Paul Mazursky is a filmmaker who maintains a rare control over his work. He has directed all but one of his screenplays and has never directed anyone else's work. Generally he produces his films, and even appears as an actor in some of them. The success of his second film, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) gave him an artistic freedom infrequently obtained in American motion pictures. Despite that freedom, Mazursky has said that even if he had to give up every other aspect of filmmaking, he would continue to write screenplays.

Irwin Mazursky ("I changed it because Paul would look better on a marquee," he told an old friend in 1971) was born in Brownsville, a Jewish community in Brooklyn. His father was a laborer who was on WPA for several years; his grandfather, a Russian immigrant, ran a candy store and gave Mazursky a love of literature. He graduated...