Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles
Van Peebles in December 2015
Born	Melvin Peebles (1932-08-21) August 21, 1932 (age 84) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Other names	Brer Soul, Block
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, composer
Years active	1955–present
Spouse(s)	Maria Marx
Children	Mario

Melvin "Block"Van Peebles (born August 21, 1932) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.

He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African-American focused films. He is the father of actor and director Mario Van Peebles.

Born Melvin Peebles, in Chicago, Illinois, to a black tailor, he joined the Air Force in 1954, thirteen days after graduating with a B.A. in literature from Ohio Wesleyan University, staying for three and a half years in the Force. He married the German actress and photographer, Maria Marx. They lived in Mexico for a brief period, where he painted portraits, before coming back to the United States, where he started driving cable cars in San Francisco.

Melvin Van Peebles began writing about his experiences as a cable car driver. Van Peebles' first book, The Big Heart, evolved from a small article and series of photographs

According to Van Peebles, a passenger suggested that he should become a filmmaker. Van Peebles shot his first short film, Pickup Men for Herrick in 1957, and made two more short films during the same period. About these films, Van Peebles says: "I thought they were features. Each one turned out to be eleven minutes long. I was trying to do features. I knew nothing." As he learned more about the filmmaking process, he found out that "I could make a feature for five hundred dollars. That was the cost of ninety minutes of film. I didn't know a thing about shooting a film sixteen to one or ten to one or none of that shit. Then I forgot you had to develop film. And I didn't know you needed a work print. All I can say is that after I did one thing he would say, 'Well, aren't you gonna put sound on it?' and I would go, 'Oh shit!' That's all I could say."

After Peebles completed his first short films, he took them with him to Hollywood to try to find work, but was unable to find anyone who wanted to hire him as a director. In New York City, he met a man who saw his films and wanted to screen them in France. In 1959 the family went to the Netherlands, where he worked for the Dutch National Theater. In the Netherlands, Peebles added the "Van" to his name. The marriage dissolved, his wife and children went back to America, and Peebles was invited to Paris by Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, on the strength of his short films. He learned French, and was hired to translate Mad magazine into French. He began to write plays in French, utilizing the sprechgesang form of songwriting, where the lyrics were spoken over the music. This style carried over to Van Peebles' debut album, Brer Soul.