Kenneth Anger

American underground experimental filmmaker, screen actor, and celebrity gossip book author whose cinematic works were an important influence on directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and John Waters. Anger produced almost 40 short films beginning in 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". Anger's films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle". He has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers", with several films released before homosexuality was legalized in the USA. Anger also explored occult themes in many of his films; he was fascinated by the English occultist Aleister Crowley and an adherent of Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.

As a writer he admittedly had no interest in people with no skeletons in their closet as they were "nothing but boring." His Hollywood Babylon, which was first published in Paris in French in 1959, was deemed too racy for publication in America. Playing on the prurient interests of the movie-crazed public, the then 28-year old California exile living in France put out a merciless expose of the film industry in its heyday with tales of kinky depravity so lurid they are scarcely believable. When the second volume was released years later in October 1984, it did not have the impact of the original. By then, Hollywood had reconciled itself to some of the human foibles of its stars and the scandal-based journalism of tabloid publications had educated a more blasé public. However, "Holy Baby II," as Anger called his book, did serve up some tasty dirt.

Residing in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Anger was surrounded by movie memorabilia, much of which had been exhibited in museums around the world. He denied that his books were malicious personal attacks but insisted that they represent a battle against hypocrisy.