Peter Bogdanovich

American film director who became Hollywood's resident young genius with his breakthrough film, "The Last Picture Show," in 1971. He left his wife of 10 years and two kids to live with the blonde model whom he discovered and starred in the film, Cybill Shepherd.

He was the second son of an immigrant Yugoslavian dad and an Austrian mom, whose older brother died before he was born. He has one younger sister. To escape the Nazis, his Jewish family fled to the U.S. in the late '30s shortly before he was born. A post impressionistic painter, his dad had just become recognized in America before he died in 1970. Young Peter grew up in New York City, spending summer vacations in New England. Not a very good student, he had a flair for public relations while dabbling in drama club. At 12, he began keeping track of every movie he saw, with notes of his opinions, a number that had grown to some 6,000 by the time of his Saturn return. He never graduated from prep school but studied acting in New York, appearing in several Shakespeare festivals after his 1955 stage debut.

From 1960 on, he directed plays off-Broadway. He wrote film criticism and feature articles for Esquire, the NY Times, the Village Voice and other periodicals. He watched films steadily, some over and over. Moving from New York to California as a writer, he met legendary director John Ford when doing a feature piece on him. In 1966, he entered film as an assistant director with Roger Corman, writing scripts and scouting locations. In October 1971 Columbia released his film, "The Last Picture," shot in black and white. It was hailed as a masterpiece and was nominated for Oscars in eight categories, including Best Motion Picture.

His third feature film, "What's Up Pussycat?" was released in March 1972. Bogdanovich continued to write monographs and is the author of "John Ford," 1968, "Fritz Lang in America," 1969 and "The Last Pioneer," 1971.

In January 1971 he separated from his wife, Polly Platt.