[3] His much-older first cousin, once removed, was screenwriter and playwright Samson Raphaelson, the author of The Jazz Singer, who wrote nine films for director Ernst Lubitsch.
As a teenager he would often run away from home to pursue an adventurous lifestyle, including riding in a rodeo in Arizona and playing in a jazz band in Acapulco.
After studying philosophy at Dartmouth College (where he had made friends with screenwriter Buck Henry),[6] and graduating in 1954, Rafelson was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed in Japan.
[9] Toby Rafelson was a production designer on many films, including her husband's Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, and Stay Hungry, as well as Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard.
[10][better source needed] Rafelson's first professional job was as a story editor on the TV series Play of the Week for producer David Susskind in 1959.
"[8] Raybert Productions sold the idea to Screen Gems and, when they were unable to get either the Dave Clark Five or the Lovin' Spoonful for the show, ran ads in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter for musicians.
"[7] He has cited the series' "radically different way of cutting and doing a half hour comedy because there were interviews that were interspersed [and] there was documentary footage.
"[14] Head is a plotless, stream-of-consciousness film that, amongst other things, attempts to deconstruct the musical personas of the Monkees and satirize the consumer ideals of "image".
Other scenes utilize psychedelic or surrealistic theatrics such as the Monkees being sucked through a giant vacuum cleaner and turning into specks of dandruff in Victor Mature's head.
[citation needed] Raybert's next project, Easy Rider, directed by Dennis Hopper, premiered at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and was released in July 1969, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon.
"[16] Five Easy Pieces was written by Rafelson and Carole Eastman (under the alias Adrien Joyce) and starred Nicholson, Karen Black, and Susan Anspach.
Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea, a gifted classical piano player who works on an oil rig in California and spends most of his time drinking beer and bowling with his put-upon girlfriend Rayette (Black).
"[7] Bobby learns from his sister that his father has had a stroke and decides to travel back to his family home in the San Juan Islands in Washington state.
He and Rayette go on a road trip to Washington, picking up two hippie hitch-hikers along the way and in the film's most notorious highlight, Bobby unsuccessfully battles with a waitress in a diner for an omelet with wheat toast.
True, it is derivative of Brando's close to precise action in A Streetcar named Desire but Bobby may have been channeling, as a trope, someone's behavior he'd seen in the movies.
"[7] The film was a financial hit, earning $18 million at the box office, was widely admired by the critics, and was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Supporting Actress (Black) and Best Original Screenplay.
"[7] In his original 1970 review in the Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert called Five Easy Pieces "a masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity", adding, "The movie is joyously alive to the road life of its hero.
[citation needed] In the film, Nicholson plays David Staebler, a melancholy Philadelphia disk jockey who tells long, angst-ridden stories of his childhood over the radio and lives with his elderly Grandfather (Lavine).
"[5] Hearts and Minds (directed by Rafelson's friend of many decades, Peter Davis) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature,[18] and was the last film to bear the BBS imprimatur[citation needed].
[19] Bridges stars as Craig Blake, a millionaire in Alabama who has recently inherited his parents' fortune after their tragic deaths in a plane crash.
[7] The film earned Rafelson and Gaines a nomination for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium from the Writers Guild of America,[citation needed] while Schwarzenegger received a Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture.
[citation needed] In 1978, Rafelson began production on the film Brubaker, starring Robert Redford, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Alexander and Morgan Freeman.
[7] Rafelson filed a breach-of-contract and slander lawsuit in May 1979 asking for damages of $10 million, claiming that 20th Century Fox had assured him that he would have complete autonomy and creative control and had made statements that implied that he was incompetent, emotionally unstable, and not qualified to direct a major motion picture.
[21] Rafelson again teamed up with Jack Nicholson in 1981, directing him in their fourth collaboration, The Postman Always Rings Twice, based on the novel by James M. Cain which had been adapted as a film in 1946 with John Garfield and Lana Turner.
It starred Patrick Bergin as Burton and Iain Glen as Speke, and was hailed by Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert as "completely absorbing".
"[24] In Newsweek, critic Jack Kroll wrote: "The exploits of Sir Richard Francis Burton make Lawrence of Arabia look like a tourist.
Rafelson again teamed up with Nicholson in 1992 for their fifth collaboration, and were joined by Five Easy Pieces screenwriter Carole Eastman, for the film Man Trouble.
[26] Rafelson has been honored at numerous international film festivals, including in Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Greece, Japan, Serbia and Turkey, and has given many masterclasses.
[citation needed] He contributed commentaries or interviews to the DVD or Blu-ray releases of Head, Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, Stay Hungry, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Blood and Wine.
Rafelson has also contributed essays to the Los Angeles Times Magazine and John Brockman's collection The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years.