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Russ Meyer
Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American filmmaker. He was primarily known for writing and directing a successful series of sexploitation films featuring campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, which have attracted a considerable cult following. His best-known works include Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Vixen! (1968), Supervixens (1975), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), and the film he considered to be his definitive work, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970).
Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Lydia Lucinda Hauck Howe and William Arthur Meyer, an Oakland police officer. Meyer's parents divorced soon after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was 14 years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8 mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company at the rank of technician third grade (equivalent to staff sergeant).
In the Army Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton (1970).
On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a lack of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (including Giant), and became a well-known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine's early years, including one of his then-wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973 and remained on the periphery of Hefner's Playboy Mansion West "gang list" milieu long into the 1990s, likely in part due to their shared interest in monitoring First Amendment litigation.
Meyer was the cinematographer for the 1950 Pete DeCenzie film French Peep Show, and the 1954 Samuel Newman production, The Desperate Women, among the few Hollywood films to depict a woman dying from an illegal abortion in pre–Roe v. Wade America, the original version of which is believed lost.
His first feature, the naughty comedy The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1 million on the independent/exploitation circuit, enthroning Meyer as "King of the Nudies." It is considered one of the first nudie-cuties.
Russ Meyer was an auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.
Meyer followed Teas with some shorts, This Is My Body (1960) and The Naked Camera, then made a second nudie cutie, Eve and the Handyman (1960). This starred Meyer's wife Eve and Anthony-James Ryan, both of whom would be crucial to the production of Meyer's films.
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Russ Meyer
Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American filmmaker. He was primarily known for writing and directing a successful series of sexploitation films featuring campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, which have attracted a considerable cult following. His best-known works include Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Vixen! (1968), Supervixens (1975), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), and the film he considered to be his definitive work, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970).
Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Lydia Lucinda Hauck Howe and William Arthur Meyer, an Oakland police officer. Meyer's parents divorced soon after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was 14 years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8 mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company at the rank of technician third grade (equivalent to staff sergeant).
In the Army Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton (1970).
On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a lack of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (including Giant), and became a well-known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine's early years, including one of his then-wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973 and remained on the periphery of Hefner's Playboy Mansion West "gang list" milieu long into the 1990s, likely in part due to their shared interest in monitoring First Amendment litigation.
Meyer was the cinematographer for the 1950 Pete DeCenzie film French Peep Show, and the 1954 Samuel Newman production, The Desperate Women, among the few Hollywood films to depict a woman dying from an illegal abortion in pre–Roe v. Wade America, the original version of which is believed lost.
His first feature, the naughty comedy The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1 million on the independent/exploitation circuit, enthroning Meyer as "King of the Nudies." It is considered one of the first nudie-cuties.
Russ Meyer was an auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.
Meyer followed Teas with some shorts, This Is My Body (1960) and The Naked Camera, then made a second nudie cutie, Eve and the Handyman (1960). This starred Meyer's wife Eve and Anthony-James Ryan, both of whom would be crucial to the production of Meyer's films.