Peter Bogdanovich, a film critic-turned Oscar-nominated director of classics including The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, has died, ABC News has confirmed. The filmmaker was 82.
Bogdanovich was born in New York and worked as a film journalist in his early years, before a career turn working with low-budget icon Roger Corman on the 1966 film The Wild Angels.
Bogdanovich’s 1971 film The Last Picture Show, starring Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won Best Supporting Actor trophies for Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson.
Bogdanovich was also adept at comedy, working with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal in 1972’s What’s Up, Doc?, before reuniting with O’Neal for the period drama Paper Moon two years later. That film also starred O’Neal’s real-life daughter, Tatum O’Neal, who at age 10 won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the youngest performer to have ever won the prize.
Bogdanovich directed the Oscar-winning 1985 drama Mask, starring Cher and Eric Stoltz. He also was an actor, appearing in a variety of shows and movies, including as therapist Dr. Elliot Kupferberg on The Sopranos, and on the big screen as recently as 2019 in It: Chapter Two.
Bogdanovich’s personal life wasn’t free of tabloid headlines. His 1971 affair with a then-unknown Cybill Shepherd led to the divorce from his first wife, while his Playboy playmate girlfriend Dorothy Statton was infamously murdered in 1980 by an ex. In 1988, Bogdanovich married Stratton’s sister, Louise. They split in 2001.
Bogdanovich was also an accomplished author and documentarian, having called the shots on films on subjects ranging from directors John Ford and Howard Hawks to musician Tom Petty. His 2007 collab with the latter, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream, earned the filmmaker a Grammy for Best Music Film.
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