Sydney Pollack


Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer, and actor. Pollack is known for directing commercially and critically acclaimed studio films. During his 40-year career, he received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and six BAFTA Awards.
Pollack won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for Out of Africa. He was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and Tootsie. Pollack's other notable films include Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Yakuza, Three Days of the Condor, Absence of Malice, The Firm, and Sabrina.
Pollack produced and acted in Michael Clayton. Other films he produced include The Fabulous Baker Boys, Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Iris, Cold Mountain and The Reader. Pollack acted in Robert Altman's The Player, Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

Early life

Pollack was born in Lafayette, Indiana, to a family of Jewish immigrants, the son of Rebecca and David Pollack, a semi-professional boxer and pharmacist. The family relocated to South Bend, and his parents divorced when he was young. His mother, who suffered from alcoholism and emotional problems, died at age 37, when Pollack was 16.
Despite earlier plans to attend college and then medical school, Pollack left Indiana for New York City soon after finishing high school at 17. From 1952 to 1954 he studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, working on a lumber truck between terms.
Pollack was drafted for two years' army service as a truck driver at Fort Carson, Colorado, ending in 1958. He returned to the Playhouse at Meisner's invitation to become his assistant. In 1960, John Frankenheimer, a friend of Pollack's, asked him to work in Los Angeles as a dialogue coach for the child actors in Frankenheimer's first big movie, The Young Savages. During this time Pollack met Burt Lancaster, who encouraged him to try directing.

Career

Pollack played a director in the 1960 The Twilight Zone episode "The Trouble with Templeton". He made his feature film debut as an actor in Denis Sanders's War Hunt, where he met Robert Redford, the male lead in seven films Pollack directed.
Pollack first found success in television in the 1960s by directing episodes of series, such as The Fugitive and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. After that he directed a string of movies that drew public attention. His directorial debut was The Slender Thread. Pollack's films received 48 Academy Award nominations and won 11 Oscars. His first Oscar nomination was for his 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and his second in 1982 for Tootsie. For his 1985 film Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, Pollack won Academy Awards for directing and producing.
During his career, he directed 12 actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jane Fonda, Gig Young, Susannah York, Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Melinda Dillon, Jessica Lange, Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr, Meryl Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer, and Holly Hunter. Young and Lange won Oscars for their performances in Pollack's films.
In 1984, Pollack helped found the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles, becoming co-chairman.
One of a select group of non- and/or former actors awarded membership in the Actors Studio, Pollack resumed acting in the 1990s with appearances in Robert Altman's The Player and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, often playing corrupt or morally conflicted power figures. As a character actor, he appeared in films such as A Civil Action, and Changing Lanes, as well as his own, including Random Hearts and The Interpreter. He also appeared in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives as a New York lawyer undergoing a midlife crisis, and in Robert Zemeckis's Death Becomes Her as an emergency room doctor. His last role was as Patrick Dempsey's father in the 2008 romantic comedy Made of Honor, which was in theaters at the time of his death. He was a recurring guest star on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, playing Will Truman's unfaithful but loving father, George. He also appeared on NBC's Just Shoot Me and Mad About You and in 2007 made guest appearances on HBO's The Sopranos and Entourage.
Pollack received the first annual Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking award from the Austin Film Festival on October 21, 2006. As a producer he helped guide many films that were successful with both critics and audiences, such as The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Michael Clayton, a film in which he also starred and for which he received his sixth Academy Award nomination, in the Best Picture category. Pollack and the English director Anthony Minghella formed the production company Mirage Enterprises. The last film they produced together, The Reader, earned them both posthumous Oscar nominations for Best Picture. Pollack was also nominated for five Primetime Emmys, earning two: one for directing in 1966 and another for producing, which was given four months after his death in 2008.
The moving image collection of Sydney Pollack is housed at the Academy Film Archive.

Influences

In the 2002 Sight & Sound Directors' Poll, Pollack listed his top ten films in alphabetical order:
Pollack was married to Claire Bradley Griswold, a former student of his, from 1958 until his death in 2008. They had three children.
Concerns about Pollack's health surfaced in 2007, when he withdrew from directing HBO's television film Recount, which aired on May 25, 2008. He died from cancer the next day at his home in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades neighborhood, aged 73. He had been diagnosed about ten months before his death; the type of cancer has been variously cited as pancreatic, stomach, or of unknown primary origin.

Filmography

Film

Directing and producing
YearTitleDirectorProducerNotes
1965The Slender ThreadParamount Pictures
1966This Property Is CondemnedParamount Pictures
1968The ScalphuntersUnited Artists
1969Castle KeepColumbia Pictures
1969They Shoot Horses, Don't They?Cinerama Releasing Corporation
1972Jeremiah JohnsonWarner Bros.
1973The Way We WereColumbia Pictures
1974The YakuzaWarner Bros.
1975Three Days of the CondorParamount Pictures
1977Bobby DeerfieldWarner Bros./Columbia Pictures
1979The Electric HorsemanColumbia Pictures/Universal Pictures
1981Absence of MaliceColumbia Pictures
1982TootsieColumbia Pictures
1985Out of AfricaUniversal Pictures
1990HavanaUniversal Pictures
1993The FirmParamount Pictures
1995SabrinaParamount Pictures
1999Random HeartsColumbia Pictures
2005The InterpreterUniversal Pictures
2006Sketches of Frank GehrySony Pictures Classics
2018Amazing GraceNeon

As executive producer
  • Sanford Meisner: The American Theatre's Best Kept Secret
  • The Fabulous Baker Boys
  • King Ralph
  • Searching for Bobby Fischer
  • Sense and Sensibility
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley
  • Iris
  • Birthday Girl
  • The Quiet American
  • Leatherheads
  • Recount
As producer only
  • Songwriter
  • Bright Lights, Big City
  • Presumed Innocent
  • Sliding Doors
  • Cold Mountain
  • Breaking and Entering
  • Michael Clayton
  • The Reader
  • Margaret
Acting roles
YearTitleRoleNotes
1962War HuntSergeant Owen Van Horn
1975Three Days of the CondorTaxi Driver
1979The Electric HorsemanMan Who Makes Pass At AliceUncredited
1982TootsieGeorge Fields
1992The PlayerDick Mellon
1992Death Becomes HerEmergency Room DoctorUncredited
1992Husbands and WivesJack
1998A Civil ActionAl Eustis
1999Eyes Wide ShutVictor Ziegler
1999Random HeartsCarl Broman
2001The MajesticStudio ExecutiveVoice
2002Changing LanesStephen Delano
2005The InterpreterSecret Service Director Jay PettigrewUncredited
2006Fauteuils d'orchestreBrian Sobinski
2007Michael ClaytonMarty Bach
2008Made of HonorThomas Bailey Sr.Final film role