Sydney Pollack Biography

Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 " May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 21 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 films or shows, and produced over 44 films. Some of his best known works include Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and Absence of Malice (1981). His 1985 film Out of Africa won him Academy Awards for directing and producing; he was also nominated for Best Director Oscars for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and Tootsie, in the latter of which he also appeared. His later films included Havana (1990), The Firm (1993), Sabrina (1995), The Interpreter (2005), and as producer for and actor in Michael Clayton (2007).

Early life

Sydney Pollack was born in Lafayette, Indiana, to a family of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, the son of Rebecca (née Miller) 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, an alcoholic with emotional problems, died at the age of 37 while Pollack was a student.

Despite earlier plans to attend college and then medical school, Pollack left Indiana for New York City soon after finishing high school at age 17. Pollack studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse from 1952 to 1954, working on a lumber truck between terms. After two years' army service until 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 come to Los Angeles in order to work as a dialogue coach for the child actors on Frankenheimer's first big picture, The Young Savages. It was during this time that Pollack met Burt Lancaster who encouraged the young actor to try directing.

Career

Pollack found initial success in television in the 1960s by directing episodes of series such as The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. After doing TV, he made the jump into film with a string of movies that drew public attention. His film-directing debut was 1965's The Slender Thread, starring Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. Over time, Pollack's films received a total of 48 Academy Award nominations, winning 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 different 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. Only Young and Lange won Oscars for their performances in one of Pollack's films.

His disputes with Hoffman during the filming of Tootsie became well-known. Eventually Hoffman began pushing the idea that Pollack play the role of his agent, and Pollack reluctantly agreed despite not having had any film roles in 20 years. Their off-screen relationship added authenticity to their scenes in the movie, most of which feature them arguing. Pollack subsequently took on more acting roles in addition to producing and directing. He appeared as himself in the documentary One Six Right, describing his joy in owning and piloting his Citation X jet aircraft.

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 such films as The Player (1992) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), often playing corrupt or morally conflicted power figures. As a character actor, Pollack appeared in films such as A Civil Action, and Changing Lanes, as well as his own, including Random Hearts and The Interpreter (the latter also being his final film as a director). 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 playing in theaters at the time of his death. He was a recurring guest star on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, playing Will Truman's (Eric McCormack) unfaithful but loving father, George Truman. In addition to earlier appearances on NBC's Just Shoot Me and Mad About You, in 2007 Pollack made guest appearances on the HBO TV series 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 to guide many films that were successful with both critics and movie audiences, such as The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Michael Clayton, a film in which he also starred opposite George Clooney, and for which he received his sixth Academy Award nomination, in the Best Picture category. He formed a production company called Mirage Enterprises' with the English director Anthony Minghella. The last film they produced together, The Reader, earned them both posthumous Oscar nominations for Best Picture.

Influences

In the 2002 Sight and Sound Directors' Poll, Pollack revealed his top ten films: Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Conformist, The Godfather Part II, Grand Illusion, The Leopard, Once Upon a Time in America, Raging Bull, The Seventh Seal, and Sunset Boulevard.

Personal life and death

Pollack was married to Claire Bradley Griswold, a former student of his, from 1958 until his death. They had three children: Steven, Rachel, and Rebecca Pollack. In 1993, Steven died at 34 in the crash of a small, single-engine plane which clipped a power line and burst into flames. Pollack's brother Bernie Pollack is a costume designer, producer, and actor. His wife died on 28 March 2011, at 74 years old, due to Parkinson's Disease.

Concerns about Pollack's health had surfaced in 2007 when suddenly he stepped out of directing HBO's television film Recount. The film aired on May 25, 2008. Pollack died the next day of stomach cancer at his home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by family. His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered along the runway at the Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles.

Filmography

Directing and producing

Year	Film	Role(s)	Academy Award Wins	Academy Award Nominations
1965	The Slender Thread	Director		2
1966	This Property Is Condemned	Director
1968	The Scalphunters	Director
	Castle Keep	Director
1969	They Shoot Horses, Don't They?	Director	1	8
1972	Jeremiah Johnson	Director
1973	The Way We Were	Director	2	6
1975	Three Days of the Condor	Director		1
	The Yakuza	Director, Producer
1977	Bobby Deerfield	Director, Producer
1979	The Electric Horseman	Director		1
1981	Absence of Malice	Director		3
1982	Tootsie	Director, Producer, Actor	1	10
1985	Out of Africa	Director, Producer	7	11
	Sanford Meisner: The American Theatre's Best Kept Secret	Executive producer
1988	Bright Lights, Big City	Producer
1989	The Fabulous Baker Boys	Executive Producer		4
1990	Havana	Director		1
	Presumed Innocent	Producer
1993	The Firm	Director, Producer		2
	Searching for Bobby Fischer	Executive Producer		1
1995	Sabrina	Director, Producer		2
	Sense and Sensibility	Executive producer	1	7
1998	Sliding Doors	Producer
1999	Random Hearts	Director
	The Talented Mr. Ripley	Executive producer		5
2001	Iris	Executive Producer	1	3
2002	The Quiet American	Executive producer		1
2003	Cold Mountain	Producer	1	7
2005	Sketches of Frank Gehry	Director, Executive producer
	The Interpreter	Director
2006	Breaking and Entering	Producer
2007	Michael Clayton	Producer, Actor	1	7
2008	Recount	Executive producer	NA	NA
	Leatherheads	Executive Producer
	The Reader	Producer	1	5
2011	Margaret	Producer	-	-

Acting

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1956	The Kaiser Aluminum Hour	Shuber	Episode: "The Army Game"
1959	Playhouse 90	Andres	Episodes: "For Whom the Bell Tolls: Part 1" and " For Whom the Bell Tolls: Part 2"
	The United States Steel Hour	Benson	Episode: "The Case of Julia Walton"
	Armstrong Circle Theatre	Albert Rousseau	Episode: "35 Rue Du Marche"
	Startime	Harry	Episode: "Something Special"
1959"1964	Brenner	Detective Al Dunn	Episodes: "Family Man" "Good Friend" "Point of Law"
1960	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Bernie Samuelson	Episode: "The Contest for Aaron Gold"
	Twilight Zone	Arthur Willis	Episode: "The Trouble With Templeton"
1961	Have Gun " Will Travel	Joe Culp	Episodes: "Quiet Night in Town: Part 1" and "Quiet Night in Town: Part 2"
	The Deputy	Chuck Johnson	Episode: "Spoken in Silence"
	The Asphalt Jungle	Louie	Episode: "The Professor"
1961, 1962	The New Breed	Austin Rogers/Bert Masters	Episodes: "The Compulsion to Confess" and "Walk This Street Lightly"
1962	Ben Casey		Episode: "Monument to an Aged Hunter"
	War Hunt	Sgt. Owen Van Horn
1975	Three Days Of The Condor	Taxi Driver
1979	The Electric Horseman	Man who makes pass at Alice	uncredited
1982	Tootsie	George Fields
1992	The Player	Dick Mellon
	Death Becomes Her	ER Doctor	uncredited
	Husbands and Wives	Jack
1994	Frasier	Holden Thorpe	Episode: "The Candidate"
1998	Mad About You	Dr. Sydney Warren	Episode: "Cheating on Sheila"
	A Civil Action	Al Eustis
1999	Eyes Wide Shut	Victor Ziegler
	Random Hearts	Carl Broman
2000	Just Shoot Me!	Sydney Pollack	Episode: "A&E Biography: Nina Van Horn"
	King of the Hill	Grant Trimble	Voice Episode: "Transnational Amusements Presents: Peggy's Magic Sex Feet"
2000"2006	Will & Grace	George Truman	Episodes: "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, He's Kept Me in the Closet and I'm So Sad" "Cheaters" "Cheatin' Trouble Blues" "Blanket Apology"
2001	The Majestic	Studio Executive	Voice
2002	Changing Lanes	Stephen Delano
2005	The Interpreter	Jay Pettigrew
2006	Fauteuils d'orchestre	Brian Sobinski
	American Masters	Narrator	Episode: "John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend"
2007	The Sopranos	Warren Feldman	Episode: "Stage 5"
	Michael Clayton	Marty Bach
2008	Made of Honor	Thomas Bailey Sr.