LEE GRANT: TAKES SUCCESS IN HER STRIDE

“It’s a great conquering for me, to go from being an actress to being a director in the second part of my life,” said Lee Grant. “It’s a transition that would have once seemed unachievable, and it shows just how far the industry has come.”

At the moment, however, being a director involves waiting out tense negotiations between the Directors Guild of America and motion picture producers, and Grant finds herself caught between her desire to work as a director and her loyalities as a “union maid.”

“We’ve been doubling all our efforts to get all this done by the strike deadline,” said Grant on Thursday. She has been furiously scouting and casting on both coasts for an independent feature called “Boys’ Life.”

“But, despite the fact that my nails have been bleeding to get to the (directing) point where I am, I’m still aware of the importance of standing together (with the union), and if there’s a strike I’ll be out on a picket line.”

The success Grant has achieved as a director shows how far the Oscar-winning actress has come--while continuing her acting career--in just 10 years. Since directing her first “student film” for the American Film Institute in 1975, she has directed eight dramatic and documentary films, including “Tell Me a Riddle,” “The Willmar Eight,” and “A Matter of Sex,” a TV movie starring Jean Stapleton, plus several stage productions.

But the real “approval,” as Grant referred to her acceptance in a male-dominated area of the industry, came at two annual ceremonies this year.

She became the first woman to receive a Directors Guild of America award in the category of television “dramatic special” at DGA ceremonies this spring in New York. The award was for her direction of “Nobody’s Child,” an ABC-TV movie starring Marlo Thomas as an abused woman.

An even more glittering prize followed, when Grant’s documentary about poverty in America, “Down and Out in America,” won an Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremonies.

Grant was grateful, but not gloating, in a recent interview in the homey, airy, art-filled Manhattan apartment she shares with her husband and producing partner Joseph Feury.

“I’m grateful, but I wouldn’t have wanted it to come any sooner,” she said, in her usual direct manner, reflecting on her success in a second career. “I don’t like things to come easy for me; I get off on having to work hard for what I want.

“Of course, there’s the added challenge of being accepted as a woman director, but I resist the tendency to be pigeonholed, or to be set on a pedestal of any kind. I like the idea of being just another scrambler,” she continued, pointing out that she is more concerned with the tangible signs of success when dealing with film and TV executives.

“They’ve come from being dismissive, to saying ‘let’s talk,’ to phoning me frequently,” she explained. Grant acknowledged that she has been part of “a revolution” taking place within the film and TV industry when it comes to women directors.

But she pointed out that she had to break through the barricades to achieve success as an actress. Almost immediately after her stunning 1951 film debut in “Detective Story,” Grant fell victim to the McCarthy-era pressures in Hollywood.

She refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee against her husband, (the late) playwright Arnold Manoff, who was blacklisted for his political views. Grant says she could not find major work in films or TV for the next 12 years. “The problem of sudden success was taken out of my hands,” she half-joked the other day, turning serious to recall the triumph she felt when she accepted her 1975 Oscar for her performance in “Shampoo.”

She said she knew from experience that her acceptance as a director by the film-making Establishment would not come easy to her.

“And there was no way the transition could have been made in California,” which is why, she explained that she and Feury sacrificed a comfortable Malibu life style to return home to New York five years ago to develop film and TV projects for Grant--and others--to direct.

Referring to herself as a “humanist” rather than a feminist film maker, Grant said her history as “an outsider” in Hollywood also has influenced her choice of subjects. In her documentaries, for instance, she has examined women workers on strike, women who kill their husbands and transsexuals. Among her plans is another documentary about family violence for Home Box Office.

“To some extent, I’m yelling back at the television, because most of the time it’s putting out a reality I don’t accept, and I’m trying to give back the reality I see,” she said of the documentaries. “But I think for me, justice is the key. And if more men (directors) had come from my background, being kicked out of the industry . . . fighting McCarthyism for 12 years . . . they might be more plugged into these subjects.

“I’m sure my being a woman makes some difference, and during this period I think I have come to find the subject of women more fascinating. . . . I’ve seen that they’re taking leaps forward, just like me,” said Grant.

But when asked if she thinks women bring a special sensibility to directing, she said: “I don’t think I’m any more sensitive than a Paul Newman, who’s just directed ‘The Glass Menagerie’ . . . and there are men whose sensibilities I feel very close to, like Costa Gavras. And Oliver Stone, who deals with violence and war.”

Grant proudly pointed out that among the feature film and TV projects she and her partners are developing for her to direct are those dealing with men. At present, she’s involved in preparations for the “Boys’ Life” film, which is about three brothers growing up in the Northwest. She also plans to direct Lanford Wilson’s “Serenading Louie,” for public television’s “American Playhouse” series. And, since her recent awards, she said she has received three offers of “good, serious projects, for a change,” from as many major Hollywood studios. “I need to make a movie that is successful on the industry’s terms,” she said.

As for her long-neglected acting career, she said, “There are parts I’m still attracted to as an actress, but my focus is somewhere else now. I have nothing to prove as an actress, but I have a lot to accomplish as a director.

“Besides, I think people are thinking of me more for directing roles.”