Sydney Pollack (1934-2008)

Director. Producer. Actor.

That was the great Sydney Pollack. It’s hard to believe that he’s gone. The Academy Award-winning director of such hits as Tootsie and Three Days of the Condor passed away on May 26 after a long bout with cancer.

His was an amazing career, beginning as an actor in the 1950s. He did stage and TV before making the leap to films in the early 60s, starting with War Hunt, a Korean War drama co-starring another young actor named Robert Redford. The two first met on this film and formed a lifelong friendship and professional partnership.

Interestingly, Pollack never really considered himself an actor, and soon made the transition to directing and producing. The results were magical. As a director, he made a number of memorable films, including Jeremiah Johnson, Absence of Malice, Out of Africa (which won the Best Picture Oscar for 1985 and garnered Pollack the Best Director statuette), and of course, Tootsie.

His producing credits were diverse, including such films as Presumed Innocent, Sense and Sensibility, and The Talented Mr. Ripley (one of several films he made with the late Anthony Minghella).

I always saw Pollack as a journeyman director, the kind of filmmaker who builds an incredible body of work over years – decades, even – films of all genres and temperaments, the kind of director that Hollywood just doesn’t seem to produce anymore. He was a director that actors clamored to work with, knowing he could take their performances to a whole, new level.

Don’t believe me?

Just ask Dustin Hoffmann. Or Meryl Streep. Or Robert Redford. These actors, and many others like them, loved working with Sydney Pollack because they knew that he would take care of them, that he would make them feel safe, that he would do whatever it took to help them give the best performance possible, and turn a good movie into a great movie.

Pollack was the kind of director that cinema needs more of – however, sadly today, it has one less. And like all of the other directors we’ve lost recently, he will be missed by the audiences he leaves behind.