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Born in Lafayette, Indiana, Pollack started his career as an actor, studying under the legendary Sanford Meisner in New York. He soon got work appearing in such TV series as Playhouse 90, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He later moved into movies, beginning with the 1962 combat film War Hunt, featuring pal and future collaborative partner Robert Redford. At around the same time, Pollack turned to directing TV shows like peers John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn, and over a period of a few years, he helmed numerous episodes of The Defenders, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Ben Casey.

His first feature was 1965’s The Slender Thread, a tightly wrought drama in which college student/suicide prevention phone volunteer Sidney Poitier has to keep caller Anne Bancroft on the line after she ingests an overdose of barbiturates. Pollack followed with This Property Is Condemned, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ tale of the Depression-era South, with Redford as the strikingly handsome railroad efficiency expert that gets romantically involved with local girl Natalie Wood.

Pollack’s versatility was evident in his first two efforts, and it shined over the next decade as he tackled diverse projects. He worked with Burt Lancaster in the brawny meat-and-potatoes man’s picture The Scalphunters and with the offbeat war film Castle Keep (and even did some work on The Swimmer). The director also delivered the Oscar-winning Depression-era dance drama They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and three other Redford vehicles: the mountain man epic Jeremiah Johnson, the hugely popular romantic saga The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand, and the expert political thriller Three Days Of The Condor.

Throughout the rest of his career, Pollack veered from one genre to another, and from major hits like the cross-dressing comic sensation Tootsie and the romantic adventure Out of Africa, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director, to major box-office disappointments (Bobby Deerfield and Havana, another Redford starrer). In between, there was the fascinating martial arts crime drama The Yakuza, a sleek adaptation of John Grisham’s The Firm, a remake of Billy Wilder’s Sabrina and the stylish suspenser The Interpreter, in which he attempted a return to Condor form.

In recent years, Pollack acted regularly, both in his own films (Tootsie, Random Hearts) and in others’ projects (Eyes Wide Shut, A Civil Action, Changing Lanes), and often on TV (The Sopranos, Will & Grace and Entourage). He also produced (The Fabulous Baker Boys, White Palace), often in conjunction with the recently deceased Anthony Minghella (The Quiet American, Michael Clayton).

Some have criticized Pollack for being too mainstream and not very adventurous in terms of style. But while Pollack contemporaries who likewise cut their teeth in TV like Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman were lauded for their experimentation and even recklessness, Pollack had a calming presence on either side of the camera—even when he played corporate sleazebags. He appeared to be in control of the situation on even his most troubled projects, and his movies exuded craftsmanship akin to an earlier generation of Hollywood filmmakers, directors like Howard Hawks, George Stevens and Michael Curtiz, who could turn in excellent, crowd-pleasing work, no matter what the genre.

Pleasing especially to a particular crowd—Star Trek fans—was the work of director Joseph Pevney and composer Alexander Courage. Pevney, who was 97 when he passed away, worked in both TV and movies, and is best remembered for helming some of the early, classic episodes of Trek, including The Trouble With Tribbles and The City On The Edge Of Forever. His incredibly prolific TV resume included directing installments of Bonanza, Adam 12!, The Virginian, The Incredible Hulk, The Munsters, Trapper John, M.D., and The Paper Chase. Before working turning exclusively to TV, Pevney made many films from 1950 to 1960, including the Martin-Lewis Three Ring Circus, Meet Danny Wilson with Frank Sinatra, the Pacific Theater actioner Away All Boats, and Man Of A Thousand Faces with James Cagney as Lon Chaney, Sr.

Another major lost to Trekkers (supposedly the fans’ preferred name) was Courage, the composer of the soaring Star Trek theme and orchestrator on over 100 film and TV projects. He wrote the music for such Irwin Allen series as Lost In Space, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, and Land Of The Giants. He also worked closely with the great Jerry Goldsmith, and began his career scoring such teensploitation faves as Hot Rod Girl, Hot Rod Rumble, and Shake, Rattle And Roll!, as well as Arthur Penn’s The Left Handed Gun with Paul Newman as Billy the Kid. The Philadelphia native was 89 years old.

Another musical talent lost recently was Earle Hagen, best known for composing the whistle-friendly theme to The Andy Griffith Show, one of the most recognizable signature tunes in history. The 89-year-old Chicago native worked mostly in TV, and also counted the themes to I Spy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mod Squad, That Girl, and Gomer Pyle, USMC amongst his accomplishments. He also composed the incidental music for many TV shows, and began his career as a trombonist with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman’s bands. While playing with Ray Noble and his Orchestra, Hagen composed the great instrumental Harlem Nocturne, later used as the theme for the Stacy Keach Mike Hammer series.

Also making a major contribution to the world of television was Dick Martin, one half of the Rowan & Martin comedy team, who recently died at the age of 86. Although Martin appeared in films with Dan Rowan (Once Upon A Horse, The Maltese Bippy) and without him (The Glass Bottom Boat), Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was at one time the most happening show on TV. Boasting day-glo colors, go-go girls in bikinis, cameos from the likes of Richard Nixon and Sammy Davis, Jr., hip catch phrases (“Verrry interesting—but stupid!”) and a cast of comic talents like Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley and Judy Carne, the show was the Saturday Night Live of its day.

At the center of all the psychedelic chaos were the mustachioed Rowan and lanky Martin, adding some mature if not very serious gravitas to the proceedings. After Laugh-In concluded its 1968-1973 run, Martin, who was married twice to Dolly Read, a former Playboy Playmate of the Year and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls co-star, became a regular guest on sitcoms and TV game shows, and forged a career behind the camera, directing episodes such series as The Bob Newhart Show, Brothers, and Family Ties. Will he be missed? You bet your sweet bippy!

Mel Ferrer, who recently died at the age of 90, had a career that ricocheted from the stage to in front of the camera to behind the camera, and from New England to New York to Hollywood to Europe and back again to Hollywood. A Princeton University dropout, Ferrer started acting in summer stock productions in Vermont, and then made his way to Broadway where he became a dancer. Stricken with polio while plying his trade in radio, he almost abandoned his goals of thespian stardom. Ferrer recovered and, after a series of parts in small films, landed major roles in the bullfight drama The Brave Bulls and Nicholas Ray’s Rancho Notorious. He followed with his portrayals of King Arthur in Knights Of The Round Table, the writer in the adaptation of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the puppeteer enamored with Leslie Caron in Lili, and Prince Andrei Bolkonski in King Vidor’s epic version of War And Peace.

In the latter, he co-starred with then-spouse Audrey Hepburn; he would ultimately be married five times to four different women. Ferrer also moved behind the camera as a director (Green Mansions with Hepburn) and producer (Wait Until Dark with Hepburn). After his divorce from Hepburn in 1968, Ferrer got most of his work in Europe, and was featured in several low budget horror films, including The Pyjama Girl Case, Screamers, and The Big Alligator River. In the States again, Ferrer appeared in Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive (he obviously had a thing for alligator movies) and became a regular on TV’s Falcon Crest.

Another talent who made his name in TV and movies and who recently left us was Harvey Korman, the funnyman best known for his stint on The Carol Burnett Show, in which he often collaborated with Tim Conway and took home four Emmys for his work. Korman, who was 81 when he passed away from complications from an abdominal aneurism, got his break on The Danny Kaye Show in the 1950s and became a regular small-screen presence on such series as Dennis The Menace, Perry Mason and The Lucy Show. He also did voice work for the original run of The Flintstones, notably providing the imperious tones of the Great Gazoo.

He made his first impact onscreen in 1966 in the cult favorite Lord Love A Duck, playing a school principal with an unhealthy interest in young sexbomb Tuesday Weld. His decade-plus run on Burnett started shortly thereafter, and 1974 brought his signature screen performance, as the notorious Hedley (“That’s HEDLEY”) Lamarr in Mel Brooks’ sagebrush spoof Blazing Saddles. Korman expertly played the part of the nefarious Lamarr, out to dupe the fine people of Rock Ridge out of their land in order to cash in when the railroad is built. Korman’s brazen lechery and treachery helped make the film the smash it became.

Splendid, splendid.

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