A rising, edgy, risk-taking feature film director-screenwriter, Paul Thomas Anderson won attention for his short film, "Coffee and Cigarettes" (1992), about five characters who interact in a Las Vegas coffee shop, which premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. Anderson had written a role expressly for actor Philip Baker Hall and based on the reaction to the featurette, was encouraged to make a full-length motion picture. Once Gwyneth Paltrow had agreed to play a cocktail waitress, the financing fell into place. Expanded on his short, Anderson wrote and directed "Sydney/Hard Eight" (1996), a tale of love, revenge and redemption set against the seedy world of casinos in Nevada. Premiering at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival under the title "Sydney", the film featured a strong central performance by Hall, ably supported by Paltrow and John C Reilly. Released theatrically in the USA in 1997 as "Hard Eight", it won praise but failed to find an audience. Nevertheless, FILM COMMENT magazine declared Anderson its most promising director in its March/April 1997.

Born and raised in Southern California, Anderson was the son of TV host and voice actor Ernie Anderson (best recalled as the announcer on ABC's "The Love Boat"). An admittedly poor student, he dropped out of Emerson College and found work as a production assistant on music videos and independent films. He made an early short which reflected a childhood interest in pornography, "Dirk Diggler" (c. 1987), about a male adult movie star. When given the opportunity to write and direct a second feature, Anderson returned to this interest and fashioned "Boogie Nights" (1997). Set in freewheeling 70s, the film traces the rise of a young porno star portrayed by Mark Wahlberg. The writer-director managed to corral an impressive supporting cast including Burt Reynolds as a director of adult movies, Don Cheadle and John C Reilly as rival actors, Julianne Moore and Heather Graham as actresses and William H Macy as a production assistant. Even before the film's release, there was talk of the its ground-breaking male nudity and titillation over Wahlberg's prosthetic appendage.

For his third feature, Anderson was given carte blanche by New Line and delivered the sprawling intimate epic "Magnolia" (1999). A film that divided audiences and critics alike, "Magnolia" was a meditation on fate and coincidence filtered through the lives of residents of the San Fernando Valley on one particular day. Following nine major characters (as well as numerous lesser ones), the movie owed more than a debt to the multi-storied films of Robert Altman (e.g., "Nashville" 1975 and "Short Cuts" 1993). Anderson displayed a facility with the camera, using sweeps and cross-cutting to highlight his themes. Employing actors from his stock company (Hall, Reilly, Julianne Moore) as well as veterans new to his world (Jason Robards, Tom Cruise), the writer-director crafted a film that showcased the talents of the performers.

Credit: entertainment.lycos.com