Ken Russell, the director behind the Oscar-winning Women in Love has died aged 84. Russell died on Sunday in his sleep, according to his friend, the arts writer Norman Lebrecht.

Known for a flamboyant style developed during his early career in television, Russell's films mixed high and low culture with rare deftness and often courted high controversy. The Devils … a religious drama that featured an infamous scene between Oliver Reed and Venessa Redgrave sexualising the crucifixion – was initially rejected by Warner Brothers. It will be released in its entirety in March next year, 42 years after it was made, when it will form part of the British Board of Film Classification's centenary celebrations.

Women in Love, released in 1969, became notorious for its nude male wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, while Tommy, his starry version of the Who's rock opera, was his biggest commercial success, beginning as a stage musical before being reimagined for the screen in 1976. But Russell fell out of the limelight in recent years, as some of his funding dried up and his proposed projects became ever more eclectic. He returned to the public eye in 2007, when he appeared on the fifth edition of Celebrity Big Brother, before quitting the show after a disagreement with fellow contestant Jade Goody.

Russell was born in Southampton in 1927, the son of a shoe shop owner whose violent episodes led Russell and his mother to seek refuge in the cinema. After serving in the RAF and merchant navy, Russell began his career as a photographer - a pursuit he maintained through his life - before moving into TV documentaries. He joined the BBC in 1959, where for the next 11 years he made pioneering arts shows for Monitor and Omnibus, the best-known of which focused on composers, including Elgar (1962), The Debussy Film (1965), Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), Song of Summer (about Frederick Delius and Eric Fenby) (1968) and Dance of the Seven Veils (1970), a film about Richard Strauss, which Russell himself thought his finest achievement.

His first feature, a light comedy called French Dressing (1963), was not well-received, but he scored a minor hit 1967's Billion Dollar Brain, starring Michael Caine. Two years later came the success of Women in Love, Russell's groundbreaking adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel, which won an Oscar for leading lady Glenda Jackson, as well as nominations for cinematography, screenwriting and direction (Russell's only recognition by the Academy). The film established Russell's maverick credentials, not only for its full-frontal wrestling scene, but for an approach to the source that dove-tailed with the sexual mores of the late 1960s.

He followed Women in Love with a string of innovative adult-themed films which were often as controversial as they were successful. The Music Lovers (1970), a biopic of Tchaikovsky, starred Richard Chamberlain as a flamboyant Tchaikovsky and Glenda Jackson as his wife. The score was conducted to great acclaim by André Previn. The film was widely panned but it was successful at the box office.

The 1970s were fruitful years for Russell, who made mature movies that proved popular at the box office, whatever their reception with the critics. Tchaikovsky biopic The Music Lovers (1970), scored by André Previn, was a lucrative reunion for Russell and Glenda Jackson, while The Devils, which reunited him with another Women in Love star, Oliver Reed, topped the British box office for eight weeks. But it was widely reviled in the press, with Evening Standard film critic Alexander Walker famously damning the film as "monstrously indecent" in a TV encounter with Russell, leading the director to hit him with a rolled up copy of the Standard. "I wish it had been an iron bar," Russell told the Guardian in an interview earlier this year.

Twiggy vehicle The Boy Friend was followed by Savage Messiah, a biopic of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, then Mahler, an unlikely smash starring the young Robert Powell. Then came Tommy, followed by Lisztomania (1975), which also starred Roger Daltrey, then yet another biopic, 1977's Valentino.

Russell began the 1980s with more innovation: his first foray into science-fiction. Altered States was a hallucinatory fantasy that mixed religion and space to successful effect. Even critic Roger Ebert, who panned The Devils and the bulk of Russell's back catalogue, gave it his highest grade. But on set rows with the author of the novel on which Altered States was based, Paddy Chayefsky, led to Russell being socially exiled in Hollywood, and after one final US production - Crimes of Passion (1984) - Russell returned to Europe for good.

Here he took a break from cinema to direct operas, until a return to horror with 1986's Gothic, and 1988's The Lair of the White Worm. Though unsuccessful on release, both helped launched the careers of acting talent such as Hugh Grant, and have been championed by horror afficionados in recent years. Jackson and Russell teamed up again in 1989 with The Rainbow, an adaptation of DH Lawrence's Women in Love prequel: one of Russell's quietest, and most acclaimed films.

Russell had a rare acting cameo in 1990's The Russian House, starring Sean Connery, then returned behind the camera for 1991's Prisoner of Honor, which allowed the director to further explore his abiding interest in anti-semitism. Later that year came Whore, about the travails of a prostitute, whose very title proved problematic in the US.

The director also returned to television, collaborating with Reed and Jackson again on various projects, and making splashy documentaries such as 1996's Mindbender, about Uri Geller.

The last 15 years were spent teaching at film schools and struggling to find funding for a variety of projects, including a version of Moll Flanders, starring Barry Humphries. Russell kept innovating even through his twilight years, producing a short called A Kitten For Hitler for the Comedybox.tv and directing a play, Mindgame, off Broadway. His appetite for both adventure and publicity appeared undiminished when he agreed to enter the Big Brother house in 2007. But he only lasted four days in the house, following an altercation with Jade Goody. In a statement he said: "I don't want to live in a society riddled with evil and hatred". Producers apparently rejected a proposal by Russell to return to the house accompanied by his friend Faye Dunaway.

Russell was married four times, initially to the costume designer Shirley Ann Russell, with whom he had five children: Xavier, James, Alexander, Victoria and Toby. He also had a son, Rex, by his third wife, Hetty Baynes.

Tributes began appearing to the director on Twitter this morning, with the comedy writer Graham Linehan recalling an anecdote from the set of Lair of the White Worm in which Russell's directing style grew exponentially broader as his alcohol intake for the day increased. David Baddiel wrote that Russell was "[a] massively underrated film-maker. In his prime - The Music Lovers, Women In Love - one of our best ever." Jonathan Ross described Russell as a "film-maker of rare vision and unique talent [and] a lovely man to spend time with".

• This article was amended on 28 November 2011