Sydney Pollack

Director, producer, and actor Sydney Pollack left behind a substantial body of work. Starting as an actor in the early days of television, he soon moved behind the camera, directing episodes of such classic shows as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Ben Casey, and The Fugitive, before turning to films.

After meeting Robert Redford while both appeared in the movie War Hunt in 1962, they established a deep friendship. Pollack began their professional collaboration when he cast Redford in This Property is Condemned (1966). The long and fruitful collaboration yielded many of their best known films, including: Jeremiah Johnson (1972), nominated for the Palm D'or at Cannes, The Way We Were (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Electric Horseman (1979), Out of Africa (1985), for which he received an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director, and Havana (1990).

He had returned to acting in recent times, starting with his role as Dustin Hoffman's agent in Tootsie (1982). If he wasn't appearing in his own films, he usually saved his appearances for movies where he'd work with other prominent directors like Robert Altman's The Player (1992), Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992), and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), as Victor Ziegler, a memorable role which he only got after Harvey Keitel, the original actor cast, could not return for reshoots due to other commitments.

As a producer, he was involved with such notable films as The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Michael Clayton (2007), and even the recently reviewed HBO film Recount (2008).

No doubt because of his own experience as an actor, he was known as an actor's director, directing no less than a dozen actors to Oscar nominations, like Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and Holly Hunter. Two of those actors, Gig Young and Jessica Lange, won for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) and Tootsie, respectively.

Tootsie is ranked 69th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 films of all time.

He died this afternoon at the age of 73.

Recommended Films - As Director: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor, Absence of Malice, Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Firm

As Actor: Tootsie, The Player, Husbands and Wives, Eyes Wide Shut

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Charlton Heston

I've seen Charlton Heston in parts great and small. I've seen him keenly underplay a line, and also play so over-the-top that you wonder if he's even in the same movie as his fellow actors. Not only was Heston, the actor, a man of contradictions, but so was Heston, the activist. He courageously supported the civil rights cause in the 60s, while being an outspoken member, and eventual president, of the NRA in his later life. But personally, as well as to many film buffs of my generation, he will always be one of the seminal figures in my own entry into the world of cinema.

He generally played larger-than-life heroes in films by some of Hollywood's greats: Brad Braden in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); Moses in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956); Mike Vargas in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958); Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar in Anthony Mann's El Cid (1961); John the Baptist in George Stevens' The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); the title character in Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965); and Michelangelo in Carol Reed's The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). He won his only Oscar for the part of Judah Ben-Hur in William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959).

The first film that I remember him from was Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes (1968), where he played the misanthropic astronaut, Taylor. He was arrogant, tough, wily, and the perfect foil to Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall, and Maurice Evans as the apes. He also brought some of his own activism to the subtext of the part. The cynical loner Taylor, who spends the first half of the film asserting mankind's flaws to his fellow astronauts, must spend the second half of the film defending mankind's virtues to their ape oppressors. His tragic, utter defeat, when he realizes mankind ultimately brought their fate down upon themselves, helps to create one of the most memorable finales in all of cinema.

He would go on to play some memorable parts in the remainder of his career: the eponymous Will Penny (1968); an older, defeated Taylor in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970); Robert Neville in The Omega Man (1971); Detective Robert Thorn in Richard Fleischer's Soylent Green (1973); evil Cardinal Richelieu in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973), and it's sequel (1974).

He died Saturday night at the age of 83.

Recommended Films: Touch of Evil, Ben-Hur, El Cid, Major Dundee, Planet of the Apes, Will Penny, The Omega Man
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Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger was found dead today. He was 28.

First coming to prominence in lighter roles, like in 10 Things I Hate About You, the first glimpse of deeper talent lay in his performance in the grim Monster's Ball. In it he played Sonny, son of Billy Bob Thornton's Hank, a son caught in the devastating cycle of psychological abuse that father unleashes on son after being victimized himself by his father before that.

And though one can argue that Brokeback Mountain is vastly overrated, Ledger's portrayal of Ennis Del Mar is not. He is the anchor in that movie and says significantly more in his depiction of unfulfilled love than his costar Jake Gyllenhaal in a far more understated characterization.

The legacy he leaves behind is incomplete for now. His final performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight will not be seen till summer.

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