Peter Bogdanovich Doesn't Live Here Anymore

And what about the screening party two years ago, on what would have been Stratten's 40th birthday, when director Quentin Tarantino had a group of people over to watch They All Laughed (co-written and directed by Bogdanovich and starring Stratten)? "I couldn't be there, but Louise sat next to him," says Bogdanovich matter-of-factly, as if having your director buddy pay homage to your deceased girlfriend and inviting her sister who happened to be your wife is perfectly ordinary. "She said he knew every line of dialogue. She finally had to say, 'Quentin, cut it out! I can't watch the picture!'"

WE PASS A PROLIFERATION OF POPEYES CHICKEN & Biscuits franchises and car dealerships. We're definitely nearing Bogdanovich's old Valley pad.

"This looks like it here. God, I think this is it! I think this is it!" Bogdanovich says. We get out of the car and walk down Saticoy Street in search of the house that he, Platt and their two daughters, Antonia and Alexandra, lived in so many years ago. "Wait, that's not the house. But this is the area. I remember the oleanders."

Bogdanovich surveys an overgrown hedge on another lot and pronounces the scrubby patch of yellowing lawn the remains of his former address.

"Um, Mr. Bogdanovich? This is 15115 Saticoy. You said we were looking for 15113."

"Oh well," he says, then takes a nervous glance around the neighborhood and turns toward the car. "I'm going to get shot at here . . ." He's had enough of the past for one day.

On the way back to the Peninsula over the Sepulveda Pass, Bogdanovich addresses the public's enduring Dorothy-Louise fascination by warbling a line from a song made popular by Frank Sinatra, "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)." "You can't resist her/Sorry for you/She has no sister/No one could ever replace . . ." Then he floats out an explanation. "It's like, 'Is there any more at home like you?' People acted like it was some strange thing that Dorothy had a sister I might be interested in, but I don't know why. It was her sister. It's sort of normal, I think. Not such a stretch."

And even if it is a stretch? Bogdanovich's freelance writer daughter Antonia feels it's none of our business. "Just because you're in entertainment doesn't mean you deserve to have your life exposed. I want him to be remembered for the great movies that he's done, not for the personal things," says Antonia, bristling in particular at the trash-publication announcement of his and Hoogstraten's marriage -- his face on a Peoplemagazine cover. "They made him look like a pervert. I mean, they took the worst mug shot. It was emotionally difficult." But she's also thankful for the ups and downs. "I know it sounds weird, but if we would have just had this pristine life, we wouldn't have any perspective. I've seen failure and success. And I think he's completely changed his life around. He's feeling well. He looks great. My dad always talked about moving; he was always saying, 'I've got to get out of here.' He doesn't like driving, never has. He does his own errands, but he'd prefer to do them on foot or in a cab. He's just a New Yorker, he is."

By 6 o'clock, Bogdanovich's jumbo bottle of designer water is drained and resting on the floor of the SUV. Before he heads back into the Peninsula for a meeting, there's just enough time for him to give an avuncular hug and answer one last question: What's the biggest misconception about you?

The long, tired face of this man who has been rendered as everything from brilliant to kind of twisted actually lights up.

"For years, there was this general misconception about me that I started out as a critic, like Truffaut," he says. "Well, this is a complete fallacy. I was never a critic. I was an actor who started writing about films as a way of making a living."