Sydney Pollack, RIP

May 27th, 2008 at 12:10pm Will Pfeifer

Sydney Pollack, who died Monday of cancer, had a long and distinguished career as a director, winning and Oscar for TOOTSIE and helming such memorable films as OUT OF AFRICA, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR and THE WAY WE WERE.

But I’ll always remember him for his onscreen appearances — Dustin Hoffman’s exasperated agent in TOOTSIE, Woody Allen’s divorced buddy in HUSBANDS AND WIVES and numerous performances as rich, calculating, vaguely evil (but believably threatening) guys in movies like MICHAEL CLAYTON, CHANGING LANES and, my personal favorite, EYES WIDE SHUT.

In that movie, the final one directed by Stanley Kubrick, Pollack played Victor Ziegler, Tom Cruise’s rich buddy who knows what’s going on with the secret sex club, multiple dead bodies and escape from doom Cruise has experienced the last couple of days. The movie’s last big scene, where Pollack lays it all out for a stunned, scared Cruise, is the most gripping scene in the movie, thanks mostly to Pollack’s low-key, ominous performance. In real life, he was apparently a nice guy, refreshing free of Hollywood ego and duplicity.

But in this scene, he’s anything but — and that’s what you call acting.

Entry Filed under: Deaths