Born Oscar Boetticher Jnr. in Chicago, IL. A varsity boxer and football player at Ohio State, he went to Mexico in the mid-1930s, where he became a professional matador. Entered films through the "back door" as a technical advisor on Mamoulian's BLOOD AND SAND (1941) and stayed in Hollywood as a messenger, then assistant director on a number of productions. Made his debut as director in 1944 and for the next six years turned out routine low-budget pictures. His first important film was the semiautobiographical THE BULLFIGHTER AND THE LADY (1951). Then came more routine B pictures, and another bullfighting film THE MAGNIFICENT MATADOR (1965). Between 1956 and 1960, Boetticher directed a cycle of Westerns that were to secure for him an enthusiastic following among connoisseurs of the genre both here and abroad. These films usually were produced by Harry Joe Brown, written with Burt Kennedy, and starred Randolph Scott, Brown's business partner. They were made on a medium budget and were commercially successful. The films are masculine affairs, involving confrontations between male antagonists constantly at odds with their world and always ready to deal with expected treachery. In 1960, Boetticher ventured into the gangster's world with his THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND, a film called by critic Andrew Sarris "a minor classic." That same year, just as he was becoming recognized and financially secure, Boetticher left Hollywood for Mexico with his Rolls-Royce and a beautiful wife to film a documentary about the career of a close friend, the great madador Carlos Arruza. Boetticher did not return to Hollywood for seven years. He tells the incredible story of this harrowing period in his book When in Disgrace. Obsessed with his documentary, he had turned down profitable Hollywood offers and suffered humiliation and despair to stay with the project -- he had run out of money, divorced, spent seven days in jail and another week in an insane asylum, and nearly died, first of starvation and later of a severe lung ailment. In the meantime, Arruza, the hero of his film, was killed in an automobile accident, as was most of Boetticher's film crew. After returning to Hollywood in 1967, Boetticher began a new business association with Audie Murphy. Murphy produced and Boetticher wrote and directed in Spain A TIME FOR DYING, a film they hoped would rejuvenate both their careers. They had other projects in the planning stage when Murphy was killed in a plane crash in 1971. Boetticher wrote the story for Don Siegel's TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA (1970). He appeared as an actor in TEQUILA SUNRISE (1988). He is the subject of a number of television documentaries: "Budd Boetticher: One on One" (1989), "Besuch bei Budd Boetticher" (2000), "Budd Boetticher: An American Original" (video, 2005), and "Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That" (2005). Three of his five wives were actresses: Karen Steele, Elsa Cárdenas, and Debra Paget. He was married to his last wife, producer Mary Chelde, from 1971 until his death in 2001.  Nominated for Writing (Motion Picture Story) 1951: THE BULLFIGHTER AND THE LADY (w. Ray Nazarro) 1 nomination