1970s-80s filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich dies at 82 -- but a 1980 murder basically ruined him
Peter Bogdanovich died today at age 82.
He is best known in the film world for 1971's "The Last Picture Show", which he made shortly after turning 30.
However, a 1980 murder of a young actress basically ruined him and derailed his career. He was in the process of making the 1981 movie "They All Laughed", which starred young, beautiful actress Dorothy Stratten.
At age 17, Stratten made a shady Canadian dude named Paul Snider, who was 26 and worked as both a club promoter and pimp. Snider was somewhat unstable, which probably appealed to the young, wild Stratten, who started dating him. Eventually they got married.
Just after her 20th birthday, she started working on "They All Laughed", directed by Bogdonovich. She and Snider were already having issues by that point, but things got much worse when she fell in love with Bogdanovich, who was 40.
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Stratten and Bogdonovich began an affair, which eventually got back to Snider, who was furious. He couldn't buy a gun in the US, due to his Canadian citizenship, but he borrowed one from a friend, and waited at Bogdanovich's house to commit a double-murder suicide when they showed up.
However, for whatever reason nobody came home that night, and Snider gave up. He drove up into the hills of Los Angeles, looked down on the lights, and almost shot himself at that point. He resisted, and thought maybe he had a chance to get back together with Stratten. He had to return the gun to the friend a short time later, who didn't realize he borrowed it to commit murder.
Two weeks later, after various unsuccessful attempts to get a gun, Snider finally got a shotgun through a classified ad in the newspaper. He went over to visit Stratten, who willingly let him in, and both went into her bedroom. At some point after that, he shot her dead, then stripped her body down nude. He then took off his own clothes, and shot himself dead.
When Bogdanovich was informed about this, he broke down, and ended up sedated in the hospital for some time.
The film was completed, and given limited release. It didn't do well, so it didn't go into wide release. Bogdanovich was still devastated about losing Stratten -- and felt some guilt about their affair contributing to her death. He at least hoped that her final film would cement her legacy as a brilliant actress lost too soon. When the film flopped in limited release, he broke down again. He spent $5 million to buy the rights to the film, and then spent his remaining money distributing it widely. It flopped again, and he ended up broke.
He had somewhat of a comeback 5 years later, when his next film "Mask" (the one about deformed Rocky Dennis) was a moderate success. The film was low budget ($7.5 million), and took in almost $50 million, so his career was semi-revived. However, he only directed 5 more films between 1986 and 2001, all of which didn't perform well. He only directed one more film -- in 2014 -- which again wasn't successful.
It is believed that Bogdanovich would have had more of a career had the Stratten murder never occurred.
Incidentally, "They All Laughed", which was considered a commercial and critical failure in 1981, has since developed somewhat of a cult following, and is now considered a decent movie. The movie which ruined him wasn't even bad.
