Sam Peckinpah

David Samuel Peckinpah (February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American filmmaker and actor. He reworked the Western genre with a fresh perspective, using bold, clear visuals and graphic violence. His 1969 film *The Wild Bunch* earned two Academy Award nominations and landed at number 80 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list. He also worked on the TV series *The Rifleman* (1958–63) and *The Westerner* (1960).

Peckinpah’s family came from the Frisian Islands in northwestern Europe. Both sides traveled west by covered wagon in the mid-1800s. He and some relatives claimed Native American ancestry, but living family members deny this. His great-grandfather, Rice Peckinpaugh, moved from Indiana to Humboldt County, California, in the 1850s, worked in logging, and changed the family name to Peckinpah. Peckinpah Meadow and Peckinpah Creek—where the family ran a lumber mill in the High Sierra east of North Fork, California—appear on U.S. maps. His maternal grandfather, Denver S. Church, was a cattle rancher, Superior Court judge, and U.S. Congressman for a California district that included Fresno County. Peckinpah’s nephew, David Peckinpah, became a television producer, director, and screenwriter. He was also a cousin of former New York Yankees shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh.

Peckinpah was born in Fresno, California, on February 21, 1925, to David Edward and Fern Louise Peckinpah. He had an older brother, Denver Charles. He often skipped school with his brother to work on their grandfather’s ranch, doing things like trapping, branding, and shooting. In the 1930s and 1940s, Coarsegold and Bass Lake were still home to descendants of 19th-century miners and ranchers, many of whom worked on Church’s ranch. The area was changing rapidly, and this exposure likely shaped his later Western films. He played junior varsity football at Fresno High School, but frequent fights and discipline problems led his parents to send him to San Rafael Military Academy for his senior year.

In 1943, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. Within two years, his battalion was sent to China to disarm Japanese soldiers and repatriate them after World War II. He didn’t see combat, but he said he witnessed acts of war between Chinese and Japanese troops, including torture and the murder of a laborer by sniper fire. The Marines were not allowed to intervene. He also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces. In his final weeks as a Marine, he applied for discharge in Beijing to marry a local woman, but was denied. His time in China reportedly affected him deeply and may have influenced the violence in his films.

After discharge in Los Angeles, he studied history at California State University, Fresno. There he met and married his first wife, Marie Selland, in 1947. She was a drama major and introduced him to the theater department, sparking his interest in directing. As a senior, he adapted and directed a one-hour version of Tennessee Williams’ *The Glass Menagerie*. After graduating in 1948, he pursued graduate studies in drama at the University of Southern California. He spent two seasons as director in residence at Huntington Park Civic Theatre near Los Angeles before earning his master’s degree. He was asked to stay another year, but he took a job as a stagehand at KLAC-TV, believing TV experience would lead to film work. Even then, he showed a combative streak: he was reportedly kicked off *The Liberace Show* for not wearing a tie, and he refused to cue a car salesman during a live feed because of the salesman’s attitude toward stagehands.

In 1954, he was hired as a dialogue coach for *Riot in Cell Block 11*, assisting director Don Siegel. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. The warden was reluctant to let the filmmakers in until he met Peckinpah, whose influential family from Fresno he knew, and he became cooperative. Siegel’s location work and use of actual prisoners as extras left a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as a dialogue coach on four more Siegel films.