Peter Tonguette - Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director

PICTURING PETER BOGDANOVICH

PICTURING PETER BOGDANOVICH

MY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE NEW HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR

PETER TONGUETTE

Copyright 2020 by The University Press of Kentucky

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bogdanovich, Peter, 1939 | Tonguette, Peter Prescott, 1983 interviewer, editor.

Title: Picturing Peter Bogdanovich : my conversations with the new Hollywood director / Peter Tonguette.

Description: Lexington : The University Press of Kentucky, 2020. |Series: Screen classics | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020017976 | ISBN 9780813147314 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780813147321 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813147307 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bogdanovich, Peter, 1939Interviews. | Motion picture producers and directorsUnited StatesInterviews. | ActorsUnited StatesInterviews.

Classification: LCC PN1998.3.B64 A3 2020 | DDC 791.4302/33092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017976

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Contents

Prologue

I Hadnt Realized It Was So Late in Ohio

It may come as a surprise to those who know him for his great films, among them The Last Picture Show, Whats Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon, but from 1991 to 1998 Peter Bogdanovich edited a calendar. It was not just any old calendar, either, but a revival of an ancient calendar, published to compete with the modern calendar that all of us Westerners unquestioningly make use of.

A little background might be helpful: as Robert Graves describes in book The White Goddesshis classic historical grammar of poetic mythyears were once divvied up differently than they are today. The months were shorter and more numerous. This agricultural tree-calendar based on natures cycles, and consisting of thirteen 28-day months and one extra day, Bogdanovich explained, gave birth to the ancient phrase a year and a day. The months were also called by other namesthe names of trees, in fact. So, for example, instead of March, June, and December, there were Alder, Oak, and Elder.

For a whole host of personal and professional reasons, Bogdanovich cottoned to this calendar, and when he brought out his own version of it (originally titled A Year and a Day Engagement Calendar, later retitled The White Goddess Engagement Diary), he included a handy chart to aid in the conversion of any Gregorian date into a tree date.

Once when we were chatting, I mentioned to Bogdanovich that I had ascertained what my birthday would have been according to the old calendar.

My birthday is March 27, I told him. That equals Alder 10.

Alder 10, he said, pausing thoughtfully. Thats good. Thats the tree of foundationsand youre working on the foundation of me at the moment.

We laughed because we knew how true it was: I was, after all, writing a book about his films and had done plenty of thinking about the man who made them.

But in March 2014, busy with the completion of his newest film, Shes Funny That Way, Peter Bogdanovich seemed to have forgotten my birthday andmomentarily, at leastthat Ohio (where I lived) was several hours ahead of California (where he was then spending his time).

He was in Los Angeles, having dinner with his ex-wife and closest friend, Louise Stratten, whose sister, the late Dorothy Stratten, was the love of his life. Louise cowrote and coproduced Shes Funny That Way.

It was about nine oclock in the evening on the West Coast but just past midnight in Ohio. In my neck of the woods, the calendar had flipped to March 27or Alder 10when the phone rang. Absorbed in CNNs coverage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (remember the wall-to-wall cable coverage that episode inspired?), I couldnt get to the phone from the sofa in time to pick up. The answering machine clicked on, and a short message followed: Peter Bogdanovich calling Peter Tonguette. Hopefully you get this, Peter. Thanks.

I called back a few minutes later, and when I reached him, he was apologetic.

I hadnt realized it was so late in Ohio, he said.

I told him that was okay. Then I asked what occasioned the call.

Rather jarringly turning my attention from the rat-a-tat-tat voice of CNNs Richard Quest to that of my favorite filmmaker, he told me he was curious for my opinion about a scene or two in Shes Funny That Way. In the background, I could hear the rattle of plates and glasses; the murmur of orders being given.

Sorry, Peter, he interjected, stating the obvious, were in a restaurant.

It would be a chicken breast and a piece of toasted rye bread for the Oscar-nominated director.

We didnt chat for long after that, but he said he was glad to hear a friendly voice and that we would talk again soon.

Well, this was a fine way to start my birthday. Not that he remembered it was my birthdayor, that evening, what time zone Ohio was in. There was no great meaning behind the call. Louise later told me it was her idea: Peter was just looking for someone to talk to who knew and admired his filmsand, as he said, a friendly voiceand they happened to have my phone number.

Still. How, really, does it happen that Peter BogdanovichPeter Bogdanovich!rings up a young journalist in the Midwest in the middle of the night?

Recalling his initial encounter with Alfred Hitchcockone that ultimately led to a book not unlike this one, the famous HitchcockFranois Truffaut wrote: It all began when we broke the ice.

For Peter Bogdanovich and me, it all began with another phone call, about seventeen years ago .

PART 1

Call Me Peter, Peter

The Giants were my delight, my folly, my anodyne, my intellectual stimulation.

Frederick Exley, A Fans Notes: A Fictional Memoir

But how seldom two imaginations coincide!

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

I dialed the number his assistant had given me.

Brrring.

No answer.

Brrring.

No answer.

Brrring.

No answer.

For some reason, calling Peter Bogdanovich for the first time for an interview made me feel like Tom Sawyer.

Could it have been because I was so young? Not Tom Sawyer young, but close enough. When I called Peter Bogdanovich on the night before Thanksgiving in 2003 (the date must have some sort of cosmic significance, but for the life of me I cannot imagine what it might be), I was several months shy of my twenty-first birthday. I had a right to be nervous. If I measured myself against Peter Bogdanovich, as I often did, I was supposed to have