Born July 30, 1939 in Kingston, New York, the son of a pianist and painter and his wife, Peter Bogdanovich grew up loving movies. From the age of 12 in 1952, he kept a record of every film he saw on index cards complete with reviews and continued to do so until 1970. He saw up to 400 films a year. After graduating from New York’s Collegiate school in 1957, he studied acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory.
In the early 1960s, Bogdanovich was a film programmer at the Museum of Modern Art where he programmed influential retrospectives and wrote monographs for the films of Orson Welles, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, and Allan Dwan. Before becoming a director himself, he wrote for Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, and Cahiers du Cinéma as a film critic. He married future film producer and designer Polly Platt in 1962. They moved to Hollywood in 1966 where Bogdanovich went to work for producer-director Roger Corman. Their daughters Antonia and Sashy were born in 1967 and 1970, respectively.

After working for Corman on 1966’s The Wild Angels and 1968’s Targets, he made his own sensational directorial debut with 1971’s The Last Picture Show for which he was heralded as one of the great new directors. He and Platt were divorced during the making of the film. He then entered into an eight-year relationship with Cybill Shepherd, a former model who made her acting debut in the film. Bogdanovich’s professional relationship with Platt, however, continued through his next two highly acclaimed films, 1972’s What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon after which she had a highly successful career on her own.

Bogdanovich’s next three films, 1974’s Daisy Miller, 1975’s At Long Last Love, and 1976’s Nickelodeon were critical and commercial failures. 1979’s Saint Jack, however, brought him renewed critical attention. His next film, 1981’s The All Laughed featured a supporting performance by Dorothy Stratton a former Playboy model with whom he had an affair during the making of the film. She was murdered by her ex-husband shortly after completing the film. He married her sister Louise in 1988 when she was 20 and he was 49. They divorced in 2001.

Bogdanovich next directed 1985’s Mask which brought him new career respectability, but 1988’s Illegally Yours was a critical and commercial failure. 1990’s Texasville, a sequel to The Last Picture Show, 1992’s Noises Off, and 1993’s The Thing Called Love were all mildly successful. 2001’s The Cat’s Meow was well received but is was 13 years before he made another film, 2014’s She’s Funny That Way, co-written by former wife Lousie Stratten, which would be his last.

When not writing or directing feature films, Bogdanovich kept busy as an actor, appearing in such TV series as The Sopranos and Get Shorty. In 2018, his documentary film The Great Buster: A Celebration was released and Orson Welles’ long delayed The Other Side of the World, filmed in the 1970s, in which he played a prominent supporting role, was released on Netflix to great acclaim.

Bogdanovich died from complications of Parkinson’s Disease on January 6, 2022, attended to by former wife Lousie Stratten and her mother. He was 82.

PETER BOGDANOVICH AND OSCAR

• The Last Picture Show (1971) – nominated – Best Director
• The Last Picture Show (1971) – nominated – Best Adapted Screenplay

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971)

Bogdanovich’s first narrative film established him as one of the great new American directors while paying tribute to both John Ford and Howard Hawks. A coming-of-age story set in a dying Texas town in 1951, the last film playing at the local theatre is Hawks’ Red River. The theatre owner, and mentor to the town’s youth, is Ford regular Ben Johnson in an Oscar winning performance. Cloris Leachman also won as the plain wife of the high school coach who has an affair with high schooler Timothy Bottoms. Jeff Bridges as Bottoms’ friend and Ellen Burstyn as a flirty middle-aged mother accounted for 2 of the film’s other 6 nominations.

WHAT’S UP, DOC? (1972)

Bogdanovich pays full-on tribute to Howard Hawks with this comic reworking of Hawks’ 1938 film, Bringing Up Baby with bits of Hawks’ 1944 film, To Have and Have Not thrown into the mix for good measure. Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal play the wacky dame and confused guy done to perfection by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in the 1938 film while Madeline Kahn all but steals the film as O’Neal’s prissy fiancée, a role that earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Newcomer. Alas, like Bringing Up Baby and To Have and Have Not, the film received no Oscar nominations.

PAPER MOON (1973)

This highly atmospheric black-and-white comedy-drama is set in the 1920s with Ryan O’Neal in top form as a con man who forms an unlikely friendship with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter. She’s played by his real-life daughter, Tatum, who steals the film and won an Oscar for doing so at the age of 10, becoming the youngest performer ever to win a competitive Oscar, a record that still stands. The film was nominated for three other Oscars including one for Madeline Kahn as O’Neal’s ditzy girlfriend. It was also nominated for Alvin Sargent’s adapted screenplay and the film’s score.

MASK (1985)

An Oscar winner for Best Makeup, ironically the wearer of the makeup, Eric Stoltz in a career top performance was not nominated for his portrayal of real-life Rocky Dennis, the teenager whose perseverance over his massive facial skull deformity forms the basis of the film. Cher, who won a Best Actress award from the Cannes Film Festival as well as a Golden Globe nomination, is reportedly still upset that she failed to receive an Oscar nomination for playing his biker gang mother. Laura Dern, in a star-making performance, is also excellent as the blind girl who falls in love with Stoltz, as is Sam Elliot as Cher’s boyfriend.

THE CAT’S MEOW (2021)

Bogdanovich’s take on what may have happened on board William Randolph Hearst’s yacht that day in 1924 when producer Thomas Ince died. The story alleges that Hearst (Edward Herrmann) invited numerous Hollywood luminaries including Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst), Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly), and Margaret Livingston (Claudia Harrison), ostensibly to celebrate Ince’s birthday, but really so he could keep an eye on Chaplin having heard rumors that Chaplin was trying to steal mistress Davies from him. Dunst won the Mara del Plata Film Festival award for Best Actress.