Cult film-maker dies
Director Russ Meyer, whose soft core porn films, The Immoral Mr Teas, Vixen and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls earned him millions of dollars and the title of Hollywood's King Leer, has died at age 82, his film company said yesterday. Mr Meyer died on...
Director Russ Meyer, whose soft core porn films, The Immoral Mr Teas, Vixen and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls earned him millions of dollars and the title of Hollywood's King Leer, has died at age 82, his film company said yesterday.
Mr Meyer died on Saturday of pneumonia at his home in the Hollywood Hills, his company, RM Films International Inc., said.
The son of an Oakland, California, policeman and a nurse, Mr Meyer parlayed a talent as a cameraman and an obsession with the female bosom into a legendary film career.
After a brief stint as a centrefold photographer for Playboy, Mr Meyer used his own money to make The Immoral Mr Teas in 1959 for $24,000 and saw it gross a million dollars.
From then on there was no stopping him with one work, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! getting labelled by one critic as "the worst film ever made". But the millions he made from his films won Hollywood's attention and 20th Century Fox gave him the go-ahead to make Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with a script by film critic Roger Ebert.
Film-makers like John Waters and Michael Winterbottom cite him as one of their inspirations.
Mr Meyer made a total of 26 films, almost all self-financed and the titles reflected his obsession: Erotica, Heavenly Bodies, Wild Gals of the Naked West, Mondo Topless andSupervixens.
Many of his films became cult and film festival favourites.