Personal and Family Life
It was in World War II that, according to Meyer, he found himself at a French brothel with Ernest Hemingway who, upon finding out that Meyer was a virgin, offered him the prostitute of his choice. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts.
Despite his reputation as a Rabelaisian man, Russ Meyer never employed the casting couch and rarely slept with any of his actresses. He had no children though there were rumored unsuccessful pregnancies with his second wife Edy Williams and last serious girlfriend, Melissa Mounds, who was also found guilty of assaulting him in 1999. There is a long standing rumor among his closest friends and at least one biographer that he had a son in 1964 with a secret lover who he would refer to only as "Miss Mattress" or "Janet Buxton".
Meyer was very upfront throughout his life about being too selfish to be a father or even a caring partner, or husband. Yet he is also said to have been very generous with all his friends and acquaintances, and never isolated friends from one another. Biographers have attributed most of his brutish and eccentric nature to the fact that he was abandoned by his father, an Oakland police officer and overly coddled by his mother, Lydia, who was married six times. Meyer had a half sister, Lucinda, who was diagnosed in her twenties with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to California State mental institutions until her death in 1999. Mental illness ran in his family and it was something he secretly feared. During his entire life Russ Meyer spoke with only the highest reverence for his mother and sister.
Meyer was married to:
- Betty Valdovinos (born 1922, divorced)
- Edy Williams (born July 9, 1942, divorced)
- Eve Meyer (December 13, 1928 - March 27, 1977, died)
Contrary to some accounts, Meyer was never married to Kitten Natividad, his longtime companion and the star of his final two films.
Read more about this topic: Russ Meyer
Famous quotes containing the words personal, family and/or life:
“Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all—no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself—a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Productive collaborations between family and school, therefore, will demand that parents and teachers recognize the critical importance of each other’s participation in the life of the child. This mutuality of knowledge, understanding, and empathy comes not only with a recognition of the child as the central purpose for the collaboration but also with a recognition of the need to maintain roles and relationships with children that are comprehensive, dynamic, and differentiated.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless—for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)