By Selwyn Harris
As visionary sexploitation maven Russ Meyer--the Duke of Knockers, the Viscount of Voluptutitude, the King of All Things Curvaceous--departed the realm of us mere mortals on September 21, 2004, his classic films are continuing to arrive on DVD and A Clean Breast, his multi-volume, lushly illustrated, thirty-years-in-the-making autobiography, is finally available at the Grand Poobah of Glandular Protuberance's official website: rmfilms.com.
We knew and loved the man. We've memorized and worshipped his work. But what of the key figures--and what figures!--who made Russ Meyer the Most High Exalted Monarch of Expansive Mogambos in the first (and second) place?
The women in Russ Meyer's casaba-loaded canon are creatures unlike any others in all of cinema--or anywhere else, for that matter. Top-heavy (above all), independent, smart, vicious, ferociously sexual, and fearlessly bent on devouring life on their own terms, Meyer's heroines were fleshed out by awe-inspiring actresses who more than lived-up to every dimension of the roles that electrified drive-in screens and midnight shows for decades and now continue to astonish in perpetuity on home video.
So where are these arrestingly over-equipped eyefuls now? MrSkin.com leads you up the trail of broken brassieres to locate the tits and answers.
EDY WILLIAMS
MEYER MOVIES:Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (Picture: ), The Seven Minutes (1970)
STACKED FACTS: Considering Edy Williams's outrageous, flesh-intensive antics off-screen--attending the Academy Awards every year in shockingly skimpy attire, going topless twice at the Beverly Hills Hotel's posh Polo Lounge, and stripping out of her evening gown before a crowd of 70,000 during a Muhammad Ali/Leon Spinks fight--it makes sense that this pulchritudinous powerhouse had what it took to be the real-life Mrs. Russ Meyer from 1970 to 1975. Though she appeared in only two of her ex-husband's films--one is arguably his greatest, the other is often disputed as his worst --Edy illuminated a steady stream of cool, often cruel B-classics all her own, including I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew (1968), Dr. Minx (1975), Chained Heat (1983) (Picture: - ), and Hellhole (1985). Since her last screen gem, Bad Girls From Mars (1991), she has continued to model, was honored with an official postage stamp in Somalia, and still attends the Oscar ceremony each spring, supplying Joan and Melissa Rivers with fashion fodder to truly spout off about (because they're so hot--yecchh!). She also dotes over her dogs and horses and, as is evident on her official website, reigns on as the world's hottest nude water-skier. But we would like to encourage some competition there.
ONLINE:EdyWilliams.com
ERICA GAVIN
MEYER MOVIES:Vixen! (1968) (Picture: - - ), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (Picture: )
STACKED FACTS: The bewitching, bombastically buxom brunette who became synonymous with her signature role--Vixen--and radiates one of the most erotic cinematic presences ever photographed actually claims that she'd never even considered a screen career. "I was a stoned-out hippie," she recalls, "living in Laurel Canyon and going to Acid Tests." Fortunately, Erica scored munchie-money by dancing topless at a club misnamed The Loser's alongside Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! sirens Haji and Tura Satana and, after answering Russ Meyer's Variety ad for "technically interesting girls," the rest is heavenly hefty-hooter history. Since starring in director Jonathan Demme's Women-In-Prison milestone Caged Heat (1974) (Picture: - ), Erica simply disappeared from Hollywood and stayed away until the late '90s, when she reentered the biz as a stylist. Better still, Erica frequently appears at fan conventions, where you can ask her yourself why she denied moviegoers her luminous loveliness for too, too long. And you can yell at one of the B-movie guys there to give her some work, too.
ONLINE:EricaGavin.com
HAJI
MEYER MOVIES:Motor Psycho (1965), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966), Good Morning... and Goodbye! (1967) (Picture: - ), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (Picture: - ), Supervixens (1975) (Picture: )
STACKED FACTS: "I'm a visitor from another galaxy, sent as one of Mother Nature's daughters. I've been given one of the highest honors, to be able to visit this planet called Earth. My purpose for being here is to be one of the voices speaking out, through my body, to help protect all living creatures." So proclaims multilingual, magma-hot Haji, and, oh, how this exotic paragon of female empowerment speaks out (and does everything else) through her body! As the single two-tiered tornado to have blown through more Meyer films than any other, Haji's highest rank in the annals of cult superstardom is forever insured. Her ongoing, eager, excited interaction with admirers and devotees has further made her one of the most popular attractions at conventions and other meet-and-greet gatherings, where she still knocks all comers flat with her brawny star power and bodaciously bountiful chest charms.
ONLINE:Faster-Pussycat-Haji.com
KITTEN NATIVIDAD
MEYER MOVIES:Up! (1976) (Picture: - - ), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) (Picture: - - )
STACKED FACTS: Flame-maned, torpedo-torso'd hot-hot-hot tamale Kitten Natividad first landed in the Hollywood Hills as a maid for '60s starlet Stella Stevens but quickly stormed the big screen on her own--monstrously massive milk-barrels-first. The ravishing, rollicking, ultra-robust redhead is udderly unforgettable in her couple of Russ Meyer credits. Kitten also built an enamored following as vast and attached to her as her behemoth bazongas with mega-sack-baring star turns in dozens of sex films, some hardcore, and a steaming strip-club act wherein she'd indulge her bulges with an onstage bubble bath. Kitten also purred and peeled to reveal her prodigious pumpkins in mainstream movies like 48 Hrs. (1982) (Picture: ) and The Wild Life (1984) (Picture: - - ). Sadly, cancer claimed Kitten's colossal kabobblers in 1999 and she underwent a double mastectomy. Her fabulous flotation devices were fifty-one. Still, she remains in high sprits, showing up at fan gatherings and occasionally making a new movie to prove that there's life after losing the most perfect pair of whalloping watermelons a simple Mexican se?ta ever did grow.
ONLINE:KittenKlub.com
LORI WILLIAMS
MEYER MOVIES:Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966)
STACKED FACTS: Blonde, go-go-booted, gargantuan-gazonga'd Lori makes for one of the most indelible images from Russ's first true masterwork and, indeed, that declaration figures as much more than a mouthful. Although she never really followed up on her initial big-screen promise--her only other noteworthy role is as "Girl" in It's a Bikini World (1967)--Lori loves her Faster, Pussycat past and is active on the movie-geek and glamour-girl circuits. She's also enthusiastically signed to stomp ass anew alongside her old co-stars Haji and Tura Satana for the presently-in-development Kill! Kitty Kat! Kill!, which she describes as: "a psychotronic modernization of Shakespeare's MacBeth where foxy ladies battle for control of the ultra-hip Kitty Kat Club." Me-yow!
ONLINE:Faster-Pussycat.com
LORNA MAITLAND
MEYER MOVIES:Lorna (1964) (Picture: - - ), Mudhoney (1965) (Picture: - ), Mondo Topless (1966) (Picture: - )
STACKED FACTS: "A woman too much for one man " So proclaimed the posters for Russ's early classic Lorna, and it's a description that more than accurately applies to its bazooka-bosomed leading lust object. Lorna Maitland, in fact, was too much woman for just one Russ Meyer movie, and she made major front-end impacts in a powerful pair of follow-ups. Since then, Lorna--whose real name is the incredibly fun-to-say Barbara Popejoy--has maintained as low a profile as possible for a five-foot-nine, 42-22-36 skinematic supernova. So if you're out there reading this Lorna: Please come back and smother your adoring public once--well, twice--more!
ONLINE:Russ Meyer's official website
CANDY SAMPLES a.k.a. MARY GAVIN
MEYER MOVIES:Up! (1976) (Picture: - ), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)
STACKED FACTS: Best known for having the biggest chest bombers in dozens of hardcore fuck flicks, monumentally mountain-mambazo'd Mary Gavin--better known as Candy Samples--shared her sumptuous sweet stuff in two Russ Meyer movies. Before and after, she asserted herself (by inserting things into herself) as one of the X-rated film industry's all-time top super-sized suckable starlets. With white-blonde hair and astonishingly ample sweater Alps, Candy commanded any set she appeared one . . . with her awesome set! After a satisfying late-career string of matronly turns in porn videos where she typically played a whorehouse madam or G.I.L.F. (Grandma I'd Like to Fuck), Miss Samples packed up her pachyderm-proportioned meat pontoons and retired in 1989. But Big Bust Babes (1984), Big Busty 14: The Classic Strip (1985), and Bra Breakers Volume 1 (1987) will live forever!
ONLINE:Candy Samples online
RAVEN DE LA CROIX
MEYER MOVIES:Up! (1976) (Picture: - - )
STACKED FACTS: Although she graced just one Russoid globe-fest, Raven's alluring face and volcanic cleavage on the poster for Up! made for one of the signature signposts in the entire Meyerverse. One of the very last vestiges of old-school burlesque, Raven closed that epoch of human bawdiness in high style as she packed them in--and popped them out!--in vintage strip joints throughout the '70s and '80s. She upped her notability by occasionally playing huge-honkered honeys in stylish soft-sex flings such as The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977) (Picture: ) and Screwballs (1984) (Picture: - ) as well producing and starring in The Lost Empire (1985), which also features her son Matoux De La Croix. (Hey, Mat: you've got one hot mama . . . with two hot mamm-as!) Raven performed heroically in some hardcore fare as well. And of all of Russ's hyper-voluptuous veterans, Raven may well now lead the most colorful existence.
A visit to Raven's confessionally monikered website--Rantings of a Madwoman--reveals her profound involvement with psychic visions, interdimensional realities, metaphysical healing, exotic body art, and, indeed, her personal memories of UFO abduction. In addition, besides some once-in-a-while film work and glamour-con stuff, Raven presses flesh with the public most excitedly these days as "Crystals, the Mystic Clown." Folks, this clown is no joke and she's available for "Parties Openings of All Occasions! Batmitzvahs! Barmitzvahs! Birthdays! Company Picnics / Holiday Specials! Benefits! Church Functions! La Quinceanera! New Age Events! Mystical Celebrations!" She even promises a "Free demonstration in your home or office!" Please note: Crystals the Mystic Clown also still sports a pair of incredibly huge and luscious lacto-launchers.
ONLINE:RantingsOfAMadWoman.com
TURA SATANA
MEYER MOVIES:Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966)
STACKED FACTS: Self-identified "Oriental" Tura does not boast a filmography whose numbers are in keeping with her anatomical immenseness, but what few movies she's made have been doozies. They include Our Man Flint (1966), Ted V. Mikel's The Astro-Zombies (1969), and The Doll Squad (1973). She is, of course, forever seared in our species' collective libido as karate-chopping, neckline-wrecking Varla from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Tura's personal website contains a fascinating, lengthy autobiography that some enterprising Russ-Meyer-junior-type out there would do well to convert into a whole-lotta-motion picture. The ultimate danger kitty frequently stops by collector shows and signs autographs. And if you ask her to break your neck in a tribute to her trademark screen turn, who knows? You might get lucky and land in traction!
ONLINE:TuraSatana.com
USCHI DIGARD
MEYER MOVIES:Cherry, Harry Raquel! (1970) (Picture: - - ), Supervixens (1975) (Picture: - ), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)
STACKED FACTS: Uschi, Uschi, Uschi. Even her name sounds soft and round and squishy yet firm and gorgeous and groovy and gargantuan in all (two of) the right places. It's ironic how little is known about the private life of fan favorite Uschi Digard, as she was so voluminously visible for so long and so generous when it came to showing off her devastatingly divine dairy dirigibles.
The American-born, Swedish-raised ?-sexpot has lit up well over one hundred known films with her pendulous presence, acting under a minimum of fifty different pseudonyms. Her most famous on-camera mam-ifestation occurs during the timeless "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble" sequence of the landmark comedy Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) (Picture: - ). Those soapy, squeaky, bouncing, be-nippled boulders that get banged repeatedly up against the steamy shower door are all Uschi's.
Uschi has appeared similarly stripped for glory in dozens of other cult classics and, with the dawn of the DVD revolution, now stands with Bettie Page and Misty Mundae as a brand name guaranteed to move discs. Something Weird Video has flooded the market with flabbergastingly great DVD packages featuring Uschi, including The Godson (1971) (Picture: - ), Below the Belt (1971) (Picture: - ), and Getting Into Heaven (1970) (Picture: - ), in which Uschi plays--oh-so-appropriately--Heaven. Weirder still and also wonderful is Seduction Cinema's recent rash of Uschi remakes, where discs like Roxanna (Picture: - ) and Lustful Addiction contain the original films paired with a new version starring the aforementioned Misty Mundae. Uschi and Misty are polar opposites in the breast department, but their inspired DVD couplings prove that heat comes in all sizes. Even though Russ Meyer would have insisted that bigger isn't just better there's no such thing(s) as big enough!
ONLINE:SomethingWeird.com / SeductionCinema.com
