Robert Altman got a late start in Hollywood. He was in his mid-40s by the time his 1970 breakthrough, "M-A-S-H," became a countercultural touchstone. But in the three and a half decades that followed, Altman, who died Monday night at age 81, made movies with the daring and exuberance of a much younger man.

Perhaps no director has ever taken a single box-office success and run with it the way Altman did. He didn't have another bona fide hit until "The Player" in 1992. Throughout his career -- and especially in his '70s heyday -- his pace was frantic, his innovations constant.

Instead of taking safe contract jobs, he listened to his muse, following up "M-A-S-H" with a series of bizarre and indelible films, beginning with the action fantasy "Brewster McCloud," about a young man (Bud Cort) building a flying machine in the basement of the Houston Astrodome and the birdlike woman (Sally Kellerman) who protects him. It's an unhinged piece of work, and the editing at times has a pace that rivals the hyperkinetic Tony Scott or Baz Luhrmann.

In the next four years, Altman steamrolled through a series of played-out genres, infusing them with vigor and irreverence: western ("McCabe & Mrs. Miller"), psychological thriller ("Images"), film noir ("The Long Goodbye"), heist movie ("Thieves Like Us") and buddy comedy ("California Split").

He was famous for showing up on location and throwing out the script, treating it as a rough outline at best. Actors and crew members described a party atmosphere on his sets, where they would gather at the end of the day to watch the footage they'd shot amid a haze of marijuana smoke.

And he would try pretty much anything.

In "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," instead of an original score, he used a series of existing Leonard Cohen songs to haunting effect. He insisted on shooting his climax in a driving blizzard, ignoring the obvious continuity problems to show how the brutal climate helped seal McCabe's tragic fate.

In "The Long Goodbye," he cast loosey-goosey Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe, the hard-boiled Raymond Chandler hero immortalized by Humphrey Bogart. Altman's constantly moving camera (there isn't a single static shot) and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's technique of "flashing" already-exposed film with light created a dreamy, seductive texture. The movie is also notable for shocking explosions of violence, a cameo by a young Arnold Schwarzenegger and the best performance by a tabby cat in film history.

Altman didn't encourage hamminess from his actors: He wanted them to be themselves. It's hard to find two performers more relaxed and charming than Gould and George Segal in "California Split," as gambling addicts who become fast friends. No high-concept Owen Wilson vehicle could hope to match the energy of the interplay between Gould and Segal as they try to remember the names of the seven dwarves.

In his masterpiece, "Nashville," Altman cast actors as country-music stars with little regard for their singing ability and had them write their own lyrics, with electrifying results.

Working with small budgets and under the radar allowed Altman to keep striving. In his DVD commentary for "3 Women," an identity-swapping mystery that came to him in a dream, he recalls popping into the office of Alan Ladd Jr., the head of production at 20th Century Fox, describing his inchoate ideas and getting a green light on the spot.

Altman isn't as beloved among contemporary moviegoers as the younger filmmakers who came of age in the '70s, like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg. But a series of retrospectives in recent years put some of his obscure titles in front of audiences again, and much of his filmography is now available on DVD, aching for rediscovery.

He was cavalier to the end. In an interview with The Associated Press just last month to promote the DVD release of his last movie, "A Prairie Home Companion," writer Garrison Keillor said he suspected that Altman never read his screenplay.

Altman's response: "Well, the script is not to be read."

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asap contributor Ben Nuckols is in mourning.

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