FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Many fans of classic adult movies are familiar with '80s star Karen Summer, who essayed 141 DVD and, later, web scenes from her beginning in adult in 1982 with Centerfold Celebrities and Shades of Ecstasy, then after a 20+ year hiatus which stretched from 1991 to 2014, returning to appear in MILF-themed features like Granny Fuckers, Horny Grannies Love to Fuck 6, Sexataries and the parody This Ain't the Golden Girls XXX. But now, the veteran beauty has been laid low by breast cancer, for which she is undergoing treatment—and her partner David Pillow has begun a GoFundMe campaign to help Summer pay for her treatment.
"Anyone who knows her or has ever met her knows she is one of the kindest, sweetest ladies," Pillow wrote on the GoFundMe page. "I am asking you to help her through this tremendously trying time of uncertainty.
"Her cancer is aggressive and has definitely grown at a rapid rate that concerns her Doctors...
"Your help for her and your love for her will be incredibly grateful and absolutely appreciated."
In updates to the original posting, Pillow noted that Summer was "a little loopy" after having the port installed through which her chemo would be introduced, and that her doctor told him "Everything is as he thought. Breast and lymph nodes, Has not spread to other parts of the body." Pillow also noted that Summer's first chemo treatment would be today.
Summer's history in the adult industry had its beginnings in mainstream, as she told AVN in an interview just after she returned to XXX.
"I was actually doing stand-in, photo-double, extra work for the regular movie industry," Summer told AVN. "My whole family was in it, and so I was actually a production assistant and a stand-in on Dukes of Hazzard, the last three years it was on. Daisy Duke had her own stand-in, but I stood in for most of the rest of the female stars. I'd grown up with the assistant director, and you know, that whole business is nepotism. Anyway, here we are on our last season; my girlfriend, who was my best friend in school—we lived down the street from each other, grew up in Tarzana and Encino—is working as a cocktail waitress at El Torito when it was on Ventura Boulevard. After work one day, I go by the bar to pick her up, because we're going to go out that night, and who's sitting in there, surrounded by a bunch of young women, but Jim South. And he approaches us and asks if we would be interested in doing modeling. And within a week, I'm off of the Burbank backlot and I'm, you know, naked! Saying 'How you doin'?'"
Summer went on to work with some of XXX's best-known early stars, including Ginger Lynn, Cara Lott, Desiree Lane, Janey Robbins, Tom Byron, Randy West and dozens more, in features for top companies like VCA, Essex, Caballero, VCX and most notably Filmco, which introduced Summer to the man who would become her favorite director, Kirdy Stevens. In all, Karen appeared in five Stevens movies, including Taboo 4 and 5, Playing With Fire, Daisy Chain and The Animal in Me.
Summer also has the honor of having been inducted in no less than three adult industry Halls of Fame: AVN, XRCO and Showgirl Video's Legends of Erotica, all in 2015. Also in 2015, Summer was interviewed at AEE by Jezebel writer Mark Shrayber, and told him she doesn't mind being a "MILF or a GILF as long as I'm working."
Since her return, Summer has divided her appearances between DVD and web scenes, plus she's posted several sex scenes on Clips4Sale and VOD site Pure-XXX.com.
