Sydney Pollack Biography

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SYDNEY POLLACK's (Director, Executive Producer) 19 films have received 46 Academy Award nominations including three for Pollack for Best Director, and two for Best Picture. His film Out of Africa won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Pollack.

Pollack's films include Random Hearts, Sabrina, The Firm, Out of Africa, Tootsie, Absence of Malice, The Electric Horseman, Three Days of the Condor, The Way We Were, Jeremiah Johnson and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.

Pollack won the New York Film Critics' Award for his 1982 film Tootsie and the David di Donatello Award for Three Days of the Condor. He also won the Golden Globe for Best Director twice, the National Society of Film Critics' Award, the NATO Director of the Year Award and prizes from the Brussels, Belgrade, San Sebastian, Moscow, and Taormina Film Festivals He served as President of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and was honored by the French Government with the Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

The American Film Institute voted Tootsie the #2 Comedy of all time and The Way We Were and Out of Africa were both included in the AFI's top 100 Romantic Films of all time. In 2000 he was awarded the Directors Guild of America John Huston Award by the Artists Rights Foundation.

As an actor, Pollack has appeared in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, Robert Altman's The Player, Robert Zemeckis' Death Becomes Her, Steve Zaillian's A Civil Action, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Roger Michell's Changing Lanes. On television he has appeared on Mad About You and Will & Grace.

In 1985, Pollack formed Mirage Productions. Under that banner he has produced the films Presumed Innocent, The Fabulous Baker Boys, White Palace, Major League, Dead Again, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain. In 2000, Anthony Minghella became a partner in Mirage Productions.

Pollack is a founding member of The Sundance Institute, The Chairman Emeritus of The American Cinematheque, a sustaining founder of The Film Foundation of the Director's Guild of America, and on the Board of Directors for The Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation.