Remembering Bob Rafelson

 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine seems a strange place to find an appreciation of Bob Rafelson, but that is what you get with The Rebel: Moviemaker Bob Rafelson ’54 shook up Hollywood and gave us some of its greatest stars—not to mention a band called The Monkees.

I grew up with the first run of The Monkees. I never would have connected them with Five Easy Pieces, but here it is:

Still, it’s safe to say that during his decades in the entertainment industry, Rafelson revolutionized the movies, at least for a while. With partner Bert Schneider of Raybert Productions—later to become BBS Productions, named for the first initials of its three members, the other two being Schneider and Steve Blauner—Rafelson turned over the staid Hollywood apple cart and injected films with the rebellious fervor of 1960s youth culture. The team produced Easy Rider (1969, directed by Dennis Hopper) and The Last Picture Show (1971, directed by Peter Bogdanovich), two movies that demolished on-screen taboos about drugs, language, and nudity, proving to the studio old guard that they had no idea what was happening here.

Without Rafelson, we wouldn’t have Nicholson as we know him. Nearing 30, the actor still hadn’t broken out of B-movies and was ready to pack it in when he was befriended by the director, who told his then-wife, Toby, “I’m going to make that guy a star.” The small but crucial role of a doomed alcoholic Southern lawyer in Easy Rider brought Nicholson overnight fame when the film conquered the Cannes Film Festival. Nicholson repaid the favor by playing Bobby Dupea in the Rafelson-directed Five Easy Pieces, one of the smartest and saddest movies ever made in this country.

Oh, and did I mention that it was Rafelson and Schneider who, in the wake of the Beatles’ success with A Hard Day’s Night, came up with the idea to build a TV sitcom around an invented pop group? Hey, hey, it was The Monkees, an instant smash on both NBC and the record charts, despite cultural gatekeepers turning up their noses at the band they dubbed “The Pre-Fab Four.” “My lasting memory of Bob from those heady days,” says Micky Dolenz, the sole surviving member of the quartet, “is being in the presence of an exceptionally powerful creative force.” 

sch 3/29