Paul Morrissey Dies: Experimental Filmmaker & Longtime Andy Warhol Collaborator Was 86

Paul Morrissey, the avant-garde filmmaker who worked on Andy Warhol movies including Chelsea Girls, Flesh, Trash and others who also managed The Velvet Underground in the mid-1960s, died Monday. He was 86.

His archivist Michael Chaiken told The New York Times that Morrissey died of pneumonia in a Manhattan hospital.

Morrissey collaborated with Warhol on several ultralow-budget features focused on the NYC subculture, starting with 1965’s My Hustler through 1974’s Blood for Dracula aka Andy Warhol’s Dracula. Their experimental movies — on which Morrissey often served in roles also including cinematographer and editor — often featured non-pro actors including Joe Dallesandro and Candy Darling and generally were ad-libbed rather than scripted.

Their biggest commercial success — a relative term — was with Trash, the 1970 pic starring Dallesandro as and junkie gigolo and Holly Woodlawn as his wife. Other Morrissey-Warhol films include 1968’s Lonesome Cowboys and 1972’s Heat and Women in Revolt. The duo parted ways in 1974, and Morrissey later would downplay Warhol’s work. Warhol died in 1987.

Then serving as Warhol’s business manager, Morrissey was an early driving force behind the NYC avant-rock group Velvet Underground, whose unique sound was thrilling or annoying, depending on who was asked.

The group’s eponymous debut album featuring German singer and model on several tracks confounded its label, Verve Records, which shelved the disc’s release for more than a year. Featuring a cover with Warhol’s painting of a banana, it barely dented the Billboard 200 in 1967 but went on to become one of rock’s most acclaimed and influential albums. Morrissey briefly managed the band, which featured Lou Reed, John Cale and others.

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Born on February 23, 1938, in New York City, Morrissey started out making 16 mm short films in the 1950s. After an Army stint, he ran an underground moviehouse where he screened his own films and others’.

After his split with Warhol, Morrissey had several more movies including The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), with Peter Cook as Sherlock Holmes and Dudley Moore as Watson, and Forty-Deuce (1982), starring Kevin Bacon in his first major big-screen role. His final film was 2010’s News from Nowhere.

The Times reported that Morrissey is survived by a brother, Kenneth Morrissey, and several nieces and nephews.