Mark Rydell, Director of 'On Golden Pond,' Dies at 97
Mark Rydell, the director who guided Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn to Academy Awards in On Golden Pond, died on Friday at age 97. Bette Midler announced his death on her Instagram account, writing that Rydell — director of her first film, The Rose — had died that morning. She described him as "an actor of note before he became a director" Variety.
That career shift defined him. Rydell started as an actor on the soap opera As the World Turns in the 1950s and made his feature acting debut in the 1956 drama Crime in the Streets. He also appeared on Broadway in Seagulls Over Sorrento, Handful of Fire and Moonbirds. But television directing was where he found his footing, helming episodes of Gunsmoke, Ben Casey, The Fugitive, I Spy and The Wild, Wild West.
His first film behind the camera was The Fox (1967), starring Sandy Dennis and Keir Dullea. From there he built a body of work that consistently drew strong performances and awards attention. The Reivers, a star vehicle for Steve McQueen, brought Rupert Crosse a supporting actor Oscar nomination. Cinderella Liberty starring James Caan and Marsha Mason earned Mason an Oscar nomination. The 1972 Western The Cowboys paired him with John Wayne. His 1976 period comedy Harry and Walter Go to New York starred James Caan, Elliott Gould and Diane Keaton Variety.
On Golden Pond (1981) was the summit. The film was nominated for best picture and earned Rydell a best director Oscar nomination. Henry Fonda won the best actor Oscar for his performance — his last starring role and his only time co-starring with his daughter, Jane Fonda, who received a supporting actress nomination. Katharine Hepburn won her record fourth acting Oscar. Ernest Thompson won the Oscar for adapting the screenplay from his own stage play Variety.
Rydell never fully left acting behind. He played the psychotic gangster Marty Augustine in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, a role that became one of the most memorable villain turns of 1970s cinema. In the mid-1980s he formed a production partnership with Sydney Pollack called Sanford Prods.
Rydell's career, taken as a whole, was a rare bridge between the studio system and the New Hollywood that replaced it. He directed Wayne and McQueen, Fonda and Hepburn, Midler and Caan — working actors who trusted him to find the scene's centre. The Rose, which launched Midler's film career in 1979, was the kind of casting and tonal gamble that defined his approach: find the person, then build the world around them Variety.
Bette Midler's Instagram tribute captured what the credits cannot. He was, she wrote, a director who began as an actor — and who carried that instinct to the other side of the camera for the rest of his working life.
