Altman basked in the love and appreciation of Hollywood at the end of his life, but his career was marked by tumult and animosity, particularly between the director and his financial backers, whom he frequently disappointed both with his work and with his screw-you attitude. Altman was a notorious troublemaker all the way back to his youth in Kansas City, Missouri, and he was also known to draw creative people into his circle, become their best friend and mentor, then push them away due to some imagined slight, or because he’d gotten all he needed from them. In his personal and business life, Altman could be an exceedingly sweet man, and he could be a stone bastard. And as an artist, he sometimes lost interest in projects before they were fully complete, turning out films that felt muddled and uninspired.
