Mitchell Zuckoff is a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is the author of three previous books, most recently Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of A Financial Legend. As a reporter with The Boston Globe, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and the recipient of numerous national writing awards.

Act I: 1925-1969
1. Kansas City
2. Into the River
3. 307th Bomb Group
4. Making Pictures
5. The Calvin Company
6. The Delinquents
7. California
8. Kathryn
9. Cheese
10. No Milk
11. Countdown

Act II: 1970-1980
12. M*A*S*H
13. After M*A*S*H
14. McCabe
15. Fatherhood I
16. Mirrors
17. Split, California
18. Nashville
19. Diamond Cutter
20. Active Verbs
21. Scotty
22. Popeye

Act III: 1981-2006
23. The Wilderness
24. "I Made This"
25. The Player
26. Short Cuts
27. Heart in a Cooler
28. Mr. A and the Women
29. Home Stretch
30. Fatherhood II
31. Boots On
32. Not a Tragedy

A Note on Methods
Cast of Characters
Filmography
Awards and Honors
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Index

Cast of Characters

The following are brief, Altman-centric biographies of people whose interviews are included in this book. Not included are journalists, reviewers, authors, and others whose writings and comments are excerpted throughout.

Jane Adams is an actress who played Junior League do-gooder Nettie Bolt in Kansas City and director Emily Shapiro in Robert Altman's stage production of Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues.

Lou Adler is a legendary music producer who coproduced the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival. The documentary of the event led him into the film business and to his role as producer of Brewster McCloud.

Anouk Aimée is an award-winning French film actress who became an international star from her role in A Man and a Woman, directed by Claude Lelouch. She played the character Simone Lowenthal in Prêt-à-Porter.

Christine Altman is Robert Altman's eldest child. Her mother is the late LaVonne Elmer, Robert Altman's first wife, to whom he was married from 1946 to 1949.

John Altman is a first cousin of Robert Altman. His father, Frank Altman, was the brother of Robert Altman's father, Bernard "B.C." Altman. He is a filmmaker in Kansas City.

Kathryn Reed Altman is the third wife and widow of Robert Altman. They met in 1959 when he was directing an episode of the television series Whirlybirds, and were married soon after. She is the mother of two of his sons, Robert Reed Altman and Matthew Altman, and his stepdaughter, Konni Corriere.

Matthew Altman is the fourth son of Robert Altman. He was adopted as an infant. He worked on several of his father's movies as a crew member or in the art department as a set dresser, and appeared uncredited in Thieves Like Us, as "boy getting free soda."

Michael Altman is the eldest son of Robert Altman. His mother is Lotus Corelli Altman Monroe. At fourteen, he wrote the lyrics to the theme song from M*A*S*H, "Suicide Is Painless." He is a film projectionist in Los Angeles.

Robert Altman was born in Kansas City on February 20, 1925, and died in Los Angeles on November 20, 2006. His motto was "Giggle and give in."

Robert Reed Altman is the third son of Robert Altman. He began working with his father on Nashville, worked on a half dozen of his father's movies as a camera operator, and was director of photography on Tanner on Tanner. He has also been a camera operator on television series including Lost, The O.C., The Wonder Years, and Chuck.

Stephen Altman is the second son of Robert Altman. His mother is Lotus Corelli Altman Monroe. He was the production designer on more than a dozen of his father's movies and television projects, including The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park, and worked on a dozen others in the art or editorial departments.

Paul Thomas Anderson credits the films of Robert Altman with helping him to learn to be a director. Anderson served as the standby director for insurance purposes on Altman's last film, A Prairie Home Companion.

Anne Archer appeared in Short Cuts as Claire Kane, a woman horrified to learn that her husband left a young woman's body in a river while he fished with his buddies.

Wren Arthur worked as an assistant to Robert Altman in the late 1990s and rose to the position of producer on Tanner on Tanner and A Prairie Home Companion. She acted in Dr. T & the Women as a member of the doctor's staff.

Josh Astrachan was associate producer of Dr. T & the Women, coproducer of Gosford Park, and a producer of The Company and A Prairie Home Companion.

René Auberjonois appeared as sweet-natured Father "Dago Red" Mulcahy in M*A*S*H, the man-turning-into-a-bird character called the Lecturer in Brewster McCloud, the bar owner/busybody Sheehan in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the unfaithful husband Hugh in Images, and as himself in The Player.

Lauren Bacall played presidential candidate Esther Brill in HealtH and fashion doyenne Slim Chrysler in Prêt-à-Porter. The name Slim was a nod to her role as Marie "Slim" Browning opposite Humphrey Bogart in the 1944 Howard Hawks film To Have and Have Not.

Reza Badiyi was Robert Altman's intern and protégé at the Calvin Company and rose to a career as a television director on dozens of shows, including Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, Cagney & Lacey, Falcon Crest, and Baywatch.

Richard Bakalyan is a veteran character actor who played gang leader Eddy in The Delinquents.

Bob Balaban is an actor, writer, producer, and director. He produced Gosford Park and played the role of the American film producer Morris Weissman.

Frank W. Barhydt met Robert Altman as a boy when Altman was working for Barhydt's father at the Calvin Company. Barhydt cowrote the screenplays for Quintet, HealtH, Short Cuts, and Kansas City, and had acting roles in Tanner '88 and The Player.

Sue Barton was the publicist on Nashville and appears as herself in the scene where Elliott Gould drops by.

Richard Baskin was music supervisor on Nashville and played the role of the studio musician Frog. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Original Score. He was also a composer for Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson.

Warren Beatty had already been nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Picture, as producer, for Bonnie and Clyde, when he played doomed entrepreneur John McCabe in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Harry Belafonte played himself in The Player, Prêt-à-Porter, and Tanner on Tanner, and the gangster Seldom Seen in Kansas City, for which he won a New York Film Critics Circle Award. He and Robert Altman worked for years on an unfinished project on blackface, tentatively called Cork. When asked by Vanity Fair magazine to name the living person he most admired, Altman said, "Harry Belafonte."

Robert Benton is a writer and director whose 1977 film The Late Show, starring Lily Tomlin and Art Carney, was produced by Robert Altman at Lion's Gate Films.

Robert Blees produced the infamous Bus Stop episode directed by Robert Altman and starring Fabian, and also produced episodes of Combat! directed by Altman.

Jim Bouton was a pitcher for the New York Yankees who made an indelible mark on baseball with his book Ball Four. He played Terry Lennox in The Long Goodbye.

Kenneth Branagh starred as hotshot lawyer Rick Magruder in The Gingerbread Man.

Denise Breton met Robert Altman when she was the European publicist for M*A*S*H. She remained his European publicist, as well as being a friend and supporter, for the rest of his life.

David Brown was an executive at Twentieth Century Fox during the making of M*A*S*H, after which he formed a production company with Richard Zanuck. After that partnership disbanded, he was a producer on The Player.

Carol Burnett played mother-of-the-bride Katherine "Tulip" Brenner in A Wedding, presidential adviser Gloria Burbank in HealtH, and schoolteacher Alberta Johnson in the television production The Laundromat.

Bill Bushnell was the first managing director of the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where Robert Altman found several actors for M*A*S*H. Bushnell introduced Robert Altman to the play Secret Honor, and also to his wife, Scotty Bushnell, who subsequently became Bushnell's ex-wife and Altman's longtime producer.

James Caan starred as the lunar astronaut Lee Stegler in Countdown.

Neve Campbell produced and starred in The Company, playing the poised for-greatness ballet dancer Loretta "Ry" Ryan.

Keith Carradine played the naïve, doomed Cowboy in McCabe & Mrs. Miller; starred as the naïve, doomed bank robber Bowie in Thieves Like Us; and played a conflicted lothario, pop star Tom Frank, in Nashville. His song "I'm Easy" won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Geraldine Chaplin played the impostor BBC correspondent Opal in Nashville; sharpshooter Annie Oakley in Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson; and wedding-planner-with-a-secret Rita Billingsley in A Wedding.

Cher played sharp-tongued waitress Sissy in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. She played herself in The Player and Prêt-à-Porter.

Julie Christie starred as the canny whorehouse madam Constance Miller in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She appeared as herself in a cameo in Nashville.

Graeme Clifford was assistant director on That Cold Day in the Park, casting director on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, an assistant on M*A*S*H, and editor of Images. He later became a director in his own right, with credits including Frances.

Leonard Cohen wrote "The Stranger Song," "Sisters of Mercy," and "Winter Lady," which together created the haunting score for McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Sam Cohn was Robert Altman's agent off and on for large portions of his career.
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