Sydney Pollack

Director

Sydney Pollack was born in New York City, New York, United States on July 1st, 1934 and is the Director. At the age of 73, Sydney Pollack biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, movies, and networth are available.

  Report
Date of Birth
July 1, 1934
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
New York City, New York, United States
Death Date
May 26, 2008 (age 73)
Zodiac Sign
Cancer
Networth
$16 Million
Profession
Actor, Aircraft Pilot, Character Actor, Film Actor, Film Director, Film Producer, Television Actor, Television Director
Sydney Pollack Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 73 years old, Sydney Pollack physical status not available right now. We will update Sydney Pollack's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Height
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Weight
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Hair Color
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Measurements
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Sydney Pollack Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
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Education
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Sydney Pollack Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Claire Bradley Griswold, ​ ​(m. 1958)​
Children
3
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
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Sydney Pollack Life

Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film producer, producer, and actor.

Pollack produced more than 20 films and ten television shows, appeared in over 30 films or shows, and starred in more than 20 television shows.

Out of Africa, a 1985 film that received Academy Award for both directing and producing.

They Shoot Horses was also selected for Best Director Oscars, so why bother? (1969) and Tootsie (1982), in which he also appeared. Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and Absence of Malice (1981).

Havana (1990), The Company (1993), The Interpreter (2005), and he appeared and appeared in Michael Clayton (2007).

Pollack is perhaps best known to television viewers for his recurring role as Will Truman's father on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace (2000–2006).

Early life

Pollack was born in Lafayette, Indiana, to a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants, the son of Rebecca (née Miller) and David Pollack, a semi-professional boxer and pharmacist. As a child, the family moved to South Bend, and his parents divorced when he was young. Pollack's mother, who suffered from alcoholism and emotional disorders, died at the age of 37.

Pollack left Indiana quickly after finishing high school at age 17. Despite earlier plans to attend college and later medical school, he left Indiana for New York City. Pollack studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre from 1952 to 1954, where he worked on a lumber truck at varying lengths.

He returned to the Playhouse at Meisner's invitation to become his assistant after two years of army service, which began in 1958. In 1960, John Frankenheimer, a Pollack friend, begged him to Los Angeles to serve as a dialogue coach for the kid actors in Frankenheimer's first big picture, The Young Savages. Pollack first met Burt Lancaster, who advised the young actor to try directing at this time.

Personal life and death

Pollack was married to Claire Bradley Griswold, a former student of his, from 1958 to his death in 2008. They had three children: Steven (1959-1993), Rebecca (b. Sherwood (b. 1963) and Rachel (b. 1969 (Japan). Steven died in the crash of a small, single-engine plane that clipped a power line and burst into fire in Santa Monica, California, on November 19, 1993. Claire, Pollack's wife, died on March 28, 2011 at the age of 74 years old due to Parkinson's disease.

When Pollack dropped from directing HBO's television film Recount, which aired on May 25, 2008, he raised questions about his wellbeing. He died of cancer at his home in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades neighborhood at the age of 73. He had been diagnosed about ten months before his death, and the type of cancer has been described as pancreatic, stomach, or of unknown origins.

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Sydney Pollack Career

Career

Pollack played a director in The Twilight Zone episode "The Trouble with Templeton" in 1961. But he found his real success in television in the 1960s by directing episodes of series, such as The Fugitive and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. After doing TV he made the jump into film with a string of movies that drew public attention. His film-directing debut was The Slender Thread (1965). Over time, Pollack's films received a total of 48 Academy Award nominations, winning 11 Oscars. His first Oscar nomination was for his 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and his second in 1982 for Tootsie. For his 1985 film Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, Pollack won Academy Awards for directing and producing.

During his career, he directed 12 actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jane Fonda, Gig Young, Susannah York, Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Melinda Dillon, Jessica Lange, Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr, Meryl Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer and Holly Hunter. Young and Lange won Oscars for their performances in Pollack's films.

One of a select group of non- and/or former actors awarded membership in the Actors Studio, Pollack resumed acting in the 1990s with appearances in such films as Robert Altman's The Player (1992) and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), often playing corrupt or morally conflicted power figures. As a character actor, Pollack appeared in films such as A Civil Action, and Changing Lanes, as well as his own, including Random Hearts and The Interpreter (the latter also being his final film as a director). He also appeared in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives as a New York lawyer undergoing a midlife crisis, and in Robert Zemeckis's Death Becomes Her as an emergency room doctor. His last role was as Patrick Dempsey's father in the 2008 romantic comedy Made of Honor, which was playing in theaters at the time of his death. He was a recurring guest star on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, playing Will Truman's (Eric McCormack) unfaithful but loving father, George. In addition to earlier appearances on NBC's Just Shoot Me and Mad About You, in 2007, Pollack made guest appearances on the HBO TV series The Sopranos and Entourage.

Pollack received the first annual Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking award from the Austin Film Festival on October 21, 2006. As a producer he helped to guide many films that were successful with both critics and movie audiences, such as The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Michael Clayton, a film in which he also starred opposite George Clooney and for which he received his sixth Academy Award nomination, in the Best Picture category. He formed a production company called Mirage Enterprises with the English director Anthony Minghella. The last film they produced together, The Reader, earned them both posthumous Oscar nominations for Best Picture. Besides his many feature film laurels, Pollack was nominated for five Primetime Emmys, earning two: one for directing in 1966 and another for producing, which was given four months after his death in 2008.

The moving image collection of Sydney Pollack is housed at the Academy Film Archive.

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