Song and dance men

Singers and dancers Ken Russell has worked with.  As well as singing and dancing, most also act in his films.

Roger Daltry

Singer of The Who, he developed a minor actor career based on his performance in Tommy. His Lisztomania (above) was disappointing (as was Russell´s direction, though others disaagree). Daltry would also have starred in the first attempt to film The Fall of the Louse of Usher.

Georges Delerue

A French film composer who wrote the music for French Dressing and for Women in Love. Russell also directed a television documentary Don't Shoot the Composer about Delerue.

Peter Maxwell Davies

One of Britain's foremost classical composers. He provided the music for the Devils and The Boy Friend.

On The devils Peter Maxwell Davis worked “…industriously scoring The Devils with a metronome and stopwatch, and from time to time flying to London [from Orkney] to visit the set and discuss progress with Russell.  He found it a novelty to work with film people… On the whole, however, he regarded the interlude as just that, and nothing more” (Mike Seabrook,  Max- The Life and Music of Peter Maxwell Davies, chapter 7, 1994).  In the documentary Hell on Earth he says about Ken "People say oh he's got bad taste- well of course he has, thank God for that".  He also went on to score The Boyfriend.

One of his best pieces is "Eight Songs for a Mad King" which has the credit "produced by Ken Russell".  I asked Russell about this, he said

- "Yes, when I had a bit of money I paid for recording some of the Eight Songs for a Mad King and another piece called Vesalii Icones which is for Cello and small orchestra which is a ballet he did, which was very good. Then I did... have you seen my Arnold Bax film, I played Arnold Bax in it, and at the same time as this I did the Maxwell Davies. I also recorded two Bax Symphonies, 1 and 2, which weren´t available.

- It must have been quite nice then to have been a sort of sponsor of the arts.

- Yeah, well I got stuff out of it so...

- You were going to work with Peter Maxwell Davies after that?

I was going to, Taverner it was called, but other commitments clashed with it and I couldn´t manage it, there was another film".

The photo is from The Manchester Evening News, 14 MaR 2016, click here.

Rudolf Nureyev

Dancer and choreographer.

Nureyev famously defected from the Soviet Union "By this time his suspicions were thoroughly aroused. He feared that returning to the Soviet Union would result in his being arrested and imprisoned; at the very least, he felt that he would never be allowed to return to the West.  At that moment he seemed isolated and alone. However, his Parisian socialite friend Clara Saint – daughter of a Chilean painter living in Paris – was luckily present at the airport. She helped him by informing the French police of his predicament. He managed to escape from Russian embassy guards and ran through a security barrier, shouting in English, ‘I want to be free!’ (from ‘The White Crow’: Rudolf Nureyev’s defection to the West, Liz Bryant, The National Archives here).

Russell wanted Nureyev to appear in the film Nijinsky but this fell through. He stars in Valentino (above).  His other films are very poor. He died of AIDS related complications in 1993.

Lindsay Kemp

Dancer and choreographer Kemp is a direct relative of Will Kemp, one of Shakespeare´s actors. Falstaff was one of the parts Shakespeare wrote for Will. Lindsay Kemp choreographed many ballets including "A Midsummer Night´s Dream". He appears in acting roles in Savage Messiah and Valentino as well as Jarman´s Sebastiane and Jubilee. He has also worked with Bowie and Kate Bush and was in Wicker Man.

Rick Wakeman

Rock artist, keyboard player for Yes and composer of the music for Lisztomania and Crimes of Passion. He has a minor role in both, as Thor and as the photographer (above) respectively.

Wakeman says "Ken just asked me to do Listzomania; I loved being involved.  I learned so much from Ken; he was very generous with sharing his knowledge.  I did Crimes of Passion for him too, which was also great fun.

I saw him a few weeks before he died, and I couldn’t help but be saddened by the terrible way the British film industry treated him.  Of course, after he died, they all turned around and said how wonderful he was.  Admittedly, he could blow hot and cold.  He’s on record as saying he didn’t like what I did for him, and in another breath saying he loved what I’d done and I was a pleasure to work with.  He was very much how he felt on the day was Ken!" (from Interview by Phillip Wilding, Classic Rock, no date, click here).

Twiggy

Twiggy was a famous model.  She says "Personally, Ken Russell changed my life. He was the hottest director in England when he cast me in The Boy Friend. Without him I would have never tried anything other than modeling. If you have that person that really believes in you, it really does work" (from L'Officiel, interview by Joshua Glass, 23 Feb 2021 here).

"I adore Ken.  He was very shy at first with me; it took months before I could sit down and really talk to him alone.  He's a big teddy bear of a man, always jolly, always a man of extremes, either laughing maniacally or falling on the floor swearing and banging his head"  (Twiggy An Autobiography, 1976, chapter X).

Twiggy appears with Bowie on the cover of Pin Ups.  The Bowie song Drive in Saturday refers to her "She'd sigh like Twig the Wonder Kid /And turn her face away".