1. Robert Jay Rafelson was an American film director, writer and producer.
26 Facts About Bob Rafelson
2.
Bob Rafelson is regarded as one of the key figures in the founding of the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s.
3.
Bob Rafelson was one of the creators of the pop group and TV series The Monkees with BBS partner Bert Schneider.
4.
Robert Jay Bob Rafelson was born in Manhattan on February 21,1933 to a Jewish family, the son of Marjorie and Sydney Bob Rafelson, a hat ribbon manufacturer.
5.
Bob Rafelson attended the Trinity-Pawling School, a boarding school in Pawling, New York, from which he graduated in 1950.
6.
Bob Rafelson began dating Toby Carr in high school and they later married in the mid-1950s.
7.
The couple had two children: Peter Bob Rafelson, born in 1960, and Julie Bob Rafelson, born in 1962.
8.
Toby Bob Rafelson was a production designer on many films, including her husband's Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, and Stay Hungry, as well as Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard.
9.
Bob Rafelson's job required him to read hundreds of plays, select which were to be produced, and write some additional dialogue uncredited.
10.
Bob Rafelson's first writing credits were for an episode of the TV series The Witness in 1960 and an episode of the series The Greatest Show on Earth in 1963.
11.
In 1965, while working at Screen Gems, Bob Rafelson met fellow producer Bert Schneider.
12.
Bob Rafelson and Schneider's first project was a television series about a rock 'n' roll group.
13.
Bob Rafelson said that the idea for the show, which was inspired by his own misadventures while playing in a band in Mexico, predated A Hard Day's Night.
14.
Bob Rafelson wanted to do Hearts and Minds [the 1974 documentary about the Vietnam war].
15.
Bob Rafelson then spent more than a year researching a film that would never be made about the slave trade in Africa.
16.
In 1978, Bob Rafelson began production on the film Brubaker, starring Robert Redford, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Alexander and Morgan Freeman.
17.
Bob Rafelson had spent several days at a top security prison to research the film.
18.
Bob Rafelson was fired from the film after just ten days of shooting.
19.
Bob Rafelson filed a breach-of-contract and slander lawsuit in May 1979 asking for damages of $10 million, claiming that 20th Century Fox had assured him that he would have complete autonomy and creative control and had made statements that implied that he was incompetent, emotionally unstable, and not qualified to direct a major motion picture.
20.
In 1987, Bob Rafelson directed Black Widow, starring Debra Winger and Theresa Russell, and written by Ronald Bass.
21.
Bob Rafelson again teamed up with Nicholson in 1992 for their fifth collaboration, and were joined by Five Easy Pieces screenwriter Carole Eastman, for the film Man Trouble.
22.
Bob Rafelson has been honored at numerous international film festivals, including in Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Greece, Japan, Serbia and Turkey, and has given many masterclasses.
23.
Bob Rafelson contributed commentaries or interviews to the DVD or Blu-ray releases of Head, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, Stay Hungry, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Blood and Wine.
24.
Bob Rafelson has contributed essays to the Los Angeles Times Magazine and John Brockman's collection The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years.
25.
Shortly after that Toby Bob Rafelson was diagnosed with cancer, but eventually recovered.
26.
Bob Rafelson died from lung cancer at his home in Aspen, Colorado on July 23,2022 at the age of 89.