Actor and director Fred Lincoln has died, aged 74.

Lincoln probably remains best known as the twisted Weasel Podowski, one of the psychotic killers in Wes Craven's notorious Last House on the Left, where he more than held his own alongside David Hess. Ironically, Lincoln had little love for the film, as anyone who has seen the Blue Underground documentary Celluloid Crime of the Century or heard his commentary track on the DVD could attest – though he did finally come around to having a grudging tolerance for it, appearing at conventions alongside Hess and fellow bad guy Marc Sheffler. He would subsequently appear in Last House producer Sean Cunningham's horror-sex-comedy The Case of the Smiling Stiffs, alongside Harry Reems.

But he spend most of his career in the adult industry, as a performer and director, usually under the name F.J. Lincoln. From 1971 to 2007, he made upwards of 400 movies. The best of these were in the 1970s. As an actor, he appeared in Defiance, Rosebud, The Fleshpot on 42nd Street, The Altar of Lust, Dominatrix Without Mercy, Teenage Nurses, The Devil in Miss Jones Pt II, The Erotic Adventures of the Three Musketeers, The Ozporns, Cafe Flesh 3, Misty Beethoven – The Musical and the 2007 version of Debbie Does Dallas amongst many others.

He also appeared in some of the films he directed. His work behind the camera began with Souperman in 1976, and amongst the highlights of his 320 or so films are Serena An Adult Fairytale, A Place Beyond Shame, That's Outrageous, Maneaters, Every Man's Fantasy, Friday the 13th – A Nude Beginning, The Outlaw, Coming of Age, Zara's Revenge and several entries in the Dresden Diary series. His adult work included both vanilla sex films and BDSM productions, reflecting his own personal tastes. A lot of his video work is pretty anonymous – the result of churning out several films a year on minimal budgets – but the films always had solid, if unremarkable, production values.

Known as a swinger, Lincoln was once the owner of New York sex club Plato's Retreat, a popular venue in the pre-AIDS swinging scene. He was married twice, to fellow adult industry members, director Patti Rhodes and performer Tiffany Clark.