Mark Rydell

Mark Rydell was an American film director, producer, and actor whose films earned more than twenty Academy Award nominations and helped define a generation of actor-driven Hollywood drama. Born Mortimer H. Rydell on 23 March 1929 in New York City and raised in the Bronx in a Jewish family, he first trained as a musician. His father, Sidney, was a Wall Street stockbroker who steered him toward the Bronx High School of Science; his mother, Evelyn, was a gifted pianist whose passion shaped his early ambition to conduct. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music under jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and worked New York and Chicago club circuits before quitting music. He later said heroin was the drug of choice among musicians and that, knowing he had "an addict's personality," he left rather than risk addiction.

He served in the army, then won a scholarship to Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse, where classmates included Steve McQueen and where Martha Graham taught dance. Songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman had urged him toward acting after meeting him around 1948. From the Playhouse he moved to the Actors Studio, studying with Elia Kazan among others, and appeared with classmate James Dean in a 1953 television version of William Inge's Glory in the Flower. Broadway followed (Seagulls Over Sorrento, 1952), then Don Siegel's Crime in the Streets (1956) opposite John Cassavetes and Sal Mineo.

Daytime television made him a household face. He played Walt Johnson on The Edge of Night and, from 12 December 1956 to 1962, Jeff Baker on As the World Turns, whose romance with Penny Hughes (Rosemary Prinz) helped drive the soap to number-one ratings; their Christmas Eve 1958 wedding drew huge audiences. When he declined another long-term contract in 1962, producers killed Jeff in a car crash.

Friend Sydney Pollack helped him into directing. Rydell assisted on Ben Casey, then directed episodes of that series plus Mr. Novak, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, and others. His feature debut, The Fox (1967), adapted D.H. Lawrence with then-rare lesbian content and became an art-house hit. The Reivers (1969) starred McQueen; The Cowboys (1972) starred John Wayne and was the first film from Rydell and Pollack's Sanford Productions. He later recalled reprimanding Wayne on set for calling "Action," expecting to be fired, only to have Wayne call him "Sir" for the rest of the shoot.

Critical breakthroughs stacked through the 1970s: Cinderella Liberty (1973) with James Caan and Oscar-nominated Marsha Mason; a chilling turn as mobster Marty Augustine in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973); and The Rose (1979), for which he insisted on casting Bette Midler as a Janis Joplin-like rocker despite studio budget cuts. Midler earned her first Best Actress Oscar nomination. On Golden Pond (1981), which Rydell took after Pollack passed, starred Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, and Jane Fonda. The film earned ten Oscar nominations; Henry Fonda and Hepburn won Best Actor and Best Actress; Rydell was nominated for Best Director. He later recalled screening the cut for the frail Henry Fonda, who fell into his arms and whispered thanks "for the best thing that's ever happened in my life."

Later features included The River (1984) with Mel Gibson and Oscar-nominated Sissy Spacek; For the Boys (1991), reuniting Midler and Caan; Intersection (1994); and Even Money (2006). Television credits included the Family pilot (1976), Crime of the Century (1996), and James Dean (2001), which won James Franco a Golden Globe and earned Rydell a DGA nomination; Rydell also played Jack L. Warner in that film. As an actor he played Meyer Lansky in Pollack's Havana (1990) and Al Hack in Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending (2002). He served as west-coast artistic co-director of the Actors Studio with Martin Landau, taught and coached for decades, and remained a DGA activist (National Board; Western Directors Council).

He married actress Joanne Linville in 1962; they had children Amy and Christopher (both actors) and divorced in 1973. A second marriage to documentary producer Esther Rydell produced son Alexander and ended in divorce in 2007. Survivors at his death included Amy, Christopher, and Alexander; grandchildren Austin, Ruby Joe, and Ginger; and two great-grandchildren.

Rydell died of natural causes on 13 August 2026 at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, aged 97, his daughter Amy told The Hollywood Reporter. Midler announced the news on Instagram the next morning, calling him "the actor's whisperer." He had said he was drawn to material substantial enough for life-and-death issues and feared modern spectacle had crowded out human drama. His films remain a map of how an actor's director could still move Hollywood's heaviest stars.