- Alan J. Pakula
Infobox Actor
name = Alan J. Pakula
caption = Pakula in Sweden, 1990.
birthdate =April 7 ,1928
location =The Bronx ,New York City ,New York , USA
deathdate = death date and age|1998|11|19|1928|4|7
deathplace = Melville,Long Island , New York, USA
spouse = Hope Lange (1963-1971)
Hannah Cohn Boorstin (1973-1998)
academyawards =
baftaawards =
goldenglobeawards =Alan Jay Pakula (
April 7 1928 –November 19 1998 ) was an American film director, writer and producer noted for his contributions to theconspiracy thriller genre.Biography
Career
Pakula started his
Hollywood career as an assistant in thecartoon department atWarner Brothers . In 1957, he undertook his first production role forParamount Pictures . In 1962, he produced "To Kill a Mockingbird", for which he was nominated for a Best PictureAcademy Award . In 1969, he directed his first feature, "The Sterile Cuckoo ", starringLiza Minnelli .In 1971, Pakula released the first installment of what would informally come to be known as his "
paranoia trilogy". "Klute ", the story of a private eye's relationship with a call girl (played byJane Fonda , who won an Oscar for her performance), was a commercial and critical success. This was followed in 1974 by "The Parallax View " starringWarren Beatty , a similarly labyrinthine post-Watergate thriller notable for its experimental use of hypnotic imagery in a celebrated film-within-a-film sequence in which the protagonist is inducted into the mysterious Parallax Corporation.Finally, in 1976, Pakula rounded out the "trilogy" with "All the President's Men", based on the bestselling account of the Watergate scandal written by
Bob Woodward andCarl Bernstein , who were played in the movie by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. It was another commercial hit, considered by many critics and fans to be one of the best thrillers of the 1970s. [ [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/all_the_presidents_men/ All the President's Men Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes ] ]Pakula scored another hit in 1982 with "Sophie's Choice", starring
Meryl Streep . His screenplay, based on the novel byWilliam Styron , was nominated for an Academy Award. Later commercial successes included "Presumed Innocent", based on the bestselling novel byScott Turow , and another political thriller, "The Pelican Brief", an adaptation ofJohn Grisham 's bestseller.Personal life
Pakula was born in
New York to PolishJew ish parents Jeanette (née Goldstein) and Paul Pakula. [ [http://www.filmreference.com/film/62/Alan-Pakula.html Alan Pakula Biography (1928-) ] ] He was educated atYale University , where he majored indrama . FromOctober 19 ,1963 to 1971, Pakula was married to actressHope Lange . He was married to Hannah Cohn Boorstin in 1973, until his death.Pakula died in 1998 in a bizarre car accident on the
Long Island Expressway inMelville, New York at the age of 70. A driver in front of him struck a metal pipe, which went through Pakula's windshield, striking him in the head and causing him to swerve off the road and into a fence. He was killed instantly.Filmography
*1997 "
The Devil's Own "
*1993 "The Pelican Brief"
*1990 "Presumed Innocent"
*1982 "Sophie's Choice"
*1981 "Rollover"
*1979 "Starting Over"
*1976 "All the President's Men"
*1974 "The Parallax View "
*1973 "Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing "
*1971 "Klute "
*1969 "The Sterile Cuckoo "
*1962 "To Kill a Mockingbird" (as producer)References
External links
*imdb name |id=0001587 |name=Alan J. Pakula
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4058 Alan Pakula's Gravesite]
* [http://www.fathom.com/feature/122255/index.html American Film Institute interview]
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