Budd Boetticher, a maverick Hollywood director whose Westerns starring Randolph Scott in the 1950s are considered classics of the genre, has died. He was 85.
The Chicago-born Boetticher, a onetime professional matador whose fascination with bullfighting served as his entre to filmmaking in the '40s, died of multiple organ failure Thursday at his home near Ramona in San Diego County.
Boetticher is considered by many film historians to be one of the five or six finest directors of Westerns, a reputation based on six of the seven modestly budgeted films he made with Scott from 1956 to 1960: "Seven Men From Now," "The Tall T," "Decision at Sundown," "Buchanon Rides Alone," "Ride Lonesome" and "Comanche Station."
Spare but poetic tales of honor and vengeance, which Boetticher called "morality plays," the films starred Scott as the strong-willed mythic hero pitted against equally strong-willed villains.
Boetticher received his first major acclaim as a director for the 1951 film "Bullfighter and the Lady," a drama starring Robert Stack as a brash young American who convinces a legendary Mexican matador to teach him to be a bullfighter.
Based on Boetticher's experiences in Mexico as a young man, the film earned him an Academy Award nomination for best story.
Boetticher had many fans among his fellow directors. Sam Peckinpah claimed to have watched "Bullfighter and the Lady" 10 times. And Sergio Leone, director of "Once Upon a Time in the West," once spotted Boetticher at a film festival in Milan and cried out, "Budd! I stole everything from you."
"He really was a legendary figure and a major talent," said Kevin Thomas, a longtime film writer for The Times. "He worked on B budgets, but he was a class-A talent of the first order."
A rugged, dynamic man known for his wit and candor, Boetticher was a colorful raconteur, who relished telling stories of his drinking, carousing, Hollywood battles and other adventures.
"Budd cast a larger than life shadow," said Thomas, who knew Boetticher for 35 years. "His life was more colorful and adventuresome than many of the heroes of his own films."
Oscar Boetticher Jr. was born on July 29, 1916, in Chicago and raised in Evansville, Ind., where his wealthy father was co-owner of a major hardware concern.
Boetticher attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Ind., and Ohio State University, where he boxed and played football.
