Sammy Davis Jr. in A Man Called Adam on DVD
Wim Wender's Paris, Texas on DVD
14th Annual Kansas Silent Film Festival - Feb. 26 & 27
Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 2 on DVD
Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 1 on DVD
Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy on DVD

Sydney Pollack (1934-2008)

Acclaimed film director Sydney Pollack, who won two Oscars®, as Producer and Director for Out of Africa, and who maintained an excellent reputation as an actor with parts in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives and David Chase’s hit series The Sopranos died on May 26 at his Los Angeles home of cancer. He was 73.

He was born Sydney Irwin Pollack on July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Indiana and was raised in the nearby city of South Bend. By his own admittance, South Bend was far from being a hotbed of art and sophistication when he was growing up and as soon as he graduated from high school, he headed for New York to become an actor. He studied under the acclaimed drama teacher Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and eventually, Pollack became Meisner's assistant and eventually an acting teacher himself.

Although he was self-deprecating about his early acting career, Pollack worked steadily in television in such dramatic anthology shows as Playhouse 90 and The United States Steel Hour and several hit series [Ben Casey, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents]. It was during his work on a Playhouse 90 production that he met director John Frankenheimer, who asked him to work as a dialogue coach for that show as well as Frankenheimer’s theatrical release The Young Savages (1961). His sensitivity to actors and their needs for specific scenes stood out among his peers, and he was encouraged to pursue directing.

He got his start directing television episodes of such series as The Fugitive, Ben Casey and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour before graduating into cinema with the drama The Slender Thread (1965); it starred Anne Bancroft as a suicidal housewife whose last desperate call for help is received by a case worker (Sidney Poitier). The film drew widespread praise for the moving performances of the two leads. It would become a hallmark as to what made his films so unique - powerful scenes with masterful tight framing showcasing two strong leads, each adding, instead of negating, tension from each other: Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin in the harrowing, depression-era vehicle They Shoot Horses Don’t They (1969); Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand as political adversaries as well as lovers in the nostalgic The Way We Were (1973); the enthralling face-off between Redford, as a low-level CIA employee confronting corrupt official Cliff Robertson in the tense conspiracy thriller Three Days of the Condor (1975); With Redford again as a man yearning for a simpler life but matching wits with tough reporter Jane Fonda in The Electric Horseman (1979); and Paul Newman as a businessman confronting Sally Field as an irresponsible journalist in Absence of Malice (1981).

By the ‘80s, Pollack stepped into the limelight and mined rich box office oil with Tootsie (1982), a wonderful comedy that saw Dustin Hoffman as an unemployable actor who finds success as an "actress." It wasn’t just his crisp direction that made the film sell (and earn him an Oscar® nomination), but also his glorious return to acting by playing Hoffman’s put-upon agent. Not only did he deliver some of the film’s funniest lines (“Nobody wants to pay $20 to watch people living next to chemical waste! They can see that in New Jersey!”), but he gave the film a grounded center that anchored the absurd premise.

Pollack’s next big hit Out of Africa (1985), starred Meryl Streep and Redford as a Dutch baroness and big game hunter respectively, whose love affair leads to tragic consequence. It won Oscars® for both direction and producing and further elevated Pollack's reputation as a director of literate and intelligent entertainments.

Pollack’s subsequent directorial efforts were received with mixed reviews but yielded good commercial results - Havana (1990), with Redford as a disillusioned gambler living in pre-Castro Cuba; the legal crime thriller The Firm (1993) starring Tom Cruise; his remake of the Billy Wilder classic Sabrina (1995) with Harrison Ford and Julia Ormand as the romantic duo; and the dark love story Random Hearts (1999) with Ford again teaming with Kristin Scott Thomas as betrayed spouses that develop a bond. Even if his later output didn’t match his earlier work, he became a noted producer for such popular movies as Sense and Sensibility (1995) Sliding Doors (1998) and his later support of the late Anthony Minghella’s projects, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Quiet American (2002), andCold Mountain (2003).

For filmgoers, nothing was more joyous than seeing Pollack’s healthy return to acting. He was was both funny and vulnerable as Judy Davis's straying spouse in Woody Allen’s overlooked Husbands and Wives (1992); insightful as Tom Cruise’s friend in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He also had a strong recurring role in the long running sitcom Will & Grace playing Will’s questioning, but ultimately sympathetic father; a chilling cameo as a hospital orderly who comforts cancer patients in one of the final episodes of The Sopranos and was terrific as George Clooney’s morally corrupt boss in Michael Clayton (2007).

One of his last projects as a producer was the recent HBO airing of Recount (2008) which goes into telling detail on the controversial Florida voting debacle that eventually led to the Presidency of George W. Bush. The telefilm received generally positive reviews and proved that Pollack's taste and instincts for superior material were as timely and relevant as ever. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Claire; daughters Rebecca and Rachel; and six grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole