Happy Birthday, Melvin Van Peebles, Writer, Director and Actor

Melvin Van Peebles was born in Chicago on August 21, 1932. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University before taking off to travel in Europe, Mexico and the United States. He used his freedom to full advantage, working as a painter, postal worker and street performer after serving in the Air Force. Van Peebles also spent time living in Paris, where he wrote several novels, one of which, “La Permission,” later became his first film, “The Story of the Three Day Pass.”

Van Peebles’ Hollywood directorial debut was the 1970 comedy “Watermelon Man,” a film exploring “the many sides of racism,” with the story of a white, middle-class bigot who turns into a black man overnight.

Time magazine named Van Peebles’ 1971 film, “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” in which he also starred, the most influential movie by a black filmmaker. The magazine recognized the film for its originality, creating a shift in the direction of black films “from liberal to anarchist, from uplifting message movies to fables of ghetto smarts and stickin’ it to the man”; and for becoming an “out-of-nowhere” hit, earning close to $20 million despite having been made on just $50,000 of Van Peebles’ own money. Time also credits “Sweet Sweetback” with giving way to the blaxploitation genre, which spawned films like “Dolemite” and “Jackie Brown.”

In a February 2007 interview with Philadelphia Weekly, Van Peebles discussed the release of a documentary about his life called “How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It).” Despite the heightened attention on his work and talents, Van Peebles said he did not feel that Hollywood was more receptive to his ideas. “Well, I’m always doing something new, but under exactly the same conditions as before. Nobody will come in to help,” he said.

In its profile of Van Peebles, The New York Times touches on the filmmaker’s “renaissance man” status in Hollywood. “He not only produced, directed, wrote and starred in ‘Sweet Sweetback,’ but also edited and scored the film,” wrote the Times.

Van Peebles’ work is still making waves. The theatrical production of his work, “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death,” was staged outdoors by the Classical Theater of Harlem in August 2008. Featuring “pimps and whores and crooked cops,” the show is contrasted with the popular production of “Hair” that went on in Central Park in summer 2008, and showcased Van Peebles’ all-around talents. He was responsible for the book, music and lyrics for the play. The Times said the “lively” show is “short on plot and traditional songs, but long on innovation.”

The Washington Post sums up Van Peebles’ innovation this way: “He just looked at the world around him … and if he didn’t find what he was looking for—whether in art, journalism, literature, film, theater, music or commerce—he just made it up.” 

Watch a July 2008 interview with Van Peebles, in which he discusses what it’s like to be the self-proclaimed “Rosa Parks of modern black cinema.”

Van Peebles’ son, actor and director Mario Van Peebles, followed in his father’s footsteps with his feature film debut 1991. “New Jack City,” a hip-hop inspired cop movie, was “a moral film,” despite being violent. The younger Van Peebles said the question for him when starting the movie was not whether he could make a hit, but whether he could make “a hit movie with a message.” The film also spawned a wave of black leading men. “Up to that time we were still playing the comedic guy or the best friend,” said Mario Van Peebles.