Success in Hollywood came late to Robert Altman, and by the time he became a celebrity at 45, it seemed he had already settled into the role that suited him - the grand old man, cantankerous and wayward. He was compared to Fellini, as a creator of a cinematic world entirely his own, to Welles and to Stroheim. Like the latter two, he knew spectacular decline after glory, but unlike them, had a journeyman's pragmatism that allowed him to carry on, and more than once to resurface triumphantly.
Jonathan Romney Guardian Unlimited
