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| Birth Name(s) : Peter Bogdanovich |
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Full Peter Bogdanovich Biography
Turning back to journalism, Bogdanovich struck up a life-long friendship with Orson Welles while interviewing him on the set of Mike Nichols's Catch-22. Bogdanovich played a major role in elucidating Welles and his career with his writings on the actor-director, most notably his book This is Orson Welles (1992). In the early-70s when Welles was having financial problems, Bogdanovich let him stay at his Bel Air mansion for a couple of years.
The 32-year old Bogdanovich was hailed by a critics as a "Wellesian" wunderkind when his best known film, The Last Picture Show, was released in 1971. The film received eight Academy Awards nominations, including Best Director, and won two statues: Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson in the supporting acting categories. Bogdanovich, who had cast the 19-year-old model Cybill Shepherd in a major role in the film, fell in love with her, an affair that eventually led to his divorce from Polly Platt, his long-time artistic collaborator and the mother of his two children.
Once again beholden to the past, Bogdanovich insisted on filming the musical numbers for At Long Last Love live, a process not used since the early days of the talkies. The decision was widely ridiculed as none of the leading actors were known for their singing abilities. (Bogdanovich himself had produced a critically panned album of Shepherd singing Porter songs in 1974.) The public perception of Bogdanovich became that of an arrogant director hamstrung by his own hubris.
After a three-year hiatus, Bogdanovich returned with the critically and financially underwhelming Saint Jack (1979) for Hugh Hefner's Playboy Productions Inc. Bogdanovich's long affair with Shepherd had ended in 1978, but the production deal making Hefner the film's producer was part of the settlement of a lawsuit Shepherd had filed against Hefner for publishing nude photos of her pirated from a print of The Last Picture Show in Playboy Magazine. Bogdanovich then launched the film that would be his career Waterloo, They All Laughed, a low-budget ensemble comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and the 20 year-old Playboy Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten. During the filming of the picture, Bogdanovich fell in love with Stratten, who was married to Paul Snider. Stratten moved in with Bogdanovich, and when she told Snider she was leaving him, she was killed in a murder-suicide.
They All Laughed could not attract a distributor due to the negative publicity surrounding the Stratten murder, despite its being one of the few films made by the legendary Audrey Hepburn after her provisional retirement in 1967. The heartbroken Bogdanovich bought the rights to the negative so that it would be seen by the public, but the film had a limited release to weak reviews and lost Bogdanovich millions, driving him into bankruptcy. Apart from the tragic circumstances of its making, though, the film has a small but devoted following. Director Quentin Tarantino listed it as one of the Ten Best Films of All Time in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll.
Bogdanovich directed two more theatrical films in 1992 and 1993, but their failure kept him off the big screen for several years. One, Noises Off..., has subsequently developed a strong cult following, while the other, The Thing Called Love, is better known as one of actor River Phoenix's last roles before an untimely drug-related death.
In 2001, Bogdanovich resurfaced with The Cat's Meow. Returning once again to a reworking of the past, this time the supposed murder of director Thomas Ince by Welles' bête noire William Randolph Hearst, The Cat's Meow was a modest critical success but made little money at the box office. Bogdanovich says he heard the story of the alleged Ince murder from director Orson Welles who in turn said he heard it from writer Herman J. Mankiewicz. In addition to helming some television movies, Bogdanovich has returned to acting, with a recurring guest role on the cable television series The Sopranos as Dr. Melfi's psychotherapist. Bogdanovich directed a fifth season episode of the series. In an homage to his Sopranos character, he also voiced the analyst of Bart Simpson's therapist in an episode of The Simpsons.
Bogdanovich's personal reputation suffered from gossip about his 13-year marriage to Dorothy Stratten's younger sister, Louise Hoogstraten, who was 29 years his junior. The marriage ended in divorce in 2001.
In 1998, the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress named The Last Picture Show to the National Film Registry, an honor awarded only to the most culturally significant films. |
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