Cancer claimed Oscar winning director, producer and actor Sydney Pollack Monday at his home in Pacific Palisades. Pollack won his Academy Awards for best director and best picture for "Out of Africa." He was also nominated as a director for "Tootsie" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and as a producer on last year's "Michael Clayton." He also played a major role in 'Clayton.' His first acting credit on IMDB was a 1959 episode of "Playhouse 90," but it was on the movie "War Hunt" in 1962 that he met Robert Redford and formed a long professional association. "Mr. Pollack’s career defined an era in which big stars and the filmmakers who knew how to wrangle them retooled the Hollywood system," Michael Cieply writes in the New York Times obituary. Nikki Finke posts, "I first heard about the seriousness of his illness when he went to Houston to seek powerhouse medical treatment. For the many months since then, every name in Hollywood made a pilgrimmage to sit with Sydney at his home." Pollack appears in "Made of Honor," currently in theaters, and was executive producer of "Recount," which debuted tonight on HBO. NYT, LAT, Variety, DHD

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