Director Bogdanovich dies at 82
Won fame with ‘Last Picture Show,’ went astray off-screen
Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, the Oscar-nominated director who embodied the “new Hollywood” of the 1970s only to fall from grace with a string of stunning failures, is dead at 82.
The Kingston, N.Y., native died Thursday of natural causes at his Los Angeles home, daughter Antonia Bogdanovich said.
The versatile director leaves behind a list of drama and comedy classics including “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up, Doc?” “Paper Moon” and “Mask.” His legacy also includes failures, on and off the screen.
Like his hero and mentor Orson Welles, Bogdanovich hit the ground running but ruffled feathers as his fame and ego grew and his accomplishments diminished.
His 1971 black-and-white drama “The Last Picture Show,” about the residents of a dead-end Texas town in the 1950s, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two for Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman in the supporting actor categories.
The film also produced an affair with its young star, model-turned-actress Cybill Shepherd, that ended his first marriage.
Bogdanovich was nominated for best director — losing to William Friedkin for “The French Connection” — but his personal life often seemed a melodrama. .
While shooting his 1981 comedy “They All Laughed,” the filmmaker began a relationship with 1980 Playboy Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten. She was shot dead by her estranged husband before the movie hit theaters.
In 1988, Bogdanovich was at the center of another scandal when he married Stratten’s younger sister, Louise Stratten, who was nearly 30 years his junior. They divorced in 2001. Bogdanovich once told The Associated Press that he lamented the fact that his romances were a distraction to some moviegoers.
“The whole thing about my personal life got in the way of people’s understanding of the movies,” he said.
“They All Laughed” was rejected by critics and audiences alike. Bogdanovich, thinking the film’s distribution had been botched, spent $5 million to buy its rights and handle it his own way. That move led to one of his two bankruptcies.
The other came more than a decade later following the failure of several films, including 1980’s “Texasville,” a sequel to “The Last Picture Show.”
He bounced back with “Mask,” a critical and commercial success in 1985.
But as controversial as he was, Bogdanovich had loyal admirers.
Actress Tatum O’Neal won the 1974 Academy Award for best supporting actress after starring in Paper Moon.” She remembered the director on Thursday as a “father figure.”
“Peter was my heaven & earth,” she posted on Instagram. “A father figure. A friend. From ‘Paper Moon’ to ‘Nickelodeon’ he always made me feel safe. I love you, Peter.”
Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola called his fellow filmmaker’s death “a shock” in an email sent to the AP.
“May he sleep in bliss for eternity, enjoying the thrill of our applause forever,” Coppola wrote.
According to Bogdanovich, he turned down one of the movies for which Coppola will be best remembered — and he had no regrets.
“Paramount called and said, ‘We just bought a new Mario Puzo book called ‘The Godfather.’ We’d like you to consider directing it,’ ” he told Vulture in a 2019 interview. “I’m not interested in the Mafia.”
But in 2000, Bogdanovich was given an offer he couldn’t refuse and wound up playing Dr. Elliot Kupferberg on HBO’s gangster show “The Sopranos” through 2007.
He told Vulture he’d also turned down opportunities to direct “The Exorcist,” “Chinatown,” “The Way We Were” and several other flicks.
“I was hot,” Bogdanovich explained. Bogdanovich became a big part of “The New Hollywood” movement of the 1960s and ’70s that emphasized the visions of independent directors over the traditional practices of Tinseltown movie studios. He told The New York Times in 2002 that he wasn’t bitter about the hard times that later befell his career, confessing that he didn’t know how to handle success.
“The whole thing about my personal life got in the way of people’s understanding of the movies.” PETER BOGDANOVICH
“Pride goeth before the fall,” he said. But in the end, according to Bogdanovich, he judged his work overall to the films of directors he admired, like Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Buster Keaton.
“I certainly don’t think I’m anywhere near as good as they are,” he told the AP in 2020. “But I think I’m pretty good.”