LOS ANGELES -- If the AIDS death of John Holmes did anything to shake up the porn industry, it is not evident from the persistent denials by makers of adult films that a serious health threat even exists.
'John Holmes did not die of AIDS,' said the 34-year-old actress who calls herself Seka and who performed with Holmes, 'The King' of the porn industry, in the late 1970s.
'I think for John Holmes to be exploited in that manner is very sad because no one in our industry has died of AIDS. I talked to him one year ago by phone and he told me emphatically that he had colon cancer.'
Holmes's death certificate said the 43-year-old actor died March 13 at the Veterans Administration hospital in Sepulveda, Calif., of encephalitis, a swelling of the brain, as a result of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
It said Holmes, who claimed to have had sex with thousands of women in a 13-year career, also suffered from a swelling of the lymph nodes and an esophageal infection -- both common symptoms of AIDS.
Yet, the tendency among porn industry members has been to deny Holmes had AIDS or to suggest it was not linked to his sexual encounters - that it was Holmes's problem and not the industry's problem.
'AIDS was probably the last thing that killed Holmes,' said William Margold, who has been a producer, writer and performer in X-rated features for nearly two decades.
Margold said Holmes was an intravenous drug user who also had a $1,000-a-day cocaine habit, and said it was self-abuse, rather than his repeated sexual encounters, that made him vulnerable to disease.
Margold said he had had sex with women immediately after Holmes on a number of occasions in front of the cameras but that he has not been tested for AIDS and has no plans to be tested.
Although most of his films were with women, Holmes took part in several homosexual features in the early 1980s.
Holmes's widow, Laurie, a former porn actress, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Holmes was told in 1986 -- six months before their Jan. 23, 1987, wedding -- that he had been exposed to the AIDS virus.
Margold said he last saw Holmes in August 1986 before Holmes traveled to Europe to appear in two porn movies there, and he expressed doubt Holmes would have taken part in a pornographic film knowing he carried the AIDS virus.
'I just don't believe the man would continue to work if he truly believed he had AIDS,' Margold said of the man he called 'The King ... the most influential single entity in the history of mainstream porn'.
Both Margold and Jim Holliday, a self-styled porn film historian said by actors and producers to possess more knowledge of their industry than anyone alive, said the one man certain to have known the truth about Holmes's affliction is his friend, porn film producer and distributor William Amerson.
If so, Amerson kept the news to himself. As late as July 1987, Amerson denied Holmes had AIDS, insisting he was suffering from colon cancer.
'The biggest problem with John is that he never listens to a doctor's advice,' Amerson said at that time. 'If any one thing would eventually kill him, it's that.'
Along with denials, Holmes's death has given rise to a self-defensive attitude among adult film industry insiders.
'I think it's ridiculous to make such a big deal out of John Holmes ... just because he's a porn star,' said Sidney Niekerk, a one-time adult film producer and former president of the Adult Film Association. 'There are other people that died from it ... bigger names than John Holmes.'
To members of the porn industry, outsiders are always willing to distort the truth about adult filmmakers.
'In the outside community, they want to believe all the worst about the adult business,' said porn actress Nina Hartley, a registered nurse who occasionally acts as an industry spokesperson.
'They would think it was poetic justice that someone of his (Holmes) stature would come down with AIDS.'
Her statement was echoed by Margold, who said the people who appear regularly in porn films -- estimated by insiders at about 150 actors and actresses -- are misunderstood.
'The real world doesn't want to see the truth,' he said. 'They really want to think the industry is bubbling over with orgies, that the people have no morals. That's not true.
'The industry is loaded with people who are introverted until the camera goes on. We're loners who band together for the acclamation of their peers, by doing something that most of society wouldn't do.'
