Willard Maas
Willard Maas

Willard Maas

Biography
Willard Maas (b. 24 June 1906 - 2 January 1971) was an American experimental filmmaker and poet. He was the husband of filmmaker Marie Menken. The couple achieved some renown in New York City's modern art world of the 1940s through the 1960s, both for their experimental films and for their salons, which brought together artists, writers, filmmakers and intellectuals. According to their associate, Andy Warhol, 'Willard and Marie were the last of the great bohemians. They wrote and filmed and drank -- their friends called them 'scholarly drunks' -- and were involved with all the modern poets. In the 1960s, Maas was a faculty member at Wagner College and an organizer of the New York City Writer's Conference at the college where Edward Albee was a writer in residence. The filmmaker Kenneth Anger indicates that Maas and Menken may have been a significant part of the inspiration for the characters of George and Martha in Edward Albee's 1962 play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Scott McDonald - 'A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers' (University of California Press - 1988). Maas died on January 2 1971, four days after Menken had died of alcohol related illness. He was cremated. The Maas/Menken materials and letters are located at the University of Texas (in Austin). A selection of these items is on deposit/loan (in Trust) at the Anthology Film Archives in New York. The Willard Maas Papers - a collection of approximately 500 letters, manuscripts, page proofs, photographs, drawings, play scripts, and film scripts from the period 1931-1967 - is housed at Brown University.
Gender
Male
IMDb Id
nm0531004
Known For Department
Directing
Also Known As
Date of Birth
1906-06-24
Place of Birth
New York, New York
Date of Death
1971-01-02

Known For

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Orgia

Orgia

Movie 1967
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Bitch

Bitch

Movie 1965
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Narcissus

Narcissus

Movie 1958
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Blow Job

Blow Job

Movie 1964