Director Alan Pakula dies in car accident in N.Y.

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.

"My wife and I . . . are saddened and devastated," said Peck, who won an Oscar in the Pakula-produced "To Kill a Mockingbird" for his portrayal of a white lawyer who defends a black man in the South accused of rape.

"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 - pronounced pa KOO la - 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 Bros. 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 Min-nel-li as a lonely college stu-dent.

Next came a series of suspense dramas that he 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.

The loss of innocence, the tragic quality of life and how people cope and start over were themes that carried through his later work. The movies include "Sophie's Choice," the 1982 film adaptation of the William Styron book that won the best actress Oscar for Streep; "Presumed Innocent" (1990), starring Harrison Ford; "The Pelican Brief" (1993), with Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts; and "The Devil's Own," which starred Ford and Brad Pitt (1997).