Film World Mourns Alan Pakula

Alan Pakula never thought he would be known as a master of political intrigue. That changed when he started directing movie thrillers like All The President's Men and The Parallax View.

"I was called the paranoid's director," Pakula once said in an interview. "Funnily enough, I never expected to direct those kinds of films, although I was always interested in the body politic."

Pakula, 70, was killed Thursday when a metal pipe lying on the Long Island Expressway was kicked up by another car and crashed through his windshield, striking him in the head, said Suffolk County Police spokesman Santo DiStefano.

Pakula lost control of his 1995 Volvo, veered off the road about 35 miles east of New York City and struck a fence, the officer said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.

As a producer, director, and screenwriter, Pakula sought out edgy stories and dramatic characters that brought the uneasiness of the times to the screen. Many of his stars, including Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, Jason Robards, and Meryl Streep, won Oscars.

Pakula with Harper Lee in 1962 (AP)

"Alan Pakula was one of the most honorable men I have ever met. We have had a strong bond since the making of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' over 35 years ago. He brought the Harper Lee book to me to read, and I sensed it would be the role of my life," Peck said.

Pakula was born April 7, 1928, in New York. After graduating from Yale University in 1948, he moved to Hollywood and took a job at Warner Brothers. He become a production assistant at Paramount Pictures at age 22.

He wanted to be a director but got his first shot at movie-making by working as a producer on the 1957 film, Fear Strikes Out, the story of Boston Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall.

Pakula went on to produce To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962. The film, which marked the screen debut of Robert Duvall, was nominated for an Oscar and established Pakula as a player in Hollywood.

He followed with movies like the Natalie Wood-Steve McQueen romance Love With the Proper Stranger (1963); Inside Daisy Clover, also starring Wood (1965); Up the Down Staircase (1967); and The Stalking Moon (1969).

That same year, Pakula landed his first job as a director with The Sterile Cuckoo, starring Liza Minnelli as a lonely college student.

Next came a series of suspense dramas thahe called his "paranoid trilogy:" the tightly woven psychological thriller Klute, starring Fonda as a pricey call girl and Donald Sutherland (1971); The Parallax View, a political thriller with Warren Beatty as a reporter (1974); and All the President's Men (1976). The movie won four Oscars, including a supporting acting prize for Jason Robards.

Pakula's publicist and friend of 30 years, Harry Cline, said the director had the ability to draw out great performances.

"He wasn't a starmaker. Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Candice Bergen, Jason Robards, Burt Reynolds, Jane Alexander, they were already stars," Cline said. "But if you had to choose great performances by these people, most of them were in Alan's films."

On the set of 'Presumed Innocent' with Bonnie Bedelia (AP)

At the time of his death, Pakula was working on a screenplay adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, about the White House years of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Cline said.

Pakula is survived by his wife, Hannah Cohen Boorstin, and three stepchildren.

Written by Chelsea J. Carter
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