Tom DeSimone

Tom DeSimone was born on July 1, 1939, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He told the horror site Racks & Razors that he started making 8mm films when he was ten and continued all through high school, mostly using friends, family and table-top models, and that it was always his intention to go to California and work in movies. A family memorial card later described him as a son, brother and uncle; the names of his parents and siblings have not been made public.

DeSimone received a bachelor's degree in directing from Emerson College in Boston, then moved west to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned a master's degree in motion picture production. At UCLA he made three short films. Wooden Lullaby won best director at the Cine Film Festival in Washington, D.C. (credited in his biographies as a Golden Eagle award), and The Game (1965) won him a scholarship to complete graduate school and led to a meeting with Columbia Pictures. Both films were shown in UCLA's annual student film programs.

After graduating he worked briefly as post-production supervisor at Bosustow Productions in West Los Angeles and edited children's educational films. Producer Ricky Torres hired him for the exploitation film Terror in the Jungle (1968); DeSimone directed its plane sequences over about three weeks, then quit after disputes with Torres, who kept his name on the film.

Unable to break into the studios, he approached the owner of the Park Theater near downtown Los Angeles, which was showing short gay 'loops'. The owner hired him and built him a studio, and DeSimone made The Collection, widely described as the first X-rated gay feature with a plot and dialogue. He used the made-up name Lancer Brooks, while his partner at the time, Nick Grippo, was credited as Max Blue. By his own count he made more than 80 adult features, among them Inside A.M.G. (1970, uncredited), Dust Unto Dust (1970), Confessions of a Male Groupie (1971), Erotikus: A History of the Gay Movie (1974), Catching Up (1975), The Harder They Fall (1977), Hot Truckin' (1978), The Idol (1979), Skin Deep (1982) and Bi-Coastal (1985). He also directed the heterosexual Prison Girls (1972), often billed as the first 3D adult film, and worked as cameraman on three 1975 Hand in Hand Films releases directed by Jack Deveau.

A producer who admired The Idol helped him turn an old script called Lips into the sex comedy Chatterbox (1977), released by American International Pictures and starring Candice Rialson. Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis then hired him to direct Hell Night (1981), a gothic fraternity-hazing slasher starring Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Kevin Brophy and Peter Barton, released by Compass International Pictures on August 7, 1981. He went on to direct The Concrete Jungle (1982), Reform School Girls (1986), which he also wrote, and Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988). He was replaced on Savage Streets (1984) and Hellhole (1985).

After signing with Creative Artists Agency he concentrated on television, directing episodes of Freddy's Nightmares (1988 to 1989), Super Force (1991 to 1992), Dark Justice (1991 to 1993), Swamp Thing (1992 to 1993), The Big Easy (1996 to 1997), Pensacola: Wings of Gold (1998) and She Spies (2002). In Mexico City he directed all 120 episodes of the Televisa telenovela Acapulco Bay (1995). He summed up his mainstream career as six feature films and about 160 television shows.

DeSimone was gay. In interviews he named Nick Grippo as his partner in the early 1970s, credited on their films under the pseudonym Max Blue, He said he preferred to keep himself separate from the models in his adult films. He remained close friends with producer Jack Deveau until Deveau's death from cancer. In retirement he lived in Palm Springs, California. His family memorial card described him as a son, brother, uncle and artist; no spouse or children have been publicly reported.

DeSimone saw his adult films as a training ground for mainstream directing and said he had wanted to work in Hollywood since he was about ten years old. He argued that the gay filmmakers of the 1970s, including Jack Deveau, Peter de Rome, Jerry Douglas and Wakefield Poole, were real artists rather than amateurs, and that they opened doors others later walked through. He said his films about relationships were his most successful and most personal, and that he had tired of formulaic plots. Of his crossover he said that being gay had nothing to do with his work, and that what producers cared about was whether he could bring in a feature on time and on budget.

Film historians credit DeSimone with helping to shape gay adult cinema as a narrative form, with The Collection widely cited as its first plotted, dialogue-driven feature. He was one of very few directors to move from that world into Hollywood features and network television. His mainstream films have lasting cult followings: Hell Night is regularly listed among notable 1980s slashers, and Reform School Girls and Chatterbox remain midnight-movie staples. FilmInk profiled him in its 'Unsung Auteurs' series as a daring director with a talent for recharging well-trodden genres.

Best director at the Cine Film Festival, Washington, D.C., for the UCLA short Wooden Lullaby (listed in his biographies as a Golden Eagle award). UCLA film school scholarship for his short The Game. Mama Cass award at the Wet Dream Film Festival in Amsterdam (1971) for Confessions of a Male Groupie. Lifetime Achievement honour, GayVN Hall of Fame (2005).

Features: Terror in the Jungle (1968, plane sequence), The Collection (1970), Confessions of a Male Groupie (1971), Prison Girls (1972), Erotikus: A History of the Gay Movie (1974), Catching Up (1975), Chatterbox (1977), The Idol (1979), Hell Night (1981), The Concrete Jungle (1982), Reform School Girls (1986), Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988). Television: Freddy's Nightmares, Super Force, Dark Justice, Swamp Thing, Acapulco Bay, The Big Easy, Pensacola: Wings of Gold, She Spies. He contributed an audio commentary to the Anchor Bay DVD of Hell Night (1999) with Linda Blair, Bruce Cohn Curtis and Irwin Yablans, and discussed his career at length in the book Good Hot Stuff about Hand in Hand Films and in BijouBlog interviews published in 2019 and 2020.

Days before his death, DeSimone posted a farewell on Facebook: 'It appears that my time has come to say thank you and goodbye.' He wrote that he was typing with one finger on his iPad and that he was not afraid but mostly curious. He died on October 17, 2026, at the age of 87. His place and cause of death were not made public; he had been living in Palm Springs, California. Tributes followed from film historian Matthew Rettenmund of Boy Culture, The New World Pictures Podcast, the horror site Slasher Trash and actress Katie Barberi of Acapulco Bay.