Celebrity Biographies
Peter Masterson
His name will mean nothing to most moviegoers, but they will remember his face, from films like “The Exorcist” and “Adopt a Wife”, Geraldine Page in the film directed by him “Return to Bountiful”, and his daughter, the famous Mary Stuart Masterson. Peter Masterson passed away on December 19, 2018 at his residence in Kinderhook, New York, at the age of 84, following complications with Parkinson’s disease.
Born in Houston (Texas), on June 1, 1934, Peter Masterson was the cousin of the prestigious playwright Horton Foote, legendary screenwriter of the 1962 classic To Kill a Mockingbird , for which he won one of the most deserved Oscars in history. Determined to become an actor, he successfully began his career in the late 1960s, when he was recruited as a supporting role by Norman Jewison for In the Heat of the Night , which won the Best Picture Oscar. But they tagged him in military characters, in titles like A Grave at Dawn , The Red Baron or Stone Gardens .
Film buffs will remember him as Dr. Barringer, director of the clinic where Regan, the girl from the terrifying The Exorcist , undergoes radiology , and above all as the protagonist of the cult film Adopt a Wife , where he played a guy who moves with his wife to Stepford, an idyllic residential area, where all the wives come under suspicion for their complacent attitude. The film marked the film debut of her daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson , highly recognized in the 90s after Fried Green Tomatoes , but then a girl who played her eldest daughter in fiction.
The little girl was the result of his marriage in 1960 to actress Carlin Glynn ( Sixteen Candles ), who survived him after his death. The other two are also dedicated to the cinema, Peter – who is named after her father – works as a cameraman and cinematographer, and Alexandra as an actress, although both have had worse fortune than Mary Stuart.
As success eluded him, in 1985 he decided to make the leap into production with Return to Bountiful , an emotional adaptation of his cousin’s work, who wrote the script for him. With the tape the veteran Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for best actress. She played Mrs. Watts, an old woman from Houston bored with her son and her daughter-in-law, who runs away from her to return to her small town in Texas. This state, where Peter Masterson was born , is also portrayed in The Funniest House in Texas , the musical co-written by him, and for which his wife, Glynn, won the Tony; made into a hit movie with Dolly Parton as a brothel owner, and Burt Reynolds as sheriff and friend of the former.
He would work again with Horton Foote on Convicts , and the television Lily Dale , who had less impact. She also directed Diane Keaton in Don’t Die Without Saying Goodbye , which explores the relationship of this actress’s character, a seamstress, with the boss of the clothing store where she works, played by Sam Shepard .