In this episode we meet Melvin Van Peebles, a small but brilliant boy who grows up split between the rough South Side of Chicago and the nearby suburb of Phoenix, Illinois. A brilliant student, he graduates from high school at the age of fifteen, becomes the first person in his family to go to college. By the time he's 26, he's a veteran officer of the Air Force, a father, a husband in an interracial marriage, and a Gripman on a San Francisco Cable Car. After writing a moderately successful book titled 'The Big Heart', Melvin gets bit by the cinema bug and decides to become a filmmaker...little did he know that it would take him ten years and moving to another continent in order to get one made!Email us: behindtheslatepod@gmail.comInstagram: @behindtheslatepodTikTok: @behindtheslatepodYouTube: @behindtheslatepodcastJoin our weekly film club: https://www.instagram.com/arroyofilmclubProducer: Greg KleinschmidtSources: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.