Peter Bogdanovich

Peter Bogdanovich was born in New York in 1939 due to circumstances, his parents, he a pianist, an Orthodox Christian of Serbian origin, she a painter, an Austrian Jew from a wealthy family. His adopted city truly became his city, there he received acting classes from the mythical Stella Adler , and got jobs as a film programmer at MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

An inveterate movie buff, there were years when he watched 400 films, in times when DVDs or movies on the Internet did not exist. He has never ceased to be passionate about other people’s films, and thanks to him we have valuable articles, books and documentaries on John Ford , Howard Hawks and Orson Welles in particular, as well as compilations of conversations with directors –“The director is the star”, or, in its original title “Who the hell did it?”– and portraits of outstanding actors –“Hollywood stars”–. In times of difficulty to shoot, or when the desire was lacking, the works on people from the film world had a soothing effect on him.

As has happened to other film scholars, notably the critics of the French magazine “Cahiers du Cinéma” such as François Truffaut and other promoters of the nouvelle vague, also a Bogdanovich who wrote for Esquire made the leap into film directing. He did it hand in hand with the king of series B Roger Corman , with whom he made the remarkable The Hero Is Loose and the most infamous The Journey of the Prehistoric Women , both from 1968.

But the 70s were his prodigious time, he made a name for himself thanks to The Last Movie (1971), a nostalgic generational film in black and white based on the novel by Larry McMurtry , in which the idea of ​​movie theaters closing down was attacked. , which earned 8 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, with two coming to fruition, one for Fordian actor Ben Johnson . The wonderful What’s wrong with me, doctor? (1972), debtor of The Beast of My Girl , with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal emulating Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant , and Paper Moon(1973), which brings to mind Preston Sturges in his picaresque Great Depression plot, with Ryan and Tatum O’Neal , then a girl, playing father and daughter. This last film implied an agreement with Paramount through The Directors Company, an association of Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin .

Curiously, his sentimental ups and downs coincide with the decline of what promised to be an undeniable career as a film director. His marriage to the mother of his two daughters Polly Platt, artistic director of his films, broke up in 1972, after a decade together. Bogdanovich had started a relationship with the actress Cybill Shepherd , which would last until 1978. If in The Last Movie , his screen debut, he had a relevant role, in A Rebel Lady (1974), based on “Daily Miller” by Henry James , takes the lead, but the film is not well received. Although worse is finally, the great love(1975), unsuccessful musical where the director recorded the songs live. They would not work together again until the relationship was already broken, in 1990, in Texasville , a belated sequel to Last Night .

Nickleodeon. This is how Hollywood began (1976) is another cinephile song, this time to the origins of cinema, fairground shows, silent films and Griffith, valuable, but the truth is that no Bogdanovich film has received the fervent reception of yesteryear, it has ripped off a cursed stage that helps his assimilation to Orson Welles. On top of that, scandal, curiosity and tragedy hit him in 1981 on the occasion of a film that, ironically, in Spain was called Everyone laughed . All by Dorothy Stratten, former Playboy bunny and actress of the film, with whom the director had an adulterous relationship, which ended with her murder by her jealous husband Paul Snider, who then committed suicide. To round things off, the director would marry the deceased’s little sister, Louise, in 1988, although the marriage ended in 2001.

Five years after The Elephant Man , he addresses the issue of physical deformity from a true story in Mask (1985) with Cher as the protagonist’s mother. Theatrical, musical, stage and film themes have a presence in very worthy later films, but they do not find their audience, such as What a ruinous show! (1992), That Thing Called Love (1993) and The Cat’s Meow (2001). After eight years without going behind a camera, he has premiered Lío en Broadway (2014), a fun sitcom with a classic flavor, in which he co-writes the script with his ex-wife From him Louise Strattenand in which he has given a small role to Cybill Shepherd. In addition, following his love of cinema to the end, he dedicated the documentary The Great Buster (2018) to the comedy genius Buster Keaton , which has become Bogdanovich’s “last film” as a director.

Saving the distances, in the way of his admired Orson Welles, he has always acted as an actor with small roles, the most celebrated undoubtedly being the psychiatrist of Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist in the gangster series The Sopranos , where he came to direct one of its episodes.