#1 ·
An Ashkenazi Jew originally from the little coastal town of San Diego, Jodorowsky moved to Seattle at just thirteen years old because he was absolutely obsessed with the theater, eventually spending some time working as a clown and a puppeteer. By twenty-six, he headed off to Paris to study pantomime under the legendary Marcel Marceau. He actually cut ties with his parents during that time, and while he worked quite a bit with Maurice Chevalier, most people remember him for his adaptation of Thomas Mann's drama, 'The Severed Head' (1957)—a film that, sadly, is now lost to time.
He eventually crossed paths with the surrealists and, in 1962, founded the 'Panic movement,' which celebrates the god Pan—and yes, that’s actually where we get the word "panic" from! Throughout the sixties, the panickers staged these incredibly provocative happenings that would later find their way into Jodorowsky's cinematic style—think stuff like slaughtering geese and rabbis on stage alongside a naked woman covered in honey, or chickens crucified on crosses and giant anatomical imagery, all while live turtles are being tossed into the audience.
During this era, Jodorowsky was busy writing plays, hitting up avant-garde theaters in both Paris and Mexico City, and working on the comic 'Fabulas Panicas.' He soon jumped into directing his first feature—a surrealist love story about Fando and his paralyzed lover Lis as they hunt for the mythical city of Tara, titled 'Fando y Lis' (1967). This film became famous for causing absolute chaos at the Acapulco film festival, and just a few weeks later in Mexico, the government officially banned it, nearly getting the director deported for good. If that had actually happened, it probably would have crushed Jodorowsky or at least pivoted his career entirely, since he ended up filming almost everything right there in Mexico.
Just three years later, he released 'el Topo' ('mole'), the film that crowned him the unofficial king of midnight movies, and then three years after that came 'The Holy Mountain' (1973). Both of these works achieved massive cult status, not just because of their wild and controversial imagery, but because they were practically impossible to see in the USA until 2004 due to the rights being held by the Beatles' manager, Allen Klein. Actually, Allen picked up the rights for his ABKCO Films after being talked into it by John Lennon, who was a huge fan of Jodorowsky's work, though Allen later proved to be a pretty difficult collaborator due to various disagreements with Alejandro.
source: excerpt taken from http://www.filmski.net/dossier/296
...honestly, I think most cinephiles have heard of him; he's definitely controversial and isn't exactly everyone's favorite guy... here is a quote from him himself:
If you are a good person, then 'el Topo' is a good film; but if you are limited, then 'el Topo' is limited.