Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American filmmaker and photographer. He was primarily known for writing and directing a successful series of sexploitation films featuring campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, which have attracted a considerable cult following.
His best-known works include Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Vixen! (1968), Supervixens (1975), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), and the film he considered to be his definitive work, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970).
Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Lydia Lucinda Hauck Howe and William Arthur Meyer, an Oakland police officer. Meyer's parents divorced soon after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was 14 years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8 mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company at the rank of technician third grade (equivalent to staff sergeant).
In the Army, Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton (1970).
On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a lack of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (including Giant), and became a well-known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine's early years, including one of his then-wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973 and remained on the periphery of Hefner's Playboy Mansion West "gang list" milieu long into the 1990s, likely in part due to their shared interest in monitoring First Amendment litigation.
Meyer was the cinematographer for the 1952 Pete DeCenzie short film French Peep Show, and the 1954 Samuel Newman production, The Desperate Women, among the few Hollywood films to depict a woman dying from an illegal abortion in pre–Roe v. Wade America, the original version of which is believed lost.
His first feature, the naughty comedy The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1 million on the independent/exploitation circuit, enthroning Meyer as "King of the Nudies." It is considered one of the first nudie-cuties.
Russ Meyer was an auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.
Meyer followed Teas with some shorts, This Is My Body (1960) and The Naked Camera, then made a second nudie cutie, Eve and the Handyman (1960). This starred Meyer's wife Eve and Anthony-James Ryan, both of whom would be crucial to the production of Meyer's films.
His next features were Erotica (1961) and Wild Gals of the Naked West (1962). Audience reception of Wild Gals was lukewarm, and Meyer decided to change genres.
He did a documentary, Europe in the Raw (1963), and tried a comedy, Heavenly Bodies! (1963).
He then directed a version of Fanny Hill (1964) in Europe.
Lorna (1964) marked the end of Meyer's "nudies" and his first foray into serious film making.
He followed this with three other similar films, and would call this his "Gothic" period: Mudhoney (1965), Motorpsycho (1965) and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).
Lorna was successful commercially, making almost a million dollars. Mudhoney was more ambitious, based on a novel, and did not perform as well. Motorpsycho, about three men terrorising the countryside, was a big hit for Meyer, so he decided to make a film about three bad girls, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was commercially underwhelming but would eventually be acclaimed by the film critics as a cult classic. It has a following in the world and has inspired imitations, music videos and tributes.
Meyer made the popular mockumentary Mondo Topless (1966) with the remnants of his production company's assets and made two mildly successful color melodramas: Common Law Cabin (1967) and Good Morning... and Goodbye! (1967).
Meyer made headlines once again in 1968 with the controversial Vixen!. Although its lesbian overtones are tame by today's standards, the film—envisaged by Meyer and longtime producer Jim Ryan as a reaction to provocative European art films—grossed millions on a five-figure budget and captured the zeitgeist just as The Immoral Mr. Teas had a decade earlier.
He followed it with Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! (1969), and Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970), which used long montages of the California landscape (replete with anti-marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film's "lost soul." These plot devices were necessitated after lead actress Linda Ashton left the shoot early, forcing Meyer to compensate for 20 minutes of unshot footage.