Lars Eighner’s Adult Home Page

I have received word that director and producer John Summers (Vaughn Kincey) died Saturday night in his home in North Hollywood of a heart attack. He was in his late 60s. Looking under what I believe is his real name I have not found verification of this from straight news sources and perhaps his passing like much of his life will go under the radar.

Out of curiosity I have from time to time done what research I could on Summers, who was one of the most fascinating characters I have met. The earliest account I found was a newspaper article about his being coaxed off a ledge at a Beverly Hills hotel in the late 60s, and the last things I found were about his legal action against Michael Jackson because Summers believed he had originated the concept for Sisterella. I heard many stories about Summers when I worked with him and since, many of them seemed to have some grain of truth, but without the resources to chase them all down, I can only tell you what I know.

I have written a bit about Summers in Travels with Lizbeth where I called him Jack Frost. Plays on the name Summers were a thing, and I was told that one disgruntled model had changed his professional name to Winters owing to a falling out with Summers.

When I was more-or-less homeless I was called in to write the voice over for Summers' Backstrokes. This was a jack-off flick of nine scenes, sometimes erroneously called a compilation, although anyone who has seen it will notice Summers' signature style on the simple set in each of the scenes. All the scenes were shot for and original with this picture, and as I understand "compilation," this isn't one. Summers told me it was his intention to make a safe-sex flick and that this was the second one of them he had made (evidently he meant Two Handfuls was the first, although that flick also credits Matt Sterling and John Travis). Credit was a big issue for Summers. When we were putting together the titles, I noticed Summers had put his own name in every imaginable place. I asked about it. Summers felt that he had been slighted many times in the past and he wanted his name on his picture wherever possible.

First and last I spent about two weeks in Summers' apartment in Hollywood. Although I really finished his script in a couple of days, Summers was operating on plastic and could not pay me off until the picture was delivered. Since he shook me, some models, and his staff down for all of our change for a few things that plastic was not versatile enough to buy in those days, I did not have the bus fare back to where my gear was stashed and my dog was being cared for, so I became another assistant and temporary secretary.

Summers had an enormous intellect. Although he could not read a word, he had mastered an enormous card file of easily 10,000 contacts by marking the cards with little pictographs, squiggles, and symbols. He had committed lengthy contracts and backers lists to memory. It took me a while to realize that he could not read, and at first I thought he was asking me to read the contracts and lists aloud to him in order to impress me with the stellar names and large figures. Well, I was impressed with the names from all over the entertainment and fashion businesses, but in fact Summers was checking to see whether I or previous readers had attempted to deceive him about the documents.

To understand Summers at all, you have to understand that he was an old-style hustler. He started when virtually every aspect of adult entertainment was considered criminal even in places that are now liberal and cosmopolitan. Now that many parts of the industry can operate above ground it is easier for people entering the business to have nicer names for themselves and what they do and to aspire to standards and practices of an elevated nature. And that's all to the good, but none of it would exist if it had not been for people like Summers. Summers seemed never quite to have adjusted to newer ways of doing things.^[1]

I am speaking as a person who is avoirdupois-gifted and who has often flirted with the quarter-ton level. Summers was the most enormously fat man I have ever met in person. He could stand, and when he did, he was tall too. Because he often did not bother to close his bedroom door when he was casting, I can say Summers was the biggest man I have ever seen in each and every particular and part, if you catch my drift.

He could speak in a number of registers. When I spoke with him on the phone about coming to work with him he used a neutral, Mid-Western accent and solid standard English. When he berated his personal assistant he could speak ghetto—to the point that I could not understand a word he said and could have used Barbara Billingsley as a translator.

Summers did not tolerate cigarette smoking or drugs of any kind, and was very wary of alcohol. I found this a little hard to believe, but he was furious that he had missed a day of shooting and a model had been allowed to work while drunk. I saw the scene involving the model in post-production and I could not detect that the model was impaired, but Summers was sure he could see it. Summers kept some Japanese beer in his refrigerator and frequently offered me some. When I finished his script after two days of hard work I had one. Unfortunately. Summers' personal assistant told me that Summers believed all writers were lushes; the beers in the refrigerator were a test. By having one of them after two days' work I had failed the test.

In each of the scenes Summers had a tight asshole shot and a foot shot. I asked him about this. It was a jack-off flick. There weren't any dildos and only one of the models had paid any attention to his own ass in the action. Summers told me he always put an ass shot and a foot shot in. He said catering to viewers who wanted such shots costs nothing, but if they got them they would become loyal followers.

He looked for things like that. One of the models had surprised Summers by shaving his face as part of his scene. While there had been shaving of other parts in film and video before, Summers had never seen anything like this. Summers decided to leave it in. He told me it might remind somebody of watching daddy or an older brother shave. It did not turn Summers on, but he saw the erotic potential it might have for some other people.

In the course of production, it happened that Summers' videographer, not a young man, was up for a role in a sitcom. This delayed production and no doubt had something to do with the fact that Summers was cash-starved at the end. Summers told me that he could have held the videographer to his commitment to Summers' project but "These guys come to Hollywood to be stars and it isn't right to stand in their way if they get a shot."

Since I had been called in after principal photography was finished I only worked with one of the models in the picture. He was to read the narration I had written and we had to make some adjustments against the timings of the final cut. It was difficult because the model could not deliver a line with a forklift and was very obnoxious about how straight he thought he was when no one was really asking about his personal life. Summers told me that since it became known that Stallone had done a (very limp-dick softcore straight) loop Summers had got many models who thought they could break into mainstream films through porn. At least in those days, that was laughable. I laughed while Summers chuckled.

Somehow that helped me to work with Mr. Straight Guy, even though I believed I had seen him bottoming in Stryker Force. (It is now disputed whether the scene was stunted, and the model did finally get a non-speaking role in a mainstream flick a couple of years ago.)

Summers often seemed to feel he was surrounded by idiots, and the truth to tell, when it came to making things happen, he was. He often told his personal assistant, "There is a reason for everything I tell you to do. The fact that I don't tell what the reason is does not mean I don't have one." And we were idiots. He sent me and a model who had not appeared in the picture off to get a sound effects record and we could not find Tower Records, in those days a major landmark. There was a major todo when he paid a rentboy in travelers' checks. I am sure they were good, but the young man did not know what they were or what to do with them. The butch came off the rentboy in a hurry and there was a shrieking queen debate.

Summers had a infallible sense of style. You can see it in his pictures: simple elegance. He missed his calling as an interior designer. If you see a picture from a bygone era with a beautiful interior, it is a good bet Summers had something to do with it. The same eye seemed to lead Summers to a particular type of model. He liked very muscular, smooth, young white guys. His personal assistant often complained bitterly to me that Summers would not even consider using a black model. This, however, was one change that Summers was able to adapt to eventually. Later he used a variety of models, although he never quite got away from the smooth muscular look.

The industry grew away from Summers and Summers' way of working which had been pretty common, if not standard, when the industry was in its infancy. His was a fate shared with many pioneers.

I was spared the casting couch, but Summers paid me poorly, manipulated me, double-dealt, blew smoke up my ass, disrespected and used me. And I would not trade the privilege and experience of having worked with him for anything.