British film director Ken Russell dies

Ken Russell, an iconoclastic British director whose daring films blended music, sex and violence in a potent brew seemingly drawn straight from his subconscious, has died at age 84. Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.
"My father died peacefully," Verney-Elliott said. "He died with a smile on his face." Russell was a fiercely original director whose vision occasionally brought mainstream success, but often tested the patience of audiences and critics. He had one of his biggest hits in 1969 with "Women in Love," based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and a "Best Actress" Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.
Born in the English port of Southampton in 1927, Russell was attracted by the romance of the sea and attended Pangbourne Nautical College before joining the Merchant Navy at 17 as a junior crew member on a cargo ship bound for the Pacific. Married four times, Russell is survived by his wife Elise Tribble and his children.