November 19, 1998
Web posted at: 11:08 p.m. EST (0408 GMT)

In this story:

• Producer, then director
• Enduring themes
• Related site

NEW YORK (AP) -- Alan Pakula, who directed the gripping account of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate investigation in "All The President's Men," died Thursday in a car accident. He was 70.

Pakula also directed the films "Klute," "Sophie's Choice," and, more recently, "The Devil's Own."

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

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Pakula lost control of his 1995 Volvo, veered off the road about 35 miles (56 km) east of New York City, and crashed into a fence at 11:15 a.m. ET, the officer said.

He was taken to North Shore Hospital in Plainview, where he was pronounced dead, DiStefano said.

News of Pakula's death shook the film industry.

"I can't believe it," said actor Jason Robards, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in "All The President's Men" in 1976. "I not only worked for him, I loved him very much."

Robards said Pakula was a meticulous director during the film.

"We didn't rush. We had to be very careful to make sure it was the truth. This was Washington," Robards said.

Producer, then director

Pakula was born April 7, 1928, in New York. In 1948, after graduating from Yale University, he moved to Hollywood. He began as a production assistant at Paramount at the age of 22.

He wanted to be a director but got his first chance at movie making by working as a producer.

The 1957 film, "Fear Strikes Out," told the story of Boston Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall and his bouts of manic depression. It gave a young Tony Perkins his first big role and launched Pakula's career.

"I think when you do a film, there's a part of you in each character, or vice-versa," Pakula once said in an interview.

He then went on to produce Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" in 1962. He got his first chance as a director with "The Sterile Cuckoo," starring Liza Minnelli, which came out in 1969.

He followed that up with "Klute," the 1971 film starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, "The Parallax View" in 1974 with Warren Beatty, and "All The President's Men."

The 1976 movie won four Oscars. Pakula was nominated for Best Director for "All The President's Men."

Because many of his movies dealt with a loss of trust in government, "I was called the paranoid's director," he once said.

"Funnily enough, I never expected to direct those kinds of films, although I was always interested in the body politic."

Enduring themes

The loss of innocence, the tragic quality of life and how people cope and start over were also themes of his films.

These themes were evident through his later work, such as 1982's "Sophie's Choice," starring Meryl Streep; "Presumed Innocent" in 1990; "The Pelican Brief" in 1993; and "The Devil's Own," starring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford in 1997.

In 1989, Pakula wrote, directed and produced "See You In The Morning," a story about a divorced man who marries a widow with children. The plot paralleled his own life, which included a divorce from his first wife, actress Hope Lange, and a second marriage to Hannah Cohen Boorstin, a widow with three children.

At the time of his death, Pakula was working on a screenplay about the White House years of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Pakula is survived by his wife, Hannah, and three stepchildren.

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