SYDNEY Pollack directed for TV before making his feature-film debut behind the camera with “The Tender Thread” in 1965. But he didn’t attract attention until “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” in 1969.
The drama – about a Depression-era dance marathon – earned Pollack an Academy Award nomination as best director and won Gig Young a Best-Actor Oscar. (Jane Fonda was also in the cast.)
Pollack’s next directing hit was the over-the-years romance “The Way We Were” (1973), with Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford.
The Pollack-helmed 1982 comedy “Tootsie,” featuring Dustin Hoffman as an actor who dresses as a woman in order to get work, and Pollack as his/her agent, won Oscar noms for best director and picture.
Pollack finally got to take home the statuettes in both those categories for “Out of Africa” (1985), a romantic drama about real-life writer Isak Dinesen, toplining Redford and Meryl Streep.
Pollack’s other acting jobs include Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” (1999), Robert Altman’s “The Player” (1992) and Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives” (1992).-