LOS ANGELES — Veteran performer Karen Summer has passed away at 61, according to industry friends and associates.
Summer joined the adult industry at 20 years old in 1982 and performed for several decades until 2018. Having started with ingenue roles during the shot-on-film era of porn, Summer remained in demand after her comeback, when she was in her 50s, in the mature and GILF genres.
Her IAFD page lists over 200 credits, mostly between 1982 and 1986, and then again between 2014 and 2018. Before her comeback in the mid-2010s, Summer was retired for 25 years.
Summer grew up in the San Fernando Valley in a showbiz family, the daughter of an Oscar-nominated sound engineer.
“I did movies from 1982-1986, then I was primarily on the road feature dancing for the next four years,” Summer told an interviewer in 2015. “I did however manage to do other cameo spots in movies during this time as well. Meanwhile they took my stuff and repackaged it while I was dancing. So, in all, I only have about five actual years’ worth of movies, but they’ve stayed popular.”
Summer was also a noted activist for performer rights through the original incarnation of APAC.
“You know, we’re going to Sacramento and being welcomed like human beings,” she said in 2015. “So, moving forward, we should be able to talk about condoms and laws and ways to protect us. We’re being received quite wonderfully now as people. We’re not just carrying raunchiness now. I’m carrying a brand.”