The many faces of Peter Bogdanovich

[IN MEMORIAM] The filmmaker behind The Last Picture Show, who died this month, loved cinema in many forms

THE FILM JOURNALIST

Peter Bogdanovich was a fanboy before the term existed. Between the ages of 12 and 30, he kept track of the films he saw on 3” x 5” index cards, racking up 5,316 flicks. In the ’60s, he started doing reviews and feature articles for Esquire

— he did set visits for Howard Hawks’ El Dorado and Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds — and even named his 1951 Ford Convertible ‘John Ford’. In a decade that saw US critics go crazy for Euro art cinema, Bogdanovich was a cheerleader for unsung traditional American filmmakers.

THE DIRECTOR

Bogdanovich crossed the critic-filmmaker divide with Targets, the excellent Roger Cormansponsored horror flick, which brilliantly utilised Boris Karloff outtakes. His best work — from the sublime The Last Picture Show to the screwball What’s Up, Doc?, from the bittersweet Paper Moon to the compelling Saint Jack

— perfectly walked a tightrope between old-school and modern Hollywood. His films, even flops such as At Long Last Love, coursed with a love of movies through every frame.

THE ACTOR

Aged 15, the precocious Bogdanovich studied acting with the legendary Stella Adler. The director continued thesping, including appearances in his own films — his voicework as a DJ on The Last Picture Show inspired Quentin Tarantino to hire him as the radio announcer in the Kill Bill movies. He acted mostly on TV (Moonlighting, How I Met Your Mother), playing his most famous role, Dr Elliot Kupferberg, the therapist’s therapist on The Sopranos, for six years — the water bottle Kupferberg regularly drank from was Bogdanovich’s own.

THE HISTORIAN

Perhaps Bogdanovich’s biggest contribution to film came as a champion of classic Hollywood. As a young buck, he not only programmed forgotten films at the Museum Of Modern Art, wrote monographs and made documentaries, but also provided tangible support for his cinematic heroes (he let Orson Welles stay in his Bel Air mansion when the auteur had financial problems). In his later years, he taught film at universities, introduced classics on TCM and campaigned for film preservation, playing a pivotal role in restoring Welles’ missing masterpiece The Other Side Of The Wind. Whatever he did, the man’s passion for picture shows knew no bounds.

Peter Bogdanovich, photographed exclusively for Empire in 2017 by Steve Schofield.

Above, top: Bogdanovich with Orson Welles during filming of the long-lost classic The Other Side Of The Wind. Above: Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’neal in 1972’s What’s Up, Doc?