32 Facts About Russ Meyer

Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Lydia Lucinda 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.

Russ Meyer made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a US Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company, ultimately attaining the rank of technician third grade.

Russ Meyer made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films, and became a well-known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine.

Russ Meyer would go on to shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine's early years, including one of his then-wife Eve Russ Meyer in 1955.

Russ Meyer shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973.

Russ Meyer was an auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films.

Russ Meyer was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.

Russ Meyer followed Teas with some shorts, This Is My Body and The Naked Camera, then made a second nudie cutie, Eve and the Handyman.

Audience reception of Wild Gals was lukewarm, and Russ Meyer decided to change genres.

Russ Meyer then directed a version of Fanny Hill in Europe.

Russ Meyer made the popular mockumentary Mondo Topless with the remnants of his production company's assets and made two mildly successful color melodramas: Common Law Cabin and Good Morning.

Many critics perceive the film as perhaps the greatest expression of his intentionally vapid surrealism, with Russ Meyer going so far as to refer to it as his definitive work in several interviews.

The executives at Fox were delighted with the box office success of Dolls and signed a contract with Russ Meyer to make three more films: The Seven Minutes, from a bestseller by Irving Wallace; Everything in the Garden, from a play by Edward Albee; and The Final Steal, from a 1966 novel by Peter George.

Per his new contract, Russ Meyer then made a faithful adaptation of The Seven Minutes.

Russ Meyer returned to exploitation-style independent cinema in 1973 with the blaxploitation period piece Black Snake, which was dismissed by critics and audiences as incoherent.

Russ Meyer was adept at mocking moral stereotypes and flagrantly lampooning conservative American values.

Russ Meyer's discoveries include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Lorna Maitland, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard, among many others.

Russ Meyer was almost as much about a shapely 1950s hip-to-waist ratio or "wasp waist" as he was about very large breasts.

Russ Meyer went on record numerous times to say that Anita Ekberg was the most beautiful woman he ever photographed and that her 39DD breasts were the biggest in A-list Hollywood history, dwarfing both Jayne Mansfield and Sabrina.

Dolly Parton was the only modern Hollywood actress Russ Meyer ever expressed interest in working with.

Russ Meyer ensured that women's breasts were at least semi-exposed during these ordeals for comic or erotic effect.

Russ Meyer had no children, though there were rumored unsuccessful pregnancies with his second wife Edy Williams and last serious girlfriend, Melissa Mounds, who was found guilty of assaulting him in 1999.

Russ Meyer was very upfront throughout his life about being too selfish to be a father or even a caring partner or husband.

Russ Meyer had a half-sister, Lucinda, who was diagnosed in her 20s with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to California State mental institutions until her death in 1999.

Contrary to some accounts, Russ Meyer was never married to Kitten Natividad, his longtime companion and the star of his final two films.

Russ Meyer owned the rights to nearly all of his films and spent the majority of the 1980s and 1990s making millions reselling his films on the home video and DVD market.

Russ Meyer worked out of his Los Angeles home and usually took telephone orders in person.

Russ Meyer worked obsessively for over a decade on a massive three-volume autobiography, titled A Clean Breast.

That same year, with no wife or children to claim his wealth, Russ Meyer willed that the majority of his money and estate would be sent to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in honor of his late mother.

Russ Meyer died at his home in the Hollywood Hills, on September 18,2004, at the age of 82.

Russ Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery in San Joaquin County, California.