Mark Rydell, the Oscar-nominated director of the sentimental blockbuster \u201cOn Golden Pond\u201d who worked with such Hollywood heavyweights as Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Steve McQueen and John Wayne, has died. He was 97.<\/p>\n
His daughter, Amy Rydell, told The Hollywood Reporter that her father died Thursday of natural causes at a retirement community for the entertainment industry in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cHard to put into words how much I loved my dad,\u201d she posted Friday on her Instagram account. “He was truly one of a kind. Funniest and most talented person I\u2019ve ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018On Golden Pond\u2019 earned 10 Oscar nominations<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Golden Pond,\u201d which teamed Fonda with Hepburn and his daughter, Jane Fonda, was nominated for 10 Oscars. Henry Fonda and Hepburn won leading acting honors and the film won for screenplay, which Ernest Thompson adapted from his play of the same name. Rydell was nominated for directing but lost to Warren Beatty for \u201cReds.\u201d<\/p>\n
It earned over $119 million at the box office, making it the second-highest grossing film of 1981 behind \u201cRaiders of the Lost Ark.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Golden Pond\u201d was Henry Fonda\u2019s final movie role. He starred as Norman Thayer, an emotionally brittle and distant father who becomes more accessible at the end of his life after his teenage grandson spends the summer with him and his wife, Ethel (played by Hepburn), at their cottage in New England. The film\u2019s story resembled Fonda\u2019s real-life relationship with daughter Jane, who said working on the movie together helped resolve some of their issues. The elder Fonda died at age 77 months after winning his only Oscar. <\/p>\n
Rydell\u2019s other Oscar-nominated films were \u201cThe Fox\u201d in 1967, \u201cThe Reivers\u201d with McQueen in 1969, \u201cCinderella Liberty\u201d with James Caan and Marsha Mason in 1973, \u201cThe Rose\u201d with Bette Midler in 1979, and \u201cThe River\u201d with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek in 1984.<\/p>\n
Born Mortimer Harold Rydell on March 23, 1929, in New York City, he studied with jazz pianist Teddy Wilson at the Julliard School of Music. During a stint in the Army, he spent two years in Japan developing entertainment for military personnel. He majored in English and philosophy at New York University.<\/p>\n
Early acting career opposite Steiger, Cassavetes, Mineo<\/p>\n
He turned to acting when he won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. Among his early roles were on the CBS soap operas \u201cThe Edge of Night\u201d and \u201cAs the World Turns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rydell made his Broadway debut in \u201cSeagulls Over Sorrento\u201d with Rod Steiger. In 1956, he made his movie acting debut opposite John Cassavetes and Sal Mineo in Don Siegel\u2019s \u201cCrime In The Streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among his film acting credits were Robert Altman\u2019s \u201cThe Long Goodbye\u201d in 1973 and Woody Allen\u2019s \u201cHollywood Ending\u201d in 2002.<\/p>\n
Rydell moved into directing television, helming episodes of \u201cMr. Novak,\u201d \u201cBen Casey,” \u201cI Spy,\u201d \u201cThe Wild Wild West,\u201d \u201cThe Long, Hot Summer,\u201d \u201cThe Fugitive\u201d and \u201cGunsmoke.\u201d<\/p>\n
He made his feature-film directorial debut with 1967\u2019s \u201cThe Fox\u201d starring Sandy Dennis, and it was a hit.<\/p>\n
Two years later, Rydell directed McQueen in the comedy-drama \u201cThe Reivers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teaming with Sydney Pollack<\/p>\n
Rydell and Sydney Pollack, who became friends during their acting days, formed Sanford Productions in 1971. Among their efforts were the films \u201cJeremiah Johnson\u201d starring Robert Redford and \u201cScarecrow\u201d with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman, which won the Cannes Film Festival\u2019s top honor, the Palme d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n
Rydell directed Wayne in 1972\u2019s \u201cThe Cowboys.\u201d He reunited with Caan for the 1976 flop \u201cHarry and Walter Go to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
He scored a major hit with 1979\u2019s \u201cThe Rose,\u201d with Midler in her Oscar-nominated role as a self-destructive rock star loosely based on Janis Joplin.<\/p>\n
Rydell re-teamed with Caan and Midler in \u201cFor the Boys\u201d in 1991, but it wasn\u2019t successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was an actor of note before he became a director, and I was so lucky to have met him when I did; he taught me so much on The Rose and later on For The Boys,\u201d Midler posted on Instagram. \u201cTwo Oscars nominations both because of him. He was the actor\u2019s whisperer; just a few words was all it took to understand what was needed. Devoted to Meisner. So many happy memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
TV movies and series among his credits<\/p>\n
Rydell directed the pilot of the hit ABC drama \u201cFamily\u201d in 1976.<\/p>\n
Among his TV movie directing credits were \u201cMcBride and Groom,\u201d \u201cCrime of the Century\u201d with Isabella Rossellini and Stephen Rea, and \u201cJames Dean,\u201d which earned actor James Franco a Golden Globe award. Rydell also appeared in the movie as Warner Bros. chief Jack Warner.<\/p>\n
He directed the movies \u201cIntersection\u201d in 1994 and \u201cEven Money\u201d in 2006.<\/p>\n
In 2009, Rydell, Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau and screenwriter Lyle Kessler taught a film workshop at UCLA. Rydell and Landau were co-artistic directors of The Actors Studio West, teaching and coaching actors, writers and directors. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll great art rests on telling the truth,\u201d Rydell told UCLA\u2019s student newspaper The Daily Bruin. \u201cThe real pursuit of an artist is to tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides his daughter, he is survived by son Christopher. The siblings who went into acting were from his first marriage to actor Joanne Linville. He had another son, Alexander, from his second marriage to producer Esther Rydell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Rydell, the Oscar-nominated director of the sentimental blockbuster \u201cOn Golden Pond\u201d who worked with such Hollywood heavyweights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[20119,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-433788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-in-memoriam","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}