As Actors, Directors, Writers, Producers, Musicians, Playwrights, and Scorers – the Van Peebles clan are truly a jack-of-all-trades, inspiring those minority filmmakers who feel they have so much to do and so little time. Melvin Van Peebles was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1932. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University, he joined the Air Force, serving for 3 ½ years. Afterwards, he moved to Mexico where he earned a living by painting portraits. He soon moved to San Francisco where he drove cable cars. Writing and capturing his experience with still photography, he wrote his first book The Big Heart.
Here, a passenger suggested he try filmmaking. Van Peebles completed his first short, Pickup Men for Herrick in 1957. After producing a couple more and off the strength of these films, he was invited to move to Paris by Henry Langlois, founder of Cinematheque Francaise. Rewarded a $70,000 grant, he completed his first feature, The Story of A Three Day Pass (1968), a romance tale between an American soilder and a French woman. Mistaking him for a french auteur, Hollywood producers sought him out. In 1970, he directed his first Hollywood feature, Watermelon Man, the tale about a white racist that wakes up black.
Peebles managed to keep the costs of Watermelon Man low enough to carry over some of his pay to the making of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasss Song, an independent film he produced, directed, wrote, starred, and scored. "Dedicated to all the brothers and sisters who have had enough of The Man", the movie about a black’s man’s revenge against a crooked white police force turned out to become an enormous hit, grossing 10 million, more than any independent film of that year and sparking the Blaxplotation Era.
He followed it up with 1972’s Don’t Play Us Cheap. Then developed a TV show pilot in 1977 Just An Old Sweet Song. Since, Melvin’s only directorial effort has been 1990’s Identity Crisis and 2008’s Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, based off his 1982 Broadway musical Walts of the Stork.
Despite the lack of helmed films, he’s still kept busy. He wrote the screenplay for 1977’s Greased Lightening where Richard Pryor plays black race car driver Wendell Scott. He co-produced Panther, chronicling the rise of the Black Panther Party. Don’t Play Us Cheap also became a Broadway musical he wrote, scored, and co-produced which garnered him three Tony and Two Grammy Awards. In the late 1950’s, he released two spoken word albums, Br’er Soul and Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death which is noted for being a precursor to rap music. These are only a small fraction of the projects completed by the pre-Tyler Perry multi-hyphenate.
AWARDS
Won 1 Daytime Emmy (1987, Writing, CBS Schoolbreak Special)
Won 1 Humanitas Prize (1987, Writing, CBS Schoolbreak Special)
2004 Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
Here, a passenger suggested he try filmmaking. Van Peebles completed his first short, Pickup Men for Herrick in 1957. After producing a couple more and off the strength of these films, he was invited to move to Paris by Henry Langlois, founder of Cinematheque Francaise. Rewarded a $70,000 grant, he completed his first feature, The Story of A Three Day Pass (1968), a romance tale between an American soilder and a French woman. Mistaking him for a french auteur, Hollywood producers sought him out. In 1970, he directed his first Hollywood feature, Watermelon Man, the tale about a white racist that wakes up black.
Peebles managed to keep the costs of Watermelon Man low enough to carry over some of his pay to the making of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasss Song, an independent film he produced, directed, wrote, starred, and scored. "Dedicated to all the brothers and sisters who have had enough of The Man", the movie about a black’s man’s revenge against a crooked white police force turned out to become an enormous hit, grossing 10 million, more than any independent film of that year and sparking the Blaxplotation Era.
He followed it up with 1972’s Don’t Play Us Cheap. Then developed a TV show pilot in 1977 Just An Old Sweet Song. Since, Melvin’s only directorial effort has been 1990’s Identity Crisis and 2008’s Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, based off his 1982 Broadway musical Walts of the Stork.
Despite the lack of helmed films, he’s still kept busy. He wrote the screenplay for 1977’s Greased Lightening where Richard Pryor plays black race car driver Wendell Scott. He co-produced Panther, chronicling the rise of the Black Panther Party. Don’t Play Us Cheap also became a Broadway musical he wrote, scored, and co-produced which garnered him three Tony and Two Grammy Awards. In the late 1950’s, he released two spoken word albums, Br’er Soul and Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death which is noted for being a precursor to rap music. These are only a small fraction of the projects completed by the pre-Tyler Perry multi-hyphenate.
AWARDS
Won 1 Daytime Emmy (1987, Writing, CBS Schoolbreak Special)
Won 1 Humanitas Prize (1987, Writing, CBS Schoolbreak Special)
2004 Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
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