Robert Altman, the innovative American director whose influential work during the 1970s resulted in one of cinema's most impressive portfolios, and who was finally awarded with an honorary Oscar for his artistry earlier this year, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of cancer on November 20. He was 81.
He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 20, 1925. The son of an insurance salesman, Altman spent some time in both parochial and public schools before being transferred to Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri, when he was 15. His academic studies were interrupted by World War II when he enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1944, and became a B-24 co-pilot during the last remaining months of the war. After the war, Altman took a chance in Hollywood, where he struggled as an actor and writer, although one of his scripts, The Bodyguard (1948), became a tough, serviceable film noir vehicle for Lawrence Tierney.
By 1950, with his first experience in Hollywood a disappointment and a family to support, Altman made the trek back to St. Louis and found work with the Calvin Company, which was then one of the nation's leading industrial film production companies. He started out writing scripts, but within a few months, he was directing a series of instructional shorts such as Modern Football (1951) and The Sound of Bells(1952). It would be here that Altman cut his teeth on the craft of filmmaking, handling several aspects, writing, editing, camerawork, lighting and set design that would serve him well for the rest of his career.
Altman would take a stab at his first narrative feature when he wrote and directed The Delinquents (1957), a low-budget film starring Tom Laughlin (later of Billy Jack fame). Although hardly a classic, there was a technique in his editing and a shrewdness of pacing that elevated the film beyond the other "youth gone wild" drive-in flicks that were in abundance around the time. Better still, (as legend has it) the film was viewed by Alfred Hitchcock, who recommended Altman for a job on his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Once back in Hollywood, he worked on several hit shows: “Maverick,” “Peter Gunn,” “Route 66,” “Bonanza” and nearly a dozen episodes of the classic war series “Combat!.”
Eventually, Altman began directing for the big screen. Both Countdown (1968), a drama inspired by the NASA space program starring James Caan, and the eerie psychodrama That Cold Day in the Park (1969) with Sandy Dennis went virtually unnoticed by audiences and critics, but he moved to the front ranks with M.A.S.H. (1970). This caustically funny satire about a surgical unit on the front lines during the Korean War was not only a box-office smash (no doubt due to its timely anti-establishment tone during the height of the Vietnam War); but won the top prize at Cannes, an Oscar nomination for Altman, and made stars out of Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland. Yet most importantly, from a critical standpoint, it displayed techniques that Altman would use in his later films that owed little to prevailing film styles: multiple narratives, a lingering camera that "eavesdrops" on the principles, overlapping dialogue, and great ensemble acting.
Over the next few years, Altman made some of the strongest films that were bold in their thematic experimentation, commentary on American society, and, most stunningly, culled some outstanding performances from a whole new generation of actors. Perhaps being a former actor himself, Altman had always publicly stressed his fondness of actors - and the proof of his collaborative effort with them was clearly forthcoming: Bud Cort's whimsical desire to fly in the Houston Astrodome in Brewster McCloud (1970); the modern, revisionist western McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie; the painfully haunting desires of Keith Carradine and Shelly Duvall in the wonderful period piece Thieves Like Us (1974); the superb ensemble performances (most notably Carradine and Lily Tomlin) in the rambling but always intriguing Nashville (1975, his second Oscar nomination); and his brilliant character study regarding three disparate women as conveyed through the extraordinary performances by Sissy Spacek, Shelly Duvall and Janice Rule Three Women (1977).
Unfortunately, Altman's career did have some low points. Quintet (1979) and Health (1980) were hampered by unfocused and pretentious scripts. Popeye (1980) with Robin Williams was a critical and commercial disaster, and his later output, Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), Fool For Love (1985), and Beyond Therapy (1987) did little to further his career.
His one bright spot in the '80s was the HBO mini-series “Tanner '88” in 1988, a political satire written by Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury) that traced the steps of a fictional Democratic candidate (Michael Murphy). Sharp and pointed, it proved that Altman still had talent to burn. True enough, he scored a huge coupe when he brought Michael Tolkin's bitter, unrelentingly dark tale of Hollywood greed and paranoia to the screen in The Player (1992) with Tom Robbins and Greta Scacchi. It opened Altman up to a whole new generation of film fans, earned him his third Oscar nomination, and encouraged him to take chances again. His next film, a character-driven, multi-layered story based on the writings of Raymond Carver, Short Cuts (1993), was a critical sensation and earned Altman his Fourth Oscar nod.
His work faltered after a while, as even the staunchest Altman fans agreed that Ready to Wear (1994), Kansas City (1996), The Gingerbread Man (1998), and Dr. T and the Women (2000) were flawed works. Yet Altman made a comeback of sorts with the quaint mystery tale Gosford Park (2001). He earned his final Oscar nomination for that one, and his following projects - such as The Company (2003), Tanner on Tanner (2004) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006) were captivating movies that, while not amongst his finest work, proved few could match him for scope, motivation and intent when it came to directing a large ensemble cast with wit and vigour.
Although he never won in five Academy Award nominations for Best Director, he was compensated with an honorary Oscar earlier this year. Ever the adventurer, Altman made his London theatrical debut earlier this spring, directing Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues at the Old Vic under artistic director Kevin Spacey. It wasn't a critical success, but no one could ever deny that Altman wasn't game for anything. He is survived by his wife, Kathryn; sons, Michael, Stephen, Robert and Matthew; daughters Christine and Connie; 12 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
