Ken Russell Directors 11Jun

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Famous for directing movies suchas Women in Love, The Devils andTommy , Ken Russell has a secret

past as a still photographer. AP’sBob Aylott reports

Thedirector’s cut

AS I tramp up the narrow wooded path to his thatched cottage deep in the New Forest, film director Ken Russell is waiting for me in the spring sunlight,

leaning nonchalantly against the five-bar front gate.Dressed all in black, he cuts a striking figure with his

ruddy face crowned by a semi-feral mass of white hair. Helooks like the wild man of the woods, but perhaps this is

just a façade, a role he is acting out during his autumn yearsamid the ancient copses and nooks of this arboreal film set.My encounter with the 78-year-old film director promisesto be as bizarre as one of his scripts.

His little home in the forest is so tucked away that you would have to be a pony to find it. Even though I had directions, I got lost and arrived late after negotiating the rough terrain, horses, cows and cattle that rule thisHampshire jungle. ‘You’ve made it,’ he declares as if I amanother extra hoping for work. As I pass through the gateand into a world where reality meets fantasy, he stops mein my tracks. ‘You must be quick,’ he says and lifts the lid of his wood mailbox. I strain my neck and see a cluster of six nesting baby bluetits and they look up at me with their mouths open waiting for food. My experience with the birdsis over in a fraction of a second as Ken closes the lid. ‘You’relucky, I don’t normally disturb them,’ he says. I’m touched by his compassion; but then maybe the man who has shocked movie buffs around the world has mellowed at last.

At the front door that is actually his kitchen door I turn

to marvel at the view – scrubland, gorse, bracken and treesstretch for as far as the eye can see. I scan for evidence of human habitation on this set – there is none. Then, as if straight from the props cupboard, two white horses appear on the horizon. If the master had called for ‘action’, I hadn’t heard him. Yet they canter over while Ken’s dog Nipper, an Old English black-and-tan toy terrier, runs circles around my feet. All the while Ken throws random snippets of information at me such as: ‘I’m allowed to collect fallen wood for the winter fire’. It’s all very surreal.

In the kitchen I squeeze past Jackie, the ironing lady,and into the conservatory. On the table is a macabre doll made from assorted coloured buttons, and a phone covered in glass beads. At the end of the room is a large green backdrop, a sure sign that the conservatory doubles as a studio. Draped over a chair is a woman’s Scottish kilt and other female tartan clothes. These, Ken tells me, are for a movie he is making called Brave Tart . It stars his wife Elize,who plays a brave Scottish prostitute. It is along the lines of Braveheart , but with the obvious touch of Russell genius.

‘We have just finished shooting three other filmshere, The Good Ship Venus , The Revenge of the Elephant

LEFT A duelling scene that combines streetfashion with the look of a Hollywood filmset was describedby the old masterhimself as ‘a typicalRussell picture’



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Man and a film about Mata Hari that we shot in thegarage,’ he says proudly. ‘It’s a real cottage industry in

ore ways than one.’ Ken smiles, turns and looks at Jackieill ironing in the kitchen and adds, ‘I even pressed her intorvice. She was a body double in The Mystery of Mata Hari. lot of other villagers also star in my movies.’ This is thecentric Russell that I was hoping for.Now it is my turn to shock the old man of the movies,

ith skeletons from his past. I am here to show him a set of ctures the young Ken shot in 1955 as a photography student Walthamstow Art College in London. The subject was the

eddy Girls of London’s East End and as I lay the 50-year-old ctures on his table it is the first time he has seen his early orks since pressing the shutter half a century ago.

At the time his agent sold the photographs to Picture ost magazine, but since their publication in June 1955 theegatives have lain dormant in the archives of a picturebrary. Now the collection of 30 b&w photographs will e exhibited in London later this month.

He looks surprised as he examines each image with hismous eyes and inquiring mind. ‘It’s a bit of a shock – Imember taking them while on a three-year photography urse,’ he says. ‘It’s fantastic that they have suddenly

ppeared. If two or three pictures had turned up I could ave understood that, but to find 30 – I’m stunned.’

His wife Elize, at least 30 years his junior, joins us. Anger and actress, she is a bubbly, bouncy American fromorth Carolina. She enthuses over the Teddy Girl picturesnd immediately remarks on the hair fashions, ‘Wow! That’s“Duck’s Tail”,’ she cries. Ken sombrely informs us that it as also known as a ‘Ducks Arse’. I ask if he was a Teddy oy himself. ‘No I was a f***ing aristocrat,’ he shouts back nd then offers me a drink. He begins pouring the whiteine. I shake my head and ask for coffee instead. ‘How

bout Camp coffee? They’ve just got it in at the villageop. ‘No thanks that’s the chicory liquid my grandmother ed to drink,’ I reply. ‘You’ll have to wait an hour and a half r a cup of instant,’ is his final word on the matter. I wonder this is some sort of punishment or a joke.

He refills his wine glass and looks at the pict ures over nd over again. ‘Everyone knew about the Teddy Boys,ut I was the one who discovered the Teddy Girls. No onenew about them until my pictures appeared in Picture ost ,’ he says. ‘Most of the photographs look likeudent snaps, but there are a few real gems. They

ABOVE Great useof the eyes in thebackground on thisstreet portrait by ayoung Ken Russell

RIGHT Here Russellhas captured theatmosphere ofLondon’s East Endwith the youthculture of the 1950s



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show an eye for composition and for using whatever is around. I loved the Teddy era – at least they were

trying to push their personalities out.’I ask Ken what he remembers about shooting the

photographs. He smiles and lays the prints down for a moment. ‘Not a lot – the1950s went on for a long time,’ hegrins. ‘There was a lot of rubble around Walthamstow in thosedays and I think I took the pictures over a two-week period. ’

At college Ken met his first wife Shirley. She wasstudying fashion design, and went on to become one of the country’s most famous costume designers. It was her student friends that Ken photographed in WalthamstowHigh Street and the market area.

As a budding fashion photographer, Ken was in his

element photographing the c lothes-conscious Teddy Girls.They were not always as easily defined as the more famousTeddy Boys. Some girls wore trousers, some had skirts and others would wear quite ordinary c lothes, but with Teddy accessories. Teddy fashions were inspired by the Edwardian period during the early years of the 20th century, so loose-fitting, velvet-collared jackets and narrow trousers, with 1950s variations, were hip. Blouses were often high-necked and elaborately embroidered, with turn-down collarsgarnished with cameo brooches. Mannish waistcoats werefavoured, as were lace-up sandals and coolie hats. Therewere striped boater hats and a general preference for b&w as the basic colours and every Teddy Girl needed a thin, long-handled umbrella and long, flat handbag. Ken continues, ‘I loved their clothes, but hated rock and roll.I’m more into modern jazz or the classics.’

Ken used an old Rolleicord for his pictures, and would develop and print his b&w work in the college darkroom.He never used a tripod or a flashgun, preferring to work

ABOVE Not your typical student fashionpicture, this one hasa touch of Russellclass screaming outfrom the urban decay

with natural light. Processing colour film was a different matter and he recalls the problems. ‘It was a bit of a nightmare. The knack was getting the temperaturesexactly right. I was constantly plunging the thermometer into the chemicals that were sat in bowls of hot water,trying to get it spot on,’ he says, waving his arms in theair. ‘It was always going from 90° to -50°. It was a wonder that anything ever came out,’ he laughs.

‘I was very keen and wanted to become a fashion photographer,’ he says and enthuses about Amateur Photographer , which he always read. ‘It was like the biblefor me and most amateur photographers in the 1950s,’he continues, ‘I desperately wanted to shoot fashions.After leaving college I got a couple of assignments,but I never had the opportunity to really expressmyself properly. The clients just wanted their clothesphotographed in a straightforward manner against a whitebackground. I wanted to make the pictures interesting,but they didn’t want to k now about my

ideas.’ He then confesses, ‘I was disappointed when I realised that I wouldn’t become a famous fashion photographer. I felt I never got the right break.’

While scraping a living as a freelance photographer for about five years, Ken did a little advertising work and even photographed a major campaign for mints. He worked for Illustrated magazine on a regular basis and had several covers for the magazine that he describes as the poor man’sPicture Post . One feature he remembers shooting was called The Pogo Stick is Here to Stay . ‘I took pictures showing thevarious uses of the pogo stick. One photograph showed a policeman on a pogo stic k chasing a burglar, which even today would be a great picture,’ he says.

He freely admits that his work for Illustrated wasn’t that good. ‘The picture editors were not impressed with me.They thought my pictures were a bit soft-focus. I alsohad an old primitive Leica with a lens I had to screw in and a Victorian plate camera that I used only oncefor one of my fashion shoots. It was so big on

I desperately wanted to shoot fashions. After eaving college I got a couple of assignments’

ELOWAnother bombte, another day. Aollection of Teddyirls pose for a geniusthe making



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the tripod that I was always knocking it over and smashing the glass plates,’ he says.

‘My training as a photographer did influence my filmcareer. It was only after my photography training that I borrowed a 16mm Bolex cine camera and made threeamateur movies,’ he explains. ‘I turned my experience in still photography into shooting TV documentaries.’

His short films Peepshow (1956) an d Amelia and the Angel (1957) got Ken into the BBC, where he made several documentaries for the arts programme Monitor (1958-65).

Ken informs me that it is time to move to a newlocation for lunch and The Turfcutters Arms is our next port of call. When we arrive at the hostelry we order food, with Ken going for a massive pork hock. He tellsme the dish is Nipper’s favourite – although I don’t recall bringing the dog along.

Last year another photographic skeleton fell out of Ken’scupboard. ‘I had shot a set of pictures of an action painter in the 1950s,’ he says. ‘He would throw his paint onto a large canvas on the floor and then ride over it on his bicycleto produce his final picture. I photographed this on stillsand 16mm movie film. Suddenly last year the movie filmturned up and the Tate Britain gallery wanted to use it.

That was another oddity from the past. Who knows what else is waiting to surface?’

In the pub, where ponies look in through the windows,our conversation about other film directors and moviestars is definitely off the record. The wine is still flowing and with his hock only half-eaten Ken tells me that at the age of 12 he got his first camera, a VP Twin fromWoolworths. ‘It came in three separate parts for theprice of 1/6d. A little plastic novelty camera with a metal viewfinder that folded up and down,’ he says, trying todemonstrate the actions with both hands. ‘On a family holiday in Fordingbridge I pressed the viewfinder hard up against my eye and shot pictures of my parents, therivers, trees and bridges. When the film came back fromthe chemist every exposure was a picture of my feet. I had been pressing so hard against the viewfinder that I had thelens pointing down at the ground. I gave up photography for several years after that.’

He then tells me how he missed the biggest scoop of his life in 1954. It happened while Ken was travelling on a plane from Paris to Madrid. He was sitting next to honeymooners Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer.

LEFT Another set-upstill picture that wouldlook just as good on

the big screen

BELOWA simple buteffective portraitshot using the urbanlocation for a touchof drama


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‘She was a massive movie star and a screen goddess at the time,’ he says. ‘There was so much speculation about the two of them running away to get married, but no oneknew where they were. When I arrived at Madrid airport,the address system was screaming out my name. It wasmy agent on the phone telling me to give my film with the picture of the couple on to the next pilot going back to London. “I didn’t want to disturb them. They looked sohappy together,” I told him. I knew I was a failure. I had the

hottest couple in the world cuddling up next to me and I’m taking pictures of the clouds,’ he laughs. ‘To be honest I was s**t-scared.’

As the afternoon wears on our discussions about film-making and film-makers gets deeper and louder. Weboth have our own strong views on the subject, but Mr Russell calmly leans over and puts his cards on the table.‘I am a brilliant analyst of cinema – you know nothing about it. That is the only difference between us.’ On thisoccasion, I concede.

It wasn’t Ken who called ‘cut’ on the day, but thelandlady of the pub. ‘I’ve got to collect my son from school and need to lock up,’ she told me, politely but f irmly. The

curtain was coming down on my New Forest ‘flick’. It wastime for the players to pack up and go home, though not before Ken made his last shout – ‘Doggie bag!’ Immediately a white plastic bag containing the remains of his lunch isdelivered to our table. ‘It’s Nipper’s favourite,’ Ken remindsme as the lights go out. AP

ABOVE Ken has used the strong side lightand urban location to make this pictureinto something moreinteresting than justa portrait

Bombsite BoudiccasKen Russell’s 1955 photo essay on London Teddy Girls is on show at the Spitz Gallery, 109

Commercial Street, London E1 6BG. Open from Saturday 18 June to Sunday 26 June, Monday

to Friday noon-7pm, Saturday noon-5pm, Sunday 11am-5pm. Admission free.

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Ken Russell Directors 11Jun