Later Career
The year 1973 marked the beginning of the most difficult period of Peckinpah's life and career. While still filming The Getaway in El Paso, Texas, Peckinpah sneaked across the border into Juarez in April 1972 and married Joie Gould. He had met Gould in England while filming Straw Dogs, and she had since been his companion and a part-time crew member. Peckinpah's intake of alcohol had increased dramatically while making The Getaway, and he became fond of saying, "I can't direct when I'm sober." He began to have violent mood swings and explosions of rage, at one point assaulting Gould. After four months, she returned to England and filed for divorce. Devastated by the breakup, Peckinpah fell into a self-destructive pattern of almost continuous alcohol consumption, and his health was unstable for the remainder of his life.
Read more about this topic: Sam Peckinpah
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)