Sydney Pollack; 'Tootsie' Director Won Oscars for 'Out of Africa'

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Director Sydney Pollack Dies

Best known for "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa," the Academy Award winner dies of cancer. He was 73.

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Mr. Pollack's skill with performers has been credited to his start in show business as a theater and television actor in the 1950s. With his glasses and curly hair, he became a recognizable presence over the years, thanks to memorable cameo appearances in films and on television.

As a young man, he had been a student of Sanford Meisner, who taught the acting technique known as "the Method," which uses the performer's emotional memory to add realistic touches to a role.

"He was the most influential person in my life in terms of my thinking about drama, about life itself," Mr. Pollack said of Meisner in 1993.

"Everything I do is from the point of view of acting," he added. "I think of cinematography from an actor's point of view. My scripts are from an actor's point of view. Once you find the spine of a part, it becomes a wonderful mold for the whole movie. You measure every single thing against it."

In later years, Mr. Pollack had a significant impact as a producer by using his reputation for commercial success to support other directors, some of them untested. Last year, he backed screenwriter and first-time director Tony Gilroy on the critically praised "Michael Clayton," a thriller with George Clooney.

He also teamed with writer-producer-director Anthony Minghella to produce such films as "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), "Iris" (2001), "The Quiet American" (2002) and "Cold Mountain" (2003).

Movie critic and historian David Sterritt said Mr. Pollack's "main importance was as a kind of hyphenate -- someone who produced, directed and sometimes acted."

"He was one of the consummate professionals of the last 40 years or so in Hollywood," Sterritt said. "On his own films, or those he supported as a producer or actor, he reached a high level of achievement, if not always a high level of art."

Sydney Pollack was born July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Ind., and raised in South Bend.

He once described himself as an "unpopular and rather sad kid" while growing up in Indiana and made awkward attempts to fit in socially by playing sports. He once took up boxing but, with his poor vision, "didn't see the punches until they were too close."

Movies enchanted him, but he vividly recalled that his father, a boxer-turned-pharmacist, discouraged his ambitions as an actor as an unmanly trade. Sydney Pollack's two siblings went into entertainment: Bernie became a costume designer, and Sharon became a dance instructor.

After high school, Sydney Pollack went to New York in 1954 and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Meisner, who was so impressed with Mr. Pollack that he made him his assistant. Mr. Pollack's students included Robert Duvall, Rip Torn, Brenda Vaccaro and Claire Griswold, whom he married in 1958.