Randy West Recovering From Emergency Heart Surgery

LAS VEGAS — According to his friend, "The Commander," legendary porn star Randy West, known for his many character roles as well as the director of the long-running Up And Cummers series, was admitted to Summerlin Hospital Tuesday afternoon complaining of chest pains.

"His main 'widowmaker' artery was occluded," The Commander told AVN. "They were able to get to it fast enough and opened it, so he should have a full recovery."

"What they did is, they took him to the cath lab, they used a balloon, and they put in a stent which keeps the artery open and unclogged," he continued. "He has another smaller artery on the right which is occluded, but the widowmaker is the big one, and that was where the real problem came in; that was closed down. So the other one, they're going to take care of over the next week or something like that, but as of right now, he's in good spirits. He had a rough night last night, but he's happy. I spoke to him for at least an hour this morning, and I spoke to him after he got out of surgery, so he's in good shape; should have a good recovery."

The 61-year-old West began his adult acting career in 1975, working for the recently-deceased Richard Mailer on Sexpert with Marlene Willoughby, but didn't immerse himself in the industry until 1979, with VCA's Her Name Was Lisa. Since then, he has appeared in over 1,000 movies including such classics as American Pie, Chuck Vincent's Bon Appetit, Anthony Spinelli's Between the Sheets and Cool Sheets, Henri Pachard's The Nicole Stanton Story 1 & 2, My Bare Lady and Paul Thomas' Torrid Without A Cause. In 1993, he created his Up And Cummers series for 4-Play Video, and later moved the series to Evil Angel Productions. He has only worked sporadically in adult since 2003, and most recently appeared in the award-nominated Housewives of Amber Lane for Wicked Pictures.

"He's going to be in the hospital through Friday," The Commander said. "They have to monitor him. They gave him a lot of Cumadin and blood thinners and stuff like that, so whenever that happens, you have to worry about clots and ischemic attacks and all this other stuff when you thin down the blood in order to stop clots from forming, so they usually monitor them for at least 24-48 hours."

West is expected to make a full recovery.

See a gallery of Randy West images here.