Posted on Wed, Sep. 22, 2004




RUSS MEYER


Cinematic king of sexploitation Meyer dies at 82

Filmmaker Russ Meyer, who pioneered the sexploitation genre, was
dismissed by his peers but hailed by later generations.

BY MYRNA OLIVER

Los Angeles Times Service


LOS ANGELES - Russ Meyer, a master of sexploitation filmmaking who
was called ''king of the nudies'' or ''King Leer'' for such soft-core
pornography classics as ''Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!''
and ''Vixen,'' has died. He was 82.

Meyer, who also directed the major studio release Beyond the Valley
of the Dolls, died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills,
according to his company, RM Films International Inc. Spokeswoman
Janice Cowart said Meyer had suffered from dementia and died of
complications of pneumonia.

Something of a one-man studio, Meyer produced, directed, financed,
wrote, edited and shot 23 tantalizing films that pioneered a genre of
skinflicks with much violence and large-busted women but little sex.
The titles of the X-rated fare that made him millions are
descriptive -- The Immoral Mr. Teas, Erotica, Wild Gals of the Naked
West, Heavenly Bodies, Mudhoney, Mondo Topless, Common Law Cabin,
Supervixens and Europe in the Raw.

''I love big-breasted women with wasp waists,'' he told the London
Times in 1999, two decades after making his final film. ''I love them
with big cleavages.'' Little wonder that Time magazine critic Richard
Corliss called Meyer's films ''bosomacious melodramas'' or that Meyer
came to be viewed as an auteur.

But with age came grace -- and admiration -- as Meyer's work was
honored at film festivals around the world, including at the American
Cinematheque in Hollywood and the National Film Theater in London.
His movies were discussed in classes at Yale and Harvard, and
purchased by such respectable institutions as the New York Museum of
Modern Art.

Meyer's films continue to engender debate, which may explain their
popularity in film classes at the University of Southern California
and across the United States. A San Francisco Chronicle critic
labeled the 1966 Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! as ''the worst film
ever made,'' but director John Waters has called it ''beyond doubt,
the best movie ever made . . . possibly better than any film that
will ever be made in the future.'' The film fared poorly at the box
office in its original release but was a hit on the art-house circuit
30 years later.

In further homage, three rock groups have named themselves for Meyer
films -- Mudhoney, Vixen and Faster Pussycat.

Meyer married, divorced and lived with a series of models, playmates,
strippers and actresses. His studio said he left no survivors.