Melvin Van Peebles Grandchildren? 7 Best Answer

Melvin Van Peebles Biography – Melvin Van Peebles Wiki

Melvin Van Peebles was an American actor, filmmaker, playwright, novelist and composer. He was known for directing productions such as the 1971 indie ic “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” “The Story of a Three-Day Pass,” “Watermelon Man” and “Don’t Play Us Cheap.”

Melvin was the father of director and actor Mario Van Peebles. Melvin and Mario Van Peebles teamed on the 1989 film “Identity Crisis,” with Melvin directing and Mario scripting and starring as a rapper possessed by the soul of a dead fashion designer. Melvin appeared in the 1993 Mario Van Peebles-directed “Posse,” in which Mario also starred, as well as in Mario’s Black Panther drama “Panther” (1995), with Melvin adapting the script from his own novel, the Mario Van Peebles-directed “Love Kills (1998) and the Mario-directed “Redemption Road” (2010).

Melvin also acted in the work of others, appearing in the 1991 feature comedy “True Identity”; Reginald Hudlin’s Eddie Murphy vehicle “Boomerang” (1992); big-budget Arnold Schwarzenegger action film “Last Action Hero” (1993); Charlie Sheen action film “Terminal Velocity” (1994); 2003 comedy “The Hebrew Hammer,” in which Melvin reprised the role of Sweetback and Mario also appeared; and Tina Gordon Chism’s 2013 romantic comedy “Peeples,” in which he played Grandpa Peeples.

In 1988 Mario Van Peebles starred in the brief NBC sitcom “Sonny Spoon,” about a private detective, in which his father was also a series regular as the private eye’s bar-owning father. On TV he also made guest appearances on series including “In the Heat of the Night,” “Dream On,” “Living Single” and “Homice: Life on the Street.”

Melvin was born in Chicago and attended West Virginia State College and then Ohio Wesleyan University, where he earned a B.A. in English literature. He served in the Air Force as a navigator-bombardier for three years.

Van Peebles experimented with career as a painter, and, growing appalled by the racist portrayal of African Americans in movies, made some film shorts as an amateur in the late ’50s and early ’60s. He d stints as a postal worker and, in San Francisco, a cable-car grip — about which he wrote his first book, “The Big Heart,” in 1957. He spent some time in Mexico; in Holland he studied astronomy at the University of Amsterdam and acting at the Dutch National Theater.

Melvin Van Peebles Age

Melvin Peebles was born on August 21, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois. He died on September 21, 2021. He was 89.

Melvin Van Peebles Wife

Melvin was married to German-born actress and photographer Maria Marx in the 1950s. The marriage ended in divorce, but they shared daughter Megan Van Peebles and son Max Van Peebles.

Melvin Van Peebles Children

He had three children, Mario Van Peebles, Megan Van Peebles, and Max Van Peebles.

Melvin Van Peebles Family

In addition to son Mario, Melvin is survived by daughter Megan Van Peebles, an occasional actress, and son Max Van Peebles, an occasional actor and assistant director, and grandchildren.

Melvin Van Peebles Death

Melvin Van Peebles died on Sept. 21 at the age of 89 at his home in Manhattan surrounded by his family, the Criterion Collection and Janus Films announced. The Criterion Collection sa: “On behalf of the Van Peebles family, The Criterion Collection and Janus Films are saddened to announce the passing of a giant of American cinema, Melvin Van Peebles, who died last night, at home with family, at the age of 89.

“In an unparalleled career distinguished by relentless innovation, boundless curiosity and spiritual empathy, Melvin Van Peebles made an indelible mark on the international cultural landscape through his films, novels, plays and music. His work continues to be essential and is being celebrated at the New York Film Festival this weekend with a 50th anniversary screening of his landmark film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song; a Criterion Collection box set, Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films next week; and a revival of his play Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, slated for a return to Broadway next year.”

In a brief statement on his father’s passing, Mario Van Peebles, his son and longtime creative collaborator, sa, “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 d not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.” The Criterion Collection added: “We offer our deepest sympathies to the Van Peebles family.”

Melvin Van Peebles Cause of Death

Melvin Van Peebles’ cause of death was not revealed.

Melvin Van Peebles Net Worth

Melvin Van Peebles’ net worth is estimated to be $3 Million.

In his own words, the film-maker Melvin Van Peebles, who has died aged 89, was “the Rosa Parks of the industry”. He was one of the few African-American directors to have moved within the Hollywood studio system when, in 1970, Columbia gave him a three-picture contract. But Columbia balked at the incendiary plot of his next project, about a black hustler who kills white police officers and escapes scot-free, so Van Peebles borrowed $50,000 from the actor Bill Cosby, raised an additional $150,000, and launched an independent production as writer, director, producer, editor, composer and lead actor.

Shot guerrilla- over 19 days, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) was a huge commercial success and effectively launched the blaxploitation genre, which gave black actors an unprecedented array of leading roles. However, Van Peebles was ambivalent about the genre, as he believed it often selined the political motives of his own film. It was a retaliation against Hollywood’s default modes of black characterisation: silent subservience or the stately Sney Poitier mould. The opening sequence lists the main stars as “the black community”.

In the first scene, a boy loses his virginity to a sex worker. The child is Sweetback – played in adulthood in the rest of the film by Van Peebles, and in this prelude by Van Peebles’s 13-year-old son, Mario. (More than 30 years later, Mario directed Baadasssss!, about the making of his father’s ic, with Mario playing Melvin.) Melvin took the role of Sweetback in his own film because he claimed that no actors were interested in a character who speaks barely a dozen words (mostly expletives) and makes a living performing sexual acts.

Melvin Van Peebles at the Deauville American film festival, 2012, in Deauville, France.

Photograph: François Durand/WireImage

When Sweetback witnesses the assault of a black man by racist white police officers, he attacks them and flees. The film’s most enduring images are of Van Peebles running, sporting golden flares, a billowing black shirt and a droopy moustache. The sequences are visually and sonically inventive: there are freeze-frames, psychedelic colours, superimposed images and a throbbing jazz-funk undercurrent.

When Van Peebles came to promote the film, he supplied radio stations with his own infectious musical composition. The film’s score, performed by Earth, Wind and Fire, was released by Stax Records. When the film was assigned a prohibitive X rating, Van Peebles printed T-shirts stating “Rated X by an all-white jury”, drummed up local support, had the film screened in community halls and makeshift venues, and virtually hustled it into cinemas.

He had learned the art of the hustle from his father, a tailor who ran a shop on the South Se of Chicago, where Melvin was born, the son of Marion and Edwin Peebles. (Melvin added “Van” to his name when he moved to Holland in his late 20s.) By the age of 10, he was working on the cash register in his father’s shop, and selling old clothes on the streets. He attended Thornton Township high school in Harvey, Illinois, and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1953 with a degree in English.

He joined the US Air Force, served as a navigator and bombardier in Strategic Air Command, and married a German photographer, Maria Marx, with whom he had two sons, Mario and Max, and a daughter, Megan. A period spent working in San Francisco as a cable car operator inspired him to write the book The Big Heart (1957). He also painted and, taking inspiration from Sergei Eisenstein’s collection of essays Film Form, picked up the basics of film-making.

After making a series of short films, he relocated to Holland, where he studied astronomy at the University of Amsterdam. Then he settled in Paris and contributed cartoon strips to the satirical magazine Hara-Kiri. He wrote a handful of novels in French, including La Permission. His film-making was encouraged by Henri Langlois of the Cinémathèque Française, which had screened his shorts, and Van Peebles deced to adapt La Permission for his first feature, a French production released as The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968).

Nicole Berger and Harry Baird in The Story of a Three- Day Pass, 1968, a frank account of rank and race in the army that was the first feature film made by Melvin Van Peebles.

Photograph: PR

A frank account of rank and race in the army, the film follows a black soldier stationed in France who receives a promotion and is given some time off before starting his new position. Dogged by the thought that he has become his white captain’s “Uncle Tom”, he embarks for Paris. Van Peebles shot the cafes and stalls of the Left Bank in a freewheeling documentary . The soldier meets and dances with a white girl and arranges to spend the next day with her by the beach. There, they are spotted by three white men from the base; shocked to see the interracial couple, they report back to the captain, who swiftly demotes the soldier.

The film, punctuated by jazzy bursts of music, has more than a frisson of the French New Wave, a touch of the absurd, and the humour and jaded irony of the blues. In one of the most powerful sequences, the couple awkwardly check in to a hotel and make love in a disarming montage incorporating images of warfare, chorus lines and race demonstrations. The film won an award at the San Francisco film festival where, Van Peebles recalled with some amusement, they were surprised to discover that the Dutch-sounding director of this French production was an African American. He was then signed up to direct Watermelon Man (1970), a provocative comedy written by Herman Raucher about a racist white salesman, Jeff, who wakes up one morning to find that his skin has turned black.

The producers wanted to cast a white actor who would then appear in blackface after the transformation, but Van Peebles won the argument to use a black star (Godfrey Cambrge) who would then be done up in “whiteface”. He also altered the original ending of the film, in which the salesman woke up to find that it had all been a bad dream; Van Peebles dn’t want to equate life as an African American with a nightmare.

Although the film was made with some of his trademark experimental flourishes – including colour filters – it is essentially a broad domestic comedy, well played by Cambrge and Estelle Parsons as his long-suffering wife, Althea.

Melvin Van Peebles, right, with his son Mario, with whom he sometimes collaborated, in 1994.

Photograph: Jim Wilson/New York Times/Redux/eyevine

After the transformation, Jeff is met with shrieks of fear, open suspicion and hostility. If the film played America’s inequalities for laughs, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was made in anger and defiance. Despite proving Van Peebles’s box-office clout – Sweetback made more than $10m in 1971 – it lost him his deal with Columbia and won him a reputation as a volatile talent.

By then, Van Peebles had achieved success as a musician, for his albums of original, proto-rap material including Brer Soul (1968). He then turned his attention to Broadway, writing the music, book and lyrics for a “ghetto-life” musical, Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, which opened in October 1971 and ran for more than nine months. Before it closed, he opened another musical on Broadway, Don’t Play Us Cheap! Its book received a Tony nomination and a film version came out in 1972. In 1974, he released a new album, What the … You Mean I Can’t Sing?, its title reflecting his gruff humour and a progression in his vocal delivery from the spoken lyrics on previous releases.

Ten years passed before he released another album or film, but Van Peebles kept busy in the theatre. An autobiographical picaresque musical, Waltz of the Stork, opened in New York in 1982, with him as its star, and a couple of years later he directed a revamped puppet version of the show. The material was recycled into a 2008 film, Confessions of a Ex-Doofus Itchy-Footed Mutha, and a graphic novel.

By 1983, Van Peebles had developed his most unexpected role yet, moving from Broadway to Wall Street, and becoming a trader on the floor of the American stock exchange. In 1986, he wrote a book for aspiring investors, Bold Money: A New Way to Play the Options Market.

Meanwhile, he returned to movies. He had a role in Robert Altman’s OC and Stiggs (1985) and appeared with Mario in Jaws: The Revenge (1987), the TV series Sonny Spoon and the predominantly African-American western Posse (1993), which Mario directed.

A scene from the 1995 film Panther, adapted from a novel by Melvin Van Peebles, and directed by his son Mario.

Photograph: The Kobal Collection

Back in 1971, Huey Newton had praised Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and made it mandatory viewing for the Black Panthers. In 1995, Van Peebles adapted his own novel about the formation of Newton’s radical party for the film Panther, directed by Mario. The following year, they made Gang in Blue, about racism within the police.

In 1998, Van Peebles wrote and narrated the documentary Classified X, an overview of black characters in American film. Routinely dubbed the godfather of black cinema – although he preferred “godfather of independent cinema” – he increasingly appeared in documentaries, usually wearing his trademark round glasses and beret, chewing on a cigar. His projects became riffs on past achievements: he and Mario published a book about working together, No Identity Crisis (1990), and appeared in The Hebrew Hammer (2003), an irreverent Jewish take on blaxploitation.

He made another French production, Le Conte du Ventre Plein (Bellyful, 2000), released shortly after he was named a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. He also launched a musical-theatre version of Sweetback in France in 2010.

His son Mario cast him in small roles in Redemption Road (2010), We the Party (2012) and Armed (2018), and he also appeared in Tina Gordon’s family comedy Peeples (2013).

His marriage to Maria ended in divorce in 2018. Megan died in 2006. He is survived by Mario and Max, another daughter, Marguerite, and 11 grandchildren.

Melvin Van Peebles (Melvin Peebles), film-maker, novelist and musician, born 21 August 1932; died 21 September 2021

American actor and filmmaker (1932–2021)

Melvin Van Peebles (born Melvin Peebles; August 21, 1932 – September 21, 2021) was an American actor, filmmaker, writer, and composer. He worked as an active filmmaker into the 2000s. His feature film debut, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967), was based on his own French-language novel La Permission and was shot in France, as it was difficult for a black American director to get work at the time. The film won an award at the San Francisco International Film Festival which gained him the interest of Hollywood studios, leading to his American feature debut Watermelon Man, in 1970. Eschewing further overtures from Hollywood, he used the successes he had so far to bankroll his work as an independent filmmaker.

In 1971, he released his best-known work, creating and starring in the film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, consered one of the earliest and best-regarded examples of the blaxploitation genre. He followed this up with the musical, Don’t Play Us Cheap, based on his own stage play, and continued to make films, write novels and stage plays in English and in French through the next several decades; his final films include the French-language film Le Conte du ventre plein (2000) and the absurdist film Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha (2008). His son, filmmaker and actor Mario Van Peebles, appeared in several of his works and portrayed him in the 2003 biographical film Baadasssss!.

Early life and education

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Born Melvin Peebles,[1] in Chicago, Illinois, he was the son of Edwin Griffin and Marion Peebles.[2] His father was a tailor. In 1953,[3] Melvin graduated with a B.A. in literature from Ohio Wesleyan University and, thirteen days later, joined the Air Force, serving for three and a half years.[4] He added “Van” to his name when he lived in the Netherlands in his late 20s.[5]

Career

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Early years

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He worked as a cable car gripman in San Francisco.[4] Later, he wrote about these experiences. His first book, The Big Heart, credited to Melvin Van, evolved from a small article and a series of photographs taken by Ruth Bernhard.[4]

According to Van Peebles, a passenger suggested that he should become a filmmaker. Van Peebles shot his first short film, Pickup Men for Herrick in 1957, and made two more short films during the same period. About these films, Van Peebles sa: “I thought they were features. Each one turned out to be eleven minutes long. I was trying to do features. I knew nothing.” As he learned more about the filmmaking process, he found out that “I could make a feature for five hundred dollars. That was the cost of 90 minutes of film. I dn’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 dn’t know you needed a work print. All I can say is that after I d 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.”[4]

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. Van Peebles deced to move his family to the Netherlands where he planned to study astronomy. On the way to Europe, in New York City, he met Amos Vogel, founder of the avant-garde Cinema 16 who agreed to place two of Van Peebles’s shorts in his rental catalog.[6] Vogel screened Van Peebles’s Three Pickup Men for Herrick at Cinema 16 on a program with City of Jazz in the spring of 1960 with Ralph Ellison leading a post-film discussion.[7] When Vogel went to Paris shortly after, he brought Van Peebles’s films to show Henri Langlois and Mary Meerson at the Cinémathèque Française. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, Van Peebles’s marriage dissolved and his wife and children went back to the United States. Shortly thereafter, Van Peebles was invited to Paris probably by Mary Meerson and/or Lotte Eisner, founders of the Cinémathèque Française, on the strength of his short films.[8] In France, Van Peebles created a short film Les Cinq Cent Balles (500 Francs) (1961) and then established himself as a writer. He d investigative reporting for France Observateur during 1963–64, during which he profiled, and later became friends with, Chester Himes. Himes got him a job at the anti-authoritarian humor magazine Hara-kiri, where Van Peebles wrote a monthly column and eventually joined the editorial board.[9]

During 1965–66, Mad magazine attempted a French edition and hired Van Peebles as editor-in-chief during its run of only five issues. He began to write plays in French, utilizing the sprechgesang form of songwriting, where the lyrics were spoken over the music. This carried over to Van Peebles’ debut album, Brer Soul.[4]

Van Peebles was a prolific writer in France. He published four novels and a collection of short stories. He completed at least one play, La Fête à Harlem which was also released as a novel, and which he would later make into the musical Don’t Play Us Cheap. Roger Blin directed La Fête à Harlem with the Les Griots theatrical troupe for the Festival du jeune théâtre in Liège, Belgium in September 1964.[10] Van Peebles made his first feature-length film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (La Permission) (1968) based on a novel by the same title. The film caught the attention of Hollywood producers who mistook him for a French auteur after it won an award at the San Francisco International Film Festival as the French entry.[11] Van Peebles’s first[citation needed] Hollywood film was the 1970 Columbia Pictures comedy Watermelon Man, written by Herman Raucher. The movie starring Godfrey Cambrge tells 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 Rge Rock Festival, which was banned by court injunction.[citation needed] After Watermelon Man, 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 loan from Bill Cosby.[12] 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 $15 million,[13] 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; father and son presented the film together as the Closing Night selection for Maryland Film Festival 2004.[citation needed]

Van Peebles wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the stage musical Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, which opened off-Broadway and then moved to Broadway, running for 325 performances in 1971–72.[14] The show was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score.[15] For his next Broadway musical, Don’t Play Us Cheap!, Van Peebles performed the same duties, as well as producing and directing. The show ran for 164 performances in 1972, earning Van Peebles another Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical.[16] He adapted it into a film in 1973.[14]

In 1977, Van Peebles was one of four credited screenwriters on the film Greased Lightning, about the life of pioneering Black NASCAR driver Wendell Scott. He was originally the director of the film as well, but was replaced by Michael Schultz.[17]

Van Peebles was involved with two more Broadway musicals in the 1980s. He was a co-writer on the book for Reggae, which closed after 21 performances in 1980.[18] For Waltz of the Stork, he wrote book, music, and lyrics, as well as producing the show and playing the lead role. It ran for 160 performances in 1982.[19]

In the 1980s, Van Peebles became an options trader on the American Stock Exchange while continuing to work in theater and film.[20][21]

In 1995, he co-starred in the Tony Randel American live-action version of Japanese manga Fist of the North Star, alongse Gary Daniels, Costas Mandylor, Chris Penn, Isako Washio Malcolm McDowell, Downtown Julie Brown, Dante Basco, Tracey Walter, Clint Howard, Tony Halme, and Big Van Vader.[22]

In 2005, Van Peebles was the subject of a documentary entitled How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It). Also in 2005, Van Peebles was the subject of the documentary Unstoppable: Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks, and Ossie Davis, which also featured Ossie Davis and Gordon Parks in the same room. It was moderated by Warrington Hudlin.[23]

In 2005, it was announced that Van Peebles would collaborate with Madlib for a proposed double album titled Brer Soul Meets Quasimoto. However, nothing further was issued about this project from the time that it was first announced.[24]

In 2008, Van Peebles completed the film Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, which was the Closing Night selection for Maryland Film Festival 2008, and appeared on All My Children as Melvin Woods, the father of Samuel Woods, a character portrayed by his son, Mario.[25][26]

In 2009, Van Peebles became involved with a project to adapt Sweet Sweetback into a musical.[27] A preliminary version of this was staged at the Apollo Theater 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.[28]

In 2011, Van Peebles started doing shows in NYC with members of Burnt Sugar, under the name Melvin Van Peebles w Laxative.[29] Van Peebles sa that the band is called Laxative because they “make shit happen”.[30] In November 2011, Melvin Van Peebles w 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,[31] which was uploaded to YouTube in October 2011.[32][unreliable source?]

A Ghetto Mother’s Prayer, in 2017

Van Peebles in front of his artwork,, in 2017

On August 21, 2012, he distributed a new album, on vinyl only, called Nahh.. Nahh Mofo.[33][34][35][36] This album was distributed at his birthday celebration at Film Forum.[37] 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,[38][39] which was announced on his Facebook page.[40][unreliable source?]

On May 5, 2013, he returned to the Film Forum for a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The K (1921) and was a judge at the Charlie Chaplin Dress-Alike Contest which was held after the screening. He wore a bowler hat and baggy pants in honor of Chaplin.[citation needed]

In September 2013, Van Peebles made his public debut as a visual artist, as a part of a gallery featured called “eMerge 2.0: Melvin Van Peebles & Artists on the Cusp”.[41] It features “Ex-Voto Monochrome (A Ghetto Mother’s Prayer)”, one of many pieces of art he created to be on display in his home.[41]

In 2017, Methane Momma, a short film directed by Alain Rimbert, featured Van Peebles and his narration of poetic work with accompaniment of music by The Heliocentrics.[42][43][44]

In 2019, Burnt Sugar presented the film Sweetback in Brooklyn while playing their own interpretation of the soundtrack. Van Peebles appeared at the presentation.[45]

Personal life

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Melvin Van Peebles married Maria Marx. They lived in Mexico for a period in the late 1950s, where he painted portraits. Their son, actor and director Mario Van Peebles, was born while they resed in Mexico. The family subsequently returned to the United States.[46]

Van Peebles died on September 21, 2021, at his home in Manhattan, New York, at the age of 89.[47][48] He is survived by his sons, Mario and Max, and his daughter Marguerite.[13]

Awards and honors

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Bibliography

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• (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., Trent, 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.[58]
• 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 Mario Van Peebles: No Identity Crisis, A Firese Book, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990.
• Panther, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1995.[59]
• Confessions of a Ex Doofus Itchy Footed Mutha, New York: Akashic Books, 2009, ISBN 9781933354866. With illustrations by Caktuz Tree, a graphic novel adaptation of the film with the same title.

Filmography

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

Peebles’ 1971 filmreceived acclaim from black rights groups for its political resonance with the black struggle and grossed $10 million.

Other writing credits

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• Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song: The Musical (2008) writer, singer
• Unmitigated Truth: Life, a Lavatory, Loves, and Ladies (2009) writer, performer

As himself

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• Unstoppable (2005)
• How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (2005)

Other acting-only credits

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Plays

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Discography

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Studio albums

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Compilations

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• X-Rated By an All-White Jury (1997) – including Brer Soul, Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death and As Serious as a Heart-Attack

Soundtrack albums

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See also

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References

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Further reading

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In addition, melvin was blessed with seven grandchildren named mandela van peebles, morgana van peebles, marley van peebles, maya van peebles, . The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. He is survived by sons mario and max van peebles, daughter marguerite, and grandchildren. Afterbuzztv host carla renata chats with the original badass melvin van peebles along with grandson makaylo and son mario van peebles. California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot.

Ypotsgcxfclbwm from static0.srcdn.com He was preceded in death by his daughter megan. California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. Now, he is filming a new . Afterbuzztv host carla renata chats with the original badass melvin van peebles along with grandson makaylo and son mario van peebles. In addition, melvin was blessed with seven grandchildren named mandela van peebles, morgana van peebles, marley van peebles, maya van peebles, . He’s an acclaimed actor, director and producer whose projects include new jack city, ali and episodes of empire. By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren.

California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot.

Melvin van peebles, the trailblazing independent filmmaker,. Van peebles is survived by his sons, mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. Melvin is survived by his children and grandchildren. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot. Afterbuzztv host carla renata chats with the original badass melvin van peebles along with grandson makaylo and son mario van peebles. Now, he is filming a new . Melvin van peebles, grandson mandela van peebles and son mario van peebles get premium, high resolution news photos at getty images. The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. Van peebles, son max van peebles and a number of grandchildren. He’s an acclaimed actor, director and producer whose projects include new jack city, ali and episodes of empire. By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. Melvin van peebles, famous for 70s films including watermelon man, died in new york aged 89.

Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. Van peebles is survived by his sons, mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. In addition, melvin was blessed with seven grandchildren named mandela van peebles, morgana van peebles, marley van peebles, maya van peebles, . By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot.

Rnimm4fqkxcj8m from d1nslcd7m2225b.cloudfront.net Now, he is filming a new . By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. Melvin van peebles, famous for 70s films including watermelon man, died in new york aged 89. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. He was preceded in death by his daughter megan. In addition, melvin was blessed with seven grandchildren named mandela van peebles, morgana van peebles, marley van peebles, maya van peebles, . California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot.

Van peebles, son max van peebles and a number of grandchildren.

Melvin van peebles, grandson mandela van peebles and son mario van peebles get premium, high resolution news photos at getty images. Afterbuzztv host carla renata chats with the original badass melvin van peebles along with grandson makaylo and son mario van peebles. The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. He’s an acclaimed actor, director and producer whose projects include new jack city, ali and episodes of empire. California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot. Melvin is survived by his children and grandchildren. Van peebles is survived by his sons, mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his daughter megan. Van peebles, son max van peebles and a number of grandchildren. By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. In addition, melvin was blessed with seven grandchildren named mandela van peebles, morgana van peebles, marley van peebles, maya van peebles, . He is survived by sons mario and max van peebles, daughter marguerite, and grandchildren.

By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. Melvin van peebles, famous for 70s films including watermelon man, died in new york aged 89. The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. Afterbuzztv host carla renata chats with the original badass melvin van peebles along with grandson makaylo and son mario van peebles.

839posuiunwksm from deadline.com The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. Now, he is filming a new . He is survived by sons mario and max van peebles, daughter marguerite, and grandchildren. He’s an acclaimed actor, director and producer whose projects include new jack city, ali and episodes of empire. Melvin van peebles, grandson mandela van peebles and son mario van peebles get premium, high resolution news photos at getty images. Melvin van peebles, famous for 70s films including watermelon man, died in new york aged 89. Melvin is survived by his children and grandchildren. By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren.

Melvin van peebles, grandson mandela van peebles and son mario van peebles get premium, high resolution news photos at getty images.

Now, he is filming a new . California live sits down with father son duo mario and mandela van peebles who are starring in the new movie a clear shot. By his sons mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren. The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. He is survived by sons mario and max van peebles, daughter marguerite, and grandchildren. In addition, melvin was blessed with seven grandchildren named mandela van peebles, morgana van peebles, marley van peebles, maya van peebles, . He was preceded in death by his daughter megan. Melvin is survived by his children and grandchildren. He’s an acclaimed actor, director and producer whose projects include new jack city, ali and episodes of empire. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. Melvin van peebles, grandson mandela van peebles and son mario van peebles get premium, high resolution news photos at getty images. Melvin van peebles, famous for 70s films including watermelon man, died in new york aged 89. Melvin van peebles, the trailblazing independent filmmaker,.

Melvin Van Peebles Grandchildren / Vffozhpeebnxzm : Van peebles is survived by his sons, mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren.. Melvin van peebles, the renaissance man, author, filmmaker and icon of. Van peebles, son max van peebles and a number of grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his daughter megan. The couple is also sa to have lived in mexico during the course of their marriage. Van peebles is survived by his sons, mario and max, daughter marguerite, and 11 grandchildren.

Melvin Van Peebles, the influential filmmaker behind “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” and father of director and actor Mario Van Peebles, has died. He was 89.

“Dad knew that Black images matter,” Mario Van Peebles sa in a statement from the Criterion Collection. “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 d not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.”

“Sweet Sweetback” will be screened at the New York Film Festival this week for a 50th anniversary tribute. “In an unparalleled career distinguished by relentless innovation, boundless curiosity and spiritual empathy, Melvin Van Peebles made an indelible mark on the international cultural landscape through his films, novels, plays and music,” the Criterion Collection sa.

Melvin and Mario Van Peebles teamed on the 1989 film “Identity Crisis,” with Melvin directing and Mario scripting and starring as a rapper possessed by the soul of a dead fashion designer. Melvin appeared in the 1993 Mario Van Peebles-directed “Posse,” in which Mario also starred, as well as in Mario’s Black Panther drama “Panther” (1995), with Melvin adapting the script from his own novel, the Mario Van Peebles-directed “Love Kills (1998) and the Mario-directed “Redemption Road” (2010).

Melvin Van Peebles also acted in the work of others, appearing in the 1991 feature comedy “True Identity”; Reginald Hudlin’s Eddie Murphy vehicle “Boomerang” (1992); big-budget Arnold Schwarzenegger action film “Last Action Hero” (1993); Charlie Sheen action film “Terminal Velocity” (1994); 2003 comedy “The Hebrew Hammer,” in which Melvin reprised the role of Sweetback and Mario also appeared; and Tina Gordon Chism’s 2013 romantic comedy “Peeples,” in which he played Grandpa Peeples.

In 1988 Mario Van Peebles starred in the brief NBC sitcom “Sonny Spoon,” about a private detective, in which his father was also a series regular as the private eye’s bar-owning father. On TV he also made guest appearances on series including “In the Heat of the Night,” “Dream On,” “Living Single” and “Homice: Life on the Street.”

In “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” which Van Peebles wrote and directed, dedicating the film to “all of the Black brothers and sisters who have had enough of the Man,” Van Peebles starred as the title character, an orphan — portrayed as a child by Van Peebles’ son Mario — raised in a California bordello, where he does menial tasks and grows up to appear in live sex shows there; one day he’s told to re along with two crooked detectives, who collect protection money from the whorehouse and elsewhere, and they end up beating a Black militant. Sweetback finally deces he’s had enough and attacks the cops, saving the Black militant; from that point the film focuses on Sweetback’s flight to the Mexican border.

Melvin Van Peebles in “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.”

Courtesy Everett Collection

Van Peebles employed a variety of interesting effects, including a great deal of hand-held work “to help express the parano nightmare that the fugitive’s life had become,” according to the book “The 50 Most Influential Black Films: A Celebration of African-American Talent, Determination, and Creativity.”

Produced on a total budget of $500,000, “Sweetback” saw box office of $10 million, according to “The 50 Most Influential Black Films”; a few months after, the studio-made, Gordon Parks-directed “Shaft,” starring Richard Roundtree, was released and became a significant success.

“Sweetback” and “Shaft,” together with the following year’s “Superfly,” directed by Gordon Parks Jr., are generally regarded as having together given birth to the Blaxploitation genre.

Van Peebles, however, was critical of many Blaxploitation films for being devo of political content.

Columbia had offered Van Peebles a three-picture contract on the strength of his previous film “Watermelon Man,” but neither Columbia nor any other other studio would finance the film project that would become “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” so he d so himself; Bill Cosby loaned him $50,000 to complete the project.

The soundtrack to the film, featuring Earth, Wind & Fire, was released prior to the film itself in order to generate publicity and word of mouth.

When “Sweetback” drew an X rating from the MPAA, Van Peebles cleverly transformed this significant hindrance to any film’s box office prospects into an advertising tagline that played well with his target audience — “Rated X by an all white jury” — and declared, “Should the rest of the community submit to your censorship that is its business, but White standards shall no longer be imposed on the Black community.”

Playwright and Director Melvin Van Peebles, in 1975.

Alex Gotfryd / Corbis via Getty Images file

“Sweetback” drew a mixed critical response. The New York Times wrote a devastating review upon its release, but in a 1995 reappraisal, Stephen Holden wrote, “This sulphurous nightmare of racial paranoia and revenge eclipses even ‘Reservoir Dogs’ in evoking a world of infinite seaminess, injustice and cruelty. Mr. Van Peebles’s film was not only the granddaddy of (Blaxploitation films) but also the most innovative and politically inflammatory.”

In 2003 Mario Van Peebles directed the film “Baadasssss!,” which was both a documentary and an homage to his father’s “Sweetback.”

The multitalented Melvin Van Peebles had four shows on Broadway, the first of which was “Ain’t Suppose to Die a Natural Death,” for which he wrote the book, music and lyrics; it started Off Broadway and ran for a total of 325 performances in 1971-72. The musical, which contained material from his three albums “Brer Soul,” “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” and “As Serious as a Heart-Attack,” was Tony nominated for best musical, and Van Peebles was nominated for best book of a musical and best original score, while the musical also received nominations for direction, scenic design and set design.

For his next musical the following year, Van Peebles took more control, not only penning the book, music and lyrics but also producing and directing. “Don’t Play Us Cheap!” earned him another Tony nomination, for book of a musical, and in 1973 he adapted it into a film.

For 1980’s “Reggae: A Musical Revelation,” Van Peebles contributed only the book, but two years later, the original comedy with music “Waltz of the Stork,” with book, music and lyrics by Van Peebles, produced and directed by Van Peebles and starring Van Peebles, ran for 156 performances. Mario contributed background vocals and appeared in drag in some scenes. Van Peebles turned “Waltz of the Stork” into the 2008 film “Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha,” which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.

For the “CBS Schoolbreak Special” episode “The Day They Came to Arrest the Books,” Van Peebles won a Daytime Emmy in 1987 for outstanding writing in a children’s special and also won a Humanitas Prize.

Melvin Van Peebles was born in Chicago and attended West Virginia State College and then Ohio Wesleyan University, where he earned a B.A. in English literature. He served in the Air Force as a navigator-bombardier for three years.

Van Peebles experimented with career as a painter, and, growing appalled by the racist portrayal of African Americans in movies, made some film shorts as an amateur in the late ’50s and early ’60s. He d stints as a postal worker and, in San Francisco, a cable-car grip — about which he wrote his first book, “The Big Heart,” in 1957. He spent some time in Mexico; in Holland he studied astronomy at the University of Amsterdam and acting at the Dutch National Theater.

The Cinematheque Francaise invited Van Peebles to screen his shorts at its theater in Paris, where he spent some time as a street entertainer and wrote five novels (in English); the last of these books, “La Permission,” enabled his admission to the French Cinema Center as a director and led to a grant of $70,000. While still in Paris he adapted this novel into his first feature-length film, the Van Peebles-written and -directed “The Story of a Three-Day Pass” (1968), which concerned an interracial love story and addressed racism — a Black soldier is involved with a white girl and demoted as a result.

“The Story of a Three-Day Pass” led to his first directing assignment in the U.S.: “Watermelon Man,” a comedy about a bigoted white man who’s turned into a Black man, played by comedian Godfrey Cambrge, overnight. His wife was played by Estelle Parsons.

Joe Angio’s 2005 documentary “How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)” recounted the roller-coaster life of Van Peebles.

Van Peebles was married once, to the German-born actress and photographer Maria Marx, in the 1950s, but the marriage ended in divorce after several years.

In addition to son Mario, he is survived by daughter Megan Van Peebles, an occasional actress, and son Max Van Peebles, an occasional actor and assistant director, and grandchildren.

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Melvin Van Peebles, whose low-budget 1971 phenomenon, “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” — an X-rated film about a Black revolutionary’s survival on the run — proved a milestone of independent and African American cinema, died Sept. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.

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His family, the Criterion Collection and Janus Films announced the death in a statement but d not prove a cause.

Over a six-decade career, Mr. Van Peebles continually reinvented himself: as an Air Force officer, a San Francisco cable-car gripman (operator), a self-taught film auteur, a novelist in English and French, a Tony Award-nominated playwright and composer, an Emmy Award-winning TV writer, a spoken-word artist and, for a spell in the 1980s, the only Black floor trader on the American Stock Exchange.

Throughout his life, Mr. Van Peebles was propelled and defined by his boundless self-confence and bravado. As a young man — lacking money, connections and institutional support — he practically willed himself into recognition as a visual artist.

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His legacy rested largely on “Sweetback,” for which he served as writer, director, producer, composer, stuntman and star. After finding no other Black actor in Hollywood willing to risk his image on such a role, he cast himself as the title character — a sex-show stud who beats up two racist police officers and spends the rest of the film politically radicalized, an unlikely hero on a righteous odyssey.

Made on a shoestring budget of $500,000, “Sweetback” opened in two Black-neighborhood theaters, one in Detroit and the other in Atlanta. It quickly set box-office­ records and expanded its reach to other theaters, grossing more than $10 million that year on its way to becoming one of the most lucrative independent films in history.

Mr. Van Peebles attributed the film’s success to his belief that he could surmount any obstacle with hustle and ingenuity.

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He sa that when he couldn’t obtain financing for the film, he bluffed a bank into giving him a large line of credit and borrowed $50,000 from actor-comedian Bill Cosby. To avo paying union wages, he told the trade guilds that he was making a fast, cheap porno that wasn’t worth their time. Then he shot the 97-minute film in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in just 20 days.

When the Motion Picture Association of America gave “Sweetback” an X rating, Mr. Van Peebles enticed his target Black audience with movie posters and other advertisements that proclaimed the film “RATED X BY AN ALL-WHITE JURY.”

He persuaded Black DJs to promote “Sweetback,” which was dedicated “to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of The Man.” He sa the Black Panther Party endorsed it as “required viewing,” and Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton called it “the first truly revolutionary Black film” because its brazen hero gets away with roughing up the police.

Civil rights activist and former NAACP chairman Julian Bond told the New York Times in 2002 that watching “Sweetback,” was “just like, ‘Wow!’ You’d just never seen anything like it before. . . . You’d never seen a black guy beat up the police and get away.”

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In its defiance of all convention, “Sweetback” served as a lodestar to underfunded but visionary independent moviemakers. It has been cited as an influence on directors as varied as Quentin Tarantino, Warrington Hudlin and Spike Lee, and it awakened studio executives to the commercial might of Black ticket buyers.

An immediate result, much to Mr. Van Peebles’s revulsion, was the “blaxploitation” genre of low-budget, sexed-up, violent action films such as “Super Fly” (1972) and “Foxy Brown” (1974) that removed any political messaging and left the flesh and flash.

‘Political manifesto’

“The formula of ‘Sweetback’ was preempted — taken and perverted and watered down and used in a counterrevolutionary way,” he told Interview magazine. He grumbled that such films, no matter how many Black faces appeared in them, were studio products financed by the White Hollywood establishment.

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“Sweetback,” by contrast, was what he called a “take-no-prisoners political manifesto” made expressly for a Black audience, from the stick-it-to-the-Man imagery to the funky title. “In ‘whitese,’ ” Mr. Van Peebles joked to Newsday, “it would be called ‘The Ballad of the Indomitable Sweetback.’ ”

The film contained a message about the dire state of race relations but also proved a vehicle for graphic sex scenes. Perhaps indulging a storyteller’s penchant for hyperbole, he sa he contracted gonorrhea during one sequence, received directors guild compensation for being “hurt on the job” and used the money to buy enough film to complete the movie.

To critics, Mr. Van Peebles’s reputation teetered on a cultural precipice.

He was hailed by some as a filmmaking pioneer with boundless imagination and dered by others as a misogynist with a shaky camera, odd lighting ­choices and storytelling techniques that were more exuberant than coherent. (He called polished production values the stuff of “technical colonization” imposed by White Hollywood executives.)

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Donald Bogle, a film historian and scholar of the depiction of Black people on-screen, told the Times in 1973 that “Sweetback” was a rejoinder to the long tradition of films in which African American performers were relegated to servile roles or used for comic relief. Their characters, Bogle sa, were devo of sexuality even when — as in the cases of Sney Poitier and Harry Belafonte — they “have the goods.”

“I think that it was Melvin Van Peebles’s great gift, great insight, that he realized the Black mass audience wanted a viable, sexual, assertive, arrogant Black male hero,” Bogle sa. “ ‘Sweetback’ is a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy that fully plays into the needs of the Black mass audience.”

For all the attention that Mr. Van Peebles received, he struggled to parlay his celebrity — or notoriety — into further directorial success. At least one of his films was shelved for lack of interest by distributors, and he was replaced as director of the Richard Pryor film “Greased Lightning” (1977) after clashing with producers.

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“If you’re smart and White, you’re consered a shrewd businessman,” Mr. Van Peebles told the Times. “If you’re Black, you’re consered a militant troublemaker. In the eyes of the Hollywood establishment, I was the character of Sweetback.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Van Peebles had gained recognition for his music, including the 1969 album “Brer Soul,”a collection of jazzy-funk song-poems that some critics have called a precursor to rap. He plowed profits from “Sweetback” into two Broadway musicals for which he wrote the book, music and lyrics: “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” (1971), featuring musical vignettes set in a Black ghetto; and “Don’t Play Us Cheap!” (1972), about a Harlem house party disrupted by the Devil’s minions.

The plays, which drew mixed reviews, earned Tony nominations for best book, and Mr. Van Peebles received a nomination for best original score for “Ain’t Supposed to Die.” With his film prospects at a nadir, he pivoted to writing books and teleplays.

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He also spent about five years working for Wall Street brokerage houses. That unlikely turn came after he made a wager with a friend, a prominent dealer in precious metals, over the return on a real estate deal. Under the terms of the bet, when Mr. Van Peebles lost, he had to go to work as a floor trader. He wrote a primer, “Bold Money: A New Way to Play the Options Market” (1986), in which he likened market speculation to Atlantic City games of chance. Kirkus Reviews called it an “often impudent but prudent text.”

Speaking to Black Enterprise magazine, he explained how Melvin Van Peebles, the cinematic provocateur of the 1970s, could become Melvin Van Peebles, the cigar-smoking, capitalist stock trader of the 1980s.

“The public image is only the tip of the iceberg,” he sa. “The bedrock is my entrepreneurial self. At that level, there’s not really much difference between financing plays and movies and trading on Wall Street.”

Chicago to blue yonder

Melvin Van Peebles — Van was his mdle name at birth — was born on Chicago’s South Se on Aug. 21, 1932, and grew up in the suburb of Phoenix, Ill.

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He sa his father, who owned a tailor shop in a rough neighborhood, put him to work at the store at 10 and taught him to fend for himself on the street, selling unclaimed clothes for a percentage of the profits. His mother, meanwhile, encouraged his burgeoning interest in art history, hoping that he would be the first in the family to attend college.

He received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1953. As a student, he was enrolled in Air Force ROTC, and after graduation, he spent three years as a flight navigator. He married Maria Marx, a White college mate (“I figured someone should get all the dough the Air Force would pay if I died”), and struggled as a painter in Mexico before settling in San Francisco.

He sa airlines wouldn’t hire him for flying jobs, and he supported his family as a trolley gripman. Out of boredom, he spent hours thinking up movie and book eas. As Melvin Van, he wrote an ode to the city’s cable-car system, “The Big Heart” (1957).

After being fired by the transit company — he claimed that his boss dn’t want him to succeed as an author — he wrote, directed and edited two short films and took them to Hollywood. The only offers he received, he sa, involved a mop and a broom.

In 1959, he packed up his family — which included two children, Mario and Megan — and, on the G.I. Bill, enrolled at a university in the Netherlands to study astronomy. He adopted the surname “Van Peebles” to appear Dutch and performed briefly with the Dutch National Theater.

As his marriage and finances disintegrated, he moved alone to Paris and supported himself as a gigolo while contributing to the satirical anarchist magazine Hara-Kiri.

After Mr. Van Peebles learned that the French government had a policy of supporting authors who wanted to film their own work, he wrote novels and applied for a director’s license and the grants that would come with it.

“I knew they really meant a French citizen, but they dn’t call it precise,” he told the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer. “So I sa, ‘I write in French, therefore I am a French writer. Right?’ ”

With a Gallic shrug, a bureaucrat passed him a director’s card, and he turned one of his books, “La Permission,” into his debut feature, “The Story of a Three-Day Pass” (1968), about a bittersweet affair between a Black American soldier (Harry Baird) and a White Frenchwoman (Nicole Berger).

Its jumpy editing , then in vogue among French New Wave directors, helped it become the official French entry at the San Francisco Film Festival. “Three-Day Pass” won support from such influential reviewers as Judith Crist.

“My film became the critics’ choice at the festival, but they dn’t know I was an American, let alone Black, and that created a furor, because there were no Black directors in the States,” Mr. Van Peebles later told the trade publication Billboard.

Mr. Van Peebles landed a contract with Columbia Pictures to direct “Watermelon Man” (1970), a Herman Raucher-written satire about a bigoted White insurance salesman who wakes one morning to find that he is Black. Mr. Van Peebles sa that studio executives wanted a White movie star — such as Jack Lemmon — to play the role in blackface but that he persuaded them to use Black comedian Godfrey Cambrge in whiteface.

“Three-quarters of the film the guy is Black,” he told the Times. “I sa, ‘Let’s have a Black guy in white face.’ Their reaction was, ‘Is that possible?’ The king can play a valet but can the valet play a king? They dn’t understand the racist implication of this question.”

“Watermelon Man” drew scathing reviews for its haphazard blending of rage and puerile comedy. Mr. Van Peebles told The Washington Post that he took the job mainly for the $70,000 compensation, which helped him finance “Sweetback” — a film he could call completely his own after no studio would back it.

As he continued his we-ranging career, Mr. Van Peebles directed the music video for the Whodini song “Funky Beat” (1986). He collected an Emmy for outstanding writing in a children’s special for the CBS drama “The Day They Came to Arrest the Book” (1987), based on Nat Hentoff’s novel about the banning of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” at a high school.

His daughter, Megan Van Peebles, died in 2006. In addition to his son, Mario, survivors include two other children, Max Van Peebles and Marguerite Van Peebles; and 11 grandchildren.

Mr. Van Peebles teamed with Mario to make several films, notably “Panther” (1995), based on Melvin’s novel about the Black Panther Party in Oakland, Calif. And his play “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” has been slated for a revival next year.

Mr. Van Peebles also wrote and narrated the documentary “Classified X” (1998), a rumination on his quest for authenticity in an industry — and a world — where Black consciousness “had been colonized by images of Black humiliation, marginality, subservience, impotence and criminality that are ubiquitous in mainstream American cinema.”

“Sweetback” struck like a lightning bolt, he sa, because it “dn’t owe its allegiance to anything in the past.”

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