Perhaps Tera Patrick would have succeeded on her own merits. But we'll never know. Instead, we can only marvel at how Digital Playground hoisted her atop its broad shoulders and reinvented her as the adult star for the new millenium.
In a world filled with interchangeable adult film starlets - sexy, flesh-and-blood brands packaged for the consmer by influential production companies - Patrick is arguably the adult industry's biggest star, the uber-babe more likely to be seen on THE VIEW or HOWARD STERN than in countless porn flicks.
While other companies stick with the time-honored recipe for moving product and creating the brand, the Van Nuys, Calif.-based Digital Playground (www.digitalplayground.com) changed the rules. They disregarded traditional methods of marketing pornography in favor of a more progressive and, some might say, less "pornographic" approach. The goal was to tap the resources of new, jazzier mediums of entertainment to abet the packaging of their star-to-be. By dismissing Patrick's unremarkable early films, Digital Playground's brain trust rebuilt her image over the course of two years into that of an all-purpose spokesmodel.
Apart from two, mega-hyped releases in which Patrick actually has sex on screen, Digital Playground discretely shifted the focus away from her on-camera sex. Fornication instead became a mere fringe benefit, just a small piece of the bigger picture. A risky approach, indeed, based on the notion that the less frequently Patrick appears on video, the greater the demand for her product will be.
The question of who is most responsible for Patrick's success is a tricky one. There is sure to be a medley of opinions and theories, but no definitive answer. Ultimately, it depends on whether one believes in the star or the system. That dichotomy has always been an essential characteristic of entertainment. It's a dance of sorts, but as is the case when most couples dance, only one can lead.
Welcome to the machine.
BEGIN THE BEGUINE
Tera Patrick's ascent to the pantheon of the adult business has been swift, efficient, and methodical, with nothing left to chance. Before she became the Digital Playground cover girl, back when she roamed the pornography landscape as just one of the many pretty faces popping up in countless videos, no one could have foretold what would become a meteoric rise to stardom.
With Digital Playground strategically remaking Patrick into a spokesmodel-cum-sex symbol, she has quickly evolved into a lascivious commodity that perhaps could bridge the gap between mainstream and adult entertainment, two worlds that continue to leer at one another from across a crowded room.
Patrick had indeed become a celebrity. Not a celebrity in the Entertainment Tonight, rub-shoulders-with-Tom-Brad-and-Julia-at-Morton's-for-the-Vanity-Fair-Oscar-soiree sense, but a celebrity nonetheless, circulating in the cloister of adult entertainment. Which, at times, is a shattered-mirror image of Holly-wood's own marketing bravado, talent ego, and industry politics.
"She is one of the most beautiful women to hit the market in years," says porn critic Roger T. Pipe of RogReviews .com. "I think her looks are stunning and she is still natural. In a world where fake boobs are the norm, here comes this tall beauty with big, real breasts. That's pretty special."
A one-time fashion model-turned- nurse, Patrick toiled under the radar in the skin trade for several months before being spotted by Joone, Digital Playground's vice president and creative visionary, who had the hunch that this could be the girl to cause a seismic shift in the adult business. "I saw her picture in a magazine, and I go, 'I wanna meet this girl,'" Joone says. "We had her come in and the second she sat and we talked to her, it just clicked, we liked her." Just like that, Tera Patrick became the face of Digital Playground.
With a new contract inked at the end of 1999 and Digital Playground now calling the shots, the re-introduction of Patrick began in earnest. There were Penthouse and Hustler layouts and Playboy TV, where Patrick was given the green light to host the Night Calls 411 series.
In year one of the new millennium, Patrick collected industry honors and accolades by the bushel. There was also the DVD produced by Digital Play-ground, Virtual Sex with Tera Patrick, which became a bona fide sales sensation and continues to be a standard bearer for the interactive market.
For all her natural beauty and sensual presence, Patrick's career is the sum of a great many parts, each meticulously crafted by Digital Playground. She exists as the centerpiece of an iron triangle, in which president Samantha Lewis, vice president Joone, and public relations director Adella O'Neal calculate every move and watch over her with the surveillance given a Van Gogh painting in the Guggenheim.
Behind the smoky features and statuesque body is the business of Digital Playground, the creators and merchants of a brand called Tera Patrick.
TERA PATRICK IS ON IN 30 SECONDS
Here's the plot: Digital Playground kept Patrick away from starring in video after video, possibly flooding the market and causing overload. Instead, they designed a live, interactive Tera-hosted Web show which proved to be a master stroke of creative and marketing genius.
"She doesn't go out and do the club scene and the whole strip scene, and it was like, 'Here's a girl that we just signed and she's brand new. How do I get her in front of a bunch of people so they can see who she is and what she's all about?'" recalls Joone. "The Internet was the perfect tool."
Launched in June 2000, The Tera Show instantly became a magnet for press and exposure for both herself and guests booked on the buzz-worthy Web program. "I think when the show first started out we had only one guest," says Joone. "It was basically about the two girls talking and the emails coming in. The show has since evolved with three guests at minimum." There isn't a script. Instead, the show serves as a sexed-up forum with a spotlight on its host. And, of course, there's the prerequisite nudity thrown in to keep the voyeurs coming back for more.
"I just think it's really a great show," says Patrick, "and I think it's a great way to talk to the fans. I think the fans really appreciate that."
"Tera is very articulate and she can think on her feet," says Joone, "and because we're so used to a scripted show, watching TV and cable, we really wanted to do something that was different."
Patrick's easygoing style allows guests to be candid about the business and their private lives. "You have these characters in the adult world that the consumer and their fans see in two places, in movies playing characters, or they see them in trade shows, still playing their characters - you never get to see who they really are," says Joone. "But this was a very free environment for Tera to talk to them and really start finding out about these people as real people."
"Your average porn surfer is seeing her everywhere, and there's something to be said about being everywhere," says Walter Shaw, lead writer for MrWebReview.com. "It's how McDonald's makes tons of dough. They [Digital Playground] found a girl who could carry the ship, so to speak, and you can't blame them for riding it."
Lewis compares the show to a porn star summit, a way to bring in girls from other companies to chat about life, business, and sex. "The competitiveness [among starlets] is horrendous. I think it's now changing and I think The Tera Show had a lot to do with that." But any studio boss worth their weight knows a prime gig when they see one. Regardless that it was Patrick leading the brigade, their girls were no doubt going to clutch the exposure given the chance.
Much like the Who's Who of art, politics, business, and entertainment sitting at the round table with Charlie Rose to legitimize their standing in the pantheon of cool intellectuals, Patrick's signature black couch has become the vogue destination for adult starlets eager to promote themselves in front of a vast audience.
"The beauty about Tera is that we have all the other girls, the A-list girls, that come from all these other companies and she makes them feel really, really special," says Lewis. "When Tera has a guest, she makes sure that it's pretty much about that guest and she promotes the other companies."
"We weren't trying to sell hype," says Joone. "Tera can sell herself, and we don't have to do anything, just provide a forum for her to be able to do what she does best."
"I would guess that the show itself should be credited with perhaps less than half of her current exposure and popularity," says Dirty Bob, founder of the Internet Website DirtyBob.com, and reviewer for AVN. "There are many fans without Internet access who are unable to access the site for the show, and may even be unaware of the show."
Presently, the biweekly Web show is broadcast on more than 300 affiliate sites and has become appointment Web TV for industry professionals and consumers.
Throw in the official Tera Patrick Web-site (www.terapatrick.com), launched in September 2001 with all the requisite bells and whistles, countless magazine photo shoots, and a new line of sex toys, and you've got marketing machine firing on all cylinders.
"I think the Internet is a huge tool that you can use to get the message across," says Joone. "I think part of [Tera's] vast rise is because of that. It wasn't that she wasn't going to be a star, that's given. It's just the fact that it happened so quickly, and I think the Internet had a large part in it."
Yet away from the hubbub of her TV, Internet, and publicity work, Patrick is a very different person. Unlike the live wire of fun and energy to be seen on her own show and on Night Calls 411, Patrick is basically a quiet person. When no camera is demanding from her charm, sex appeal, and witty banter, Patrick would rather keep to herself. "People think that I like to talk," she says, "but I really don't."
How does she keep that cheerful, provocative edge week after week on TV and the Web, posing for magazine covers, and greeting fans at countless store appearances? Patrick just laughs. "Hey, it is so hard for an hour and a half to be entertaining."
Much like Woody Allen, who built a legendary career as a director without ever having to leave the friendly confines of Manhattan for Hollywood, Patrick can be a major star while not living under the big top of the circus that is often the adult industry. "When I do have down time, I like to just take it easy, I like to get my nails done and do things I don't get to when I'm traveling," she says.
Most of her friends aren't even in the business. "They know that that's my life and they're not fans. And that's why they're still my friends," she adds.
THE DIGITAL AGE
"We're filmmakers, this company is based on filmmaking; we're not people who are business people who are trying to pump out movies and have no idea about filmmaking or content," says Joone, who formed Digital Playground in 1993, after working as a music video and commercial director.
Joone's accomplishments in CD-ROM/DVD technology and interactive content have certainly impacted the adult business. The Virtual Sex series was a smash hit and further solidified the company's reputation as an innovator. Borrowing a page from Hollywood's Golden Age, Joone, along with Lewis, who became a partner and company president in 1998, focused on the success of one girl, rather than a stable of porn darlings, to serve as the face for their company.
Enter Tera Patrick. Although the actress had met with other companies, Lewis knew Digital Playground and Patrick were a perfect match. "I think the selling point to her," recalls Lewis, "was that we weren't just looking at pumping out a lot of movies. A lot of these other companies have goals and certain ways of running their business. It works perfectly for them, and I think what turned her on is we had other plans."
One of those "other plans" was the Internet, which proved to be fertile ground for launching Patrick to the masses. "You know the fact that you can, in seconds, have the power of being able to put a message out there and you know millions of people are going to get it right away and you didn't have that before," says Joone.
That attention to detail was also directed at the creation of the Official Website. "We've known the demand for Tera's Website since The Tera Show started," says Joone. "People were asking, 'When is it gonna go live?' It was just not the right time; we didn't have enough good quality content to put her site up."
Joone understood the importance of designing something special for Patrick. "It's like, 'Here's a new girl, and we have to build the content, we have to get things that they're not gonna see anywhere else and it's gotta be something that's fresh and new and exciting and dynamic.'"
"I can't imagine other mainstream companies will look at Tera's success and Digital Playground's strategy for her and not try to emulate," says Mr. Web Review's Shaw. "I think a lot of companies need to begin to look for something other than the blonde bombshell to promote. Everybody has seen that."
LET'S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE
It's fair to ask whether or not Patrick is the first porn star who doesn't really do porn. Since arriving at Digital, only three titles have been produced featuring Patrick in a sexual mise-en-scene. And still, Island Fever, Forbidden Tales, and Virtual Sex with Tera Patrick have each sold extremely well.
"We could shoot her all day long," says Lewis, "but I think [more important is] supply and demand, and the other things that she's doing that's so positive for this industry, in being a woman, and being smart, and wanting to be involved."
Joone is on the same page as his partner. "How many movies did Linda Lovelace do? And she's huge," he says. "And people still know who she is. It's not the numbers, it's the quality. If you have that star quality, that transcends the screen."
Of course, Patrick's pre-Digital work is still readily available. With her newfound success, those un-Digital-like productions have continued to circulate. "Tera's pre-Digital Playground adult career was notable, if not only by content and quality, by the many reissues or compilations which have emerged as a result of her popularity," says Dirty Bob. He says he's aware of at least 60 to 70 reissues from the original scenes Patrick shot.
"I think it's smart to limit the number of productions she does. Maybe, if more starlets were choosy, they would have a longer career," says Luke Ford, a former adult Internet gossip columnist.
"In a lot of ways, Tera has been the right girl at the right time," says Mr. Web Review's Shaw, "and her few performances in film have been good. She comes across as intelligent and nasty at the same time. She's the girl next door and she's got a magnetism that few stars have had that I can think of. So, I'm not really amazed that she's become a big star without a big catalog."
Defending Patrick in the porn star/ not porn star debate, Lewis says, "Look what this girl's done [in 2001]. Maybe she's only done two films, but people are stuck in the old mindset that, well, it's how it's always been done. How many scenes can you do in a year? Two hundred scenes? But with Tera, I mean, my God, I think people are just refreshed at seeing her in other mediums because actresses just haven't done that."
"This new contract will be interesting," says Rog Review's Pipe, regarding the five-year contract extension Patrick inked in fall 2001. "It's going to make her appearances scarce, but that could serve her well. It's pretty easy for porn fans to get burnout if a star is in too many movies."
Though some of her fans may clamor for more hardcore action, Patrick isn't likely to bow to the pressure. "Some people will come up and say the rudest things," Patrick says. "But I'm like, 'Sorry, I'm not gonna do 30 guys.'" She's even somewhat bemused about her early career. "I've had people come up to me and say, 'I know you, you used to do bondage tapes,' and I'm like 'Yeah, how funny, you found me.'"
Lewis contends that perhaps a segment of the industry has not taken into account the bigger picture when it comes to Patrick, specifically, her non-video work. In Lewis' opinion, any Performer of the Year award should not solely be based on number of video productions. "Define 'performer.' Just videos? Or are we talking about what this girl's done for the industry, what she's done having her interactive live show.
"Does the industry acknowledge what she's done having that interactivity with her fans? No one has that kind of interactivity with the fans."
Even Patrick realizes she is on a different playing field than most girls in the business. "I don't really even consider myself a performer, because I'm not," she says. "I don't work nearly as much as the other girls. I don't really compete with them, because I'm just pursuing other things."
But it's those "other things" that clearly illustrate how Patrick has been groomed for something completely different from the average career in adult entertainment.
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
Patrick is the undisputed Queen of Digital Playground, with nary another pretty face lurking in the shadows, deviously plotting to steal the spotlight. That isn't to say Digital Playground isn't eyeing younger starlets to step into Patrick's shoes down the road. In the meantime, however, DP remains a one-woman show.
"She's got that exotic look," says Shaw, "and those perfect natural breasts and a real sense of humor about herself. She puts a lot of energy into her work and seems to be having fun. It's kind of how Michael Jordan could kill you and smile at the same time. I think Tera's that way."
But if Patrick - who had been courted by a number of leading adult companies - signed with, say, Vivid or Wicked, would she have soared to such great heights? Had Patrick signed with Vivid, surrounded by Kobe Tai, Janine, Briana, and Jenna Jameson, Patrick would no doubt fortify an already impressive roster, but she would more likely be a key player on a sexy team rather than the go-to girl.
By signing with Digital Playground, though, Patrick was all but assured the top slot. Prior to Patrick's arrival, DP's contract star was Rocki Roads, the Penthouse Pet who starred in the acclaimed Rocki Roads' Wet Dreams, but parted ways with Digital Playground after three years.
"Someone established would [find it] a lot harder to come into this company," says Lewis. "Say there's an 'A' girl in another company; having them come in and try to go against Tera would be very hard for their ego. She's a tough match."
Nevertheless, Joone and Lewis are surveying the landscape for another starlet, but who she is and the date of her arrival aren't important at the moment. The best scenario would involve a girl that Patrick, according to Lewis, "can take under her wing. Someone who doesn't want to be Tera, who has her own identity."
THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG
Is Patrick's success due to the power of the sword or the hand that wields it? It's probably a little of both. It could be argued that Patrick would not be as popular had she signed with another company. However, it's feasible that she would still be a hot commodity even without Digital Playground.
"I think it's been brilliant," says Pipe of DP's marketing strategy. "They only have one girl to worry about, so Tera gets all the publicity they can manage, and so far, she has done wonders with it. Putting her in 20 movies a year might make everyone happy for a year or so, but what then? This seems like a good, long-term plan."
But could Digital Playground just drop any old girl into the publicity machine and get the same result? "Digital Playground does a masterful job of promotion and they are doing it right," says Shaw. "Whether the same popularity could be obtained if they pushed a different girl is a moot point."
"I think it's mainly the marketing push," Luke Ford says of Patrick's quick rise to fame. "Much of the reason is the public relations and her PR girl Adella [O'Neal]; everyone likes her and she gets on well with the media, and that's a key part of the success."
Ford believes Patrick is simply a better marketed porn star than the others. "Digital's Internet show has built quite a following. The marketing is more savvy and the Internet show gives her more opportunity to display her abilities," he says.
Dirty Bob also doffs his cap to the well-run team presenting Patrick to the masses. "The publicity team behind the Tera Patrick phenomenon is equaled only by the Wicked Pictures' push of Jenna Jameson a few years back. The notable exception is that Jenna made many videos compared to Tera."
In the pre-Tera adult industry, there was no bigger star than Jameson. Still a big draw, she has carefully advanced her career by capitalizing on the Internet and segueing into producing her own projects.
Ford says Patrick's rapid rise and huge marketing push mirrors similar adult business plans of the past. "Just like when Jenna [Jameson] was the star of Wicked and she got the best publicity in the world. And when Ginger Lynn was the star of Vivid in the mid-'80s, she embodied Vivid and got a ton of publicity."
Even Lewis, no doubt Patrick's No. 1 fan, is quite aware of her company's vital role in the fame their star has achieved in just two-plus years. "I don't think it would have happened," she says.
Adds O'Neal: "Before Tera was here, she wasn't making the same great choices."
SHELTER FROM THE STORM
Elvis Presley had his Colonel Parker. Tera Patrick has Samantha Lewis as a personal and professional confidant. "You never mix business with pleasure," says Lewis, "but this is special. She's my family. And even when she's not in the business, she will be. We just connected. I never thought I would say that she's a part of my life, but she is a part of my life."
There is a sisterly bond between them, and with that, a protective shield. "She doesn't need the bullshit," says Lewis, who safeguards her star from what can be at times a very vicious industry. "We never let her know about the gossip sites. She never hears it."
Lewis, O'Neal, and Joone work hard to surround Patrick with positive vibes. Joone contends that gossip is just "a lot of noise and it doesn't mean anything. Her beauty is her happy energy that she brings in, and you want that to come across every time. I don't want other peoples' negative energies to interrupt that."
"I have read quotes from people that haven't been nice," says Lewis, "but darn if they weren't booked on the show the next week. And Tera had no clue what was said. When they leave, they're in love with her. They feel horrible about being jealous."
Though Patrick is locked in for the next five years with Digital Playground, Lewis makes it clear she wants Patrick to leave the adult business reaping her just rewards. "I really, truly believe, God willing, that when she is finished or ready for a career change or gets married and wants children, that she'll probably still be attached with us through the Internet."
Lewis has heard the horror stories before. She knows about the countless girls who waved goodbye to years of hard work with empty pockets. "I'm almost on a mission," says Lewis, "and when Tera's ready, she will reap the benefits and rewards from her Website and toy line when she retires. At that time she will have enough content to keep pleasing fans. We want to keep it alive.
"I appreciate Tera," adds Lewis. "She has a Cartier on her wrist and she has diamond earrings in her ears. I appreciate and I value her because I benefit from what she does for my company."
I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES
While no one is ready to say that Patrick could replace Jennifer Aniston on Friends, Digital Playground believes Patrick has the potential for a career in mainstream entertainment.
Dirty Bob believes this post-porn scenario to be true. "Her many non-adult video appearances to date prove this without question," he says. "She is not promoted as a girl who sucks and fucks. She is promoted as herself, as Tera Patrick, and I feel that the adult video aspect of her life is a small portion of the Tera Patrick persona."
There is precedent, of course. Ginger Lynn, Veronica Hart, and Ashlyn Gere, among others, have dabbled in the non-adult world. And, of course, Traci Lords has had a decent mainstream run. After a meteoric porn career that included the notoriety of doing sex scenes while still a minor, she parlayed that notoriety into roles in the 1990 John Waters film Cry Baby and on Melrose Place in 1992. But she's still mostly known as being "that girl who did porn movies before she was 18."
In Lords' case, Joone believes the world was just not ready for a porn star in the mainstream. "I don't think world was ready at that time. The '80s were way too early. No Boogie Nights yet."
But the time may now be right to embrace a girl who begins in pornography and segues into Hollywood. A TV series like Sex and the City, which pushes the envelope of uninhibited sex talk and naughty bedroom scenes, revealing everything but penetration, is a prime example of the adult and mainstream worlds beginning to move closer to one another from across that crowded room.
Truth be told, the sex has always been there. But now the packaging's been changed. A glance at MTV's Spring Break special certainly blurs the line between what's pornography and what isn't. Add to that such mainstream films as Patrice Cherau's Intimacy, Catherine Breillat's Romance, and Lars von Trier's The Idiots - and Oscar�-winner Mira Sorvino's recent assertion that a number of high-profile Hollywood actors are indeed having sexual intercourse in their mainstream love scenes - and the line blurs further still.
"It's definitely getting closer, it's changing," says Lewis. "We have planned for the future, and we are taking Tera to mainstream."
"Digital Playground wants to create the first major crossover star who can float between worlds," says Shaw. "And Tera could be it."
"As pretty as Jenna is or was," he continues, "the tattoos and her hard living turned off some of her fans. I love Jenna, but as long as Tera stays cleaner cut, she probably can go farther, she can cross over so easily to so many different areas."
Ford isn't convinced that an adult star, no matter how few video titles she has or what kind of squeaky clean image she conveys, will find an abundance of mainstream success. "I think porn stars will always be porn stars," he says. "I mean, she's still having sex for money and she's still what much of society would call a whore."
Pipe thinks the verdict is still out. "I honestly don't know. There are a number of porn girls who have flirted with it. Maybe Tera will be the one who finally crosses all the way over."
Lewis' feeling is, "If anyone can do it, it will be Tera. At the same time, we will take her there. We have a mainstream background, so we will take her with us."
AS TIME GOES BY
It has been an engineered rise, a methodical strategy carried out with hairsplitting detail. And thus far, the grand scheme appears to be working.
Although Patrick is the shiny red sports car, zooming through the adult industry, it's the Digital Playground brass sitting comfortably behind the wheel. "Everything that Tera Patrick has done at this point in her career with Digital Playground was carefully planned from the day she signed her exclusive contract," says Lewis.
For Patrick, the achievements are more than she ever dreamed would happen. "I never expected this much. I thought, 'Oh, we'll have a couple good years, make some money.'"
After two-plus years under the Digital Playground umbrella, Patrick is poised to focus on other aspects of the business. "What I look forward to now, because I don't have to climb that mountain, it's like, I've already been accepted, already won a ton of awards, and I can relax now and be more of a spokesmodel. Now I can really promote the site, my radio show, my toy line. I can focus on all the things that are gonna secure me financially down the road long after I'm out of the business."
Which business she speaks of remains undetermined. Once her five-year contract expires with Digital Playground, she might be ready for her close-up on a grander, less naked scale. But whither Digital Playground? Will they have a hand in her post-Digital career? Is it possible for Lewis to become Patrick's de-facto manager as she moves through Hollywood, lunching with agents from William Morris and development execs from Paramount?
While the future might be a bit foggy, the present is crystal clear. There is no element of Patrick's remaining contract years that will be left to chance or unbridled spontaneity. "It is completely planned out," says Lewis. "Strategy-wise, we have a long-term plan that will go to that fifth year of the contract. So far, it has gone by the book."
"Physically, so much is already done," says Patrick, "and I can now spend time promoting."
Ah yes, the art of promotion. It is so much a part of today's celebrity culture. For many, it is a game to see who can sell their brand of pizzazz when they really have none to begin with. Just ask any former cast member of Survivor how that trick works.
But there are no magic tricks or lack of pizzazz, for that matter, when it comes to the "Tera Patrick" phenomena. Her God-given talent, blended perfectly with the muscle provided by Digital Playground, is a lesson in Marketing 101.
Whether or not she continues to flourish remains to be seen. Although the adult industry isn't immune from fickle customer loyalty and other business pitfalls, it's a safe bet that Digital Playground would just change the game once more, shifting parameters to keep their one-and-only star at center stage.
Tera Patrick is more promoter than porn star. She promotes porn. Not so much as the sex kitten on all fours staring back at you while you thrust and pump away than as the socialite who invites you to the party, but isn't there when you arrive.
