Tonguette Picturing Peter Bogdanovich CC20

PICTURING PETER

B O GDANOVICH

MY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE NEW

HOLLY WO OD DIRECTOR

PETER TONGUET TE

Tonguette_Picturing Peter Bogdanovich_CC20.indb 3Tonguette_Picturing Peter Bogdanovich_CC20.indb 3 4/24/2020 2:09:49 PM4/24/2020 2:09:49 PM

Peter Bogdanovich’s draft mailgram to Robert Graves. Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.


Peter Bogdanovich’s mailgram to Robert Graves. Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.


Manuscript page from The Killing of the Unicorn. Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.



The Small Screen

Song of Songs (1994, Showtime)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Harry Mark Petrakis and John Petrakis (based on the short story by Harry Mark Petrakis); producers: Jeff Freilich, Scott J. T. Frank, Daniel Halperin, and David Wachs; executive producers: Norman Jewison and S. Howard Rosen

A Dime a Dance (1995, Showtime)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Allan Scott (based on the short story “The Dancing Detective” by Cornell Woolrich); producers: Stuart Cornfeld and William Horberg; executive producers: Sydney Pollack and Lindsay Doran

To Sir, with Love II (1996, CBS)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Philip Rosenberg (based on characters by E. R. Braithwaite); producer: Richard Stenta

The Price of Heaven (a.k.a. Blessed Assurance) (1997, CBS)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Joyce Eliason (based on the novel by Allan Gurganus); producer: Jack Clements; executive producers: Joyce Eliason and Frank Konigsberg

Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Women (1997, Showtime)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Ernest Kinoy and Susan Nanus (based on the book by Gay Block and Malka Drucker); producer: Jeff Freilich; executive producers: Cis Corman and Barbra Streisand


183

Naked City: A Killer Christmas (1998, Showtime)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Jeff Freilich and Christopher Trumbo (based on characters by Malvin Wald); producer: Jeff Freilich; executive producers: Andrew W. Garroni and Walter Gernert

A Saintly Switch (1999, ABC)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Sally Hampton and Harris Orkin; producers: Sally Hampton and Iain Paterson

The Cat’s Meow (2001, Lions Gate)

Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Steven Peros (based on his play); producers: Julie Baines, Kim Bieber, Carol Lewis, and Dieter Meyer; executive producers: Michael Paseornek and Wieland Schulz-Keil

The Small Screen Redux—and a Grammy

The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004, ABC)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Elizabeth Egloff (based on the books by Suzanne Finstad and Warren G. Harris); producers: Richard Fischoff and Randy Sutter; executive producers: Gerald W. Abrams, Suzanne Finstad, Robert Sertner, and Frank von Zerneck

Hustle (2004, ESPN)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Christian Darren; producer: Terry Gould; executive producers: Orly Adelson and Mark Shapiro

Runnin’ Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (2007, Warner Bros. Records)

Director: Peter Bogdanovich; producers: Skot Bright and George Drakoulias; executive producers: John Berg, Tony Dimitriades, and Diarmuid Quinn


She’s Funny That Way (2015, Lionsgate Premiere)

Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Louise Stratten and Peter Bogdanovich; producers: Holly Wiersma, Logan Levy, George Drakoulias, and Louise Stratten; executive producers: Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, and Cassian Elwes

The Great Buster (2018, Cohen Media Group)Director: Peter Bogdanovich; screenplay: Peter Bogdanovich; producers: Peter Bogdanovich, Charles S. Cohen, Roee Sharon, and Louise Stratten

208

The Other Side of the Wind (2018, Netflix)

Director: Orson Welles; screenplay: Oja Kodar and Orson Welles; producers: Frank Marshall and Filip Jan Rymsza; executive producers: Peter Bogdanovich, Jon Anderson, Dominique Antoine, Jens Koethner Kaul, Carla Rosen-Vacher, and Beatrice Welles


Notes

Prologue

1. Peter Bogdanovich, “A Year and a Day Calendar,” IndieWire, December 22, 2011, at https://www.indiewire.com/2011/12/a-year-and-a-day-calendar-131732/.

2. François Truffaut, Hitchcock (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 13.

Part 1: “Call Me Peter, Peter”

1. Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legend-ary Actors (New York: Ballantine, 2004), 7.

2. Harold Hayes, introduction to Peter Bogdanovich, Pieces of Time: Peter Bogda-novich on the Movies (New York: Arbor House/Esquire, 1973), 15.

3. Ibid.4. Pauline Kael, “The Rear Guard,” in Reeling (New York: Warner Books, 1976), 617.5. Studio executive quoted in Hayes, introduction to Bogdanovich, Pieces of

Time, 20.6. Quoted in Patrick McGilligan, “At Long Last, Bogdanovich,” Boston Globe, March

30, 1975.7. Quoted in Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock

’n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 139.8. Judy Stone, “All Because of Boris Karloff,” New York Times, September 15, 1968.9. Joseph McBride, Hawks on Hawks (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1982), 84.10. Quoted in Stone, “All Because of Boris Karloff.”11. Herman Wouk, Marjorie Morningstar (New York: Little, Brown, 1955), 3.12. Roger Ebert, “The Last Picture Show,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 1, 1971,

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-picture-show-1971.13. Peter Bogdanovich, foreword to F. Miguel Valenti, More Than a Movie: Ethics in

Entertainment (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press), xii.14. George Steiner, “Night Words,” in George Steiner: A Reader (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1984), 313.


notes to Pages 12–31

15. Peter Bogdanovich, testimony, “The Los Angeles Hearing,” in In Harm’s Way:The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, ed. Catharine A. MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 351.

16. Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 139.17. Clive James, “Hit Men,” New Yorker, July 7, 1997.18. “Revival of Oldtime Screwball Gags sans ‘Social’ Values Is Bogdanovich’s Slant

on WB’s ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ Film,” Variety, October 20, 1971.19. Vincent Canby, “What’s Up, Doc?,” New York Times, March 10, 1972.20. Advertisement for What’s Up, Doc?, Variety, March 29, 1972.21. Gordon Gow, “Without a Dinosaur,” Films and Filming, June 1972, in Peter

Bogdanovich: Interviews, ed. Peter Tonguette (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015), 17.

22. Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles, rev. ed. (New York:Da Capo Press, 1998), xxix, emphasis in original.

23. “Bogdanovich Sets 3-Film WB Deal; Own ‘Laredo’ First,” Variety, February 25,1972.

24. Quoted in Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 140, emphasis in original.25. Frank Yablans, “Bold Approach to Pix B.O.; and TV’s Production Virility Yet to

Be Tested,” Variety, January 3, 1973.26. Quoted in Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It (New York: Knopf, 1997),

235.27. Quoted in Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, “Peter Bogdanovich Comes Back from

the Dead,” Esquire, August 1990.28. Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It, 15–16.29. Ibid., 39.30. Peter Bogdanovich, as told to Francine Russo, “Turning Point: Quick Cuts,”

Time, December 2, 2002.31. Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bills, 209.32. Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978),

109.33. Tad Friend, “The Moviegoer,” New Yorker, April 8, 2002.34. Andrew Yule, Picture Shows: The Life and Films of Peter Bogdanovich (New

York: Limelight Editions, 1992), 8.35. Digby Diehl, “Q&A: Peter Bogdanovich,” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1972.36. Wes Anderson, “A Pimp with a Heart,” Sight and Sound, 1999.37. “Dialogue on Film: Peter Bogdanovich,” American Film, June 1986, in Peter

Bogdanovich, ed. Tonguette, 93.38. Vincent Canby, “‘Daisy’ Is an Unexpected Triumph,” New York Times, June 16,

1974; The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (New York: New York Times, 1999).

39. Quoted in Rex Reed, “Peter Bogdanovich and Cybill Shepherd,” in People AreCrazy Here (New York: Delacorte Press, 1974), 275.

40. Bogdanovich, “Screenwriters and Preston Sturges,” in Pieces of Time, 213.41. John Leonard, “John Leonard’s Television Notes,” New York, April 8, 1996.



42. David Thomson, “Older, Sadder, Maybe Wiser,” New York Times, April 7, 2002.43. Barry Putterman, “Peter Bogdanovich,” in American Directors, vol. 2, ed. Jean-

Pierre Coursodon, with Pierre Sauvage (New York: McGraw Hill, 1983), 53.44. Bogdanovich, Who the Hell’s in It, 113.45. Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin, “Peter Bogdanovich,” in Peter Bogdanovich,

ed. Tonguette, 12, emphasis in original.46. Ibid., 16.47. Lynn Hirschberg, “The Man Who Changed Everything” (interview), New York

Times Magazine, November 16, 1997.48. Quoted in Sue Reilly, “Haunted by a Lost Love, Director Peter Bogdanovich

Pays Tribute with a New Film,” People, February 8, 1982.49. Quoted in Harrison, “Peter Bogdanovich Comes Back from the Dead.”50. Peter Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn (1984; reprint, New York: Bantam

Books, 1985), 44.51. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 45, 53.52. Ibid., 57.53. Quoted in Reilly, “Haunted by a Lost Love.”54. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 71.55. Ibid., 215, 106 (quoting Stratten), 64.56. Quoted in Friend, “The Moviegoer.”57. T. H. White, The Once and Future King (1958; reprint, New York: Ace Books,

2011), 183.58. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 221.59. Quoted in Harrison, “Peter Bogdanovich Comes Back from the Dead.”60. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 222.61. Bogdanovich, Who the Hell’s in It, 446.62. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 227.63. Peter Bogdanovich, mailgram to Robert Graves, April 4, 1981, Lilly Library,

Indiana University, Bloomington.64. Peter Bogdanovich, email to the author, November 28, 2010.65. Ibid.66. Harrison, “Peter Bogdanovich Comes Back from the Dead.”67. Quoted in Wayne Warga, “Bogdanovich: Love, Comedy, and Tragedy,” Los

Angeles Times, December 13, 1981.68. Reilly, “Haunted by a Lost Love.”69. Nina J. Easton, “The Next Picture Show,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1989.70. Vidor spoke these words in his short film Metaphor: King Vidor Meets with

Andrew Wyeth (1980).71. Thomas J. Harris, “Peter Bogdanovich Interview,” in Peter Bogdanovich, ed.

Tonguette, 99.72. Armond White, “Directed by Peter Bogdanovich,” Film Comment, March–

April 1993.73. Alex Simon, “Peter Bogdanovich’s Year of the Cat,” in Peter Bogdanovich, ed.

Tonguette, 147.



74. Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951; reprint, New York: Penguin, 2004), 76.

75. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 197, 202.76. Todd McCarthy, “Trio of Projects on Tap for Peter Bogdanovich This Year,”

Variety, January. 11, 1983.77. Bogdanovich, The Killing of the Unicorn, 197.78. Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It, 437.79. James, “Hit Men.”80. Quoted in Friend, “The Moviegoer.”81. Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment (1975; reprint, New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1989), 403.82. James, “Hit Men.”83. Peter Bogdanovich, email to the author, January 6, 2011.

Part 2. Q&A

1. Digby Diehl, “Q&A: Peter Bogdanovich,” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1972.2. Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).3. Grover Lewis, “Bogdanovich’s Last Picture Show,” in The Rolling Stone Film

Reader: The Best Film Writing from Rolling Stone Magazine, ed. Peter Travers (New York: Pocket Books, 1996), 165.

4. See Martin Rubin, “An Interview with Peter Bogdanovich,” in Peter Bogdanovich: Interviews, ed. Peter Tonguette (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015), 28.

5. Jan Dawson, “The Continental Divide,” Sight and Sound, Winter 1973–1974.6. In fact, Bogdanovich did change his credit to “Screenplay by Peter Bogdanovich,

suggested by the songs of Cole Porter” for the Blu-ray release of James Blakeley’s cut of At Long Last Love in 2013.

7. “New Direction for Bogdanovich,” New York, January 31, 1977.8. Quoted in “Poet Ponders on Words and Women,” Life, June 28, 1963.9. Jim Robbins, “Bogdanovich Cites Thrift as Company’s Bottom Line,” Variety,

November 5, 1981.10. Thomas J. Harris, “Peter Bogdanovich Interview,” in Peter Bogdanovich, ed.

Tonguette, 99.11. Bogdanovich intended to include songs by Bruce Springsteen in Mask; due to

disagreements with executives, the songs were omitted from the version released in theaters but then restored nearly two decades later for a DVD release (which is also longer than the theatrical version).

12. “Dialogue on Film: George Cukor,” American Film, February 1978, in GeorgeCukor: Interviews, ed. Robert Emmet Long (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 118.

13. Like a number of Bogdanovich pictures since the 1990s, She’s Funny That Waycould never catch on with audiences due to its scant, barely publicized theatrical distri-bution in the United States.


Screen ClassicsScreen Classics is a series of critical biographies, film histories, and analytical studies focus-ing on neglected filmmakers and important screen artists and subjects, from the era of silent cinema through the golden age of Hollywood to the international generation of today. Books in the Screen Classics series are intended for scholars and general readers alike. The contributing authors are established figures in their respective fields. This series also serves the purpose of advancing scholarship on film personalities and themes with ties to Kentucky.

Series Editor

Patrick McGilligan

Books in the Series

Olivia de Havilland: Lady TriumphantVictoria Amador

Mae Murray: The Girl with the Bee-Stung LipsMichael G. Ankerich

Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in FilmRuth Barton

Rex Ingram: Visionary Director of the Silent ScreenRuth Barton

Conversations with Classic Film Stars: Interviews from Hollywood’s Golden EraJames Bawden and Ron Miller

Conversations with Legendary Television Stars: Interviews from the First Fifty YearsJames Bawden and Ron Miller

You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet: Interviews with Stars from Hollywood’s Golden EraJames Bawden and Ron Miller

Von SternbergJohn Baxter

Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense: The Life of Screenwriter Charles BennettCharles Bennett, edited by John Charles Bennett

Hitchcock and the CensorsJohn Billheimer

A Uniquely American Epic: Intimacy and Action, Tenderness and Violence in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild BunchEdited by Michael Bliss


My Life in Focus: A Photographer’s Journey with Elizabeth Taylor and the Hollywood Jet SetGianni Bozzacchi with Joey Tayler

Hollywood Divided: The 1950 Screen Directors Guild Meeting and the Impact of the BlacklistKevin Brianton

He’s Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene KellyCynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson

Ziegfeld and His Follies: A Biography of Broadway’s Greatest ProducerCynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson

The Marxist and the Movies: A Biography of Paul JarricoLarry Ceplair

Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood RadicalLarry Ceplair and Christopher Trumbo

Warren Oates: A Wild LifeSusan Compo

Improvising Out Loud: My Life Teaching Hollywood How to ActJeff Corey with Emily Corey

Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father’s Unsolved MurderRobert Crane and Christopher Fryer

Jack Nicholson: The Early YearsRobert Crane and Christopher Fryer

Anne Bancroft: A LifeDouglass K. Daniel

Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood RebelNick Dawson

Bruce Dern: A MemoirBruce Dern with Christopher Fryer and Robert Crane

Intrepid Laughter: Preston Sturges and the MoviesAndrew Dickos

Miriam Hopkins: Life and Films of a Hollywood RebelAllan R. Ellenberger

John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film StarsEve Golden

Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood StoryMollie Gregory

Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film DesignJan-Christopher Horak

Hitchcock Lost and Found: The Forgotten FilmsAlain Kerzoncuf and Charles Barr

Pola Negri: Hollywood’s First Femme FataleMariusz Kotowski


Sidney J. Furie: Life and FilmsDaniel Kremer

Albert Capellani: Pioneer of the Silent ScreenChristine Leteux

Ridley Scott: A BiographyVincent LoBrutto

Mamoulian: Life on Stage and ScreenDavid Luhrssen

Maureen O’Hara: The BiographyAubrey Malone

My Life as a Mankiewicz: An Insider’s Journey through HollywoodTom Mankiewicz and Robert Crane

Hawks on HawksJoseph McBride

Showman of the Screen: Joseph E. Levine and His Revolutions in Film PromotionA. T. McKenna

William Wyler: The Life and Films of Hollywood’s Most Celebrated DirectorGabriel Miller

Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood’s Legendary DirectorMarilyn Ann Moss

Veit Harlan: The Life and Work of a Nazi FilmmakerFrank Noack

Harry Langdon: King of Silent ComedyGabriella Oldham and Mabel Langdon

Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood DanceBrent Phillips

Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy WilderGene D. Phillips

Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten RebelChristina Rice

Lewis Milestone: Life and FilmsHarlow Robinson

Michael Curtiz: A Life in FilmAlan K. Rode

Arthur Penn: American DirectorNat Segaloff

Film’s First Family: The Untold Story of the CostellosTerry Chester Shulman

Claude Rains: An Actor’s VoiceDavid J. Skal with Jessica Rains


Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for HollywoodSherri Snyder

Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby BerkeleyJeffrey Spivak

Victor Fleming: An American Movie MasterMichael Sragow

Hollywood Presents Jules Verne: The Father of Science Fiction on ScreenBrian Taves

Thomas Ince: Hollywood’s Independent PioneerBrian Taves

Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood DirectorPeter Tonguette

Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet: My Summer with the Danish FilmmakerJan Wahl

Clarence Brown: Hollywood’s Forgotten MasterGwenda Young


Tonguette Picturing Peter Bogdanovich CC20

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