Film-maker, actor, author and occultist Kenneth Anger has been making independent films since the age of 11, and his dark, symbolic work has had a major influence on modern TV advertising and music video.
Born in southern California in 1930, Anger started his career as a child movie star, playing the changeling prince in a 1935 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Coincidentally, he was a classmate of Shirley Temple.
At 17, Anger made his first publicly distributed film, the surreal, homo-erotic Fireworks. Shot in his parents' home, it is a disturbing dreamscape, featuring homosexual rape, sadomasochism and brutal assault - a far cry from The Good Ship Lollipop. His increasing interest in the occult led him to become a disciple of Aleister Crowley, to whom he dedicated his 1954 film, Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome. Years later, Anger would collaborate with another famous Crowley disciple, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.
Scorpio Rising, his best-known film, put a homo-erotic spin on the biker movie genre, and became an underground hit. His biggest notoriety, however, came with the 1958 publication of his book, Hollywood Babylon, which exposed the celebrity scandals of the day.
Throughout the 1960s, Anger's films were embraced by the US counter- culture, and condemned as obscene by everyone else. He hung out with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, exerting a strong influence on their album, Their Satanic Majesties Request. He also dallied with a young singer-songwriter, Bobby Beausoleil, who he cast as the star of Lucifer Rising. However, the pair fell out when Anger accused Beausoleil of stealing the film's footage. Later, Beausoleil was convicted for his part in the Manson murders.
Over the next decade, Anger attempted to complete Lucifer Rising, but the project was cursed by financial problems, cast changes, and even confiscation of the film. A 45-minute version came out in 1980, but not before Anger had fallen out with Jimmy Page, whom he had commissioned to compose the soundtrack.
More recently, Anger vented his rage against British dance-rock band Death In Vegas, who named their current album after his seminal Scorpio Rising. When the band asked Anger to make a film to accompany the album, the director retorted: "I haven't even listened to your squalid little dirge."
Still living up to his surname, then.
Kevin Courtney