'Bonnie and Clyde' director Arthur Penn dies at 88

Director Arthur Penn, a mythmaker and myth-breaker who in such classics as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Little Big Man" refashioned movie and American history and sealed a generation's affinity for outsiders, died Tuesday, a day after his 88th birthday.

Molly Penn said her father died at home in Manhattan of congestive heart failure. Longtime friend and business manager Evan Bell said yesterday that Penn had been ill for about a year and that a memorial service will be held before the end of the year. Photographer Irving Penn, his older brother, died in October 2009.

After first making his name on Broadway as director of the Tony Award-winning plays "The Miracle Worker" and "All the Way Home," Penn rose as a film director in the 1960s, his work inspired by the decade's political and social upheaval and Americans' interest in their past and present.

"Bonnie and Clyde," with its mix of humor and mayhem, encouraged moviegoers to sympathize with the lawbreaking couple - played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway - from the 1930s, while "Little Big Man" told the tale of the conquest of the West with the Indians as the good guys. Both were nominated for Academy Awards.

Penn's other films include his adaptation of "The Miracle Worker," featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Anne Bancroft; "The Missouri Breaks," starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson; "Night Moves," a Los Angeles thriller featuring Gene Hackman; and "Alice's Restaurant," based on the wry Arlo Guthrie song about his being turned down for the draft because he had once been fined for littering.

"I am blessed to have spent time in Arthur's presence," said Patty Duke, who won the supporting-actress Oscar for 1962 as Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker."

None of Penn's other films had the impact of "Bonnie and Clyde," but he regarded "Little Big Man," released in 1970, as his greatest success, with Dustin Hoffman playing the 121-year-old lone survivor of Custer's last stand.

Arthur Hiller Penn was born Sept. 27, 1922, in Philadelphia, the son of Harry and Sonia Penn and brother of Irving. Although both sons were involved in the visual arts, Arthur Penn later said that he saw little in common in their work. (Beatty would claim the director was influenced profoundly by his brother, known for a spare photographic style.)

Penn joined the Army during World War II, formed a dramatic troupe at Fort Jackson, S.C., and was often in trouble for behaving disrespectfully to his superiors. He was in an infantry unit that fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he found work as a floor manager on NBC-TV's "Colgate Comedy Hour." By the 1950s, Penn was writing and directing TV dramas.

As a boy, Penn had little success learning the watchmaker's trade from his father. "He went to his grave despairing I would never find my way in the world," the director said, "and the movies rescued me."