Russ Meyer, the legendary cult filmmaker who virtually invented the sexploitation film genre with such movies as Vixen and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, has died at the age of 82.
Meyer had suffered from dementia for several years. According to a spokesperson for RM Films International, he died of complications from pneumonia last Saturday at his Hollywood Hills home. Married three times, Meyer left no survivors.
Paul Fishbein, president of AVN Publications, said, “Russ was a one-of-a-kind director who produced, wrote, directed and edited his own films. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls stands alone as the classic 60's satire. Vixen, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Up and Super-Vixens are classics in a genre that Russ created.
"I interviewed Russ for the June 1983 issue of AVN and we became fast friends. He helped us so much in the early days of the magazine. Here was this maverick, incredible filmmaker who 'busted' the conventions of filmmaking, and he was interested in our little magazine.”
Reaction to Meyer’s death from other friends and former colleagues was full of praise for his accomplishments.
“Russ was the best of us all,” said David F. Friedman, the pioneering sexploitation film producer who served with Meyer in the Army Signal Corps in World War II. “He fought the great fight, from Normandy Beach to Charles Keating [anti-porn zealot], and he won ‘em all. I’ll miss him. He was my friend and fellow Signalman.”
Al Bloom, former Caballero owner and now V.P. of Marketing with California Exotic Novelties, was mentored by Meyer when he entered adult movie distribution in 1970.
“He taught me a lot, not just about filmmaking, but about business as well,” Bloom said. “Blazing trails in our industry is something I admired. People in today’s business will never appreciate what people like Russ did to open up the market for them.”
Henri Pachard, the veteran adult filmmaker and AVN Insider columnist, recalled meeting Meyer in 1970, just after he arrived in Hollywood from New York to shoot his first West Coast production. "He had no idea who I was when I called him on the phone and he actually took my call," Pachard said. "Three hours later we were sipping martinis and talking about his films. It was Cherie, Harry and Raquel that truly inspired me to pursue this business."
Meyer’s debut film was 1959’s The Immoral Mr. Teas, a so-called “nudie cutie,” featuring large-breasted women. His name would become synonymous with huge breasts, such as those of frequent stars Erica Gavin and Kitten Natividad.
He frankly owned up to an obsession with extra-large mammaries. “I love them with big cleavages,” he told a newspaper in 1999.
Bloom recalled hanging out with Meyer at strip clubs “when they were having big-tit nights. His leg actually started twitching the bigger they got!”
Once considered pornographic, Meyer’s soft-core films are cult classics today, studied in cinema schools all over the world. Retrospectives of his work are shown in art houses and at film festivals.
Meyer’s censorship wars set many precedents. AVN’s Fishbein said, “His First Amendment battles were legendary, as he single-handedly fought to have each of his films open theatrically.”
In the late ‘60s, Meyer directed two major studio releases for 20th Century Fox: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, co-written by film critic Roger Ebert, and Seven Minutes.
But after their release, Fishbein said, “he soured on being a 'Hollywood' director. Instead, he went back to making the maverick pictures he loved, replete with the biggest-breasted women anyone had even seen. He wasn't a big fan of hardcore porn, but he respected everyone's right to produce, perform or view it.
"Russ never received the notoriety he deserved, either from mainstream Hollywood or the adult industry,” Fishbein continued. “He and I lost touch over the past several years, but I know he always loved being an outlaw.”
In his 1983 AVN interview, Meyer characterized his audience as “the cinema buffs, the one-armed reader, the tit freaks like I am, the fantasizers, the ones that like the humor, and now the man and woman on the street who have video… It’s a pretty wide spectrum. My films live on and increase in interest.”
According to the RM Films spokesperson, funeral services will be private.
Click HERE to view AVN's Exclusive Russ Meyer Interview from 1983 and Picture Gallery.
