Russ Meyer, 1922-2004: Revered "King Leer" left a soft-porn legacy

By Myrna Oliver
Los Angeles Times

AP, 1969 Russ Meyer created films that pioneered a genre of skin flicks.

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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.

Mr. 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. Spokeswoman Janice Cowart said Mr. Meyer had suffered from dementia and died of complications of pneumonia.

Something of a one-man studio, Mr. Meyer produced, directed, financed, wrote, edited and shot 23 tantalizing but teasing films that pioneered a genre of skin flicks 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."

But with age came grace — and admiration — as Mr. Meyer's work was honored at film festivals worldwide including American Cinematheque in Hollywood and 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.

When the Russ Meyer Film Festival opened at Los Angeles' Vagabond Theater in 1992, Los Angeles Times film writer Kevin Thomas wrote: "No one projects heterosexual male sex fantasies with greater gusto and resolute dedication than Meyer, who at heart is a puritan and who has always been a bigger tease than any burlesque queen."

By the time Mr. Meyer made "Vixen" in 1969, Thomas wrote in the 1992 article, "Meyer pictures had begun to look like good clean fun for adults, and with great disarming heartiness he tackles not only adultery, homosexuality and incest but also takes a couple of potshots at communists and racial prejudice."

Mr. Meyer's films continue to engender debate, which may explain their popularity in film classes at the University of Southern California and across the U.S. 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." (The film fared poorly at the box office but was a hit on the art-house circuit 30 years later.)

Mr. Meyer's favorite movie was "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," a satirical in-name-only 1970 sequel to 1967's "Valley of the Dolls" from the best-selling Jacqueline Susann novel. Written by movie critic Roger Ebert, the X-rated sequel proved popular and, in many ways, a better movie than the original.

Born in Oakland on March 21, 1922, Mr. Meyer was son of a police officer and a nurse. He was in junior college when an advertisement for combat photographers for the Army Signal Corps lured him to Hollywood. Sent to France and Germany, Mr. Meyer was credited with shooting some of the most dangerous combat films and newsreels of World War II.

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

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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