Peter Bogdanovich, a name synonymous with the New Hollywood era, was born in Kingston, New York, though his roots trace back to Europe. His parents, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, were immigrants who fled Nazi persecution. Borislav was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, while Herma hailed from a prosperous Austrian Jewish family. Bogdanovich’s initial foray into the arts was as an actor in the 1950s. He honed his skills under the tutelage of the renowned acting coach Stella Adler and gained experience in television and summer stock productions. However, the early 1960s marked a turning point when he garnered attention for his film programming at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, setting the stage for his eventual career as a prominent film director.
Bogdanovich’s deep immersion in cinema was legendary; he reportedly watched up to 400 films annually during his formative years. His programming at MoMA was instrumental in reviving interest in American directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks, figures who, at the time, were not receiving their due critical acclaim. His efforts extended to championing forgotten pioneers of American cinema, such as Allan Dwan. This period solidified Bogdanovich’s reputation as a serious cinephile and budding film scholar.
Image alt text: Peter Bogdanovich, director, attending the Academy Awards, a testament to his recognition in Hollywood.
The French film critics writing for Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s, particularly François Truffaut, profoundly influenced Bogdanovich’s perspective on filmmaking. Prior to stepping behind the camera, Bogdanovich established himself as a respected film writer with insightful articles published in Esquire Magazine. Inspired by the Cahiers du Cinema critics—Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Éric Rohmer—who spearheaded the French New Wave by directing their own films, Bogdanovich transitioned to directing in 1968. He began his directorial journey under the mentorship of Roger Corman, known for his low-budget, often sensational films. Under Corman, Bogdanovich directed Targets (1968), which garnered critical praise, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), a project he later preferred to disown.
Shifting gears back to journalism, Bogdanovich’s interview with Orson Welles on the set of Mike Nichols’ Catch-22 (1970) sparked a lasting friendship. This encounter profoundly shaped Bogdanovich’s career, leading him to become a leading authority on Welles. His writings on Welles, most notably the book “This is Orson Welles” (1992), are considered essential contributions to film scholarship. Beyond Welles, Bogdanovich authored numerous invaluable books on cinema, including “Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors,” cementing his status as a preeminent English-language chronicler of film history alongside Kevin Brownlow.
At the young age of 32, Bogdanovich was lauded as a “Wellesian wunderkind” upon the release of his most celebrated film, The Last Picture Show (1971). This film garnered eight Academy Award nominations, including a Best Director nod for Bogdanovich, and secured two wins for supporting actors Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson. The film also marked a turning point in Bogdanovich’s personal life. He cast the then 19-year-old model Cybill Shepherd in a significant role and became romantically involved with her. This affair ultimately led to his divorce from Polly Platt, the film’s set designer, his long-time artistic collaborator, and the mother of his children.
Following the critical and commercial triumph of The Last Picture Show, Bogdanovich delivered another major hit with What’s Up, Doc? (1972), a screwball comedy deeply influenced by Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). Starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, the film solidified Bogdanovich’s position among the leading directors of the New Hollywood movement, alongside Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin. Together, they formed The Directors Company, a production deal with Paramount Pictures that offered them considerable creative freedom within budget constraints. It was through this venture that Bogdanovich produced Paper Moon (1973), another critical and box office success.
Image alt text: Peter Bogdanovich, film director, on set with Tatum O’Neal during the making of Paper Moon, highlighting his direction of child actors.
Paper Moon, a Depression-era comedy again starring Ryan O’Neal, and featuring his daughter Tatum O’Neal, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, proved to be the zenith of Bogdanovich’s directing career. However, the profit-sharing arrangement within The Directors Company began to cause dissatisfaction for Bogdanovich. The company subsequently produced only two more films: Coppola’s critically acclaimed The Conversation (1974), nominated for Best Picture and earning Coppola a Best Director nomination, and Bogdanovich’s Daisy Miller (1974), which faced a starkly different critical reception.
Daisy Miller (1974), an adaptation of the Henry James novella, marked the beginning of Bogdanovich’s decline as a commercially and critically successful director. Starring Cybill Shepherd in the title role, the film was panned by critics and failed at the box office. His next venture, At Long Last Love (1975), a musical adaptation of Cole Porter songs, also starring Shepherd, was critically lambasted, even being cited in “The Golden Turkey Awards” as one of the worst films ever made. Despite featuring Burt Reynolds, then a major box office draw, the film was a commercial disaster.
Bogdanovich’s decision to film the musical numbers for At Long Last Love live, a technique not used since the early sound era, was widely ridiculed. This choice, coupled with the fact that none of the lead actors were known for their singing abilities (and Bogdanovich himself had produced a poorly received album of Shepherd singing Cole Porter songs), contributed to a growing public perception of Bogdanovich as an arrogant and self-indulgent director.
In an attempt to recapture his early success, Bogdanovich once again looked to the past with Nickelodeon (1976). This comedy, set in the early days of the motion picture industry, reunited Ryan and Tatum O’Neal from Paper Moon with Burt Reynolds. Despite casting newcomer Jane Hitchcock instead of the increasingly unpopular Cybill Shepherd, Nickelodeon failed to replicate the magic of Paper Moon and flopped commercially. Hitchcock’s career as a film actress was also short-lived.
After a three-year hiatus, Bogdanovich returned with Saint Jack (1979), produced by Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Productions Inc., which was also critically and financially underwhelming. Bogdanovich’s relationship with Cybill Shepherd had ended in 1978, and the production deal with Hefner was reportedly part of a settlement from a lawsuit Shepherd filed against Hefner. Then came They All Laughed (1981), a low-budget ensemble comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and Dorothy Stratten. During filming, Bogdanovich fell in love with Stratten, who was tragically murdered by her estranged husband, Paul Snider.
They All Laughed (1981) struggled to find distribution due to the negative publicity surrounding Stratten’s murder, despite it being one of Audrey Hepburn’s few films after her semi-retirement in 1967. Heartbroken, Bogdanovich bought the rights to the film to ensure its release, but it received limited distribution, poor reviews, and substantial financial losses, leading to his bankruptcy.
Bogdanovich returned to writing, penning a memoir, “The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960-1980)” (1984), as a response to Teresa Carpenter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning article “Death of a Playmate,” which had criticized Bogdanovich and Hefner’s role in Stratten’s tragedy. Carpenter’s article served as the basis for Bob Fosse’s film Star 80 (1983), in which Bogdanovich was fictionalized as “Aram Nicholas.”
Bogdanovich’s career as a prominent director never fully recovered. While Mask (1985) achieved modest success, the sequel to The Last Picture Show, Texasville (1990), was a critical and commercial disappointment. He directed two more theatrical films in the early 1990s, but further failures kept him away from the big screen until The Cat’s Meow (2001). The Cat’s Meow, another period piece revisiting Hollywood’s past, was a minor critical success but a box office flop. In later years, Bogdanovich also directed television movies and returned to acting, notably with a recurring role on The Sopranos.
Further impacting his public image was Bogdanovich’s marriage to Dorothy Stratten’s younger sister, Louise Stratten, who was 29 years his junior. This marriage fueled gossip and comparisons to the James Stewart character in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, suggesting Bogdanovich was attempting to recreate Dorothy in Louise. The marriage ended in divorce in 2001.
In his later years, Bogdanovich’s career trajectory mirrored that of his idol Orson Welles, marked by early acclaim followed by a struggle to recapture that initial success. However, unlike Welles, Bogdanovich’s reputation never truly rebounded from its peak in the early 1970s.
Speculation persists that Peter Bogdanovich’s professional downfall was precipitated by his personal choices, specifically leaving Polly Platt for Cybill Shepherd. Platt’s contributions to his early successes were significant, and some critics argue that her artistic sensibility was crucial to The Last Picture Show. Her departure after Paper Moon coincided with Bogdanovich’s shift towards critically and commercially unsuccessful films like Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love.
Despite the career setbacks, The Last Picture Show (1971) was recognized for its cultural significance in 1998 when it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, solidifying Peter Bogdanovich’s legacy as a director who, at least for a brief period, profoundly impacted American cinema.
