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15 unusual facts about Ken Russell


Acid Queen

Acid Queen takes its title from Tina Turner's role in Ken Russell's film version of The Who's classic rock opera Tommy, which had also featured Elton John, Eric Clapton, Jack Nicholson, Ann-Margret, and starred Roger Daltrey.

Bruce Lacey

Ken Russell made a fifteen-minute film about him called The Preservation Man (1962), which linked Lacey to Chaplin (in a Keystone Cops-style sequence) and featured some of Lacey's nightclub act (knife-throwing/robots) and a lip-synched performance of 'Sleepy Valley' which Lacey had recorded with The Alberts.

Catherine Neilson

She also starred in two films by Ken Russell: The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (1990), which included a nude scene, and Prisoner of Honor (1991).

Derek Boshier

He appeared with Peter Blake, Pauline Boty and Peter Phillips in Pop Goes the Easel (1962), a film by Ken Russell for the BBC's Monitor series.

East Boldre

The film director Ken Russell and his fourth wife Elize lived in a thatched cottage in East Boldre.

Elvaston Castle

In 1969, Elvaston was also used as a location for Ken Russell's film adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel Women in Love.

Good Ship Venus

In British director Ken Russell's 2005 "Hot Pants Trilogy", "The Goodship Venus" short was billed as a musical trip around CapeHorn with "horny a crew of sex crazed sailors who ever sailed the seven seas."

Hand jive

In 1957 when filmmaker Ken Russell was a freelance photographer, he recorded the teenagers of Soho, London hand-jiving in the basement of The Cat's Whisker coffee bar, where the hand-jive was invented.

Michael Van Wijk

In 1988, van Wijk appeared in a small, featured role in Ken Russell's film Salome's Last Dance.

Paul B. Davies

He has also scripted music videos for everyone from Kate Bush to Ken Russell.

Penelope Milford

She next played a fictional actress named Lorna Sinclair in Ken Russell's BAFTA nominated 1977 film Valentino, about the life of actor Rudolph Valentino.

Rory MacLean

For ten years he made movies with moderate success, working with David Hemmings and Ken Russell in England, David Bowie in Berlin and Marlene Dietrich in Paris.

Stephen Volk

Stephen Volk is a British screenwriter, whose first produced work was Ken Russell's film Gothic in 1986.

Thor's Cave

It was used as a location in the 1988 film The Lair of the White Worm, directed by Ken Russell and starring Hugh Grant.

Yvonne Cartier

When the Ballet for Beginners Company went on tour, it was joined by Ken Russell (later the film-maker), who danced Coppelius to Yvonne Cartier's Swanhilda.


David Russell Hulme

Described in Opera magazine as the "leading authority on Sullivan's manuscripts", Russell Hulme has been closely involved in productions by leading opera companies including Welsh National Opera (Charles Mackerras's The Yeomen of the Guard), English National Opera (the Ken Russell/Jane Glover Princess Ida).

Ellis Briggs

Over the years Ellis Briggs sponsored many international riders, such as Bernard Burns, Brian Robinson, Arthur Metcalfe, Ken Russell, Doug Petty, Danny Horton and Dave Rayner.

Marie d'Agoult

She was portrayed by Geneviève Page in the 1960 film Song Without End, opposite Dirk Bogarde as Liszt, by Fiona Lewis in the 1975 Ken Russell film Lisztomania, opposite Roger Daltrey as Liszt, and by Bernadette Peters in the 1991 James Lapine film Impromptu, which last dramatized encounters between d'Agoult, Liszt (Julian Sands), Chopin (Hugh Grant), and George Sand (Judy Davis).