GOLDEN AGE HEALTH HOLLYWOOD TAKES CARE OF ITS OWN ELDERLY.

Byline: SUSAN ABRAM

Staff Writer

WOODLAND HILLS -- They had shaped the Golden Age of film and television as actors and lighting directors, prop masters and sound technicians.

Now in their twilight years, these same men and women could one day be known as the pioneers of the Golden Age of senior health care.

On Wednesday, residents from the Motion Picture & Television Fund's Country Home on the Wasserman Campus helped open their retirement community's new $20 million Saban Center For Health and Wellness.

Funded by philanthropists Cheryl and Haim Saban, the center includes a high-tech fitness gym, wellness classes and a therapy pool donated by and named for Academy Award-winning actress Jodi Foster.

On hand to help unveil the center and pool, Foster said she had fond memories of the San Fernando Valley and the Motion Picture Home because of the care they offered to her aging acting teacher. She donated the pool because her mother once benefited from aqua therapy.

"I voted here for the very first time," Foster said. "And I have been a witness to how the industry cares for its own."

The nonprofit Motion Picture & Television Fund was founded in 1921 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to help fellow colleagues who had fallen on hard times. Right from the start, the group's slogan was "We Take Care of Our Own."

Since then, the group has cared for its own by operating five outpatient health centers throughout greater Los Angeles, a fully licensed, 256-bed acute-care hospital, a children's center, a retirement community and health plans.

"This is very much an institution of many instead of the demands of the few," said DreamWorks producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation. "The fund has deep residing respect for the past, but has an eye on the future."

With a tidal wave of baby boomers now in their 60s and an estimated 78 million Americans fast approaching retirement, the need for health care and social services for the elderly are expected to change the way retirement and traditional nursing homes serve senior adults.

Members of the Motion Picture & Television Fund decided there was no better place to start than with the growing ranks of L.A.'s aging industry workers. Anyone who has ever worked in Hollywood can use the fund's services, including the new center.

The new health and wellness center is being touted as a prototype for how retirement homes and planned communities will one day integrate services for senior adults who are living longer and want more independence.

"It's a symbol of what needs to be transformed in traditional long-term care," said Larry Minnix, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, a nonprofit that consults communities on how to improve health services for the elderly.

"What we know is people want services when they need them, without leaving their homes," Minnix said. "This is a place of hope."

"These not-for-profit centers represent the future," said David Tillman, president and CEO of the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation, the main social service provider to the entertainment industry. "The goal of the fund is to be the model for everyone else."

Harold Gould, 93, a five-time Emmy Award-nominated actor best known for playing Martin Morganstern in the 1970s sitcom "Rhoda" and who has acted in hundreds of movies and TV shows, praised the center as he worked on his biceps and chest on new gym equipment.

"It's really magnificent," he said. "I've been to other gyms, in other countries even, and there's nothing around like this."

His wife, Lea, 79, a theater actress, worked out alongside him. The couple has lived at the country cottage for three years. It had been a long time since she was able to exercise.

In another section of the center, Martin Seidman, 94, practiced flying a virtual jet, thanks to a computer program that helps to stimulate the mind.

"I'm the pilot and I'm taking off on a flight for Hawaii," said Seidman, who worked as a prop man on movies starring Charles Bronson and Dean Martin, and also did some jobs on "Seinfeld."

"This facility has everything. It's so beautiful."

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(1 -- 2) Above, Nancy Osborne leads a water-aerobics class at the opening of the new Saban Center for Health and Wellness on Wednesday in Woodland Hills. At top, actor Harold Gould flexes as he uses exercise equipment.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer