FINALLY SHINING A LIGHT ON LUMET

Genius behind many screen gems has rarely been in focus himself

He put every New Yorker’s life on screen, except his own. Sidney Lumet made films that captured the city’s people. The oddball outcasts of “Dog Day Afternoon,” the working-man jurors of “12 Angry Men,” the journalist elites of “Network.”

Fans felt they knew these characters. Yet when Lumet died in 2011, few really knew him.

“Sidney Lumet: A Life,” Maura Spiegel’s story of a fascinating, complicated man, finally gives him his own closeup.

He was born in Philadelphia in 1924 to Polish immigrants, Baruch and Jenny, who soon moved to New York. Baruch was an actor before emigrating. Jenny was a stagestruck fan who left her wealthy family to marry him.

They arrived in America to find New York’s Yiddish theater fading. Unable to find steady roles, Baruch eventually sent Sidney on auditions too, pointing him toward Broadway.

Soon, the child was supporting the family. His performance in the hit “Dead End” even drew talent scouts from Hollywood.

But Baruch’s contract demands drove away the studios. Sidney’s co-stars went West and became the Dead End Kids. He stayed in New York, doing plays, working steadily.

It wasn’t much of a childhood. But who cared when you spent your days hanging out in coffee shops, and your nights onstage?

“Believe me, worse things can happen to a child,” Lumet said later. “So what if you don’t get to see kids your own age – all that means is you don’t learn to pick your nose and scratch your butt the way they do.”

When World War II began, many of Lumet’s friends toured local military bases. “Not my idea of fighting fascism,” Lumet sneered. He enlisted in the Signal Corps because it accepted a near-sighted 17-yearold.

By the war’s end, though, the beautiful child star was a short, 22-year-old man. When he went to see his old agent, the man sighed. “Too bad you didn’t grow taller,” he said.

Finally, Lumet started teaching at the new High School for Performing Arts. Then a theater friend, Yul Brynner, told him CBS was looking for directors. I wouldn’t know what I was doing, Lumet protested.

“Nobody here knows what the hell they’re doing,” Brynner explained.

Lumet liked the challenge and the steady paycheck. He had recently married starlet Rita Gam and started directing TV. Within a year, he was directing “You Are There.”

His marriage ended abruptly in 1955 when Gam came back from a film shoot to confess she had a fling. “I told him, and Sidney moved out,” she remembered. “Just like that.”

Almost immediately, he met Gloria Vanderbilt at a party. Dancing with Lumet, Vanderbilt said, “I could feel the energy of his heart and soul going through me like warm honey.” They married in 1956.

Meanwhile, Lumet’s career was taking off. His 1957 movie debut, “12 Angry Men,” garnered him an Oscar nomination for best director. More work followed. Life was good.

Then his heart broke again. Vanderbilt became smitten with a charming writer named

Wyatt Cooper. The Lumets filed for a quickie divorce.

Vanderbilt, who kept Lumet’s love letters until the end of her life, viewed the split with regret. But he, as usual, had already moved on quickly, courting Gail Jones, Lena Horne’s young daughter.

They married that year and started a family.

Lumet’s work continued. He made “Fail-Safe,” a taut story about nuclear war. And, he directed “The Pawnbroker,” about a traumatized Holocaust survivor. Still, boxoffice success eluded him.

“I need one hit,” he said, “so I can get the money for three more flops.”

He found the hit in 1973 with “Serpico.” Instead of portraying the whistleblower as a saint, Lumet worked with star Al Pacino to focus on the cop’s pain-in-the-neck stubbornness. It became one of the hits of the year.

Lumet reteamed with Pacino for “Dog Day Afternoon.” The day before shooting, the director visited his star’s home to find him on the floor, barking like a dog. Pacino confessed he was “out of control” with anxiety. He said he couldn’t do the film.

The real problem, Lumet guessed, was that Pacino’s career had just taken off. He was worried playing a gay character would torpedo it.

Smartly, instead of talking