Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack of "Out of Africa" who achieved acclaim making popular, mainstream movies with A-list stars, including "The Way We Were" and "Tootsie," died today. He was 73. Pollack, who also was a producer and actor, died of cancer at his home in Pacific Palisades, according to Leslee Dart, his publicist and friend. "Out of Africa," the 1985 drama based on Danish author Isak Dinesen's experiences in Kenya during the early part of the 20th century and her romance with English big-game hunter-adventurer Denys Finch Hatton, earned Pollack two Academy Awards: as director and as producer of the film, which won the best picture Oscar.Pollack also received a best director Oscar nomination -- and a New York Film Critics Circle Award -- for "Tootsie," the 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey, an unemployed New York City actor who revives his career by transforming himself into a "woman" -- actress Dorothy Michaels -- who lands a role in a TV soap opera and then finds himself falling in love with an actress on the show, played by Jessica Lange. In the process of masquerading as a woman, Dorsey becomes a better man.
Comments