LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack, who achieved commercial and critical success with the gender-bending comedy "Tootsie" and the period drama "Out of Africa, has died. He was 73.
Sydney Pollack's notable films include "Out of Africa," "Tootsie" and "The Way We Were."
Pollack died of cancer Monday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, surrounded by family, said agent Leslee Dart.
Pollack, who occasionally appeared on the screen himself, worked with and gained the respect of Hollywood's best actors in a long career that reached prominence in the 1970s and 1980s.
Last fall, he played Marty Bach opposite George Clooney in "Michael Clayton," which Pollack also co-produced. The film received seven Oscar nominations, including best picture and a best actor nod for Clooney.
In recent years, Pollack produced many independent films with filmmaker Anthony Minghella and a production company Mirage Enterprises.
Pollack's biggest success was the 1985 film "Out of Africa" starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, which won Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.
Pollack's other notable films include the comedy "Tootsie" starring Dustin Hoffman and the romantic film "The Way We Were," which paired Redford and Barbra Streisand.
The Lafayette, Indiana, native was born to first-generation Russian-Americans.
In high school, he fell in love with theater, a passion that prompted him forgo college and move to New York and enroll in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater.
Studying under Sanford Meisner, Pollack spent several years cutting his teeth in various areas of theater, eventually becoming Meisner's assistant.After appearing in a handful of Broadway productions in the 1950s, Pollack turned his eye to directing.
Pollack is survived by his wife, Claire; two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; his brother Bernie; and six grandchildren.