Bogdanovich, Peter, 1939-....

Film director, producer, actor, critic and author.

Bogdanovich was a film critic for Esquire, The New York Times, and Cahiers du Cinema among others, and has written numerous books on American cinema, most notably The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and This is Orson Welles. Bogdanovich directed his first feature film Targets, starring Boris Karloff, in 1968. His breakthrough film, however, was The Last Picture Show (1971) based on the Larry McMurtry novel. Several successful and critically acclaimed films followed, notably his documentary Directed by John Ford (1971) and the comedies, What's Up Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973).

Bogdanovich was born in 1939 in Kingston, New York, the son of Serbian-Austrian Jewish immigrants who had fled Europe during the spread of Nazism. As a teenager he attended Stella Adler's Theatre Studio, going on to mount a successful Off-Broadway production of Clifford Odets' The Big Knife at the age of twenty. In 1964 Bogdanovich moved to California and turned his attention to filmmaking, starting as a second-unit director, location scout and editor for Roger Corman. Bogdanovich directed his first motion picture, the cult thriller Targets, starring Boris Karloff, in 1968.

His breakthrough film came three years later: The Last Picture Show (1971). Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry, the movie was a box-office hit and nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two. A string of commercially successful and critically acclaimed films followed: the screwball farce What's Up Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal (1972); the Depression Era comedy- drama Paper Moon (1973), which won ten-year-old Tatum O’Neal an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; and the seminal documentary Directed by John Ford (original release in 1971, rereleased with new footage in 2006). Other films directed by Bogdanovich include Daisy Miller (1974), At Long Last Love (1975), Nickelodeon (1976), Saint Jack (1979), They All Laughed (1981), Mask (1985), Texasville (1990), Noises Off (1992), The Thing Called Love (1993), and The Cat’s Meow (2001). He is credited for writing or co-writing the screenplays for The Last Picture Show, its sequel Texasville, and many other movies.

Additionally, Bogdanovich has acted in several films and television series, most notably fifteen episodes of HBO's The Sopranos, and is a distinguished film scholar. His early-1960s monographs on Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Howard Hawks were influential contributions toward the development of the auteur theory. He has written film criticism for Esquire, The New York Times, and Cahiers du Cinema, as well as numerous books on American film, including John Ford, The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock, and This is Orson Welles . He also wrote The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960-1980) based on his relationship with the Playboy centerfold who was murdered by her estranged husband. Bogdanovich is the owner/founder of several production companies, including Saticoy Productions, Inc., Copa de Oro Productions and Moon Pictures.