Alejandro Jodorowsky

This eccentric, outspoken Chilean-born director, writer and actor is best-known for two avant-garde cult films, "El Topo" (1970) and "The Holy Mountain" (1973). Jodorowsky, born to Russian immigrants, grew up in a tough Chilean port city. His family moved to Santiago, and Jodorowsky formed a circus troupe and moved to Paris in 1955 to study mime with Marcel Marceau. By 1960, he was writing and directing for the theater, traveling between Mexico and Paris. He co-founded the surrealist review "S.NOB" and, with playwright Fernando Arrabal and artist Roland Topor, formed the theater of the absurd company (heavily influenced by Antonin Artaud) Producciones Panicas. Their first major play was the scandalous four-hour, multi-media "Sacramental Melodrama," staged at the Paris Festival of Free Expression in 1965. Eventually giving up on theater, Jodorowsky returned to Mexico, where he wrote books and comics and experimented with film. His first was "Fando and Lis" (1968), a Fellini-esque love story which was promptly banned after provoking riots.