• Actor, director and producer Sydney Pollack worked consistently in the entertainment industry since the mid-1960s. He produced over 40 films, 21 of which he directed, including the cross-dressing comedy Tootsie and Out of Africa, for which he won an Oscar for Best Director. Pollack died of cancer on May 26, 2008.

• Fast Facts

  1. Born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana
  2. Died: May 26, 2008, cancer, aged 73
  3. Studied and taught at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York City
  4. Academy Awards: 2
  5. Spouse: Claire Griswold
  6. Has made guest appearances on the HBO series The Sopranos and Entourage
  7. Directed 12 actors in Oscar-nominated performances

• Career Background

  After appearing in a number of stage productions in New York, and teaching theater in the late 1950s, Pollack started a career as a TV director, helming episodes of the series The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He first met life-long friend and frequent collaborator Robert Redford while filming his big screen acting debut in 1962's War Hunt.

  His first feature as a director was the 1965 Sidney Poitier film The Slender Thread, followed the next year with This Property Is Condemned, which features a script co-written by Francis Ford Coppola. Other notable films directed by Pollack include They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Jeremiah Johns, The Way We We, Three Days of the Condor, Absence of Malice, The Firm and The Interpreter.

• Related Mahalo Pages

  Michael Clayton | Robert Redford | Dustin Hoffman | Natalie Wood | Out of Africa | The Reader | Tootsie | David Hare

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