Sydney Pollack dies aged 73

The Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack (pictured with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman at the premiere of The Interpreter) has died in California at 73, following a battle with cancer. He was best known for Out of Africa starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep - which won him best director and best picture at the 1985 Oscars - the Tom Cruise thriller The Firm and the comedy Tootsie, which starred Dustin Hoffman in a dress.

In later years, he became as well known to cinema-goers as an actor, taking small parts - in which he often shone - in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and, most recently, in Michael Clayton. George Clooney, who starred in the latter, said last night: "Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act."

Pollack's death comes two months after that of his partner in the production company Mirage, the English director Anthony Minghella. The two men collaborated as producers on several films - including Michael Clayton - and helped on each other's projects. One of their final projects was Sketches of Frank Gehry, a 2007 documentary which Pollack directed.

As The First Post reported at the time of Minghella's sudden death at 54, Pollack was already having to curtail his work because of the cancer: he was due to direct the HBO special on the 2000 contested presidential election, Recount, broadcast in the US on May 25, but had to stand down.

Tootsie earned the distinction of being voted by the American Film Institute the second funniest film ever made. Number one was Some Like It Hot, which, like Tootsie, also involved the lead actors dressing in women's clothes.