Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film

This former WWII combat photographer immortalized his personal sexual obsession upon the silver screen, creating box-office gold with The Immoral Mr. Teasin 1959. The modest little film pushed all preexisting limits of on-screen nudity, and with its success, the floodgates of what was permitted to be shown on film were thrust open, never to be closed again. Russ Meyer ignited a true revolution in filmmaking, breaking all sex, nudity, and violence taboos. In a career that spanned more than forty years, Meyer created a body of work that has influenced a legion of filmmakers, fashionistas, comic book artists, rock bands, and even the occasional feminist.

Bringing his anecdote- and action-packed biographical style to another renegade of popular culture, New York Timesbestselling author of ShakeyJimmy McDonough offers a wild, warts-and-all portrait of Russ Meyer, the director, writer, producer, and commando moviemaking force behind the sexploitation classics Vixen, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!and many others. Big Bosoms and Square Jawsblows the lid off the story of Russ Meyer, from the beginning to his recent tragic demise, creating in the process a vivid portrait of a past America.