Budd Boetticher
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. ( BET-i-ker; July 29, 1916 in Chicago – November 29, 2001 in Ramona, California) was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.
Early life
Boetticher was born in Chicago, raised in Evansville in southwest Indiana, and was a star athlete at Ohio State University. After college he traveled to Mexico, where he learned the art of bullfighting. A chance encounter with Rouben Mamoulian landed him his first film job, as technical advisor on Blood and Sand (1941). He got his first big break when he was asked to direct The Bullfighter and the Lady for John Wayne's production company, Batjac, based loosely on his own adventures studying to be a matador in Mexico. He was proud enough of the film that it was the first he signed as "Budd Boetticher," rather than his given name, and it earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Story. But the film was edited drastically without his consent, and his career again seemed on hold. (The film has since been restored by the UCLA Film Archive and the restored print is sometimes referred to by its working title, Torero.)
