| Ken Russell | - Born 3 July 1927 in Southampton.
- Russell worked as a photographer, a dancer and a merchant seaman before becoming a film director.
- Russell's first feature film was 'French Dressing' in 1964.
- Adapted The Who's 'Tommy' for the big screen in 1975.
|
Ken Russell is one of Hampshire's most famous sons, renowned for controversial films such as 'Tommy', 'Women in Love' and 'The Devils'.
Born in Southampton during the Depression in 1927, Russell is an iconic figure who lives in the New Forest where he still makes movies at the age of 78. The new TV series 'A Picture of Britain' takes Russell back to his roots in Dorset and Hampshire and the places which have inspired his film making over the years.
Ken Russell looks at how the area has changed since his childhood and remembers some of the locations which influenced his movies. Southern inspiration  | | Ken Russell |
Ken Russell has drawn inspiration from his native south coast throughout his career - its seaside towns, coastline and country houses.
But it was his early life in Southampton that perhaps had the biggest influence on his fertile imagination. As a child Russell longed to escape his dull, middle class lifestyle in southern England where his family ran a chain of shoe shops. The young Ken dreamed up diversions to relieve the boredom, and movies were one of his main ways of escaping the tedium.  | | The Broadway Cinema |
'A Picture of Britain' takes Ken Russell back to one of the picture palaces he frequented as a boy, the Portswood Cinema in Southampton, now a bingo hall. Russell remembers sitting through two or three movie programmes every day during his youth. The programme also takes Ken Russell back to his parent's house on Southampton's Belmont Road where he has vivid memories of climbing a tree in the garden. This was his first experience of imagining film scenes and pretending to be a director. "I really think the inspiration for me making movies started with that tree," says Ken nostalgically. A life on film Many of Ken Russell's films make use of south coast locations, including the Isle of Wight, Southsea and Portsmouth.  | | Tommy |
'A Picture of Britain' revisits some of places which inspired Russell's films, including Southsea's South Parade Pier and Portsmouth's Fort which both feature prominently in the rock opera 'Tommy'. The Hampshire and Dorset countryside is another major inspiration for Ken Russell. The TV programme also takes the veteran director back to the Larmer Tree Pleasure Grounds at Tollard Royal on the Dorset/Wiltshire border. The gardens made a huge impression on Russell as a child and he was later to use it as a location in his film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers. Picture this There is little doubt that Ken Russell is one of the leading international film directors of the last 50 years. Today Ken Russell continues to draw his inspiration from the south of England, living and working in the New Forest where we visit him at work in his garage studio. 'A Picture of Britain' will look back over Russell's early life and how it was a huge influence on his films. One thing is certain - despite his mature years, the enfant terrible of British cinema has lost none of his extravagant visual style. | 
