Obituary: Ken Russell - Director whose eccentric style shocked and delighted cinema audiences in the 1970s

Born: 3 July, 1927, in Southampton. Died: 28 November, 2011, in Hampshire, aged 84

IN ALL his films Ken Russell sought to push back the accepted boundaries of taste and social acceptability. His subjects were controversial – he delighted in being surprising and shocking – but Russell refused to apologise about any lurid passages in his films.

For a few years in the 1970s he was big box office and many of his films grossed many millions. The famous nude fight, for example, in Women in Love, between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, caused a sensation.

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But changing fashion left him out on a limb and his style was deemed out of favour. Money dried up for a Ken Russell project and in 2007 he volunteered for the Big Brother house, but left after an altercation with the controversial Jade Goody.

In fact, many consider some of his best work was done in his youth at the BBC’s arts programme Monitor. His films of Elgar, Debussy and, especially, Delius were acclaimed and he married the latter composer’s life and music with a gentle and telling subtlety. In all he made more than 30 films for the BBC, many of which are now classics.

The Orkney-based composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies worked with Russell on two of his films (The Boy Friend and The Devils) and spoke warmly of the experience. “I got a call out of the blue from him,” he recalled. “For The Boy Friend I re-arranged Sandy Wilson’s original score and wrote some new music. For The Devils I wrote all the music. Ken was one of the greatest directors of his generation and probably the greatest to truly understand music in its entirety and how it could be used and entwined in the fabric of film.”

Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell was the elder of two sons of a shoe-shop owner and was educated privately. He showed a keen early interest in the cinema. On leaving school Russell joined the Merchant Navy but was invalided out in 1946 and during his recuperation he listened to a lot of music, especially Tchaikovsky.

He studied art and photography and Huw Wheldon, then the editor of Monitor, saw some of his photographs and suggested he joined the BBC arts department.

Russell’s films for Monitor varied widely and he often got involved in controversial subjects. In the programme he made on Richard Strauss, Russell costumed the actor playing the composer in a Nazi uniform.

In 1963 Russell made his first full-length movie (French Dressing) and, four years later, a thriller, Billion Dollar Brain with Michael Caine as Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer.

His first real commercial success came in 1969 with Women in Love. The film’s nudity upset many but it won Russell an Oscar nomination and put him firmly in the big league. The early 1970s saw Russell at his most productive and innovative – sometimes critics felt he was being sensational just for the sake of it but his films were profitable and studios were keen to employ him.

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As if to show his lighter side Russell decided to film The Boy Friend, the light-hearted smash hit stage musical with Twiggy as the lead. It was a hugely fun film and Twiggy commented yesterday: “Ken was a bit of a nutter but he gave me a great chance and I shall always be grateful.”

In 1970 Russell made The Music Lovers, which told of the life and marriage of Tchaikovsky, starring Richard Chamberlain and Glenda Jackson. Russell described the plot as being about “a homosexual who marries a nymphomaniac”. Russell had built up a following in the cinema industry and his extreme photography and love of outrageous subjects reflected the mood of the decade. He delighted in provoking studios and saw himself in the tradition of great European auteurs such as Fellini and Pasolini.

In the mid-1970s his star began to wane. Mahler was an inspired movie with Robert Powell but was considered sentimental and over-fictionalised. One reviewer described Lisztomania (with Roger Daltry) as a “gaudy compendium of second-hand Freud and third-rate pastiche”. The Who then asked Russell to direct their rock opera Tommy.

Then came Valentino, which was a flop at the box office despite a cast led by Rudolf Nureyev. Perhaps it was too big an ask to have two outsize personalities on the same project. They certainly never had a warm friendship but the dancer remained impressed. “Ken’s style is full of invention and daring. He has a visual imagination that is unique,” he said.

Although Russell directed some operas (including a tepid version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida at English National Opera) he was beset by problems. He had left his beloved Lake District to live in the New Forest but his home was destroyed by fire.

Ken Russell was married four times. He is survived by Elize Tribble, who he married in 2001, and four sons and a daughter. ALASDAIR STEVEN