This page uses content from the Russ Meyer biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

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

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:

• Betty Valdovinos (ca.1949-?)
• Eve Meyer (April 2, 1952-1969, divorced)
• Edy Williams (June 27, 1970 - November 7, 1977, divorced)

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

Selected filmography

• 1950 - The French Peep Show
• 1959 - The Immoral Mr. Teas, his first commercial success, defining a new genre
• 1959 - This Is My Body
• 1960 - Eve and the Handyman
• 1960 - Naked Camera
• 1961 - Erotica
• 1962 - Wild Gals of the Naked West
• 1963 - Europe in the Raw
• 1963 - Heavenly Bodies!
• 1963 - Skyscrapers and Brassieres
• 1964 - Lorna
• 1964 - Fanny Hill, an adaptation of the 1749 novel Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
• 1965 - Mudhoney
• 1965 - Motorpsycho
• 1965 - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
• 1966 - Mondo Topless
• 1967 - Common Law Cabin
• 1967 - Good Morning and... Goodbye!
• 1968 - Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!
• 1968 - Vixen!
• 1969 - Cherry, Harry & Raquel!
• 1970 - Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
• 1971 - The Seven Minutes
• 1972 - Blacksnake
• 1975 - Supervixens
• 1976 - Up!
• 1978 - Who Killed Bambi? (unfinished)
• 1979 - Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
• 2001 - Pandora Peaks (Meyer's last movie)

References

External links

• RM Films

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