LOS ANGELES (AP) - Russ Meyer, whose racy films such as “Mudhoney,” “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” and “Vixen” made him a cult movie favorite, died Saturday of complication from pneumonia. He was 82. Meyer’s films were considered pornographic in their time but are less shocking by today’s standards. Altogether he produced, directed, financed, wrote, edited and shot at least 23 films, including his debut, “The Immoral Mr. Teas,” in 1959 and the 1968 film “Vixen,” whose success earned him notice from major studios. Other films by Meyer include “Fanny Hill” (1964), “Mudhoney” and “Motorpsycho” from 1965, “Mondo Topless” (1966), “Common Law Cabin” (1967), “Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!” (1968), “Blacksnake” (1972), “Up!” (1976) and “Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens” (1979).
Shame. Let’s hope Channel 4 over here does a tribute.
Or perhaps we’ll see the bits he filmed for Who Killed Bambi…
So I guess he’ll never make The Bra of God, which Playboy claimed Roger Ebert wrote a script for. (Ebert wrote the script for Meyer’s Beneath the Valley of the Dolls).
Kind of ironic that he died of an illness of the lungs.
Also for Up!, I believe. Great flick - Sex! Ultra-violence! Nazis! Big boobs! Random Shakespeare quotes! Raven Delacroix!
Russ Meyer was a man from a more innocent time.
Okay, I know his funeral has to have the equivalent of a 21-gun salute, but where are they going to get an odd number?
21 Amazon warriors.
Ha ha. I get it
Oh. Now I get it.
Now he can film it on location.
Still no “thanks for the mammaries”?
I’m sure his coffin is amply tufted and cushioned, and that his head is gently cradled by a pair of generously-filled pillows…
Requiescat in pace, Russ.
God bless the uninhibited raging-Id creative types, and especially those with a sense of humor about their obsession. Hmmm… Benny Hill’s long gone, and now Russ Meyer is dead, too. I’m afraid Robert Crumb will be next…
One of the few guys in Hollywood who understood the Big Picture.
I guess he’s finally gone up from the beneath the valley of the dolls.
Holy crap, I thought he was dead years ago.
Last interview I read ended up with him drunkenly crawling around on the floor – and that was mebbe ten years ago.
Bless him and god speed.
Will any of his movies ever come to DVD?
Yes.
So he never finished his magnum opus autobiographical film, the one John Waters said he should have called Berlin ALexandertits?
A talented man with a self-effacing sense of humor. I will miss him. As I grow older, I appreciate more and more those who can make me laugh.
Which was the RM film that featured a man on the run from the law, he escaped in a pickup truck with a huge axe planted in the hood. I need to pick up a copy and smuggle back to SA in my pocket.
Paul, mention of the film is made in the Roger Ebert article linked to above. Apparently the film was Supervixens. Ebert makes mention of it as a film in which RM’s former wife was the inspiration for a scene in which the hero’s wife takes an axe to his pickup truck.
According to the Ebert obit: