Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film

by Jimmy McDonough

  *3 Meyer would tell at least two interviewers that Elvis Presley also visited the set. “Bullshit!” said Dolly Read. “Never happened.”

  *4 The gloved hand belonged to actor John La Zar, who told me he killed time on the day-long shoot for the scene by playing with Erica Gavin’s nether regions. “He did not!” an angry Gavin responded. “Unless I just don’t remember—which is highly possible.” Erica admits to being so zonked on drugs during those years that “anyone could say anything about me and it might be true.”

  *5 Apparently inspired by the TV actor Bill Bixby (star of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father), Myers insisted she had an actual orgasm during the scene. Expressing her concern over playing such an intimate moment while having dinner with the actor, “Bill said, ‘Blow their minds. Don’t try to fake it, just do it.’ ” The orthopedic surgeon Myers was engaged to at the time wasn’t so supportive, as she found out when she took him to see Dolls. “This poor guy from Minnesota, he almost had a heart attack—he kept getting lower in the seat . . . he had beads of sweat all over his forehead. The poor man couldn’t take it, he thought I was a lesbian!” The couple broke up soon after.

  *6 La Zar said playing Z-Man wasn’t exactly the best thing for his career. He’d go out for interviews, and people would express their surprise that he wasn’t like his crazy character. “If I was really like that, I’d be in San Quentin,” La Zar replied. Dolls certainly didn’t shoot anybody to stardom. “Nobody came out of that movie,” said Charles Napier.

  *7 Meyer and the ratings board were not exactly the bitter enemies one might think. “We rather enjoyed him, actually,” said board veteran Al Van Schmus. “Russ took his creations with a sense of humor. He’d say, ‘I’m gonna send a picture over.’ I’d start laughing, and I’d say, ‘OK, Russ, you’ve got an X immediately.’ ”

  *8 A number of bits were cut from the movie, including a fashion-shoot Blow-up parody and a background scene of Kelly McNamara at her mother’s funeral, in which her coffinbound mother (played by an “aged” Dolly Read) relates the facts of her life in couplets with music. “Almost like rap,” according to Read.

  *9 Meyer originally wanted to cast Rena Horten in Gray’s role for the sole indulgence of having his ex-girlfriend in a split-screen conversation with his current wife, but Edy talked him out of it (apparently ex-wife Eve, who’d suffered a similar indignity on Mudhoney, thought this a riotous idea). Meyer got a real kick out of sneaking Uschi into a stag movie sequence, as she was far from a favorite of his wife. According to Manny Diez, as an in-joke they outfitted the pornographer in the stag scene “the way Russ dresses—boots, black pants, and a maroon V-necked sweater. That was his uniform.”

  *10 David Brown, who also maintained he “liked Russ very much,” compared RM to another “rambunctious, maverick, skilled storyteller with an agenda all his own” whom he’d worked with—Michael Moore.

  *11 At times Meyer would arrive at his Mulholland home and find Edy had chained up the entrance to the home, at which point RM would pop the trunk of his black Porsche and retrieve what he called his “spare key”—a pair of bolt cutters.

  13 Run Like a Gazelle, Dear

  *1 Napier is tremendous in Supervixens, and according to crew member Stan Berkowitz, the main reason was because Napier agreed to work with Meyer again only if he refrained from offering the actor any direction. “I witnessed this,” said Berkowitz. “Chuck looked at the script and said, ‘I’m gonna rewrite my part, I’m gonna direct myself—stay outta the way.’ RM said, ‘Okay, fine.’ Napier was the one guy that intimidated Meyer.”

  *2 Meyer’s next film was Up! (1976). I couldn’t find any bathtub shots, but with Meyer’s quick cutting, that doesn’t mean it isn’t hiding in there.

  *3 Pitt would further irritate Meyer by testifying for Edy in the divorce proceedings, and trashing the director in a 1975 newspaper article, stating, “I have no intention of working again for Russ Meyer.” RM would excerpt the article in A Clean Breast alongside an autographed glossy of the actor whereupon he thanks Meyer for giving him his big break in show business.

  These days you can find Charles Pitt on his website promoting his new career as “America’s Tenor,” singing a blend of pop and opera he’s dubbed “popera.” According to his hype, “Madonna calls him ‘the sexiest tenor alive.’ ” Also on the site you’ll find pictures of Pitt demonstrating his acting ability by interpreting such themes as ‘Matador,’ ‘With a Horse,’ and ‘Romancing a Woman.’ Curiously, Supervixens is not listed on his lengthy resumé, although duly noted are such milestones as King Frat, Bog, and Skatetown, USA.

  *4 The year 2003 brought Napier’s most unsettling credit. He appeared on the syndicated Dr. Phil talk show with his wife, Dee, the topic being the pitfalls of show business. Napier, now sixty-seven, admitted he was depressed over his current career and the dwindling roles he was being offered. “Dr. Phil, can you help my husband get over his depression about his career and his fame?” asked Dee. “I’m at the groveling stage of my career . . . you’re my last shot,” Napier told the host. Harry Sledge fans everywhere wept.

  *5 Meyer slipped a rave review of Up! attributed to one Martin Bormann into the film’s newspaper ads. The New York Times pulled it after a day, although it continued to run in other dailies.

  14 The Ultra-Vixen

  *1 RM would maintain the two things that caused him the most trouble with censors were the bathtub scene in Supervixens and Natividad’s hairy pudenda.

  *2 “Oh my God, that’s not nice!” said Kitten, who burst out laughing when I repeated this tale. “Now you see why I thought Russ had some sort of mental illness?”

  *3 Beneath crew member Bruce Pasternack went from working with Russ Meyer to Orson Welles, and he found the two directors to be the same sort of miserable enfants terribles. “They were very, very similar in terms of their personality,” said Pasternack. “They both wanted to control absolutely everything and everyone around them.”

  *4 Mack was murdered not long after making Beneath. According to Ebert, a drug dealer was going to shoot her boyfriend. “She stood in front of the guy to protect him and took the bullet.”

  *5 As usual, Meyer was intent on blocking the ooze of others. According to Natividad, he had it in for Beneath’s Ken Kerr. “We had a little liaison, and Russ was not happy about that. He never spoke to him again. Russ wanted to control everybody’s sex life. He was eccentric—or crazy. What did he get out of it? I said, ‘Russ, you won’t let any of the guys get any pussy, but you’re getting pussy every night.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m the director, I’m Russ Meyer.’ It was so weird.”

  By the end of Beneath, RM would alienate not only Kerr but the picture’s associate producer as well, his longtime ally Uschi Digard. According to editor Les Barnum, when Meyer chewed Uschi out for not following orders, a furious Digard revealed she’d not only done exactly as told, she’d tape-recorded his instructions, at which point she proceeded to play them for RM. Uschi exploded at a crew dinner. “Right there at the dinner table, right to Meyer’s face, Uschi said, ‘I will not work for this man again, he is crazy!’ ” Barnum recalled. “Russ didn’t do anything. He kind of took it and continued to eat his dinner.”

  *6 Intended as a swipe at Mick Jagger; in some versions of the script, it’s B.J.

  *7 Meyer once boasted in an interview he got threatening calls from the National Front due to working with the Pistols. No one present who I interviewed remembers this.

  *8 Surprisingly, Richard Heffner, the controversial chairman of the MPAA’s ratings board from 1974 to 1994, and a man who publicly battled such directors as William Friedkin and Brian De Palma over ratings cuts, agreed with Meyer. “I wanted to change X at the beginning, I thought it was an abomination,” said Heffner. “I do recognize that it was a mistake on the part of the founders, meaning Valenti. I thought it was so clear they ought to make the change away from X before it killed the system—and it did kill the system in terms of giving the Russ Meyers and others th
e chance to beat us over the head with it. When the NC-17 [rating] came it came really too late—twenty-five years too late.”

  15 Mondo Meyer

  *1 Waters never felt Meyer cared much for his pictures. “I just don’t think he quite got it. Russ understood the exploitation angle, he respected me as a carny—he thought Divine eatin’ dogshit in Pink Flamingos was funny. I don’t think Russ got that they were exploitation art films. I might be wrong, but he certainly never gushed.”

  16 Janice and the Handyman

  *1 Later Meyer told friends that he’d been hit with a hammer and that he was saving the souvenir of his assault to mount on a plaque for the museum.

  *2 Although some footage would end up in 2000’s swan song Pandora Peaks, exactly one and a half minutes have surfaced of the original, unadulterated Breast, in the 1988 Jonathan Ross–hosted Meyer documentary for British TV. We see maps illustrating the 166th’s route during World War II, then RM zooming along in a car, retracing the path. Meyer is shown filming with his old Eyemo camera, then the picture cuts to old black-and-white footage Meyer shot during the war. Intercut with this is Kitten Natividad riding in the backseat of his car nude—RM ignores her to concentrate on his camera. Atlanta stripper Tami Roche is shown sitting in a tree naked. Apparently she plays Meyer’s guardian angel in the film. Too bad more of this project can’t be seen—it’s fabulous stuff.

  *3 Meyer was friendly with a reporter named William Kahrl. According to Dave Frasier, once George Carll was banished, William became “The Good Kahrl,” George “The Bad Carll.”

  *4 According to David K. Frasier, Meyer was known to piss in his own swimming pool at the Palm Desert house. When RM asked him if he’d like to take a dip, Frasier wisely refrained.

  *5 Said Kitten, “I was drinking a lot . . . I was not all there mentally, either. It’s not all Janice. I was fucked up . . . but she’s a screwball, anyway.”

  *6 Curiously, Meyer regarded Bryner with suspicion even though Jesse was on the payroll. “He never trusted him because he felt that he was Janice’s ‘boy,’ ” said David K. Frasier.

  *7 Mounds denied this in court. “I did not belittle him. . . . Russ and I had our arguments . . . a rocky relationship, but I wouldn’t do that to him.”

  *8 On page 1186 of A Clean Breast, alongside a Melissa Mounds interview completely concocted by Meyer, there is a shot of a German porno video box with a female on the cover that looks very much like Mounds. “During the time of the book Russ had found out she had done hard-core,” said Frasier. “He wanted to write something really, really vitriolic, just slamming her.” Dave talked him out of it.

  *9 Floyce did confirm that Cowart did offer to pay her travel expenses for RM’s memorial service, as noted later in this chapter.

  *10 A wildly entertaining character in his own right, “Colonel” Rob Schaffner has got to be the only hard-core pornographer Meyer ever befriended. Schaffner’s filthy and low-down 2000 home video release Camp Erotica is dedicated to “Russ Meyer and the men of the 166 Photo Corps.”

  *11 Apparently Cowart believes that all roads lead to Julio Dottavio, as she felt that her problems with Kitten Natividad were somewhat due to Kitten being spurned by Julio. “In my opinion part of her animosity towards me began because she liked Julio, who had been kind to her because he felt sorry for her because of her cancer surgery, and when he didn’t ask her out, she thought it was because he liked me, which really wasn’t true at all.” Funnily enough, Kitten felt that Janice never forgave Natividad due to outspoken comments she made regarding Janice’s relationship with Dottavio.

  *12 In 2001 came the home video release of William Winckler’s The Double-D Avenger, a non-Meyer low-budget comedy reuniting Kitten Natividad, Haji, and Raven De La Croix. It’s nice to see the women get work, but this mediocre, unfunny work only serves to remind how singular Meyer’s talent was.

  *13 The will specifically states that Meyer’s archive be available to historians of merit. Apparently this author doesn’t qualify, because permission was denied by the estate.

  *14 About seven and a half pages have been redacted from Meyer’s will so each beneficiary knows only what they are getting, so until an unedited copy comes into circulation, one can’t make any absolute statements concerning the will.

  Filmography

  *1 Various authors have erroneously listed an early-sixties picture called Steam Heat either as an alternate title for Teas or as a “lost” Meyer film. RM had nothing to do with Steam Heat, which I believe was alternately known as Mr. Teas’ Magic Spectacles. Little is known about the picture other than the fact Bill Teas starred in it (along with Brandy Long and one Enrico Banducci) and at some point Pete DeCenzie distributed it. The pressbook lists no production credits.

  Photo Insert

  Russ Meyer (top right) with childhood playmates, the Filipovitches—Lou, Pete, and Martha. “Russ was one of the nicest guys I ever knew,” said Pete Filipovitch. “I don’t think there was a mean bone in his body.” (Courtesy Martha Robbins)

  Sergeant Russ Meyer, photographed by fellow combat photographer and best friend Charles Sumners. “I really didn’t want the war to end,” said RM. “It was the best time I ever had.” (Charles Sumners)

  Russ Meyer reluctantly resting a leg mangled in a Jeep accident, Metz, France, 1944. “Russ would get so involved in makin’ the picture that he would forget about the danger,” said Charlie Sumners. (Charles Sumners)

  Tempest Storm, Frolic magazine, October 1952. Meyer had a brief affair with the stripper, but decided against the occupation of “peeler’s retriever.”

  Russ Meyer and first wife Betty Valdovinos on a trip to Hollywood, January 1951. “Betty thought Russ should go to work every day and carry a lunchbox,” said Jim Ryan. (Paul Fox, courtesy Dolores Fox)

  Russ Meyer and camera circa 1950. “Russ, with his big, huge hands, would tenderly handle that camera like it was a lover,” said longtime love and Meyer superstar Kitten Natividad. (Paul Fox, courtesy Dolores Fox)

  Russ and Eve Meyer, newlyweds, 1952. “Where he was strong, she wasn’t, and where she was strong, he wasn’t,” said Irving Blum. “They were absolutely astonishing together.” (Paul Fox, courtesy Dolores Fox)

  Grimy early fifties ad for buy-’em-direct-from-Russ mail-order photographs of wife Eve. “I got so I just hated that darkroom,” she said later.

  Eve Meyer as photographed by Russ Meyer, Frolic magazine, 1954. “Eve was a great intimidator,” said RM.

  Virginia “Ding-Dong” Bell, photographed by Meyer for Sir Knight, August 1959. One of the best of Meyer’s “female explosion” pictures. “My glamour is of a very provocative nature,” wrote Meyer. And how.

  Meyer was cinematographer for this late-fifties exploitation shocker starring Eve. “The abortion racket,” said Meyer, was “a very safe way to deal with sex—showing it as a real crime.”

  Various RM-shot June Wilkinson magazine covers, late fifties to early sixties. “Breasts are like fingerprints,” said Wilkinson. “No two are alike.”

  Fling magazine cover of Virginia Gordon by Meyer, 1959.

  Ad for Meyer’s first smash, 1959’s The Immoral Mr. Teas. “We couldn’t find anybody with the courage to screen it,” said Meyer. “No one had ever seen as bare a film as Teas.”

  The view over Meyer’s shoulder as he sat at a Moviola assembling his 1960 picture Eve and the Handyman. “Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut—get a rhythm,” RM told David K. Frasier. “A punishing rhythm.” (Ken Parker, courtesy Paula Parker)

  The luscious Veronique Gabrielle doing her thing in Europe in the Raw. Meyer would use the mesmerizing footage in 1966’s Mondo Topless as well.

  Ad for Meyer’s 1963 sex shockumentary, Europe in the Raw. “Tits and war,” proclaimed RM.

  RM shooting the 1961 nudie-cutie western Wild Gals of the Naked West. “I made movie after movie,” said Meyer. “Nothing else really mattered.” (Paul Fox, courtesy Dolores Fox)

  The mind-boggling Tura Satana, Miss Japan Beautiful, circa t
he late fifties. “Men were always after her big, big names,” said Peter Young. “She had boyfriends. A lotta them.” (Courtesy Tura Satana)

  Lorna Maitland, photographed by Meyer for Fling magazine, 1965. “A good actress!” scoffed Meyer. “I’d rather have a big-chested stiff who can hardly pronounce her name.”

  Rena Horten and Hal Hopper in 1965’s malevolent Meyer melodrama, Mudhoney. “Rena was pretty handy. She couldn’t have been a nicer chick,” said Fred Beiersdorf. “But Russ ran her off.”

  “Sound your warning . . . send your message . . . huff and puff and belch your smoke . . . and kill and maim and run off unpunished!” The Vegetable’s sudden moment of impotence upon hearing the train in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

  The outrageous triumvirate from 1966’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!—Tura Satana, Lori Williams, and Haji. “I personally prefer the aggressive female,” said Meyer. “The superwoman.”

  Alex Rocco and Haji during a high-angst moment in Motorpsycho, 1965. “I came visiting with my family from another galaxy,” mused Haji. “I think a lot about all the little creatures in the ocean.”

  “You’ve only dreamed there were women like these, but they’re real, unbelievably real!” Pat Barringer in Meyer’s 1966 mammary-overloaded masterpiece, Mondo Topless. Note the ubiquitous Meyer prop, a transistor radio.