1971: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song crashed the box office charts despite being an all-Black indie production before there was such a thing, became mandatory viewing for the Black Panthers, roiled nationwide controversy, and practically jump-started the whole Blaxploitation genre (even though the film itself was anything but). But its maker, Chicagoan Melvin Van Peebles, had already been an Air Force officer, San Francisco cable car conductor, novelist (in French!), painter, sculptor, pioneer rapper (as “Brer Soul”), etc. etc.--and would go on to become a twice-Tonynominated Broadway playwright (Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death and Don’t Play Us Cheap), Wall Street trader, local news commentator and--“like a bee going from flower to flower taking a little from everywhere"--a globe-trotting Don Juan.