The Chicago-born playwright, musician and movie director was best known for «Sweet Sweetback\u2019s Baadasssss Song!»<\/b>
\nMelvin Van Peebles, the Chicago-born playwright, musician and movie director whose work ushered in the \u201cBlaxploitation\u201d wave of the 1970s and influenced filmmakers long after, has died. He was 89. His family said in a statement that Van Peebles, father of the actor-director Mario Van Peebles, died Tuesday evening at his home in Manhattan. \u201cDad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth?\u201d Mario Van Peebles said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cWe want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer\u2019s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.\u201d Sometimes called the \u201cgodfather of modern Black cinema,\u201d the multitalented Van Peebles wrote numerous books and plays, and recorded several albums \u2014 playing multiple instruments and delivering rap-style lyrics. He later became a successful options trader on the stock market. But he was best known for \u201cSweet Sweetback\u2019s Baadasssss Song!\u201d one of the most influential movies of its time. The low-budget, art-house film, which he wrote, produced, directed, starred in and scored, was the frenzied, hyper-sexual and violent tale of a Black street hustler on the run from police after killing white officers who were beating a Black revolutionary. With its hard-living, tough-talking depiction of life in the ghetto, underscored by a message of empowerment as told from a Black perspective, it set the tone for a genre that turned out dozens of films over the next few years and prompted a debate over whether Blacks were being recognized or exploited. \u201cAll the films about Black people up to now have been told through the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon majority in their rhythms and speech and pace,\u201d Van Peebles told Newsweek in 1971, the year of the film\u2019s release. \u201cI could have called it \u201cThe Ballad of the Indomitable Sweetback.\u201d But I wanted the core audience, the target audience, to know it\u2019s for them,\u201d he told The Associated Press in 2003. \u201cSo I said `Ba-ad Asssss,\u2032 like you really say it.\u201d Made for around $500,000 (including $50,000 provided by Bill Cosby), it grossed $14 million at the box office despite an X-rating, limited distribution and mixed critical reviews. The New York Times, for example, accused Van Peebles of merchandizing injustice and called the film \u201can outrage.\u201d But in the wake of the its success, Hollywood realized an untapped audience and began churning out such box office hits as \u201cShaft\u201d and \u201cSuperfly\u201d that were also known for bringing in such top musicians as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gave and Isaac Hayes to work on the soundtracks. Many of Hollywood\u2019s versions were exaggerated crime dramas, replete with pimps and drug dealers, which drew heavy criticism in both the white and Black press. \u201cWhat Hollywood did \u2014 they suppressed the political message, added caricature \u2014 and Blaxploitation was born,\u201d Van Peebles said in 2002. \u201cThe colored intelligentsia were not too happy about it.\u201d In fact, civil rights groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congress of Racial Equality coined the phrase \u201cblaxploitation\u201d and formed the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Among the genre\u2019s 21st century fans was Quentin Tarantino, whose Oscar-nominated \u201cDjango Unchained\u201d was openly influenced by Blaxploitation films and Spaghetti Westerns. After his initial success, Van Peebles was bombarded with directing offers, but he chose to maintain his independence. \u201cI\u2019ll only work with them on my terms,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve whipped the man\u2019s ass on his own turf. I\u2019m number one at the box office \u2014 which is the way America measures things \u2014 and I did it on my own. Now they want me, but I\u2019m in no hurry.\u201d Van Peebles then got involved on Broadway, writing and producing several plays and musicals like the Tony-nominated \u201cAin\u2019t Supposed to Die a Natural Death\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Play Us Cheap.\u201d He later wrote the movie \u201cGreased Lighting\u201d starring Richard Pryor as Wendell Scott, the first black race car driver. In the 1980s, Van Peebles turned to Wall Street and options trading. He wrote a financial self-help guide entitled \u201cBold Money: A New Way to Play the Options Market.\u201d Born Melvin Peebles in Chicago on Aug.21,1932, he would later add \u201cVan\u201d to his name. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1953 and joined the Air Force, serving as a navigator for three years. After military service, he moved to Mexico and worked as a portrait painter, followed by a move to San Francisco, where he started writing short stories and making short films. Van Peebles soon went to Hollywood, but he was only offered a job as a studio elevator operator. Disappointed, he moved to Holland to take graduate courses in astronomy while also studying at the Dutch National Theatre. Eventually he gave up his studies and moved to Paris, where he learned he could join the French directors\u2019 guild if he adapted his own work written in French. He quickly taught himself the language and wrote several novels. One he made into a feature film. \u201cLa Permission\/The Story of the Three Day Pass,\u201d was the story of an affair between a black U.S. soldier and a French woman. It won the critic\u2019s choice award at the San Francisco film festival in 1967, and gained Van Peebles Hollywood\u2019s attention. The following year, he was hired to direct and write the score for \u201cWatermelon Man,\u201d the tale of a white bigot (played by comic Godfey Cambridge in white face) who wakes up one day as a black man. With money earned from the project, Van Peebles went to work on \u201cSweet Sweetback\u2019s Baadasssss Song!\u201d Peebles\u2019 death came just days before the New York Film Festival is to celebrate him with a 50th anniversary of \u201cSweet Sweetback\u2019s Baadasssss Song.\u201d Next week, the Criterion Collection is to release the box set \u201cMelvin Van Peebles: Essential Films.\u201d A revival of his play \u201cAin\u2019t Supposed to Die a Natural Death\u201d is also planned to hit Broadway next year, with Mario Van Peebles serving as creative producer.<\/p>\n