Director Devan Sapphire said that the recent posting on the death of Kelly Van Dyke on this site brought back memories but that certain details weren't accurate, or, to put it a better way, fully detailed. "I was deeply involved in that melodrama," said Sapphire who was shooting camera for Rex Cabo at the time. This is what Sapphire had to say.
Devan: "I was more like the errand boy to a porn star named Daphne Franks [ca 1991], though she called me her manager. Daphne was this wild child who had signed this temporary contract with Arrow. Jacqueline was very big. Jerry Butler had just done an expose [Raw Talent] and had walked away from the business. His wife Lisa Loring had her own problems which used up most of the proceeds from that book. Jerry had to come back into adult and was very hated at the time. He said a lot of nasty things about people.
"One night we [Franks] got a call asking if we'd go do this bachelor party at **** house [a famous Hollywood celebrity]. It was a party thrown by a famous clothing designer, one of his executives was getting married. I took Daphne to this bachelor party. Once we got up there, the strippers who were there, left, and the porn girls kind of went to town on the guys who were paying them. These guys were buying blowjobs. There was a girl there, Kelly Van Dyke, who we did not know very well at the time. She was wandering around in a red dress. I talked to the designer for about an hour. He was drunk and coked out of his mind and telling me how God gave him everything that he had. It was really funny.
"When we left about 5 in the morning and I was escorting Daphne out, Kelly Van Dyke was wandering around the back yard bare naked. Any guy that grabbed her she was doing something with. It was a pretty bad scene. About a week later, we were at this studio with Raven and Jake Steed and in comes Kelly Van Dyke. Daphne and I started nudging one another. There's the chick. We sat and talked to her. She was doing a scene with Jake Steed that day. She basically told us her entire life story in half an hour - problems with her uncle, confrontations with her father. It was one thing after another. The girl was an open book, and after 30 seconds you knew all of her problems.
"Daphne kind of latched on to her like a protector-figure. They began to talk to each other regularly. As time went on, one night there was another bachelor party. I told Daphne I wasn't going to go and be her bodyguard at another bachelor party after that first one. I had felt uncomfortable at that one with everyone on coke and it made me feel bad. Plus once Daphne got a little drunk she'd get mean and abusive. That night, her and Kelly Van Dyke went together. After the party, her and Kelly Van Dyke went to Lisa Loring's apartment.
"Prior to this happening, Kelly Van Dyke had done a movie with Jerry Butler called The Coach's Daughter, the one that she's known for. Her and Jerry were seeing each other outside of the set. Jerry was talking about leaving Lisa. Kelly was saying let's do it, let's go. Let's make some money the next couple of months and bail. Jack Nance was leaving Kelly Van Dyke, but Kelly was leaving him for Jerry Butler. It was all going down, but Jerry was Lisa Loring's meal ticket. After this bachelor party, they went to Lisa Loring's house and hung out. This was like 4, 5 in the morning. Daphne left about 5. Kelly had an argument with Jack on the phone. He was on a set. They had a big argument about him leaving her, and they had a big fight about it on the phone.
"After Daphne left, the story as I remember it, was, Lisa Loring went out to get a pizza at six in the morning. When she came back, Kelly had hung herself in the living room with a pair of pantyhose. The story didn't hold up because Kelly was someone who needed pain. She was a cry baby. Daphne talked to Det. Coffey. If you've been in the Valley, and in porno, everybody knows Det. Coffey at some point. She called him up and made a big stink saying it should be investigated. A period after that, Jacqueline and Daphne went out for her [Daphne's] birthday, but I chose not to go. I told them I'd meet up with them later. I went but I couldn't find them. I figured they went crazy. The next afternoon Jacqueline calls me up to tell me that Daphne was missing. She tells me the story that they pulled up to Daphne's apartment, and when they got there, they stepped out of Jacqueline's truck.
"Some guy pistol whipped Jacqueline over the head, knocked her out cold. He left her brand new truck with the keys in it, left Jacqueline's day planner full of 100 dollar bills, put a bag over Daphne's head, dragged her in a car and took off. They drove her out to the desert and told her they were going to kill her. She pleaded for her life. Daphne swears explicity that one of the men called the other Julio. At that point, Julio got irate and beat the other man saying don't you ever use my fucking name. They repetitively beat and raped her, then drove her back and kicked her out with no pants at the intersection of DeSoto and Independence. She stumbled home and her boyfriend took her to the hospital. I sat with her for a week in her apartment with a loaded gun. She didn't want to leave the house because they told her they were coming back to kill her. She never saw or heard from them again. After that incident, Daphne wasn't willing to talk."
Sapphire claims after that incident that Daphne went crazy and quit the business. "From that incident, alone, I quit porno," he says. "That was my first introduction to adult entertainment. I said people here are crazy. They play these games over life and death. I went to college." Sapphire obviously came back.
