Oscar Profile #346: Sydney Pollack

Born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana to homemaker Rebecca and professional boxer turned pharmacist David Pollack, Sydney Pollack grew up in South Bend, Indiana. His parents divorced when he was very young. His mother, who suffered from alcoholism and depression, died at the age of 37 when he was still in high school. Upon graduation, he moved to New York City where he studied acting with Sanford Meisner. After army service, he returned to Meisner’s Neighborhood Playhouse in 1958 as his assistant.

Pollack appeared as an actor in numerous live TV productions in the late 1950s. He was asked to come to Los Angeles by friend John Frankenheimer to coach the young actors in Frankenheimer’s film, The Young Savages. The film’s star, Burt Lancaster, suggested he direct. Although he would continue to act for the remainder of his life, he began directing for TV in 1961. His first feature film as an actor was 1962’s War Hunt which was also the feature film debut of Robert Redford. His first film as a feature director was 1965’s The Slender Thread starring recent Oscar winners Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. He followed that with This Property Is Condemned with Natalie Wood and Redford and three starring Lancaster, The Scalphunters, The Swimmer (uncredited) and Castle Keep.

Oscar nominated for the first time for 1969’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? with Jane Fonda, it would be three years before Pollack would make another film, 1972’s Jeremiah Johnson with Redford, quickly followed by The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand and Redford. 1974’s The Yakuza with Robert Mitchum was his first film as a producer.

1975’s Three Days of the Condor with Redford and Faye Dunaway was a huge hit, but Bobby Deerfield with Al Pacino and The Electric Horseman with Redford and Fonda were huge flops. 1981’s Absence of Malice with Paul Newman (in an Oscar nominated performance) and Sally Field restored his reputation. His next film, 1982’s Tootsie with Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange would turn out to be the most critically acclaimed film of his career. It was his next film, however, 1985’s Out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Redford that would win him Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.

Pollack’s only really successful post-1985 film as a director was 1993’s The Firm with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman. As a producer, however, he had a slew of critically acclaimed and/or commercially successful films including The Fabulous Baker Boys, Presumed Innocent, White Palace, Dead Again, The Search for Bobby Fischer, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Quiet American, Cold Mountain, Michael Clayton, The Reader and Margaret.

Sydney Pollack died of cancer on May 26, 2008 at the age of 73. He had been married to former actress Claire Griswald, with whom he had three children, since 1958. She passed away three years later at the age of 74.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (1969), directed by Sydney Pollack

Horace McCoy’s 1935 novel of the same name was the source material for Pollack’s film about desperate souls who put themselves through a grueling forty-day 1932 marathon contest on the Santa Monica pier. Among the participants are a disillusioned would-be movie star (Jane Fonda), a would-be director (Michael Sarrazin), another aspiring actress (Susannah York), a sailor (Red Buttons) and a farmer (Bruce Dern) and his pregnant wife (Bonnie Bedelia. Pollack’s first Oscar nomination was one of the film’s nine. It won for Gig Young’s career high performance as the cruel master of ceremonies.

TOOTSIE (1982), directed by Sydney Pollack

After a thirteen year wait, Pollack received his second and third Oscar nominations for producing and directing one of the best loved comedies in the history of film. Dustin Hoffman was at the peak of his considerable talent as an out-of-work actor who masquerades as a woman and becomes an overnight star on a TV soap opera. Pollack also had a hand in the writing the screenplay, officially credited to Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal. He also played Hoffman’s perplexed agent as well. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, the only winner was Jessica Lange as Hoffman’s soap opera co-star and the woman of his dreams.

OUT OF AFRICA (1985), directed by Sydney Pollack

Nominated for the fourth and fifth time for producing and directing this film based on writer Karen Blixen AKA Isak Dinesen’s memoirs, Pollack won both awards. Meryl Streep starred as Blixen, who married an impoverished baron (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and moved to Africa to run a coffee plantation with him. Discovering he has been unfaithful, she eventually falls in love with a big-game hunter (Robert Redford), but he wants his freedom. The film won a total of seven Oscars overall. Streep’s nomination was the sixth of her twenty nods to date. Brandauer received his only nomination for his performance.

THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY (1999), directed by Anthony Minghella

Nominated for five Oscars, Best Picture and Best Director for Minghella were not among them, although Minghella was nominated for his screenplay based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, previously filmed by René Clement as Purple Noon in 1960. The film was so successful that Highsmith, who died in 1995 has since had eight more of her novels adapted into films. Matt Damon and Oscar nominated Jude Law had the roles played in the 1960 French version by Alain Delon and Maurice Ronet as the charismatic murderer who takes over the identity of his victim.

THE READER (2008), directed by Stephen Daldry

Kate Winslet thanked Pollack and Minghella, who co-produced the film before their untimely deaths in 2008, in her Oscar acceptance speech. The film opens in 1995 with Ralph Fiennes looking back on incidents in his life in 1958 and 1966, where he is played by David Kross. Winslet plays the bus conductor who nurses him through an illness in 1958 and who is on trial in 1966 for having participated in alleged war crimes. Winslet’s role was borderline lead-supporting and the actress was widely expected to be Oscar nominated in support, but she prevailed in the lead category after all.