“With ‘The Last Picture Show,’ he made a movie that seemed to look backward and forward at the same time as well as a phenomenal success, followed quickly by ‘What’s Up Doc’ and ‘Paper Moon.’ In the years that followed, Peter had setbacks and tragedies, and he just kept going on, constantly reinventing himself. The last time I saw Peter was in 2018 at The New York Film Festival, where we appeared together on a panel discussion of his old friend Orson Welles’ ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ (in which Peter gives a great performance, and to which he dedicated a lot of time and energy throughout many years). Right up to the end, he was fighting for the art of cinema and the people who created it.”
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Earlier: Cybil Shepherd shared this statement: “Having Peter Bogdonavich as my first acting teacher in my first film, ‘The Last Picture Show,’ was a blessing of enormous proportion. There are simply no words to express my feelings over this deepest of losses. May Peter live long in all our memories.”
“What’s Up, Doc?” star Barbra Streisand tweeted, “Peter always made me laugh! He’ll keep making them laugh up there too. May he rest in peace.”
Meanwhile, Cher, with whom Bogdanovich clashed on the set of 1985’s “Mask,” tweeted, “I’m Proud Of The Film (mask) We Made Together, & In The End I’m Sure He Must Have Been As Well. He made Some Very Memorable Films,& Discovered amazingly Talented artists.”
Earlier: Hollywood has come out to mourn the death of filmmaker, actor, and all-around movie maverick and historian Peter Bogdanovich, who passed away at his home in Los Angeles on Thursday at the age of 82. Bogdanovich remains one of the standard-bearers for the New Hollywood, as well as a raconteur and champion of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with films like the Larry McMurtry adaptation “The Last Picture Show,” screwball comedy “What’s Up, Doc?” and Depression-era Oscar winner “Paper Moon” to his name.
One such New Hollywood contemporary is Francis Ford Coppola, with whom he pacted with Paramount Pictures in the 1970s to produce and direct films carte blanche, splitting a share of the profits.
“Oh dear, a shock. I am devastated. He was a wonderful and great artist. I’ll never forget attending a premiere for THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. I remember at its end, the audience leaped up all around me bursting into applause lasting easily 15 minutes. I’ll never forget although I felt I had never myself experienced a reaction like that, that Peter and his film deserved it. May he sleep in bliss for eternity, enjoying the thrill of our applause forever,” Coppola said in a statement shared with Deadline. In an Instagram post (below), “Paper Moon” star Tatum O’Neal wrote, “Peter was my heaven & earth. A father figure. A friend. From ‘Paper Moon’ to ‘Nickelodeon’ he always made me feel safe. I love you, Peter.” Fellow filmmaker and friend Guillermo del Toro wrote on Twitter (see below), “He was a dear friend and a champion of Cinema. He birthed masterpieces as a director and was a most genial human. He single-handedly interviewed and enshrined the lives and work of more classic filmmakers than almost anyone else in his generation.” He continued, “He became a close friend and was active and brilliant to the end. He was working on a beautiful screenplay and to talk about the craft and ideas for it was delightful. A pure cinephile — Please watch ‘Paper Moon’ tonight. Or ‘The Last Picture Show,’ or ‘What’s Up Doc?’ or ‘Targets’…so he can stay alive in them, and to remember all he achieved as a filmmaker. And if you can, please read his beautiful books: Who The Devil Made It, Who The Devil Is In It, Movie of the Week, etc, etc for they are love letters to Cinema — to its scale and ambition.” Finally, del Toro said, “It was my honor to meet Peter and to share time with him. If you know his work, please honor him. If you don’t, please get acquainted with it.” Director Rod Lurie wrote, “He was a brilliant director (‘Saint Jack’ is the masterwork you may not know) and also a marvelous film critic and author. In many ways, he was the North Star of my career. RIP.” See more social media tributes below.
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) January 6, 2022
— Rod Lurie (@RodLurie) January 6, 2022
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) January 6, 2022
— Ben Mankiewicz (@BenMank77) January 6, 2022
— Larry Karaszewski (@Karaszewski) January 6, 2022
— TCM (@tcm) January 6, 2022
— Karina Longworth (@KarinaLongworth) January 6, 2022
A post shared by Tatum Beatrice Oneal (@tatum__oneal) Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.