OT: RIP "Easy Rider" -- Peter Fonda
LeatherGryphon
Posts: 12,422
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/peter-fonda-star-easy-rider-dead-79-n1043566
Major influence of my draw to motorcycles. Remembered fondly.
Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
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I hadn't heard this, RIP Easy Rider
R.I.P. Peter. My heart goes out to Jane!
My favorite Peter Fonda role was Mephisto in the first Ghost Rider movie.
R.I.P. Peter. You'll be missed, on and off screen.
I remember watching Easy Rider for the first time on a movie night at, strangely, my high school in the 70s. IDK what the faculty advisor of the AV club was smoking. Anyway, it made a powerful impression on me and my generation. The only other movie of Fonda's that really caught my attention was Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.
Anyway. Farewell to a fine actor.
How about "RIP Ulee"?
I most remember Peter Fonda in "Ulee's Gold", which is def his best movie, where his acting just clicked with Victor Nunez's writing and directing.
Aside from that, go see "Race with the Devil" if you want an an example of what PF could do as an actor in a low-budget film. "Easy Rider"? Aargh! It took the poor guy 30 years to get past the typecasting of that movie, which left him in a cesspool of "yet another Fonda and Hopper Easy Rider clone" faux-counterculture films like "The Trip", low budget chase films like "Dirty Harry, Crazy Mary", and a string of low-budget sci-fi and horror films that had best be forgotten unless you're a true B film addict, like "Nadja", "FutureWorld", and "Spasms".
That was when his career pretty much stalled and his big sister Jane and his dad Henry kept begging producers "please, put Peter in something. Anything."
It might sound weird, but I didn't see "Easy Rider" until around 2010, when I was reading about the making of the amazing "Silent Running". My main reaction was "so what?"
After the low-budget Easy Rider became a hit with a large, but normally untapped, "counterculture" audience, various movie companies analyzed the heck out of it, trying to figure out how to duplicate that success. Universal took the "Five million dollar gamble" and had five (mostly) up-and-coming directors each do a movie with a $1M budget. One producer thought it would be an awesome idea to not only have Peter Fonda star in a movie, but also make his directorial debute. I mean, what could be more counterculture than that? The result was the near-unwatchable "The Hired Hand" (which none of your remember because bad). Fortunately, HH didn't really hurt Universal, because one film in the $5M gamble paid off so big it more than made up for the rest.
The aftermath of that $5M? Don't let Peter Fonda act without a strong director to keep him in line, don't ever let Doug Trumbull direct again but have him do the special effects for anything, and hey, this George Lucas guy shows some promise (along with a few other newcomers who basically were launched by "American Grafitti", like Harrison Ford, Richard "can we get him to change his name" Dryfus, and Ron Howard).
Sad part is that now "The Last Full Measure" is going to be hyped as "Peter Fonda's last movie", overshadowing what I've heard are really strong performances by Christopher Plumber and William Hurt, as well as pushing Peter's "Ulee's Gold" into the background. It's like "On Golden Pond" all over again. That's the film that convinced me the Oscars were a bunch of malarky.
...bugger, another one of my Icons gone.
No thanks. Neither a nice person nor a role model.
I used to like his movies, but I can't separate the actor from the person.