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Russ Meyer

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Russ Meyer
Russ Meyer (left) and Roger Ebert, (1970)

Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American motion picture director and photographer.

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[edit] History

Meyer was born in San Leandro, California. When he was a child his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him a camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and worked during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman. It was in World War II, that, according to Meyer, he found himself at a French brothel with Ernest Hemingway, who, upon finding out that Meyer was a virgin, offered him the prostitute of his choice. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts. Although the veracity of this event has been called into question, Meyer's close friend Roger Ebert stated that Russ was always a very honest man and wasn't likely to make things up. Upon returning to civilian life, he became a glamour photographer, and found himself working for Hugh Hefner's newly launched Playboy magazine.

From here, he became a director of nudie films. His films are more ribaldry than erotica or pornography, and generally star women with large breasts. His later films are almost entirely devoted to this vision; his discoveries include Kitten Natividad and Uschi Digard. He co-wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with film critic Roger Ebert. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is usually considered to be his greatest, or at least his most idiosyncratic, picture. Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, his final film proper (1979), is considered his funniest.

Meyer was known for his quick wit. While participating with Roger Ebert in a panel discussion at Yale University, he was confronted by an angry woman who accused him of being "nothing but a breast man." His immediate reply: "That's only the half of it."

Russ Meyer was also adept at mocking moral stereotypes and actively lampooning conservative American values. Many of his films feature a narrator who attempts to give the audience a "moral roadmap" of what they are watching. Those who dismiss it for being didactic or sexist miss the satire. Meyer's art is a polished example of the venerable Menippean satire, a difficult genre to define -- roughly, it combines disparate forms such as prose and verse, theatre and film (think Lavonia and Semper Fidelis making love in heroic couplets or Kitten Natividad as the Greek Chorus in Up!), sacred and profane (biblical references and softcore sex), all of the time maintaining a healthy disregard for all forms of authority: religious/moral, legal, political, and last but not least, the authority of the established aesthetic tradition.

Meyer died at his home in the Hollywood Hills, of complications of pneumonia and dementia, on September 18, 2004. Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery [1], Stockton, San Joaquin County, California. His headstone reads:

RUSS MEYER

"King of The Nudies"

"I Was Glad to Do It"

FILM PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR

MARCH 21, 1922

SEPT. 18, 2004

Meyer was married to:

Contrary to some accounts, Meyer was never married to his frequent star, Kitten Natividad.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] References

  • Frasier, David K. (1998). Russ Meyer--the life and films : a biography and a comprehensive, illustrated, and annotated filmography and bibliography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0472-8.
  • McDonough, Jimmy (2005). Big bosoms and square jaws : the biography of Russ Meyer, king of the sex film. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-07250-1.

[edit] External links

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