Sanchez however, is no stranger to the business. His father, Ramone Vandetti Sr. was founder and CEO of Lights Out Entertainment, one of the longest running and most successful adult studios in the industry. Vandetti Sr. saw unlimited potential in the video revolution of the 1980’s and took quick advantage of it from the beginning. He started his company from the ground up and funded his first series of films with money borrowed from friends and family. Thanks to his careful selection of female performers, a large profit was generated and he was able to continue producing films long after the borrowed money was paid back. Once established, he began involving his relatives in the company’s everyday operations. His younger brother Vince Vandetti signed on as his partner and he employed uncles and cousins to work in positions ranging from warehousing and sales to set design and video duplication.
Long-term success of the company was furthered in part by innovative business decisions, creative marketing techniques, lucrative investment plans, and a production aesthetic that stood apart from most of the garbage that was being churned out at the time. Lights Out was the first company to establish the “contract girl”, signing performers to work exclusively for that company. That idea would play a major role in branding the company and catapulting it to the top when other studios remained stagnant, or completely faded away. They were the first company to offer censored versions of their box covers enticing commercial chains like Tower Records to carry their product. They were also amongst the first handful of companies to secure deals with hotel chains offering pay-per-view adult movies in suites. Riding high on the success of their endeavors thus far, they began producing their own line of sex toys and adult novelties using their performers to market and promote the product. They would later tap into dozens of other markets including book and magazine publishing, phone sex hot-lines, and a clothing line specializing in lingerie and other adult wear. Ramone Vandetti Sr. owned 100% of the rights to everything he signed off on. He was a keen business man and made long-term relationships not only in the outlaw world of adult entertainment, but also in mainstream markets. Lights Out Entertainment is still one of the most successful studios in the industry.
Despite the explicit nature of his career endeavors, Vandetti Sr. was a devout family man and a loyal husband who played an active role in his only child’s life. He provided his son Ramone with everything he ever needed or wanted – and that was always the problem. Ramone Vandetti was spoiled from the beginning. He demanded upgrades on everything he was given and his requests were fulfilled without hesitation. From the toys he received as a kid to the cars he was bought before he was old enough to drive. He wasn’t satisfied until he knew he had the best. His son’s pickiness never bother Sr. and he saw it as an admirable characteristic it and summed it up as high regard for quality. “That’s my boy! What can I say? The kid likes the finer things in life.” You name it and Ramone Vandetti Jr. had it.
Vandetti Sr. never kept his work a secret from his son and Ramone grew up around the inner sanctums of the family business. He was the cute little kid behind the scenes who was carted around in limousines to all his father’s events. He was known around the tight knit circles as Little V and his father’s associates simply adored him. The girls would pinch his cheeks and the guys would poke him in the chest and tell him what a lucky little man he was. No one dared question Vendetti Sr. as to why he let his kid run around porno sets and after a while no one paid any attention. Junior’s formative years were spent at all night Hollywood parties under the careful watch of his father’s eye. He’d bounce from table to table swigging down kiddie cocktails and watch with curiosity as the adults sniffed mysterious white powders up their noses. If he was caught staring too long at any number of explicit activities, his father would smack him in the back of the head and tell him to move along. Junior was exposed to a world of sex and drugs at a very young age and he loved the life before he was old enough to even comprehend what it was all about.
Vandetti Senior wasn’t blind to the things his son was exposed to. He wasn’t naïve either. He understood the ways of the world and new that certain elements existed both inside and outside the world of the family business. He believed it was only a matter of time before his son would be introduced to the harsher ways of the world and if Vandetti Sr. had any say in the matter then he would be the one explaining these things to him. Not some drug dealer on the street corner or some punk he went to grade school with. Vandetti Sr. lived by a specific code of ethics that would have been instilled in his son whether the family business was in construction or accounting. It just so happened that the family business was sex. He saw no reason to shelter his son from his world. He prided himself as an active father and believed dearly in how he raised his son. He encouraged his son to ask questions. No topic or concern was off limits. Unfortunately, it can’t be predicted how a child receives and retains information and it was impossible for Vandetti Sr. to truly know to what extent Ramone was processing the things he saw. How it affected his perception of human interaction and relationships. How they distorted his perception of reality. Vandetti Jr. grew up believing that his world was the norm.
It was expected that when Ramone was at the proper age he would join his father and uncles in the family business. When the day came when Ramone was old enough to have a legal, active involvement, he was too engulfed in the lifestyle that came with the business to be bothered with how the business was run. Ramone was a trust fund baby and saw no reason to work. Everything he needed was provided for him.
Like their mainstream Hollywood counterparts, the “other” Hollywood also had their young and, spoiled rich offspring and the group Sanchez ran with despised their mainstream Hollywood peers. Sanchez had built a loyal group of friends his same age who came from similar backgrounds and he earned a reputation around town as a street brawler with a short fuse. He was arrested for felony assault charges for the first time at the age of 17 after pummeling Griffin O’Neal, son of Ryan O’Neal, outside West Hollywood nightclub. Griffin was 32 years old. Charges were later dropped after a conversation occurred between the two fathers. He was arrested again two years later outside the same nightclub for assaulting Scott Caan, the son of actor James Caan. Sanchez had a volatile personality. He was cocky and charismatic. He wouldn’t back down from anything and if he ever got himself into any real trouble he knew he could use his family’s connection to get himself out of it.
Relationship between father and son became strained. The deeper his son became intertwined in LA’s underworld, the less his father saw or heard from him. When the two did see each other, the moments were either cherished in silence or celebrated in argument. Vandetti Sr.’s worst fears were becoming realized as junior began to separate himself more and more from the family and the business. Sanchez began rubbing elbows with the high end low lifes that haunted the streets at night and the only way Senior knew how to deal with the situation was through threats of separation from the family business and all the ‘blessings” that came along with it. The threats had very little substance behind them and they only fueled young Vandetti’s thirst for personal and financial independence.
Sanchez turned the tables on his father and cut himself from the family before they had a chance to do it themselves. As a half-hearted jab against the family, he produced a low budget porno for a competing studio and arranged a deal to distribute it through the same company as Lights Out. The film was a made up of a collection of scenes filmed in the back of his father’s limo with the Lights Out logo in full view of the camera the entire time. Sanchez titled the Walk Away, named after the parting words spoken to the female performers once the on-screen demoralization was complete. Before the last drop of ejaculation was splattered across the performers face, the door was swung open they girl was told to “walk away”. To the surprise of everyone, the film turned a healthy profit and Liquid Punishment Productions was accidently born. Sanchez was ecstatic and saw the same unlimited potential that his father saw when he first started his company.
The relationship between the two took its hardest hit when his Sanchez began stealing his father’s contacts and building Liquid Punishment off the relationships his father spent his whole life establishing. He began working with competitors and in the process, dragged the family name through the mud. The betrayal did little to effect Lights Out revenue stream but Senior was unable to look past what he was often heard describing as a “great betrayal of blood”. Pride and ego prevented any progress being made in repairing the damage between the two and their personal relationship would never heal. All opportunity was lost when Ramone Vandetti Sr. died of lung cancer in the midst of his son’s obscenity trials. Sanchez made no efforts to attend any funeral proceedings and refused all rights to an inheritance. Friends and family never understood the reasons that led Ramone to stray in such a dramatic and vindictive fashion and no contact has been made from either side since the passing of Vandetti Sr. Lights Out Entertainment was taken over completely by Vince Vandetti and the two Vandetti studios remain fierce competitors.