Sherry Lansing. Photo by S. Smith Patrick/Civic Ventures.

Sherry Lansing brought her warmth and passion – and her friend Sidney Poitier – to the recent Purpose Prize Innovation Summit at Stanford University. The annual award ceremony is one of her favorite days of the year, she says, leaving her “glowing and more inspired than ever.”

Lansing is pretty inspiring herself, and her encore career is evidence that there are, indeed, second acts in American life.

Lansing agreed to talk with Encore.org about her work, past, present and future, as part of our series of Encore Leadership Interviews. Click here to see the Q & A.

In Lansing’s first act, as chairman of Paramount Pictures, she oversaw the release of more than 200 films including “Forrest Gump,” “Braveheart,” and “Titanic,” the highest grossing movie of all time.

As she neared 60, Lansing began to plan her next stage. Before she got into movies, Lansing had been a high school teacher in the tough Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and she was driven to get back to her roots. “I asked myself, ‘What is it that really gives me pleasure?’” Lansing says. “The answer is giving back.”

Lansing had been a longtime member of the board of Teach for America, the spectacularly successful national service program that attracts bright college graduates into a stint in the classroom. So she wrote a piece for the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington’s blog, calling for a similar initiative to mobilize aging boomers to serve as teachers in urban schools. Marc Freedman, head of Civic Ventures, responded to Lansing’s post, and a partnership was born.

Lansing has created PrimeTime LAUSD, which links volunteers to a wide variety of opportunities in L.A. schools. With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, she has launched the EnCorps Teacher Initiative, a public-private partnership to help California corporations steer interested employers to second careers as math and science teachers. Lansing leads the panel of judges that select Purpose Prize winners and serves on Civic Ventures’ board of directors.

“I just went from one busy day into another busy day,” she says.

Her deep engagement is the latest chapter in Lansing’s long involvement in philanthropy and community service. She serves as a regent of the University of California. Along with Dr. Armand Hammer, she formed the nonprofit Stop Cancer and is on the board of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, the American Association for Cancer Research and the Carter Center, the human rights organization formed by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. After California voters passed the $3 billion California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, Lansing was named to the citizens’ oversight committee for the institute formed to fund such research. In 2007, she was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Lansing says the Purpose Prize, which highlights and invests in social innovators over 60, holds a special place in her heart. “I am inspired and humbled,” she said, by the Purpose Prize winners and fellows and the work that they do.

See Lansing’s full Encore Leadership interview.