‘Last Picture Show’ director Bogdanovich dies aged 82

LOS ANGELES

Acclaimed New Hollywood director of “The Last Picture Show,” has died at the age of 82, his agent said on Jan. 6.

Starting out as an influential film critic, Bogdanovich began directing with 1968’s “Targets,” before co-writing his ode to 1950s America “The Last Picture Show.”

The coming-of-age film set in a small Texas town that has fallen on hard times earned eight Oscar nominations, winning two, and drew comparisons to “Citizen Kane.”

“I am devastated. He was a wonderful and great artist. I’ll never forgot attending a premiere for ‘The Last Picture Show,’” his contemporary, director Francis Ford Coppola, said in a statement to AFP.

“I remember at its end, the audience leaped up all around me bursting into applause lasting easily 15 minutes... May he sleep in bliss for eternity, enjoying the thrill of our applause forever.”

After further successes in the early 1970s such as the Barbra Streisand screwball comedy “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon,” which won actress Tatum O’Neal the youngest-ever competitive Oscar at just 10, Bogdanovich’s own career went into sharp decline.

He released a series of flops, including “Daisy Miller” and “At Long Last Love.”

In his late years, Bogdanovich became known to younger movie and TV buffs as he took on acting roles, including the psychiatrist to Tony Soprano’s own shrink in “The Sopranos,” and a DJ in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill.”