Vali Myers (1930-2003), 'outsider' artist, was born near Box Hill and moved to Melbourne at the age of eleven. Leaving home at 14, she became a dancer. At 19 she went to Paris, where she lived on the streets, danced in cafs, and met Sartre, Cocteau, Genet and Django Reinhardt. George Plimpton wrote an article about her for his journal, Paris Review, and Ed van der Elsken photographed her for the book Love on the Left Bank. In 1952 she left France to settle near Positano, where she established an animal sanctuary and spent much time in a cage with a vixen. She funded the sanctuary through selling her art - in which dogs recur with female figures - in New York. Living at the Chelsea Hotel, she tattooed Patti Smith's knee and met Dal, Warhol and Tennessee Williams, who is said to have based the character Carol Cutrere on her. She returned to Melbourne in 1993 and set up a studio, but returned often to her menagerie in Italy. The subject of three films, the late Myers still attracts feral and wiccan admirers.