Budd Boetticher - Later Career

Later Career

Boetticher spent most of the 60s south of the border pursuing his obsession, the documentary of his friend, the bullfighter Carlos Arruza, turning down profitable Hollywood offers and suffering humiliation and despair to stay with the project, including sickness, bankruptcy and confinement in both jail and asylum (all of which is detailed in his autobiography When in Disgrace). It was finally released in the USA as "Arruza" in 1971.

In 1960, the director made a departure from Western films for The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, the story of a high-rolling gambler, starring Ray Danton, loosely based on the lives of Jack Diamond and Arnold Rothstein.

The rest of Boetticher's output since 1960 consists of the rarely seen A Time for Dying (a collaboration with Audie Murphy released in 1971), the story for Don Siegel's Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), the documentary My Kingdom For... (1985) and his appearance as a judge in Robert Towne's Tequila Sunrise (1988), and he was still actively attempting to get his screenplay "A Horse for Mr. Barnum" made, before his death in 2001. He and his wife Mary spent much of their later years traveling to film festivals around the world, especially in Europe. His last public appearance, less than three months before his death, was at Cinecon, a classic film festival held in Hollywood, CA.