August 30, 2005 12:00am
Russ Meyer Tribute
Source: Adult Industry News
by: Bob Ellison
Put the blame on Russ!
Russ, of course, is Russ Meyer, the man prudes have been shaking their trembling fingers at for more than three decades.
After all, Russ is the sly rascal who unhooked America's bra.
His maiden feature, the Immoral Mr. Teas, was the first mainstream film to show nudity in public theaters, debuting exactly 35 years ago to the dumbfounded shock of a titillated public.
And the silver screen has not been the same since.
Put simply, if there had been no Russ Meyer, gape now at the famous naked breasts you would have missed: Demi Moore's (Striptease), and Oscar Winners Susan Sarandon's (Atlantic City), and Emma Thompson's (The Big Guy), to name just a few.
Plus, poor ol' Madonna, without the benefit of nudity, would still be an unknown brunette with a mediocre voice and a smaller talent.
But that's not Russ' only assault on -- er, contribution to -- social unconventions.
Besides impacting movies, he's influenced mammaries. See, he's the same scalawag who helped popularize LARGE breasts. But not just BIG. Instead, nothing less than Brobdingnagian bustlines -- cantilevered double-barreled triple FFF-Cantaloupes.
Herr Meyer's Kitten Natividad was the first "name" performer to have her not-so-ample Twin Peaks suddenly inflated to dwarf Mt. Rushmore, as is bountifully evidenced in UP!, and Beyond the Valley of the UltraVixens -- surgical enhancement that is no longer a curiosity.
In ShowBiz today, it's actually common to see humongous spheres, bosoms bigger than Michael Jackson's ego, matching the national debt.
Also, it was Russ' breakthrough erotic epic, Vixen (1968) that finally obliterated the Chicago Censorship Board, at the time the nation's most restrictive and uptight. It was a young critic named Ebert (yes, that Ebert, the calorie challenged overnourished half of Siskel & Ebert) -- who launched the crusade against the CCB, a battle won that ripped open bustiers permanently.
Indeed, the former WWII combat photographer always did it his way.
After the military, he spent the next six years learning his polishing his skills doing Industrial films for Standard Oil, Crown Zellerbach, and the Western Pie Association.
Then a pal suggested he get into a burgeoning new field -- men's magazines, and Pinups. "Playboy was coming to the fore," and though Meyer had no glamour photography experience, "My friend pointed out, 'what you lack in ability, you'll make up in enthusiasm!'" Bingo!
Forever a rebel -- but NEVER a pornographer! -- the 69-year-old priapic pathfinder [was] still at it [before his death last September]. He [was] ... releasing three videos starring bra busters Pandora Peaks, Melissa Mounds, and Tami Roche' -- Strip Shows, "But something to get the boys through the night!" chortles the Sultan of Skin Flicks.
And [available now]... unleashed on a panting public is the complete and uncensored story of his life, in three volumes, 1,500 pages, and 2,500 photos -- "The Clean Breasts of Russ Meyer"!
Oh, those photos -- pix of some of the most luscious and lusted for lovelies ever to bare their abundant pectorals to a camera.
But the true shocks will come from the text. As he says in his own inimitable W. C. Fields style: "It's not a kiss and tell book. It's a fuck and tell book!"
And the stories he's telling will have more than just the fingers of those prudes wagging. Tongues, too, will be going bonkers.
Thus, for a sneak peek at the tomes, a journey was recently taken to visit the fabled lair of the scamp often called King Leer.
His home, appropriately enough, is just below the fabled Hollywood sign. To get there, you go up-up-UP a steep incline, then down-nnnn and around a road as narrow and serpentine as Satan's soul. But navigating the maze is worth the hassle. Inside his rakish 2-story hideaway you find more than a home -- a virtual museum in tribute to his life and loves -- the walls and ceilings covered stem to stern with huge posters of his movies, posters in all languages known to civilization.
Among his other titanic 13-plus: Mud Honey; Eve and the Handyman; Up!; Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; Lorna; Cherry, Harry & Raquel; Super Vixens; "And the feminists favorite" -- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Feminists favorite?! Gotta be kidding.
"No -- true!" grins the well-tanned 6'4" unreformed rake. "Feminists have good reason to appreciate my work," he chuckles. "After all, I liberated women." a long pause. "Of course," he adds, "In that one -- the women kick the crap out of the men!"
Not Russ, though. Married three times, and about to commit number 4 (with stripper Melissa Mounds), he's lived a dream life of milk and honeys, if occasionally the milk turned a bit sour.
Yup, Number 3, Edy Williams (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; and The Seven Minutes). "I drove a Porsche 911," he says, "And she wanted me to drive a Cadillac. She hated that Porsche, so one day she threw a huge rock through the windshield."
Oh, that Edy! "So I got a chainsaw -- and sheared away the rear fender of her classic Corvette!
"But the joke was on me," he laughs now. "I was paying for both." He pauses a moment, reflective, his eyes narrowing. Suddenly it's the look of John Wayne charging onto the beach at Iwo Jima.
"She got the message!" he grunts, then adds: But I would never put her down. She was hotter than a Mexican's lunch -- just constantly going, ready to do a number on you."
Some men have devoted their lives to finding a cure for cancer. Or even Astronauting to the moon. But Russ? His mission, which became no longer impossible -- "relieving the tensions in 20-year-olds."
And what about Mr. Teas, the man whose popping eyeballs took the shame out of all the secret fantasies all men share, and the heart of any healthy male's DNA code -- the longing to see ladies naked?
As Adam said, "Yo, Eve, you bitch -- come on, drop the damn fig-leaf!"
So what's become of the immoral, and immortal, Mr. Teas -- Russ' lifelong buddy from World War II?
William Ellis Teas (Teas is his real name), well, he's still with the Maestro of Mammaries -- residing on Mr. Meyer's mantelpiece, in a plastic cylinder. His ashes, that is.hat is.
|
