Peter Bogdanovich, Oscar-Nominated 'Last Picture Show' Director, Dies at 82

Peter Bogdanovich, the revered New Hollywood director whose films "The Last Picture Show" and "Paper Moon" were among the most acclaimed of the '70s, died early Thursday at his L.A. home, THR reports. He was 82.

The filmmaker was a prolific consumer of film and a critic prior to a chance meeting with director Roger Corman, which led to him working on "The Wild Angels" (1966) and pseudonymously directing "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1968). Under Corman's tutelage, he made his debut with "Targets" in 1968.

In 1971, Bogdanovich shook up the industry with his "The Last Picture Show." Shot in black-and-white, a reference to his reverence for Old Hollywood masters, the movie earned eight Oscar nominations, including Bogdanovich's first and only for Best Director.

He followed it with the screwball comedy "What's Up, Doc?" (1972), starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal, a box office smash, and with his black-and-white "Paper Moon" (1973), starring O'Neal, O'Neal's daughter Tatum, and Madeline Kahn. For her performance in the film, Tatum O'Neal became the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, which she did at age 10.

The director's success was marred by resentment over his high-profile affair with his muse, Cybill Shepherd, and his next three movies were bombs: "Daisy Miller" (1974) and "At Long Last Love" (1975) with Shepherd, and "Nickelodeon" (1976).

"Saint Jack" (1979), starring Ben Gazzara, was a return to artistic form, but Bogdanovich was mired in controversy and financial chaos when one of his next film's stars, his 20-year-old lover, Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, was murdered by her jealous estranged husband/manager prior to its release. He went bankrupt trying to maintain artistic and commercial control of "They All Laughed" (1981), which was a box-office disappointment.

He made Stratten's younger sister, Louise, his second wife in 1988 when she was 20. They divorced in 2001.

Bogdanovich's 1985 film "Mask," starring Cher and Eric Stoltz, was his last unqualified success. He went on to direct "Illegally Yours" (1988), "Texasville" (1990), "Noises Off" (1992), "The Thing Called Love" (1993), "The Cat's Meow" (2001), and "She's Funny That Way" (2014).

He also directed the documentaries "Directed by John Ford" (1971), "Runnin' Down a Dream" (2007), and "The Great Buster: A Celebration" (2018) about Silent Era comedian Buster Keaton.

Because of his lifelong friendship with Orson Welles, Bogdanovich saw to it that one of the great director's abandoned films, "The Other Side of the Wind," was restored and completed. It was released, including an acting performance by Bogdanovich, in 2018.

He acted in many other projects, chief among them as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg on "The Sopranos" (2000-2007).