LONDON (AP) — Ken Russell, an iconoclastic British director whose daring films blended music, sex and violence in a potent brew seemingly drawn straight from his subconscious, has died at age 84.
Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney Elliott said today.
“My father died peacefully,” Verney-Elliott said. “He died with a smile on his face.”
Russell was a fiercely original director whose vision occasionally brought mainstream success, but often tested the patience of audiences and critics. He had one of his biggest hits in 1969 with “Women in Love,” based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and a “Best Actress” Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.
It included one of the decade’s most famous scenes — a nude wrestling bout between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.
Reed said at the time that the director was “starting to go crazy.”
“Before that he was a sane, likable TV director,” Reed said. “Now he’s an insane, likable film director.”
Born in the English port of Southampton in 1927, Russell was attracted by the romance of the sea and attended Pangbourne Nautical College before joining the Merchant Navy at 17 as a junior crew member on a cargo ship bound for the Pacific. He became seasick, soon realized he hated naval life and was discharged after a nervous breakdown.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
