Bob Rafelson, the Oscar-nominated director of Five Easy Pieces, is dead at age 89

dailymail.co.uk:

Bob Rafelson, the filmmaker who earned an Oscar nomination for his classic film Five Easy Pieces, has died at 89.The director died at his home in Aspen, Colorado, of natural causes, according to Deadline.In addition to his many collaborations with actor Jack Nicholson — who earned his own Academy Award nomination for Five Easy Pieces — Rafelson was known for co-creating The Monkees and their eponymous TV show with his producing partner Bert Schneider.

Bob Rafelson, the Oscar-nominated director of Five Easy Pieces, has died at his Aspen, Colorado, home of natural causes at 89, according to Deadline; pictured in 1990Rafelson began his career in the 1950s as a story editor for televised plays, and by the early 1960s he had moved up to producing.By the middle of the decade, he met his future work partner Bert Schneider, and the two created BBS Productions, along with Schneider's friend Stephen Blauner.

The company's first TV show was the Monkees, and Rafelson would later claim that he had come up for the idea of a show about a rock band even before the release of A Hard Day's Night, or even before The Beatles came into existence.

The beginning: Rafelson co-created The Monkees with his producing partner Bert Schneider; seen in 1970 Getting serious: Rafelson directed the band's cult classic film Head in 1968, which was co-written by Jack Nicholson, who had a brief cameo; The Monkees seen in 1967 in Los AngelesAfter failing to attract existing rock bands, he and Schneider created the group that would become known as The Monkees in order for them to star on the series of the same name, which ran from 1966 to 1968.In 1968, BBS produced the film Head, which starred The Monkees and had a zany, surreal style that was indebted to.