UWEN, NATHAN, Playwright.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (biographical drama, 62 pp., 1970). Pub. by New Dimen-
sions, New York, 1970; distributed by the Chatham Bookseller, Chatham, NJ.

VAN PEEBLES, MELVIN (1932- ) , Actor, director, novelist, short-story
writer, screenwriter, filmmaker, composer, singer, producer, promoter, and one-
man conglomerate. Elected to the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, 1976. Born
in Chicago, IL, where he studied in the public schools. Attended West Virginia
State Coll. (at Institute), 1949-50. Received the A.B. degree in English literature
from Ohio Wesleyan Univ. at Delaware, OH, 1953. Also studied at the Univ.
of Amsterdam, 1959[see below]. Served in the U.S. Air Force as a navigator
for three and a half years following college graduation. After being discharged,
he lived for a short while in San Francisco, working as a gripman on the famous
San Francisco cable cars; tried his hand at making short films (of which only
two titles have been located [see OTHER PLAYS AND DRAMATIC WORKS
below], which he hoped unsuccessfully would be of interest to Hollywood; and
wrote a book (with photographs) about his cable car observations called The Big
Heart ( 1957). Failing to interest Hollywood in his short films, he went to the
Netherlands in 1959 to study for a Ph.D. in astrology at the Univ. of Amsterdam,
on the G.I. bill. There he added the "Van" to his name, joined the Dutch
National Theatre, and toured the country in a production of Brendan Behan
play The Hostage. Hitchhiked to Paris, at the invitation of an executive of
Cinematheque Française, who had seen some of his work. There he was en-
couraged to study the craft of filmmaking and directing; wrote several novels,
short stories, and a screenplay; and independently produced his first film (sub-
sidized by the French government and a wealthy Frenchwoman), The Story of
a Three Day Pass ( 1967), which was entered by the French in the San Francisco

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