Mark Rydell, Oscar-Nominated Director of ‘On Golden Pond,’ Dies at 97

Mark Rydell, the director of Cinderella Liberty and The Rose who received an Oscar nomination for guiding Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond , the final film from the iconic actor, has died. He was 97.

Rydell died Thursday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, his daughter, Amy Rydell, told The Hollywood Reporter .

Rydell also was an actor who played one-half of a young couple that drove the CBS daytime soap As the World Turns to No. 1 in the ratings in the 1950s. He later portrayed a brutal mobster in Robert Altman ‘s The Long Goodbye (1973), the real-life mob accountant Meyer Lansky in Sydney Pollack’s Havana (1990) and an agent, Al Hack, in Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).

Fonda received the only competitive Academy Award of his legendary career for his performance as the crusty Norman Thayer Jr. in On Golden Pond (1981), while co-star Katharine Hepburn won the last of her four best actress Oscars for her turn as his wife. Fonda’s daughter, Jane, played their daughter and was nominated as well.

During editing after shooting had been completed, Rydell said he received a phone call from Jane. “She said, ‘Mark, you have to show [the film] to Hank. He’s ill, and I’m afraid he won’t be alive to see this performance,’ ” he recalled . “So I said, ‘Of course, send him down [to the studio] this afternoon and I’ll run it for him. The limousine arrived, and this guy, who had been so vigorous during shooting, barely got out of the car, and he was shaking and trembling.”

He left Fonda in the theater to watch On Golden Pond on his own. When the director returned, he said Fonda walked toward him and stumbled, falling into his arms. “He felt like a bird, I could feel his bones,” Rydell said, getting emotional. “He whispered to me in my ear, ‘Thank you for the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.’ “

Fonda died on Aug. 12, 1982, about five months after he won the Oscar.

Rydell directed five other actors to Oscar noms: Rupert Crosse in The Reivers (1969), Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty (1973), Bette Midler in The Rose (1979) and For the Boys (1991), Frederic Forrest in The Rose and Sissy Spacek in The River (1984).

Rydell collaborated with James Caan for the first time in Cinderella Liberty , then reteamed with the actor in Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976) and (also with Midler) in For the Boys .

Mortimer H. Rydell was born in the Bronx on March 23, 1929. His father was a stock broker on Wall Street who insisted he attend the Bronx High School of Science, but that wasn’t a fit with what he wanted to do for a living: play the piano in a jazz group.

After studying at the Juilliard School of Music, Rydell in 1948 met songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who suggested he try acting.