[4] Film critic Mark Kermode, speaking in 2006, and attempting to sum up the director's achievement, called Russell "somebody who proved that British cinema didn't have to be about kitchen-sink realism—it could be every bit as flamboyant as Fellini.

[8] His father was distant and took out his rage on his family, so Russell spent much of his time at the cinema with his mother, who was mentally ill.[7] He cited the films Die Nibelungen and The Secret of the Loch as two early influences.

He made Poet's London (1959, about John Betjeman), Portrait of a Goon (1959, about Spike Milligan), Gordon Jacob (1959), The Guitar Craze (1959), Variations on a Mechanical Theme (1959), Scottish Painters (1959), Marie Rambert Remembers (1960), The Strange World of Hieronymus Bosch (1960), The Miners' Picnic (1960), Architecture of Entertainment (1960), A House in Bayswater (1960), Shelagh Delaney's Salford (1960), Cranks at Work (1960, about John Cranko), The Light Fantastic (1960), Journey Into a Lost World (1960), Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (1961), Old Battersea House (1961), Portrait of a Soviet Composer (1961), London Moods (1961), Antonio Gaudi (1961), Preservation Man (1962), Mr. Chesher's Traction Engines (1962), The Lonely Shore (1962) and Watch the Birdie (1962).

In 1964 he planned to make an adaptation of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange (1962) starring the Rolling Stones, but abandoned the film after the British Board of Censors advised it would not approve it.

[18] In 1969, Russell directed what is considered his "signature film", Women In Love, an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's novel of the same name about two artist sisters living in post-World War I Britain.

The colour schemes of Luciana Arrighi's art direction (also BAFTA-nominated) and Billy William's cinematography, which Russell used for metaphorical effect, are also often referred to by film textbooks.

Helped by publicity over the more sensational scenes, featuring sexuality among nuns, the film topped British box office receipts for eight weeks.

The film is a biopic of the painter and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who died fighting for France at age 23, in 1915, in the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War.

In 1975, Russell's star-studded film version of the Who's rock opera Tommy starring Roger Daltrey, Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Elton John, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton and Jack Nicholson, spent a record fourteen weeks at the No.1 spot.

[citation needed] Two months before Tommy was released (in March 1975), Russell started work on Lisztomania (1975), another vehicle for Roger Daltrey, and for the film scoring of progressive rock keyboardist Rick Wakeman.

Russell returned to feature films with a sexual thriller, Crimes of Passion (1984), starring Anthony Perkins and Kathleen Turner for New World Pictures.

[32] The production was staged at the Vienna State Opera, conducted by Erich Binder with Francisco Araiza, Ruggero Raimondi and Gabriela Beňačková in the main roles.

[31] Russell had a legal fight with Bob Guccione over an aborted attempt to film Moll Flanders, which was dramatised in a movie, Your Honour, I Object!

The cult movie defines Russell's adult themed romance with the Theatre of The Poor and was also notable for the screen presence of Imogen Millais-Scott as Salome.

He made another two pictures for Vestron: The Lair of the White Worm (1988) with Amanda Donohoe and Hugh Grant, based on a novella by Bram Stoker, and The Rainbow (1989), another D. H. Lawrence adaptation, which also happens to be the prequel to Women in Love.

In the 1990 film The Russia House, starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, Russell made one of his first significant acting appearances, portraying Walter, an ambiguously gay British MI6 intelligence officer who discomfits his more strait-laced CIA counterparts.

[citation needed] The film Prisoner of Honor (1991) allowed Russell a further opportunity to explore his abiding interest in anti-Semitism through a factually-based account of the Dreyfus affair in the French Third Republic.

He directed Lady Chatterley (1993), The Mystery of Dr Martinu (1993), a version of Treasure Island (1995), Alice in Russialand (1995), Mindbender (1995) (about Uri Geller), and an episode of Tales of Erotica.

Russell attended the festival and engaged in lengthy post-screening discussions of each film with audiences and moderator Martin Lewis,[38] who had instigated and curated the retrospective.

[41] He also acted in "Final Cut", an episode of the BBC Television series Waking the Dead,[42] playing the role of an aging director of a notorious 1960s crime drama similar to Performance.

Russell commented that "Ten years ago, while working on The South Bank Show, Melvyn Bragg and I had a heated discussion on the pros and cons of film censorship.

"[43] Russell joined the cast of the British reality television show Celebrity Big Brother in January 2007, at the start of the series, but left voluntarily within a week after an altercation with fellow housemate Jade Goody.

Tommy Tune joined Russell the next evening for The Boy Friend and followed the screening with a live stage dance number from the film.

The American Cinematheque in Los Angeles next hosted Russell at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica with screenings of The Devils and Altered States with Charles Haid and Stuart Baird in attendance, and Tommy and Lisztomania at the Egyptian the following evening.

The tour wrapped up in Toronto at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear and a packed screening of The Devils at the Bloor Cinema hosted by Richard Crouse.

In 2008, he made his New York directorial debut with the Off-Broadway production of Mindgame at the SoHo Playhouse produced by Monica Tidwell, a thriller by Anthony Horowitz and starring Keith Carradine, Lee Godart and Kathleen McNenny.

He was married to Vivian Jolly from 1984 to 1991 (the wedding celebrant being Anthony Perkins, who had been ordained in the Universal Life Church);[49] the couple had a son and daughter.

He also published six novels, including four on the sex lives of composers – Beethoven Confidential, Brahms Gets Laid, Elgar: The Erotic Variations, and Delius: A Moment with Venus.

In the late-1980s, Russell directed the music video for "It's All Coming Back to Me Now", a song written and produced by Jim Steinman for his Pandora's Box project.

[53] In his 1973 novel The Honorary Consul, English novelist Graham Greene includes a passage in which a "Conservative Member of Parliament had described the British entry [in the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina] by some man named Russell as pornographic.