Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin Van Peebles

Van Peebles at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
Born Melvin Peebles
August 21, 1932 (1932-08-21) (age 79)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Other names Brer Soul
Occupation Actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, composer
Years active 1955–present

Melvin "Block"[1] Van Peebles (born August 21, 1932) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.

He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films. He is the father of actor and director Mario Van Peebles.

Contents

Early life

Van Peebles was born Melvin Peebles in Chicago, Illinois to an African-American tailor. He joined the Air Force in 1954, thirteen days after graduating (B.A., 1953) from Ohio Wesleyan University, staying for three and a half years.[2] He married a German woman, Maria Marx. They lived in Mexico for a brief period, where he painted portraits, before coming back to the United States, where he started driving cable cars in San Francisco.[2]

Career

Van Peebles began writing about his experiences as a cable car driver. What evolved from an initially small article and a series of photographs was Van Peebles' first book, The Big Heart.[2]

One day, a passenger suggested that Van Peebles should become a filmmaker. He shot his first short film, Pickup Men for Herrick, in 1957. He made two more short films during the same period. According to Van Peebles, "I thought they were features. Each one turned out to be eleven minutes long. I was trying to do features. I knew nothing." As Van Peebles learned more about the filmmaking process, he found out that "I could make a feature for five hundred dollars. That was the cost of ninety minutes of film. I didn't know a thing about shooting a film sixteen to one or ten to one or none of that shit. Then I forgot you had to develop film. And I didn't know you needed a work print. All I can say is that after I did one thing he would say, 'Well, aren't you gonna put sound on it?' and I would go, 'Oh shit!' That's all I could say."[2]

After Van Peebles completed his first short films, he took them with him to Hollywood in order to try and find work, but was unable to find anyone who wanted to hire him as a director. In New York City, Van Peebles met a man who saw his films and wanted to screen them in France. In 1959 the family went to the Netherlands, where he worked for the Dutch National Theater. The marriage dissolved, his wife and children went back to America, and Peebles was invited to Paris by Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, on the strength of his short films. He learned French, and was hired to translate Mad magazine into French. He began to write plays in French, utilizing the sprechgesang form of songwriting, where the lyrics were spoken over the music. This style carried over to Van Peebles' debut album, Brer Soul.[2]

Van Peebles at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

He published four novels and one story collection in French and made another short film, Cinq cent balles (1965). It was here that he made his first feature length film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (La Permission) (1968), which caught the attention of Hollywood producers who mistook him for a French auteur.[3] His first Hollywood film was the 1970 Columbia Pictures comedy Watermelon Man, written by Herman Raucher. The movie told the story of a casually racist white man who suddenly wakes up black and finds himself alienated from his friends, family and job. In 1970 Van Peebles was also to direct filming of the Powder Ridge Rock Festival, which was banned by court injunction.

It was after the resulting bad experience directing Watermelon Man that Van Peebles became determined to have complete control over his next production, which became the groundbreaking Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), privately funded with his own money, and in part by a $50,000.00 loan from Bill Cosby. Van Peebles not only directed, scripted, and edited the film, but wrote the score and directed the marketing campaign. The film, which in the end grossed $10 million, was, among many others, acclaimed by the Black Panthers for its political resonance with the black struggle. His son Mario's 2003 film BAADASSSSS! tells the story behind the making of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

In 2005, Van Peebles was the subject of a documentary entitled How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It). In 2008, Van Peebles completed the film Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, and appeared on All My Children as Melvin Woods, the father of Samuel Woods, a character portrayed by his son, Mario.[4][5]

In 2005 Van Peebles collaborated on a double album with Madlib, to be released on Stones Throw Records. The first disc of the album will was Brer Soul Meets Quasimoto and the second is the Madlib Invazion remix. Madlib had previously sampled Van Peebles heavily on both of his albums under the Quasimoto moniker.[6]

In 2009 Van Peebles became involved with a project to make Sweet Sweetback a musical.[7] A preliminary version of this was staged at the Apollo on April 25–26, 2009. As well, he wrote and performed in a stage musical, Unmitigated Truth: Life, a Lavatory, Loves, and Ladies, which featured some of his previous songs as well as some new material.[8]

wid Laxative

Van Peebles wid Laxative at the Zebulon in June 2011

In 2011, Van Peebles started doing shows in NYC with members of Burnt Sugar, under the name Melvin Van Peebles wid Laxative[9]. Van Peebles has said that the band is called Laxative because they "make shit happen"[10].

Personal life

In 2008, Van Peebles joked[original research?] that he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease.[11][12][13]

Bibliography

  • (As "Melvin Van".) The Big Heart. San Francisco: Fearon, 1957. With photographs by Ruth Bernhard, a book about life on San Francisco's cable cars. "A cable car is a big heart with people for blood. The people pump on and off — if you think of it like that it is pretty simple" (p. 21).
  • Un Ours pour le F.B.I. (1964); A Bear for the F.B.I. Trident, 1968.
  • Un Americain en enfer (1965); The True Americain. Doubleday, 1976.
  • Le Chinois du XIV (1966). (short stories)
  • La Fete a Harlem. (1967). (novel, based on his play Harlem Party); Don't Play Us Cheap: A Harlem Party. Bantam Books, New York 1973.
  • La Permission, (1967)
  • Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Lancer Books, New York 1971.
  • Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Bantam, New York 1973.
  • Just an Old Sweet Song. Ballantine, New York 1976.
  • Bold Money: A New Way to Play the Options Market. Warner Books, New York 1986, ISBN 0446513407 (nonfiction)
  • Melvin and (his son) Mario Van Peebles: No Identity Crisis. A Fireside Book, Simon & Shuster, New York 1990

Filmography

As director

Other writing credits

  • Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death (1971 Broadway musical book and score)
  • Just an Old Sweet Song (also known as Down Home, Robert Ellis Miller, 1976) made for television; screenwriter and theme song
  • Greased Lightning (Michael Schultz, 1977) screenwriter
  • The Sophisticated Gents (Harry Falk, 1981) made for television; actor, screenwriter, song “Greased Lightning” and producer
  • The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (Gilbert Moses, 1987) made for television; screenwriter
  • Panther (Mario Van Peebles, 1995) based on his novel Panther, screenwriter, actor and producer
  • Melvin Van Peebles' Classified X (Mark Daniels, 1998) documentary; screenwriter, actor and executive producer)
  • Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song: The Musical (2008) writer, singer
  • Unmitigated Truth: Life, a Lavatory, Loves, and Ladies (2009) writer, performer

Other acting-only credits

Plays

  • Waltz of the Stork (actor, writer, 1972)

Discography

See also

  • Category:Works by Melvin Van Peebles

References

External links



Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Melvin Van Peebles — Données clés Naissance …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Melvin Van Peebles' Classified X — Classified X is a movie by Melvin Van Peebles which details the history of black people in American cinema throughout the 20th century. References [1] [2] Categories: American films …   Wikipedia

  • Mario Van Peebles — Mario Van Peebles, né le 15 janvier 1957 à Mexico, Mexique, est un acteur, réalisateur, scénariste et musicien américain. Sommaire 1 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Mario Van Peebles — Mario Van Peebles, March 2005 Born Mario Cain Van Peebles January 15, 1957 (1957 01 15) (age 54) Mexico City …   Wikipedia

  • Mario Van Peebles — en julio de 1990 (foto de Alan Light). Nombre real Mario Van Peebles Nacimiento 15 de enero de 1957 (54 añ …   Wikipedia Español

  • Mario Van Peebles — im Jahr 1990 Mario van Peebles (* 15. Januar 1957 in Mexiko Stadt) ist ein Schauspieler und Regisseur. Mario van Peebles ist ein Sohn des Regisseurs Melvin Van Peebles und der Schauspielerin Maria Marx. Im Jahr 1978 schloss er ein Studium… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Mario van Peebles — im Jahr 1990 Mario van Peebles (* 15. Januar 1957 in Mexiko Stadt) ist ein Schauspieler und Regisseur. Mario van Peebles ist ein Sohn des Regisseurs Melvin Van Peebles und der Schauspielerin Maria Marx. Im Jahr 1978 schloss er ein Studium… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Van Peebles, Melvin — ▪ American author and filmmaker original name  Melvin Peebles  born August 21, 1932, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.       American filmmaker who wrote, directed, and starred in Sweet Sweetback s Baadasssss Song (1971), a groundbreaking film that… …   Universalium

  • Peebles (disambiguation) — Peebles is a town in Scotland. It may also refer to:Places* Peebles, New Zealand in North Otago, New Zealand * Peebles, Ohio, United States * Peebles, Wisconsin, an unincorporated communityPeople* Andy Peebles, a British disc jockey * Ann Peebles …   Wikipedia

  • Melvin — may refer to one of the following: Contents 1 As a surname 2 As a given name 3 Fictional characters 4 Places 5 …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”