Russ Meyer Dies at 82
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By Myrna Oliver, Times Staff Writer
Russ Meyer, a master of sexploitation filmmaking who was called "king of the
nudies" or "King Leer" for such soft-core pornography classics as "Faster,
Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and "Vixen," has died. He was 82.
Meyer, who also directed the major studio release "Beyond the Valley of the
Dolls," died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills, according to his
company, RM Films International Inc. Spokeswoman Janice Cowart said Meyer had
suffered from dementia and died of complications of pneumonia.
Something of a one-man studio, Meyer produced, directed, financed, wrote,
edited and shot 23 tantalizing but teasing films that pioneered a genre of
skinflicks with much violence and large-busted women but little sex. The titles
of the X-rated fare that made him millions are descriptive — "The Immoral Mr.
Teas," "Erotica," "Wild Gals of the Naked West," "Heavenly Bodies," "Mudhoney,"
"Mondo Topless," "Common Law Cabin," "Supervixens" and "Europe in the Raw."
"I love big-breasted women with wasp waists," he told the London Times in 1999,
two decades after making his final film. "I love them with big cleavages."
Little wonder that Time magazine critic Richard Corliss called Meyer's films
"bosomacious melodramas" or that Meyer came to be viewed as an auteur.
But with age came grace — and admiration — as Meyer's work was honored at
film festivals around the world including at the American Cinematheque in
Hollywood and the National Film Theater in London. His movies were discussed in
classes at Yale and Harvard, and purchased by such respectable institutions as
the New York Museum of Modern Art.
In 2002, an exhibit of his striking pinup and studio still photos from the
1950s and 1960s was staged at the prestigious Feigen Gallery in New York, which
also handles the work of the late caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.
When the Russ Meyer Film Festival opened at Los Angeles' Vagabond Theater in
1992, Times film writer Kevin Thomas wrote: "No one projects heterosexual male
sex fantasies with greater gusto and resolute dedication than Meyer, who at
heart is a puritan and who has always been a bigger tease than any burlesque
queen. His world is populated with an abundance of pneumatic women carefully
photographed to make them look as cantilevered as possible, dirty old men and
blockhead heroes plus dialogue heavy with double-entendre."
By the time Meyer made "Vixen" in 1969, Thomas wrote in the 1992 article on the
festival, "Meyer pictures had begun to look like good clean fun for adults, and
with great disarming heartiness he tackles not only adultery, homosexuality and
incest but also takes a couple of potshots at communists and racial prejudice."
Meyer's films continue to engender debate, which may explain their popularity
in film classes at USC and across the country. A San Francisco Chronicle critic
labeled the 1966 "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" as "the worst film ever made,"
but director John Waters has called it "beyond doubt, the best movie ever made
… possibly better than any film that will ever be made in the future." (The
film fared poorly at the box office in its original release but was a hit on
the art house circuit 30 years later.)
In further homage, three rock groups have named themselves for Meyer films —
Mudhoney, Vixen and Faster Pussycat.
Because of Meyer's uncanny ability to produce visual films on a low budget —
his initial "The Immoral Mr. Teas" in 1959 returned $1 million on his $24,000
investment and the 1969 "Vixen" earned $6 million on a $76,000 investment —
then-20th Century Fox president Richard D. Zanuck hired Meyer for mainstream
studio projects.
First came 1970's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," a satirical in-name-only
sequel to 1967's "Valley of the Dolls" made from the bestselling Jacqueline
Susann novel. Written by movie critic Roger Ebert, the X-rated sequel proved
popular and in many ways a better movie than the original. As Leonard Maltin
says in his 2004 Movie and Video Guide, two "prominent critics" even selected
"Beyond" as one of the 10 best U.S. films from 1968 to 1978.
The film was Meyer's favorite. "It is by far the most important film I ever
made," he told the Toronto Star in 1995. "Roger and I embrace that one to our
bosoms, or co-bosoms."
Ebert evaluated Meyer's oeuvre in an article in Playboy in 1995, the year
"Beyond" recirculated: "Meyer uses his productions, I believe, to recapture the
joy he felt during the formative and most enjoyable period of his life — the
war. It was then that he formed lifelong friendships, discovered his skill as a
cameraman and experienced, in a French bordello, his sexual awakening with a
buxom partner who became the archetype of the R.M. woman."
Pleased with Meyer's work on "Beyond," Zanuck handed him "The Seven Minutes,"
which was based on Irving Wallace's bestselling novel about a pornography
trial. But the mainstream 1971 film, featuring such well-known character actors
as Philip Carey, Yvonne De Carlo and John Carradine and also Meyer's onetime
wife Edy Williams, failed at the box office.
Meyer returned to his own RM Films International Inc. and made movies that were
fodder for drive-in theaters and audiences not quite ready for the blatant sex
that later became standard fare. As drive-ins dwindled and tastes changed,
Meyer wound down his filmmaking with "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" in
1979.
In recent years, he had discussed making another film with Ebert to be titled
"The Bra of God." But the project never materialized.
Born in Oakland on March 21, 1922, Meyer was the son of a police officer and a
nurse. With money borrowed from his mother, he bought an 8-millimeter Univex
"picture-taking machine" when he was 12 and began making amateur films.
He was in junior college when an ad for combat photographers for the Army
Signal Corps lured him to Hollywood. Sent to France and Germany, Meyer was
credited with shooting combat films and newsreels under some of the most
dangerous conditions in World War II.
At the same time, he was honing skills for high-speed, somewhat disjointed
cinematography that would force grudging critics to admire his art, however
vulgar. Even critics who panned his movies praised his work behind the camera.
After the war, Meyer worked as a cinematographer for Southern Pacific Railroad
and occasionally was a still photographer on studio sets, including "Guys and
Dolls" and "Giant."
He also began photographing models for nude magazines and parlayed that
expertise into photographing some of the first centerfold layouts for Playboy
magazine. He married one of the playmates, Eve Turner, for whom he named his
first company, Eve Productions.
In 1992, Meyer published his three-volume autobiography, "A Clean Breast: The
Life and Loves of Russ Meyer" with such chapter titles as "Mammaries Are Made
of This."
Meyer married and divorced and lived with a series of models, playmates,
strippers and actresses. His studio said he left no survivors.
Services will be private.
copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
Stephen Cooke
*sniff*
It was his happening, and it freaked me out.
swac
Lookin' on up, at the bottom.
W. Lydecker
Nick Macpherson
>*sniff*
>
>It was his happening, and it freaked me out.
I wonder if any of the obituaries will mention Meyer being the last inductee
into the Pantheon Hall of Fame for Five Star Generals of Filmmaking.
MrBuddwing
> Russ Meyer, 82; Iconic Sexploitation Filmmaker
>
> By Myrna Oliver, Times Staff Writer
>
>
> Russ Meyer, a master of sexploitation filmmaking who was called "king of the
> nudies" or "King Leer" for such soft-core pornography classics as "Faster,
> Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and "Vixen," has died. He was 82.
Let me admit this publicly: "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" is the
only Russ Meyer film I've seen.
Having said that, what was so pornographic about it, soft-core or
otherwise???
Goy Liath
too much excitement finally got to him.
or he got buried under an avalanche.
Vince Macek
>
> It was his happening, and it freaked me out.
>
Well put.
Hope he's in his own special heaven. And I hope that's where I'm goin'.
VMacek
Stephen Cooke
On the slopes of the Grand Tetons...
swac
*insert long-winded moralistic epilogue here*
Avoid normal situations.
[..]
> Services will be private.
Because all those healthy bustlines just barely concealed by mourning gowns
will not exactly express the sorrow as intended to the camera's eye.
--
alt.flame Special Forces
"There's more than one way to die." -- Tony "Big Tuna" Accarda
frank habets
> only Russ Meyer film I've seen.
>
> Having said that, what was so pornographic about it, soft-core or
> otherwise???
Though many of Mr. Meyer's films are soft-core porn, some aren't.
FPKK is merely titilating, but a hoot just the same.
frank habets
camp myself between two speakers and watch the films.
Particularly favoured by me and my friends were, of course, Russ Meyer
movies. Much better than your average porn --many had wit and a
measure of style.
I rediscovered them twenty-five years later, and still enjoy many of
them --for the stories, not necessarily the flesh!
Cherry, Harry and Raquel remains my favourite, if just for Charles
Napier's over-the-top machoism.
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The title alone of FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! was controversial enough in
1966 to have it censored in many daily newspapers, including the LA TIMES.
Times have changed.
Richard Carnahan
Jfryb...@juno.com
the years. Do you know what will happen with his website?
Jay F.