I am – Hercules

Excessively ain’t-cool news to report this Memorial Day.

The great, great Sydney Pollack, director of “Jeremiah Johnson,” “The Way We Were,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Castle Keep,” “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” “The Electric Horseman,” “Absence of Malice,” “Out of Africa,” and “Tootsie,” among many others, passed away Monday at his home in Pacific Palisades.

He was 73.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker was also going to direct last night’s HBO movie “Recount,” but ended up just executive-producing it.

Pollack was an amazing actor as well, appearing perhaps most memorably as Michael Dorsey’s agent in “Tootsie,” but also contributing performances to “Michael Clayton,” “The Sopranos,” “A Civil Action,” Robert Zemeckis’ “Death Becomes Her,” Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives,” and Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.”

AICN’s film editors may have more to say about this sad news, but I wanted to say right away that Pollack was a cinema giant who contributed many enduring works, and will be much missed.

Find the Los Angeles Times' obituary for Sydney Pollack here.