Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) dies at 96

KENNETH ANGER- SCORPIO RISING - Iconography and Identity in Hollywood Babylon - AQUARIUM DRUNKARD

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT Sprüth/ Magers Gallery :

With deep sadness, Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers, along with the entire gallery team, mourn the passing of the visionary filmmaker, artist, and author Kenneth Anger (1927–2023).

Portrait of Anger in his youth in the 1950s by Edmund Teske

“Well, it would be a crowded world if we didn’t have death to re-arrange the scenery.”

Kenneth Anger interviewed by Purple Magazine in 2018

 KENNETH ANGER DEATH announced yesterday [but died on the 11/5/2023] you might have expected there to be issues over his passing from this earthly realm to who knows where albeit these seem to have been legal ones rather than explosions of fireworks or clouds of fire and brimstone! The author of two of my favourite treasured books Hollywood Babylon I & II and Thelemite*, author, film maker and iconoclast. His Satanic Majesty has left the temple! Stark staring bonkers some might say but is acknowledged as a filmic influence on modern day pop videos to Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and fellow enfant terrible John Waters. Despite having the name of Lucifer tattooed upon his chest it is also claimed Anger did not consider himself to be a Satanist but a pagan, suffice to say he was a committed follower of the occult and all that goes with that belief system of whatever flavour. Anger died at a care facility in Yucca Valley, California, on May 11, 2023, at the age of 96. The announcement of his death was delayed until May 24 while his estate was being settled

This from American Primitives:

Funny how shocking it feels to type the words “His Satanic Majesty Kenneth Anger (3 February 1927 – 24 May 2023) has died”.  (Sprueth Magers Gallery announced his death earlier today via Twitter). The pioneering experimental underground filmmaker, author and occultist was, after all, 96 years old! I always assumed whatever pact Anger made with the devil invested him with immortality (or that he’d at least reach 100). Repeatedly seeing Anger’s homoerotic masterpieces like Scorpio Rising (1964) and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965) at an impressionable age (often at the much-missed Scala Cinema in London) made a profound impact on me, and his two salacious wildly irresponsible volumes of Hollywood Babylon are like sacred religious texts! What a total original Kenneth Anger was. His art will live forever.

#kenneth anger

R.I.P. THe Magus of American Cinema - KENNETH ANGER Obituary | DANGEROUS MINDS

FIREWORKS by KENNETH ANGER

*Thelemites

HOLLYWOOD BABYLON III - a sordid tale of Hollywood life - Barbara Ann Thomason & Mickey Rooney

BARBARA ANN THOMASON

I was always a fan of Kenneth Anger's 'Hollywood Babylon' book (the second one not quite so much) the first volume of which I discovered as an art student and it still figures as a prized possession but here's an account that fits right in

Barbara in the middle

Barbara Ann Thomason was a 50s & 60s beauty queen/B-movie actress best known for being the unlucky fifth of Hollywood manlet Mickey Rooney’s nine wives She was allegedly murdered by her Serbian gangster lover Miloš Milošević, but a deeper dive throws a lot of suspicion on jealous husband Rooney.

 Barbara was a Hollywood starlet who was cast in low budget exploitation movies. In 1958 at the age of 21, she met 5 ft 1″ 38-year old Rooney at a nightclub. She was out of his league and thought he would be an easy sugar daddy, but their relationship was toxic and she tried to kill herself several times. 

 After ODing on sleeping pills, she finally got Mickey to marry her. They had four kids together, but he was a broke gambling addict who kept cheating. When he cuckolded her with a Sophia Loren lookalike, Barbara finally cheated with his friend Milos Milosevic .

 He was an arrogant Yugoslav gangster who had worked for Alain Delon who was described as “very pleasant but nuts. He would drive sports cars and aim for people. They would have to jump out of his way. This was always a big laugh to him.”  They had a passionate affair with Milos moving into Mickey’s own home while he was filming the Philippines. 

 Milos also had sex with Delon’s wife Nathalie, which pissed off Delon terribly. After Mickey sued Barbara for a divorce which would’ve left her in poverty, she tried to reconcile with him in 1966.

 On the night of Jan. 31, Barbara told a calm Milos that she was dumping him and reuniting with her husband. At 8:30 p.m. they disappeared into the master bedroom. At noon the next day, the maid and houseguests broke into the unresponsive couple’s room and found them dead on the bathroom floor with bullets in their skull.

 They were shot with a .38 revolver purchased by Mickey Rooney in 1964. According to police, it was a simple murder-suicide. But why had no one heard the sound of bullets that night; neither the maid, or the three children down the hall; nor the two other houseguests? How had Milos gotten access to Mickey’s gun? Why was the bed still made? The official story was fishy.

 There were rumors in Serbia that Milos was killed by Hollywood insiders. According to the Yugoslav Kinoteka site, an autopsy found traces of violence against Milos; including a swollen face and blue bruises. There were no fingerprints on the gun, and he was also said to have a skull fracture and broken arm. An examination in Belgrade found barbiturate-laden whiskey in his body. 

 At Barbara’s funeral, the reverend gave her a touching euology: “This beautiful girl was like a spray of roses, now only the fragrance remains.” That same year, a sleazy Mickey Rooney married Barbara’s BFF Margie Lane, who was with Barbara on her last night of life at the Daisy restaurant. 

 Two years later, Milos’ cousin Stevan Marković who was also a bodyguard of Delon was kidnapped and shot dead in Paris. In 1973, Milos’ ex-wife Cynthia Bouron was found beaten to death in the trunk of her car in California, after suing Cary Grant for the paternity of her baby.

- Death of a Beauty Queen: Barbara Ann Thomason & the Dark Underbelly of 60s Hollywood Glamour

Source edited from Lost Girls