Robert Altman Born February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City Earned his first screen credit in 1948, at the age of twenty-three, when he co-authored the story for the B-movie 'Bodyguard' He was given his first directoral break by Alfred Hitchcock. From here he went on to direct a large number of television shows, until he was offered the script for MASH (1970) in 1969. He was hardly the producer's first choice - more than fifteen other directors had already turned it down.

"M*A*S*H was a pretty good movie. It wasn't what 20th Century Fox thought it was going to be. They almost, when they saw it, cut all the operations, and all the blood out. I fought with my life for that. The picture speaks for itself. It became popular, because of the timing [in relation to Vietnam]. Consequently, it's considered important, but it's no better or more important than any of the other films I've made."

"I don't approve of that [M*A*S*H TV] series. It made a billion dollars, and that's not a misquote or an exaggeration, for 20th Century Fox. It actually saved the studio, for whoever had it then. But to me it was reprehensible. It was not the intention of M*A*S*H [the film] to put an Asian war in our homes every Sunday in which, no matter what platitudes the characters said, the brown-skinned guy was still the enemy. It was the worst commercialism, capitalizing on propaganda. Really, a racist thing. I didn't like the series; I never saw one of those episodes all the way through, anyway."

Filmography 1997 Afterglow 1996 Kansas City 1994 Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle 1994 Pret-a-Porter 1993 Short Cuts 1992 The Player 1990 Vincent and Theo 1987 Beyond Therapy 1987 O.C. and Stiggs 1985 Fool For Love 1985 Jatszani Kell 1984 Secret Honor 1983 Streamers 1982 Come Back To the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean 1980 Popeye 1980 H.E.A.L.T.H 1979 Quintet 1979 A Perfect Couple 1978 A Wedding 1977 3 Women 1976 Buffalo Bill and the Indians 1976 Nashville 1974 California Split 1974 Thieves Like Us 1973 The Long Goodbye 1972 Images 1971 McCabe and Mrs. Miller 1970 Brewster McCloud 1970 M*A*S*H 1969 That Cold Day in the Park 1968 Countdown 1957 The James Dean Story 1957 The Delinquints