My Friend Russ Meyer

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, to a HAPPY MAN

One of the true great joys in my life was to know and share laughter with the amazing, brilliant filmmaker Russell Albion Meyer.

I was already a fan dating back to 1975 and SuperVixens, and in awe of the Meyer 'intensely personal and unique vision of the world,' when we met in Las Vegas in 1989 and became friendly.  Over the next several years we saw each other many, many times.  Russ was a guest in my home in Washington DC, and I his guest numerous times in the Hollywood Hills and out in Palm Desert.

We enjoyed a great many meals, film screenings, nights on the town, and sundry adventures - including a rendezvous in Paris, and a day shooting cutaways in the Mojave Desert.  One of the great nights of all time was our dinner, twenty years ago tomorrow night, celebrating Russ's 70th birthday.

Magnum Opus

I was staying at the Bel Air Hotel, and we'd arranged to celebrate in style on the premises. He drove across town, arriving late, and laden with armloads of artwork - Annie Fannie-style illustrations he called "Bust-oons" that he was having prepared for his long-awaited, by then much-unfinished masterpiece "A Clean Breast."  He laid these out on the table at dinner.

We talked about the book, the production hassles, his can't-miss film project ideas (a shot-for-shot remake of Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! with LaToya Jackson, for instance), the usual recounting of amorous escapades, and life as an iconoclast in the company town.

Then we turned to his third marriage, to Edy Williams. It turned out the 1970 wedding had taken place on the premises, in the Garden of the Bel Air Hotel.  Russ's tardiness arriving for dinner was due to his having rooted around in the garden on the way in, but he'd gotten lost; we agreed that after dinner we'd scout around to see if we couldn't find the 'scene of the crime.'  Many glasses of wine later, that we did.

To stand under the stars at midnight, stumbling about on the rolling lawns of the Bel Air, while Russ rhapsodized about Edy Williams' charms even as he brandished the rolled-up Bust-oons in the air, batting wildly at the stars, railing against her "shrewishness!" - "But I have no regrets, Sir - I have None At All !"  Pure heaven.

Over many years' time, Russ introduced me to a cavalcade of characters, among them Dave Friedman, Stuart Lancaster, James Anthony Ryan & Bert Santos, Charles Napier, John Lazar and others, as well as trusty Janice and his leading ladies Melissa Mounds, Haji and Tura Satana.  Here is a beautiful clip that provides a glimpse of the work, the spirit and joie de vivre of old RM.

I learned so much from this unique man.  And our friendship meant and still means very much to me.

Thanks for the memories.

Happy 90th Birthday, Russ.