British director Ken Russell died 27 November 2011 after a series of strokes. Born Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell in Southampton, England on 3 July 1927, his films included Women in Love (1969, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe), Altered States (1980, for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award), and The Who’s rock opera Tommy (1975). He also directed for the stage, including several operas, and television.
In announcing his death, Variety calls his work “visually baroque and often deliberately excessive and opulent.”
He began directing while still attending the Nautical College in Pangbourne. Following his schooling, he served in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Air Force, then studied art, danced ballet for a time, acted, worked as a photographer, and then returned to film. In the late 1950s, he was hired by the BBC to direct commercials and documentary films for the channel’s Monitor, where he stayed for 10 years.
In the mid-1960s, Russell moved to the work he would be known for: biographies. He created more than 30, as Variety says, “unconventional biographies… that took poetic license with the lives of [their] subjects.” At the same time, he began his feature film work with the comedy French Dressing (1963), the spy thriller Billion Dollar Brain (1967), and his breakthrough film, Women in Love (1970, it earned a Best Actress Oscar for star Glenda Jackson). After Tommy and Altered States, his career never seemed to gain the critical and financial success it sometimes promised. In the 1990s, most of his directing work was for television (though he also directed many international stage productions in the 1980s and 1990s).
Additionally, he wrote. His autobiography, Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell appeared in the UK in 1989 and the US in 1991. He also wrote six novels, for of which focused on the sex lives of composers. His 2006 sf novel Violation is “a violent dystopian story of a future England.”
In the last decade, he was a visiting professor at the University of Wales and Newport Film School, and a visiting fellow at the University of Southampton.
His genre films include: Trapped Ashes (2006), The Fall of the Louse of Usher: A Gothic Tale for the 21st Century (2002), Lion’s Mouth (2000), Mephistopheles (1989), The Lair of the White Worm (1988), Gothic (1986), Altered States (1980), Lisztomania (1975), Tommy (1975), and The Devils (1971). He also appeared as an actor, and was the executive producer, of Invasion of the Not Quite Dead (2011).
He was married four times. First to Shirley Russell, who was the costume designer on most of early films. Their marriage lasted from 1956 to 1978. After their divorce, he married Vivian Jolly (1983-91), actress Hetty Baynes (1992-99), and his Lisi Tribble (2001- ). He is survived by his fourth wife and five children.