Vaccaro was known for being a challenge to work with, as when he kicked Jackie Curtis out of a production of a play that Curtis had written ("Heaven Grand In Amber Orbit"). Ludlam also wrote: "He is very primitive and very difficult for most actors to work with, because he's sort of savage. He gets you into doing things by rote. He criticizes ideas without giving any suggestions for , and then makes you do it over and over again. It's psychological torture." Similarly, Childers has said: "John Vaccaro was a very difficult man to work with because he used anger to draw a performance out of a person."