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

by Jimmy McDonough

  “Russ was a very private person who was embarrassed when he could not function socially as he had in the past. A number of invited people continued to visit but it was very painful for them and also for Russ. He would often become furious after they left or insult them when they were here. The doctors advised us there was no point to having these people visit as Russ would forget by the next hour.”

  “Janice says she does it all for Russ’s sake,” said Floyce Sumners in 2004. “I said, ‘Janice, how can you say that, when you cut off everyone who’s cared for him?’ She even went so far as to tell me that people didn’t really care for him, they were just moochers, just used him.”

  “The whole thing is ironic, because one of the things that Russ wanted through his company is that all his personal friends be a part of his business, and she wasn’t even a personal friend,” said Paula Parker. “The worst thing is to take your support team away when you’re leaving, you’re at the end days,” said Raven.

  “Now if Kitten was in charge? He would’ve died so happy, this guy,” said Haji in 2003. “Janice hasn’t got that kind of sensitivity or imagination that she would allow—in his own home—the Pussycat girls and Kitten to come up and have a party. So what if Russ doesn’t remember us? We remember him. I’m telling you, he might not have remembered it all, but he would’ve had a ball.”

  But that sort of merry shindig would never happen, and RM’s friends were all left in limbo as to the progression of his affliction. Said Haji, “I told Jim Ryan the other day, ‘So, Jim, I can’t see him anymore? You know what you’re telling me, Jim? You’re telling me the next time I’m gonna see Russ Meyer is in a coffin.’ ” Most poignantly, Erica Gavin asked, “When Russ passes away, are we even gonna know?”

  At some point Meyer’s beloved museum at Arrowhead Drive was dismantled. “They said Russ got violent and started writing obscene things on the pictures and he would start destroying them,” maintained Kitten Natividad. “It would upset him and make him horny or whatever.” Ryan was told that a nurse who specialized in Alzheimer’s suggested they be removed, as they stirred partial memories that confused and agitated Meyer. All the pictures and plaques were taken down, aside from a few on the ceiling that couldn’t be reached. “They haven’t thrown it away,” said Ryan. “It’s preserved. All the pictures are piled in a heap.” Friends were disturbed that RM had been stripped of his all-important past. “I think that would be the ultimate blow for him,” said Jean-Pierre Jackson. “He was living on souvenirs.”

  Meyer spent his end days facing bare walls that echoed with the soothing sounds of Guy Lombardo and Bing Crosby. “Passive music that keeps him calm,” Ryan explained. “He’s under medication.” Measures were taken to ensure that RM complied with his prescription schedule. “They’ve got television cameras on him all the time. He’d fake taking the pills and then throw ’em away—he’d say, ‘I don’t like ’em, they make me feel funny.’ ”

  Ultimately, Ryan defended Cowart, maintaining there was nothing nefarious going on with Meyer’s care. “What’s nefarious? There’s three different nurses and housekeepers and they have to cook his dinner, get him to the toilet, give him a shower and shave him, cut his hair. Somebody supervises that, and they’ve done a good job. He looks great all the time. You’d never know there’s anything the matter with him. He’s lost weight, he’s in the sun and got a suntan.” Ryan maintained that the estate went to great lengths to obtain the newest imported drugs in hopes of rehabilitating RM’s mind, but to no avail.

  There is no question that Janice Cowart had one tough gig. She’d been hired as an office worker and now she was caretaker of a sick old man. Meyer was often belligerent and uncontrollable even when his brain was functioning properly. “He’s strong, too,” said Jim Ryan, recalling the way Meyer grabbed Cowart during one outburst. “She was really scared—but she was able to say, ‘Russ! Your mother wouldn’t like that!’ ” Ryan backed up Janice’s claims that she was only protecting Meyer and his business. “She’s rather blunt as far as doing things to keep his privacy. She doesn’t want him to be disturbed, because when he gets disturbed, it disturbs everybody there. He’s upset all that day, then he gets fighting with the medical assistants, the nurses, the housekeepers. It takes him a day to settle down after these encounters.”

  There are those in Meyer’s circle who wondered why Ryan allowed events to unfold the way they did, some even suspecting darker motives—a ridiculous claim if you know the man. Erica Gavin felt he was simply oblivious, that Ryan “would never expect evil out of people. He’s like the movie he’s in—the Handyman.” The last time he saw Gavin, Meyer, who always got a chuckle when it came to Ryan and the opposite sex, expressed the opinion that Jim was somewhat bewitched by Janice Cowart.

  Despite Janice Cowart’s desire to be head honcho of her own business, Paula Parker saw “weakness in her. She always had to have somebody around helping her make a decision.”

  Enter one Julio Dottavio. Originally hired by Meyer to do some remodeling in his home, in recent years Dottavio’s stature has grown by leaps and bounds at RM Films, with this vaguely handsome sometime graphic artist of South American/Italian descent acting as Janice’s right-hand man. When Jim Ryan arranged a meeting with director John Landis, hoping at the time to make a movie out of Meyer’s autobiography, Julio was there at Janice’s side. Dottavio now enjoys the title of Director of Operations for RM Films.

  Born in 1956, Dottavio has worked as a Class B general contractor, real estate developer, designer for numerous architectural firms, and a schoolteacher. He also pointed out that he possesses “a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Architecture at City University of New York and completed one semester of classes towards a Master’s of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture.”

  On the subject of Julio Dottavio, Janice Cowart waxed poetic. “A sea of predators surrounded Russ as he became more ill and vultures that were hoping to make money or get attention through RM’s work and legacy abounded. It was as if God sent Julio, a decent and kind person, secure in himself, to help me stave off the evil people who were trying to use Russ. Julio has been a good friend who gave me confidence and helped me make decisions that were best for Russ and the company. I was overwhelmed with the situation and will always be thankful to Julio for his compassionate caring and willingness to help. I hadn’t met too many people like that around Russ.”

  Julio Dottavio arrived on the RM Films scene circa 1994. At the time Meyer was concerned that aftershocks from a recent earthquake might knock down his chimney and damage his vast memorabilia, so he asked Dottavio, then doing remodeling work in the neighborhood, to take a look. Julio did the inspection free of charge, and according to Dottavio, a wondrous friendship then began. “[Russ] liked to talk to me because I was familiar with art and recognized his wonderful style. We became good friends, he reminded me of my distant father who was the same age and had a similar personality. He grew fond of me and repeatedly invited me to dinner. I had to turn down many of the dinners because I did not want him to pay and it was getting a little excessive for me.”

  Once Dottavio’s work in the area was done, he told RM he wasn’t going to be coming by as much. Meyer, said Julio, “got very sad. He was a very lonely man searching for just a sincere friendship . . . Realizing how lonely he was, I tried to be a companion to him . . . We would talk for hours sometimes, and he was very protective of his money, especially when it dealt with the women who had been in his films. ‘These women,’ he said, ‘are only after a free meal.’ He didn’t trust them. He would often say, ‘I trust you because you are hard working just like me—like the Germans say, ‘Work and sausage.’ ” Julio stressed that Meyer never forgot the one time Dottavio drove RM to see Lucinda on a Christmas Eve after she’d gone into respiratory arrest. As Cowart elaborated, “The hospital was urgently asking Russ to come and it was Julio Dottavio who was willing to drive Russ all the way to Norwalk at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve in horrendous traffic.”

  Dottavio ma
intains that RM eventually “gained complete trust” in him “and would repeatedly say that he only trusted me. Even when he was ill he would say this over and over. He would also say, ‘I want you to take care of the business, I trust you.’” The way Julio tells it he was Meyer’s only real friend. “I was there to listen when everyone else ignored him. Most of the people who visited him just wanted a free meal. I sincerely felt sorry for Russ, who was surrounded by many vultures after his money.” This is the one tune that gets played over and over: Janice and Julio versus the vultures.

  When I asked Floyce Sumners what Dottavio was like, she said, “Really, really good-looking,” with her husband Charlie adding, “Really, really married.” Dottavio “thought he could break into film,” Floyce maintained. “Russ told us that Julio wanted Russ to build a new house so he could do the work—Russ said, ‘I don’t need another house.’ ” (According to Dottavio, Meyer had “numerous projects in mind” for Julio to do “but couldn’t decide on one.”)

  David K. Frasier recalled getting a call from Russ toward the end of their work on A Clean Breast where he expressed misgivings about Dottavio. “He mentioned something about some handyman Janice knew that he didn’t really like or trust all that much. I mentioned that to Janice—‘Oh, that’s not right, nothing’s happening there.’ She was sort of defensive about it. She was just real concerned that Russ had been speaking about the possible relationship” between herself and Dottavio. “Shortly after that they made it so Russ couldn’t call out much.” (Cowart took issue with this, stating that Meyer’s private number has remained the same until the current day, although “Russ did have an additional phone line that was changed when certain people were trying to take advantage of him.”)

  Among other duties, Dottavio is now the curator of the Meyer estate. Those close to RM are stunned that the job of Meyer archivist is now held by an outsider with perhaps no specific credentials for the gig. “Russ would roll over in his grave,” said Erica Gavin. “I know that Russ hated Julio,” she added. “Hated him. He didn’t want him anywhere near the house.”

  Cowart insists that Meyer was one of Julio’s biggest fans, with the only problem being that RM was simply jealous of Dottavio’s way with the ladies. “When Julio was working for Russ in 1998 and 1999, Russ had a lot of women around, and since Julio is a nice-looking and very gracious guy, the women tended to pay attention to Julio. Russ did not like this because he always wanted to be the center of attention. I think the conflict was that Russ did not want competition from a younger man, so sometimes he would act like he didn’t want Julio around, but when no women were present Russ liked Julio a lot.”*11

  “These films are my legacy, they are my children,” Meyer once said, but his movies seem to be living as raggedy orphans these days. Whatever the opinion of Janice Cowart and Julio Dottavio as RM’s caretakers, it is hard for Meyer fans not to get angry over the current presentation (or lack thereof) of his films. Theatrical showings of Meyer films are priced so high that revival houses don’t want to bother with them (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! costs $500.00 for a single screening).

  Then there are the DVDs. “Quality only Russ Meyer could approve,” it says on the back of the DVDs, which are sold by the company for a whopping $39.95, but the quality of the product underwhelms. Meyer did charge top dollar for his home videos in the eighties, but he utilized top-of-the-line transfers at the time. The current releases rely on the same twenty-year-old masters, ignoring the technological advances of recent years. There are no extras, save for some shoddily presented trailers (the one for Pussycat skips during play, and fans have reported glitches in the Up! DVD) and a short, poorly written biography by Dottavio. The DVDs even look cheap. As Meyer friend and fan Rob Schaffner put it, the artwork resembles “something you’d buy at Pic ’n Save.” Julio Dottavio is credited with package design, his name appearing nearly as often as Meyer’s, right on the covers. “Russ would’ve gone berserk if he’d seen this,” said Frasier. There are numerous complaints about RM’s DVD product from his fans on various cult-movie websites. “The state of DVD has gotten to the point now where they ought to remaster everything and restore it and do it right,” said Roger Ebert.

  Cowart maintained that to describe their DVDs as shoddy was “a ridiculous assertion. We have had a great deal of praise and very few complaints. Our sales figures have been outstanding with no returns. The new packaging and box covers have increased sales and all our dealers love them.” Once again she blew a trumpet for Dottavio, the mastermind behind the RM Films of today. “The Co-Trustees were pleased to be able to hire Julio as Director of Operations, and we were lucky that he agreed to work with RM Films, becasue it is Julio, who over the past five years has kept the company profitable. He has successfully negotiated creative lucrative licensing deals with Canada, Japan, and England as well as many other projects . . . He is a savvy, experienced businessman who Russ trusted and liked very much.”

  For all of Cowart’s alleged computer know-how, the prehistoric RM Films website looks tacky and fails to provide for credit card ordering. According to Jim Ryan, Meyer’s film negatives are deteriorating and Jim wants to release Europe in the Raw and other long-unseen works but can’t find support within the company. “Nobody wants to put up the money to do it.”

  What many find most galling is the fact that Janice Cowart has never shown the slightest interest in Russ Meyer’s work. RM complained to friends that she never sat through one of his films. “She has contempt for Russ’s movies,” said Jean-Pierre Jackson. Clearly, Meyer’s intentions are being ignored. As recently as August 26, 1997, Meyer listed David K. Frasier as the first to be consulted in regard to decisions concerning his work in case of his demise. Frasier hasn’t been asked for input on anything since the publication of A Clean Breast.

  In 2000, Pandora Peaks was released as a home video. The crude Julio Dottavio cover features an image of Peaks that looks like it was cut out with a child’s scissors, and what is contained on the tape inside is just as unrefined. All the ingredients are there—big boobs, hopped-up narration, a zillion cutaways—but the film is flaccid and borderline unwatchable. It is the work of an old pervert who can no longer pretend otherwise. Against narration by Meyer himself, we see Peaks dancing among the oil rigs with Handyman Jim Ryan hobbling along behind. Intercut with this is footage from the aborted Breast, much of it featuring Hungarian mammary monster Tundi, her voice-over narration dubbed by Uschi Digard. While it’s amusing for those in the know to see Meyer and Charlie Sumners revisiting various 166th European haunts, mugging for the camera when not fishing, the sight of a grizzled Meyer in baseball cap and muscle tee, ogling Pandora as she wobbles her whoppers, repeatedly mouthing “A-OK” to the camera in a style that would make Benny Hill blanch—well, it makes one pine for the days when Meyer made such ridiculousness add up to something. “For somebody who wants to see the tits, even they don’t come right away,” admitted editor Richard Brummer. “There’s an element of anger that takes away from the satire.” And thus RM’s film career went out with a whimper, not a bang.

  That same year, A Clean Breast was finally unleashed on the public. Housed within nauseating baby blue boards festooned with Meyer’s gold-lettered signature, it was a three-volume set, 1,213 pages in all, with over twenty-four hundred pictures—and only available by mail order from RM Films for the jaw-dropping price of $350 plus shipping. This was Meyer’s chance to set the record straight, and when it comes to the nuts and bolts of specific events, that’s exactly what he does. Interspersed with details of each film’s production are endless excerpts of reviews, with the final volume containing detailed synopses illustrated with clever film-strip still sequences. The book has no ending: after Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Meyer’s life simply ceases, fading away to mediocre nude layouts of his last busty beauties, Pandora Peaks, Letha Weapons, and Melissa Mounds.

  “That book will be worth a fortune someday,” said John Waters. “I think it’s an amazing docu
ment.” The narrative is full of bizarre Meyerisms and the pictures are often stunning and hilarious, but the gory details of one sexual encounter after another—down to the timing of every grunt and groan—quickly become tiresome. His one-dimensional world is much more dynamic on film; the flatness of the page brings out the flatness of the person. A Clean Breast is one long Meyer monologue, never more than skin deep. Mere paragraphs are devoted to his childhood and mother Lydia, and RM is incapable of bringing his larger-than-life women—Eve, Edy, Rena, Uschi—to life. This is Meyer’s closing statement, the summation of everything he thought and stood for and accomplished over the many years of an action-packed existence. There is not one genuine insight to be found.

  Russ Meyer was fond of recounting some quote by Charles Keating that basically held RM responsible for the decline of Western civilization. Meyer wanted Keating’s words carved into his tombstone, with “I was glad to do it” chiseled directly beneath. Certainly it’s no idle boast for RM. Sex has gone so mainstream it’s not even smutty anymore. Welcome to a world where, as Howard Hampton writes, “everybody gets off and nobody’s satisfied.” A TV star’s homemade porno tape evokes a yawn. Pop stars author arty erotica books, and rappers have taken to porn like hamburger to a bun. And hardcore itself has become, as Hampton states, “a treadmill devoted to increasingly calisthenic exercises in futility.” Big boobs remain big business—teenagers get implants on Mom’s credit card, and Hooters restaurant is a billboard-friendly national chain. “Sex today has nothing to do with revolution anymore,” said writer Erica Jong. “It’s about capitalism and protecting little profit centers.”