Larry Peerce
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Larry Peerce was born in 1930 in Bronx, New York, to the later
Metropolitan Opera tenor Jan Peerce and his
wife, Alice. Peerce's directorial career stretched from 1964 to 2001,
embraced different genres and generated different results.
In the 1960s it seemed as if Peerce would become a major filmmaker. His
first film,
One Potato, Two Potato (1964),
was a sensitively told story about an interracial marriage. It won an
Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for
Orville H. Hampton and
Raphael Hayes, and garnered
Barbara Barrie top acting honors at the
Cannes Film Festival. While toiling on series TV in the mid-'60s,
helming the westerns Branded (1965)
and
The Wild Wild West (1965),
Peerce made a successful rock-and-roll concert film,
The Big T.N.T. Show (1965),
which showcased a lot of talent, including
The Ronettes and producer
Phil Spector. He next made the interesting
The Incident (1967), a film based on
a true story about a pair of teenage toughs terrorizing the riders on a
subway car. The film was rough and gritty, which befitted the story,
marked the screen debut of both
Martin Sheen and
Tony Musante and was
Beau Bridges' introduction to adult
roles.
Peerce seemed poised for the breakthrough to the "big time" with his
film version of Philip Roth's novel,
Goodbye, Columbus (1969), which
was a critical and box-office success. He won a nomination for Best
Director-Motion Pictures from the Directors Guild of America for the
movie, while screenwriter
Arnold Schulman won an Oscar nod for
Best Adapted Screenplay and Ali MacGraw was
launched on her brief career as a superstar.
However, with the change in decades, his talents seemingly floundered.
The Sporting Club (1971) was a
flop with critics and audiences, and his ambitious adaptation of
John Knowles' coming-of-age
novel A Separate Peace (1972)
drifted away without making any impact. He next directed
Elizabeth Taylor in the
cosmetic-surgery potboiler
Ash Wednesday (1973), which faded
as fast as the diva's stalled career.
Turning to made-for-TV movies, Peerce had a success with the adoption
drama
The Stranger Who Looks Like Me (1974),
then had two winners at the box office with
The Other Side of the Mountain (1975)
and its sequel. He next directed a disaster movie about a psychotic
sniper loose in a football stadium,
Two-Minute Warning (1976), one
of the bloodiest movies made up to that time, which was severely edited
when it ran on TV.
He failed when attempting a return to adaptations of memorable books,
with his take on Sylvia Plath's novel
The Bell Jar (1979). He continued to
work in TV movies during the 1980s, but at the end of the decade had a
major flop with his big-screen adaptation of
Bob Woodward's
John Belushi biography
Wired (1989), though it did introduce actor
Michael Chiklis. In the 1990s he stuck
to TV movies, retiring in 2001 after helming
Second Honeymoon (2001).
Metropolitan Opera tenor Jan Peerce and his
wife, Alice. Peerce's directorial career stretched from 1964 to 2001,
embraced different genres and generated different results.
In the 1960s it seemed as if Peerce would become a major filmmaker. His
first film,
One Potato, Two Potato (1964),
was a sensitively told story about an interracial marriage. It won an
Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for
Orville H. Hampton and
Raphael Hayes, and garnered
Barbara Barrie top acting honors at the
Cannes Film Festival. While toiling on series TV in the mid-'60s,
helming the westerns Branded (1965)
and
The Wild Wild West (1965),
Peerce made a successful rock-and-roll concert film,
The Big T.N.T. Show (1965),
which showcased a lot of talent, including
The Ronettes and producer
Phil Spector. He next made the interesting
The Incident (1967), a film based on
a true story about a pair of teenage toughs terrorizing the riders on a
subway car. The film was rough and gritty, which befitted the story,
marked the screen debut of both
Martin Sheen and
Tony Musante and was
Beau Bridges' introduction to adult
roles.
Peerce seemed poised for the breakthrough to the "big time" with his
film version of Philip Roth's novel,
Goodbye, Columbus (1969), which
was a critical and box-office success. He won a nomination for Best
Director-Motion Pictures from the Directors Guild of America for the
movie, while screenwriter
Arnold Schulman won an Oscar nod for
Best Adapted Screenplay and Ali MacGraw was
launched on her brief career as a superstar.
However, with the change in decades, his talents seemingly floundered.
The Sporting Club (1971) was a
flop with critics and audiences, and his ambitious adaptation of
John Knowles' coming-of-age
novel A Separate Peace (1972)
drifted away without making any impact. He next directed
Elizabeth Taylor in the
cosmetic-surgery potboiler
Ash Wednesday (1973), which faded
as fast as the diva's stalled career.
Turning to made-for-TV movies, Peerce had a success with the adoption
drama
The Stranger Who Looks Like Me (1974),
then had two winners at the box office with
The Other Side of the Mountain (1975)
and its sequel. He next directed a disaster movie about a psychotic
sniper loose in a football stadium,
Two-Minute Warning (1976), one
of the bloodiest movies made up to that time, which was severely edited
when it ran on TV.
He failed when attempting a return to adaptations of memorable books,
with his take on Sylvia Plath's novel
The Bell Jar (1979). He continued to
work in TV movies during the 1980s, but at the end of the decade had a
major flop with his big-screen adaptation of
Bob Woodward's
John Belushi biography
Wired (1989), though it did introduce actor
Michael Chiklis. In the 1990s he stuck
to TV movies, retiring in 2001 after helming
Second Honeymoon (2001).