Peter Bogdanovich, director of 1970s black and white classics like The last session and Cotton candy, died at the age of 82.
The director and actor died of “natural causes” early Thursday morning at his Los Angeles residence, his daughter, Antonia Bogdanovich, said.
Considered to be part of a generation of young “New Hollywood” directors, Peter Bogdanovich was presented at the start of his career, in 1968, as making “auteur cinema”, with his film Targets (Target). He did it again in 1971 with The Last Picture Show (The last session), an evocative portrayal of a dying small town, which landed eight Oscar nominations and catapulted it to stardom.
He continued in 1972 with a crazy comedy, What’s Up, Doc? (Shall we pack our bags, doctor? ), with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, then a road trip camped in the Great Depression, Paper moon (Cotton candy), for which the actress-child Tatum O’Neal in 1974 won an Oscar – she was 10 years old.
Also an actor, we had seen him in the series The Sopranos, where he played the psychoanalyst that Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist occasionally consulted.
Peter Bogdanovich’s eventful personal life has also often made headlines, starting with his well-known affair with actress Cybill Shepherd, which began on the set of Last Picture Show while he was still married to his close collaborator, Polly Platt.
A native of New York, Peter Bogdanovich began his career as a journalist and film critic. He then worked as a film programmer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City where, through a series of retrospectives, he won the sympathy of many veterans of American cinema, including Orson Welles, Howard Hawks and John Ford.