Melvin Van Peebles.Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage
Melvin Van Peebles, an iconic auteur of Black cinema, has died. He was 89.
Van Peebles son and longtime collaborator, Mario Van Peebles, said in the statement, “Dad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth? We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.”
Van Peebles was born on Aug. 21, 1932, in Chicago. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University and joined the Air Force after graduating.
The actor, writer and director worked as a cable car gripman in San Francisco, which was the subject of his first bookThe Big Heart.
He shot his first short film in 1957 calledPickup Men for Herrick. His first feature-length filmThe Story of a Three-Day Passdebuted in 1968.
Mario and Melvin Van Peebles.Randall Michelson/WireImage
Van Peebles' follow-up film was 1970’sWatermelon Man, a comedy about a casually racist white man who wakes up as a Black man and finds himself alienated from his friends, family and job.
Van Peebles wrote, directed, edited and starred in the movie which grossed $10 million.
That same year, the multihyphenate penned the Broadway musical and scoreAin’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death.
His son Mario’s 2003 filmBAADASSSSS!tells the story about the making of the 1971 film.
Melvin Van Peebles inSweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.courtesy everette collection
While he continued to work in films and in theater, Van Peebles also became an options trader on the American Stock Exchange in the 1980s.
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In 2005, Van Peebles was the subject of the documentaryHow to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It), as well asUnstoppable: Conversation with Melvin VanPeebles, Gordon Parks, and Ossie Davis.
Other credits of Van Peebles include roles inJaws: The Revenge, Posse, the miniseriesThe Shiningas Dick Hallorann,All My Childrenalongside his son,Redemption Roadand 2018’sArmed, his last screen credit.
source: people.com
