The Second Lives Club

Sidney Lumet, still going strong at 72, steals a catnap when cast and crew break for lunch. “In the Army,” he says, “I learned how to conk out wherever I was.”

Alan J. Pakula, 68 and now fine-tuning “The Devil’s Own,” with Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, is careful not to repeat himself. “I start each film as if it’s the first,” he explains. “Otherwise, you become a pallid imitation of yourself.”

James Ivory, also 68, learned long ago to forestall confrontations. His advice: “Never show an actor a rough cut--no matter what.”

Arthur Hiller, 72, lights out for the Big Apple. “The people, the traffic--all those problems--keep me on my toes,” says Hiller, whose career spans “Love Story” and the now-in-production “An Alan Smithee Film,” with Sylvester Stallone and Whoopi Goldberg.

Norman Jewison, who celebrated his 70th birthday with the release of his 22nd film (“Bogus”), keeps plenty of Chap Stick on hand for those marathon kissing sequences.

Tricks of the trade? Egocentric quirks? A Hollywood paradox that has more to do with luck, good genes and keeping an accountant’s eye on the bottom line? All of the above, answers Lumet. “Who cares--as long as the films keep coming?” grumbles the ever-contrary Robert Altman, who, at 71, has half a dozen projects going and is mapping out “my next decade of mogulism.”

However you want to lump such stratagems, they help Hollywood directors of a certain age conserve energy and stay in the game well past what the rest of us consider retirement age.

“We are all living longer, which means we get to yell ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ longer,” says Paul Mazursky, who, after directing “Faithful” with Cher, acting in “2 Days in the Valley” and undergoing a triple bypass, is planning his first HBO movie (on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) and a sequel to “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” Mazursky, best known for the Oscar-nominated “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” and “An Unmarried Woman,” describes himself as “still sharp” at 66.

“I’ve got more stuff going on today--more projects, more travel, more balls in the air--than I ever did before,” brags Altman, who, besides prepping his next feature, is juggling an anthology series for ABC (“Gun”) and producer chores on the Alan Rudolph-Nick Nolte picture “Afterglow.”

When young assistants urge the boss to take time off, Altman snaps, “What’ll I do?”

Pakula (“All the President’s Men”) and Lumet (“Dog Day Afternoon”) also keep schedules that would break men half their age. Besides “The Devil’s Own” (due in March), Pakula is adapting the nonfiction bestseller “No Ordinary Time,” collaborating with cartoonist Garry Trudeau on a black comedy, producing two films and writing his first novel. Lumet has “Night Falls on Manhattan” with Andy Garcia opening Dec. 20 and is now shooting the low-budget black comedy “Critical Care,” with James Spader and Albert Brooks.

Pakula and Lumet, both dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers, credit the insane pace with keeping them in the game. “It sure keeps you glad to get up in the mornings,” Pakula says.

In an apparent contradiction for an industry said to be run by and for people under 30, trade-paper production charts are crammed with the names of filmmakers finding their third and fourth winds. How do they do it? By staying healthy, keeping focused and seldom going over budget. What they lack in energy, they more than make up for in common sense and people skills--what Jewison calls “wisdom and observation.”

Along with those mentioned above, the list includes: Woody Allen, who, at 60, is awaiting the release of “Everyone Says I Love You” and shooting the comedy “Deconstructing Harry” with Demi Moore and Robin Williams; John Frankenheimer, who, at 66, just won his first Emmy for TNT’s “Andersonville” and directed a deliriously mannered Marlon Brando in “The Island of Dr. Moreau”; and Milos Forman, who, at 64, is back with “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” due out Dec. 27, starring Woody Harrelson.

Costa-Gavras, 63, is in Northern California shooting “Mad City” with John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman; and Clint Eastwood, 66, is out scouting Savannah locations for “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” The reclusive Stanley Kubrick, 68, also is back at work--on his 13th feature, “Eyes Wide Shut,” with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Mike Nichols (64) and John Schlesinger (70) seem more active now than in their ‘60s heydays; and Garry Marshall (61), Mel Brooks (70) and Carl Reiner (73) are still plying their distinctive brands of lunacy. (Where are women and minority directors? They weren’t allowed entry when this old boys’ club opened in the early ‘60s.)

Ivory credits his longevity to working with the same producer and writer and, therefore, forgoing “that draining process of searching all the time for your team.” Jewison demands final cut and has a track record of “not going crazy with the budget.” Mazursky reviews his dailies at lunch and pushes for extra rehearsal time (as much as three months) to “just lie around dreaming, to let my mind go a little bit and not be as rigid.”

For Lumet, being prolific late in life has more to do with luck and, when you’re between gigs, that obsessive “fear of never working again.”

Altman shrugs this off. Staying active, he insists, comes down to passion and vision, period. Good directors can no more stop directing than they can stop breathing. “Most of the great conductors--Eugene Ormandy, Toscanini--were in their 60s and 70s; Picasso was knocking away in his 80s,” he points out. “Why should directors be different?”

Ivory, whose “Surviving Picasso” with Anthony Hopkins is now in theaters, agrees: “Why do we elect old presidents? It’s because older people are meant to have more skill, more wisdom, more insight than younger people. It works for filmmakers too.”

A number of Hollywood giants remained active well past 60. John Ford was over 70 when he did “Seven Women”; Howard Hawks undertook “Rio Lobo” at 74; Alfred Hitchcock capped his remarkable career with the playful “Family Plot” at 77; John Huston directed his most lyrical piece, “The Dead,” at 81--from a wheelchair connected to a respirator.

Of course, the studio system provided a safety net for some. But it’s long gone: Movies now are green-lighted by marketing departments and cut after audience polls; studio executives are lawyers or MBAs unfamiliar with such benchmark titles as “The Pawnbroker” (Lumet) and “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (Altman).

And yet, some senior members of the Directors Guild of America are still in there swinging--and, in the case of Allen and Altman, occasionally hitting one out of the park.

It takes the stamina of a Sherpa guide to survive a two-month shoot of 12- to 15-hour days. Has someone laced the water with youth serum?

“The main element is just managing to stay alive,” replies Altman. “Many of my contemporaries aren’t working today because they died or succumbed to some illness, or just got bored with it.” (Sam Peckinpah was mentioned more than once as an example of the profligate filmmaker who drank and smoked himself to an early grave.)

The emphasis now is on diet, exercise, adequate rest. Long gone are the Jack Daniels in the bottom drawer and the wild wrap parties--at least for the veterans. “The romantic idea of a director used to be the guy who stomped around and yelled and shot guns,” says Ivory, who learned early in his career that partying during a shoot wasn’t a good idea.

Pakula walks, works out with weights and uses a NordicTrack. “Without physical endurance,” he says, “none of the other talents for directing mean anything.”

Two months before he starts a project, Lumet drops 5 pounds by walking two miles a day. Jewison jogs on the beach and, when home in Ontario, Canada, works his 450-acre farm. Mazursky walks, plays tennis and, once a week, takes to the treadmill. Hiller, whose cholesterol stays low despite a passion for cheeseburgers, scouts his own locations because, during a shoot, “you’re on your feet the whole time.”

Altman, who has a bad knee and admits to “boozing pretty heavily at various decades of my life,” keeps fit by staying focused.

And how do you know it’s time to throw in the towel?

Jewison asked William Wyler (“Ben-Hur”) that very question at a Malibu party. “He was standing on the deck, sneaking another cigarette,” Jewison recalls. “I said, ‘Willy, when’s it all over?’ He said in that hoarse voice of his, ‘When your legs give out, kid.’ ”

The directors surveyed predate film school. They learned the old-fashioned way: by doing. Several cut their teeth on live television in the ‘50s, when the show went on no matter what. Hiller, Lumet and Frankenheimer attribute their speed and decisiveness to working on shows such as “You Are There” and “Playhouse 90.” “No matter how prepared you were, when the clock hit the top, anything could go wrong,” recalls Hiller, who currently serves as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “You learned to cope with emergencies in seconds.”

More, you learned to bounce back, to not let the bad shows demoralize you. Hollywood’s active vets aren’t as prone to tantrums and self-doubts. Despite sometimes-withering notices (such as Frankenheimer collected for the riotously bad “Dr. Moreau” and Altman withstood for “Kansas City”), they keep looking ahead to the next assignment. To a one, Hollywood’s elder statesmen are more concerned with the totality of their work than in a single production. They sign on even when the material isn’t up to their standards or they have to relinquish final cut and become, in Mazursky’s words, “just an instrument.”

“I’m not concerned with history or being in somebody’s pantheon,” says Lumet, whose 40-plus features range from “Fail-Safe” to “Serpico” to the roundly panned “Guilty as Sin” with Don Johnson. “I’m not concerned with masterpieces. None of those words are part of me. My job is to direct. And I’m not a director unless I’m shooting.”

Citing Huston and “The Dead,” Jewison argues that older directors are more interesting because they’re at the stage where they want to work on a smaller, more personal scale. They know how to streamline production and cut costs. Ivory, Allen and Lumet seldom work with budgets over $15 million. “We [at Merchant Ivory] are considered skinflints,” Ivory, who’s about to start “A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries,” says with a laugh. “Well, we are--that’s why we’re able to work so much.”

As with any profession, the more passionate you are, the longer you’ll last. “Every film is like the first film--the same frisson of excitement, fun, anticipation,” Pakula says. “The day I don’t feel that is the day I stop making movies.”

It also helps to have a pet project on the back burner, something to reach for.

Veteran western director Budd Boetticher, who describes himself as “full of piss and vinegar” at 78, still dreams of directing “A Horse for Mr. Barnum” (which he announced in the ‘60s). Oscar winner Robert Wise, 82, has a small character piece set to go called “Whisper in My Good Ear.” Billy Wilder, 90, won’t talk about his next project, for fear of jinxing it. “Of course I’ll direct again,” vowed the director of “Sunset Boulevard” at a Palo Alto tribute two years ago. “I’m only interested in tomorrow’s film.”

Lumet has not one but three dream projects. He shakes his head at the notion of today’s hot young auteurs doing a $100-million production every three years. “George Cukor did 50 movies in his life,” he says. “If you count the silents, John Ford did 170. I don’t know where this fashion began for ‘saving yourself.’ What the hell are you saving yourself for? This is the real McCoy. Do it now or forget about it.”