He was born Russel Albion Meyer, but they called him King Leer.
During his 20-year career, Meyer made a fortune in 'chest and violence,' directing and producing cutting edge 'nudie-cutie' and exploitation films featuring many of the world's most voluptuous vixens.
A former centerfold photographer for Playboy Magazine, Meyer began his motion picture career in the late 1950s shooting several softcore -- though by contemporary standards innocuous -- movies starring a bevy of buxom European beauties in various stages of undress. By the mid-1960s, Meyer shifted gears (Texas sheriff's started cracking down on some of his bawdier offerings, he said.) to begin producing zero-budget, black/white action-adventure epics such as Mudhoney, Motor Psycho, and the now-famous Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
With the advent of hardcore 'skin flick' in the late 1960s, Meyer returned to filming the female form, but purposefully shied away from the envelope-pushing X-rated fare of his adult industry contemporaries.
In 1970, studio-giant 20th Century Fox came calling, hiring Meyer to direct a pair of motion pictures, most notably the controversial sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll epic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. But by 1972 Meyer resolved that he'd had enough of the studio system. In 1973, the auteur decided to strike out again on his own, producing and directing a handful of adult-oriented titles, including the (promptly forgettable) Supervixens series, before essentially calling quits to showbiz in 1979. He spent the latter part of his life writing his autobiography, entitled appropriately enough A Clean Breast, and overseeing his thriving video distribution business, RM Films. Russ Meyer died in September at age 82.
MEYER IN 60 SECONDS
THE IMMORAL MR. TEAS (1959)
Meyer's feature film debut is the prototypical nudie-cutie (heavy on the cutie, almost absent on the nudie) with one key difference: Meyer's flick actually turned a profit! (Most purveyors of 50s and 60s softcore smut went belly-up after a handful of pictures). Dubbed by Meyer's publicity machine as "Hollywood's most 'sexnificant' contribution to the adult entertainment world," The Immoral Mr. Teas proudly introduced audiences to what would eventually become the director's cinematic trademarks: buxom European women and an uncanny ability to hype would-be filmgoers off the streets and into the theater.
MUDHONEY (1965)
Not Meyer's most recognized film, but arguably his best and most compelling work, Mudhoney is dark, powerful, and disturbing. Based on Raymond Locke's novel, Streets Paved With Gold, Meyer's gritty take on religious hypocrisy in America's post-Depression era Bible Belt is more nerve-wracking than titillating (notwithstanding Rena Horten's eye-popping performance), but nevertheless stands as one of the director's more seminal motion pictures.
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