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Robert Altman

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For other people named Robert Altman, see Robert Altman (disambiguation).
Robert Altman
OccupationFilm director

Robert Bernard Altman (February 20 1925 – November 20 2006) was an American film director known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his work with an Academy Honorary Award.

His films MASH and Nashville have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Early life and career

Altman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of wealthy insurance man/gambler Bernard Clement Altman (who came from an upper-class German-American family) and Helen Mathews, a Mayflower descendant of English and Scottish ancestry. His family was devoutly Catholic. Altman attended Rockhurst High School and Southwest High School in Kansas City, and was then sent to Wentworth Military Academy in nearby Lexington, Missouri, where he attended through junior college. In 1945, at the age of 20, Altman enlisted in the Army Air Forces and flew B-24 bombers during World War II. It was while training for the Army Air Corps in California that Altman had first seen the bright lights of Hollywood and became enamored of the movieland. Upon his discharge in 1946, Altman began living in Los Angeles and tried out a number of schemes to position his foot firmly in Hollywood's door.

Altman tried acting briefly, appearing in a nightclub scene as an extra in the Danny Kaye vehicle The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He then wrote a vague storyline (uncredited) for the United Artists picture Christmas Eve, and sold to RKO the script for the 1948 motion picture Bodyguard, which he co-wrote with Richard Fleischer. This sudden success encouraged Altman to move to the New York area and forge a career as a writer. There, Altman found a collaborator in George W. George, with whom he wrote numerous published and unpublished screenplays, musicals, novels, and magazine articles. Altman was not as successful this trip, but back in Hollywood, he tried out one more big money-making scheme. His pet care company soon went bankrupt, and in 1950 Altman returned to his friends and family in Kansas City, broke and hungry for action, and itching for a second chance to get into movies.

Industrial film experience

Since there were no film schools, Altman joined the Calvin Company, the world's largest industrial film production company and 16mm film laboratory, headquartered in Kansas City. Altman, fascinated by the company and their equipment, started as a film writer, and within a few months began to direct films. This led to his employment at the Calvin Company as a film director for almost six years. Until 1955, Altman directed 60 to 65 industrial short films, earning $250 a week while simultaneously getting the necessary training and experience that he would need for a successful career in filmmaking. The ability to shoot rapidly on schedule and to work within the confines of both big and low budgets would serve him well later in his career. On the technical side, he learned all about "the tools of filmmaking": the camera, the boom mike, the lights, etc.

However, Altman soon tired of the industrial film format and sought more challenging projects. He occasionally went to Hollywood and tried to write scripts, but then returned months later, broke, to the Calvin Company. According to Altman, the Calvin people dropped him another notch in salary each time. The third time, the Calvin people declared at a staff meeting that if he left and came back one more time, they were not going to keep him.

First feature film

In 1955 Altman left the Calvin Company, not intending to ever return. He was soon hired by Elmer Rhoden Jr., a local Kansas City movie theater exhibitor, to write and direct a low-budget exploitation film on juvenile crime, titled The Delinquents, which would become his first feature film. Altman wrote the script in one week and filmed it with a budget of $63,000 on location in Kansas City in two weeks. Rhoden Jr. wanted the film to kick-start his career as a film producer. Altman wanted the film to be his ticket into the elusive Hollywood circles. The cast was made up of the local actors and actresses from community theater who also appeared in Calvin Company films, Altman family members, and three imported actors from Hollywood, including the future Billy Jack, Tom Laughlin. The crew was made up of Altman's former Calvin colleagues and friends with whom Altman planned to make his grand "Kansas City escape." In 1956, Altman and his assistant director Reza Badiyi left Kansas City for good to edit The Delinquents in Hollywood. The film was picked up for distribution for $150,000 by United Artists and released in 1957, grossing nearly $1,000,000.

Television work

The Delinquents was no runaway success, but it did catch the eye of Alfred Hitchcock, who was impressed and asked Altman to direct a few episodes of his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series. From 1958 to 1964, Altman directed numerous episodes of television series, including Combat!, Bonanza, Whirlybirds and Route 66. One episode of Bus Stop which he directed was so controversial, due to an ending in which a killer is not apprehended or punished for his crime, that Congressional hearings were held, and the show was cancelled at the end of the season.

Film career continues

Altman then struggled for several years after quarreling with Jack Warner, and it was during this time that he first formed his "anti-Hollywood" opinions and entered a new stage of filmmaking. He did a few more feature films without any success, until 1969 when he was offered the script for MASH, which had previously been rejected by dozens of other directors. Altman directed the film, and it was a huge success, both with critics and at the box office. It was Altman's highest grossing film. Altman's career took firm hold with the success of MASH, and he followed it with many other similar experimental films, which made the distinctive "Altman style" well known.

As a director, Altman favored stories showing the interrelationships between several characters; he stated that he was more interested in character motivation than in intricate plots. As such, he tended to sketch out only a basic plot for the film, referring to the screenplay as a "blueprint" for action, and allowed his actors to improvise dialogue. This is one of the reasons Altman was known as an "actor's director," a reputation that helped him work with large casts of well-known actors.

He frequently allowed the characters to talk over each other in such a way that it is impossible to make out what each of them is saying. He noted on the DVD commentary of McCabe & Mrs. Miller that he lets the dialogue overlap, as well as leaving some things in the plot for the audience to infer, because he wants the audience to pay attention. He uses a headset to make sure everything pertinent comes through without attention being drawn to it. Similarly, he tried to have his films rated R (by the MPAA rating system) so as to keep children out of his audience – he did not believe children have the patience his films require. This sometimes spawned conflict with movie studios, who do want children in the audience for increased revenues.

Altman made films that no other filmmaker and/or studio would. He was reluctant to make the original 1970 Korean War comedy MASH because of the pressures involved in filming it, but it still became a critical success. It would later inspire the long-running TV series of the same name.

In 1975, Altman made Paramount's Nashville, a semi-musical with a political theme set against the world of country music. The stars of the film wrote their own songs; Keith Carradine won an Academy Award for the song "I'm Easy".

The way Altman made his films initially didn't sit well with audiences. In 1976, he attempted to expand his artistic freedom by founding Lions Gate Films. The films he made for the company include A Wedding, 3 Women, and Quintet.

In 1980, he attempted a movie musical for Disney and Paramount, a live-action version of the comic strip/cartoon Popeye (which starred Robin Williams in his big-screen debut). The film was seen as a failure by some critics, but it should be noted that it did make money, and was in fact the second highest grossing film Altman directed to that point (Gosford Park is now the second highest). During the 1980s, Altman did a series of films, some well-received (the Richard Nixon drama Secret Honor) and some critically panned (O.C. & Stiggs). He also garnered a good deal of acclaim for his presidential campaign "mockumentary" Tanner '88, for which he earned an Emmy Award. Still, popularity with audiences continued to elude him.

Altman's career was suddenly revitalized when he directed 1992's The Player for New Line subsidiary Fine Line Features. A satire on Hollywood and its troubles, it was nominated for three Academy Awards, including one for Best Director. Although it did not win any awards, the film reminded Hollywood (which had shunned him for a decade) that Altman was as creative as ever.

After the success of The Player, Altman directed 1993's Short Cuts, an ambitious adaptation of several short stories by Raymond Carver, which portrayed the lives of various citizens of the city of Los Angeles over the course of several days. The film's large cast and intertwining of many different storylines harkened back to his 1970s heyday and earned Altman another Oscar nomination for Best Director. It was acclaimed as Altman's best film in decades[citation needed], and Altman himself considered this, along with Tanner '88, his most creative work.[citation needed] 1998 brought The Gingerbread Man, critically praised although a commercial failure, and 1999 brought Cookie's Fortune, a critical success. In 2001, Altman's film Gosford Park gained a spot on many critics' lists of the ten best films of that year.

Working with independent studios such as Fine Line, Artisan (now Lions Gate, ironically the studio Altman helped to found), and USA Films (now Focus Features), gave Altman the edge in making the kinds of films he has always wanted to make without outside studio interference. A movie version of Garrison Keillor's public radio series A Prairie Home Companion was released in June 2006. Altman was still developing new projects up until his death.

After five Oscar nominations for Best Director and no wins, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Altman an Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2006. During his acceptance speech for this award, Altman revealed that he had received a heart transplant approximately ten or eleven years earlier. The director then quipped that perhaps the Academy had acted prematurely in recognizing the body of his work, as he felt like he might have four more decades of life ahead of him.

Death

Altman died at age 81 in a Los Angeles hospital on the evening of November 20 2006. The cause of death was not disclosed [1][2].

Trivia

  • Altman co-composed the hit single "Black Sheep" by country music recording artist John Anderson.
  • He frequently singled out his film Brewster McCloud and his TV series Tanner '88 as being his greatest works.
  • He claimed that he would move to France if George W. Bush were re-elected, but he did not actually do so. He claimed later that he meant Paris, Texas because "the state would be better off if he (Bush) is out of it." [3]
  • In the 1960s, Altman lived for nine years with his second wife in Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood, California, according to author Peter Biskind in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998).
  • He was a member of the NORML advisory board.

Filmography

Motion pictures

Television work

TV movies and miniseries

Television episodes

  • Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1957–58)
    • ep. 3-9: "The Young One" (air-date Dec 1 57)
    • ep. 3-15: "Together" (a.d. Jan 12 58)
  • M Squad (1958) ep. 1-21: "Lover's Lane Killing" (a.d. Feb 14 58)
  • Peter Gunn (1958)
  • The Millionaire aka If You Had A Million (1958–59)
    directed by Altman
    • ep #148 / 5-14: "Pete Hopper: Afraid of the Dark" (a.d. Dec 10 58)
    • ep #162 / 5-28: "Henry Banning: The Show Off" (a.d. Apr 1 59)
    • ep #185 / 6-14: "Jackson Greene: The Beatnik" (a.d. Dec 22 59)
    written by Altman
    • ep #160 / 5-26: "Alicia Osante: Beauty and the Sailor" (a.d. Mar 18 59)
    • ep #174 / 6-3: "Lorraine Dagget: The Beach Story" [story] (a.d. Sep 29 59)
    • ep #183 / 6-12: "Andrew C. Cooley: Andy and Clara" (a.d. Dec 8 59)
  • Whirlybirds (1958–59)
    • ep. #71 / 2-32: "The Midnight Show" (a.d. Dec 8 58)
    • ep. #79 / 3-1: "Guilty of Old Age" (a.d. Apr 13 59)
    • ep. #80 / 3-2: "Matter of Trust" (a.d. Apr 6 59)
    • ep. #81 / 3-3: "Christmas in June" (a.d. Apr 20 59)
    • ep. #82 / 3-4: "Til Death Do Us Part" (unknown air-date, probably Apr 27 59)
    • ep. #83 / 3-5: "Time Limit" (a.d. May 4 59)
    • ep. #84 / 3-6: "Experiment X-74" (a.d. May 11 59)
    • ep. #87 / 3-9: "The Challenge" (a.d. June 1 59)
    • ep. #88 / 3-10: "The Big Lie" (a.d. June 8 59)
    • ep. #91 / 3-13: "The Perfect Crime" (a.d. June 29 59)
    • ep. #92 / 3-14: "The Unknown Soldier" (a.d. July 6 59)
    • ep. #93 / 3-15: "Two of a Kind" (a.d. July 13 59)
    • ep. #94 / 3-16: "In Ways Mysterious" (a.d. July 20 59)
    • ep. #97 / 3-19: "The Black Maria" (a.d. Aug 10 59)
    • ep. #98 / 3-20: "Sitting Duck" (a.d. Aug 17 59)
  • U.S. Marshal (original title: Sheriff of Cochise) (1959)
    verified
    • ep. 4-17: "The Triple Cross"
    • ep. 4-23: "Shortcut to Hell"
    • ep. 4-25: "R.I.P." (a.d. June 6 59)
    uncertain; some sources cite Altman on these eps; no known source cites anybody else
    • ep. 4-18: "Third Miracle"
    • ep. 4-31: "Kill or Be Killed"
    • ep. 4-32: "Backfire"
  • Troubleshooters (1959) (13 episodes)
  • Hawaiian Eye (1959) ep. 8: "Three Tickets to Lani" (a.d. Nov 25 59)
  • Sugarfoot (1959–60)
    • ep. #47 / 3-7: "Apollo With A Gun" (a.d. Dec 8 59)
    • ep. #50 / 3-10: "The Highbinder" (a.d. Jan 19 60)
  • Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1960)
    • ep. "The Sound of Murder" (a.d. Jan 1 60)
    • ep. "Death of a Dream"
  • The Gale Storm Show aka Oh! Susanna (1960) ep. #125 / 4-25: "It's Magic" (a.d. Mar 17 60)
  • Bronco (1960) ep #41 / 3-1: "The Mustangers" (a.d. Oct 17 60)
  • Maverick (1960) ep. #90: "Bolt From the Blue" (a.d. Nov 27 60)
  • The Roaring '20's (1960–61)
    • ep. 1-5: "The Prarie Flower" (a.d. Nov 12 60)
    • ep. 1-6: "Brother's Keeper" (a.d. Nov 19 60)
    • ep. 1-8: "White Carnation" (a.d. Dec 3 60)
    • ep. 1-12: "Dance Marathon" (a.d. Jan 14 61)
    • ep. 1-15: "Two a Day" (a.d. Feb 4 61)
    • ep. 1-28&29: "Right Off the Boat" Parts 1 & 2 (a.d. May 13/20 61)
    • ep. 1-31: "Royal Tour" (a.d. June 3 61)
    • ep. 2-4: "Standing Room Only" (a.d. Oct 28 61)
  • Bonanza (1960–61)
    • ep. 2-13: "Silent Thunder" (a.d. Dec 10 60)
    • ep. 2-19: "Bank Run" (a.d. Jan 28 61)
    • ep. 2-25: "The Duke" (a.d. Mar 11 61)
    • ep. 2-28: "The Rival" (a.d. Apr 15 61)
    • ep. 2-31: "The Secret" (a.d. May 6 61)
    • ep. 2-32 "The Dream Riders" (a.d. May 20 61)
    • ep. 2-34: "Sam Hill" (a.d. June 3 61)
    • ep. 3-7: "The Many Faces of Gideon Finch" (a.d. Nov 5 61)
  • Lawman (1961) ep. #92 / 3-16: "The Robbery" (a.d. Jan 1 61)
  • Surfside 6 (1961) ep. 1-18: "Thieves Among Honor" (a.d. Jan 30 61)
  • Bus Stop (1961–62)
    • ep. 4: "The Covering Darkness" (a.d. Oct 22 61)
    • ep. 5: "Portrait of a Hero" (a.d. Oct 29 61)
    • ep. 8: "Accessory By Consent" (a.d. Nov 19 61)
    • ep. 10: "A Lion Walks Among Us" (a.d. Dec 3 61)
    • ep. 12: "... And the Pursuit of Evil" (a.d. Dec 17 61)
    • ep. 15: "Summer Lightning" (a.d. Jan 7 62)
    • ep. 23: "Door Without a Key" (a.d. Mar 4 62)
    • ep. 25: "County General" [possibly failed pilot] (a.d. Mar 18 62)
  • The Gallant Men (1962) pilot: "Battle Zone" (a.d. Oct 5 62)
  • Combat! (1962–63)
    • ep. 1-1: "Forgotten Front" (a.d. Oct 2 62)
    • ep. 1-2: "Rear Echelon Commandos" (a.d. Oct 9 62)
    • ep. 1-4: "Any Second Now" (a.d. Oct 23 62)
    • ep. 1-7: "Escape to Nowhere" (a.d. Dec 20 62)
    • ep. 1-9: "Cat and Mouse" (a.d. Dec 4 62)
    • ep. 1-10: "I Swear By Apollo" (a.d. Dec 11 62)
    • ep. 1-12: "The Prisoner" (a.d. Dec 25 62)
    • ep. 1-16: "The Volunteer" (a.d. Jan 22 63)
    • ep. 1-20: "Off Limits" (a.d. Feb 19 63)
    • ep. 1-23: "Survival" (a.d. Mar 12 63)
  • Route 66 (1963) frequently cited as directing three episodes, though no other information seems available
    • ep. #79 / 3-17: "A Gift For A Warrior" (a.d. Jan 18 63) - this might be one of the three, but other sources list David Lowell Rich
  • Kraft Suspense Theater (1963)
    • ep 1-8: "The Long Lost Life of Edward Smalley" (also writer) (a.d. Dec 12 63)
    • ep 1-9: "The Hunt" (also writer) (a.d. Dec 19 63)
    • ep 1-21: "Once Upon a Savage Night"
      released as TV-Movie "Nightmare in Chicago" in 1964
  • The Long Hot Summer (1965) pilot: "The Homecoming"
  • Nightwatch (1968) pilot: "The Suitcase"
  • Premiere (1968) ep. "Walk in the Sky" (a.d. July 15 68)
  • Saturday Night Live (1977) ep. #39 / 2-16 "h: Sissy Spacek", seg. "Sissy's Roles" (a.d. Mar 12 77)
  • Gun aka Robert Altman's Gun (1997) ep. 4: "All the President's Men"

Early independent projects

In the early Calvin years in Kansas City during the 1950s, Altman was as busy as he ever was in Hollywood, shooting hours and hours of footage each day, whether for Calvin or for the many independent film projects he pursued in Kansas City in attempts to break into Hollywood:

  • Corn's-A-Poppin' (1951) (Altman wrote the screenplay for this poor Kansas City-produced feature film)
  • Fashion Faire (1952) (A half-hour fashion parade written and directed by Altman for a fashion show agency)
  • The Model's Handbook (1952) (A half-hour pilot for an unrealized television series sponsored by Eileen Ford and her agency and directed by Altman)
  • The Pulse of the City (1953–54) (A low-budget television series about crime and ambulance chasing produced and filmed in Kansas City by Altman and co-creator Robert Woodburn using local talent. Ran for one season on the independent DuMont Television Network)

Selected Calvin industrial films

Out of 65 or so industrial films directed by Altman for Calvin Company, all less than 30 minutes long, eleven are notable for their relationship to the director's later work or for garnering national or international festival awards:

  • The Sound of Bells (1950) (A Christmas-themed "sales" film produced for B.F. Goodrich about Santa Claus visiting a service station on Christmas Eve)
  • Modern Football (1951) (A documentary-style training film on the rules and regulations of football, shot on location in the Southwest)
  • The Dirty Look (1952) (A sales film for Gulf Oil starring "special guest" William Frawley as a prattling barber for comic relief. Calvin often used Hollywood stars in cameo or starring roles in their films to sell the film's message to viewers more easily)
  • King Basketball (1952) (Another rules-of-sports film shot on location in the Southwest)
  • The Last Mile (1953) (A bleak highway safety film also serving as an ad for Caterpillar Tractor's road-building equipment. Won awards from the Association of Industrial Filmmakers and the National Safety Council in 1953)
  • Modern Baseball (1953) (Rules-of-sports film)
  • The Builders (1954) (Promotional film for Southern Pine Association)
  • Better Football (1954) (Rules-of-sports film, once again starring William Frawley as a pigskin coach who cannot resist the one-liner, for comic relief)
  • The Perfect Crime (1955) (Another award-winning highway safety film, once again with a promotional message from Caterpillar)
  • Honeymoon for Harriet (1955) (A promotional film for International Harvester, starring Altman's then-wife, Lotus Corelli, who also appears in The Delinquents as a mother)
  • The Magic Bond (1956) (A documentary film sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, one of Calvin's and Altman's highest budgets to date, and one of Altman's last Calvin films. Also includes a startling opening sequence not only using the later Altman trademarks of an ensemble cast and overlapping dialogue, but also a sort of anti-war message which is also featured in Altman's 1960s episodes of the TV series Combat)

Bibliographies

Additional resources

  • The director's commentary on the McCabe & Mrs. Miller DVD, while focusing on that film, also to some degree covers Altman's general methodology as a director.
  • Judith M. Kass. Robert Altman: American Innovator early (1978) assessment of the director's work and his interest in gambling. Part of Leonard Maltin's Popular Library filmmaker series.
  • Patrick McGilligan's biography of Altman, Jumping Off the Cliff (St. Martin's Press, 1989) is greatly detailed in its writing about the Altman family's involvement in early Kansas City, Altman's childhood, his first films, and the workings of his mind and personality. This book is the source of this article's information on Altman's childhood, military service, and early years of filmmaking in Kansas City.
  • At the 2006 Oscars, Altman said he received a heart transplant about 10 years ago from a 40-year-old woman.

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