Russ Meyer Biography and Filmography

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Naked Photos of Russ Meyer are available at MaleStars.com. They currently feature over 65,000 Nude Pics, Biographies, Video Clips, Articles, and Movie Reviews of famous stars.

Actresses who appeared with Russ Meyer on screen:

Pam Grier
Yvonne De-Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo
Francesca Kitten Natividad
Kitten Natividad
Uschi Digart
Candy Samples
Phyllis Davis
Tura Satana
Erica Gavin
Raven De-La-Croix
June Wilkinson
Edy Williams
Babette Bardot
Leticia Roman
Christine Schmidtmer

Russ Meyer
Birthday: March 21, 1922
Birth Place: Oakland, California, USA
Height: 0' 0"

Below is a complete filmography (list of movies he's appeared in) for Russ Meyer. If you have any corrections or additions, please email us at corrections@actorsofhollywood.com. We'd also be interested in any trivia or other information you have.

Biography

American filmmaker Russ Meyer channelled his youthful energies into photography, winning several awards for his amateur films before he was 15. Experience under more grueling circumstances came when he worked as a newsreel cameraman in Europe during World War II. As a civilian, Meyer at first specialized in glamour photos of beautiful models, then found that the money came quicker and the work was more plentiful in the world of male-oriented "nudie" magazines; he was among the first and most prolific of the centerfold photographers for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. From there, Meyer moved on to nudie films, a field in which he managed to strike a happy medium, titillating the audience while remaining within the boundaries of local censor boards. His first film, 1959's The Immoral Mr. Teas, has a plenitude of female flesh, but the story line — a man subjected to a powerful anesthetic discovers that he can see through the clothes of every woman who walks past him — precluded any physical contact between man and woman. Arguing that nudity in and of itself is not obscene so long as it is kept at arm's length, Meyer was able to circumvent the bluenoses and get his film booked into theaters. Shot silent on a budget of 24,000 dollars, The Immoral Mr. Teas made over 40 times its cost. When other producers began muscling in on his territory, Meyer decided to move beyond mere voyeurism, and with Lorna (1964) added elements of sexual contact (always stopping short of actual fornication) and violence. The director's excesses in terms of blood and carnality reached a peak with his "classics:" Motor Psycho (1965), Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (1966), and Harry, Cherry and Raquel (1969). With the 71-minute Vixen (1969), Meyer deliberately courted obscenity charges, reasoning that the best way to keep one's head above water in the sexually liberated movie scene of the late '60s was to stir up as much publicity as possible. Suddenly the director was making appearances on such conservative TV programs as The Art Linkletter Show, defending the artistic merits of Vixen — and as a result, the film, put together for a mere 76,000 dollars, was a hit to the tune of six million dollars. 20th Century Fox, financially strapped and desperate to cash in on the sudden respectability of X-rated films (via the Oscar win for 1969's Midnight Cowboy), signed Meyer to direct his first big-studio picture. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), co-scripted by no less than Roger Ebert, was a success, emboldening Meyer to make his chanciest career move yet: The Seven Minutes (1971), a sexy but nonetheless "mainstream" all-star film based on a best-selling novel by Irving Wallace. Without his usual lascivious story ingredients to fall back on, Meyer proved to be an inept director, and the film ended up his first failure. Meyer continued making films into the late '70s, having been by this point firmly established as a cultural icon, and heralded at various respectable film festivals. Despite his body of film work, Russ Meyer's most lasting legacy may be his "proteg

Movie Credits

Pandora Peaks (2001)

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)

Up! (1976)

Supervixens (1975)

Black Snake (1973)
[ David Prowse ][ David Warbeck ]

The Seven Minutes (1971)
[ Tom Selleck ]

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970)

Vixen! (1968)

Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! (1968)

Good Morning... and Goodbye! (1967)

Common Law Cabin (1967)

Mondo Topless (1966)

Mudhoney (1965)

Motor Psycho (1965)
[ Alex Rocco ]

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Fanny Hill (1964)

Lorna (1964)

Heavenly Bodies! (1963)

Europe in the Raw (1963)

Skyscrapers and Brassieres (1963)

Wild Gals of the Naked West (1962)

Erotica (1961)

Eve and the Handyman (1961)

The Naked Camera (1961)

The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)

The French Peep Show (1950)

Trivia

In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Roger Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled "Who Killed Bambi?" According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren was unable to pay them (McLaren has claimed that the project actually died at the behest of main financier 20th Century-Fox, under the pretext that "We are in the business of making family entertainment").
Famously near-reclusive, he rarely grants interviews in person but most of his 24 movies have been released on either video or DVD through his company RM Films.
Told NY Times that the first time he visited a whorehouse, as a soldier in France during WWII, he was taken there by Ernest Hemingway.
In the 1980s, directed a video for a rock band who took their name from one of his films, Faster Pussycat. The band names Vixen and Mudhoney also came from Meyer film titles, even though Meyer had no connection to them.
His films have influenced both John Waters and John Landis.
Although he briefly attended junior college, he admitted that he was pretty much self taught as a photographer and filmmaker.
His films are often studied in film schools and shown on the film festival circuit.
John Waters has often cited him as inspiration for his female characters.
His works were considered pornographic at the time of their release, but contain very little graphic sexual content by today's standards.
During WW2, he served with the US Army Signal Corps' 166th Photographic Unit. He landed in Normandy with the 29th Infantry Division. Some of the footage he shot can be seen in Patton (1970).
While serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a cameraman during World War II, Meyer filmed a group of prisoners being trained in Britain for a suicide mission behind enemy lines prior to D-Day. This outfit was the genesis of the storyline behind the movie The Dirty Dozen (1967). Meyer also filmed General George S. Patton's Third Army in its penetration into Germany in 1945.
A first-rate cameraman, Meyer fine-tuned his craft in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. After the War, he moved to Hollywood to try to catch on as a studio cameraman, but despite his expertise and the excellent footage he had shot during the war, he was refused a job due to the guild system. The Hollywood guilds typically were closed to outsiders unless they had gone through the apprentice system by starting at the very bottom.
Considered his marriage to second wife Edy Williams a huge mistake. After divorcing Williams, he never married again.
Told John Lydon ("Johnny Rotten" of the punk band The Sex Pistols) during the pre-production of the ultimately aborted Sex Pistols film "Who Killed Bambi" that the U.S. had saved Britain during World War II after Rotten had expressed his distaste for Americans. Meyer had been stationed in Britian during the War; Rotten was unimpressed.

Naked Photos of Russ Meyer are available at MaleStars.com. They currently feature over 65,000 Nude Pics, Biographies, Video Clips, Articles, and Movie Reviews of famous stars.