The one thing my colleagues didn't point out about Sydney Pollack

In their gracious encomia to the late Siydney Pollack earlier this week, my Atlantic colleagues pointed many of his admirable traits but didn't highlight* this one: avid pilot! As he said in an interview with AOPA Pilot magazine ten years ago:

"I don't have other hobbies. I've never been on a golf course, I don't play cards, and I don't collect art; but I love to fly airplanes."

Pollack decided to learn to fly when he grew irritated with the hassles of commercial airlines, and that was decades ago, back in what now seems the golden age of comfort aloft. And for better or worse, it was Pollack who convinced Tom Cruise to learn to fly, after Cruise starred in Top Gun. RIP.

* Jeffrey Goldberg mentioned that he "flew his own plane," though this could be read as in "he flew Northwest to Detroit."