Biografie

Was an accomplished jazz pianist.

Battled cancer for almost nine months at the time of his death.

Pollack's son Steven was one of three occupants of a light plane killed when the aircraft crashed into the carport of an apartment building in Santa Monica, California, on November 26, 1993.

Kate Winslet dedicated her first Oscar win to Sydney Pollack and his partner in Mirage Enterprises, Anthony Minghella, following their deaths.

Was the original choice to direct Dirty Harry (1971).

[on his favorite area of the filmmaking process] Editing, because I'm alone and there isn't the necessity of having to organize so many people. Editing feels almost like sculpting or a form of continuing the writing process.

I don't value a film I've enjoyed making. If it's good, it's damned hard work.

[on working with Al Pacino on Bobby Deerfield (1977)] He's always asking questions. He's very hard on a director. In a nightclub scene he wanted to know, "Is this the first or second time we've been here?" He wants to know what day of the week it is for a scene. He wants to know the entire background to the relationship with the character played by Anny Duperey: "Did I pick her up? Did she pick me up?"

[on Paul Newman] There's stillness in his acting now that is quite magnetic. You can feel his intelligence, you can see him thinking. He has the depth of a clear pool of water.

[on Meryl Streep] The danger I'm talking about here is that she tends to sound boring because she's so perfect.