Peter Bogdanovich

January 20, 1997

Born on July 30, 1939 in Kingston, New York, Bogdanovich started out as a film critic. Most of his most notable series of essays include profiles of filmakers Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks. After this, he became a filmaker under the tutoring of low-budget filmaker Roger Corman. His first known feature was the social horror film Targets (1968), one of Boris Karloff's last films which became a cult hit. His follow-up was the critical and financial success The Last Picture Show (1971), based on Larry McMurtry's novel about a dying Texas town. His reputation as a director was further boosted by the success of the screwball comedy What's Up Doc? (1972), and The Paper Moon (1973), a depression era comedy starring father-daughter team, Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.

His career took a disastrous left turn in 1974, with the costly flops Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love (1975), both starring his companion at the time Cybil Shepard. His highly publicized affair with murdered Playboy model, Dorothy Stratten, did little to boost his flagging reputation. His filmography since then has consisted of an occasional up (Mask (1985)), huge downs (the banal comedy Illegally Yours (1988)) and some mixed reaction (Texasville (1990), Noises Off (1992)). Bogdanovich had great potential directing films that held the audience captivated, but he basically threw it away on projects that no other filmaker would have wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 10:6

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