Ex-Porn Actor A Suicide

Former porn actor Kyle McKenna committed suicide just days after the GayVN Awards last month.

Online porn gossip Butch Harris says McKenna took an overdose of pills in his home last month. "Kyle was going through some rough times and had withdrawn from his friends during the last week of his life," Harris says. "Before anyone knew what was wrong, it was too late."

McKenna's film credits included The Academy, Ace in Your Face, Blow by Blow, Down on Me, Homosexual Tendencies, Hung Jury, In the Deep End, Morning Noon and Night, Raw Recruits, Reunion, Shoot the Chute, A Tale of Two Brothers, A Taste of Torment, Venice Beach Memories, and Workin' it Out.

Were those "rough times" to which Harris alludes reflected in McKenna's work in the past year? On the one hand, there was his performance in A Taste of Torment for Close-Up Productions. "(H)e's too much the veteran; knows what's coming," wrote AVN critic Whit Masters, who called the film itself "a solid if unremarkable" video. "McKenna just doesn't seem to have the enthusiasm he's shown in other Close-Up productions, and it's wanted."

On the other hand, McKenna impressed AVN Gay/Bi editor Jeremy Spencer with his sex scene with Kyle Reardon in Skuff: Downright Dirty - "a definite pre-nom... for Best Sex Scene" - and of his work in the November 1999 DVD release Leather Training Center.