Sydney Pollack

Syndey Pollack has just died of cancer. I hadn't even heard he was ill.

He started as an actor but soon moved into directing, first on TV, then in movies. He was a highly respected helmer who specialized in drama but whose best movie was a comedy. He was also known for working well with big stars.

One of his earliest films is The Property Is Condemned (1966), which starred Robert Redford, who would become Pollack's favorite star. In 1969 he made his first really good film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, a dark film about desperate people in a dance marathon during the Depression.

In the 70s, he became a strong commercial force with Redford hits such as Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), Three Days Of The Condor (1975) and The Electric Horseman (1979). These films also feature big names like Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda. Other actors he worked with around these years were Robert Mitchum, Al Pacino and Paul Newman.

Then, in 1982, he made his biggest hit by far, and the film he deserves to be remembered for, Tootsie. The story is pretty simple--an unemployed actor pretends to be a woman to get a role on a soap opera and falls in love with its leading lady. You'd think after Charley's Aunt and Some Like It Hot there weren't many original variations to be wrung out of cross-dressing, but somehow this film manages to go from one hilarious scene to the next, and never lose sight of the heart behind the farce. He and star Dustin Hoffman fought over many things, but it was a fruitful collaboration. It also helped that they had a number of good writers, including Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal and Elaine May.

While Hoffman holds the film together, Tootsie is a banquet of great supporting performances. Jessica Lange (who won the film's only Oscar) as the love interest, Teri Garr as the spurned friend, Bill Murray as the sardonic roommate, George Gaynes as the soap's ham, Dabney Coleman as the arrogant director, Charles Durning as Lange's amorous father, and Sydney Pollack as Hoffman's agent. Pollack, who hadn't acted in over two decades, was wooed by Hoffman to play the part, and he's magnificent. It's not stunt casting, he really pulls off the frustration and madness of his scenes, which are some of the funniest in the film.

Pollack's next film, Out Of Africa (1985), was his most honored, winning seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. I admit I find it tough going, and certainly too long. Meryl Streep, showing off a new accent, is fine, but Robert Redford grates as the great white hunter with modern, new-agey feelings.

Pollack's career would never again reach the heights of this one-two punch. His next film, Havana (1990), sort of a Casablanca set in Cuba during the revolution, was a disastrous miscalculation. Starring Robert Redford as a (too old) playboy and gambler, the film thuds along where it wants to be romantic. It was an expensive flop. Pollack rebounded a bit with a Tom Cruise hit, John Grisham's The Firm (1993), but no one would claim it's much more than a professionally done thriller. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The last few movies he made didn't do much to burnish his reputation either--Harrison Ford in Sabrina (1995) and Random Hearts (1999), and Senn Penn and Nicole Kidman in The Interpreter (2005). In fact, the revival of Pollack's acting career in the 90s is probably more interesting. He did fine work in films such as Woody Allen's Husbands And Wives (1992) and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He also appeared in guest shots on a number of TV shows, including Frasier, Will & Grace and The Sopranos. Just last year he got positive reviews for his scenes with George Clooney in Michael Clayton. He's even in a film out right now--Made Of Honor. I hadn't planned on seeing it, but maybe I'll check it out now. Or maybe I'll just stay home and watch Tootsie again on DVD--I think he'd want it that way.