Mark Rydell

Mark Rydell, born Mortimer H. Rydell on March 23, 1929, in New York City, is an American actor, film director, and producer whose career has spanned Broadway, television, and feature films. Trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, Rydell initially pursued music with ambitions of becoming a conductor before redirecting his focus to acting.

His stage career in New York ran from 1952 to 1959 and included appearances in Seagulls Over Sorrento, the comedy Moonbirds, and the play Handful of Fire. During this period he also established himself in television, taking on the role of Walt Johnson on The Edge of Night and subsequently playing Jeff Baker on As the World Turns, a part he held from December 12, 1956, through 1962. The character of Jeff Baker drew a strong audience following, and when Rydell chose not to renew his contract with the series in 1962, the character was written out through a fatal car accident. While still associated with As the World Turns, he directed Roots off-Broadway in 1961.

Rydell transitioned into television directing, working on episodes of Mr. Novak, Ben Casey, The Reporter, Slattery's People, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, The Long Hot Summer, and Gunsmoke, among others. He also directed the pilot episode of the series Family in 1976. His feature directing debut came with The Fox in 1967, a box-office success that he credited producer Raymond Stross with making possible, despite a difficult working relationship that ultimately cost Rydell four times his fee to exit the resulting multi-picture contract. He went on to direct Steve McQueen in The Reivers (1969) and John Wayne in The Cowboys (1972).

Rydell formed a production company, Sanford Productions, with his friend and fellow director Sydney Pollack, the two having first known each other as actors. He directed the romantic comedy Cinderella Liberty (1973) with James Caan and Marsha Mason, and later reunited with Caan on Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976). The Rose (1979), starring Bette Midler, proved a major commercial success, as did On Golden Pond (1981), starring Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, which earned Rydell an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. His subsequent films included The River (1984) with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek, and For the Boys (1991), again pairing Caan and Midler, neither of which matched the commercial performance of his earlier work.

Among his Academy Award-nominated directorial projects are The Fox, The Reivers, Cinderella Liberty, The Rose, and The River, in addition to On Golden Pond. He returned to acting in a notable supporting capacity as the violent mob figure Marty Augustine in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), and later played Jack L. Warner in the television film James Dean (2001), which earned actor James Franco a Golden Globe Award. Rydell's most recent significant film acting role was in Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending (2002).

His television directing work extended to the movies Crime of the Century (1996), starring Isabella Rossellini and Stephen Rea, and James Dean (2001). He directed the feature Even Money in 2006 and an episode of Masters of Science Fiction in 2007. He also served as executive producer on A Coup in Camelot (2015). Alongside actor Martin Landau and screenwriter Lyle Kessler, Rydell produced The Total Picture Seminar, a two-day educational event covering acting, directing, and writing for film. The three had worked together for many decades at The Actors Studio. In 2010, Rydell joined the advisory board of Openfilm, an online platform for independent filmmakers.

In his personal life, Rydell married actress Joanne Linville in 1962; the couple had two children, Amy and Christopher, both of whom became actors, before divorcing in 1973. He later married documentary producer Esther Rydell, with whom he had a son, Alexander. That marriage ended in divorce in 2007.