Ken Russell
Ken Russell, (1927- ). British film director. He made his reputation at the BBC (1958-66), where he directed a series of biographical films on musicians and artists, including Debussy and Isadora Duncan. His cinema films are highly imaginative and often sensational in their imagery and content. They include Women in Love (1969), a version of D. H. Lawrence’s novel, The Devils (1971), a controversial study of religious hysteria, and the biopics Mahler (1973) and Valentino (1977). More recent films, such as Gothic (1987) and Whore (1991), have been somewhat poorly received.