Peter Bogdanovich biography

Synopsis

Early Career

Director, actor, producer, screenwriter, author. Born on July 30, 1939, in Kingston, New York. Bogdanovich grew up in New York City and started acting as a teenager and studied with the famed acting teacher Stella Adler. He even directed a few off-Broadway plays before making the switch to films.

In 1966, Bogdanovich worked as an assistant to director Roger Corman on the film The Wild Angels. Corman then offered Bogdanovich his first chance to write and direct his own film. Bogdanovich created 1968's Targets, which starred horror film star Boris Karloff. But it was his next film that launched Bogdanovich's career into the stratosphere.

Breakthrough Film

Based on the Larry McMurtrey novel of the same name, The Last Picture Show (1971) was a huge success. Starring Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges, the film centered on a coming-of-age story set in a small Texas town during the 1950s. He was nominated for two Academy Award for directing and writing the script for the film. Next he tried his hand at comedy with What's Up, Doc (1972), which starred Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal. He and O'Neal worked together again on Paper Moon (1973), a family drama about a father and daughter (played by O'Neal's real-life daughter Tatum) team of scam artists set during the Great Depression.

After three great box office successes, Bodganovich's directorial career experienced a decline with such flops as At Love Last Love (1975) and Nickeleon (1976). He had a career renaissance of sorts in the 1980s with Mask, starring Cher and Eric Stoltz. The touching drama looked at the life of a disfigured boy and his mother. Unfortunately, several of Bogdanovich's later projects failed to find an audience.

Personal Tragedy

The 1980s were a time of personal hardship for Bogdanovich as well. His girlfriend, Playboy model and actress Dorothy Stratten, who was killed by her ex-husband in 1980. He wrote The Killing of the Unicorn (1984) about her. Bogdanovich shocked many when he married Stratten's sister, Louise Hoogstraten in 1988. The couple divorced in 2001.

The Sopranos

In 1990, Bogdanovich returned to familiar territory with Texasville, the sequel to The Last Picture Show.