Oscar-Nominated Director Bob Rafelson Passes Away At 89

Bob Rafelson is well-known classic movie “Five Easy Pieces” which received an Oscar nomination. Along with his several projects with actor Jack Nicholson, Rafelson is most known for co-creating The Monkees and their self-titled TV series with his producing partner Bert Schneider. Rafelson has sadly passed away at the age of 89.

According to Deadline, the director passed away at his Aspen, Colorado, home from natural causes. Rafelson started his career as a story editor for television plays in the 1950s, and by the beginning of the 1960s, he had advanced to producing. He met Bert Schneider in the middle of the decade, and together with Schneider’s friend Stephen Blauner, they founded BBS Productions.

The Monkees was the company’s first TV program, and Rafelson later claimed that he had thought of the concept for a show about a rock band even before the publication of A Hard Day’s Night or even before The Beatles were born. He and Schneider founded the band that would later be known as The Monkees in order for them to star on the series of the same name, which lasted from 1966 to 1968, after failing to attract existing rock bands.

The Monkees starred in the 1968 BBS production Head, which had a goofy, surreal aesthetic that was influenced by European art movies. The director collaborated once more with Nicholson on the films Man Trouble (1992), a gloomy romantic comedy with Ellen Barkin, and Blood And Wine (1996), a neo-noir criminal drama with Jennifer Lopez and Michael Caine.

With his final film, the 2002 crime thriller No Good Deed, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Milla Jovovich, Rafelson said goodbye to the movie business. His sons Ethan and Harper, whom he had with his ex-wife Gabrielle, confirmed his death, are still alive. Along with a nephew, Rafelson is also survived by his daughter-in-law, Karen. RIP.

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