Mario Van Peebles may be too handsome for his own good. His eyes sparkle amid high cheekboned, delicate features that showcase his multicultural lineage. Looking at what could almost be a parody of a hunk, one could easily presume that this actor MUST be vain and shallow--though nothing in his interviews confirms this impression. Perhaps it was inevitable that he should decide to redirect some of his energies behind the camera. In any event, the young hyphenate heeded the advice of his illustrious father, the breakthrough black writer-director-producer Melvin Van Peebles, to first learn the business end of show business.
Van Peebles made his first film appearance--as a naked 10-year-old atop an equally unclothed adult woman--playing the youthful version of the randy protagonist of his father's seminal "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (1971). He subsequently avoided the spotlight for the most part (except for a role in the 1971 CBS busted TV pilot "The Cable Car Murder/Cross Current") and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in economics before landing work in finance. Van Peebles set up limited partnerships for a film investment firm, worked on Wall Street on the commodities exchange and served two years as a budget analyst for then NYC Mayor Edward Koch.
Van Peebles' good looks earned him assignments as a Ford model and, by the mid-1980s, he had amassed some stage credits and starred in the films "South Bronx Heroes" (1983) and "Exterminator 2" (1984). The former was a well-meaning if inelegantly crafted social drama for which the actor provided additional dialogue while the latter was an inferior action sequel featuring Van Peebles as X, a messianic gang leader. The affable actor's breakthrough feature supporting role came in Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge" (1986) where he played a glib and sassy Marine opposite the leathery star. Van Peebles performed several songs for the film as he had for "Rappin'" (1985). He also sang lead and/or rhythm vocals on three albums on the Stax and Atlantic Records labels.
Van Peebles made his first TV guest shot on "The Cosby Show" in 1985 and went on to TV-movies, more guest work and a recurring role as an attorney eventually denied partnership on the first season of NBC's legal drama "L.A. Law". Van Peebles was showcased as detective "Sonny Spoon" (NBC, 1988) in the light-hearted Stephen J Cannell-produced TV series which featured his father in a recurring role as the hero's bartender father. Having previously produced and directed several music videos, Van Peebles further honed his helming skills with episodes of two other crime series from the Cannell factory, "21 Jump Street" and "Wiseguy". He also directed and appeared in "Malcolm Takes a Shot" (1990) for "CBS Schoolbreak Specials".
Van Peebles associate produced, scripted and starred in the poorly received farce "Identity Crisis" (1989), under his father's direction, playing a white gay designer whose spirit is trapped in the body of a young black rapper. He graduated to helming features with "New Jack City (1991), a slick and commercially successful saga of the urban drug wars. The film gave a breakthrough role to Wesley Snipes as a vicious drug kingpin, and on its release was the highest-grossing feature film directed by an African-American. Van Peebles also helmed the largely black Western "Posse" (1993), a less successful outing which strove to evoke Sergio Leone (the look), Sam Peckinpah (stylized and plentiful violence) and John Ford (traditional values). For his next directorial outing, he teamed with his father to produce the elder Van Peebles' adaptation of his unpublished novel "Panther" (1995), a fictionalized account of the rise of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in the late 60s and early 70s.
The director was granted creative control in return for bringing "Panther" in for under $9 million. (It reportedly cost $7 million.) Father and son opted for a young and relatively unknown cast and but also appeared in cameos. (Mario was Stokely Carmichael and Melvin was an old jail bird.) The film was roundly criticized by political partisans of both the left and right for the substantial liberties it took with the historical record for dramatic purposes. Reviews were mixed and box-office returns were disappointing but the film was an absorbing and well-crafted demonstration of Van Peebles' increasing skill as a director. Interestingly, as a filmmaker he owes a greater debt to the coolly impersonal style of TV drama than to the bold stylistics favored by the elder Van Peebles. Indeed TV auteur Steven J Cannell may have been at least as important a professional mentor to Van Peebles as his famous father.
In addition to appearing in his own projects, Van Peebles has remained busy as an actor starring in low to medium-budget actioners including two opposite Christopher Lambert--"Gunmen" and "Highlander: The Final Dimension" (both 1994)--and the likably ludicrous made-for-cable movie "Full Eclipse" (HBO, 1993), as an L.A. cop who joins an elite urban crime-fighting unit of werewolves. He was the titular mercenary in the actioner "Solo" (1996) and was among the guests at a bachelor party that turns deadly in the uneven "Stag" (HBO, 1996). Van Peebles wrote, produced and starred in "Los Locos" (The Movie Channel, 1997), a TV-movie sequel to "Posse" and completed his fourth film as director, "Love Kills" (lensed 1997, also produced, scripted and co-starred), about the relationship between an actress and her masseur.
Van Peebles labored in several undistinguished telepics and B-movie action/thrillers--with occasional standouts like the adaptation of Alex Haley's "Mama Flora's Family" (1998) and "10,000 Black Men Named George" (2002), along with a season-long stint (2000-2001) as Sherilyn Fenn's love interest on the Showtime sit-com "Rude Awakening"--before resurfacing in major films: director Michael Mann adroitly cast him as Malcolm X in "Ali" (2001), the big-screen exploration of the life of boxing legend and 20th Century icon Muhammed Ali (played by Will Smith). In the screwy, high-concept comedy "The Hebrew Hammer" (2003) Van Peebles played Mohammed Ali Paula Abdul Rahiem, head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, who helps the Orthodox Jew the Hebrew Hammer (Adam Goldberg) oppose Santa Claus' evil son (Andy Dick) and his plot to eradicate Hanukkah. He next appeared in the ensemble of the well-crafted f/x TV movie "44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out" (2003), a depiction of the real-life 1996 bank robbery that led to the most intense firefight in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department, followed by a leading role in the Showtime telepic "Crown Heights" (2004), based on the events surrounding the race riots in 1991 in Brooklyn when a black child was hit by a car driven by a Hasidic Jew, after Two leaders from the Jewish and African-American communities (Howie Mandel and Van Peebles) join forces to try to re-establish peace.
In 2004 Van Peebles reached a high point in his career as a hyphenate when he wrote, directed and starred in "Baadasssss!", an intensely entertaining depiction of his father Melvin's struggles to film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" in 1971. Along with a richly detailed and frequently hilarious account of the daily disasters that the senior Van Peebles--and any filmmaker--has to face, Mario Van Peebles also added many complex and affecting Oedipal touches to the storyline, including a potent sequence in which his domineering father shoots a difficult scene in which the young Mario (Khleo Thomas), playing the 13-year-old version of Sweetback, must act out losing his virginity to a prostitute. Critics praised Van Peebles for his clarity and honesty in documenting his father's pioneering film while also slyly and stylishly playing homage to it, and many labeled "Baadasssss!" one of the best movies of the year.