Mark Rydell died Thursday of natural causes in Los Angeles at 97. Bette Midler moved first, posting the news on Instagram and calling him the director of her first film, The Rose.
Midler said Rydell “taught me so much on The Rose and later on For The Boys. Two Oscars nominations both because of him. He was the actor’s whisperer; just a few words was all it took to understand what was needed.” For readers tracking the awards line, that puts two of his best-known collaborations directly into the Oscar conversation.
The Rose and On Golden Pond
Rydell’s strongest awards case runs through The Rose and On Golden Pond. The Rose was loosely based on Janis Joplin’s life and death, made Midler a movie star, and brought Oscar nominations for Midler and Frederic Forrest. The film’s industry value was immediate: it gave Rydell leverage to direct On Golden Pond, the 1981 release that became the anchor of his late-career reputation.
On Golden Pond widened that award profile further. Rydell received an Oscar nomination, Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn won Academy Awards, Jane Fonda received an Oscar nomination, and Ernest Thompson won an Academy Award for his adapted screenplay. In a career defined by actor-driven material, that film is the one that turned his reputation into a durable awards record.
For The Boys and the trade-off
For The Boys added a different kind of line item. Midler won a Golden Globe for the film, which was set largely during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, but the project was also described as a commercial and critical disappointment. That split matters because it shows how Rydell could still draw major performances without guaranteeing box-office or critical payoff.
Before that run, Rydell had already built the career behind the camera that made those later films possible. He was born Mortimer H. Rydell in New York City on March 23, 1929, studied music with the aim of becoming an orchestra conductor, then pivoted to acting after The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City. He later directed Steve McQueen in The Reivers, John Wayne in The Cowboys, James Caan and Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty, and the pilot episode of Family.
That arc leaves a clean conclusion for the business side of the story: Rydell’s death closes the file on a director who repeatedly turned actor-centered material into awards-season work, even when the commercial results did not always match the prestige. Midler’s tribute is the sharpest public marker so far, and it is the one that best captures how his influence will be remembered.
