dover's Super Stars of Sex - his most ambitious work yet, teaming top quality bottom footage with snappy off-the-cuff comedy moments."

Ben left school wanting to become a rock star. He sang in a cabaret in the seedy streets of Soho. He worked with The Drifters, played drums with Jackie Wilason and joined Bay City Rollers spin-off The Ian Mitchell band. Getting a record deal from Warners, they hit it big in Japan but failed in the US.

In the early '80s, Ben became a porn model then director in the brief years before British video censorship. Later he worked for the softcore series Electric Blue, and did still photos for nudie mags Razzle and Club.

Mark Yule aka Horny Henry hung out with Ben Dover during the '80s. "He was a very naughty boy," Mark remembers.

Ben directed Private's first videos, Anal Academy, Anal Manor, Anal Clinic, Anal Acropolis and Spanish Dreams (also called Lady in Spain). Then he met John Stagliano who convinced him to start his own gonzo series.

Ben Dover aka Lindsay Honey was arrested in Britain in 1991 for selling porn tapes to an undercover police officer. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and served just over four months.

I met Ben for the first time in January 1999 at the CES. He said that my bio of him was the first accurate one he'd read.

The Secret Life Of Ben Dover

Peter Hayes writes from London 4/4/00: I search my mind back to when I first clapped-eyes on Steve Perry AKA Ben Dover: Gonzo film maker (he films "real life sex" on-the-fly), website owner, illegal tape peddler and former jailbird.

I guess it must have been the early eighties when I saw a slim, unimposing guy with long blonde hair and a quiet demeanour. In London slang he was "a face" a guy that you saw around, but didn’t know by name.

(That also explains the name for Rod Stewart’s /Ronnie Wood’s former band of the early 1970’s.)

I presumed that he played in a band (in fact I later learned he did) and that like most band members he hung around the pubs and clubs of central London looking to be discovered. He never gained his fifteen minutes of fame as a musician and moved over in to the world of porn.

It would be wrong to say that his short musical career didn’t have it’s rewards, he met his long time girlfriend Linzi Drew through the group. She was going out with the bass player and he moved in after they split. She was semi-famous at the time from her glamour work and occasional TV appearances. Today they have been together twenty years and have a male child together called Lindsay jnr.

Linzi has, in many ways, had the more interesting life. Going from factory worker to cheerleader (at Bristol City football club - her home town) to page three girl (appearing topless in national newspapers) to adult magazine model to magazine editor to jail and then to work as a stripper and bit-part-actress in both the adult and legit film world. If the order of events is wrong forgive me.

Although most of you will not know it, you might well have seen Linzi as she played a noticeable role in American Werewolf in London. She played a part in a softcore sex film that the characters got to watch in a flea-pit cinema in Soho (the film within the film) - checking with a film database I find her character name was Brenda Bristols. She has had few film roles although few dressed, she also did skits on the Electric Blue series.

The relationship between the two remains the constant of Perry’s life. While many put their partnership on a level basis, Drew has always been put on a pedestal of lofty perspective. Even today he admits that Drew wears the trousers in their household - which is ironic given his chosen profession.

The first video boom that hit the country in the late seventies caught the Soho sex industry by surprise. It wanted product to sell, but it had little to call on bar pirating stuff from overseas or transferring 8 mm stuff over to video. The cry went out for home grown product. The Steve Perry’s of this world were the first to take a quick buck in the British video porn game.

Asked later why he entered the profession he repeated the mantra that most male actors echo: "What could be better than having sex with a good looking nineteen year old and get paid for it.?"

(To answer his mute question - what about becoming a doctor and saving someone's' life?)

To say that the early productions were crude was an understatement. Producers had not even reached the stage where they realised that they might need a script and the actors just busked the parts, which were just a set-up and then sex. Perry often lived out his forlorn rock ambitions and pretended that he was a huge star and the girl actor was a groupie. Second takes were out of the question and the camera work showed all the mobility of a firetruck caught in a snow drift. But still they sold and sold by the thousand.

Naturally the big bucks was not in appearing in porn videos, but selling and distributing them. Sometime between the 1980’s and the 1990’s Perry started selling porn mail-order. This presented a problem after 1984 as the Video Recording’s Act came in meaning that all videos sold had to have a certificate. Naturally the best selling material was illegal and Perry was caught in 1992 and sent down for nine months. Partner Drew got four months at London’s dungeon for women, Holloway.

Drew made the classic mistake of opening her mouth to the police. Silence could not have saved Perry - who was facing an open-and-shut case, but Drew’s admission that she had wrote advertising literature for the company played against her. At the time she had risen to be editor of two magazines including being the editor of the UK version of Penthouse - she lost her Penthouse job although her other magazine, Eros, stood by her.

Both parties appear infrequently on British TV to explain themselves. Drew even appeared on a programme called "Talking to Myself" where the guest played the joint role (through special effects) of interviewer and interviewee! Drew made a good play of the programme which suggested that she could - and perhaps should - have gone in to more overground media. Sadly she fell victim to taking the quick buck from porn.

While Perry is not the brightest spark in the box, you cannot help but admire him for being a constant trier. He went to the USA and talked himself a distribution deal with VCA and got himself a slot on British softcore porn channel Television X. He even shot a feature for Private, although I’m not sure it was a success. Behind the scenes Drew does a lot of the paperwork leaving the fronting to Perry.

Despite his advancing years and retreating hairline Perry remains a teenager that never grew up. He spends a lot of time lusting over women, complementing them on their looks and acting as if they were on a first date. While many gonzo porn makers speak in short choppy language, Perry revels in the English language adding touches such as "if I may say so" and "if I may be so bold as to say...." which must be a surprise to those used to American English.

Gonzo is all Perry can master - a set, cast and crew are a little beyond him. He is best with a video camera in his hand, photographing what happens. You have to admire him for keeping focus while receiving oral sex, but I guess that all comes from practise!

Today Perry spends a lot of time in the USA and Drew runs a guest house somewhere in the South of England. Drew seems to have retired to stripping, although she is an occasional TV guest where she is assured and articulate, if not a little self-serving. Occasionally she appears in over 40 magazines and runs her own website.

She doesn’t appear jealous of the fact that her partner has sex with lots of other women and seems more concerned that the girls are relaxed and happy. She has appeared in hardcore sex films herself, but I am told that she prefers girl/girl, but may have performed with the ever randy Perry.

Recently Perry has announced that he is to start a European version of his website Dendoverbabes.com and has even an AVN gong on his mantel piece. Whatever you may say about him, Perry has always been a schemer, a trouper and a worker in the grand Soho tradition.