Editing Sam Peckinpah (section)

==Life==
{{more citations needed|section|date=March 2018}}
David Samuel Peckinpah was born February 21, 1925, to David Edward (1895–1960) and Fern Louise (''née'' Church) Peckinpah (1893–1983) in [[Fresno, California]], where he attended both grammar school and high school.{{sfn|FilmReference}} He had an elder brother, Denver Charles (1916–1996).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Director Sam Peckinpah, the rugged auteur director of films...|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/12/28/Director-Sam-Peckinpah-the-rugged-auteur-director-of-films/8008473058000/|access-date=2022-02-14|website=UPI|language=en}}</ref> He spent much time skipping classes with his brother to engage in [[cowboy]] activities on their grandfather [[Denver S. Church|Denver Church]]'s ranch, including trapping, branding, and shooting. During the 1930s and 1940s, [[Coarsegold]] and [[Bass Lake, California|Bass Lake]] were still populated with descendants of the miners and ranchers of the 19th century. Many of these descendants worked on Church's ranch. At that time, it was a rural area undergoing extreme change, and this exposure is believed to have affected Peckinpah's [[Western (genre)|Western]] films later in life.{{sfn|Simmons|pp=10–11}}

He played on the junior varsity football team while at [[Fresno High School]], but frequent fighting and discipline problems caused his parents to enroll him in the San Rafael Military Academy for his senior year.{{sfn|Simmons|p=18}}

In 1943, he joined the [[United States Marine Corps]]. Within two years, his battalion was sent to China with the task of disarming Japanese soldiers and [[repatriation|repatriating]] them following [[World War II]]. While his duty did not include combat, he claimed to have witnessed acts of war between Chinese and Japanese soldiers. According to friends, these included several acts of torture and the murder of a laborer by sniper fire. The American Marines were not permitted to intervene. Peckinpah also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces. Also during his final weeks as a Marine, he applied for discharge in Beijing, so he could marry a local woman, but was refused. His experiences in China reportedly deeply affected Peckinpah, and may have influenced his depictions of violence in his films.{{sfn|Weddle|pp=52–59}}

After being discharged in Los Angeles, he attended [[California State University, Fresno]], where he studied history. While a student, he met and married his first wife, Marie Selland, in 1947. A drama major, Selland introduced Peckinpah to the theater department and he became interested in directing for the first time. During his senior year, he adapted and directed a one-hour version of [[Tennessee Williams]]' ''[[The Glass Menagerie]]''.

After graduation in 1948, Peckinpah enrolled in graduate studies in drama at [[University of Southern California]]. He spent two seasons as the director in residence at Huntington Park Civic Theatre near Los Angeles before obtaining his master's degree. He was asked to stay another year, but Peckinpah began working as a [[stagehand]] at KLAC-TV in the belief that television experience would eventually lead to work in films. Even during this early stage of his career, Peckinpah was developing a combative streak. Reportedly, he was kicked off the set of ''[[Liberace|The Liberace Show]]'' for not wearing a tie, and he refused to cue a car salesman during a live feed because of his attitude towards stagehands.{{sfn|Weddle|pp=104–05}}

In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as a [[dialogue coach]] for the film ''[[Riot in Cell Block 11]]''. His job entailed acting as an assistant for the movie's director, [[Don Siegel]]. The film was shot on location at [[Folsom Prison]]. Reportedly, the warden was reluctant to allow the filmmakers to work at the prison until he was introduced to Peckinpah. The warden knew of his influential family from Fresno and was immediately cooperative. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as a dialogue coach on four additional Siegel films: ''[[Private Hell 36]]'' (1954), ''[[An Annapolis Story]]'' (1955, and co-starring [[L. Q. Jones]]), ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]'' (1956) and ''[[Crime in the Streets]]'' (1956).{{sfn|Weddle|pp=116–119}}

''Invasion of the Body Snatchers'', in which Peckinpah appeared as Charlie the meter reader, starred [[Kevin McCarthy (actor)|Kevin McCarthy]] and [[Dana Wynter]]. It became one of the most critically praised [[History of science fiction films|science fiction]] films of the 1950s. Peckinpah claimed to have done an extensive rewrite on the film's screenplay, a statement which remains controversial.{{sfn|Weddle|p=120}}

Throughout much of his adult life, Peckinpah was affected by [[alcoholism]], and, later, other forms of drug addiction. According to some accounts, he also suffered from mental illness, possibly [[manic depression]] or [[paranoia]].{{sfn|Weddle|pp=499–500}} It is believed his drinking problems began during his service in the military while stationed in China, when he frequented the saloons of [[Tianjin]] and Beijing.{{sfn|Weddle|p=56}} After divorcing Selland, the mother of his first four children, in 1960, he married Mexican actress [[Begoña Palacios]] in 1964. A stormy relationship developed, and over the years they married on three separate occasions. They had one daughter together.{{sfn|Simmons|pp=63–64}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.money-into-light.com/2012/09/lupita-peckinpah-talks-about-her-father.html|title=LUPITA PECKINPAH TALKS ABOUT HER FATHER, SAM PECKINPAH|website=Money-into-light.com|access-date=July 9, 2022}}</ref> His personality reportedly often swung between a sweet, softly-spoken, artistic disposition, and bouts of rage and violence, during which he verbally and physically abused himself and others. An experienced hunter, Peckinpah was fascinated with firearms and was known to shoot the mirrors in his house while abusing alcohol, an image which occurs several times in his films.{{sfn|Weddle|pp=163, 479}}

Peckinpah's reputation as a hard-living brute with a taste for violence, inspired by the content in his most popular films and in many ways perpetuated by himself, affected his artistic legacy.{{sfn|Weddle|p=380}} His friends and family have claimed this does a disservice to a man who was actually more complex than generally credited. He used such actors as [[Warren Oates]], [[L. Q. Jones]], [[R. G. Armstrong]], [[James Coburn]], [[Ben Johnson (actor)|Ben Johnson]], and [[Kris Kristofferson]], and collaborators ([[Jerry Fielding]], [[Lucien Ballard]], Gordon Dawson, and Martin Baum) in many of his films, and several of his friends and assistants stuck by him to the end of his life.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

Peckinpah spent a great deal of his life in [[Mexico]] after his marriage to Palacios, eventually buying property in the country. He was fascinated by the Mexican lifestyle and Mexican culture, and he often portrayed it with an unusual sentimentality and romanticism in his films.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Rowl |first1=Paul |last2=s |title=LUPITA PECKINPAH TALKS ABOUT HER FATHER, SAM PECKINPAH |url=http://www.money-into-light.com/2012/09/lupita-peckinpah-talks-about-her-father.html |access-date=2022-12-06 |language=en}}</ref>

From 1979 until his death, Peckinpah lived at the [[Murray Hotel]] in [[Livingston, Montana]].{{sfn|Cohen|pp=77–80}}  Peckinpah was seriously ill during his final years, as a lifetime of hard living caught up with him.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coburn |first=Robyn L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NkNIEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22peckinpah%22+%22hard+living%22&pg=PT325 |title=Dervish Dust: The Life and Words of James Coburn |date=2021 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-1-64012-500-1 |pages=325 |language=en}}</ref> Regardless, he continued to work until his last months. He died of [[heart failure]] at age 59 on December 28, 1984, in [[Inglewood, California]].{{sfn|Weddle|p=550}} At the time, he was working on the script for ''On the Rocks'',<ref name=VarietyObit>McCarthy, Todd. "Sam Peckinpah, Controversial Director, Dead At 59". ''Variety''. January 2, 1985. Retrieved January 14, 2017.</ref> a projected independent film to be shot in San Francisco.<ref name=WPObit>Harrington, Richard. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1984/12/29/sam-peckinpah-director-of-wild-bunch-dies-at-59/c66c55f4-bf8b-4914-a0b2-36d943aa85d4/ "Sam Peckinpah, Director Of 'Wild Bunch,' Dies at 59"]. ''The Washington Post''. December 29, 1984. Retrieved January 14, 2017.</ref>