MELVIN VAN PEEBLES

22 Sept

(21 August 1932 - 21 September 2021)

Something of a black cultural icon, Melvin Van Peebles was an American actor and filmmaker. However, he was rather more than just that because he was also a playwright, a novelist and composer. Born in Chicago, he was a San Francisco cable car gripman, his experiences of which he wrote about in a novel called The Big Heart. When one of his passengers suggested he make films, his life changed. After his first short films, he went to Hollywood but without much success, so he moved to the Netherlands where he met a distributor who screened his films which led to a time in Paris where he became a writer. He translated some issues of Mad magazine into French, wrote plays, novels and short stories. His first film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass came in 1968 and it eventually led him back to Hollywood for his first US film Watermelon Man (1970) about a white man who turns black overnight. Then came Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song which gained kudos with the Black Panther movement. He continued to make films as an actor, writer and director, acting in Jaws: The Revenge, True Identity, Boomerang, Posse, Last Action Hero (1993), Blackout, Redemption Road and Peeples (2013) among others. His directing credits include Don't Play Us Cheap, Identity Crisis, Bellyful and Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha (2008), a semi-autobiographical tale of an adventurer on the high seas. He produced many of his films and often wrote the music for them as well. Melvin van Peebles, who has died in Manhattan aged 89, was married to Maria Marx. They have three children, the actor-director-producer Mario Van Peebles, and the actors Megan and Max.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

MELVIN VAN PEEBLES

ROGER MICHELL

JANE POWELL