Up for auction a VERY RARE! "PANTHER" Mario Van Peebles Hand Signed Book. 

ES-7749

Mario

Van Peebles (born January 15,

1957)  is an American film

director and actor best known for directing and starring in New Jack City in 1991 and USS Indianapolis: Men of

Courage in 2016. He is the son of actor and filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles (1932-2021),

whom he portrayed in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!, which he also co-wrote and directed. Mario

Van Peebles was born in Mexico, the son of writer, director, actor

and musician Melvin Van Peebles] and actress and photographer Maria Marx.[

He travelled often with his parents between Europe and USA. He

majored in economics at Columbia College,

the undergraduate division of Columbia University. He

was invited to speak as the Class Day Speaker as part of the annual

commencement exercises in 2021. Van Peebles' first screen appearance was in

1968, in the soap opera One Life to Live.[ In 1971, he appeared

in the film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss

Song, Melvin Van Peebles directed and played the lead role and

Mario played his father's character as a child. The film became a hit and a

historical American film, because it was widely credited with showing Hollywood that a viable black audience existed and thus

influenced the creation of the Blaxploitation genre. That year, Mario acted in a TV

movie called Crosscurrent.[ For the rest of the decade, he

did not appear in other productions. In 1981, Van Peebles acted in the

miniseries The Sophisticated Gents.[

 He appeared in the action film Exterminator 2 (1984), as the main villain against

its protagonist, played by Robert Ginty.[ When the production wrapped,

the producers were unhappy and wanted a re-shoot. They replaced the original

director, but the main star was no longer available so they made Van Peebles'

character more central.  That same year,

Van Peebles appeared as a dancer in Francis Ford Coppola's

movie The Cotton Club.[

 In 1985, he landed his first leading

role in the film Rappin'] as Rappin' John Hood, an ex-convict who attempts

to save his neighborhood from developers and hoodlums. In 1985 he played in the

comedy Delivery Boys, was one of the central

characters in the action drama South Bronx Heroes, and acted in the

dramatic TV film Children of the Night and

one episode of the Cosby Show. In

1986, he acted in the urban action film 3:15, the comedy Last Resort, the TV

film D.C. Cops, four episodes of L.A. Law, and the Clint Eastwood military film Heartbreak Ridge based on the United States Marine Corps.

In 1987, he played in the sport film Hotshot, the TV film The Facts of Life Down Under,

and Jaws: The Revenge, the fourth installment of the Jaws franchise. In 1988, Van Peebles

played the lead in the short-lived detective show Sonny Spoon. The show ran for two brief seasons, both of

which aired in 1988 before the series was canceled. The show would mark his

directorial debut, for which he tackled the task for one episode. That same

year, he also acted in the TV film The Child Saver. In 1989, he

directed for the show Top of the Hill, three episodes of 21 Jump Street, two of which he acted in, and an episode

of the TV series Wiseguy. He also acted

in one episode of American Playwrights Theater: The One-Acts, and

the film Identity Crisis directed

by his father. At the beginning of the 1990s he performed in the TV film Blue

Bayou and one episode of In Living Color. Van Peebles directed Malcolm

Takes a Shot, a 1991 CBS Schoolbreak Special about

an aspiring high-school basketball star whose obstacles include epilepsy and his own arrogance. Van Peebles appeared in

the special in a cameo appearance as

the main character's doctor. He was nominated for a DGA Award by the Directors Guild of America for

"Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Shows".[ He

made his feature film directorial debut in 1991 with the black gangster

film New Jack City, in which he also

co-stars. Other lead actors are Wesley Snipes, Ice-T and Judd Nelson.[ New Jack City was

produced with an estimated $8,000,000 budget. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on

January 17, 1991, before being released nationally on March 8, 1991. Well

received by critics, it grossed $7,039,622 during its opening weekend, and was

the highest grossing independent film of 1991, grossing a total of $47,624,253

domestically. That same year, he directed one episode of Gabriel's Fire and acted in the TV film A Triumph of the

Heart: The Ricky Bell Story.