Hollywood pays tribute as director and 'class act' Sydney Pollack dies

Published on Tuesday 27 May 2008 22:41

OSCAR-WINNING American director and actor Sydney Pollack will be remembered for films from Out of Africa to Tootsie. But his death yesterday also tragically cut short of the most productive partnerships in British film, colleagues said.

From their offices in north London, Pollack and his close friend and fellow director, the late Anthony Minghella, collaborated on a series of films, several of which will make their way to the box office this year.

Previous hits ranged from the US civil war epic, Cold Mountain, to the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, based on the novels by Alexander McCall Smith.

Pollack, who won a double Oscar for Out of Africa, died at his Los Angeles home aged 73 after a months-long battle with cancer. Minghella, the Oscar-winning director of The English Patient, died in March, aged 54, from a haemorrhage after cancer surgery.

The two men worked on films including Michael Clayton, which they co-produced, with Pollack also acting alongside George Clooney and Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, who won an Oscar for her role.

Their legacy lives on in several new films nurtured by their company, Mirage Productions.

The Reader, starring Kate Winslet, and Margaret, starring Anna Paquin, are both due for release this year. Love You More, which Minghella also produced, has just premiered at Cannes.

But other projects have been lost forever, said the Oscar-nominated cinematographer, Seamus McGarvey, who is based in Edinburgh, and worked on the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Love You More.

"Sydney Pollack was a great film-maker, a great actor and somebody who was so loved and respected," he said. "I know Anthony Minghella and he were the greatest of friends and had many projects that they had planned. His death has now taken all those great projects from us. It is a terrible loss to film-making and art."

Pollack, born in Indiana, was a stage actor on Broadway before winning roles in TV and film.

He directed stars like Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in The Way We Were, Tom Cruise in The Firm and Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, in which he also took an acting role as Hoffman's agent.

He was directing Recount, a television film for the HBO network, when he was diagnosed with cancer 10 months ago. The drama about the controversial Florida presidential vote in 2000 premiered in the US this week.

In 1970, he made They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, about Great Depression marathon dancers, receiving nine Oscar nominations, including one for his direction. He was nominated again for best director for 1982's Tootsie. As director and producer, he won Oscars for the 1986 romantic epic Out of Africa, which starred Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.

"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.