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Robert "Bob" Rafelson (born February 21, 1933) is an Emmy Award winning American film director, writer and producer. He was an early member of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s and is most famous for directing and co-writing the film Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson, as well as being one of the creators of the pop group and TV series, The Monkees with Raybert/BBS Productions partner Bert Schneider. His first wife was the Production Designer Toby Carr Rafelson. His son is songwriter Peter Rafelson, who co-wrote the hit song Open Your Heart for Madonna. Rafelson was born in... MORE

Robert "Bob" Rafelson (born February 21, 1933) is an Emmy Award winning American film director, writer and producer. He was an early member of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s and is most famous for directing and co-writing the film Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson, as well as being one of the creators of the pop group and TV series, The Monkees with Raybert/BBS Productions partner Bert Schneider. His first wife was the Production Designer Toby Carr Rafelson. His son is songwriter Peter Rafelson, who co-wrote the hit song Open Your Heart for Madonna. Rafelson was born in New York City, the son of a hat manufacturer. His uncle was screenwriter and playwright Samson Raphaelson, who wrote nine films for director Ernst Lubitsch. He had an older brother named Donald and attended Horace Mann School. As a teenager he would often run away from home to pursue a more adventurous lifestyle, including riding in a rodeo in Arizona and playing in a jazz band in Acapulco. After studying philosophy at Dartmouth College (where he had made friends with screenwriter Buck Henry), Rafelson was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed in Japan. In Japan he worked as a disk jockey, LESS