British director Ken Russell dies aged 84

British film director Ken Russell, who was nominated for an Oscar for “Women in Love” in 1970 during a prolific and eccentric career, has died at the age of 84, his son said on Monday.


The director also took charge of “Tommy”, the film version of The Who rock opera album, and the 1988 cult horror flick “Lair of the White Worm”, which gave an early role to Hugh Grant.


Russell is believed to have been ill for some time and died in hospital on Sunday.


Michael Winner, the director of the “Death Wish” movies who first met Russell in the mid-1960s, said he was a “one-off”.


“He was so innovative. He was so daring. He had a unique style and ploughed a unique furrow,” Winner told BBC television.


“He was very jovial when you met him privately. He wasn’t the sort of mad sadist which you might think from seeing some of the movies.


“He obviously had this duplicity of mind. So he pushed the barriers completely, got away with it sometimes and didn’t get away with it at other times.”


Once considered an enfant terrible of the British movie world, Russell started his career in television before making his name as a director with a sexually graphic adaptation of D H Lawrence’s “Women in Love”.