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By D. W. O'Dell
Let’s say you are a young, hot shot movie director. Your first major studio film was a critical and commercial success. Your gorgeous leading lady is now your main squeeze and producers want to give you a blank check to do whatever you want for your next picture. The world is your oyster. But before you go out and buy a different color Rolls for every day of the week, let me give you a name that may make you re-evaluate things.
Peter Bogdanovich.
 I’ve been reading Bogdanovich’s recent book, Who the Hell’s In It?, which is a collection of essays about Hollywood acting legends, most of whom he was personally acquainted with. In the chapter on famous acting coach Stella Adler, under whom Bogdanovich was a student when he was in his teens, he mentions that he borrowed $500 from her in the 1990’s when he was broke and going through bankruptcy. That story made me look up Bogdanovich on the invaluable Internet Movie Database, and the results surprised me.
Bogdanovich’s first full-fledged directorial effort was a low-budget cheapie for Roger Corman called Targets. His next film, which was his first studio film, was The Last Picture Show. It was a commercial hit and received eight Oscar nominations, three for Bogdanovich personally as co-writer, director, and co-producer. Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman virtually swept all the film-based acting awards that year, including the Oscars, in the supporting actor and actress categories for their roles in the film.
His next commercial effort was What’s Up, Doc?, a Barbra Streisand/Ryan O’Neal vehicle that may be the best screwball comedy of the later half of the twentieth century (there’s not much competition). Imagine a Streisand/O’Neal film being hilarious.
His next film, also with Ryan O’Neal, was Paper Moon, a commercial hit that snagged Oscar nominations for Madeline Kahn and Tatum O’Neal, with O’Neal becoming the youngest competitive Oscar winner in history.
 Three at bats, three home runs. But then the wheels fell off the little red wagon, as his biography at IMBD.com describes. His next movie was an act of hubris, the notorious flop At Long Last Love, starring his then girlfriend Cybill Shepherd, and Burt Reynolds. Bogdanovich’s conceit was that he could make a musical with non-singers. Not only that but the singing would be done on the set during filming, not lip-synched later as is the norm. Those who saw it (there were only a few) put it on the short list of worst films of all time.
Next there was an attempt to re-capture the magic of his association with Ryan O’Neal in Nickelodeon. It would have joined At Long Last Love on the all-time worst film lists if anyone had seen it. Bottom line, the hits just stopped coming.
His personal life got rocky as well. He and Shepherd separated, but he planned a major comeback with a movie starring his next girlfriend. The film’s title was They All Laughed, her name was Dorothy Stratten, and as you may know she was murdered by her estranged-husband before the film’s release.
Despite Audrey Hepburn having the lead role in the film, it was another major flop and was a major factor in Bogdanovich‘s financial problems (he financed its distribution when all the studios passed because of the bad publicity regarding Stratten).
Bogdanovich never directed another major film, although one could argue the accliam and popularity of his biggest subsequent hit Mask with Cher. Some films, like Saint Jack and The Cat‘s Meow received critical raves, but did absolutely no business. But Bogdanovich, being a multi-talented guy, stayed in Hollywood. He remained connected to the high and mighty, and managed to find continuous work mainly as a writer and actor.
The advent of DVD's brought another facet to his career, that of a commentator on alternate DVD audio tracks. He is an amusing speaker, although his commentaries tend to lean on his personal association with the film makers, usually Orson Welles or Alfred Hitchcock. Bogdanovich is a talented mimic and can do an uncanny impersonation of both legendary directors (he says he also does a dead-on impersonation of Howard Hawks, but as he points out since no one now remembers what he sounded like, we have to take his word for it). Among his DVD credits is commentary on Citizen Kane.
Bogdanovich has stayed around the outskirts of Hollywood celebrity for thirty years, directing (box office-wise) no great movies, writing minor essays and film personality books, doing DVD commentaries and now working more as an actor than a director (including a recurring role on The Sopranos). It should be a cautionary tale to anyone who is young, talented, and has the world on a string.
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