Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925, in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. Altman, an insurance salesman, and Helen Altman. At the age of six, he entered St. Peter's Catholic school, followed by a brief stint at a Catholic high school. He then attended Rockhurst High School, where he began exploring the art of sound with cheap tape recorders.
Altman was later sent to Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri, where he attended junior college. In 1945, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and became a pilot of a B-24. After his military discharge, he moved to Hollywood with his first wife, LaVonne Elmer, and pursued a career in acting, songwriting, and screenwriting.
Although he appeared in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947),wrote a musical intended for Broadway, and co-wrote the screenplay for Bodyguard (1948),Altman struggled to gain a foothold in the film industry. He eventually gave up and returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he decided to focus on serious filmmaking.
An old friend recommended him to the Calvin Co., a film production company in Kansas City, which hired him in 1950. Altman worked on writing scripts, editing films, and directing documentaries, employee training films, industrial and educational films, and advertisements. During his time at Calvin, he directed around sixty to sixty-five short films on various subjects, including football and car crashes.
Altman wrote the screenplay for the feature film Corn's-A-Poppin' (1955) and produced and directed several television commercials. He also co-created and directed the TV series The Pulse of the City (1953) and had a formative experience directing local community theater. His big-screen directorial debut came with The Delinquents (1957),and by 1956, he left the Calvin Co. to direct Alfred Hitchcock's TV show.
From there, Altman went on to direct a large number of television shows before being offered the script for M*A*S*H (1970) in 1969. Although he was not the producer's first choice, he went on to direct the film, which became his first success. He went on to have a mix of hits and misses, but his films The Player (1992) and Gosford Park (2001) were particularly well-received.
