About this deal
The girls sport equally interesting names, such as Eufaula Roop (a DJ at a religious radio station) and a nurse called Flovilla Thatch (Sharon Hill).
Russ continued to live in the same house until he passed in 2004. By then his life had changed, his brain addled with dementia, his films neglected, and his business affairs sewn up by a housekeeper-turned-assistant-turned administrator-turned-conservator-over-his-physical-being, named Janice Cowart. Almost 20 years after his passing, I heard that the Arrowhead Drive house was still owned by Russ’ estate, though it had sat empty and neglected since his death. I wanted to see the home that had been used prominently in ‘Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens’. So on a trip to Los Angeles, I drove across town to visit it.Blob, The (1958) The face of drive-in horror turned gooey in 1958's The Blob. Actually, the title creature had no face at all -… On the way to Russ’ house, I passed a familiar building, a medical and dental center I recognized as having featured in ‘Ultra-Vixens.’ Over 40 years had passed since Russ shot scenes there, but the place was unchanged, and still a medical and dental center. This quintessential sex comedy – written by famed movie critic Roger Ebert under the pseudonym “R Hyde”– was Russ Meyer’s last movie as director, and it’s all here: insatiable mega-busty women, religion, necrophilia, comic violence, impotent bumbling men, chainsaws and Nazi Martin Bormann (Henry Rowland) in a coffin. If I’m remembering correctly, someone in the Meyer biography said that Janice Cowart thinks Meyer’s films are sleazy and sees no value in them. She won’t grant access to Meyer’s archives for film historians or writers unless she deems them important. She’ll sue – or at least threaten to – anyone who screens even clips of Meyer’s films or uses Russ’ name without her permission. For a while, she was going after the actors who were trying to make extra money by doing conventions and stuff. She initially claimed Meyer told her to do that, but he wasn’t of sound mind then and almost certainly had no idea what was going on. In reality, she just thinks the Meyer women are whores.
Bye Bye Birdie (1963) Based on the Broadway Musical about teenage singing sensation Conrad Birdie giving his final TV show (in his hometown) before…Knowing nothing about how a moviola that used to belong to a west coast sexploitation legend works, I needed an east coast sexploitation legend over to give me a crash course. There’s also a garbage driver called Mr Peterbuilt (Pat Wright), a travelling salesman named Semper Fidelis (Michael Finn) and a gay dentist-cum-marriage counsellor called Asa Lavender (Robert Pearson). And then a car swept into the driveway. The door opened, and a woman I recognized as Janice got out: “What are you doing here?” she asked. As I said above, the films are available. They’re just shoddy releases that are wildly overpriced. So I guess the estate is making some money, but certainly not as much as it could if it were run by someone who cared even a bit. I don’t think Cowart’s end game was to ever make gobs of money. I think she simply wanted to seize control of something important and then wield power over people.