Sydney Pollack; 'Tootsie' Director Won Oscars for 'Out of Africa'
Sydney Pollack, 73, a director and producer of popular Hollywood movies for nearly four decades, including the comedy "Tootsie," and who won Academy Awards for "Out of Africa," died May 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He had cancer.
Mr. Pollack, who called himself "Mr. Mainstream," was wildly successful at moviemaking with mass appeal but drew mixed reviews during a prolific career.
His best-remembered work could be provocative, timely and sensitively crafted: "Tootsie" (1982) was hilarious and underscored aspects of the feminist struggle; the taut spy story "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) captured Nixon-era paranoia; "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), though set at a Depression-era dance marathon, resonated with young ticket buyers who saw the rigged contest as a reflection of modern society.
Mr. Pollack's movies often emphasized the loner at conflict with society, whether a fur trapper in the wilderness in "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) or a cowboy who tries to recover his soul after selling out in "The Electric Horseman" (1979) with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
He saw Redford as his ideal collaborator and cast him in seven movies, from "This Property Is Condemned" (1966) to "Havana" (1990), because of what he considered his "very internal, rather understated" acting style as well as a dark undercurrent he found appealing beneath Redford's "golden boy" exterior.
Redford returned the compliment, telling Film Comment magazine, "Sydney's the one director that seems to read me best. . . . Basically he's a romantic."
Audiences embraced two of Mr. Pollack's best-known romance stories: "The Way We Were" (1973) with Redford as a WASP writer and Barbra Streisand as a Jewish political activist during the Hollywood blacklist; and "Out of Africa" (1985), a $30 million production based on Danish author Isak Dinesen's years in Kenya and her complicated affair with a free-spirited and handsome pilot.
The latter film, which earned Oscars for Mr. Pollack for directing and producing, starred Meryl Streep and Redford against a backdrop likened by critics to a National Geographic spread.
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader complimented Mr. Pollack's craftsmanship and taste, saying that "although the denouement is a bit overextended, he never yields to facile, insistent sentimentality -- his effects are honestly won."
Many others found both films saccharine and ponderous, and Mr. Pollack spoke of his own "tendency by nature to be heavy-handed," which he attributed to his early training as a television director "where you have to grab the audience in the first 10 minutes."
Few disputed that Mr. Pollack was a master of pulling terrific performances from actors. Those who won Oscars under his direction included Gig Young as a cynical dance-marathon announcer in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and Jessica Lange as an emotionally vulnerable actress in "Tootsie."
But even in his less-regarded works, many actors earned Oscar nominations, including Paul Newman and Melinda Dillon in the newspaper libel drama "Absence of Malice" (1981) and Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993), based on the John Grisham legal thriller... [article continues]
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like "The Way We Were," "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa" were among the most successful of the 1970s and '80s, died on May 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 73. Mr. Pollack's career defined an era in which big stars (Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty) and the filmmakers who knew how to wrangle them (Barry Levinson, Mike Nichols) retooled the Hollywood system. Savvy operators, they played studio against studio, staking their fortunes on pictures that served commerce without wholly abandoning art. Hollywood honored Mr. Pollack in return. His movies received multiple Academy Award nominations, and as a director he won an Oscar for his work on the 1985 film "Out of Africa" as well as nominations for directing "They Shoot Horses, Don't They" (1969) and "Tootsie" (1982).
Read More... [The New York Times]
Sydney Pollack Navigator
A list of resources from around the Web about Sydney Pollack as selected by researchers and editors of The New York Times.
Other Content
- Sydney Pollack page on IMDb
- As Director, Producer and Actor
- DGA: Interview with Sydney Pollack
- DGA Monthly. November 2000.
- Anthony Mighella Interviews Sydney Pollack at the National Film Theater
- British Film Institute. April 2005.
- Sydney Pollack on "Charlie Rose"
- Appearances on "Charlie Rose"
- "From 'Tootsie' to 'Eyes Wide Shut'"
- Salon. July 1999.
Selected Movies Directed by Sydney Pollack with Times Reviews
- The Interpreter (2005)
- Random Hearts (1999)
- Sabrina (1995)
- The Firm (1993)
- Out of Africa (1985)
- Tootsie (1982)
- Absence of Malice (1981)
- The Electric Horseman (1979)
- Three Days of the Condor (1975)
- The Yakuza (1975)
- The Way We Were (1973)
- Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
- They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
- The Slender Thread (1965)
Highlights From the Archives
Sydney Pollack, Film Director, Is Dead at 73
Mr. Pollack’s star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s.
May 27, 2008MoviesObituary (Obit)
In 'Sketches of Frank Gehry,' a Design for Living Large
Sydney Pollack's absorbing documentary respects the essential enigma of its subject even as it illuminates his ways of thinking about form, space and construction.
May 12, 2006MoviesReview
The Pollack Touch
The rarefied, controlled tone of Isak Dinesen's classic memoir "Out of Africa" masks exactly the kinds of ambivalence, regret and longing to which Sydney Pollack has always been drawn. In the words of his close friend, Robert Redford, ''Sydney sees both sides of everything, he really does. If he's committed to anything, it's to a center line. He lives in the gray zone.''
December 15, 1985ARTICLES ABOUT SYDNEY POLLACK
Speak, ‘Tootsie’
The indelible Hollywood comedy like so much great art was practically made to be memorized.
March 2, 2008
They Call Him the Fixer in a World That’s a Mess
Dark in color, mood and outraged worldview, “Michael Clayton” is a film that speaks to the way we live now.
October 5, 2007In 'Sketches of Frank Gehry,' a Design for Living Large
Sydney Pollack's absorbing documentary respects the essential enigma of its subject even as it illuminates his ways of thinking about form, space and construction.
May 12, 2006
A Thriller Stars the U.N., as Itself
The heavily publicized United Nations setting for Sydney Pollack's new thriller, "The Interpreter," promises an authenticity that the movie never approaches.
April 28, 2005The United States of Tiny
WHEN Sydney Pollack shot his new thriller
April 24, 2005
Her Mission: Save the World Without Offending Anyone
Sydney Pollack's new film is described as a political thriller, but it is as apolitical as it is unthrilling.
April 22, 2005
A Coup de Hollywood at the United Nations
Sydney Pollack has managed to succeed where many filmmakers have failed, in getting permission to shoot at the United Nations for his upcoming film, "The Interpreter."
August 2, 2004Commencement Speeches
America's debate over the Iraq war continued at colleges and universities this spring, as commencement speakers weighed in with reflections on the conflict.
June 1, 2003Legend of the 1970's
This documentary about 1970's filmmaking is a standard-issue parade of talking heads interspersed with film clips.
April 25, 2003Coming Up on the Off Side
Enough about Broadway. The big boys have their spring schedule almost complete anyway, so let's look at the lands of Off, where times have been tough lately.
January 18, 2002FILM REVIEW; Together By a Twist Of Fate
Janet Maslin reviews Sydney Pollack movie Random Hearts, starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas; photo
October 8, 1999AT THE MOVIES
At the Movies column; Dreamworks has high hopes for American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, which opened to good reviews and good box office in selected theaters; Sydney Pollack discusses newest film, Random Hearts; director Steven Soderbergh and actor Terence Stamp attend Toronto International Film Festival to promote The Limey; Steve Zahn, also in Toronto, promotes new movie Happy, Texas; photos
October 1, 1999Film Maker's Son and Pilot Die in Crash of Small Plane
The son of the film maker Sydney Pollack was one of two student pilots who was killed on Friday when a single-engine plane crashed into a two-story apartment building and burst into flames. The body of Steven Pollack, 34, was identified by the county coroner's office, The Los Angeles Times reported.
November 28, 1993If It's Not Another 'Africa,' Please Not a 'Havana'
Sydney Pollack is nervous. Although he's one of Hollywood's foremost film makers and has a remarkably successful track record as director of movies like "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa," Mr. Pollack acknowledges that the failure of his last film, "Havana," several years ago left him reeling and scared. Now he anxiously awaits the reaction to his newest movie, "The Firm," which opens on Wednesday, one day before his 60th birthday.
June 28, 1993ARTISTS WANT WORK PROTECTED
LEAD: Representatives of movie directors, screen writers and painters urged Congress today to adopt an international copyright convention that grants ''moral rights'' to artists and forbids changes in their works without their consent.
October 1, 1987
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