*Kevin Costner, Robert Redford, Richard Attenborough, Warren Beatty, Mel Gibson, Ron Howard.*All started as actors before moving to the director's chair.
*All have Oscars for Best Director.
*None are considered among the all-time directing greats, though some have done some very good work (Reds, Quiz Show).
Sam Peckinpah started as an actor as well, in bit parts and small roles (Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956, Chain of Evidence 1957) and is considered among the all-time greats. He has no Oscar for Directing. He has not even one nomination. He was nominated for screenplay, once, for The Wild Bunch. That's it. Say what you will about the above mentioned directors, good or bad, but none of them is Peckinpah. In fact, nobody else was Peckinpah, ever.
In a previous Oscar post I wrote about The Wild Bunch,
"If Bonnie and Clyde brought violence to the forefront of American cinema,Peckinpah made it the centerpiece. With the final barrage of gunfire and bodies upon bodies piling up as William Holden goes through belt after belt of machine gun ammo before being hit multiple times himself (and all done in slow motion), Peckinpah devised violence as an artistic set-piece, not merely action to move the plot along but in many ways becoming the plot itself. Hollywood being Hollywood, within two years every innovation in The Wild Bunch (The beginning walk, the intermittent freeze frames of the opening credits, the slow motion,the massive gun battle) was cliche and Peckinpah the innovator never got as much credit as he deserved."
The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid - It's not just an impressive list, it's a formidable one. Peckinpah died too young 
at the age of 59 before the Academy could even think to give him a lifetime achievement award. Not that that would have mattered one lick to him. It was the movies, and changing them and challenging their limits that he cared about. Pauline Kael once wrote, "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah explodes the bottle." Then everyone picked up the broken shards and started making them the same way themselves.
He was also known as an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He lived a hard life (Ida Lupino hired him after she discovered him sleeping in a shack behind her property) and didn't mince words. After Pauline Kael wrote that he was condoning rape in the film Straw Dogs, he remarked, "she's cracking walnuts with her ass." I don't know what that means exactly, but it sounds good.
Sam Peckinpah died twenty-three years ago on December 28, 1984. He never got his richly deserved Oscar. He probably never wanted it. He's in damn good company.
