In 1964, Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures (1963) and Jean Genet's Un Chant d'Amour (1950).

His acting career started somewhat by chance when he met avant-garde filmmaker Jack Smith, who included him in his 1963 underground classic "Flaming Creatures."

During their cameo in 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, Placebo performed this song as fictitious band The Flaming Creatures.

Best known for "Flaming Creatures," a 1964 underground film that pointed the way to Andy Warhol's epic cinematic reveries, Smith reveled in his homosexuality.

The New York festival asked Smith for permission to show "Flaming Creatures" a couple of years ago.

This is what caused all the fuss nearly 30 years ago, although "Flaming Creatures" is about as prurient as Ovaltine.

He played Malcolms, a singer of the fictional glam rock band, The Flaming Creatures, who resembled the early Alice Cooper band.

His best-known film was "Flaming Creatures," a 1963 movie about transvestites.

Sometime before he died in 1989, Mr. Smith expressed an interest in colorizing "Flaming Creatures."