A child prodigy of upper class California parents, Anger chose a theatrical last name that summarizes his constructed persona. His first brush with theater was as a 3 year old child in Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream. By nine he was shooting his own 16mm films.

His fame started with the film Fireworks that became popular in the art underground.

His works were surreal and intended to be like an experience with LSD, a passion of his. He distributed most of the prints himself and each one was edited in a slightly different manner.

He is said to have influenced Martin Scorsese, Fred Halsted and was himself a long time follower of Aleister Crowley's occult 'sex magick' theology.

He has built a formidable collection of Hollywood memorabilia from as old as the silent film era. Anger has also been the author of a number of books starting with Hollywood Babylon 1 & 2.

Anger was intimate with Bobby Beausoleil and begin filming Lucifer Rising with him until they had a falling out and Beausoleil took off with Anger's car and most of the film footage. The two of them had gone to author/tattooist Samuel Steward, aka Phil Andros, to get the name 'Lucifer' tattooed in Old English letters on their chest. Lucifer Rising was begun again with a little bit of the original footage.