It’s with great sadness, we write that Director and Producer Sydney Pollack died Monday May 26 at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. He was 73.
Concerns about Pollack’s health had surfaced in 2007 when he opted out of directing HBO’s television film Recount. The film aired on May 25, 2008. He had been diagnosed with cancer about nine months before his death, said his publicist, Leslee Dart.
Winning an Oscar in 1995 for Out of Africa, he may best remembered for the 1982 comedy Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange.
In his career, Pollack is reported to have directed more than 21 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 films or shows, and produced over 44 films. He’s best remembered for Tootsie, but a few of my personal favorites were many of the films he acted in such as: Husbands and Wives (1992), The Player (1992), and The Electric Horseman (1979). In 2007, he appeared opposite George Clooney in Michael Clayton, which he also co-produced.
In the Directors’ Poll for the 2002 Sight and Sound , 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.
You can read a quick article by Brian Curtis from Slate Magazine who says that Pollack referred to himself as “Mr Mainstream“.
It’s a sad loss…
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