Sydney PollackFILM-MAKER SYDNEY Pollack, who has died of cancer aged 73, began his Hollywood career as a dialogue director when he was just 25, but within a few years was on course to be one of the most influential players in the history of Tinseltown, as a prolific producer, an Oscar-winning director and as an actor in many of his own movies, along with those by Woody Allen, Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick.
His biggest success was Tootsie (1982), which earned him a reputed $14 million within a year of its release. He later told fellow director John Boorman that he would return every cent, "if I could get back the 18 months of my life spent making it, which were total misery".
As producer, he moved from control of his own films to numerous projects as producer, including The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), The Quiet American (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Michael Clayton (2007).
Pollack became the prime example of producer as director, with an extraordinary talent for choosing sympathetic collaborators. He offered glossy middlebrow entertainment, seldom displaying great originality, and liberalism without causing ripples.
He never insulted an audience's intelligence, if on occasion he strained their patience. He said he enjoyed preparing a movie and the more solitary task of editing, but hated the actual shoot. "It is like being a surgeon at a train wreck, except that I am trying to stop a haemorrhage of money."
Born in Lafayette, Indiana, to first-generation Russian-American parents, Pollack fell in love at an early age with the theatre. Rather than going to college, he went straight to the Neighbourhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York - the great rapport he always had with actors stemmed from that early experience.
Army service interrupted his youthful career, but he began acting in the burgeoning television market of the 1950s, also directing episodes of The Defenders, Dr Kildare and The Fugitive.
The first Pollack-directed film that received widespread public attention was They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Set within a depression-era dance marathon, it was let down by a superficial recreation of the period, but salvaged by the cast and a melodramatic energy that ensured international success. In 1974, he had a massive box-office hit with The Way We Were, starring Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand. The theme song, engaging leads and glossy veneer made it popular and years later it came ninth in an audience poll of the Top 100 Movies - four above Pollack's Out of Africa.
After a series of thrillers and social dramas that got a mixed critical and commercial reception, he bounded free with Tootsie, which received 10 Oscar nominations and came second to ET at the box office. Dustin Hoffman's gaspingly over-the-top performance as a frustrated actor who successfully poses as a woman to get a job in a television soap was a tour de force. The actor allegedly demanded that Pollack take the supportive role as his agent - something he fulfilled with wry brilliance.
Three years later Pollack won two Oscars - best director and best film - for Out of Africa, starring Redford opposite Meryl Streep as the Danish author Karen Blixen. It was exactly the style of handsome, overtly serious movie that the academy loved.
After a stint as producer, he returned to direction with Havana (1990). Despite a stunning recreation of Cuba during the 1958 revolution, it proved an expensive flop. He moved to safer ground with a gripping version of John Grisham's thriller The Firm (1993), starring Tom Cruise.
The film was dominated by fine ensemble playing, but Pollack frequently proved himself a match for his actors, even in cameos in his own movies. Notably, he took over when Harvey Keitel exited Stanley Kubrick's old-fashioned piece of erotica Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He was even better as the wayward husband in Allen's Husbands and Wives, and in Altman's The Player (both 1992).
With seemingly tireless enthusiasm he moved increasingly to production, including Cold Mountain (2003), directed by Anthony Minghella, his partner at Mirage Films, Iris (2001) and even a television series, Fallen Angels.
As a director, he returned to form, commercially at least, with The Interpreter (2005). The less-than-credible plot of this political thriller was compensated for with a stylish surface - utilising New York locations - and the formidable talent of Sean Penn.
Although then into his 70s, Pollack showed little sign of giving up as a Hollywood force, even if the style of film that he had made his own was by then less fashionable.
Sydney Irwin Pollack: born July 1st, 1934; died May 26th, 2008