Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Sydney Irwin Pollack 1934 – 2008

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Sydney Pollack, the Academy Award-winning director of "Out of Africa" who achieved acclaim making popular, mainstream movies with A-list stars, including "The Way We Were" and "Tootsie," died Monday. He was 73.

Pollack, who also was a producer and actor, died of cancer at his home in Pacific Palisades, according to Leslee Dart, his publicist and friend.

As a filmmaker, Pollack had a reputation for being a painstaking craftsman -- "relentless and meticulous," screenwriter and friend Robert Towne once said.

George Clooney, who starred with Pollack in "Michael Clayton," said: "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. He'll be missed terribly."

Beginning with "The Slender Thread," a 1965 drama starring Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft, Pollack was credited with directing 20 films, including "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," a 1969 drama about Depression-era marathon dancers starring Jane Fonda that earned Pollack an Oscar nomination for best director.

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