Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles was an American actor, filmmaker, writer, and composer. He worked as an active filmmaker into the 2000s. His feature film debut, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967), was based on his own French-language novel La Permission and was shot in France, as it was difficult for a black American director to get work at the time. The film won an award at the San Francisco International Film Festival which gained him the interest of Hollywood studios, leading to his American feature debut Watermelon Man, in 1970. Eschewing further overtures from Hollywood, he used the successes he had so far to bankroll his work as an independent filmmaker.

21 August 1932

Born on the same birth date (21 August 1932): Menashe Kadishman

Born on the same birth day (21 August): Afonso VI of Portugal • Aleix Vidal • Angel Karaliychev • B. J. Upton • Carrie-Anne Moss • Diego Klattenhoff • Janet Baker • Jean Stas • Laura Trevelyan • Loretta Devine • Matteo Gentili • Neil Dexter • Philip II of France • Ruth Manning-Sanders • Simon Katich • Thomas S. Monson • Tyler Winklevoss • Usain Bolt • William Murdoch

Born in the same month (August 1932): Abby Dalton • Abebe Bikila • Allan Fotheringham • Anatoly Kartashov (cosmonaut) • Cormac Murphy-O'Connor • Fernando Arrabal • Frances Allen • Gaudencio Rosales • Jean-Jacques Sempé • Johan Steyn, Baron Steyn • John Gomery • Liang Congjie • Luc Montagnier • Menashe Kadishman • Roy Castle • Tam Dalyell • Thomas P. Salmon • V. S. Naipaul • Vladimir Fedoseyev