Award Winning Director Sydney Pollack Died Of Cancer
Sydney Pollack was an eclectic award winning director of Hollywood movies, who made films that were usually extremely successful at the box office; his 1985 production Out of Africa, based on the life of Isak Dinesen, was named best film in the annual Oscars and earned him a personal award as best director.
He was diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago and died yesterday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, said his publicist, Leslee Dart. He was 73. He was with his family when his time came.
Unusual as to many other top directors of his era, Pollack was also a film and television actor himself, and he used this unique position to forge a relationship with Hollywood’s elite stars and create some of the most successful films of the 1970s and ’80s.
In 1970, “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” about Great Depression marathon dancers, received nine Oscar nominations, including one for Pollack’s direction. He was nominated again for best director for 1982’s “Tootsie,” starring Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor and Pollack as his exasperated agent. As director and producer, he won Academy Awards for the 1986 romantic epic “Out of Africa,” starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, which captured seven Oscars in all.
Last fall, Pollack played law firm boss Marty Bach opposite George Clooney in “Michael Clayton,” which he also co-produced and received seven Oscar nominations.
“Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act,” Clooney said in a statement. “He’ll be missed terribly.”
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