Biography

Alan J. Pakula

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Overview

Born
April 7, 1928 · The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
Died
November 19, 1998 · Melville, Long Island, New York, USA (road accident)
Birth name
Alan Jay Pakula
Height
6′ 1½″ (1.87 m)

Biography

Alan J. Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Best Director for All the President's Men (1976) and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sophie's Choice (1982).

He also directed Presumed Innocent (1990), The Pelican Brief (1993) and The Devil's Own (1997), his last film.

From October 19, 1963, until 1971, Pakula was married to actress Hope Lange. He was married to his second wife, Hannah Pakula from 1973 until his death in 1998.

Pakula died on November 19, 1998, in a car accident, he was 70 years old.
- IMDb mini biography by: Pedro Borges

Family

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Trivia

He was killed when a metal pipe smashed through the windshield of his black Volvo station wagon and struck him in the head. The seven-foot-long pipe was already in the roadway when another car gave it a glancing blow, sending it through Pakula's windshield. Then Pakula's car swerved across a service road and hit a fence. The accident happened about a quarter mile east of the Melville exit on the Long Island Expressway. He was taken to North Shore University Hospital at Plainview (Nassau County), where he was pronounced dead at 12:22 P.M.
His interest in psychology, particularly how men deal with their fears, has been reflected in many of his films.
In 1998, he was slowly in the works to direct a situation comedy he had written entitled "A Tale of Two Strippers"; which told the story of two male exotic dancers in Las Vegas who find themselves trying to evade a hit man after witnessing an arranged murder when they get an address mixed up and arrive to the wrong location to perform a private gig. He died in an automobile accident before anything could start so the project was immediately canceled. Had it gone through it would've marked the film debuts of actors Josh Duhamel and Ashton Kutcher whom he hired to star in the lead roles.
Always highly supportive of his cast, he had a reputation as an 'actor's director'.
Directed 8 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Richard Farnsworth, Jill Clayburgh, Candice Bergen and Meryl Streep. Fonda, Robards and Streep won Oscars for their performances in one of Pakula's movies.

Quotes

[on Liza Minnelli] One of the happiest times in my life was during The Sterile Cuckoo (1969), mostly because of Liza. I've never seen anybody get more joy out of working and it's contagious.
I am oblique, I think that has to do with my own nature. I like trying to do things which work on many levels, because I think it is terribly important to give an audience a lot of things they might not get as well as those they will, so that finally the film does take on a texture and is not just simplistic communication.
[on The Devil's Own (1997)] In American film there is a good guy and a bad guy. It's the first thing my grandson always asks: Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy? When I say Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt are both good guys, that throws him. What's interesting to me is what happens when people with two different senses of what is right and what is wrong meet. What's interesting is the fact that these two men can love and respect each other. It makes it more complicated. Much more interesting and much more human.