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So did Ann-Margret. "I like to be stretched," she said. "Ken not only stretched me; he put me through the wringer." Wearing a knit jumpsuit, she had to dance around a smashed TV set as the room filled with soapsuds. "But the room filled up so fast I couldn't see anything. There was Ken shouting closer, closer, and I bumped into the TV." Rushed to the hospital for 23 stitches in her hand, Ann-Margret noticed only belatedly that her jumpsuit had shrunk to half size.
Démodé Chic. The jumpsuit, like most of the clothes in Russell's movies, was designed by his wife Shirley. She also collects thrift-shop gear, and Russell pictures are immediately recognizable by their raffish, démodé chic. Aesthetics aside, this practice also keeps down wardrobe costs. "I'd heard Russell was difficult to work with, went over the budget, that kind of thing," says Producer Stigwood, "but it isn't true." Tommy's budget of $3.5 million was probably more money than Russell had seen in some time. His last movies, The Boy Friend, The Music Lovers and Savage Messiah, were flops for a while, Mahler had trouble finding a distributor, reportedly because of a unique piece of Russelliana: a scene showing Cosima Wagner, the master's fascist widow, goose-stepping over Catholic Convert Mahler.
Tommy, which is Russell's biggest success since Women in Love, has not been touched by its distributor, Columbia Pictures. "It was the most difficult movie I ever had to make," was Russell's verdict on Tommy; he prefers movies about classical composers. Tommy, however, has left its mark on Russell. In his next film, Lisztomania, he has cast Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt and Ringo Starr as the Pope.