We value Mark Rydell's patient work with actors and his preference for human drama. His directing deserves attention, though his own violent gangster in The Long Goodbye is a useful place to begin.
Fi1m perspective
Mark Rydell plays the violent gangster Marty Augustine in The Long Goodbye (1973), Robert Altman's funny, quietly painful detective film. We cared about Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe because of his stubborn decency. We recommend the film strongly, despite a mystery that can become needlessly difficult to follow.
His television directing included The Fugitive (1963), which we also recommend for its central performance. David Janssen's tired, believable hero sustains the series through its mixture of crime, action and melodrama, even when the predicament repeats and the narration presses too hard. We would not assign a whole series' strengths to one of its directors. What we value here, though, is also what makes Rydell's subsequent directing worth exploring: the attention paid to a person under pressure.
He moved into feature directing with The Fox (1968), followed by The Reivers (1969) and The Cowboys (1972). The latter gives John Wayne a rancher and a cattle drive staffed by schoolboys, putting responsibility for other people inside a western. Rydell's preference for human drama did not require him to avoid genre. The same interest in people under pressure runs through The Rose (1979), with Bette Midler as a self-destructive rock singer.
Rydell rehearsed extensively around a table, examining the material and working out relationships with his actors. His reputation as an actor's director has a practical explanation: he gave performers time to work before filming began. On Golden Pond (1981), with Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, offers the strongest case for that approach. He also worked with Midler again on For the Boys (1991).
The later features, including The River (1984) and Intersection (1994), received a more mixed response. We would not dismiss that as mere impatience with human drama, or recommend everything he directed on the strength of his care for actors. Begin with The Long Goodbye for Rydell on screen, then try On Golden Pond for his work behind it.
Biography
Mark Rydell (born Mortimer H. Rydell) was an American actor, film director and producer. Born in New York City on 23 March 1929, he trained initially in music at the Juilliard School and began his career as an actor, appearing in Broadway productions and television series including As the World Turns (1956–1962). He later took notable acting roles such as Marty Augustine in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) and Al in Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).
Rydell moved into directing in the 1960s, helming episodes of series such as Gunsmoke and The Wild Wild West. His feature films include The Fox (1967), The Reivers (1969), The Cowboys (1972), Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Rose (1979), On Golden Pond (1981) — for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director — The River (1984), For the Boys (1991) and Intersection (1994). He also directed the television films James Dean (2001) and Even Money (2006). Rydell died on 13 August 2026 in Woodland Hills, California.
