Jack Smith

Smith was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1932 and grew up in Ohio and Texas, where he made his first film, Buzzards Over Baghdad, in 1952. He moved to New York the following year. His great obsession was Maria Montez, star of 1940s Hollywood desert pictures, and he photographed his friends in her spirit for The Beautiful Book (1962).

Flaming Creatures was shot in the summer of 1962 on the roof of the Windsor Theatre, on outdated black-and-white reversal stock, for about $300, with a soundtrack by Tony Conrad. It premiered at the Bleecker Street Cinema in April 1963. On 3 March 1964 police stopped a screening at the New Bowery Theater, took the reels and arrested Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs and Florence Karpf, who were convicted that June and given suspended sentences. In 1968 a print was sent to Washington for senators weighing Abe Fortas's nomination as Chief Justice.

Normal Love (1963), in colour, put his performers on a giant wooden cake built by Claes Oldenburg; Smith never finished it and re-edited it live at screenings. No President (1967) set them against old newsreel of Wendell Willkie. When film got too expensive he turned to performance, staging pieces in his loft with slide projectors and makeshift sets. Andy Warhol, who filmed him and borrowed his performers, wrote that he learned from Smith to use whoever was around and keep shooting until the actors got bored. Smith died of AIDS-related pneumonia in New York in 1989.