Russ Meyer, who deserves a large share of the credit (or blame) for taking the porn industry mainstream, has died in Los Angeles, aged 82. “Meyer directed only one major studio release, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but it was his 23 sexploitation movies featuring large-busted women, pastiche violence and stilted dialogue that left his mark on Hollywood… They hardly ever showed graphic sex and were always humorous self-parodies… In recent years they even earned him the reputation of a respected auteur with numerous film festivals around the world celebrating his strange vision. Respected universities like Yale and Harvard studied his movies.”