That’s the word right now. I don’t know how much of that is true, but Chaplin, a noted UK tax attorney and multi-millionaire owner of Bluebird Films, is said to have severed or is about to cut ties with Bluebird USA which is operating out of Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas branch for now is being run by Nicholas Steele [pictured] whose been in the adult industry since 1991.

I’ve heard that Chaplin’s announcement over the weekend that he had acquired a men’s magazine, Loaded, along with their two TV channels is prompting speculation that he’ll divorce himself from Bluebird.

Chaplin, who acquired the financially troubled men’s monthly from administrators, groups his adult interests under the umbrella of Blue Media Group.

Chaplin whose real name is Paul Baxendale-Walker, took a lot of heat recently when it was learned that he formulated a tax scheme that led to an investigation of a football club’s finances.

While it’s common knowledge that porn’s no longer the lucrative investment it used to be, Chaplin has many irons in the fire including a tax consultancy and a soon-to-launch gluten- and lactose-free restaurant called The Treehouse, complete with an “electronic crèche” for children.

Chaplin also funds movie, TV and music ventures, including financing Peter, a film about the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.

Meanwhile Bluebird in Las Vegas has gone through some major shakeouts in recent months stemming from a rift between Steele and Bluebird’s now former director of Internet marketing.

Steele in a past AVN interview said, “If you were to call me anything, you would call me the soft king of the industry.”

Steele, who’s been called other things less sophisticated, made the comments on the occasion of the announcement of a series called Nicholas Steele Seductions.

According to that announcement the footage comes from Steele’s archives—mid-budget features never before released on DVD. Steele says the budgets ran $60,000 to $75,000. Speculation is that this will be the product to fuel Bluebird in the Chaplin-less era.

As the AVN article points out, the first piece of porn Steele saw as an adult was shot by Andrew Blake. Steele went on to work with Blake on four films including Elements of Desire and Dinner Party, which featured Jenna Jameson and sold over a million tapes. [Supposedly, but you would have to seriously doubt those figures.]

So it was no surprise that Steele for his own company, Ultimate Pictures, would hire a director named Cameron Grant whose style was very much similar to Blake’s.

Ultimate ultimately went under the bus for reasons hinted at in a book titled “From Preacher to Porn” by Rev. Robert Billman. In Chapter 37 Billman states that his daughter Christianna had gone into a partnership with Nick Pinkowski, Steele’s real name. She had worked for Steele/Pinkowksi as a makeup artist and set designer.

“Like a lot of people he [Pinkowski} had some good points, Billman writes.

“But they were balanced out by his jerk side. It was a love/hate relationship between the two of them. He loved her and she hated him.

“He lived with her awhile, they were always fighting. NO one in the family liked him. He was going through a divorce. I guess his wife didn’t like him, either.

“He did have talent as a porn director and made some pretty good pictures. His budgets were three times as much as Cash’s [Cash Markman] were. But, from the time I met him, I got complaints from people that worked for him, that he took forever to pay them.”

Steele/Pinkowski went on to do work for Adam & Eve Pictures before his more recent tenure at Bluebird.

States the AVN piece: He’s shot in the jungles of Venezuela (Emerald Rain, loosely based on the Sean Connery movie), told the story of the Marquis de Sade (Taste of a Woman, starring Randy Spears), and worked in exotic locales with superstar Tera Patrick (Fire and Ice and Caribbean Undercover).

Steele/Pinkowski and his brother Anthony owned Ultimate Video in Chatsworth back in the early 90’s.

In one instance they ran afoul of the city of Burbank and it made the LA Times when police clerk Norma Brolsma granted them a permit to shoot a porn film in Burbank.

Except Brolsma said what she didn’t know was that the scenes were for an X-rated movie involving oral sex and intercourse at the city’s water and power plant.

The shoot for “Fantasy Chamber” alarmed some plant employees who said they arrived at the plant on a Sunday morning in October to see sexual gymnastics involving groups of two and three actors.

In 1998 Seymore Butts sued Steele/Pinkowski when Butts learned that Pinkowski and his company Ultimate who, at the time were distributors of Seymore Butts productions, had made unauthorized copies of Seymore’s master tapes and was covertly selling them, off the books.

A federal lawsuit was filed by Butts against Pinkowski and Ultimate Pictures in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

District Court Judge Manuel L. Real found that Pinkowski had, indeed, been selling unauthorized copies of Seymore’s movies. There was a Permanent Injunction issued against Pinkowski and Ultimate. And the court also awarded significant damages, attorney’s fees and costs to Seymore.

The following information regarding that suit appeared on LukeisBack.com on September 29, 1998 from Butts’ attorney Alan Gelbard:

1) Ultimate Pictures is not, and never has been Seymore Butts’ “parent company.” Seymore and Ultimate were involved in business dealings in the past including distribution of Seymore Butts productions, however Seymore determined that further business with Ultimate was, to put it mildly, unwise. That determination proved accurate when, subsequent to the two companies disengaging from one another, Seymore received information that Pinkowski and/or Ultimate had made unauthorized copies of his master tapes and was covertly selling them, off the books, through certain disreputable outlets.

A federal lawsuit was filed by Seymore against Nick Pinkowski and Ultimate Pictures in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real;

a) found the Pinkowski had, indeed, been selling unauthorized copies of Seymore’s movies,

b) issued a Permanent Injunction against Nick Pinkowski, and his various business entities, including Ultimate, from any further such acts, and

c) awarded significant damages, attorney’s fees and costs to Seymore.