Melvin Van Peebles

For the Hanna Barbera character, see Mr Peebles.

Melvin Van Peebles
Van Peebles at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
Born	(1932-08-21) August 21, 1932 Chicago, Illinois, USA
Other names	Brer Soul
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, composer
Years active	1955–present

Melvin "Block" Van Peebles (born August 21, 1932) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.

He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African-American focused films. He is the father of actor and director Mario Van Peebles.

Early life

Van Peebles was born in Chicago, Illinois to a black tailor. He joined the Air Force in 1954, thirteen days after graduating (B.A., 1953) from Ohio Wesleyan University, staying for three and a half years. He married a German woman, Maria Marx. They lived in Mexico for a brief period, where he painted portraits, before coming back to the United States, where he started driving cable cars in San Francisco.

Career

Van Peebles began writing about his experiences as a cable car driver. What evolved from an initially small article and a series of photographs was Van Peebles' first book, The Big Heart.

One day, a passenger suggested that Van Peebles should become a filmmaker. He shot his first short film, Pickup Men for Herrick, in 1957. He made two more short films during the same period. According to Van Peebles, "I thought they were features. Each one turned out to be eleven minutes long. I was trying to do features. I knew nothing." As Van Peebles learned more about the filmmaking process, he found out that "I could make a feature for five hundred dollars. That was the cost of ninety minutes of film. I didn't know a thing about shooting a film sixteen to one or ten to one or none of that shit. Then I forgot you had to develop film. And I didn't know you needed a work print. All I can say is that after I did one thing he would say, 'Well, aren't you gonna put sound on it?' and I would go, 'Oh shit!' That's all I could say."

After Van Peebles completed his first short films, he took them with him to Hollywood to try to find work, but was unable to find anyone who wanted to hire him as a director. In New York City, Van Peebles met a man who saw his films and wanted to screen them in France. In 1959 the family went to the Netherlands, where he worked for the Dutch National Theater. The marriage dissolved, his wife and children went back to America, and Peebles was invited to Paris by Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, on the strength of his short films. He learned French, and was hired to translate Mad magazine into French. He began to write plays in French, utilizing the sprechgesang form of songwriting, where the lyrics were spoken over the music. This style carried over to Van Peebles' debut album, Brer Soul. He published four novels and one story collection in French and made another short film, Cinq cent balles (1965). It was here that he made his first feature length film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (La Permission) (1968), which caught the attention of Hollywood producers who mistook him for a French auteur. His first Hollywood film was the 1970 Columbia Pictures comedy Watermelon Man, written by Herman Raucher. The movie told the story of a casually racist white man who suddenly wakes up black and finds himself alienated from his friends, family and job. In 1970 Van Peebles was also to direct filming of the Powder Ridge Rock Festival, which was banned by court injunction.

It was after the resulting bad experience directing Watermelon Man that Van Peebles became determined to have complete control over his next production, which became the groundbreaking Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), privately funded with his own money, and in part by a $50,000.00 loan from Bill Cosby. Van Peebles not only directed, scripted, and edited the film, but wrote the score and directed the marketing campaign. The film, which in the end grossed $10 million, was, among many others, acclaimed by the Black Panthers for its political resonance with the black struggle. His son Mario's 2003 film BAADASSSSS! tells the story behind the making of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

at the Zebulon in June 2011

In 2005, Van Peebles was the subject of a documentary entitled How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It). In 2008, Van Peebles completed the film Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, and appeared on All My Children as Melvin Woods, the father of Samuel Woods, a character portrayed by his son, Mario.

In 2005, it was announced that Van Peebles would collaborate with Madlib for a proposed double album titled Brer Soul Meets Quasimoto. However, nothing has been said about this project since it was announced.

In 2009 Van Peebles became involved with a project to make Sweet Sweetback a musical. A preliminary version of this was staged at the Apollo on April 25–26, 2009. As well, he wrote and performed in a stage musical, Unmitigated Truth: Life, a Lavatory, Loves, and Ladies, which featured some of his previous songs as well as some new material.

In 2011, Van Peebles started doing shows in NYC with members of Burnt Sugar, under the name Melvin Van Peebles wid Laxative. Van Peebles has said that the band is called Laxative because they "make shit happen". At least one of their shows have been listed as "must-sees" by a blogger from Time Out New York. In November, 2011, Melvin Van Peebles wid Laxative performed his song "Love, that's America" at Zebulon Cafe Concert, two weeks after the venue showed the original video for this song involving Occupy Wall Street footage, which was uploaded to Youtube in October 2011.

On August 21, 2012, he distributed a new album, on vinyl only, called Nahh... Nahh Mofo. This album was distributed at his birthday celebration at Film Forum.^{[citation needed]} On November 10, 2012, he released a video for the song Lilly Done The Zampoughi Every Time I Pulled Her Coattail to go with the album, which was announced on his Facebook page.

Bibliography

Van Peebles in 2008

• (As "Melvin Van".) The Big Heart. San Francisco: Fearon, 1957. With photographs by Ruth Bernhard, a book about life on San Francisco's cable cars. "A cable car is a big heart with people for blood. The people pump on and off — if you think of it like that it is pretty simple" (p. 21).
• Un Ours pour le F.B.I. (1964); A Bear for the F.B.I. Trident, 1968.
• Un Américain en enfer (1965); The True American. Doubleday, 1976.
• Le Chinois du XIV (1966). (short stories)
• La Fête à Harlem (Harlem Party) (1967). (novel)
• La Permission, (1967)
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Lancer Books, New York 1971.
• Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Bantam, New York 1973.
• Don't Play Us Cheap: A Harlem Party. Bantam Books, New York 1973.
• Just an Old Sweet Song. Ballantine, New York 1976.
• Bold Money: A New Way to Play the Options Market. Warner Books, New York 1986, ISBN 0-446-51340-7 (nonfiction)
• Melvin and (his son) Mario Van Peebles: No Identity Crisis. A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, New York 1990

Filmography

Peebles' 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song received acclaim from black rights groups for its political resonance with the black struggle and grossed $10 million.

As director

• Three Pickup Men for Herrick (short, 1957) also writer and composer
• Sunlight (short, 1957) also writer, composer and producer
• Cinq cent balles (short, 1963) also writer and composer
• The Story of a Three-Day Pass (also known as La Permission, 1967) also writer, from his novel La Permission, and composer
• Watermelon Man (1970) also composer
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) also actor, writer, composer, co-producer and editor
• Don't Play Us Cheap (1973) also writer, from his book Harlem Party and stage musical Don't Play Us Cheap, and composer
• Identity Crisis (1989) also actor, producer and editor
• Vroom Vroom Vroooom (segment from Tales of Erotica, also known as Erotic Tales, 1996) also writer, composer, producer and editor
• Gang in Blue (1996) co-director, actor and producer
• Le Conte du ventre plein (also known as Bellyful, 2000) also writer, composer and delegate producer
• Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha (2008)
• Lilly Done The Zampoughi Every Time I Pulled Her Coattail (2012) editor, performer

Other writing credits

• Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death (1971 Broadway musical book and score)
• Just an Old Sweet Song (also known as Down Home, Robert Ellis Miller, 1976) made for television; screenwriter and theme song
• Greased Lightning (Michael Schultz, 1977) screenwriter
• The Sophisticated Gents (Harry Falk, 1981) made for television; actor, screenwriter, song “Greased Lightning” and producer
• The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (Gilbert Moses, 1987) made for television; screenwriter
• Panther (Mario Van Peebles, 1995) based on his novel Panther, screenwriter, actor and producer
• Melvin Van Peebles' Classified X (Mark Daniels, 1998) documentary; screenwriter, actor and executive producer)
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song: The Musical (2008) writer, singer
• Unmitigated Truth: Life, a Lavatory, Loves, and Ladies (2009) writer, performer

Other acting-only credits

• O.C. and Stiggs (Robert Altman, 1987) actor
• Jaws: The Revenge (Joseph Sargent, 1987) actor
• Sonny Spoon (1988) television series; actor
• Boomerang (1992) actor
• Posse (Mario Van Peebles, 1993) actor
• Terminal Velocity (Deran Sarafian, 1994) actor
• Fist of the North Star (Asher, 1995) actor
• The Shining (Mick Garris, 1997) television movie; actor
• The Hebrew Hammer (Jonathan Kesselman, 2003) actor
• Redemption Road (Elmo, 2010) actor
• BlacKout actor

Plays

• The Hostage (Dutch National Theatre Tour, writer, 1964)
• Ain't Supposed To Die A Natural Death (writer, 1972)
• Don't Play Us Cheap (writer, 1972)
• Out There by Your Lonesome (one-man play, 1973)
• Waltz of the Stork (actor, writer, 1982)
• Champeen (musical, writer, 1983)

Discography

Studio albums

• Brer Soul (1969)
• Ain't Supposed To Die A Natural Death (1970)
• As Serious As A Heart-Attack (1974)
• What the....You Mean I Can't Sing?! (1974)
• Ghetto Gothic (1995)
• Nahh... Nahh Mofo (2012)

Soundtrack albums

• Watermelon Man (1970)
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
• Ain't Supposed To Die A Natural Death (1972)
• Don't Play Us Cheap (1973)

See also

• Works by Melvin Van Peebles

Further reading

• Chaffin-Quiray, Garrett. "Great Directors: Melvin Van Peebles." Senses of Cinema Issue 25 (21 March 2003).
• Greasley, Philip A. The Authors. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Print. ISBN 0253336090, ISBN 9780253336095

External links

• Official Website
• Melvin Van Peebles at the Internet Movie Database
• Melvin Van Peebles on Charlie Rose

• Works by or about Melvin Van Peebles in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Melvin Van Peebles collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Melvin Van Peebles's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• "Melvin Van Peebles interview" on the WGBH series, Say Brother
• Interview at SuicideGirls.com
• Interview with Melvin Van Peebles at the Red Bull Music Academy (2008)