The Oscar-nominated director was buried under
an oak tree in a quiet corner in Green River
Cemetery near his East Hampton home.

About 60 people - including the filmmaker's wife,
Hannah, stepchildren, TV news honchos Peter
Jennings and Don Hewitt and writer Peter Stone -
listened to prayers in English and Hebrew as
Pakula was laid to rest in the "artist's cemetery,"
where famed painters Jackson Pollock and Elaine
de Kooning are also buried.

Jennings, whose daughter is Pakula's godchild,
called him a "spectacular ... eccentric ...
complicated and extremely modest man ... who
gave a lot of people a lot of happiness and a lot of
strength."

"He stays with all of us here as a person, not as a
director, necessarily, though there's no question
his work lives on and speaks for itself," Jennings
added.

Pakula, whose films included 'Klute," "All the
President's Men" and "Sophie's Choice," was killed
on Thursday when a 7-foot pipe crashed through
his windshield on the Long Island Expressway. He
was on his way to his East Hampton home.

"It's been very tough" for Pakula's family, said
Jennings, "but they're very strong."

Pakula was a man who could always be trusted,
Jennings said.

"You could go to Al and tell him almost any secret
and it was always safe," said Jennings.

Hewitt, producer of CBS's "60 Minutes," said, "I
never met anybody in my life who was not a better
man or a better woman for having known Alan
Pakula."

Christopher Murray, the son of Pakula's first wife,
actress Hope Lange, flew in from Los Angeles.

"He was truly a gentleman," said Murray. "It's hard
to say goodbye. He was a man who had no
children of his own, but had five children he loved.

"All you have to do is look at the sensitivity and
talent he put into his work and you will know him."

Another stepchild, Murray's sister, Patricia, said,
"He was a man whose heart was as big as his
large intellect."

Local resident Joe Coffey, who worked as a
cinematographer in Pakula's 1966 film "Up the
Down Staircase," said he was a "very creative,
hard-working man who celebrated life in his films
and did a beautiful job."

Cops are still looking for the driver of a white
tractor-trailer that they believe dropped the steel
pipe that killed Pakula.

-- Angela Mosconi - 11/23/98